The Great Pursuit

Bible Reading in 2012

2011-12-30T23:13:00.002-05:00

Last year I decided I needed to utilize a plan to read the whole Bible in 2011. So I began to research different plans and discovered that there are a BUNCH of options out there. I had previously only heard of a couple, but there are dozens! Each takes a slightly different approach. Some move chronologically, some have you moving through four different sections of Scripture each day. Some cover certain portions of the Scriptures more than once (like the New Testament or Psalms) and some don't. With so many options I simply couldn't decide. By the time I decided to just go with one, it was the second week of January! And I never got any momentum and consequently petered out very quickly.

So this year I'm starting anew, and I've selected a plan with what could be considered a bit of a cheesy name (no offense to the people who put it together!): OwnIt365, available at their website or via YouVersion.com. Here I'll explain why:

There's obviously nothing wrong with reading straight through the Bible over the course of the year. But let's be honest -- there are times when such an approach can get taxing or even laborious. On the other hand, plans that have you reading in four different sections of Scripture seem to me to make things a bit too choppy and disjointed. It's hard to hang with the flow of things when you're flipping all over the place every day.

So one of the main reasons I chose this plan is that it meets us in the middle, giving us two readings a day: one from the Old Testament and one from either the New Testament or the wisdom literature of the OT. (Hence the name OWN -- Old testament, Wisdom literature, New testament).

Another thing I like about the plan is that it sets things up to give you 6 readings per week, and I think having a buffer day in there is practical and realistic. It's a good catch-up day or, if you're on the ball, can be a nice day to read something different, perhaps taking a Sunday to read over the passage covered in Sunday's sermon.

A last thing that's nice is that the plan selects a chapter or so of each day's reading as a suggested family reading, which can build in some nice options in the area of family devotions or that sort of thing.

I am considering blogging through the readings here, though in no way would I imagine committing to doing so 6 times per week!

Piper on our Fixation with Personal Comfort

2011-09-21T22:04:00.001-05:00

These words from John Piper, written shortly after 9/11/01, are worthy of significant consideration:

There is a mindset in the prosperous West that we deserve pain-free, trouble-free existence. When life deals us the opposite, we have a right not only to blame somebody or some system and to feel sorry for ourselves, but also to devote most of our time to coping, so that we have no time or energy left over for serving others.

This mind-set gives a trajectory to life that is almost universal - namely, away from stress and toward comfort and safety and relief. Then within that very natural trajectory some people begin to think of ministry and find ways of serving God inside the boundaries set by the aims of self-protection. Then churches grow up in this mindset, and it never occurs to anyone in such a community of believers that choosing discomfort, stress, and danger might be the right thing - even the normal, biblical thing - to do.

-- John Piper, The Roots of Endurance, 18

There is enough in those two paragraphs to chew on for days. It cuts right to the heart of many hot-button political and societal issues. But more to the point, it calls us to ask some tough questions about how we as believers and as churches live in the world.

Soul Mates or Sole Mates

2011-02-09T22:05:00.000-05:00

Just read an absolutely outstanding article by Gary Thomas called "Soul Mates or Sole Mates." I'd say it is suggested reading for every unmarried Christian over age 16 or so.

The gist:

The search for “the one” is often an idolatrous pursuit. As Christians, we must believe that our primary meaning comes from our relationship with God: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness…” (Matt. 6:33) Thus, a Christian should not consider any marital union that would not feed this primary relationship with God...

Can I suggest a more biblical pattern? Instead of following Plato in a wild pursuit of our soul mate, we should seek to find a biblical “sole mate.” A sole mate is someone who willingly does the shoe-leather application of living out biblical love.

Again, I think the entire article is good and very important. I commend it to you highly

Satan's game plan vs. God's game plan

2011-01-16T14:36:00.000-05:00

"If Satan's basic game plan is pride, seeking to draw us into his life of arrogance, then God's basic game plan is humility, drawing us into the life of his Son. The Father can't think of anything better to give us than his Son."

-- Paul Miller, The Praying Life, 236

Praying for Endurance

2010-12-01T22:58:00.000-05:00

In writing about the pervasive theme of endurance throughout the Scriptures, John Piper comments on how regularly various biblical writers pray for it in some form or fashion. He cites four such examples in the Psalms that neatly form the acrostic pattern IOU'S:

Incline my ear to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain. (Psalm 119:36)

Open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things in your law. (Psalm 119:18)

Unite my heart to fear your name (Psalm 86:11 - as in unite it from all of the various allegiances and distractions that threaten to distract and divide it).

Satisfy me in the morning with you steadfast love. (Psalm 90:14)

This strikes me as a very practical and useful structure for prayer, which I suppose is why I'm summarizing it here.

(John Piper, "The Roots of Endurance," page 24)

Do we need the atonement?

2010-07-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

"People are not concerned about an atonement. They are basically convinced they have no need for it... If anything has been lost from our culture, it is the idea that human beings are privately, personally, individually, ultimately, inexorably accountable to God for their lives... If people understood that there is a holy God and that sin is an offense against that holy God, they would break down the doors of our churches and ask, 'What must I do to be saved?'"

-- RC Sproul, The Truth of the Cross, 8-9

Wisdom for Prayer from Ecclesiastes

2010-07-08T22:46:00.000-05:00

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

(Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 ESV)

This passage really begins to challenge how we think about prayer. Is prayer too often a one way street - marked by constant talk to God about things great and small rather than a desire to listen? Do I come to God to persuade Him to see my side of things or to be persuaded by His will? Does I suffer from a sort of verbal diarrhea in prayer - blabbering on about things without reflection or thought regarding to whom and about what I'm speaking? Is God a cosmic Santa Claus or vending machine? You get the idea.

The writer here seems to be arguing that what pleases God most is to be desired for Himself. Think about it. Are you more honored by someone who comes to talk to you about themselves or by someone who seeks your input, your counsel, your view of things? By someone making demands or by someone submitting to you?

There's a strong admonition here. "Guard your steps" means "Be careful," implying there's potential danger here. We must take care to approach the God of the universe appropriately, not cavalierly. The Teacher seems to be saying that to go into God's presence to prattle on without regard for who He is and who you are, is literally to do evil without realizing it!

Surely we may approach God boldly because of Christ, but we must balance that with a proper view of His character and holiness. We must not tread lightly.

Offensive vs. Defensive Parenting

2010-02-21T15:18:00.000-05:00

William Farley writes about the difference between offensive and defensive parenting:

"Either we focus on preparing our children to enter the world and conquer it, or we can concentrate on protecting our children from the world. A defensive mindset worries about the evil influences of Halloween, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or non-Christians on the Little League team. Although parenting always involves some protection, this should not be the main focus for biblical parents"

He compares "fear based parenting" with a football team that plays an infamous "prevent defense" that is more concerned with not losing (not giving up the big play) than it is with winning. In many instances, such an approach is rooted in legalism.

- William Farley, Gospel-Powered Parenting, 23

The Second Adam

2010-01-09T21:59:00.000-05:00

"Had he been 'in Adam', however, under that first head, he would have been norn a sinner as all other children of Adam are, in a state of enmity towards God. He would have been unfit for any atoning substitution. But because of his personal pre-existence, he did not depend totally on Adam, he did not owe his individual existence to Adam, and so he was not in Adam. He did not fall under Adam's headship. his birth could mark a new beginning in the life of humankind. He could become a new head, a second and final Adam (1 Cor. 15:45ff). Knowing no sin and yet truly joined to Adam's posterity, he could freely take upon himself the communal guilt of his fellow humans.

"Jesus Christ accomplished the work of redemption as the new Adam, as the head for the body, as the pioneer, the path opener whom the others follow and who, as their leader, can freely take responsibility for those who belong to him. This was brought to light on the 'the first day of the week', that is, the eighth day of craetion, the day the new creation dawned. he rose again as the pioneer of life, the firstfruits of his own conquest over sin and death, the Adam of the new creation... The same structure which was effecti e in Adam's case still operates, but for salvation, and this is why we enjoy the freuit of his death and resurrection only when we are members of his body."

Henri Blocher, Original Sin, 132-133

Everyday Talk Chapter 1

2009-09-16T21:28:00.003-05:00

"What kinds of thoughts live long enough in your heart to take up residence there?"

"Talking about God isn't hard or complicated, but it does require some time and preparation. if you don't spend time thinking about God, you won't have much to say about God."

Jesus' Perspective on the Cross

2008-11-10T23:24:00.002-05:00

"So then, although he knew he must die, it was not because he was the helpless victim either of evil forces arrayed against him or of any inflexible fate decreed for him, but because he freely embraced the purpose of his Father for the salvation of sinners, as it had been revealed in Scripture. This was the perspective of Jesus on his death."

-- John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 37

Packer on the Old Gospel vs. the New Gospel

2008-11-08T10:41:00.003-05:00

According to J.I. Packer, "one of the most urgent tasks facing evangelical Christendom today [is] the recovery of the gospel." He explains this statement, saying, "Without realizing it, we have during the past century bartered [the biblical gospel] for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing." He then provides a helpful, if devastating critique of what he means, some of which is quoted below. The amazing thing is that he was writing nearly 50 years ago. If it was true then, it is probably more true now.

His chief critique of the "new gospel" of our age is that it

"fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do... it is too exclusively concerned to be 'helpful' to man -- to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction -- and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel... was always and essentially a proclamation of divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its center of reference was unambigulously God. But in the new gospel the center of reference is man."

In practice, the new gospel results in flawed evangelism, a diminished view of God, and an elevated view of the part we plan in our redemption. Packer writes:

"Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of his redeeming work as if he had done no more by dying than make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God's love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence 'at the door of our hearts' for us to let them in."

Packer was arguing, fifty years ago, that the answer to what ails evangelicalism, is a return to the biblical, God-centered gospel in preaching and practice. This is true for evangelicalism as a whole, but also for individual Christians and churches.

