Making Time in 2013

2013 is at hand.  A new day but another year too.  As this year turns, my earnest desire is to have a year full of blessing and of devotion.  This year, I am not making resolutions per se.  Instead, I am only making a concerted and intentional point to set some sure and definite goals; no surface flippancy or whim this year.

For this year, my resolute goal is to pray better and more.  I want 2013 to be a year of seeing God's hand move in and around my life.  I pray for wisdom, for grace, for knowledge, for provision, and for miracles.  So, in the spirit of this resolution, I ask that we all spend some time today and this week in earnest and intentional prayer for 2013.  God has big plans for 2013, let us pray that we can be big part of them!

New Years: Now What?

New Years, that annual time of the year when people loosely make declarations of wishfulness with little to no actual ability to followthrough with their resolute intentions.  How many of us can say we've ever made a resolution on the 1st only to break it by the 2nd?  But perhaps this year we could try something different, something more realistic and right.

This year, instead of making devout resolutions that lack any real weight behind them, let us spend some time in solitude and prayer in a real, deliberate attempt to discover what God desires of us in this next year.  Instead of spewing out banal wishes let us resolve to seek after and pursue God this upcoming year.

Therefore, in this same spirit, I exhort everyone (*self included) to really make an effort to dedicate time to this and seek after God's guidance for the year ahead.  Make this attitude and posture of worship and submission be our battle cry for the year 2013.

Jesus: the Heavenly Trip Advisor

Several years ago, while on a trip through Colorado, I stayed at a families home.  I didn't really know these people at all; they were childhood friends of my good buddy who had arranged this stay.  As pleasantries were exchanged and we entered this young couple's home, it was clear that they were prepared for us.  

They had made up the bed, stocked their refrigerator with refreshments, laid out the fresh towels; everything was so nice.  Their kindness and hospitality exuded from the clean linen and good-natured conversation.The point is, they had prepared a place for us to stay.  They had done so much to prepare, all my friend and I had to do was knock on the door and walk in.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that there are many rooms that He has prepared for those who come to Him in faith (John 14:1-3).  He has done the work; all we have to do is come to Him in faith: ask, seek, and knock.  God has made a way, and He has prepared an eternal place for us in His heavenly home.  Our only responsibility, as it was for me years earlier in Colorado, is to knock on the door and step through.  This is a matter of repentance and faith.  Let us, then, always strive to come to God in faith and take great joy at the reality that there is a place prepared for us in Him!

Take up Jesus' Yoke for Rest

Jesus said this in Matthew 11: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  (Matt 10:28-30).

Many people quote the first part of this passage, more commonly spoken as this: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest...For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  Unfortunately, this neglects the weightier part of this passage, chiefly, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me..."

Jesus is talking about peace and He is talking about peace, but He is not saying that we should lay down from work or rest from our labors.  On the contrary!  Jesus is exhorting people to come to Him so as to rest in their work, true work that is found in Him.  This is what He means.  Jesus uses unambiguous language here.  He is, actually, telling us that we will work but that our peace and rest will come through the work we do for Him.  Let us always remember this if ever we feel tired and broken down!

Working for Maturity

When I was younger I always assumed that maturity would come with age but now that I am in the torrid throws of aging, fully realizing the incumbent aches and pains that come with the process, I am not so sure that age itself is what elicits maturity.  Instead, I have learned that maturity comes not with age primarily but with intentional and consistent effort over time.  Maturity tends to appear old because it takes this sort of patient move in that steady direction of growth.

For years I have been teaching private guitar lessons.  I have taught dozens of students, some young and some old.  Without fail I have found that there is a predominant principle that always comes into play: the principle of plateau.  The principle of plateaus states that there will come a point of stasis where no growth beyond a certain level can occur without the input of new information that challenges while building upon what has come next.

This principle is as equally in play in the heart of the Christian as it is in the progression of playing an instrument, and the corrective response is the same: intentional pursuit of that which incites growth through new challenge(s).  For guitar training that means scales, arpeggios, chords, techniques, and songs.  For Christianity this means Bible study, prayer, meditation, worship, mentoring, and fellowship.

If ever we find ourselves stagnant and stunted, then we have fallen prey to the principle of plateaus.  If this is the case, we should dive into Scripture with vigor, pray with intention, and serve with generous hearts.  This is the prescription for overcoming our spiritual plateaus and stupor.  Using this, as a technique for growth, the Christian never needs to feel static in their walk or limited in their growth, but will always move forward toward the heavenly Father in Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit!

John 3:14 and the Old Testament

John 3:16-17, perhaps the most known verse in all of Scripture, is often amputated from its preface: 3:14-15.  The whole sequence in its entirety reads as such:

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world may be saved through Him." (John 3:14-17).

The striking thing about this passage is that taken as a whole, it is clear that Jesus is intimately tied to the Old Testament Scripture.  In a real sense, John is clear that understanding who Jesus is and what He has done requires that we know the Old Testament.

Unfortunately, many Christians woefully neglect this fact.  There is a tragic tendency in modern Christianity to sever the New Testament from the Old; just think of all the Bibles printed with just the New Testament and Psalms.

In truth, much of the New Testament will be enigmatic if not outright incomprehensible apart from an understanding of the Old Testament.  Matthew, Romans, John, Ephesians, Hebrews, Revelation demand that we read them with Old-Testament-tinted lenses in order that we understand what these writers were really saying.  Think of the aforementioned passage and antecedent precursor that it alludes to:

"And the people spoke against God and against Moses, 'Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loather this worthless food.'  then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.  And teh people came to Moses and said, 'We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.  Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.' So Moses prayed for the people.  And the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.'  So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.  And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live."  (Num 21:5-9).

Therefore, if ever we feel as if understanding the New Testament is hindered, one may need to turn the book several hundred years into the past in order to see the richness of Scripture more fully.  Also, let us make a concerted effort to read the Old Testament for this very reason so as to be prepared to engage the New.

Christmas Day: the Return of the King

Christmas day is here.  A day of fine fare when the heirloom dinner ware sees its annual use.  When the exchange of gifts gives way to merriment and tradition.  As songs of old are song with enthusiasm, tying together generations past to generations present.  A day of festivity and of enjoyment, when people drop grudge or preference to join at the table of fellowship and food.

But let us not ever, no never forget why we meet, why we greet one another with the hug of fellowship and the kiss of family.  It is Christ.  For on this day, on Christ-mass, we celebrate Jesus, the Savior.  His birth is not simple a preface to His death.  It is the an integral part of the story of salvation that culminates in His resurrection.

It is fitting that Jesus' story begins and ends with miracles, indicating to all that He is God.  The power shown at His death is equal to the power shown at His conception. The miracle of His sinless life is paired with the miracle of His Church.  A birth by virgin is at least as beautifully phenomenal as rising from death.  There is a profound poeticism to Jesus, particularly in that the events of His life are not fictional but historical!

Therefore, as we gather together on this Christmas day, let us take a sincere moment for adoration, for exaltation, for praise, and for worship.  For it is Christ who brings us together on this wonderful Christmas day!

Christmas Eve Strikes Again

Another year.  Another Christmas.  Another retelling of that old story.  You know, the one with the virgin and the angels and the shepherds and a baby laid in a manger.  Depending upon how old one is, this could be just another hearing of that story, another one of the dozens.  And, depending upon your enthusiasm, this could be just another year hearing that lovely "fairy tale" of faith, just another "myth" of origins about some influential Jew that lived thousands of years ago.

But this year, this Christmas could be a year that we took the story a little more seriously.  Maybe this year we could really think about this story, really wrestle with some of the questions it poses, the biggest question, the elephant in the room: why?

Why?  Why does Christianity insist upon a virgin birth?  Why shepherds?  Why a full inn with no rooms?  Why an engaged virgin?  Why Israel?  Why at that time in history?  Why angels singing to sheep and shepherds in a field?  Why not a birth to kings or rulers?  Why not in Rome?  Why not wait until technology could air this event across the internet?  Why no pictures?  Why all this to start the life of an obscure rabbi in Judah?

