"Love Covered with Flesh"

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' Incarnation. The Puritan, Thomas Watson, described the Incarnation this way,

"Christ incarnate is nothing but love covered with flesh." A Body of Divinity, (Source)

God in Christ has become a man.

This is indeed astonishing, yet for some the idea is blasphemy. The Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, states,

"Believe, then, in God and His apostles, and do not say, '[God is] a trinity'. Desist [from this assertion] for your own good. God is but One God; utterly remote is He, in His glory, from having a son: unto Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth; and none is as worthy of trust as God." (4:171)

For Islam God would never cover Himself with human flesh. He is far remote. He is transcendently above such a thing. He would never have a Son.

Christianity asserts something quite different: God is not remote--He is near. He is indeed transcendent and glorious--and yet wonderfully immanent. He does have a Son--born to a actual human parents. This truth does not tamper with the massive glory of God, but rather displays it.

Jesus is "love covered with flesh." In Christ God has come to reconcile the world to Himself. He is not far off waiting for sinful humanity to come to Him. God has come to sinful humanity. Worship is not hindered, but born in the hearts of those who accept this historic event.

Worship is not only the adoration of being caught up in the transcendence of God, but amazement that God has humbled Himself in the person of Jesus Christ to serve sinful men. God is not looking for men to give gifts to Him, but for men to receive the gift of Himself. God has been made a man to make men sons of God

Christmas is indeed a great reminder of God's great love for the world.

It is not, as the Qu'ran says, "for your own good" to say that God does not have a Son. It is precisely the opposite. It is "for your own good" that God sent His Son to live in this suffering world and suffer on behalf of sinful humanity. God has made a way to Himself through the person and work of His Son. Do not reject this. Rejecting Jesus--"love covered with flesh"--is rejecting God.

You may not believe that God loves you or even what the love of God is. But God has spoken in His Son. The person and work of Jesus Christ is the proof of the divine love of God.

Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin, died on the cross, and came back to life three days later that people like you may know and love God. As the apostle John wrote,

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).

God's love to the world is on display in the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus. He has loved sinners and died in the place of all sinners who would trust His work on their behalf.

Love covered with flesh has covered sin. Reflect on this love, this Christmas.

When was Jesus Born? Does it Matter?

December 25th is on its way, and the celebration of Jesus' birthday is fast approaching.

In light of this, last night I was asked if Jesus' birthday was actually December 25th, and it prompted some thought. Was it? And does it even matter if it was or if it wasn't?

It most likely is not. No one knows when Jesus' was born for certain. New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg writes,

"Christians in the Western part of the Roman empire began to celebrate 'Christmas' on December 25, a holiday for worshiping Sol Invictus ('the unconquerable sun'...); in the East, on January 6. Both dates also coincided at times, in the ancient calendars with the winter solstice. So it is doubtful if these dates reflect any information about the actual day on which Jesus was born. Some historians point to the fact that shepherds would have watched their flocks at night (Luke 2:8) primarily in the springtime when most lambs were born, so perhaps Jesus was born in the spring. Still, we simply have no way of being sure." (Jesus and the Gospels, 188)

From the sounds of it, Jesus was probably born in the spring and in the evening, which means a couple things:

1. We most likely not only got the day wrong, but the entire season messed up.
2. All you weird people out there that open presents on Christmas Eve have ruined the fun of waking up Christmas morning, but you do get props for probably being more biblical ;)

What about that darn pagan holiday? Certain Christians get concerned about celebrating the holiday because the current day commemorated was a day that was dedicated to the worship of a false god.

Really this is nothing to get worked up about. As Paul, one of the first Christian missionaries showed, since the day that you engage in publish worship on isn't that big of a deal, the day that one celebrates Jesus' birth on shouldn't be either. Days in themselves aren't special.

The real problem isn't the fact that an idol was worshiped at some point in the past on December 25th, but that for some Christmas Day (and maybe Easter) is the only day that one gives any sort of recognition to the person of Jesus Christ. Paul's point is that every single day is about celebrating the gift of God's Son to a sinful world in the person of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't matter when Jesus' birthday was. Just enjoy the celebration, the presents and hot cider, and remember to point to the historical reality of the incarnate Son of God and Savior of the world being born. Immanuel--God with us--actually entered into human history. The Creator of the world came into the world to save sinners. God is not distant. God came as man to dwell with man.

This historical truth is what is worth heralding every day, and celebrating the wonder of the Incarnation on one particular cold day in December is just fine. Even if we humans got it wrong.

The central matter is not so much putting Christ back into Christmas, as conservative talk show hosts have demanded, but putting Jesus in his central place every single day--as the only object of worship in your heart.

The Center of the Christian Religion

Twentieth century Presbyterian J. Gresham Machen writes the following on the center of Christianity, and is a great launching-pad for Thanksgiving weekend:

"Christ, according to Paul, will do everything or nothing; if righteousness is in slightest measure obtained by our obedience to the law, then Christ died in vain; if we trust in slightest measure in our own good works, then we have turned away from grace and Christ profiteth us nothing.

"To the world, that may seem to be a hard saying; but it is not a hard saying to the man who has ever been at the foot of the Cross; it is not a hard saying to the man who has first known the bondage of the law, the weary effort at establishment of his own righteousnes in the presence of God, and then has come to understand, as in a wonderous flash of light, that Christ has done all, and that the weary bondage was vain....--that man knows in his heart of hearts that the Apostle is right, that to trust Christ only for part is not to trust Him at all, that our own righteousness is insufficient even to bridge the smallest gap which might be left open between us and God, that there is no hope unless we can safely say to the Lord Jesus, without shadow of reservation, without shadow of self-trust: 'Thou must save, and Thou alone.'

That is the centre of the Christian religion--the absolutely underserved and sovereign grace of God, saving sinful men by the gift of Christ upon the cross. Condemnation comes by merit; salvation comes only by grace: condemnation is earned by man; salvation is given by God....

The reception of that gift is faith: faith means not doing something but receiving something; it means not the earning of a reward but the acceptance of a gift....Faith, in other words, is not active but passive; and to say that we are saved by faith is to say that we do not save ourselves but are saved only by the one in whom our faith is reposed; the faith of man presupposes the sovereign grace of God....

Thus the beginning of the Christian life is not an achievement but an experience; the soul of the man who is saved is not, at the moment of salvation, active, but passive; salvation is the work of God and God alone."

What is Faith?, 193-197. (Emphasis mine).

I am not only thankful for the gracious gift of of Jesus' death and resurrection on my behalf, but the gracious gift of faith that God has given me. Thanks be to God for the Good News of Jesus.

Should Christian's Punish Their Kids? Lloyd-Jones Answers

Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives the following answer via my excerpts from his sermon "Discipline and the Modern Mind":

"[In the modern outlook there is] a general opposition to the whole idea of justice, and of righteousness, of wrath and punishment. These terms are all abominated and are hated. In general the modern man dislikes them radically....What makes the position so serious is that this attitude is generally presented in terms of Christianity, and especially in terms of New Testament teaching, and this, in particular, as contrasted with the Old Testament teaching....They claim that these modern ideas concerning discipline are based upon the New Testament, and that they have the true New Testament conception of God. They are therefore not interested, they say, in justice and righteousness, wrath and punishment. Nothing matters but love and understanding....

Summing it up we can say that the basic idea underlying this view is that human nature is essentially good....What is needed therefore is to draw out, to encourage, and to develop the child's personality. So there must be no repelling, no control; there must be no punishing, and no administering of correction because that tends to be repressive....