Quotes from JI Packer, In My Place Condemned He Stood, 114-115 (This book is a compendium of several previously published writings.)

Matt Cassel

2008-09-15T21:34:00.003-05:00

On November 24th, 1999, Chatsworth High School met Palisades High in a high school playoff game in Los Angeles. The winning quarterback threw for over 400 yards and four touchdowns. The losing quarterback, a kid named Matt Cassel, was 3 for 11 for 46 yards, but reportedly made a big impact as a defensive back. It was the last time Cassel would be a starting quarterback for a long time.

Despite the inauspicious numbers in that last game, Cassel was a highly regarded quarterback and played college football at Southern Cal. If you haven't heard, they have a pretty big football program at USC and they recruit pretty well. After red-shirting his freshman year, Cassel served as the backup to Carson Palmer, his roommate, who won the Heisman Trophy and became the first overall pick in the NFL Draft.

Then it was Cassel's turn to take the wheel at USC. Or not. Matt Leinart beat him out for the starting job. At that point, Cassel would be excused for transferring somewhere where he could play. But he stuck it out for the Trojans. He played a little on special teams and at wide receiver. He even started a game at tight end. He played a little quarterback in mop-up duty.

But he persevered. He practiced. He was ready. He worked hard day in and day out when nobody noticed. That persistence paid off when the New England Patriots selected him in the seventh round of the NFL Draft. The guy who backed up two Heisman Trophy winners now backed up All-Pro Tom Brady. Again, Cassel practiced, persevered, and waited for three more years.

When Tom Brady went down with a season-ending knee injury in the first game of the season, Cassel's moment finally arrived. Last Sunday, nearly nine years after starting for Chatsworth High, Matt Cassel was finally the starting quarterback.

I like Cassel's story because it provides a compelling picture of perseverance, patience, and discipline. He worked hard in practice and in the off-season, and he waited. His opportunities to get in the game were few and far between, and they were largely meaningless. Many would have slacked off or even quit.

Matt Cassel's story challenges me to persevere in quiet discipline regardless of what role I'm called to play (or not). Discipline bears fruit and there is a reward for perseverance. That's true in football, and Scripture makes clear that it is true in God's Kingdom as well.

Paul called the Corinthian believers to be steadfast in the face of all circumstances because their labor for the Lord was not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). Scripture abounds with calls to persevere as we look backward to the cross and forward to a sure reward that is ours by grace. Paul himself used sporting analogies more than once, as when he reminded the Corinthians to run the race to get a crown that will last forever (1 Cor. 9:24). So I think he would also like the story of Matt Cassel. The reward of our perseverance, patience, and discipline, however, is not a victory over the New York Jets, but an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading (1 Peter 1:4). So let's press on.

Bridges on Grace

2008-08-09T20:52:00.005-05:00

Jerry Bridges, in writing about the misconceptions that people have about grace, says: "The statement that 'God's approval does not have to be earned but is simply there' is not true. God's approval does have to be earned. But the gospel tells us that His approval was earned for us by Jesus Christ in His sinless life and sin-bearing death. It is true that God's favor does not have to be earned by us. In fact, it cannot be earned by us. But it comes to us without earning because Jesus paid for it in our place as our substitute."

Bridges then provides a very good and succinct definition of grace:

"Grace is God's favor through Christ to people who deserve His disfavor."

Jerry Bridges, Growing Your Faith, 18-19

1 Peter Wordl

2008-06-20T21:50:00.003-05:00

Click the graphic to enlarge it. (From the website: "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.")

A Believer's Perspective

2008-05-29T21:16:00.003-05:00

"[Believers] are encouraged to persevere, knowing that a great reward will be theirs on the day of salvation. Such perseverance is exhibited by living a godly life, living as good citizens, model slaves, gentle wives, and understanding husbands. When believers live in such a way, they indicate that they are placing their hope in God rather than in the joys and comforts of this world… those who hope and trust in God and in his future reward will have the strength to endure whatever comes their way in the present. When believers set their hope on the future, they reveal that their salvation comes from the cross of Christ."

-- Thomas Schreiner's commentary on 1 Peter, p 45

(I found this to be a helpful guide to understanding 1 Peter 3:8-12, which is a summary of the section beginning at 2:12).

Life Together Is a Foretaste of Eternal Blessing

2008-05-24T14:16:00.004-05:00

"So between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 18

The Centrality of the Gospel

2008-02-28T22:29:00.003-05:00

"Everything in Scripture is either preparation for the gospel, presentation of the gospel, or participation in the gospel....

"By the gospel we understand that, although saved, we remain sinners. Through the gospel we receive power to resist sin. Accurately understanding and continually applying the gospel is the Christian life."

-- Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say "I Do," 24-25

American Suffering

2008-01-22T10:42:00.000-05:00

A challenging quote included in the Sunday sermon on 1 Peter:

“Your call may not involve literally hanging on a cross, being jailed or being burned at the stake here in America. But there is a fight that is much more subtle and much more insidious in America because we live in a society where pride and materialism and recreation and prosperity and fitting in has slowly taken away the sharp edge in most professing Christian’s lives. We look around and we rarely see anyone denying themselves, taking up their Cross and following Jesus. Now don’t you find that odd, since in Luke 9:32, Jesus literally said that unless you did so, you are not a follower of His at all. But the reality is that we’re in a culture that is built on free will instead of God’s will and that is why we must be the freaks. And while that may not mean being called to martyr our lives, we must martyr our way of life. In other words, we are called, particularly here in the United States to put the selfish, self-centered, materialism and recreation-oriented ways of life to death and march to a different beat altogether”
-Quote From Jesus Freak a.k.a. Martyrs video

The Glory of the Incarnation

2007-12-08T17:35:00.000-05:00

“Jesus had no need to come to earth. He might have retained all the joy and splendor of heaven. But he left it. And when he came to earth there was no necessity for him to live in poverty and rejection. But he did it. And when he came to the end of his life he was not compelled to die the painful and shameful death of the cross. But he did. Could anything be more glorious? … It is in this way that grace becomes a reality for mankind.

-- Leon Morris, Reflections on the Gospel of John, 25

The Miracle of the Incarnation

2007-11-27T00:23:00.000-05:00

Wayne Grudem concludes his discussion of the incarnation of Christ with the following:

“It is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible – far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the creation of the universe. The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”

Bible Doctrine, 246

Incarnation and the Gospel

2007-11-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

“This one person was, therefore, able to suffer and bear the penalty of man’s transgression, because, being of man’s nature, he could become man’s representative, and could also endure such suffering as could be inflicted upon man; yet, being God, he could give a value to such suffering, which would make it equivalent, not to one man’s penalty, but to that of the whole race.” [James P. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology (Charleston: Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1887), 291.]

The Virgin Birth

2007-11-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

“…the virgin birth is a sign of God’s judgment on human nature. The race needs a redeemer, but cannot produce one: not by its own decision or desire, not by the processes of education and civilization, not as a precipitate of its own evolution. The redeemer must come from outside. Here, as elsewhere, ‘all things are of God.’ He provides the lamb (Gen 22:8).” [Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998), 37.]

Powlison on the Gospel

2007-11-06T21:36:00.000-05:00

The Gospel is better than unconditional love. The Gospel says, “God accepts you just as Christ is. God has ‘contra-conditional’ love for you.” Christ bears the curse you deserve. Christ is fully pleasing to the Father and gives you His own perfect goodness. Christ reigns in power, making you the Father’s child and coming close to you to begin to change what is unacceptable to God about you. God never accepts me “as I am.” He accepts me “as I am in Jesus Christ.” The center of gravity is different. The true Gospel does not allow God’s love to be sucked into the vortex of the soul’s lust for acceptability and worth in and of itself. Rather, it radically de-centers people to look outside themselves.

–David Powlison

Making Changes

2007-11-05T22:37:00.001-05:00

A nice nugget I've paraphrased from Jim Britt (our pastor):

"Let's have faith that if we're called to make changes that we will be able (enabled) to do so, and that we will like it."

(Christ promises abundant life, even in difficulties and when we're called to cut hard against the grain of our culture).

Wisdom

2007-11-05T22:32:00.001-05:00

"Wisdom in Scripture means choosing the best and noblest end at which to aim, along with the most appropriate and effective means to it."

— J.I. Packer, Concise Theology, 48

A Good Question

2007-10-14T14:15:00.001-05:00

A thought-provoking question from Piper:

"If you could have heaven, with not sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?"

The follow-up question for Christian leaders (and anyone that shepherds another):

"Do we preach and teach and lead in such a way that people are prepared to hear that question and answer with a resounding No?"

— John Piper, God Is the Gospel, 15

Beholding God's Gift of Himself

2007-10-14T13:57:00.000-05:00

I'm slowly working my way through Piper's God Is the Gospel. He is arguing that we often perceive (and describe and preach) the gospel as being centered on us (ie "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life...") and offering us some other gift (a happy life, the American dream, a better marriage, purpose and meaning, etc.). Piper's thesis is that at the heart of the Gospel is God's greatest gift: Himself.

"The sad thing is that a radically man-centered view of love permeates our culture and our churches. From the time they can toddle we teach our children that feeling loved means being made much of..."

"There are clues in every human heart even before conversion to Christ. One of those clues is that no one goes to the Grand Canyon or the Alps to increase his self-esteem. That is not what happens in front of massive deeps and majestic heights. But we do go there, and we go for joy... In wonderful moments of illumination there is a witness in our hearts: soul-health and great happiness come not from beholding a great self but a great splendor."