This year, let us make a real effort to contemplate, to wrestle with this story.  Perhaps if we would, we might get a glimpse of its profundity and have it revealed to us in all its awesome wonder and beauty. Perhaps we could see past the poetry, past the history, past the Scripture to see God Himself taking the humble form of a man to save all men.  This year, this Christmas, let us not allow this story to be just another telling of that same old song.

Romans 8:38-39 and a Motorcycle

When I was young, eleven or twelve, I had some behavioral issues at school.  Suffice to say: sixth grade was not my best year.  I was constantly in fights, or mouthing off to teachers, or just being a butt-head to everyone around me.  Part of this was that I just didn't care about school, I was smart enough to be a smarta$$ and so I spent most of my time making profane jokes and causing trouble for the administration.

One thing I did care about, though, was motorcycling.  I grew up in a family of two-wheeled enthusiasts (fanatics really).  I basically grew up on a motorcycle, spending countless hours riding and riding.  I loved it.  I had a beautiful YZ 80.  I loved that bike.  I would read and re-read all the magazines and spend my nights lying awake dreaming of the next race.

All this being true, there came a time in which my love affairs with the two-wheeled machine and being a pain-in-the-neck came to a head.  My grades were abysmal and my father was sick of having to come to the school to pick me up.  Rules were made and guidelines were set, just as the rules were broken and the guidelines left in the dust of my bad behavior.  The consequence: I would not be allowed to race in the upcoming race; I would have to sit it out.

My father (and mother) separated me from my motorcycle because of my behavior and disregard for their precepts and commandments.  It is this separation that I was thinking about today as I read this:

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in al creation, will be able to separate us fromt he love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39).

God's love, unlike my motorcycle, is not some external thing.  Instead, God's love rests inside of believers.  Because of this, no external happenings can separate believers from God and His love.  In the end, the only thing that can separate the believer from God is, in fact, the believer!  Sin, apathy, disbelief, this are the things that can separate man from God's love; the hindrances to the connection between God and man are only internal on the part of the believer.

Perhaps it is like my parents and the motorcycle: it was me that caused the the separation between the bike and myself; it was my own doing.  This prompts me to remember the aforementioned words of Paul all the more, for while nothing externally derived can separate me from God, I can.

Musings on Joy

Joy is one of those sincere pleasures of this human experience.  It is something more than mere happiness, for happiness is contingent upon what happens.  No.  Joy is something more, like a certain contentment, a profound satisfaction that propounds from the deep and overflows throughout ever cavity of person.  It is, in some ways, ineffable in that it lies beyond language's ability to convey it accurately because it is so sweeping, so radical.

But the experience of joy is real, the residuals are recognizable.  And though the experience of joy is a temporal, fleeting phenomena, the joy itself is something more, something lasting.  Think of the simplicity of a sincere smile, maybe the smile of a 1-year-old.  When a baby smiles, there is no questioning the joy as genuine and pervasive.  There is an honesty to this joy, a bona fide joy that stems from the depths.  And, although some external stimuli may initiate the response of joy, the joy is an internal well that pours in various form(s); a smile in the case of the baby.  But from where does this seemingly-bottomless wellspring of joy bubble from?

It is this, the source of joy that is worth talking about.  God.  God is the source of joy.  To be in His presence is joy (Psa 16:11).  The commandments of the Lord are joy (Psa 19:8).  And it is in obedience to the Lord that humans can experience the fullness of joy (John 15:10-11).  Understanding that joy is not something that is dependent upon the scenarios of circumstance or the happenings of life, but that it is solely a gift from God will keep us secure lest we begin to misconceive of joy as mere happiness or worse, pleasure.

Jesus Reads from Isaiah

Immediately after Jesus was baptized the Gospels remark that He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for forty days of fasting in which He was tempted thrice by Satan.  At the end of those forty days, after being nourished by the ministering angels, Jesus returned home from the wilderness.

Luke records that upon returning home to His hometown of Nazareth, Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and picked up the scroll of Isaiah and began to read:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."  (Luke 4:18-19; Jesus quoting Isaiah 61:1-2).

After reading this passage, Jesus then rolls up the scroll and says: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Jesus was pretty bold.  When He read this passage and then told the people that it was about Himself, we can be certain that it ruffled more than a few feathers.

Jesus could never be accused of pulling punches to cater to diplomacy or political correctness.  He was unabashedly concerned with His mission, which was to live a perfect, sinless life, to teach about God's Word, and to die a horrendous death, all for the purpose of glorifying God and saving mankind from sin.  He never swerved nor did He ever deviate from that path.

But, to be sure, He was not always the most popular among the religious folk because He had a nasty habit of making a scene and challenging the status quo.  He hated religious hypocrisy, He despised religious pride, and He could not stand flippant apathy towards the things of God.  We should never forget this!

Clive Staples Lewis.

Clive Staple Lewis, more commonly known as C. S. Lewis, was a mighty mind and an expert linguist.  His english skills were of such mastery that he held the teachings posts at Oxford and Cambridge, two of the finest universities of the highest repute.  He made a name for himself as a literary critic and scholar, but it was his children's novels, particularly The Chronicles of Narnia, that made him the star he was.

However, arguably Lewis' greatest writings were not of fanciful fare but of theology.  The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity rank among the highest theological wares ever composed outside of Scripture.  Because of this (not to mention that I am a fan), I wanted to post just a couple Lewis quotes to tickle the day and maybe spark some thoughts.

"You don't have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body."

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that He will make us good because He loves us."

"We are not necessarily doubting that GOd will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."

"Pain insists upon being attended to.  God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.  It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

"I know now, Lord, why You utter no answer.  You yourself are the answer.  Before Your face questions die away.  What other answer would suffice?"

This is just an introduction.  Suffice to say that God is good and we should not ever disconnect from the Christians of centuries' past.

The Testimony of Shepherds

Shepherds.  The first people to witness God incarnate were a group of lowly shepherds.  God could have sent His angels to anyone.  The angels could have spoken to kings; the choir could have sang their heavenly song at the court of Herod.  God could have sent His angels to the rich or to the most educated.  And we would assume that God should have sent His Son to the priests or the religious leaders.  But not; shepherds.

To be a shepherd would be akin to a line cook, or a janitor, or a garbage man, or a sewer surveyor: not a particular glamorous job, but totally necessary.  Shepherds were the commoners, the under-educated hard-workers that worked 24/7 to watch over flocks of sheep.  Add to this that most shepherds did not even own the sheep they watched over; they were the the utmost steward and servant.

Yet despite or more likely because of the shepherds' humble status, God spoke to them and, what's more, it was shepherds that were the first to witness Jesus and to proclaim the glory of the Almighty Lord.  This is profound.  But it speaks volumes to the nature of God; God who is not concerned with human concepts of status or of rank or of importance.  God wants worshipers, people who will listen to Him and will trust what He says.  Let us all strive to be as faithful as the shepherds of Christmas.

See Luke 2:8-20.

The Story of Christmas

The story of Christmas is about a betrothed virgin bearing a son by the Holy Spirit.  It is about an engaged man stepping out in faith to trust the Lord with his fiance.  It is about shepherds and innkeepers and a census.  And it is about a baby boy being born in a stable and laid in a manger in the back-water bucolic village of Bethlehem.  But in the end it is about the greatest act of humility in all creation as the Lord Almighty takes on the form of a servant so as to perform the greatest act of love in all creation at His death.

Christmas is about Christ; it is about Jesus.  As we rip through the wrapping of gifts, as we clang the glasses of fellowship, and as we gather around the tables of finest fare, let us not lose sight of Christ.  Let us never cut the story of Christ from Christmas, and thus amputate the story of grace and love that He brings to the world through faith.

It cannot be stressed enough for us to read the Scripture this year; to really engage with the Word of God this season.  Let us commit this Christmas to Christ in every moment, every meal, every gift, and every interaction this year.

2 Peter 3:9 and Repentance

Peter, in his second epistle, writes: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (2 Pet 3:9).

This verse is an interesting verse and often used to make an argument for universal salvation, or the idea that everyone will be saved in the end.  This is asserted by some who construe this verse in such a way as to highlight that God does not wish that any should perish, and therefore, none will.