We are told that you must not punish; you must appeal to children, show them the wrong, set them a good example, and then reward them positively. We must grant, of course, that there is a measure of truth in all this, but the danger is that men usually go from one extreme to the other, and by today the whole notion of punishment has largely vanished....

All this, I repeat, is based upon the notion that human nature is essentially good; so you have only to appeal to it. You will never need to resort to punishment. And if you do punish at all, it must never be corporal, and it must never be punitive; if there is any sort of punishment, we are told, it must be reformatory....

This, we are told, is the approach of Christ toward these matters....

I do not hesitate to assert that the biblical and Christian attitude towards these two extremes is that they are both wrong; that the Victorian position is wrong, and that the modern position is wrong, even more so....

Any position which says 'law only' or which says 'grace only' is of necessity wrong, because in the Bible you have 'law' and 'grace'....It is a tragic fallacy to think that when you have grace there is no element of law at all, but that it is a kind of license. That is a contradiction of the biblical teaching....We are not 'without law' as Christians, says Paul, 'but we are under law to Christ' (1 Corinthians 9:21)....

...the modern teaching--and this is one of the serious things concerning it--displays a complete misunderstanding of the biblical doctrine of God. This is the desperately serious thing....the notion that God is One who can wink at sin and pretend that He has not seen it, and cover it over and forgive every offender, and never feel any wrath, and never punish is, I say, not only to deny the Old Testament, but to deny the New Testament also. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who spoke about the place 'where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'....[God] is a holy God, a just God, a righteous God, who has made it plain that He will punish sin and transgression, and who has done so in many times. He punished His own children of Israel for their transgressions; He sent them into captivity...The Apostle Paul teaches explicitly in the Epistle to the Romans (1:8-32), that God punishes sin, and does so sometimes by abandoning the world to its own evil and iniquity....

The modern notions that man is fundamentally and essentially good, and that, if only the good is drawn out, everything will be right, and that you have only to make an appeal, and never punish...are the consequence of a rejection of the biblical doctrine of sin. The simple answer to them is that man's nature is evil, that as the result of the Fall he is altogether evil....

...there is also a complete misunderstanding of the doctrine of the atonement and of redemption....The biblical doctrine of the atonement tells us that, on the Cross of Calvary, the just and holy and righteous God was punishing sin in the person of His own Son, that He might 'be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus' (Romans 3:25 & 26)....The justice and the righteousness of God demanded this, the wrath of God upon sin insisted upon this. But this is where we see truly the love of God, that it is so great that the wrath is poured out even on His own Son in all His innocence, in order that you and I might be rescued and delivered....

There is no purpose in making appeals in terms of sweet reasonableness to men who are evil and governed by lust and passion.

The biblical teaching is that such people are to be punished, and are to feel their punishment. If they will not listen to the law, then the sanctions of the law are to be applied. God, when He gave His Law, accompanied it by the sanctions which were to be applied following transgression. When the Law was broken the sanctions were carried out....The biblical teaching is that because man is a fallen creature, because he is a sinner and a rebel, because he is a creature of lust and passion, and governed by them, he must be forcibly restrained, he must be kept in order. The principle applies alike to children and to adults who are guilty of misdemeanor and crime and a departure from the law of the land and from the Law of God....The biblical teaching, founded upon the character and being of God, and recognizing that man is in a state of sin, requires that law must be enforced, in order that men may be brought to see and to know God; next that they might be brought into grace; so that finally they may be brought to own and obey the higher law under which they delight in pleasing God and honouring and keeping His holy commandments."

Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home & Work, 262-275

The Difference Between Christianity and Other Religions

Herman Bavnick:

"Buddha and Confucius, Zarathustra and Mohammed are no doubt the first confessors of the religions which have been founded by them, but they are not the content of these religions, and they stand in an external and to a certain extent accidental relation to them. Their religions could remain the same even though their names were forgotten, or their persons replaced by others....Christianity stands to the person of Christ in a wholly different relation from that of the religions of the peoples to the persons by whom they have been founded. Jesus is not the first confessor of the religion which bears His name. He was not the first and most eminent Christian, but He holds in Christianity a wholly different place....Christ is Christianity itself; He stands not outside of it but in its centre; without His name, person and work, there is no Christianinty left. In a word, Christ does not point out the way to salvation; He is the Way itself."

Source: Quoted by B.B. Warfield, "Christless Christianity", Christology and Criticism, Volume III, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1932, reprinted 2003), 367

They Have Healed the Brokenness of My People Superficially

The prophet Jeremiah:

"Everyone is greedy for gain,
And from the prophet even to the priest
Everyone deals falsely.
They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially,
Saying , 'Peace, peace,'
But there is no peace." (6:13-14)

Any brokenness that is healed without the person and work of Jesus Christ is a superficial healing. The answer to human brokenness--be it in marriage, sexuality, child-rearing, friendships, drugs, etc.--is always Jesus. To withhold Jesus as the answer, or to make Jesus peripheral and something else central, even if that something else is a good thing, even a biblical thing, is to heal God's people superficially.

Pastors--priests and prophets--who leave out Jesus or who just tag him on the end of sermons and books and counseling sessions like a bumper-sticker are superficial pastors healing God's people with superficiality, which is no healing at all.

This breaks God's heart. God sent his Son to heal the brokenness of His people. Jesus is sufficient for every level of human brokenness.

Klosterman, Likability, and God's Love

Chuck Klosterman on the problem of making it your personal aim to be liked:

"...being likable is the only thing that seems to matter to anyone. You see this everywhere. Parents don't act like parents anymore, because they mainly want their kids to like them; they want their kids to see them as their two best friends. This is why modern kids act like animals. At some point, people confused being liked with being good. Those two qualities are not the same. It's important to be a good person; it's not important to be a well-liked person." IV, 275

To make your personal mission being liked by the world, your neighbors, your kids, your wife, your church, your friends, whomever it may be is setting yourself up for a life of frustration and depression. You will end up living your life based upon others expectations and your discernment on what is right and wrong will fly out the window as the litmus test of everything becomes what will and will not make this or that person happy. The goal of life is not be liked.

The compulsion to be liked by your spouse, by your boss, by your friend, by the people in your church is actually the fear of man. Your desire for likability is actually a revelation of your own fear. Humans were only made to fear one person--God. When your value becomes defined by what other people think of you, you will not be "a good person" nor a "godly person", but a narcissistic person who needs the praise of others for self-fulfillment. This will always disappoint.

Fearing God is what you were made for. His opinion of you is the only thing that matters and fulfills. His value-system does not fluctuate by your likability. He does not like, he loves. The measure of his love is seen in the crucifixion of his Son. The event where God became man to die for sinners, who show their sin by valuing the opinion of humanity more than the opinion of the Creator of humanity.

The love of God is not the like of God. God did not die to affirm you, but to save you. His love is never based on your good actions, but always based on the perfect work of Jesus. For those who trust Christ, God's likeness of you never fluctuates because it is wrapped up in his eternal love for Jesus.

God loves those who trust Him with the same eternal love that He loves His own Son. Knowing and experiencing this love is human wholeness. It frees you from the desire to be liked, and imparts the experience of being loved by the Creator of the universe forever.

It's not important to be well liked, but it is eternally important to be in the favor of God. This divine favor is offered to all who trust Jesus, and those who do will never come into condemnation but live forever in the unwavering and abundant love of God. This reality frees you and heals you from the cancerous desire of being liked.