John Piper, God Is the Gospel, 12-13

Questions to Shepherd Kids (and Others)

2007-10-14T13:53:00.000-05:00

"Piper mentioned how helped he was by the kinds of questions that Rick Gamache (senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Fellowship) regularly asks his kids. Rick gave me permission to post them here:

• How are your devotions?
• What is God teaching you?
• In your own words, what is the gospel?
• Is there a specific sin you’re aware of that you need my help defeating?
• Are you more aware of my encouragement or my criticism?
• What’s daddy most passionate about?
• Do I act the same at church as I do when I’m at home?
• Are you aware of my love for you?
• Is there any way I’ve sinned against you that I’ve not repented of?
• Do you have any observations for me?
• How am I doing as a dad?
• How have Sunday’s sermons impacted you?
• Does my relationship with mom make you excited to be married?
• (On top of these things, with my older kids, I’m always inquiring about their relationship with their friends and making sure God and his gospel are the center of those relationships. And I look for every opportunity to praise their mother and increase their appreciation and love for her.)"

— ht: Justin Taylor

Gospel-Centered Endurance

2007-09-27T12:34:00.001-05:00

John Piper writes of the centrality of the cross in perseverance, the fact that the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone (the Gospel) is what fuels and sustains (and begins) us in the call to endure to the end:

"This is what we pray for, and this is what we trust in as we take up the biblical command to endure to the end. We trust in the New Covenant promises of sustaining, enabling grace that were obtained for us infallibly and irrevocably by Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. Therefore our fight and our race and endurance is radically God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent, promise-supported life. It is not a 'just do it' ethic. It is not a moral self-improvement program. It is not a 'Judeo-Christian ethic' shared by a vaguely spiritual culture with a fading biblical memory. it is a deeply cross-enabling life that knows the Christ of the Bible as the Son of God who was crucified first as our substitute and then as our model of endurance."

— John Piper, The Roots of Endurance, 29

In other words, our prior understanding of the Gospel (which is itself the result of God's prior activity in us) fuels our obedience. We don't do good things and strive to endure in order to become justified in God's sight. Quite the opposite: because we are justified by faith in the finished work of Christ, we naturally grow in grace and are sustained to the end in good works.

Penetrating Holiness

2007-08-25T20:45:00.000-05:00

"God is inescapeable. There is no place we can hide from Him. Not only does He penetrate every aspect of our lives, but He penetrates it in his majestic holiness."
— RC Sproul, The Holiness of God, p25

I was immediately reminded of Psalm 139:

5You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.

Piper's IOUS Prayer

2007-08-19T20:36:00.000-05:00

I think the following prayer outline is helpful. I got it from a message John Piper delivered at the New Attitude Conference that is available on the Sovereign Grace website for free download. It presents a way to pray (using Psalms) as you approach the Scriptures:

I — Incline my heart to Your testimonies (Psalm 119:36)
O — Open my eyes that I might behold wonderful things in Your Word (Psalm 119:8)
U — Unite my heart to fear Your name (Psalm 86:11)
S — Satisfy me in the morning... (Psalm 90:14)

Spurgeon Quotes

2007-06-30T11:24:00.000-05:00

A few Spurgeon quotes on the peace of God from a recent sermon:

Whenever I have suffered a grievous wrong, it has been a satisfaction to me that, if my Lord Jesus Christ made atonement for my offenses and my wrongs, I can look at His atonement for the wrong done to me as well as to God, for He satisfied all parties in that quarrel. Gladly do I say, “Surely this poor should may well be forgiven by me, for you have died as the sinner’s Substitute. In comparison with my own offenses against God, I may well look upon this man’s offense as nothing.”
----

"O Lord, put down this riot. I am tossed to and fro in my heart about my circumstance. I do not like them and I quarrel with You about them. Come, peace of God! Come and put down my murmuring! Come and calm my wicked, discontented spirit."

----

"We ought to be resolved to judge all things by the peace of God. What ought I to do in this case? Must I humble myself? I do not like it, but how ought I to act? Shall I yield? Pride says, Never! No, no! Play the man. Never give in. But what does the peace of God say? It says, Yield, submit. Christ says, I say unto you, that you resist not evil: but whoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Spurgeon on the Centrality of the Cross

2007-05-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

Are you content to follow Jesus from a distance? O, let me affectionately warn you for it is a grievous thing when we can live contentedly without the present enjoyment of the Savior’s face. Let us work to feel what an evil thing this is – little love to our own dying Savior, little joy in our precious Jesus, little fellowship with the Beloved! Hold a true Lent in your souls, while you sorrow over your hardness of heart. Don’t stop at sorrow. Remember where you first received salvation. (Simon the Leper) Go at once to the cross. There, and there only can you get your spirit aroused. No matter how hard, how insensible, how dead we may have become, let’s go again in all the rags and poverty, and defilement of our natural condition. Let’s clasp that cross, let’s look into those languid eyes, let’s bathe in that fountain filled with blood – this will bring us back to our first love; this will restore the simplicity of our faith, and the tenderness of our heart….The more we dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard the more noble our lives become. Nothing puts life into men like a dying Savior.—C. H. Spurgeon, http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/606_cdg_conference_session_4/

Old Books and Communal Interpretation of Scripture

2006-07-26T22:51:00.000-05:00

In writing about the importance of reading old books and the joy that awaits us in them, John Piper quotes Michael Horton, who says:

"The best way to guard a true interpretation of Scripture, the Reformers insisted, was neither to naively embrace the infallibility of tradition, or the infallibility of the individual, but to recognize the communal interpretation of Scripture. The best way to ensure faithfulness to the text is to read it together, not only with the churches of our own time and place, but with the wider 'communion of saints' down through the age."

John Piper, When I Don't Desire God, 128

Reformation & Revival

2006-05-29T14:56:00.000-05:00

"At times men think of the two words, reformation and revival, as standing in contrast one to the other, but this is a mistake. Both words are related to the word restore.

Reformation refers to a restoration to pure doctrine; revival refers to a restoration in the Christian's life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture; revival speaks of a life brought into its proper relationship to the Holy Spirit.

The great moments of church history have come when these two restorations have simultaneously come into action so that the church has returned to pure doctrine and the lives of the Christians in the church have known the power of the Holy Spirit. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation; and reformation is not complete without revival.

Such a combination of reformation and revival would be revolutionary in our day - revolutionary in our individual lives as Christians, revolutionary not only in reference to the liberal church but constructively revolutionary in the evangelical, orthodox church as well."

-- Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City, 12

Tozer on the "new cross"

2006-04-28T18:29:00.000-05:00

“The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill- seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.”

-AW Tozer

Os Guiness on Desire

2006-01-13T15:50:00.000-05:00

"The very fact that we humans experience desire is proof that we are creatures. Incomplete in ourselves, we desire whatever we think is beckoning to complete us. God alone needs nothing outside of himself, because he himself is the highest and the only lasting good. So all objects we desire short of God are as finite and incomplete as we ourselves are and, therefore, disappointing if we make them the objects of ultimate desire."

-- The Call, 13

Os Guiness on Purpose

2006-01-12T15:43:00.000-05:00

"Have you concluded that your desire for purpose is an illusion? Then follow the Eastern masters to their various states of detachment. Have you determined that your purpose is something that you must figure out yourself and accomplish all on your own? There are many secularist thinkers to cheer you on in the attempt. Or are you open to the possibility that there is one who created you to be who you are and calls you to be who he alone knows you can be? Then listen to Jesus of Nazareth and his two words that changed the world - 'Follow me.'"

-- Os Guiness, The Call, ix

Is Aslan Safe?

2005-12-27T18:57:00.000-05:00

I'm reading CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe before I watch the movie adaptation. Upon first hearing about Aslan (the original Lion King), one of the children asks if Aslan is safe. The reply (p75-76) is well worth considering:

'If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than me or else just silly.'
'Then he isn't safe?' asked Lucy.
'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver. 'Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'

Rookmaaker on Films

2005-12-13T01:38:00.000-05:00

HR Rookmaaker was a Dutch art historian and critic and a close friend and colleague of Francis Schaeffer. In his work Modern Art and the Death of Culture he offers an interesting critique of popular films:

"Many of the films people see, for instance, are good entertainment, and often have a little moral point. Yet they are bad. For they depict as true a world which is limited and superficial, one without God, without the deeper questions in man's heart, without real matters of life and death, for life and death are reduced to sentiment, or adventures, or crime and violence or cruelty, without any sort of judgment expressed. Most films of this type are good in the bourgeois sense, and they are certainly not meant to be anti-Christian. But they help to close the sky. They leave God out of the picture."

2005-09-12T11:18:00.000-05:00

"The strange belief in innate (rather than learned) human goodness that animates much so-called 'liberal' thought seems to me a delusion that even a cursory familiarity with human history and human nature should expose."

-- Bruce Thornton, Plagues of the Mind

On Worldview

2005-08-31T21:31:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed that I'm doing PhD work in the field of Christian apologetics and worldview. Here's a nice description of what exactly that means:

"The purpose of worldveiw studies is nothing less than to liberate Christianity from its cultural captivity, unleashing its power to transform the world."

"The purpose of worldview thinking is far more than a mental strategy or a new spin on current events. At the core, it is a deepening of our spiritual character and the character of our lives. It begins with the submission of our minds to the Lord of the universe - a willingness to be taught by Him. The driving force in worldview studies should be a commitment to 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.'"

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, 17 and 24

2005-08-30T22:53:00.000-05:00

"Moral character is assessed not by what a man knows but by what he loves."

-- Augustine

Kuyper Quote

2005-08-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

Abraham Kuyper was a remarkable man - a theologian, educator, journalist, and politician. He served four years as Prime Minister of the Netherlands near the turn of the 20th century, and founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 with a vision of education founded upon a commitment to the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Christ over all things in all branches of knowledge. In his inaugural address at the university, he said,

"There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

(as quoted by Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept). I'd love to read a good biography of Kuyper one day.