Clearly, this is a woeful misunderstanding of this verse, as the point here is not whether every will be saved but, rather, how gracious God is in His enduring patience to give opportunity upon opportunity for repentance unto salvation to take place.

We should not neglect that this verse indicates that some will perish, but not because God wills them to but because those that will perish do so as a result of their own lack of repentance.  This, along with faith, is one of the non-negotiable essentials of salvation.

Apart from repentance, salvation is not only impossible but it would be highly immoral for God to give salvation to those who do not wish it.  Consider that God, being holy and just as well as omnipotent, could if He desired override every freedom of man in order to save all.  But He does not for to do so would be tantamount to forcing someone to love Him.

Because this is the case, repentance is a necessary choice on the part of the human.  It is prompted, to be sure, by the Holy Spirit.  But salvation cannot be received apart from repentance.  It is the repentance, the turning away from sin and from self that we should not ever neglect and should not ever conceal when we present Christ.  Any diminishment of repentance in the Gospel is to remove salvation from the reach of humanity, for it is repentance in faith that is the required response of the person that allows for Christ's overwhelming grace to flow unhindered into the life of the person.

Vigile for Connecticut & for America

A couple of days ago, a lone gunman bent on destruction entered the elementary school that his mother, a kindergarten, worked in.  The young man was heavily armed and focused.  Within a matter of minutes he had unleashed a storm of dozens of live rounds, killing 26 people including his own mother, before presumably turning the gun on himself.

This horrendous and terrifying episode comes not as an isolated incident, though uniquely horrible because of the ages of the victims, but is becoming a more regular event in recent American history, having been more than ten mass-shootings in the past three years.  And as the American public, once again cries out in grief pain at this harsh tragedy, let us look to the God of healing and of comfort for our strength and our relief.

It is a striking terror for a gunman not much an adult himself comes armed into a school full of children for the expressed intent of destruction.  More than anything this event, as ghastly and sickening as it is, should prompt not to anger or to outrage, but to soldier on in devout in our convictions to love and for peace.

In the end, it is a bitter though necessary pill to choke down that, though the Almighty Lord is sovereign and in control, He does allow these horrible acts to occur.  Mysteries, to be sure, but these appalling acts should not compel us to turn away from the Lord but to draw ever closer to Him in faith and in hope.  It is God who heals and who bestows His grace and mercy upon those who earnestly seek after Him in faith and reverence.  In response to the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, let us spend a simple moment in prayer for the families and the friends of the victims, remembering that God is, ultimately, in control.

Saving Faith Only Saves in Christ

The writer of Hebrews gives us the most direct definition of faith: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen." (Heb 11:1).  Pair this with Paul's letter to the Christians in Ephesus: "For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not of you own doing, so that no man may boast." (Eph 2:8-9).

The story of faith is one full of nuance and complexity.  Many feel that faith is nothing more than an ineffable experience, some power that is an individual, personal experience that lies beyond the ability of language to express accurately.  This is insufficient, for faith is not to be considered of any worth whatsoever apart from the content of faith.  For it is the content of faith that faith finds its value and merit.

As an analogy, think of an IV.  It is used to impart medicine into the patient.  It is a necessary medium, the instrument for the transfer of the necessary medication or nutrients to enter the body of the patient.  But, in truth, the IV does not save the person; the IV is simply the vehicle of the medicine's transmission into the one who is hooked to the tube.  It is the medicine that saves.

Similarly, it is not faith in and of itself that saves, but it is through faith that salvation is appropriated.  Saving faith, then, is not a matter of the experience of the faith but is dependent on the content of the faith.  Essentially, the effectiveness of faith unto salvation is based solely on what or whom that faith is in, which in the case of Christianity is Christ Jesus, the Son of God.

There is a number of colloquial proverbs that deal hands of language indicating that all one needs is faith.  But these hands are trumped, in the end, by their own deficiency; betrayed by the reality that faith is useless without the content of faith being able to save.  Only God is capable and able to save.  Only God has given us the means of salvation.  Faith is how that salvation is applied to each person.  But faith apart from Jesus is not and cannot be saving because it woefully neglects the aspect of faith that is saving.  Let us then never forget the need to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the need to aim our faith at Christ and Christ alone, for He and He alone is our salvation!

Peter Catches Fish and Sees His Sin

In Luke 5, Luke records a very interesting event.  Luke fleshes out the calling of the first disciples alongside the sea.  Luke's research and reporting are keen and the narrative expresses a certain richness to the event that Matthew, Mark, and John left out.

Image the scene: a group of professional fisherman had been out all night to no avail.  Only empty nets and tired backs after an arduous, fish-less night.  As they are cleaning up their gear, a local Rabbi comes up to them and tells them to go back out, only this time to the deeper waters.  One of them, the outspoken one, politely questions the obvious foolishness of the Rabbi, but to appease the request, they ship off shore and lower the nets.  Within little time, their nets are stretched to breaking under the weight of the fish.  There are so many fish that another boat has to come and help them haul in the catch.  As they reach the undulating shores, the one who spoke up leaps out onto the sand and falls to his knees at the feet of the Rabbi, crying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

Peter, the one who falls at Jesus' feet, was a professional fisherman.  He had spent most of his adult life honing his craft.  He knew the fish and he knew the job.  When Jesus sends out the crew again, Peter must have been simply astonished by the idiocy of this man.  But as the fish fill the nets to breaking, Peter is utterly stunned.

Peter's response, as we would think, should have been to hire Jesus on the spot.  Offer this Rabbi a percentage of the catch and live fat and rich for the remainder of his days.  However, Peter's response is in stark contrast to this.  Peter falls to his knees because before Jesus he truly sees the depth of his own sin; no more veil, no more mask, just a real convicting image of his own sin before the Lord.

It was this magnificent display of divine power that hit Peter directly in his heart.  The only reasonable response was to fall down in humility and reverence.  If only this would be our own response to encountering the Lord Almighty!

Call to Scripture amidst Christmas

The content of this blog is not one of teaching, as it were.  Instead, this is a simple call to reading the Scripture.  This season, this Christ-mass season, the world unites in commemorating a single historical event.  Across the globe, there are many held holidays of the cultures and nations of the world, but there is a distinct uniqueness to the story of Jesus, the baby born in a manger stall who grows from His seemingly bucolic surroundings to be the most influential person to have ever lived.

It is in the Holy Scriptures that we come to know this Jesus.  When we come into contact with the Scripture, the Holy Spirit commits them to our hearts and it comes alive within our chests.  For this season, then, we should make an ample pursuit of the Word of God in reference to Jesus' birth.

Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-3 will certainly present enough to chew on...

Taking a Stand against Gluttony

At this present time compulsive behavior is at epidemic levels.  Between the rampant obesity and the addictions to everything from television to the tweeting, the whole concept of moderation has been cast aside in favor of fanciful whims sought after in excess.  As a result of this, individuals are left impotent and dull to reality in the rapacious quest for the best, the most, and the newest.

However, behind this smokey haze of ravenous impulse lies an even darker tinge of debauchery and sin, lurking round every unsuspecting consumer for its moment to strike.  Ultimately, sin can be summarized as anything that separates an individual person from God and thus deadens the individual to God's voice or.  Therefore, the fiend bewitched with enamoring desires is, in fact, merely being pulled away from God by the insidious chains of the belly.

The content of the desire need not even be so blatantly dastard as rape or murder; for it is not the content that warrants sinfulness.  Indeed, it is the effect of rendering the sinner separated from the Holy Lord that signifies the sin and, hence, any thing can be the course for sin if it is delivers the person into a state of disregard for God, if not outright rebellion.

It is therefore prudent and necessary at these dire times of gluttony and greed disguised as consumeristic democracy, that the Church, and the Christians that comprise it, take a significant stand both in personal conduct and in voice.  We must strive to live lives not of avarice or insatiability but of the utmost joy and satisfaction, acknowledging that our fulfillment can never be met by the corporeal pleasures afforded by this world but is defined and provided in the Lord God Almighty, through His Son Jesus and appropriated by the Holy Spirit.  This is our call and it is our prayer.  Let us then not lose sight of this truth in a world that wastes innumerable resources to conceal it!