I doubt Klosterman would agree with me here, but it is the only remedy to the problem that he sees. People act like animals not just because their not liked, but because as the image of God they do not trust the revelation of the exact image of God in Jesus Christ. In doing so their own humanity becomes inverted and the idolatry of likability is traded for the glory of God.

Exercise Naked

I've begun reading Disciplines of a Godly Man with a couple buddies, and came across the author's fleshing out of the Greek word "train" in 1 Ti. 4:7's phrase "train yourself to be godly":

"The word 'train' comes from the word gumnos, which means 'naked' and is the word from which we derive our English word gymnasium. In traditional Greek athletic contests, the participants competed without clothing, so as not to be encumbered. Therefore, the word 'train' originally carried the literal meaning, 'to exercise naked.'" (R. Kent Hughes, 14)

Now this doesn't mean those of you who've always wanted to go to the gym naked now can and call it biblical, but it does say something quite insightful for the discipline of godliness. The author explains:

"Just as the athletes discarded everything and competed gumnos-free from everything that could possibly burden them--so we must get rid of every encumbrance, every association, habit, and tendency which impedes godliness. If we are to excel, we must strip ourselves to a lean, spiritual nakedness." (14)

If you reduce Christianity to "I can do this" and/or "I can't do that", you've just done that, you've reduced Christianity to something that it is not. Christianity is running the race in such a way as to win the prize, not just to barely finish the race.

Spiritual nudity is a good thing--"put off" all that impedes and "put on" all that helps you win and finish well.

Seven Characteristics of False Teachers

Seven characteristics of false teachers from an old Puritan named Thomas Brooks:

1. False teachers are men-pleasers.
2. False teachers are notable in casting dirt, scorn, and reproach upon the persons, names, and credits of Christ's most faithful ambassadors.
3. False teachers are venters of the devices and visions of their own head and hearts.
4. False teachers easily pass over the great and weighty things both of law and gospel, and stand most upon those things that are of the least moment an concernment to the souls of men.
5. False teachers cover and colour their dangerous principles and soul-impostures with very fair speeches and plausible pretences, with high notions and golden expressions.
6. False teachers strive more to win over men to their opinions, than to better them in their conversations.
7. False teachers make merchandise of their followers.

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 230-233

Christ is Triumphant

Eugene Peterson regarding Revelation 6:2's rider on the white horse:

"Biblical Christians do not sentimentalize Christ. There is a fierceness and militancy here. The world is in conflict; our Christ is the first on the field of battle. High issues are decided every day. Christ is not only worshiped each Sunday, he is triumphant each week day. That, of course, is not the way the newspapers report it; that is not the way our own emotions respond to it; but that is what the preached revelation proclaims." Reversed Thunder, 75.

Spiritual Warfare in Marriage - Review of "God, Marriage and Family"

Over summer vacation in July I read Dr. Andreas Kostenberger's God, Marriage, and Family. I highly recommend it for every marriage, especially for husbands. It is a bit academic and scholarly, but you can always skip the more academic interactions, and read Kostenberger's conclusions.

Kostenberger provides a full theological framework for marriage and family in light of the Old and New Testament. He covers issues such as singleness, children, male headship, birth control, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, etc. Obviously, those include some hot-button topics in the culture and in the church, and Kostenberger deals with them carefully and biblically, radically focusing upon God and the Gospel without losing cultural relevance.

One of the best sections that I found was his highlighting of the theme of spiritual warfare in marriage. Now, Kostenberger isn't talking bustin' a cap in a demon with a quick exorcism of your spouse via speaking in tongues. What does he mean then? He writes,

"Because marriage and the family are not merely a human convention or cultural custom but a divine institution, it should be expected that Satan, who seeks to rob God of his glory, would attack marriage...Spiritual warfare has been a part of married life and childrearing from the beginning. The foundational biblical narrative in Genesis 3 recounts how the tempter, Satan, prevailed upon the first woman to violate God's commandment and how her husband followed her into sin. Ever since, marriage has resembled more a struggle for control and conscious and unconscious efforts at mutual manipulation than an Edenic paradise. The first known instance of sibling rivalry issued in Cain killing his brother Abel out of envy and jealousy. The rest of the Old Testament chronicles a whole series of ways in which sin has affected marital and family relationships since the Fall" (163).

A bit later Kostenberger asks, "What is the key element in spiritual warfare?" (165). He answers, "According to the Scripture, it is human minds" (165). He goes on:

"'But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ' (2 Cor. 11:3, NIV)...Just as Satan reasoned with Eve as to why she should disobey God in the Garden, it is people's thought life that is the arena in which our spiritual battles are won or lost. For this reason believers ought to saturate their minds with scriptural teachings regarding their new position in Christ." (165)

What key areas does Satan use to attack marriage? Kostenberger lists three specific things: "sexual temptation", "unresolved anger", and "sowing the seeds of marital conflict through the husbands insensitivity to his wife" (166). How then does one fight this battle, these areas of Satanic attack: first, "an awareness of the fact that there is a battle" (167); second, "know one's spiritual enemy. This enemy is not one's marriage partner. Nor is it one's children. It is Satan the enemy of our souls..." (167); third, "spiritual battles must be fought by the use of proper weapons" (168). The proper weapons include the list that Paul gives at the end of Ephesians.

The spiritual armor of Ephesians isn't to be taken out of context (Eph. 6:10-20). It's right next to the practical issue of marriage (Eph. 5:21-33). The armor of God is meant to be used in marriage for the good of your spouse. It's not just a neat passage to memorize and do a Sunday School class on, its one that you need to utilize in your own marriage. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer are marriage weapons. Not weapons to attack your spouse with, but use for the benefit of your spouse, your kids, and the glory of God.

Read Kostenberger's book, not just because he has an awesome last name, but because it will serve your marriage and family well and incite the worship of God in your heart.

Your Favorite Sport? Wisdom or Wickedness

Proverbs 10:23:

"Doing wickedness is like sport to a fool,
And so is wisdom to a man of understanding."

This verse challenged me to ask the question: What is my favorite sport? Wisdom or wickedness. Just as I derive pleasure from sports, I should derive pleasure from living and thinking wisely and practically with godly insight.

What if men tossed back ideas on how to live wisely with the same pleasure and passion that accompanies memorizing stats, naming every member of their favorite team, setting up fantasy leagues, predicting how every NFL team will finish this year, and committing to watching countless sporting events on TV .

The same pleasure that comes from your favorite sport should come from walking in wisdom.

Of course sports is a good thing not a bad thing, but even the best things can become desperately wicked. Are you choosing wisdom or wickedness? What sport are best at?

Spurgeon Answers: What is Faith?

Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, answers:

"Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation. That is one way of describing what faith is.

Let me try again. Faith is believing that Christ is what He is said to be, and that He will do what He has promised to do, and then to expect this of Him."

"All of Grace", The C.H. Spurgeon Collection, (AGES Digital Software, version 1.02), 33

Points for Married Men from Proverbs 5 for Sexual Purity

1. Listen to God's words and do them. Read your Bible and live what it says. (5:1, 7)

2. Know God is watching you. They eyes of the Lord watch your every action and your every thought. Knowing God's "eyes" are on you keeps your eyes from wandering. (5:21)

3. Be satisfied with your wife's breasts . Eyeing other women's breasts kills satisfaction in your spouse. Taking pleasure in your spouse kills the desire for lust and adultery. (5:19)

4. Stay away from the temptress. Don't "go near" her or where she lives. Flee emotional affiars with other women. Don't click-to pornographic web-sites. Be faithful in the small things. (5:8)

5. Recognize that the allure of a women that is not your wife is like a mousetrap. The cheese looks good: those luscious lips drip honey, but the mouth tastes of wormwood and poison. Adultery and lust is attractive, it appears to be sweet and satisfying, and offers the fulfillment of fantasy, yet in reality is death. (5:3-4).