Culture and "cult"

2005-08-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

David Naugle offers an interesting insight:

"Culture, as the term suggests - though it is often forgotten - is ultimately the product of the cult. How people think and what they worship determines what they make and how they live."

(in Worldview: The History of a Concept)

Interesting Quotes from John Paul II

2005-08-23T21:46:00.000-05:00

Pope John Paul II, born Karel Wojtyla, was a great philosophical thinker in the Catholic Church, one who did much to develop Catholic thinking in the direction of worldview thinking. The worldview he worked to promote has been described as "Christian Humanism." It is a fundamentally Christ-centered view that emphasizes the intrinsic value and worth of human personhood.

He wrote:

"The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person."

And:

"In Christ and through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpasssing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence."

Elijah Part 1

2005-07-13T10:28:00.000-05:00

When we first meet Elijah in 1 Kings 17, times are not good for prophets of the Lord. King Ahab has just been introduced as King and we are told right off that "did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him." (1 Kings 16:30) His wife Jezebel (who, it seems, really "wore the pants" in that household) only made matters worse. They worshiped Baal and erected altars and even a temple for this false god. Ahab was awarded the dubious distinction of doing "more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him." He was a bad guy.

So Elijah comes on the scene as God's man, and obediently proclaimed the Lord's word in predicting the severe drought that was to come, and then went and hid. The Lord directed him to hide near a brook and commanded ravens to feed him. Talk about being totally dependent upon the Lord — Elijah saw God's provision in a miraculous way during this period.

But life must have been difficult there all alone in the wilderness, being sustained only by God's gracious provision of a brook and food from ravens. No doubt there was still the nagging fear that he might be discovered by those who would kill him. So we can only imagine what Elijah must have been thinking as the brook - the one God had led him to - began to dry out as the drought worsened. Here he was, totally dependent upon God, who had provided for him in miraculous ways, and slowly but surely the creek ran dry. Where was God? What happened?

Sometimes, even when we have seen God working on our behalf, our circumstances begin to change and we wonder if God has forgotten us. Maybe we wonder if he's really all-loving and/or all-powerful after all. We wonder where he went. Maybe Elijah had these thoughts, but God was no doubt at work building his faith. After the creek totally dried up, God again spoke to Elijah and sent him somewhere else.

A last observation is that Elijah did not leave that creek before God directed him. Even as it was obviously running dry, Elijah did not take matters into his own hands to try to fix the situation. He probably did wonder what was going on, but ultimately he trusted in the Lord to take care of him, just as he had done through the ravens to that point. We can learn a lesson from Elijah here because I suspect that many of us are prone to want to "fix" tough circumstances quickly (after all we live in the "your way right away" culture). But Elijah demonstrated uncommon patience and trust in the face of a worsening situation. How would we respond in similar trials?

Well God was not done building Elijah's faith....

Thoughts on the Word

2005-07-01T10:16:00.000-05:00

A few nice quotes on the Scriptures from Daniel Montgomery:

"The Scriptures are God's Voice: The Church is his echo." -John Donne

"We enjoy Christ only as we embrace Christ clad in his own promises." -John Calvin

"God has opened his heart to us in the Bible." -Richard Sibbes

On sin, sinners, and moral introspection

2005-06-20T22:13:00.000-05:00

There is a significant difference in thinking about sin as wrong acts versus understanding what it means to be a sinner. John Piper quotes N.P. Williams to that effect:

"The ordinary man may feel ashamed of doing wrong: but the saint, endowed with a superior refinement of moral sensibility, and keener powers of introspection, is ashamed of being the kind of man who is liable to do wrong."

-- from John Piper, When I Don't Desire God, 48.

Cutting through the early Twentieth Century prose, there's a few nuggets for us to chew on. Why would the ordinary person feel ashamed of doing wrong? For starters, let me suggest that it is increasingly the case in our culture that we don't have any idea what "shame" feels like. Often people will exult in what was once considered shameful. Today it is more common for people to think of shame as some kind of psychosis that must be overcome. In the past, however, shame was the result of a conscience pricked by doing what was commonly regarded as wrong. It was probably sometimes simply the result of a breach of public decorum, but it may also be thought of as a result of the fact that God's law is indeed written on the heart of all people.

Williams also notes that saints (believers; followers of Christ) have a heightened sense of moral responsibility because of the Holy Spirit living within them. Curiously, he also mentions "keener powers of introspection." I wonder if we tend to think of Christians today as introspective people. How often do we really ponder the condition of our own hearts? How often do we look inward in a healthy way to discern where God is moving, stretching, calling for more of us? Sure there is a kind of naval-gazing introspection that is morbid and/or self-absorbed. I don't think that's what Williams (or Piper) have in mind. But do we know what a healthy and keen sense of introspection looks like?

Do you ever feel shame because of sin? Do you ever feel shame because you have within you the ability to sin? Have you cultivated a godly sense of moral introspection, to look inside at the condition of your own heart? What do you see?

2005-06-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

Most of us are familiar with the story of Jesus visiting the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. While Martha was stressing out over the details of having so many people in their home (cooking, cleaning, who knows what else), she famously complained to Jesus about the fact that Mary was just sitting there listening to Him. Jesus, however, affirmed that Mary had chosen best. Commenting on Luke 10:42, Nancy Pearcey reminds us of the difficulty of pausing from busy lives to sit and listen to Jesus:

"Given our fallen human nature, we typically do not really sit before the Lord until our legs are knocked out from under us by crises - sorrow, loss, or injustice. It is only when stripped of our personal dreams and ambitions that we truly die to our own agendas. Union with Christ in His death and resurrection is the only path to sanctification of both heart and mind - to being conformed to the likeness of Christ."

--- Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, 26

What does it mean to sit at the feet of the Lord? How can you cultivate such an experience in the midst of the hustle and bustle of life?

Substituting Generic "God-talk" for Jesus

2005-05-23T10:54:00.000-05:00

Russell Moore, in a recent post at Touchstone Magazine's blog, describes how the use of the term "God" is an easy substitute for talking about Jesus. He says that "God" is an abstract enough term that people can load all kinds of meaning into it. He says that's why people in the culture would rather talk about vague notions of spirituality and God rather than about Jesus Christ. Such equivocation is also true among liberal Christians. But....

The gritty flesh and blood reality of Jesus of Nazareth, however, is much more
particular and much more exclusive. I think the fatal flaw of contemporary
Christianity, on both the right and the left, is what Adrio Koenig called "the
eclipse of Christ." We speak of the glory of God, and we aim for "God-centered
worship," but we forget that God's glory is tied up in what Maximus the
Confessor called "the Christic mystery," namely that God's purpose is "to sum up
all things in Christ" (Eph 1:10). Contemporary Christians may have "WWJD"
bracelets and other sorts of "Jesus junk" in our closets, but too rarely do we
hear the big picture of how our God is no generic God, but the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jesus of Nazareth.

Bonhoeffer on Prayer

2005-05-18T16:41:00.000-05:00

My last post was from Bonhoeffer, and so is this one. (His classic work Life Together is a short book that I commend to anyone). In writing about the Psalms, he draws some important lessons about Christian prayer:

Here we learn, first, what prayer means. It means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises. Christian prayer takes its stand on the solid ground of the revealed Word and has nothing to do with vague, self-seeking vagaries.

It is really easy to pray using vague, self-seeking vagaries. These prayers don't tend to be specific for one thing, and tend to be focused on what I want rather than on what God wants. Such prayers tend to treat God like a cosmic Santa Claus - "I'll be really good if you'll give me this thing I want." What does it look like to "pray according to the Word of God?" That's a good question to ponder. I suppose that it involves praying the kinds of prayers we see in Scripture. Bonhoeffer is pointing to the Psalms as a good place to start. We might also look at the model Jesus gave us in the Lord's prayers. The epistles often include challenging and wonderful prayers that can be made on behalf of yourself or others. See, for example, Ephesians 3:14-21 or Philippians 1:9-12. I suppose it also means that we anchor our prayers in revealed Truth. We often pray "in Jesus name," but don't often really ponder what that means.

These are a few thoughts off the top of my head. What do you think? What is the difference between biblical prayer and self-serving vagaries? Which do your prayers more resemble?

Coming Soon

2005-05-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

To any readers:

The Great Pursuit blog has been lagging lately, as a brief glance at the dates of the more recent posts will show. I have been really busy of late with a really intense semester of work that has not left much time for this blog. My intention, however, is to return to The Great Pursuit shortly after the semester's work is done, so don't give it up for dead just yet. I would love to see The Great Pursuit Blog grow and become useful as a devotional tool for people, so the focus will continue to be on brief examinations of biblical texts or on helpful and inspiring quotations from those ahead of us on the journey. I also hope it will become a place where others can discuss these things in the comments. So come back soon!

Thanks

Bonhoeffer on Mornings

2005-03-14T23:50:00.000-05:00

"For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 43.

Backing into heaven?

2005-02-12T12:04:00.000-05:00

I was in a discussion the other night in which a friend said that sometimes he feels like he's "backing into heaven." He was saying that we often become so concentrated on trying not to do certain things that the entire Christian life becomes an exercise in defense. Don't lust. Don't get angry. Don't lie. Don't be greedy. Don't.... etc.

And of course all of this is true. We are commanded to get rid of sin in our lives, to avoid certain behaviors and mindsets. Yet, very often, these negative commands are closely linked with positive commands. For example, in Ephesians 4:22-24, Paul writes:

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

Sometimes we become so focused on putting off the old self that we don't think at all about putting on the new. (By the way, this is a big part of the problem with legalism.) Obviously we have to put off sin, but it is so helpful to think about it in terms of pursuing something greater. Look again at the theme verse for this site, 2 Timothy 2:22: "Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of pure heart."