The Pleasure of Novelty and its Diminishing Satisfaction

Novelty can generally be regarded as that most fleeting perception and fascination of something that is  made exciting and thrilling simply because of its attractive newness.  To be sure, encountering any new and pleasurable thing is almost always delivered with some sense of novelty, but as time passes novelty naturally fades and the true pleasure of a thing can be faithfully seen and asserted.  Novelty, then, is not, in actuality, a quality that one thing possesses inherently but stems from the ideas of Fashionability and Trend.

The excitement afforded by novelty is one not of pleasure, in pleasure's true sense, but of temporality in the emotional sense.  This is to say that novelty is an emotional reaction to the reception of a new and fashionable thing, be it material or relational.  In the end, because novelty is not inherent to the thing itself but is a response of feeling and taste, novelty has cannot be satisfying in itself but is a non-lasting impression of something pleasurable.

However, because novelty is received with a thrill, novelty can be confused with pleasure as misconstrued as the pleasure itself.  As a result of this misconception, that which is truly pleasurable is substituted for that which is merely novel and new.  The net effects of this lopsided illusion is that pleasure will no longer be cherished and pleasurable as it is, but will be replaced with the counterfeit gratifications of novelty.  Essentially, novelty will become that which is considered satisfying while that which is truly satisfying, that which is godly and good, is neglected in favor for what is new, fashionable, trendy, and easily accesible.

But because novelty is by nature fleeting, the law of diminishing returns will be even more in play than usual.  The response, on the part of the individual given over to this sort of confusion, is that novelty will be continually sought out and lusted after.  In a real sense, the person will never be content and will lack any true satisfaction because they will never linger long enough before passing on to the next new, novel thing.  This is like licking the steak without chewing it before quickly moving to lick the bread too.  No satisfaction, just a wanting desire for the novelty of something else, something new.

In order to overcome this illusion, the person must first reckon with the discrepancy, the flaw in their reasoning comes not from their want of joy and pleasure but in where he or she has sourced it, namely, in novelty.  Secondly, the person must be made aware of the vanity and perishing nature of fashionability and trendiness, here today to be swept away by the tide of tomorrow's new wave.  Lastly, the person must remember that, above all else, the source for all satisfaction and pleasure is found in thankfulness in giving glory to God.  Any attempt to replace this is but a shadowy imitation.

Communicating with God through Christ

Whenever Charlie Brown, the lovable oaf of Charles Schultz' creation, heard his mother or his teacher or really any adult character attempting to communicate with him, all the audience would hear would be a mix of garbled gibberish and unremarkable, indistinct tones.  This rendering the communication pathways useless, messages left unsent, and the relaying parties separated by the barriers of interface.

This seems a good analogy to the lines of communication between God and man, having become impotent due to sin and disbelief.  As a result, God's communication to man is hampered just as man's communication to God is similarly hindered.  The net effect of such confusion of language is that man cannot receive the communication of God because of the sin of man, and God cannot hear man due to the same thing.

To overcome this, an interpreter is needed to mediate and correct the deficiencies of communication that act as a barrier to separate God and man.  But praise be to God who in His good pleasure sent His Son Jesus to die as a substitutionary atonement for sin in order to reckon the sin of mankind, and thus repair the broken linees and redeem mankind in regeneration.

Although salvation is often seen as a forensic event, let us not forget that God has made a way for us to truly communicate with Him.  Now, through faith in Christ, humans can not only hear God when He speaks by way of the Holy Spirit resting within them, but even more so they can speak to God in faith and have assurance that God hears fully.  Let us then take joy that God has made a way, mediating for us through His own torn flesh and shed blood, and redeeming us!

Denying the Self

Luke 9:23: "And He said to them all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'"

This striking and convicting statement by Jesus is directed at not only His immediate disciples who will go on after His resurrection to lead the Church, but it is also directed at us.  The point is clear and succinct: God wants us to give Him our very best and to not let anything prevent us from this utter and total commitment.

When it comes to our faith, to our dedication, there is no substitute for recklessly-abandoned, wholly-devoted faith that is ready at a moments notice to give up, if need be, anything and everything in total submission to Christ and to His Word.  This is Christianity.  This is the Word of Christ.  There is no "half-way" or "moderate" form of Christianity that is anything less than disbelief and lukewarmness.

We should be always and ever eager to give up more of ourselves so as to be filled with more and more of Him.  This is the deal.  There is no "trial" version, no "Christianity Lite" for people to try for a taste of this Christ thing.  Therefore, we should keep this at the forefront of our minds whenever we would consider limiting our devotion by not going that extra mile, by not caring that extra bit, or ignoring the friend that needs a helping hand or ear.  Let us then always keep this before us as we strive to live as Christ has called us to live.

So This is Christmas?

Again, just like the many previous years that have come and gone before, it is holiday season. From Thanksgiving through Black Friday, to Christmas and the expectations and hope of New Years, the season is chalked full of invites, parties, shopping, chatting, church going, seasonal fare, and even some family time.

Yet as this season saunters on to the next I wanted to take a moment to perhaps get some perspective, to see passed the sprinkling lights and 24-hour caroling on the radio, through the sales extravaganzas and the bell-ringing soldiers standing post outside the grocery, and take a much needed break from all the glitz and noise.

The point is this: do not lose sight of eternity amongst all this corporeal frivolity, do not be wholly distracted by the neon glam of consumerism.  In the quest to find the "right gift" do not be so taken away from the true joys and real pleasures of Scripture and of prayer and of worship.  To be sure, this is not intended as any sort of indictment but is purposed as a reminder to keep the focus fixed on He who is, and to be pleased, ultimately, with Him and no thing else.

For there is no substitute for a relationship with God through the broken body and shed blood of Christ Jesus.  There is no value of trinket that is worth more than knowing the Lord Almighty and having Him know us.  In the end, there are no gifts beyond the grace of God shown in the person and the passion of Christ.  It is this very grace that causes the stir of this Christmas season to begin with.  Let us never, not ever lose sight of that which matters most.  Let us strive to keep that focus and dedicated zeal for Him throughout this wonderful and joyous season, remembering the true and sure source of joy and wonder, who is God Himself.

The Authority of Christ

In the book of Matthew, Jesus begins His ministry with a grand sermon, the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7).  This sermon covers just about everything from the Law and prayer to judging and seeking after God.  He delivers it on a hillside on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, keeping the crowds rapt attention with His words.  As Jesus closes His sermon, Matthew, the writer of the book who was most likely in the audience, writes this fascinating and striking comment:

"And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes." (Matt 7:28-29).

I love this passage.  You see, it wasn't the content of Jesus' message that struck people.  It wasn't His delivery.  It wasn't His colorful and relatable personal anecdotes.  It wasn't even the multimedia presentation that supplemented His preaching.  No.  It was His authority.

For the hearers and for us readers of the Sermon on the Mount, this sermon cuts to the core, impeaching our hearts and reckoning our thoughts with the will and the Word of God.  But because of who the preacher is and the intrinsic authority He possesses, we are faced with a decision: will we listen to Jesus and obey His teaching or will we ignore?  This is the question that each of us deals with when reading and applying the Word of God.  The authority of Christ should compel us and prompt us to listen to what He says and live in accordance.

Call to Godly Life

Titus 2:11-14: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works."

The book of Titus is one of Paul's pastoral letters written to a personal friend, exhorting him in matters of church leadership.  There are two central issues of this letter: a warning against false teachers, and instruction for how Christians should live, particularly in matters of training the church.

This passage is smack-dab in the middle of this short book and it is dense, but it is also beautiful in its conviction and its point.  In a real way, Paul is telling believers two very important things.  The first, and most important, is that God has redeemed and saved us through Jesus and He is the active initiator  for godly living in Christians.  And secondly, that the individual believer is to live with a conduct and ethic that is instep with the hope of Christ that has been deposited within his or her heart.

In the end, God does the work of salvation and sanctification but individuals due have a responsible role to play in the process.  Additionally, believers are called to live a certain lifestyle that coheres to the Word of God and to the commands of Christ.  Let us then take heed in joy at the path before us!

Persisting in Prayer

Matthew 7:7-8: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened."