6. Know that physical adultery and lustful addiction is suicide and murder. It will kill you, and it will kill your family, your friends, your time, your relationships, your mind, your ministry, and your emotions. (5:4-5)

7. Pursue Jesus more than purity. Pursuing purity often turns into another law that you make for yourself. Instead cultivate affection for Jesus, and a longing to see God. As Jesus makes clear, it is the "pure in heart that see God" (Mt. 5:8). (Yes, I cheated that's not from Proverbs 5, but from Jesus who embodies the wisdom that Proverbs speaks). A passion for God squelches impurity more than a passion for purity produces purity. You don't need to make another vow, make a new law, or go to another conference. You need to repent, and pursue Jesus.

Acknowlege Your Nakedness

John Stott:

"But we cannot escape the embarrassment of standing stark naked before God. It is no use our trying to cover up like Adam and Eve in the garden. Our attempts at self-justification are as ineffectual as their fig-leaves. We have to acknowledge our nakedness, see the divine substitute wearing our filthy rags instead of us, and allow him to clothe us with his own righteousness." The Cross of Christ, 162-163

We are all naked under our clothes; literally, as well as, the metaphorical self-righteousness we put on everyday. The only way to have your spiritual shame covered is not to make-up your own clothes, but take the clothes of another. God in Jesus Christ has taken away the naked shame of sinners who trust Him, and clothed them with the perfect righteousness of Christ. Admit your naked and helpless before God and by faith throw yourself on Jesus Christ, and not only will you will never be ashamed but you can stand unashamed before God as His friend, because the clothes you now wear are the clothes of God's Son.

Love & Joy in God & the Gospel the Test of Excelling Spiritually

Lest one think I was implying raw self-effort in my last blog, excelling spiritually is not moralistic or ascetic or pragmatic. The test of true spiritual growth--excelling spiritually--is Gospel-motivation that springs from love.

In reading AW Pink today, I came across this excellent, and pertinent quote:

"If love be healthy then my greatest joy will be in making [God] my chief Object and supreme End, but if I seek to do so only from a sense of obligation and duty, then my love has cooled." Spiritual Growth, 185.

One could appear to be excelling spiritually, and yet really be spiritually dead. The Thessalonians, of course, were not spiritually dead because their growth sprang from love. Spiritual growth is impossible if one's love is cold and heart is hard.

Many times I measure my spiritual growth by duties fulfilled and the spiritual obligations I've met. It looks good on paper. Its nice for the spiritual resume. Yet, it may be driven by self-love and not love for God, His Gospel, and neighbors.

The measure of your spiritual growth may not be by fulfilling your Bible-reading plan this year, but by your sense of affection for God and for others and the joy experienced in it.

Spiritual excellence may not be what you think it is. Excelling spiritually is a divine miracle evidenced by love and joy.

Test yourselves, most likely guilt sets in, and then saturate yourself with the Gospel that covers your sinful failures--your not measuring up--and fall in love with Jesus.

The Sunday School song isn't wrong, but it is radically deficient: "Read your Bible pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow..."

Instead: "Read your Bible, pray every day, and when you do and if you don't, preach the Gospel to yourself and love Jesus the Substitute for your sin and the Source of your growth."

Excel More

Read some provoking Scripture this morning in the book of 1 Thessalonians...

Paul says that the Thessalonians were walking and pleasing God (4:1), and were loving one another (4:9-10). He is recognizing the evidences of grace in the believer's lives of the Thessalonian community. However, he calls them in both areas to "excel still more" (4:1, 10).

You're doing great--keep doing it. You're growing--keep growing. You're walk is pleasing to God--seek to please Him more. You're loving other believers--seek to love them even more.

Are you feeling pretty good about the way things are going in your life? Are you encouraged by the fact that you've grown? Wonderful! However, don't get passive in your spiritual growth.

Get some holy discontent and continue on and "excel more".

The Importance of a Right Doctrine of Saving Faith

The American Puritan Revivalist, Jonathan Edwards:

"Therefore, doubtless, saving faith, whatsoever that be, is the grand condition of an interest in Christ, and his great salvation. And if it be so, of what vast importance is it, that we should have right notions of what it is! For certainly no one thing whatever, nothing in religion, is of greater importance, that that which teaches us how we may be saved. If salvation itself be of infinite importance, then it is of equal importance that we do not mistake the terms of it; and if this be of infinite importance, then that doctrine that teaches that to be the term, that is not so, but very diverse, is infinitely dangerous. What we want a revelation from God for chiefly, is to teach us the terms of his favour, and the way of salvation. And that which the revelation God has given us in the Bible teaches to be the way, is faith in Christ. Therefore, that doctrine that teaches something else to be saving faith, that is eseentially another thing, teaches entirely another way of salvation...Therefore he who teaches something else to be that faith, which is essentially diverse from what the gospel of Christ teaches, he teaches another gospel; and he does in effect teach another religion than the religion of Christ...Such doctrine as I have opposed, must be destructive and damning, i.e. directly tending to man's damnation; leading such as embrace it, to rest in something essentially different from the grand condition of salvation. And therefore I would advise you, as you would have any regard to your own soul's salvation, and to the salvation of your posterity, to beware of such doctrine as this." (emphasis added).

"Remarks on Important Theological Controversies", from The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2, 595-596.

The Gospel is Good News not Good Advice

Late 1800's professor and pastor, James Denney:

"The proclamation of the finished work of Christ is not good advice; it is good news, good news that means immeasurable joy for those who welcome it, irreparable loss for those who reject it and infinite and urgent responsibility for all. The man who has this to preach has a gospel about which he ought to be in dead earnest. Just because there is nothing which concentrates in the same way the judgment and the mercy of God, there is nothing which has the same power to evoke seriousness and passion in the preacher." The Death of Christ, 173.

An Encouragement to Vomit More Often

The Puritan, Thomas Brooks:

"Repentance is the vomit of the soul; and of all physic, none so difficult and hard as it is to vomit." Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 63.

I need to vomit more often. So do you.

Truth Necessitates Application

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

"...a real and true understanding of the truth always does lead to application. So that if a man does not apply the truth, his real trouble is that he has not understood it. For if a man is gripped by a truth and sees what it means and what it implies, of necessity he must apply it."

"How and Why the Christian Puts on the New Man", Darkness and Light, 201.

The Loud Cries and Tears of Jesus

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence." Heb. 5:7

We do not have records of Jesus laughing, but we do so of his tears. This is a comfort to me. Not because Jesus never laughed, I am confident He did, and did so with deep belly-laughs, but there is something significant about the tears of Jesus. It shows the world that God is with us in suffering.

Jesus cried. He wept hard with prayer and supplication. Life was not lived casually by Jesus. He knew the stakes. He was aware of the cross, his own death. His mission inspired an intercession accompanied by weeping.

I cannot imagine what it must of looked like to see Jesus cry.

I was talking to my sister(-in-law) yesterday talking about how good it made her feel to see her dad cry. I can relate. Not because it's enjoyable to see one hurt and be saddened, but because there is something so human, something so connected with the reality of the state-of-the-world exhibited when one close to you cries.