So, for example, instead of being so consumed with not being angry, focus positively on showing kindness to others. Instead of being consumed by not being prideful, cultivate humility in your life. You get the picture. The image in Ephesians 4 is of changing clothes - taking off one coat and replacing it with another. If you just take off the one without putting on the other, you're only halfway there, and you're going to get cold! So, no we don't back our way into heaven - we press forward by the grace of God in Christ, pursuing the abundant life in His presence.

How do you approach sin in your life? How do you respond to sinful patterns and behaviors?
In what specific way do you need to focus on taking off the old self and putting on the new? How will you pursue it?

John Owen on holiness

2005-02-05T13:45:00.000-05:00

"Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and realizing of the gospel in our souls."

-- John Owen, the great Puritan pastor/theologian

Solitude

2005-02-03T09:25:00.000-05:00

"Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life... We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do no set aside some time to be with God and listen to him."

-- Henri Nouwen, quoted by Ruth Barton in Invitation to Solitude and Silence.

We often try to squeeze prayer into our day wherever it will fit - in the car, in the shower, on the go. And there's nothing wrong with praying like that. But that kind of prayer will not take us into the depths of relationship we desire with God. We need time alone with Him. In a famous passage from the Gospel of Mark (1:35), we read of Jesus:

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."

What is your habit of prayer? Do you find it desirable to spend time in solitary prayer? Why or why not?

Tozer on Sin

2005-01-27T10:03:00.000-05:00

Aiden W Tozer wrote often about the need to press beyond an intellectual understanding of Christian theology and doctrine into a real experience of and relationship with God. In his day he saw an emphasis on such intellectual understanding at the expense of really knowing God. I think that in many circles the situation has reversed itself in our day - we crave experience and minimize theology and doctrine. This is equally dangerous. One place this problem manifests itself is in our response to sin. When we don't grasp the personal nature of our relationship with God it is easy to think of sin in merely legal terms, something that must be tolerated or dealt with according to certain procedures. Likewise, if our focus is entirely on a content-less experience of Christ, we may not have a high view of the holiness of God and of His wrath against sin. We may simply say, "Sorry," as if we just bumped into Him in the hall. Sin is very serious business. Tozer reminds us, however,

"Regardless of what men may say, we are still face to face with the sin question, and no man who has neglected to deal with his sins can even remotely understand the question of the deity of Christ and the mystery of the Godhead. Until the sinner has been brought before the bar of God and convicted of personal guilt, any notions he may have about Christ are bound to be academic, nothing more, and wholly unrelated to life. One deadly result of our failure to face up to the fact of sin is the widespread moral insensitivity which characterizes Christians these days... The nerve has died in the Christian conscience and the sin that would have driven our Christian fathers to their knees in a paroxysm of repentance leaves us almost untouched."

How do you think about sin? How do you respond to sin in your own life? Do you take it as seriously as God does? What would change if we did?

Steadfast Peace

2005-01-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

A long time ago I memorized Isaiah 26:3, which says,

"You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in You."

But I think verse 4 helps develop the idea further:

"Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD , the LORD , is the Rock eternal."

Perfect peace is certainly a desirable state, and here we learn it is promised to those whose mind is steadfast. But not just steadfast in any particular direction - steadfast in its focus and trust in the Lord, who is the Rock eternal. The whole image of the Rock is oriented towards the fact that the Lord is forever to forever unchanging; He is the very definition of constant and steadfast. When our minds and hearts are constant in our faith and trust in Him, no matter the circumstances, we can find peace that, in the words of Philippians 4, "defies all understanding."

The English Standard Version (a newer translation that I heartily recommend) translates verse 3 above with a slightly different emphasis that draws greater attention to the point we're discussing:

"You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.

Is your mind "stayed" on Christ? Do you trust Him in all circumstances; in His unchanging grace and goodness?

James 1:6-8

2005-01-18T10:33:00.000-05:00

Continuing our stroll through James 1 we happen upon some verses that may at first trouble us a bit, 1:6-8:

6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double minded man, unstable in all he does.

Now should we take this the way many Pentecostal TV preachers and "faith-healers" might preach it - that if we just believe enough and have enough faith we can get what we want and, conversely, when our prayers aren't answered (or we don't get the answer we want) it is because we don't pray hard enough or exercise enough faith? NO! Those who preach it that way are dead wrong! As if God's will was dependent upon some subjective level of faith or prayers on the part of finite men.

The key to this passage is, I think, in the concept of being double minded. The double minded person is one who has two agendas, who is pulled in two directions, and tries to serve two masters. On the one hand he wants God's favor and may have genuine desire to live for God. On the other hand, he wants to please this world and serve himself or something other than God. Thus he has two minds, figuratively speaking. He is unstable because he is constantly aiming for two targets at once. The slightest bump in the road could send him teetering way off course. When hard times come (and remember the context is suffering, read the first few verses), he doesn't know how to respond because he doesn't know where his heart really is. Thus he is blown about by the waves.

God demands our whole hearts and lives. Jesus taught that we cannot serve two masters; it just isn't possible. To ask God for wisdom (or whatever) without being fully committed to His agenda in our lives (and in the universe as a whole) is to want to have our cake and eat it too. We want His blessing and the assurance of His will, but we also want to manage our own agenda and pursue our own selfish and/or worldly desires. This cannot be.

Are you double minded? Does your life, your prayers, your speech, etc, indicate that you have one mind or two? To be sure we all struggle with sin in our lives and struggle with what Paul calls the "old self" and its sinful desires. But does the overall flow of your life show a single-minded follower of Christ, or an unstable, double minded person?

Heart and Minds, response to a question

2005-01-12T15:05:00.000-05:00

Recently a reader posted this question:
"I have a question: what do you mean by "Is your faith limited to thinking, or does it go beyond that?" I've always been a bit perplexed concerning the relationship between head & heart, knowing & believing. I'm not a very intellectual person (It's a bit harsh to say "I'm not smart"), and at times I really wonder how much I need to know and understand. What is the "....beyond that"? "

This is a great question, and one that many of us struggle with, so I decided it deserved a new entry rather than a comment. And it's a question that the book of James, which I've been writing about recently, helps us answer.

When we think about knowledge versus belief, head versus heart, I think that most of us tend towards one extreme or the other. Some of us tend to intellectualize our faith such that it becomes exclusively a matter of proper theology and doctrine. Others of us tend to simply rely on the experience of faith and worship, and don't want to get bogged down with deeper issues of Christian thought. Most of us could pretty easily identify which extreme we tend toward.

When I asked "Is your faith limited to thinking, or does it go beyond that?" I was echoing the challenge Piper issued in that quotation to those of us who tend to intellectualize our faith. James tells us that "faith without works is dead." Faith in Christ calls us to action, and James, throughout his epistle, shows us particular examples of such action. Paul often talks about pursuing holiness, being conformed to the image of Christ, of putting off the old self and putting on the new. True faith in Christ should inevitably lead to action, and it should also engage our whole beings - emotions and, yes, intellect.

Yet we must be sure that action (or experience, which is what many cling to in our culture) without the foundation of knowledge is misguided and even deceptive. I wrote about a month ago on contentment, pointing out that our faith does rest on content - the truth of the gospel and of Scripture. We should strive and work to understand it, to grow in grace and knowledge, as Scripture exhorts us to do.

So, my long winded answer to the question is that we must continue to grow in our understanding of Scripture. The mind is like the body, capable of being stretched and exercised, and we are called to love the Lord our God with all of our minds. But not just our minds - but also our hearts, etc. I hope this helps. I'll pick back up with James tomorrow.

James 1:5

2005-01-11T21:30:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago we took a look at James 1:2-4, and discussed the call to take joy in all kinds of trials - and discovered that even in our struggles God is at work. He redeems our struggles for good. They have purpose in our lives - good purposes! It is interesting that this exhortation is immediately followed by a promise of wisdom to those who ask.

James 1:5 reads: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." Doesn't that just make so much sense? When we are faced with trials and struggles we often don't know how to respond, what to do, where to go, what to say, etc. By definition, struggles are tough and they present us with a challenge that must be met and overcome - but how? James, inspired by the Holy Spirit, understands this particular need, and assures us that God will meet it if we would but ask him.

Again, perhaps its overly obvious, but it bears mentioning at this point that we must ask for wisdom in our struggles. One of the marvelous results of struggles and trials is that they (should) bring us to a greater awareness of our need for God and to prayer. We must ask God for wisdom. There is no harm in seeking godly counsel from others; indeed this is something that is quite healthy. Yet if we do not first turn to the Source of all wisdom (not to mention strength, grace, comfort...), we are just being plain silly. He knows you and your circumstances better than anyone (including you). Not only that, but he knows what tomorrow will bring.

Do you struggle to think of God's generosity when times are tough? Yet James points us to this characteristic of God in his discussion of trials and troubles. When it comes to wisdom He "gives generously to all." And isn't wisdom what we really need anyway? Not the wisdom of this world, but the wisdom of God. The apostle Paul describes that wisdom in Ephesians 1: "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe."

Who do you look to in trouble? Do you earnestly seek wisdom from God, do you ask that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you might find an eternal perspective on trials?

Flannery O'Connor on fighting for joy

2005-01-10T22:03:00.000-05:00

"Always you renounce a lesser good for a greater; the opposite is what sin is.... The struggle to submit... is not a struggle to submit but a struggle to accept and with passion. I mean, possibly, with joy. Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy - fully armed too as it's a highly dangerous quest."

Flannery O'Connor, quoted by John Piper.

Piper on Desires

2005-01-09T15:24:00.000-05:00

John Piper, in When I Don't Desire God, writes of the importance of fighting for joy:

"God is glorified in his people by the way we experience him, not merely by the way we think about him. Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires."

If you've read much Piper, you know how vitally important it is to him that we think properly about God and understand the marvelous depths of truth about Him and in Him. Yet if that's as far as we go, then we haven't really understood. Does your theology and understanding lead to greater desire for God? Is your faith limited to thinking, or does it go beyond that?