These two verses come near the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7).  They are poetic, pithy, and memorable.  Yet, for all the lyrical elegance and fine poeticism, we should not miss the real and important point that Jesus is making.

Jesus is exhorting believers to persist in their pursuit of God, to persevere in the quest for the Lord.  There is a progression: ask, seek, and knock.  Essentially, Jesus is prescribing the persistence it takes to get to God.  This is in no way to say that God is distant or far off.  Rather, their is a refinement, a proof-in-pudding that occurs when we truly commit to pursue after God.

Think of Abraham: waiting decades for God to provide him with a son.  Yet when the son is born, God asks him to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  Abraham then climbs the mountain with his son, ties Isaac, places him on the altar, and then, as he is about to sacrifice Isaac, God relents Abraham's hand, providing the sacrifice himself.  In the end, God knew that He wouldn't actually have Abraham sacrifice Isaac, but He needed Abraham himself to recognize his utter commitment to God.

Similarly, God knows when we will come to Him, but He wants us to ask, seek, and knock so that we will acknowledge how utterly devoted we are to God.  This is the essence of Jesus' exhortation.  Let us then commit to ask, seek, and knock with perseverant pursuit, eagerly chasing after the Lord.

The Primacy of Love

In the last 50 years, countless libraries overflowing with books beyond number have been condensed to the virtual world making the availability of information accessible passed the dreams of even the most-obsessed information hoarder.  In truth, the technological advancements of the internet and the microchip have forever changed how humans research, how we rank and file information, and, ultimately, how we relate to one another in the digital world.

However, as we traverse the new mine fields of the ever-changing virtual world the distance from human to human becomes one that is left cold and pixelated.  To remedy the increased relational remoteness that has come from the reliance on the digital interface that displaces and distorts our ability to relate to one another, we should be ever-more vigilant in love.

The only effective measure to combat the ocean-wide, inch-deep world of the social-networking, email-laden, time-consuming digital world is love.  Love.  For fear of sounding contrite or cliche, love is the answer.  Love is the means with which we need to engage one another through the computer screens so that we do not forget who we are and what Christ has done for us.

In the end, God and His love must be the center of every relationship no matter the form that the relationship takes, be it in person or online.  This is our call.  Let us then adhere and commit to the primacy of love.

Handling Temptation like Christ

Following Jesus' baptism, Jesus went away into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  This is the first time in Jesus' life that He confronted Satan directly, and how He handled the situation speaks volumes to how Christians should handle temptation.

In this brief episode, chronicled in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, Jesus is exhausted and hungry after fasting for some forty days.  It is at this point when Satan sees an opportunity to trip up the Son of God.  Satan proceeds to offer three different temptations for Jesus, testing the Lord in an attempt to trick Jesus into sinning.

Needless to say, Jesus handles the situation with the highest integrity and strength.  What is most striking about this episode, however, is the manner with which Jesus conquers His foe.  For every temptation Jesus replies by quoting the Scripture.  It is, in fact, the Scripture itself that is Jesus' strength and response to temptation.  This is telling.  If we could arm ourselves in the same fashion, we could resist temptation with the same strength and confidence as Christ even in our moments of utmost exhaustion.

Because of this, I wanted to highlight the three verses that Jesus quotes.  The point is not to exposit or interpret these verse, just to present them and ask that you read them, meditate on them, memorize them, and, perhaps, arm yourselves for temptation as Jesus did.

"Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that flows from the mouth of God."

"You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve."

"You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."

Deny Self & Pick Up Cross

Matthew 16:24: "Then Jesus told His disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'"

Luke 9:23: "And He said to them all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'"

Essentially, these verses say the same thing but Luke adds one important word that changes the whole thing: daily.  The point in all of this is that following Christ requires that we acknowledge giving every thing to Christ in obedient worship and praise to His glorious name.  Salvation is often reduced to a single act of ascending to theological propositions in faith unto salvation.  But belief in Christ demands more.  As Luke's quote of Christ remarks, devotion to Christ requires a daily, intentional giving of ourselves to the Lord Jesus in obedient faith.  Let us then take these words of Christ seriously, always.

Choose to be Chosen?

In the spirit of the previous blog that begged the question, what have you sacrificed for Christ? I propose another, equally challenging question.  Going against my better judgement, I may have given away the punchline in the title, but before you neglect the thought (or the remainder of this blog), let me flesh out the question.

If someone were to come up to you with a briefcase full of cash and ask if you would choose to be gifted a million dollars cash, how fast would you accept?  Now, if that same person offered you the briefcase but you had to leave your family, your friends, take a new name, and start a whole new life, would you still be so quick to grab the suitcase?

Although this is a metaphor, more often than not, the first method is what Christians think of when they think about Christ, as in, all the gifts and joys of salvation but without any real sacrifice.  Unfortunately, this sort of theology totally betrays the nature of the Gospel.

Instead, when we think about Christ and what He has called Christians to, we should immediately consider the cost, not out of guilt but out of a genuine reverence for the level of commit that Christ demands from His followers.  The choice, then, to believe requires that we sincerely and continually search our hearts to discover what our true motivation may be.  If there is any stronghold that we could foresee not being willing to "give up" for Christ, then the Holy Spirit is exposing the source of our heart's treasures.

What would you choose over Christ?

Fan or Follower?

Recently, I've been working through Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman.  It has been an excellent and convicting read.  The whole premise and purpose of the book is to expose Christians to our propensity to fandom to the neglect of actually following Christ wholeheartedly.  In the spirit of this book, I wanted to pose a simple question for this blog.  This is not because of any desire to condemn or judge, but merely because it is the same ringing question that has been my heart's concern, keeping me awake for the past few nights.

What have you sacrificed for Christ?

Today, this weekend, over the next week, let us truly examine our relationships with Christ and think long and hard on this simple but convicting question.

Cultural Idolatry

Earlier this week, my theology professor said this phrase, cultural idolatry.  Immediately after he said it I scrambled to type it in my notes and write it by hand on my notebook.  Cultural idolatry.  Let it sink in.  Take a second and read it again: cultural idolatry.

Not only was the exact phrase I was looking for to describe the churched world I encounter.  It was also profoundly convicting.  Immediately I realized, if only the iceberg's tip, that I so easily fall prey to idolatry in this subtle though subversive form.  By the time I got home, I was reeling.  I couldn't sleep.  Until slumber took over, life began to unravel as the recognition of cultural idolatry showed itself all over.

Think of all the prejudices and preferences that have such weight in our lives, often rendering us impotent to the Gospel and to loving people as Christ has loved us.  I can think of the tension of tradition.  This is not to discredit the value of traditions.  But if those traditions prevent the church from worshiping in the Spirit or committing to the Word, then they are idolatrous and need to be removed.

As a worship leader, I often run into the tension between genre preferences in worship music, as if God actually cared whether we played the organ or guitar!?!  This is idolatry, plain and simple.  Anytime we let our preferences dictate or hinder our freedom to worship God in all Spirit and truth or limit our energy and excitement for worshiping God Almighty, we are committing idolatry. There is no other way to put it.

As Christians, we need to be vigilant to expunge even any semblance of idolatry.  God's first commandment is a direction against idolatry.  We should, thus, take it seriously and acknowledge how easily idolatry, even cultural idolatry, can infiltrate the church.  Let us then always be on guard against cultural idolatry in its many pervasive and dangerous forms.

2 Peter 1:3-4; The Tools to Live Life

Living life as the Word demands can seem a difficult endeavor due to the pervasiveness of sin and how the natural man and the law of sin prevents us from adhering to God's commands.  Fortunately, God has given us His Spirit to comfort, encourage, empower, and help us to live life in the manner that He calls us to and that His Word demands.

Although many passages of Scripture deal with this very thing, 2 Peter 1:3-4 covers it directly.  Peter's exhortation deserves some pondering as we strive to live lives firmly attached to the vine of God.  We need only remember that God has given the believer every tool needed for the job.  One needs only to recognize that truth and wield the tools accordingly.

2 Peter 1:3-4: "His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, bu which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires."