Jesus wept. What a sight that must have been: God's weighty tears. In Jesus, God wept for the world. God is not a deist. God is not detached from suffering humanity. He became human and entered into the curse of the world, indeed became a curse for all who would trust Him so that the curse would be removed.

Therefore no tears in heaven.

Seeing tears in this world is good because it is a human emotion that expresses that something is wrong with the world. There will be no tears in heaven because what's wrong will be under the feet of Jesus and all will be made right. On this earth tears are healthy and right. In the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells tears will be wiped away forever.

God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. This means God revealed Himself by death and suffering.

God is good. One of the greatest proofs of that is He did not exempt Himself from the suffering of humanity. God is sovereign. One of the greatest proofs of this is that He willingly laid down his life. His sovereignty is on display by letting the Romans and Jews, yea, you and I, put Him to death. Sovereign humility usurped sovereign earthly power. He did this in order to defeat death. He destroyed the enemy by using the very weapon of the enemy and triumphing over in resurrection. The Father heard the loud cries and tears of His Son's prayers and answered in resurrection so that Jesus "became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him" (Heb. 5:9). Embedded in the tears of Jesus was this joy set before him. The horrid enemy of death, the enemy of everyman, was defeated by the God-man who died. The defeat is proven by the resurrection of Jesus.

God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, is not aloof. He weeps with those who weep. He is near to the brokenhearted. He died for the sins of the world. This is good news for sad and suffering people. For all who trust Jesus, His death is the pathway to eternal salvation.

The loud cries and tears of Jesus create a louder hope.

Hammer the New Man into Yourself

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

"The whole matter of putting on the new man is in essence the application of truth to ourselves. It is the most important thing that one can ever discover in the Christian life. The real secret of Christian living is to discover the art of talking to yourself. We must talk to ourselves, we must preach to ourselves, and we must take truth and apply it to ourselves, and keep on doing so. That is the putting on of the new man. We have to hammer away at ourselves until we have really convinced ourselves. In other words, this is not something that you wait for passively. If you wait until you feel like the new man it will probably never happen. We must be active in this. There is no greater snare in the Christian life than to entertain the idea of waiting until we feel better, and of then putting on the new man. On the contrary, we have got to go on telling ourselves the new man is already in us. In his Epistle to the Romans the Apostle Paul says, 'Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God' (6:11)." Darkness and Light, An Exposition of Ephesians 4:17-5:17, 191-192

Strengthened by the Might of the Glory of God

Paul writes in Colossians 1:11:

"May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy,"

Paul prays that the believers would be strengthened with power in accord with the glorious might of God. It's easy to pass over quickly the prayers of Paul because the sentences seem to go on and on, but one when one reads to quickly one misses the punch. This phrase, "according to his glorious might," indeed carries a seriously weighty wallop.

Douglas Moo comments:

"Paul further emphasizes the extent of God's empowering, as well as making explicit its source, with the next description: according to his glorious might...The translations are almost unanimous in using the adjective "glorious" to qualify this divine might...But one might wonder if this interpretation gives appropriate value to the very significant word "glory." This word occurs frequently in Scripture as a very basic characterization of God, signifying his "weighty," overwhelming presence. The English "glorious" is too easily cast loose from this God-focused meaning (as when we speak of a "glorious sunset"). It might, then, be preferable to take the genitive as possessive: the strength that God supplies his people is in accordance with (and is the expression of) his own intrinsic glory." The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 98.

Paul isn't praying for some casual power to be at work within the believer. He knows that "glory" is no word to be just tossed around. He is asking God to supply his people with such weighty and glorious power that accords with God's own glory. Paul the vigilant proclaimer of God's glory is not afraid to pray that an expression of that glory be imparted to the sons of God.

Paul wants the Colossian believers to know He is praying for them to be empowered by God Himself. In fact, we learn later in Colossians, that God indwells the believer: "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (1:27). God does not take His own glory lightly (because He does everything for His glory) and the empowerment God gives is energized by His own divine might.

May you be strengthened with the might carrying the force and weight of the very glory of God.

A Remedy for Boredom with God

AW Tozer, speaking to students of Wheaton College, in 1954:

"The great doctrines of the Bible are not timely. When a man comes up to me and says, “Mr. Tozer, that was a timely sermon,” I take it as a doubtful compliment, for the truths of God are not timely (that is, geared into time). The truths of God are eternal. They rise above time, and they were as true when Adam was in the garden as they will be true in the millennium or in the ages that follow.

There are certain great truths: God, God’s creating us, our response and relation to God, human sin, human redemption, the incarnation, the indwelling Christ, the union of the soul with the Triune God. All these are great, eternal truths, true under all kinds of conditions, among all people everywhere and in every age in the world, no less true and no more true because they are absolutely true. Indeed, we will never be where we should be until these become to us the source of thrill. The entertainment of great spiritual concepts will lift us like a song until, brooding upon the great ideas of the Triune God and all He means to us, will thrill us like a stimulant from within.

We will never be where we ought to be until we go back to those old paths and learn to find God. We will cease to be bored with God. We will cease to make His redemptive plan merely an escape from hell and put the thought of hell and all that way behind us in the dim disappearing past. Instead, we will center our affections upon God and Christ, where Christ sits at the right hand of God, and become specialists and experts in the realm of the spiritual life.

It is amazing how little outside stimulus we need if we have that inward stimulus. It is amazing how much God will meet our needs. It will not be God and something else. It will be God everything. And then, wisely, we will gear into our times, and we will gear into the gadgets around us, and we will gear into the needs of others, and in a moment we will become as practical as overshoes and as alert to the needs of the world around us as the most keen sociologist. Nevertheless, at the same time our great anchor will be God above. And if at any moment we should be cut off from our environment so that we did not have the stimulation and comfort of what the world provides, we would still be perfectly restful, for God would be enough."

"Is God Enough", Tozer Speaks to Students, in Quick Verse 6.0, Works of AW Tozer (CDROM)

Faith Embraces the Favor - Institutes of Christian Religion Part 10

John Calvin:

"We shall now have a full definition of faith if we say that it is a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favour toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit." The Institutes of Christian Religion, 475.

Faith sees and receives God's favor for sinners in Christ. Faith is not simply understanding that the doctrines of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus happened. Demons understand that cognitively. It is embracing that what God has done in Christ is for you--for me. This kind of faith, in Calvin's words, "cannot possibly be disjoined from pious affection" (476). Faith informs the mind of the truth of what God has done in Jesus and affects the heart with the reality of God's undeserved favor and love.

Daily Sinning Cleansed by One Act of Mercy

Late 19th century Professor James Denney:

"There is one other characteristic of the atonement which ought to be reflected in gospel preaching as determined by it, and which may for want of a better word be described as its finality. Christ died for sins once for all, and the man who believes in Christ and in His death has his relation to God once for all determined not by sin but by the atonement. The sin for which a Christian has daily to seek forgiveness is not sin which annuls his acceptance with God and casts him back into the position of one who has never had the assurance of the pardoning mercy of God in Christ. On the contrary, the assurance ought to be the permanent element in his life. The forgiveness of sins has to be received again and again as sin emerges into act. But when the soul closes with Christ the propitiation, the assurance of God's love is laid at the foundation of its being once for all...

There will inevitably be in the Christian life experiences of sinning and of being forgiven, of falling and of being renewed. But the grace which forgives and restores is not some new thing, nor is it conditioned in some new way. It is not dependent upon penitence, or works, or merit of ours. It is the same absolutely free grace which meets us at the cross. From first to last, it is the blood of Jesus, God's Son, which cleanses from sin. The daily pardon, the daily cleansing, are but the daily virtue of that one all-embracing act of mercy in which, while we were yet sinners, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son."

