Another Sleepless Night to Praise God?

I may have said this before but it's becoming more and more clear: I do not sleep well.  I average between 4 and 6 hours a day.  But every once and a while, less than once a week, however, I get the luxury of a good 8 hours.  It is a sweet release, a glorious loosing that occurs when I can actually sleep throughout the night and wake up refreshed, energized, and capable.

I spend most nights, though, laying in bed spinning around every conceivable thought until I finally fall asleep.  I pass the time by making the bed, bugging my sleeping wife, and going to the bathroom even though I don't have to go.   Lately my sleep system has been so strung out that I have that '2:30 feeling' by about 8 in the morning.  It's more like slogging through sludge than gliding on ice, as if every step was a labor through mud.  I am 29 years old.  Far too young to feel like this, right?

It is at these times, times like today when I feel like a mouth trying to speak while chewing peanut butter, that I am reminded of two fundamentals.  First, I remember that God is sovereign and good, always.  This fact alone keeps me sane and propels me onward while easing the path I'm on as well.  Recognizing the goodness and glory of God makes me feel like a cheetah on roller skates that's just found a large hill.

The other fundamental that comes to mind is this.  I remember that sin has so damaged creation and that this sort of tire and ache is one of the consequences (see Gen 3).  But, and this is a big one, this was not the way God intended the human condition to be (see Gen 2).  And that through Christ Jesus I have a great hope in the promises of God to be fulfilled in the last days.  Praise God!  That's all the knowledge I need to make it through another sleepless night and another dog-tired day!

Individualism: a false paradigm

There is a prevailing posture in western Christianity that values the personal experience of faith.  This valuing, though in theory a profitable recognition that each person needs to 'claim' Christ for themselves, has done much damage in devaluing the covenant community.

To consider the personal experience of faith as of such importance that the individual is thought of more valuable than the community is to neglect one of the fundamental truths of the human condition, namely, that the person does not own themselves for by nature they belong to God.

This means that the personal experience is but an outpouring of our status as creatures, implicitly reckoning that we do not, in fact, own our experiences. As it were, these experiences that we would claim as our own are as much gifted to us by God as is the air we breath.

Individualism, if by that term we mean the value of the individual experience, must find its root in the Creator God, who has both chosen to diversify and unify creation together in Himself. Any attempt to interpret an experience apart from God's necessary input would be tantamount to amputating the nexus between creature-Creator.

By nature all human persons are contingent, both on the precepts of nature but also and more so dependent in the person and nature of God Himself. This reckons the personal experience of the individual human more like a single brush stroke in a vast watercolor painting, too focused on the bark to see the whole tree.

The distinctions of individualism would think each person as separate, and unique by virtue of that separation. However, this conceives that the separation of Genesis 3 precedes the unified intentional intertwining of Genesis 1 and 2.

In truth, the quest for autonomy leads the autonomous to a life apart from the life-giving blood of Christ, which is conferred and flows in His Church.  The value of the individual is found in Christ.  Any valuation of the personal experience that neglects this fact is, in truth, not valuable at all.

Knowing God is Not a Means; It is the End

I've never been a great sleeper.  Most nights I wake up in the middle of the nights and struggle to get back to sleep.  Some nights, when this happens, I leave the bed and turn on the television to wind down or decompress.  Without fail there will be some evangelist or preacher selling tickets for God, promoting their brand of Christianity.

Generally speaking, this devolves into some sort of prosperity gospel, in which faith in God is equated to putting coinage into a vending machine.  This conception, to be sure, is a wrong one for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it betrays the example and teachings of Jesus Himself.  And although this may seem an extreme thought, there is a much more subtle one that has crept into sound Christians too, namely, that knowing God is a means to a desired end.

Read that again: the misconception that knowing God is a means to a desired end.  This is such a common sentiment that perhaps it demands further articulation.  So let me try again: a relationship with God through faith is not the means to salvation and heaven.  

Hopefully the image is becoming more clear.  The fog is lifting.  How many of us, either purposely or latently, actually think this way?  Whether we know it or not, this misconception renders God as something less than God, as if He was merely a step unto that greater goal.  This is, quite bluntly, wrong.

Instead, God is the end.  A relationship with God firmly founded upon His Son Christ rendered in covenant through faith is the end that God has in mind.  To think that there is any perceived desire  greater than being in relationship to the Lord Almighty would be tantamount to outright idolatry. For in thinking as such we would be making that other thing mean more to us in our hearts than God Himself.

Even to think of heaven as the end that God has in mind would be a dangerous misconception.  Heaven, the divine place where we live in utter bliss in our perfect spirit bodies, is rendered worthless if not for the presence of God.  This presence is not some abstract, distant acknowledgement either; it is a deeply intimate relationship between God and mankind, as was always intended.

Because of this and more, we should be on guard against any theological or philosophical postulation that would consider God as but a means to a greater, more desirable end.  For God is our greatest desire and to be in intimate relationship with Him is the greatest joy for the human.  Let us never forget this!

Spirit & Truth: Requisites for Worship

Jesus says these words in John: "God is spirit and those who would worship Him must do it in spirit and in truth."  (John 4:24).