Christian Ethics

Morality and ethics are terms used to describe humanity's inner motivations toward justice and truth.  Although these expressions are certainly in play in the fields of legislation and politics, the heart of morality and ethics is human-on-human, horizontal relationships.  If we mine morality and ethics to their cores, we find a commonality in that they are both based on the utter, intrinsic worth and dignity of the individual human.

Reducing morality and ethics, particularly ethics, to the horizontal plane, however, will sever the issue at hand from its roots in the worth and dignity of man, because how we do ethics is intimately tied to where the individual receives his/her worth from.  If the dignity and worth of man stems from merit, work, achievement, etc., then what is considered ethical/unethical will begin with anything that hinders man from asserting his/her worth or dignity.  This means that those who are, by way of disability or whatever, hindered from earning the accruement of worth, then they live outside of ethical considerations.

However, biblical ethics begins from a different perspective altogether.  Biblically, the dignity and worth of man are rooted in mankind's creation as bearing the image of God.  It is the fact that every human being bears God image that the dignity and worth of the human individual is heralded and maintained.  How we engage in ethics must derive from this impetus in order to protect all humans, especially those who, for whatever reason, are unable to earn their worth and dignity.

Thus, biblical ethics overcomes any predisposed prejudice or caste-like hierarchy, be it educational, age, or otherwise, and every ethical agent (aka. every human being) starts from the same presuppositional base to allow for commonality and conversation about ethics.  Let us then always keep this perspective in mind when the issues of ethics arise.

1 Peter: Backing Up Prayer in Lifestyle.

1 Peter 4:7: "The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers."

This verse, although abstracted from an exhortation for believers to become armed and ready to suffer as Christ has suffered, is a powerful and profound teaching for Christians.  The essence of Peter's instruction is that Christians have an obligation to live with a certain conduct of life, not only because it is befitting of Christ but more so because it is our lifestyle which protects and confirms the validity of our prayers.

To be sure, there is a depth to what Peter is saying but, at its heart in its context, Peter is charging believers to back up their beliefs and to substantiate their faith with the very way that believers live.  Clearly, simple belief is not so simple.

Faith in Christ demands that we never cease to be transformed by the Holy Spirit and the working of the Holy Word in our lives.  We should not take lightly the investment of Christ's riches that have been deposited within us.  Instead, we should always strive on towards greater depths of commitment and sanctification in Christ.  And in doing so, we protect our prayers from the defilement of debauchery and sin.

1 Peter and the Imperishable Seed

Peter is an interesting character of the New Testament and of Christianity.  He was one of Jesus' first disciples, who was with Jesus during his transfiguration on the mountain.  He was decidedly outspoken to a fault, often speaking with much gusto and gaffe before thinking at all about what he was saying.  Although he was a devout follower, one of the closest friends of Christ Jesus, he denied Jesus thrice the night of his trial.  However, by the time of Pentecost, this man was transformed into a confident, articulate leader.

Peter became one of the most influential apostles and leaders of the early Church, yet only two books of the New Testament came from his pen.  These books, 1 and 2 Peter, are a unified exhortation of perseverance and strength to the early Church and the Christians that comprised it.  In reading 1st Peter, one theme that pops out is his emphasis on the fact that Christians have been given an imperishable seed.

The essence of Peter's point, captured in 1 Peter 1:3-4 and 1:23, is that believers have been reborn with an imperishable seed.  Peter is referring to how the believer's very nature has been changed, transformed from the perishable seed of Adam to the imperishable seed of Christ.  The theological depth of this statement is at the very least profound.

The Christian, because of their now imperishable nature, is no longer constrained by the finite, perishable, and corporeal trappings of the world, because  the depths of their identity is no longer perishable.  We have been reborn, regenerated in Christ.  Therefore, we need to cry out in thankfulness and humble reverence at the wonderful grace that God has blessed us with!

In a Foreign World

1 John 4:4-6: "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.  They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.  We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.  This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood."

A couple of years ago, my mother and father went on a long awaited trip to France and decided that a little linguistic preparation was in order.  My mother went to Barnes & Noble and purchased one of those "Speak French in 30 days" tapes programs.  The first training session (if that's what you could call it) resulted in more laughs than actual words spoken.  They listened to the tapes whenever they were in the car together, with no perceivable growth in either recognition of French or of understanding it at all.  

When the time for the trip approached they resolutely boarded the plane for their adventure.  The laughs they had enjoyed during their linguistic preparation was replaced with the petrified experience of the first 10 minutes after leaving the airport in their rental car as they endeavored to travel from the Charles DeGualle to the French countryside.  They were strangers in a new world.

How easy it is for us to forget that we are to be foreigners in this world but not of this world.  When we hear others speaking the words of the world we feel the need to try to speak their language.  The longer we complacently allow ourselves to be fed food from that which isn't of God, we run the risk of allowing ourselves to be polluted in a way that may cause death.  

We, joint heirs with Jesus, must not underestimate the determination of the Anti-Christ or forget that the world as we know it was given over to him and his evil devices (by God Himself).  If we forget, we are not only aiding and abetting the enemy with complacency but we will also neglect that we should be preparing ourselves for victory -- not our victory but a victory that has occurred through the loving actions of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Thank you to my mother, Teresa, for much of this blog...

God Who Is & Reveals Himself

Confident competence in matters of faith and God is something that could be thought of as elusive for humanity.  We are finite creatures, thoroughly limited in our faculties.  This reality relegates the discussion of God decidedly one-sided, in that only if God initiates the communication can humanity receive any sure information about the Infinite One.

Fortunately, God has revealed Himself to mankind in nature, in His written Word of the Scriptures, and, most fully, in the incarnation of Christ Jesus.  It is, then, not man's initiative to transcend to knowledge of God, but it is God's condescended to humanity that makes the communication possible at all.

There are profound implications in this, for if God did actually reveal Himself to humanity it is for purpose(s), and if God's revealing is for purpose, then to ignore that revelation is to ignore the Creator and Sustainer of all that is.  On the flip side, if we do accept that God has revealed Himself to mankind in manners and mediums that are accessible for humans, then this revelation warrants more than inquiry: it demands some adherence.

That is to say because God has revealed Himself, we are obligated by our very nature to cohere to that revelation, for to neglect would be tantamount to a vessel of clay looking up at its maker and, upon hearing the potter's intention and purpose for the clay, refuses to be molded and demands to be let go of the potter's grasp.

However, as we all know, clay cannot mold itself.  Clay requires the hands of the potter for its purpose and for achieving its intended design.  Similarly, for us to recognize that God has revealed Himself to mankind, we would be right and wise to heed to His revelation and to cohere to that revelation as it informs our lives.

Jesus Cuts Quick to the Core

Of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John was written last.  The others are known as the Synoptics because of their similar/common material.  As a result, John's Gospel often deals with episodes and teachings of Jesus' life that the others did not deal with.  Additionally, because John was an eye witness and one of Jesus' closest of the twelve disciples, he wrote from a different perspective than the others.

One of these episodes that John chronicles from a different perspective is the calling of the first disciples.  John's theological concern and focus of his Gospel comes through clearly when Jesus first two disciples, Andrew and most likely John, come to Jesus after Jesus' baptism.  They come looking for Jesus because of the testimony of John the Baptist.

When they finally get to Jesus, they speak simply but directly: "Behold, the Lamb of God."  Jesus' reply is, interestingly, the first thing He says in the Gospel of John perhaps is the one of the most telling as it sets the stage for the theological narrative that follows.  Jesus turns back to the two men and says, "What are you seeking." (John 1:35-38).

Perhaps this is the very same question that Christ asks us when we chase after Him.  Such a disarming question, but profound in that it places the answerer in the seat of choosing what they might desire from Jesus, to get to the core with a simple inquiry: what are you seeking?  Although it is in no way my intention to form a complete doctrine or theological status from only a couple of verses, this is enough to at least cause us to think about Christ's tactic towards people that should compel or inform our own.

Believe God

In the modern world in which we live, the usual starting point in the conversation(s) of theology begins with the question of God's existence.  For this, the discussion launches with the question whether to believe in God or not.  However, the presuppositions of this question betray the question and biblical perspective, for Scripture's starting point is somewhere else altogether.