The Death of Christ, 162

Twelve Proverbs from Spurgeon, Part 2

"Make yourself an ass, and everyone will lay his sack on you."

"Man proposes, but God disposes."

"Never cackle till your egg is laid."

"One may say too much even upon the best subject."

"Paddle your own canoe."

"Praise invigorates the wise, but intoxicates the foolish."

"Pray to God, but keep the hammer going."

"Read men as well as books."

"Relatives are best with a wall between them."

"Ugly women, finely dressed, are the uglier for it."

"Zeal is fit only for wise men, but is mostly found in fools. The more's the pity if so it be."

And finally for the sake of Mother's Day:

"Never trust a man who will speak ill of his mother."

Salt Cellars, Volume 2, from the Charles H. Spurgeon Library, AGES Software

*These proverbs were compiled by Charles Spurgeon and not necessarily original to him.

Twelve Proverbs from Spurgeon

"A bad husband cannot be a good man
He fails in the tenderest duties, and must be bad at heart."

"A good husband makes a good wife."

"A fool is never wrong."

"Be low in humility but high in hope."

"Be not everybody's dog that whistles you."

"Be not first to quarrel, nor last to make it up."

"Do the duty that lies nearest thee."

"Even among apostles there was a Judas."

"Fore-think, though you cannot foretell."

"Good fences make good neighbors."

"Good things are often hard."

"If an ass goes a-traveling, he won't come home a horse."

Salt Cellars, Volume 1, from The Charles H. Spurgeon Library, AGES Software.

*These proverbs were compiled by Charles Spurgeon and not necessarily original to him.

Are You a Son of Zebedee or a Son of Timaeus?

Are you a son of Zebedee or a son of Timaeus?

Notice the contrast of response to Jesus' question, in Mark 10, "What do you want me to do for you?" James and John, the sons of Zebedee, respond, "Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory." Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, replies, "Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!"

The sons of Zebedee desire position, power, authority, and glory, Bartimaeus just wants to see. James and John are jostling for authority causing dissension among the disciples. Bartimaeus, in spite of the annoyed crowd, is persistently crying out for Jesus, jumping up to get close to Him, and, simply, wanting to see. James and John are looking for what Jesus can give them. Bartimaeus wants mercy.

The Gospel is not about getting something from Jesus that resembles the kingdom of man--power, glory, authority, you fill-in-the-blank. The Gospel of the kingdom is about trusting Jesus and pursuing Him radically for mercy. Far too often the Gospel is framed in a what's-in-it-for-me principle. This is not the Jesus way, which is one of servanthood and self-giving, nor is it the way to Jesus. The way to Jesus is as a blind man throwing aside what he has and coming to Jesus for mercy.

Are you the blind man of faith looking for the mercy of Jesus doing whatever you can just be near Him or the one who thinks he can already see simply looking for what Jesus can give you?

Mono No Aware

Band: Hammock

Righteousness Cannot Be Mixed

Apostle Paul:

"For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in [Jesus] we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

Robert Traill:

"If a man trusts to his own righteousness, he rejects Christ's; if he trusts to Christ's righteousness, he rejects his own." Justification Vindicated, 70.

The Most Damning Sin

17th century Scottish Presbyterian Robert Traill:

"...unbelief is the most provoking to God and the most damning to man of all sins." Justification Vindicated, 28.

This means that whatever horrendous sin that you have committed that haunts you is not close to the damning sin of not believing what God has done in Jesus. Jesus came to die for sinners that are haunted by their sins.

What must you do then? Quit sinning? No, first, believe in Jesus and you will be saved.

The most damning sin is removed, not by ceasing to sin, but by trusting Jesus who saves sinners. Faith in the Savior brings the favor of God and eternal life.

Christianity is About Everything

Anthony Hoekema:

"Being a citizen of the kingdom, therefore, means that we should see all of life and all of reality in the light of the goal of the redemption of the cosmos. This implies, as Abraham Kuyper once said, that there is not a thumb-breadth of the universe about which Christ does not say, 'It is mine.' This implies a Christian philosophy of history: all of history must be seen as the working out of God's eternal purpose. This kingdom vision includes a Christian philosophy of culture: art and science reflect the glory of God and are therefore to be pursued for his praise. It also includes a Christian view of vocation: all callings are from God, and all that we do in everyday life is to be done to God's praise, whther this be study, teaching, preaching, business, industry, or housework." The Bible and the Future, 54.

This means that everything matters. Christianity is not about one corner of spirituality in your life at the exclusion of the other things you do and are. The work of Jesus has implications upon everything, that is, every-single-thing. If all is to be be done for the glory of God, which the Bible declares that it so clearly is (1 Cor. 10:31), than every part of life becomes packed with meaning, becuase every part of life becomes an event of worship.

How to Come to Jesus

Jonathan Edwards:

"If ever you truly come to Christ, you must see that there is enough in him for your pardon, though you be no better than you are. If you see not the sufficiency of Christ to pardon you, without any righteousness of your own to recommend you, you never will come so as to be accepted of him. The way to be accepted is to come--not on any such encouragement, that now you have made yourselves better, and more worthy, or not so unworthy, but--on the mere encouragement of Christ's worthiness, and God's mercy." "Pardon for the Greatest of Sinners," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, 113.

My Earth Day Post

The apostle Paul in Romans 8:19 writes:

"For the anxious longing of the creation awaits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God."

Creation is good. The earth is good. It is so because it was created by God. However, the earth, Romans 8 tells us, has been "subjected to futility" by God. It is enslaved with corruption. It has been cursed because the sin of the first man, Adam (Gen. 3:17). Therefore the earth is "groaning" and suffering "the pains of childbirth" (Ro. 8:22), yet is does so "in hope" (Ro. 8:20).

The subjection of the earth is not unto futility forever. It was subjected by God "in hope." Hope is carrying the whole cosmos, because one Day it will be free from corruption and decay. The earth is longing for that Day.

Therefore today isn't really earth day. There is a much better one coming.

The earth, in fact all of creation, as commentator Douglas Moo points out, is "craning" its "neck to see what is coming" (The Epistle to the Romans, 513). The earth, as it were, holds it breath in eager expectation and "anxious longing" for the revealing of God's sons (Ro. 8:19). When the sons of God are revealed the earth will be transformed and renewed. What was distorted and damaged and destroyed because of the sin of humankind and the judgment of God against that sin will be renewed and restored and redeemed. This Day that is coming is the Day when God's sons will be revealed.

Who are these sons? They are those whose condemnation because of sin has been removed because they are "in Christ" (Ro. 8:1). They are those who are trusting Jesus, and thus have the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, dwelling within them (Ro. 8:9). Sons of God is not a general term for all humanity. The sons of God are those who trust the Son of God, who was God incarnate--Jesus--who died for sinners. The creation, the earth, awaits the day when God restores the "glory of the children of God." On this coming Day God will fully conform those who are trusting Jesus, the Son of God, into the very "image of [God's] Son," Jesus (Ro. 8:29).

On this Day, the glory will be restored and the curse will be removed and sin will be banished from all creation. The creation will then experience the glory that it has hoped for. Groaning will be gone. God will renew and remake creation into the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells.