James 1:2-4

2005-01-07T13:24:00.000-05:00

After his initial greeting, James the brother of Jesus writes in his epistle,

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Do you find it interesting that he talks about trials "of many kinds?" I'm glad he put it that way. Often we in the West forget that many believers suffer serious persecution for their faith, including imprisonment, ostracization, even death. Yet sometimes when we do remember the plights of others we tend to discount our own troubles. Now, to be sure, they pale in comparison and keeping things in proper perspective is to be commended, but our trials, nevertheless, are real. How do you respond to trials in your life? With complaining? Despondancy? Do you withdraw and hide? Or do you rejoice?

What a marvelous thing it is to know that, in Christ, our trials are meaningful! They have a purpose. James elucidates that purpose for us - they develop perseverance and maturity, they help conform us to the image of Christ. For example, often our trials will remind us that we are dependent upon God and not on ourselves, they will remind us that our hope is in Christ rather than in this world, they will cause us to be in circumstances where we will see God act as only He can. So we learn to persevere in Him.

Those who do not embrace a worldview centered on Christ must suffer doubly because, for them, there is no higher purpose or reason for suffering. The universe is a coldly random place, this life is devoid of any real and lasting transcendent meaning. Many Eastern religions hold that to live is to suffer. The best one can hope for is release from the cycle of birth/suffering/death/reincarnation, release from conscoius existence.

In our trials and suffering, no matter what form they take, believers in Christ thus have an opportunity to present a powerful witness of hope to the reality of the Gospel and the God whose purposes cannot be thwarted.

Providence

2005-01-06T08:35:00.000-05:00

The concept of divine providence is one that has been much debated in some circles in recent years, and in light of recent events, bears some reflection. Bruce Ware, in his book, God's Greater Glory, defines divine providence thus:

"God continually oversees and directs all things pertaining to the created order in such a way that 1) he preserves in existence and provides for the creation he has brought into being, and 2) he governs and reigns supremely over the entirety of the whole of creation in order to fulfill all of his intended purposes in it and through it."
(page 17)

God knows your circumstances (and those of every person). He knows the past, the present, and the future in full. He preserves His creation (including you and me) and fulfills His good purposes. The universe is NOT random, and stuff doesn't just happen. God has a plan and a purpose in all things that ultimately cannot be thwarted. This is what we have in mind when we say "God reigns."

Nativity Means War!

2004-12-21T17:28:00.000-05:00

That peaceful, placid manger scene is really nice, but it tends to obscure one crucial fact from our minds during our celebration of the advent: The birth of Christ was a declaration of war!

Mary seems to have recognized this fact - look at the song she sings after learning she would bear the Messiah (found in Luke 1):

Mary's Song

⁴⁶And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord
⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,
⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me–
holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. ⁵²He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble. ⁵³He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful ⁵⁵to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.”

Scattering the proud and bringing down the haughty - those are fighting words! I won't quote it in entirety here, but for further proof of the perspective that sees the birth of Christ as an act of war, read Revelation 12.

In Christ God is declaring war on sin and on the Satan. He is, in the most fundamental way, acting as a freedom fighter - launching an attack through which he will save a people from enslavement to sin. God was (is!) fighting on our behalf. The angels that sang to the shepherds were announcing this divine invasion. The King, born that night in the City of David (himself a man of war) , would grow up to be the Savior of the world, the Shepherd King. (Did you think "the heavenly host" was just a choir?) So while we may sing "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger," and while it may have been a serene evening, the heavens and earth resounded with the news that the King had finally come to make all things new.

Spurgeon on Heart-rending

2004-12-18T16:55:00.000-05:00

A thought from Charles Spurgeon via Alistair Begg:

"The tearing of garments and other outward signs of religious emotion are easily displayed and are frequently hypocritical; but to feel true repentance is far more difficult, and consequently far less common. Men will pay attention to the most minute ceremonial regulations—for those things are pleasing to the flesh. But true faith is too humbling, too heart-searching, too thorough for the tastes of people of the flesh; they prefer something more ostentatious, flimsy, and worldly. Outward observances are temporarily comfortable; eye and ear are pleased; self-conceit is fed, and self-righteousness is puffed up: But they are ultimately delusive, for in the face of death, and at the day of judgment, the soul needs something more substantial than ceremonies and rituals to lean upon. Apart from vital godliness all religion is utterly vain; offered without a sincere heart, every form of worship is a solemn sham and an impudent mockery of the majesty of heaven. Heart-rending is divinely worked and solemnly felt."

Francis Schaeffer on What Matters

2004-12-14T17:58:00.000-05:00

"Here is what really matters - to love the Lord our God, to love His Son, and to know Him personally as our Savior. And if we love Him, to do the things that please Him; to simultaneously show forth his character of love and holiness in our lives; to be faithful to His truth; to walk day by day with the living Christ; to live a life of prayer...

"But it does not stop here... We must acknowledge and then act upon the fact that if Christ is our Savior, He is also our Lord in all of life. He is our Lord not just in religious things and not just in cultural things such as the arts and music, but in our intellectual lives, and in business, and in our relation to society, and in our attitude toward the moral breakdown of our culture."

-- Francis Schaeffer, in his final book, as quoted by Lane Dennis in the introduction to Reflections on Francis Schaeffer.

Piper on Desiring God

2004-12-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

I began reading through John Piper's new book, When I Don't Desire God, and not surprisingly I highly recommend it. In this book Piper seeks to help readers fight for joy when their desire for God seems to wane.

"It is helpful to be reminded that our desires - no matter how small - have been awakened by the spiritual taste we once had of the presence of God. They are an evidence that we have tasted."

Piper goes on to tell us that desire for God will never abate, but that in the age to come it will be ever fulfilled and heightened as we experience God (and each other) unencumbered by sins and that which distracts us from exulting in Christ:

"In the age to come, desire for more of God will never be experienced with impatience or ingratitude or frustration. All desire in the age to come will be the sweetest anticipation, rooted ever more deeply in the enlarging memories of joy and in the ever gathering pleasures of gratitude." (both quote from page 28).

What is your desire of/for God? What do you do when other desires compete with what you know is good and right and perfect; when the concerns of the world choke out pleasure in and desire for God?

Content-ment

2004-12-11T16:43:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about the concept of contentment. In Philippians 4, Paul tells us that he has "learned to be content in whatever the circumstances," whether he is in need or has plenty. In fact, this is the context in which he more famously says in verse 13, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

What comes to your mind when you think of contentment? I think for many of us we tend to think of vague feelings of rest and relaxation, a nebulous feeling of warmth. Yet Paul says he can be content in need.

What occurred to me recently may be obvious to you - namely, the similarity between the adjective "content" (con-tent, as in "I'm feeling content") and the noun "content" (cahn-tent, as in the "content of a book"). Contentment necessarily requires content. In other words it isn't really a nebulous feeling, but directly depends on our understanding. That's partly why Paul says he "learned to be content." He came to recognize the truth that Christ is sufficient for all things, that his hope is in eternity, and that God is sovereign and works all things for good for those who love him.

When we really understand and meditate on the "content" of the Gospel we will learn to be content irregardless of our circumstances. We will, as Paul says in Colossians 3, set our minds and hearts on things above, not on earthly things. True contentment is rooted in our understanding of and relationship with the God who Is, who does not change, and has pledged His steadfast love to us in Christ. That is why Paul shares his confidence with the Philippians in verse 19: "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

Are you content? Where is your hope?

The Longest Psalm

2004-12-10T15:57:00.000-05:00

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, and its subject is the goodness of God's Law. I want to draw some attention to one section, verses 57-64. In particular, look at verse 64:

"The earth is filled with your love, O LORD ;
teach me your decrees."

It's interesting to me that the writer's response to the vastness of God's love is a desire to obey His Word. In our day it is not uncommon to see the idea of love equated with unbridled libertarian freedom, even in Christian teaching and practice. What I mean is that we think that love automatically leads to permissiveness, to the belief that I can do anything I want to. Yet here the Psalmist, upon reflecting on the love of God, years to obey Him.

Of course it makes sense that you want to please one whom you love and who loves you. Jesus says just as much in John 14:21: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

Love for God, then, is not just a warm and fuzzy feeling we get from time to time when the music is just right. Real love for God produces an earnest desire to live in such a way as to please Him in every way. The proper response to God's unfathomable love for us is obedience to Him. As the Psalmist expresses, this begins with a desire for His Word.

How do you respond to God's love? Does your life reflect God's love in this way?

Tozer on "Temple Cleansing"

2004-12-08T10:40:00.000-05:00

AW Tozer was a well-known preacher and writer who died in the 1950s (I think... anyway it was decades ago). It is amazing how prescient his writing is regarding the Church (and us as individual believers) in our day:

Temple Cleansers

"The critical need in this hour of the church's history is not what it is so often said to be: soul-winning, foreign missions, miracles. These are effects, not causes. The most pressing need just now is that we who call ourselves Christians should frankly acknowledge to each other and to God that we are astray; that we should confess that we are worldly, that our moral standards are low and we are spiritually cold. We need to cease our multitude of unscriptural activities, stop running when and where we have not been sent, and cease trying to sanctify carnal projects by professing that we are promoting them in the name of the Lord and for the glory of God. We need to return to the message, methods and objectives of the New Testament. We need boldly and indignantly to cleanse the temple of all that sell cattle in the holy place, and overthrow the tables of the money-changers. And this must be done in our own lives first and then in the churches of which we are a part."

Worth repeating

2004-12-02T20:49:00.000-05:00

A well known quote, but one that bears reflection:

"He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

--Jim Elliot

Jesus praying

2004-11-29T15:34:00.000-05:00

Mark 1:35 has been on my mind lately:
"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. "

Whenever I've heard this verse discussed or preached in the past, it has always seemed to be that the emphasis is on the fact that Jesus got up "very early," so early that it was still dark. Viewed in context, we should be even more impressed to see that Jesus had had a busy evening of ministry the night before, healing and teaching. That Jesus, who was in very nature God, was drawn to prayer should certainly motivate those of us who are most certainly not God to likewise seek our Father in prayer.