The context here is the scenario with Jesus at the well and the woman from Samaria.  Jesus has just convinced her that He is the Christ because He has told her about her life.  She is confused by this stranger but she marvels at His intimate knowledge of who she is.  She then makes the statement about places of worship, pointing to the reality that the Jews believed that only the Temple was the appropriate place to worship.  This statement has a whole host of connotation: not only is she referring to the place of worship, but she is also referring to the what of worship, namely, the ceremonial Law of Torah.

Jesus, though, indicates that a time is coming and has now arrived in Him that the worshipers of God will worship God purely, in spirit and in truth.  Jesus' statement is remarkable because it flies in the face of the presumptions of Judaism of His day, which saw the worship of God as an ethnically exclusive activity.  For anyone to truly worship they would have to become a Jew first.

Additionally, Jesus is taking the monopoly of worshiping God out of the hands of the Jews and giving it to the scope of humanity.  Now, anyone and everyone can worship by these requirements, as God had always intended: in spirit and in truth.  While this might seem, at first glance, to be enigmatic Jesus is saying that worship has a specific energy, the spirit, and a specific content, the truth.

This energy is the Holy Spirit.  He is the exciter, the comforter, the empower, and the initiator of worship.  He is the spirit of worship, and He is the One who initiates and activates the worshiper's heart for worship.

This content, the truth, is the Word of God.  It is the Word itself that forms the backbone for any and all worship.  If worship is not based on or does not come from the Word of God, then it is not worship.  There are a great many things that claim to be worship but lack the Word of God, that is, Christ.  Because of this, they cannot be worship.

In the end, the Spirit works in conjunction with the Word in the worshiper's worship of God.  If we desire to worship, then, we need only prayer for the Spirit and engage in His Word.  In this way, worship is made available for every human who calls on the name of the God, crying out that Jesus is Lord and King!

Obedience and blessing

We are blessed because of obedience, but our blessing is not on the basis of our obedience.  Obedience is a blessing in itself, meaning that obedience is a blessing on its own.    Remember God, by way of His covenants, demands obedience from His people.  Thus, obedience to God is not a burden, as it were, but is a reminder of who God is and what He has for us.  This is, to be sure, a beautiful thing, love in its finest.

On the other hand, our blessing is solely based on the graciousness of God Himself.  He in His infinite wisdom and mercy has seen fit to bestow His great riches upon us not because of anything we have done or because of anything in us, but only because of the goodness of God.  Remembering this truth will go along way in keeping our hearts fixed on God and not on His blessings.

Obedience, then, is not meritorious.  Obedience does not merit, as it were, any blessing.  Instead, obedience is a response to the covenant faithfulness of God Himself.  Our response to God's covenant faithfulness, which has been made full in Christ Jesus, is not meritorious unto salvation but is merely the most natural response to the profound grace and utter goodness of God.  Amen, then for obedience!

A Short Plea for Prayer

I have very little in the way of new theology or clever analogy today.  I do, however, have a request.  Today, as you wake up or go to bed, as you stop at the stoplight or taking a shower, I ask that you remember the Lord. God has done so much.  He has created all of creation.  He has redeemed mankind from sin and brokenness by sending His Son, Christ Jesus, to pay the price for sin in our place.

Additionally, God has shown and proven His steady love and faithfulness to such a degree that He has given us freedom to choose, if we so wish, not to worship Him or think about Him at all.  This is an amazing sacrifice of true love that God has made for us and it should not be taken lightly as anything less than pure, true love in the highest degree.

Because of this and all it means for us as humans, today's blog is a plea that you would take the time today to consider the Lord, to serve Him, to dwell on His awesomeness, and to love Him with your whole heart.

Counterfeit God's and Secret Service Christians

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Phil 4:8).

When Secret Service agents are training to sniff out counterfeit currency, they spend years studying, examining, and memorizing the real thing.  This way the agents can tell when currency is fishy simply by its feel, its weight, or the little red and blue fibers in the paper.  They've spent so much time with the real money that they can discern whether a bill is fake in a matter of moments.

This seems like a good and productive methodology to apply to spiritual matters.  Perhaps we, as believers in the Lord Jesus, should not spend so much time examining the counterfeit, the false, and the incorrect; and we should spend more time memorizing the good, the right, and the godly.

I think of my years as a musician.  My journey to become a guitar player forced me to spend less time listening to my paltry playing or my friends' meager attempts, no!  In order for me to learn what great guitar playing was I had to listen, to examine, and study greatness so that I would know it like I know my own hands.

The above verse is but a snippet, a snapshot taken from the photo album of Holy Scripture, but I think it is a good list to think of in these terms.  We should study and study these godly traits.  This means a dedicated pursuit of that which is of God.  In a real way, we need to invest the necessary time so that we will know the things of God so well that we can discern that which is not of God with ease (to be sure, this is done in partnership with the Holy Spirit).  Above all, this is an active endeavor, not a passive or latent growth.  Let us then set our minds to do these things not only so we will know God more but also so that we will see the fakes more clearly!