Earth Day rather then simply a human striving to making the earth better (which of course is a very good thing) should be done in the hope of the Day that God transforms creation and reveals His sons. Therefore humanity, especially those who are the sons of God--that claim a relationship with Jesus--should treat the earth well and seek its restoration. However it will not be human striving that ever fulfills the longing and the glory of the earth.

It will be God, the One who subjected the earth to futility in hope of the revealing of the sons of God and the renewal of all creation that follows. This earth day is a day of expectation for a much more glorious Day to come.

What Holy People Think About Themselves

JI Packer:

"Holy people glory, not in their holiness, but in Christ's cross; for the holiest of saint is never more than a justified sinner and never sees himself in any other way." Keep in Step with the Spirit, 105

The Imagination of New American Religions is the Same

Mary Farrell Bednarowski closes out her survey of new American religions (Mormonism, New Age, Theosophy, Christian Science, Scientology, and the Unification "church") in this way:

"Altogether the new religions claim in various ways that to admit sinful actions and intentions without going so far as to admit a sinful nature is an acknowledgment more in keeping with the human task on earth and with human experience than to claim helplessnes in the face of sin and total dependence on God's mercy for deliverance...For the new religions, as we have seen, the denial of original sin or, in the case of Unificationism, at least the helplessness associated with it becomes a means to affirm human freedom and even human necessity--if we need God, God also needs us. And it has led to that universally strong insistence noted in chapter three that we must save ourselves and the planet, and, perhaps, even God...In regard to the grace-works polarity, there is almost no tension at all. 'Works' and responsibiliy will save us." New Religions and the Theological Imagination in America, 138-139.

The imagination of new American religions is pretty much the same 'ole thing of most religions. The theological imagination, not only of America, but of humanity always invents self-help religion.

The beauty and uniqueness of authentic Christianity is that Jesus came to save sinners. Works and responsibility will not save humanity. God does not need us, yet He chose to reveal Himself and enter into the world incarnated in the flesh in the person of Jesus and die on the cross for sinners who cannot help themselves. Jesus died for the ungodly. He did not come to call the righteous but sinners. Total dependence upon the mercy of Jesus is the faith apart from works that brings salvation. There is no other name under heaven by which humanity can be saved.

This is good news for bad people.

God Humiliated and Defeated Satan at the Cross of Jesus

Colossians 2:15:

"God disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Jesus."

Thomas Schreiner:

"Christ's work on the cross not only broke the power of sin but also spelled the defeat of evil and demonic powers....[God] publicly exposed them and humiliated them....The triumphal procession was a ceremonial parade through the streets of Rome in which some captive leaders and their wares were displayed. The march concluded with the execution of those conquered...The powers have lost their authority due to the cross of Christ. They have been stripped, humiliated, and led to execution. They no longer exercise any control over those in Christ. In context Christ's triumph over evil powers is linked with forgiveness of sins, indicating that in receiving the forgiveness of sins believers have received everything that they need." New Testament Theology, 271.

The Maundy Thursday Meal

Today is the day before Good Friday. Traditionally it is called Maundy Thursday and a day in which things like the Passover and Lord's Supper are reflected upon. The night which Jesus was betrayed, the night He was given over to death, is commemorated on Maundy Thursday.

On a day like today the disciples of Jesus were preparing a Passover meal for Jesus to eat not realizing that in fact it was Jesus who would be giving the meal (Mark 14:14, 23). One could say that Jesus was the meal.

The Passover lamb of the Exodus was pointing toward this very night where Jesus showed Himself as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. The disciples were ready to reflect upon a day long ago when the Israelites were delievered from Egypt and God rescued His people and did not kill the firstborn son's of those who had the Lamb's blood on the doorposts, but Jesus was preparing them to reflect upon God's passing over of their sins through the death of God's Son, Jesus.

In many ways, it's on odd day to have a meal, but that's what Jesus did. The meal of bread and wine, Jesus' body and blood. One violent and odd dinner.

It's as if Jesus is saying that what happens tomorrow is meant to bring you life, joy, nourishment, and celebration like a meal with friends, and of course it is. Good Friday is not oxymoronic.

The killing of the Lamb of God for sinners removes the wrath of God toward sinners and fills sinners with the favor of God and fellowship with God for all those who in faith receive the meal Jesus offers....which of course is His very Self.

The meal before Jesus death on Maundy Thursday that commemorates the killing of Jesus on Good Friday is the meal that brings eternal life.

The Spiritual Discipline of Remembering

When life is troubled it is important to remember. If one does not use one's memory life will be extremely difficult. In Asaph's 77th Psalm, one finds Asaph, again, like in his 73rd, deeply struggling with the attributes of God in the midst of trouble (77:2). The questions Asaph asks of God are questions about God's character, questions that call God's very attributes into question (77:7-9):

"Will God reject His people forever?"
"Will God never be favorable again?"
"Has He ceased being loving and kind?"
"Are God's promises even true? They seem to have ended forever."
"Has God forgotten to be gracious?"
"Has God stopped being compassionate because He is angry?" (my paraphrase)

Asaph challenges God's favor, God's presence with His people, God's love, God's faithfulness to His promises, God's grace, and God's compassion. So what does Asaph do, and what should the reader of the Psalm's do when they feel this way?

Remember.

"I shall remember the deeds of the Lord;
Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all Your work
And muse on Your deeds." (77:11-12)

Asaph remembers because currently life has dealt him blows by which He questions the nearness of God. God seems distant and different. All that remains is memory of what God has done. What is remembered is what is "old."

Remembering is an important spiritual discipline, sometimes, it is all one has.

What specifically does Asaph remember?

"You have by Your power redeemed Your people,
The sons of Jacob and Joseph." (77:15)

Asaph remembers that God's people, Israel, have been redeemed. They have been brought out of slavery into freedom. After years of slavery under an oppressive Pharaoh God delievered His people from Egypt. Asaph remembers God's redemption of Israel.

God's people are to remember God's rescue of them. Remember Egypt and Exodus. Satan has been defeated at the cross, and is no longer one's Master. One was in slavery to sin, and now, the Passover Lamb, Jesus, has died in the place of sinners, and has brought sinners to God and out of Egypt.

Remember the Gospel of redemption when you feel as if the loving, compassionate, faithful, gracious, "I am with you always" God is unloving, disapproving, without compassion, unfaithful, angry, and far away. Remember those times when you did feel as if you had been "led...like a flock" by a caring Shepherd (77:20).

Remembering is for endurance. Endurance is the Christian life, and the very impulse of endurance arises when God's presence in your life is called into question. God has not forgotten to be gracious to you. If you are trusting the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus is your Shepherd, and He has promised that you will not be snatched out of His hand (Jn. 10:28). Sheep wander, but the best Shepherd never loses a sheep.

Endure by remembering.

Ungodly Godliness

JI Packer:

"Modern Christians tend to make satisfaction their religion. We show much more concern for self-fulfillment than for pleasing our God. Typical of Christianity today, at any rate in the English-speaking world, is its massive rash of how-to books for believers, directing us to more successful relationships, more joy in sex, becoming more of a person, realizing our possiblities, getting more excitement each day, reducing our weight, improving our diet, managing our money, licking our families into happier shape, and whatnot. For people whose prime passion is to glorify God, these are doubtless legitimate concerns; but the how-to books regularly explore them in a self-absorbed way that treats our enjoyment of life rather than the glory of God as the center of interest. Granted, they spread a thin layer of Bible teaching over the mixture of popular psychology and common sense they offer, but their overall approach clearly reflects the narcissism--'selfism' or 'me-ism' as it is sometimes called--that is the way of the world in the modern West.