Lately, however, I've been reminded of the importance of finding a "solitary place" for prayer. There is something significant about pulling away from the world and its myriad distractions to focus our minds and hearts on God, if only for a brief time. Even good things can choke our prayer times. Jesus needed to withdraw to get away from the pull and pressures of the people He was serving. How much more do I need to get away from other people, from work, from study, from whatever else demands (and deserves) my time and attention.

I have found that I'm more disciplined in prayer when I have a time and a place set aside for that purpose. (Not mentioned here, but equally important in my life, is accountability in the discipline). What about you? Do you have a time for prayer? A place where you can be removed from the normal activities of your day?

Not just a baby

2004-11-27T10:28:00.000-05:00

I wrote recently about how commercialization and political correctness have obscured the fact that Christmas is about the fact that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, that he came to bring salvation to men. We forget about the Baby in the manger, whom sheperds, wise men, and even angels came to see.

With that said, there is danger for us in focusing so much on the Baby Jesus. That danger is, specifically, that we will only think of Him as a baby. A baby is harmless, cute, manageable. But this baby was different - this baby was God. Paul tells us who He was in Colossians 1:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

Key to Colossians

2004-10-18T16:34:00.000-05:00

Our pastor has been preaching through the book of Colossians for some time now and he's done a great job. Most recently he has been preaching on the family (chapter 3), which involves some pretty significant challenges to our culture. Naturally enough, there have been many questions and much discussion about counter-cultural picture of the home described there. Last night, Daniel (the pastor) wanted to pause from the verse by verse exposition in order to read the book as a whole, thus giving us an opportunity to step back and see the letter as a whole, and how this teaching fits into the bigger picture.

It occurred to me when Daniel read Colossians, and was reinforced in my own reading of the text this morning, that the linchpin to the whole discussion seems to be 3:1-4. The whole book is a call to change our perspective, our way of thinking, our worldview, from the sinful pattern of this world to the eternal pattern of Christ. We have changed our primary citizenship from the City of Man to the Kingdom of God, which has broken upon this world in a preliminary way in the Church and awaits full realization at the end. I think this is signaled in 1:13: "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves..."

So all the discussion about marriage, the roles of men and women, the ideals of parenting, etc. are aspects of this more general call to change our perspective, to put off old patterns and put on new ones. I think that's the bigger picture, of which this is a smaller part - though a difficult one for many. It seems to me that one result is that is that we are defining our terms or thinking in a conceptual framework that is still anchored in the Old Way. So words like submission necessarily imply inferiority and headship implies arrogance and misuse of power. We have to re-orient our minds on the pattern of Christ in order to understand to really get this kingdom teaching.

Kierkegaard's Wound

2004-10-13T18:23:00.000-05:00

One of the interesting paradoxes about pursuing holiness is that the more one advances in holiness, the more one feels the weight of sin and dependence upon God. People who are not serious about moral and righteous living often have a high esteem of themselves and of their virtue, while often those who really are more virtuous feel less so, because they are more aware of and more sensitive to the depths of sin in the heart of every person.

In a book I'm reading for a seminar, C Stephen Evans says: "Kierkegaard speaks of this split between what one is and what one knows one should be as a wound, and says that it is the mark of the truly moral or ethical person to 'keep the wound open.' and not bandage it with superficial palliatives."

In other words, it is painful to recognize sin within us - it hurts. And we live in a culture that wants to psychologize and medicate any kind of pain (even good pain) and convince us that we are really OK and good - it wants to kill the vestiges of sin by telling us there is no such thing. So we are taught to put band-aids on this wound, and to kill the pain through endless rounds of business and distractions that never give us time to rest and feel the pain of our sinfulness.

So Kierkegaard (who primarily wrote against the shallow superficiality of cultural Christianity in his day) is wise to warn us to "keep the wound open." That way we are wary of pride and constantly reminded of our dependence upon God's grace.

Calvin on knowledge of God

2004-10-08T12:55:00.000-05:00

A thought for the day:

Like Augustine before him, John Calvin talked about the pursuit of happiness as the beginning point for the knowledge of God. Calvin, however, kind of went through the back door in saying we need to first come to grips with our deep unhappiness, with the ruin wrought by sin in our lives and in the world. Calvin:

Each of us must, then, be so stung by the consciousness of his own
unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God. Thus, from the feeling
of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, and - what is more - depravity
and corruption, we recognize that the true light of wisdom, sound virtue, full
abundance of every good, and purity of righteousness rest in the Lord alone. To
this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of
God; and we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become
displeased with ourselves.

In other words, we must first deal with the reality that things are not the way they are supposed to be; that something deep and fundamental is wrong about ourselves. We must be honest with ourselves. In so doing, we can begin to find God as He redeems and makes whole what is broken.

Quoted in David Clyde Jones: Biblical Christian Ethics.

One Thing

2004-09-28T09:40:00.000-05:00

Now I'm not one of these guys that thinks that the culture embodies truth or that we should listen for the voice of the Spirit in culture. With that disclaimer, there's a popular song on the radio that I think echoes a Scriptural thought that is worth meditating on.

The song is called "One Thing" and the band is called Finger Eleven. Here's a snippet:

If I traded it all,
If I gave it all away for one thing;
Just for one thing

If i sorted it out,
If i knew all about just one thing
Wouldn't that be something?

When I heard that song it made me think of Paul's words to the Philippians (3:7-8):

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I
consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ...

It also brings to mind this short parable Jesus taught in Matthew 13:44-46:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found
it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought
that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine
pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he
had and bought it.

The idea of giving away everything you have is challenging. What would make somebody do that? Take the guy in Jesus' story that finds a pearl so valuable that he literally sells everything he owns to take hold of that one thing. He obviously cherished it more than anything - more than everything else put together. Paul expresses this more clearly in gladly losing everything for Christ - that one thing.

So now let's pose Finger Eleven's question to ourselves. If I gave it all away for one thing, wouldn't that be something? What one thing in your life would you trade everything for? I doubt God is calling you to literally give away everything for one thing. But would you? What does this principle look like in your life?

Thoughts from Ephesians 1

2004-09-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

Verse 3-6:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in
Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he
chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and
blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus
Christ, according to he purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious
grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

I was reading this and began thinking about the idea of prayer and blessings. We often desire that God would bless us and pray that he would do so. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it occurrs to me that what we often mean when we think about that is material blessings, that God would give us more of the things of this world. More income or stability, more safety, better grades, more comfortable or desirable work, etc.

How often we forget about spiritual blessings. Of course this is kind of ironic because, as we see in this passage, God has already given us "every spiritual blessing" in Christ. He chose us for adoption into His family through Christ, He forgave our rebellion and sin in Christ, and in verse 11 He has given us an amazing and eternal inheritance as members of His household.

We are blessed in the ways that really matter. I wonder why we so easily get distracted with desiring and focusing on material blessings. Of course there's nothing wrong with any of those things, but how often do we get distracted by them to the point where our joy disappears without them? Perhaps that's why, in Colossians 3, we're commanded to focus on things above rather than on earthly things. But of course that's easier said then done.

New Approach

2004-09-24T09:51:00.000-05:00

I was too ambitious in hoping to make daily posts to this blog. I don't want to drop it, though, so there will be occassional musings related to Scripture and maybe related to developing issues of the Christian worldview. It would be cool to interact with readers in the comments section.

1 Timothy 1

2004-08-05T09:14:00.000-05:00

I was struck by something in reading 1 Timothy - here are verses 3 through 7:

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

What is the goal of Paul's teaching? Look again at verse 5 - the goal is love. I wonder if sometimes we lose this focus, this end goal in our teaching, studying, and learning. Sometimes it seems thatwe begin to pursue knowledge for its own sake, as if the key to spiritual living was in inforamtion transfer.

Don't get me wrong, I think knowledge and learning and study are very important. I have invested years of my life in these pursuits and don't regret it. But what is the goal when we study Scripture? Is it simply to know more, or to be transformed? Knowledge is important, but actions are probably more important.

Elsewhere, Paul says:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

The Bible is full of admonitions for us to act out our faith, not simply learn about it. How do you apply what you learn from Scripture?

The Treasures in Christ

2004-07-31T08:53:00.000-05:00

In writing to the Colossians 2, Paul warns them of the dangers of putting their hope and desires in anything besides Christ:

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and
united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding,
in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are
hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one
may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

We live in a day in which we are bombarded with consumer marketing. Sometimes it seems that everything is marketing, every voice and everything you see is oriented towards promoting some product, and by trying to birth desire in you to find fulfillment and satisfaction in that product and/or lifestyle. (So the message is also trying to rob you of contentment...)

Along with the constant marketing, the world is also constantly trying to give us an accompanying philosophy of life. Sometimes it can be dressed up and sound intriguing and appealing. In this passage, these are described as "fine-sounding arguments" for truth and reality. They look good, feel good, but ultimately ring untrue. Why?

Because of what we read above, that in Christ "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." ALL of them. All wisdom. All knowledge. Sometimes people claiming to follow Christ come out promoting a message of Christ AND. Christ AND money, or Christ AND zen, or Christ AND anything else. Sometimes it sounds wise or deep or cool. But it is hollow and false, because in Christ ALL the treasures and wisdom are found. There is no deeper mystery than that. Anything else is just a clever-sounding argument that deceives - it leads you away from Christ.

Where do you seek for wisdom? Where do you seek for meaning? Where do you seek for satisfaction? Look only to Christ and you will find it.

Break

2004-07-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

The Great Pursuit Blog should return around July 26.