Scripture begins, not with a proposition for man to believe in God, but in the assertion that God is and the man is asked to believe what He says and commands.  God never explains or gives proof of His existence to Adam.  In fact, to do so would seem ludicrous and redundant considering the nearness and intimacy of God's relationship with Adam.

Moreover, God's negative command to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not based on God needed to assert His existence.  Rather, the essence of Scripture is not and is never whether mankind can/should believe in God, but is concerned with whether mankind will believe God.

The prevailing presupposition of Scripture is that God exists, and His very existence places humanity in a dilemma of sorts.  The question is not whether we will believe in God, as in some philosophical quandary but whether we will believe what He has commanded us.  This needs to be the entry point in the conversation and it should be where we start when we discuss the basic matters of God.  In the end, though, we must point to the Gospel.  This is the heart of the dialogue and it is our obligation to bring any inquirers and sophists to it.

Thanksgiving Exhortations

This week is Thanksgiving, an American holiday meant to be a time of remembrance and thanks.  Normally, this boils down to a ten minute display around the dinner table in which every chair around the table gives a brief example of what he/she is thankful for, followed by gluttonous eating in preparation for an evening of relaxation, familial awkwardness.

However, perhaps this year, Thanksgiving could be something more, particularly for Christians.  This year, this Thanksgiving, let us take this set-aside opportunity with family and friends around the feasts of fine fare and conversation to be a perfect occasion for sharing the Gospel of Christ Jesus to the people we care about the most.

To be sure, often the most difficult people to be the most honest to in regards to matters of faith and God are our family members and friends.  Nevertheless, theses are the very people whom God has placed directly in our lives for a reason: for us to proclaim the Gospel to, that is not to detract from the distinct necessity of living the Gospel but, at some point, we have to back it up with our very lives.

Therefore, let us take this Thanksgiving as an opportunity for us to give thanks to the Lord and preach the Gospel to our closest friends and family.  And besides, not only is giving thanks to the Lord and worshiping the glory of His name the greatest, most fulfilling thing any human can do but it is also commanded by the Lord Himself.

Quest For Worth & Significance

The search and venture for significance is one that is common to all of humanity.  Mankind seems to always be longing to carve out a meaning and importance for life.  The growth of the social network and the explosion of the reality television celebrity reveals the deep desire within humanity for substance, note, and worth.

All this being true, there truly is this deep, soul-wrenching odyssey that is familiar to nearly every average human being that has and that will ever live (save Christ).  And there are countless diversions and worldly perspectives that offer various ways of dealing with the stress of seeking significance.  However, Scripture paints a picture about seeking significance that is unique, both in its content but also in its execution.  The essence of this discussion can be found in two of the early chapters of the Bible: Genesis 11 and 12.

Genesis 11 chronicles the the Tower of Babel.  Briefly summarized: people are congregated together in a great city with one language and goal for the purpose of creating a great name and culture for themselves, writing their own destiny and attempting to claim significance for themselves.  God's response was to confuse human language and to disperse mankind across the globe.  Clearly, God's ideas about the search for identity are different than humanity's.

In Genesis 12, God calls Abram.  God promises to make him into the father of nations, to bless him with storehouses of wealth, and to give him a life of supreme significance.  God provides Abram's importance and worth not because of Abram's work or effort but solely because of Abram's faith and faithfulness.

Similarly, our significance is not based on our exertion or the strength of our will.  Rather, the only significant act that an individual human can do, the most important element of any single human is not his/her accomplishments, his/her wealth, or even his/her relationships.  No.  Faith in the Lord is the most significant and only truly important thing a human can do.  Let us then seek to be significant by drawing close to God in faith!

Short, Sweet, and Personal

On Sunday, my wife and I drove nearly three hours to attend a wedding.  The drive there was issue-free and we were set to go to the wedding, enjoy the reception, and be back home in time for a good night's sleep.  However, due to the frustrating and moody personalities of cars, particularly if they are driven by my wife on a regular basis, our plans were changed and we soon found ourselves worried if we would make it home at all.

The car was intensely overheating and going through coolant like proctologists go through rubber gloves.  And, similarly, I was frustrated and scared because it was cold and the lingering smells were a far cry from three-star restaurant quality.  As we left the reception, I poured two full jugs of coolant into the car in hopes of getting at least close to home.  We made it five miles before the car overheated to the point of missing shifts, etc.

Still over 100 miles away from home, panic began its slow creep.  My wife and I began a cycle of worry and comfort, in which she would worry and I would comfort until the roles switched.  This went on for a few more stops.  We stopped about every five miles to refill the radiator with a mixture of coolant and gas station water.  Things were not looking well.

However, amidst the worry, I remember that the Lord is always in control.  He is sovereign, good, and cares for those who earnestly seek Him.  I prayed and I prayed some more.  We made one more stop in which my sister called and reminded us our parents had gotten us AAA memberships and that they would tow us up to 100 miles for free.   Oh the joy!

God has a funny way of working.  Stuns me.  He had orchestrated the whole thing.  To be sure, there was no extravagant adventure to speak of, and no exceptional story of escapades and heros.  Just a God who holds all things in His hands and, for some mysterious purpose, has chosen to bestow grace on His children.  Today that grace came in the form of a great wedding, a AAA membership thanks to my parents, and a 100-mile conversation with David the tow-truck driver.  Thank you again Lord for being who You are and never leaving me out in the cold!  All in a day's being for an eternal Holy God...

Guard Your Heart

This last friday night I gave a wedding homily for some dear friends.  It was an absolute honor that I cherish with humility.  Because it was my first wedding sermon which I had spent quite a bit of time wording and rewording, not to mention I was beyond nervous, I did something I very rarely do: I actually read my message word for word.

In my preparations and carrying through my sermon, one of the reoccurring themes was the value of protecting your heart.  The idea of guarding your heart is an important theme of Scripture, but it comes through verbatim in Proverbs 4:23:

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Guarding our hearts is a metaphor referring to protecting what we let in and what we let out.  It demands that we be vigilant in protecting and preserving that which has been given us by the grace of God.

In the end, protecting our heart from the onslaught  of the deadly arrows coming from the evil one and from the lovelessness of this world is about putting Christ at the center of our hearts. For he is our strength and our shield. It means that we will keep in right perspective that which is eternal, holy and beautiful. And we will only let in that which is worthy of admittance while refusing entry of anything that is ungodly and unrighteous. Let us then press on to keep Christ at the center as we strive to guard our hearts in the Lord God Almighty.

1 John 4:19 and Love

This is from 1 John, chapter 4, starting at verse 7-10 and skipping to verse 19:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be propitiation for our sins…” Truly, “We love because He first loved us.”             

        That last verse is so simple, pithy even.  “We love because He first loved us.”  It’s not long, not complicated but we should not mistake that for plain or basic.  “We love because He first loved us.”  It is profound, full of theological import and significance that not only encourages us with its brevity but challenges us with its meaning.  “We love because He first loved us.”             

John, the writer of this, is saying two intensely difficult things: that Christ is to be both the reason we love, but, even more so, He is the manner with which we love, He is the why, but He is also the how.   “We love because He first loved us."

Now, through faith in Christ Jesus, confession that He is Lord and belief that God has raised Him from the dead, we may enter into right, redeemed relationship.  Our frailty is replaced with strength, our brokenness is mended, and our infirmities our healed by Christ, in Christ, and through Christ. The love that He first loved us with at the cross now lives within us, guiding us, and empowering us to live and love as as Christ.  “We love because He first loved us.”

It was Christ’s perfect work at the cross that has enabled us to love.  He has empowered us with the ability to love.  And this is not love like the world thinks, like some emotional whimsy, or daffodil capriciousness of "he loves me, he loves me not."  No.  This is the real, serious love that can only come from Him who is living within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Remember: “We love because He first loved us.”

This love is selfless, not self-seeking; it is pure, not tainted by our flippancy.  It is not an "I'll scratch your back you scratch mine," type of relationship.  No.  This love is altogether other, stemming from the deepest depths of our beings and welling up through our pores for us to lavish upon those we love.  Above all, it is a gift from God given through Christ to all those who call on Him as Lord and Savior.  This is a beautiful, easily memorable verse, but as we pull back the layers, as it unfurls, we begin to see the density behind it.  “We love because He first loved us.”

Christ’s love is not just an example for how we should love.  It is the very ability, the source within us to love.  In order for us to love as He has loved us, we must always keep our focus fixed, our gaze set upon the cross, which is the sole cornerstone of why and how we love.  It is at the cross that we see ourselves as we truly are.  And it is at the cross that we see who God is, and it is in this revelation that true love is made possible at all.  This is why "We love because He first loved us."

Love is rooted, ultimately, in God.  The why and the how of love is based in the life and work of Christ Jesus, who has set us free when He saved us at His cross.  At our cores, we are broken fragments and frail egoists as a result of sin’s pervasiveness in our lives.  Yet God, who is rich in mercy, condescended to us, emptying Himself through the incarnation of His Power into the human form of His Son, Christ Jesus, who lived a perfect, sinless life.  Yet He was tried for His innocence and found guilty of no punishable crime, though He did claim to be God’s only Son and, by that virtue, the rightful King of the World . 

For that, He was beaten, flogged, stripped, spat upon, and marched through the streets of Jerusalem carrying the cross of our shame and the instrument of His death.  He was then crucified naked alongside the main roads just outside the city gates.  He was murdered, not for anything He had done, but because it was God's will to bestow grace and love to humanity by taking on the sin of mankind in His own flesh and nailing it to the cross.  But three days after His death and burial, the stone that sealed His grave was moved and He was found risen.  He rose from the grave, confirming that He was and is the Messiah, the Son of God.  “We love because He first loved us.”

Now, through faith in Christ Jesus, confession that He is Lord and belief that God has raised Him from the dead, we may enter into right, redeemed relationship.  Our frailty is replaced with strength, our brokenness is mended, and our infirmities our healed by Christ, in Christ, and through Christ. The love that He first loved us with at the cross now lives within us, guiding us, and empowering us to live and love as as Christ.  “We love because He first loved us.”
           
It was Christ’s perfect work at the cross that has enabled us to love.  He has empowered us with the ability to love.  And this is not love like the world thinks, like some emotional whimsy, or daffodil capriciousness of "he loves me, he loves me not."  No.  This is the real, serious love that can only come from Him who is living within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Remember: “We love because He first loved us.”
            
This love is selfless, not self-seeking; it is pure, not tainted by our flippancy.  It is not an "I'll scratch your back you scratch mine," type of relationship.  No.  This love is altogether other, stemming from the deepest depths of our beings and welling up through our pores for us to lavish upon those we love.  Above all, it is a gift from God given through Christ to all those who call on Him as Lord and Savior.  This is a beautiful, easily memorable verse, but as we pull back the layers, as it unfurls, we begin to see the density behind it.  “We love because He first loved us.”
            
Christ’s love is not just an example for how we should love.  It is the very ability, the source within us to love.  In order for us to love as He has loved us, we must always keep our focus fixed, our gaze set upon the cross, which is the sole cornerstone of why and how we love.  It is at the cross that we see ourselves as we truly are.  And it is at the cross that we see who God is, and it is in this revelation that true love is made possible at all.  

God: Our Refuge

Throughout Scripture, God is described as our refuge.  The metaphor of God as our refuge is one of the primary descriptions of God, who He is and what He means to us.  It is this idea, that God is our refuge, that will be shortly discussed here.

A refuge can be described in two basic ways.  The first is a place.  In this sense, a refuge is a place of security, of stability, and of sanctuary.  In reference to God, He fulfills this purpose to us.  He is the place of our utmost security and safety.  When we come to Him, we know that we are held in the highest safety and enveloped completely in His love.  To say "we come to Him" is to say that we receive and seek Him in faith and humility.

The second meaning of God as our refuge, is as a source of healing.  In this sense, to say that God is our refuge is to acknowledge that He is the ultimate fountain of our healing.  God, being our Creator and Sustainer, heals us perfectly.  This healing is not limited to the spiritual as the countless medical miracles that occur attest.

If we keep these two conjoined concepts in mind when we read Scripture, when we come across those passages that speak of God as our refuge, it will stir in us a remembrance that God is both the place of our greatest security as well as our greatest healing.  Let us then always run to God who is our present refuge in all rimes of trouble and strain!

The Quest for Identity

We live in a world that values self-made identity.  The virtues of paving one's own way are heralded as the supreme exalted purpose of humanity.  At the core of this ideology is a deep vacuous longing in every human for identity, and an even deeper truth that compels us to create one: we each know, at the core of our beings, that there is some sense inside of us that our "true" identity is in some way broken or damaged in need of mending.

The world tells us that sees who we are as a blank slate, an empty page that is waiting for us to write upon it whatever we may desire or wish.  Again, the impetus for this thought stems from the basic truth that all humans recognize that our identity is some way damaged.  Unfortunately, how the world and the natural man deals with this discrepancy avoids the issue at hand, ignoring the original cause of the problem of distorted ideas of identity: sin.

In the Garden of Eden, before the Fall of humanity, Adam and Eve received all of their identity in God.  All that they had, all that they did, all that they were was given them by God.  Their very identity, who they were was found in God.  God created them and interpreted them too.  This is to say that God defined their identity just as much as He created them.

All this being true, the Fall so pervasively marred humanity that their identity, which was ultimately and truly found in Christ, was also marred.  And, as every human was in Adam, every human's identity is damaged and in dire need of repair.

Fortunately, God has provided us grace in His Son.  Now, through faith in Jesus, our original and true identity is repaired, regenerated, and reborn in Christ.  Therefore, the search for identity must begin not with an intense introspection but with worship and faith in the Lord.  For only in seeing the Holy Lord can we truly see ourselves as we actually are.  This is the true essence of true identity.  And any attempt to establish identity apart from God will ultimately be found to be insufficient for it is based on an insufficient finite instead of an all-sufficient Infinite.

Discussing God's Will

Much of the Christian life is devoted to God's Will.  In fact, most of our language, the very way that we relate to one another in words confirms that God's Will is vital to our lives.  How we deal with tragedy or blessing, how we make choices on an individual and a community level is full of the language of will, e.g. "it is/was God's will for..."

However, despite the lingo, the theology behind the Will of God can be easily ignored or replaced with assumptions that do not jibe with the theology of Scripture.  Because this matters in real, practical ways, an attempt at a two paragraph, blitzkrieg teaching on the Will of God will be put forth here.  The point, obviously, will not be for an exhaustive, comprehensive discourse on God's Will.  Rather, just a brief snapshot to spark some thought on this important issue.

First of all, God's Will is grounded in and arises from His nature.  This is to say that His Will starts from within God and is carried forward in space and time.  Get this: everything that happens is God's Will.  Because God creates and sustains everything by the power of His Word, there is not a single thing that has ever occurred or that ever will occur that is outside of His Will.  There are no "free-acting" agents that live, move, or have their being apart from His creating and sustaining Will.  Everything that happens in space/time is His Will.  We are not speaking of hypotheticals but of what does transpire in the unfolding of space and time.

Secondly, God's Will can be basically broken down into two forms: His Decretive Will and His Prescriptive Will.  His Decretive Will is all that comes to pass, it is history unfurling, it is space and time running its course.  This is God's decreed Will, in that, because events occur and He creates and sustains all that occurs by the power of His Word, all that occurs has been decreed to occur by Him.  His Prescriptive Will is God's prescribing of action and life for humanity through the revelation of His  Word, particularly in Christ.  His Prescriptive Will is what He wants of us and for us.

In the end, there are other things that deal with God's Will: salvation, predestination, foreknowledge, etc.  However, understanding that everything that occurs is God's Will is the starting point, while the second component is found in the prescriptions of God's Word compel us to think, believe, and live a certain way that pleases God.  Every person that lives and that has ever lived intimately interacts with the Will of God, both His decretive and His prescriptive.

The real issue is God not man, and His sovereignty not ours.  Every person must reckon that our life has been created and is sustained by the Will of God, and our response should be obedience to His Will.  He is sovereign and omniscient.  Our understanding of His Will must being with who He is.  In this we, we can always find ourselves in His Will.  The goal, always, is to find ourselves on the right side, which is found in obedience to His Prescriptive Will.