See you then

Deuteronomy 29:29

2004-07-15T15:27:00.000-05:00

Deuteronomy 29 concludes with a very interesting verse that is both humbling and helpful:

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

This is a humbling truth because it reminds us in no uncertain terms that we do not and can not know everything. There are things that will remain hidden from us. This can be difficult to bear. It is difficult for those who just like to have a neat and clear explanation for everything. It is perhaps most difficult for those who grapple with suffering and tragedy.

Yet this is also a helpful and hopeful truth. And it is never more helpful and hopeful than in the face of suffering. We may never know why something happened, but we know that God does in fact know. These things "belong to God." They are not the result of chaos or chance in the universe, but are part of a grand mysterious plan in the mind of God that is currently invisible to us.

We cannot know everything, but we can know the One who does know. We can pursue what He has graciously revealed to us, and trust Him with the rest.

Tozer on Prayer

2004-07-10T10:18:00.000-05:00

AW Tozer is such a rich source of wisdom:

"Juliana of Norwich at the beginning of her wonderful Christian life addressed a prayer to her Savior and then added the wise words, "'And this I ask without any condition.'"

"It was that last sentence that gave power to the rest of her prayer and brought the answer in mighty poured-out floods as the years went by. God could answer her prayer because He did not need to mince matters with her. She did not hedge her prayers around with disclaimers and provisos. She wanted certain things from God at any cost. God, as it were, had only to send her the bill. She would pay any price to get what she conceived to be good for her soul and glorifying to her Heavenly Father. That is real praying.

"Many of us spoil our prayers by being too "dainty" with the Lord (as some old writer called it). We ask with the tacit understanding that the cost must be reasonable. After all, there is a limit to everything, and we do not want to be fanatical! We want the answer to be something added, not something taken away. We want nothing radical or out of the ordinary, and we want God to accommodate us at our convenience. Thus we attach a rider to every prayer, making it impossible for God to answer it."

From: We Travel an Appointed Way Chapter #17

More Psalm 138

2004-07-09T16:18:00.000-05:00

Today we may as well finish Psalm 138 by concentrating on verse 8:

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD , endures forever-
do not abandon the works of your hands.

This verse is a great source of encouragement and confidence when we are facing times of struggle and/or when we are in need of guidance. It's amazing to just get your mind around the fact that God does have a purpose for you in Christ. You are not an accident! The naturalists would have you believe that you are basically a really cool amalgamation of biological mass that happened to come together as a result of chance.... which would leave you without any hope or any purpose at all. God says here that He has a purpose for you. (Read the very next Psalm to learn more about your origin!).

Not only does God have a purpose for you, it WILL come to pass. Nothing can stop it. It doesn't rely on what you do or don't do (though clearly we're called to pursue Him in obedience). Ultimately it rests on the good grace of God.... His love which "endures forever." Romans 8 reminds us that NOTHING can separate us from God's love in Christ.

The amazing thing about Psalm 138 is that it seems to be written in a time of turmoil, confusion, struggle, uncertainty. In the midst of these trials the writer worships God (see yesterday) and concludes on a note of assurance that God's purpose will be worked out. When times are rough and you face uncertainty and struggle, do you worship God confidently and trust that His purposes are at work? Do you thank Him for being a God who redeems the hard times and uses them to fulfill His greater purposes in your life? Do you meditate on the fact that YOU are the work of HIS hands?!?

It seems that a key concept here is perspective. It takes an eternal perspective to rest in God and trust Him to work when the situation is bleak. If you are focused only on today, only on what you can see right in front of you, it is easy to miss and easy to doubt. When we fix our eyes on God's eternal purpose, we can say respond to trials by trusting in God's love and purpose. We can have confidence that, in Christ, He has promised not to abandon the work of His hands.

What is exalted

2004-07-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

Today let's take just a moment to reflect on the opening of Psalm 138:

I will praise you, O LORD , with all my heart;
before the "gods" I will sing your praise.
I will bow down toward your holy temple
and will praise your name
for your love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.

Today I'm struck by the idea that God has exalted above all things His Name and His Word. That's what matters most to God, that is what He calls us to similarly treasure and uphold in our lives. Why? Because everything else pales in comparison to the holiness and grandeur and glory of God.

What have you exalted above all things in your life? Relationships, money, sports, arts, school, family, career.... all good things, but all things that can often distract us from what is best. How do you know what is exalted most in your life? My suggestion is that we measure this not necessarily by what we say, but by what we do, where our thoughts dwell, that kind of thing. The Psalmist says he will praise God, even in the presence of idols, that he will bow down towards God. (Bowing down, as you know, represents humility and submission.... we don't like to submit.)

Do you exalt God above all things? Do you exalt His Word by giving time to it and submitting to it? Do you exalt God in your life even in the midst of distractions and even opposition? Do you exalt His name in your relationships, at work, at school, in your family? What would it look like if we did?

The Blind Man's Response

2004-07-07T14:18:00.000-05:00

Let's just finish out Mark 10. We just saw the selfish motives that James and John had in their approach to Jesus. The very next passage describes another man's encounter with and request of Jesus:

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."
"Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

The blind man got it. James and John, who had been traveling with Jesus and hearing him teach for a long time, missed it. He shows us a model of prayer and response.

First, he calls out to Jesus, recognizing His lordship (the reference to "Son of David.") Along similar lines, he simply is asking for mercy (recognizing he is in need of mercy). And he is persistent, even when he is mocked and rebuked by others (no doubt more "religious" and knowledgeable than he.)

Do your prayers reflect this same sense of dependence? Where James and John had acted in a presumptious manner, this guy humbled himself. He didn't ask for prominence; just for mercy. And that's exactly what he got. Are you persistent in prayer?

Finally, look at what happens at the end. Jesus tells him to go on his way. Which way does he go? He follows Jesus.

Continuing in Mark 10

2004-07-06T13:29:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we saw the selfish nature of James and John's request to Jesus - that they be given the places of prominence in the kingdom. We pondered the fact that, many times, our own prayers reflect the same kind of selfish agenda.

The point of the story, however, is to show that such an attitude is completely upside down. For one thing, it totally disrupts the sense of community that was shared among Jesus' followers. They were indignant - for good reason! A rivalry was brewing, so Jesus turned the tables:

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

There, in a nutshell, is one of the keys to kingdom living. James and John were looking out for themselves and trying to build their own kingdoms. I tend to think that the indignation of the other disciples was similarly motivated. Jesus, however, says that the essence of His kingdom is in serving others. It is all about self-denial, not self-aggrandizement. And obviously Jesus set the tone. He said these things in the midst of His journey to Jerusalem, where He knew a gruesome death awaited Him.

If the disciples can so totally miss this point, I think it is safe to say that we can too. Are you building your own kingdom or participating in Christ's kingdom? Do you serve others or try to manipulate them to your own end?

Today, let's examine our hearts, our prayers, and our actions and see which kingdom we're building.

On Prayer and Mark 10

2004-07-05T18:54:00.000-05:00

The content of your prayers probably reveals what's in your heart. In Mark 10:35, James and John ask Jesus a very telling question:

"Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."

Reading that verse, I was struck with how much that probably resembles our own attitudes to prayer. We may be more flowery in our language or pious in our tone, but if we cut to the core of what our prayers are about, I wonder how often they boil down to, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."

Obviously, what they ask is all about them:

"'What do you want me to do for you?'" he asked. They replied, "'Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.'"

By this point, James and John had been with Jesus day in and day out for a very long time. They were not only disciples, but part of his inner circle. And yet they just didn't get it. They were still looking out for themselves. They wanted to use Jesus to get their own glory. It's crazy, but perhaps we should look in the mirror and see if we aren't doing the exact same thing.

Do you treat God like your own cosmic vending machine? Punch in the goodie you want and wait for it to pop out. Do you treat God like Santa Claus? I want one of these, one of these, etc. These are self-centered prayers. It's all so clear and obvious as we read about James and John in this conversation with Jesus. Their request seems so selfish and audacious. But dig inside your own heart a little bit, listen to your prayers, and see how much of that attitude is present. It's all about ME.

Let's not be self-centered pray-ers.

Tozer on Worship

2004-07-03T17:59:00.000-05:00

Today I want to leave a thought from AW Tozer, one of the great preachers of the first half of the twentieth century:

"It remains only to be said that worship as we have described it here is almost (though, thank God, not quite) a forgotten art in our day. For whatever we can say of modern Bible-believing Christians, it can hardly be denied that we are not remarkable for our spirit of worship. The gospel as preached by good men in our times may save souls, but it does not create worshipers.

Our meetings are characterized by cordiality, humor, affability, zeal and high animal spirits; but hardly anywhere do we find gatherings marked by the overshadowing presence of God. We manage to get along on correct doctrine, fast tunes, pleasing personalities and religious
amusements.

How few, how pitifully few are the enraptured souls who languish for love of Christ...."

The Beginning

2004-07-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

Welcome to The Great Pursuit. Our intention here is to journey together in a common pursuit of God, the greatest calling and pursuit of this life. That's what we're made for, to know God and enjoy relationship with Him. Our ability to know God is destroyed by our rebellion against Him, by our choosing to walk our own way instead of His way. That relationship is re-established when we surrender to the call to follow Christ as our Master, to walk in His way in relationship with Him.

Having reconnected with our Creator through Christ, life becomes a journey deeper into the riches of God's grace. The Bible describes this journey in terms of taking off the old self and putting on the new, created to be like Christ in true righteousness and holiness.(See Ephesians 4:20-24).

The Great Pursuit Blog exists to help you do just that. Our desire is to serve as a resource and aid in your own pursuit of God, in your daily struggle to kill sin and walk in truth and life. The content will largely consist of meditations on Scripture and godly living, with occassional writing on specific aspects of the Christian life and worldview.

Please feel free to post comments and questions and responses.