Now self-absorption, however religious in its cast of mind, is the opposite of holiness. Holiness means godliness, and godliness is rooted in God centeredness, and those who think of God as existing for their benefit rather than of themselves as existing for his praise do not qualify as holy men and women. Thier mind-set has to be described in very different terms. It is an ungodly sort of godliness that has self at its center." Keep in Step with the Spirit, 97-98.

Charles Spurgeon on Asaph's 73rd Psalm

The other day I posted a blog regarding Asaph's 73rd Psalm, and Charles Spurgeon, in his Treasury of David, came alongside to further illuminate:

Verse 12: “Look! See! Consider! Here is the standing enigma! The crux of Providence! The stumbling-block of faith! Here are the unjust rewarded and indulged, and that not for a day or an hour, but in perpetuity. From their youth up the men, who deserve perdition, revel in prosperity. They deserve to be hung in chains, and chains are hung about their necks; they are worthy to be chased from the world and yet the world becomes all their own. Poor purblind sense cries, Behold this! Wonder, and be amazed, and make this square with providential justice, if you can…both wealth and health are their dowry. No bad debts and bankruptcies weight them down, but robbery and usury pile up their substance. Money runs to money, gold pieces fly in flocks; the rich grow richer, the proud grow prouder. Lord, how is this?”

Verse 13: “Poor Asaph! He questions the value of holiness when its wages are paid in the coin of affliction."

Verse 18: “The Psalmist’s sorrow had culminated, not in the fact that the ungodly prospered, but that God had arranged it so: had it happened by mere chance, he would have wondered, but could not have complained; but how the arranger of all things could so dispense his temporal favours, was the vexatious question. Here, to meet the case, he sees that the divine hand purposely placed these men in prosperous and eminent circumstances, not with the intent to bless them but the very reverse…the same hand which led them up to their Tarpeian rock, hurled them down from it.”

Verse 25: "Thus, then, [The Psalmist] turns away from the glitter which fascinated him to the true gold which was his real treasure. He felt that his God was much better to him than all the wealth, health, honour, and peace, which he had so much envied in the worldling…He bade all things else go, that he might be filled with his God."

When the Only Good is God

Some meditations on a Psalm of Asaph:

"Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever...
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
That I may tell of all Your works." Ps. 73:25-28

What will I do when the only good I can see in my life is my God, and when He is only dimly seen? What will I do when the plague, the disease, is in my body, and I notice that the wicked around me are healthy and happy? What will I do when I am lonely, the friends are dead and gone or only broken relationships remain, and others are surrounded by frienship? What will I do when there is no ease? Physically I'm shot, mentally I'm distracted, forgetful, depressed, little remembrance of God or His Word or friends and family, and emotionally I'm either dry to the point of no feeling or like a waterfall of out-of-control emotions? What will I do when the echoes of Christian culture and the words of well-meaning friends that are ringing in my ears is that blessing is my destiny, healing is my right, and with Jesus all things get better, and I am experiencing nothing of the sort? What will I do?

Honestly I don't know, but I pray I will open my Bible and listen to the counsel of the Holy Spirit in passages like Psalm 73.

I pray that even now my friends who know Jesus, and those that surround them watching them suffer with cancer and with brain tumors will remember that when everything fails: "flesh"--one's body--"heart"--one's dreams, desires, emotions, aspirations, longings, affections. When all of that fails that they would remember that God is their strength and that God is their portion.

For the one who trusts Jesus the failing of flesh and the failing of heart is all momentary anyway. The body will be restored and resurrected, and the heart will receive unbridled joy and the fulfillment of all one as ever wanted or all one ever dreamed would be possible. This will all take place in the new heavens and the new earth, and, most importantly, Jesus will be there.

The best good is God, and He will be near, because He will dwell with His people, and, in fact, does so even now with the cancer and with the tumor. Somehow all affliction is momentary and light, and the weight of glory ahead outweighs tiny afflictions like cancer and brain tumors, but it sure as hell won't feel that way sometimes. It will feel like all is failing, and, like this Psalm says, it "may fail."

But God. But God. But God.

Psalm 73 gives me the testimony of a godly man who experienced all of that and what he did in that state. I pray that that is what I will do, and that this is what you will do: First, remember that the end of the wicked, they that don't repent of their sins and trust Jesus, is destruction. Even if happy and healthy and wealthy till death--God despises them (Ps. 73:18-20). Second, repent of envy and being embittered (Ps. 73:21). Third, desire the only good one has, which is God (Ps. 73:28). Stay close to Jesus. Third, start talking about God and the things He has done (Ps. 73:28). Do this by preaching to your own soul and by telling others.

God is good all the time, even when every other good in one's life appears to be gone.

This is good news.

The Hottest Jealousy - Part 10

It is sentences like this that make reading John Calvin so worthwhile, and, yes, it is one sentence:

"Therefore, as the purer and chaster the husband is, the more grievously he is offended when he sees his wife inclining to a rival; so the Lord, who hath betrothes us to himself in truth, declares that he burns with the hottest jealousy whenever, neglecting the purity of his holy marriage, we defile ourselves with abominable lusts, and sespecially when the worship of his Deity, which ought to have been most carefully kept unimpaired, is transferred to another, or adulterated with some superstition; since, in this way, we not only violate our plighted troth, but defile the nuptial couch, by giving access to adulterers." The Institutes of Christian Religion, 331.

Evangelicalism loves to attribute the great love of God for His people and the great love people should have for their God; often, especially in more Charismatic and Revivalistic circles, this language is couched in romance and the language of lovers. This is not unbiblical, but it can be reductionistic. God's romance toward His Bride, the church, is to be known and experienced, but the flip-side is, that God is a jealous lover. His love is not the petty love of a boyfriend just showering his girlfriend with nice compliements and constant cuddling, but the faithful love of a husband jealous for the affection of his wife who is often prone toward adultery.

God's love for His Bride should be known and experienced, and sure, say so in romantic terms, but don't take the jealousy out of the romance and strip the holiness from God. In all honesty it starts sounding a bit weird, too much like a pubescent boyfriend and unlike the faithful Husband pictured in radically holy terms in the book of Revelation, whose name is Lamb and Lion, Alpha and Omega.

I'll be Happy when Satan goes to Hell

Yes, indeed. I will be happy when Satan goes to hell. His ticket to Hell is already bought and paid for. I hate the Devil, and it was good to be reminded this morning that his head is about to be smashed.

"The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Ro. 16:20

Satan is the tempter and destroyer and liar and stealer and killer and accuser. The tempter toward sin, the destroyer of all that is good, the lying inventor of endless heresy, the stealer of the seed of God's word, the killer of human beings, and the accuser of the brethren's days are numbered.

He has many names, and the day is coming when, according to Revelation, the one who "deceived" the earth will be "thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone" and there "will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev. 20:10). This is a great promise. The promise given to Eve that her Seed, Jesus Christ, would bruise the Serpent's head has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled.

At the cross of Jesus Christ Satan has already been disarmed and his defeat has been secured, and at the end of the Age, Satan will be hurled, thrown, and cast into eternal torment. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, is reminding believers of this wonderful truth. Seeing the damage of the Devil can be discouraging, and Paul wants the church to be encouraged. Ultimate peace is coming from the God who purchased peace. The roaring lion who seeks to devour and kill the saints of God, indeed all who are made in God's image, will be silenced.

Be encouraged the defeat of Satan draweth nigh, absolute peace is coming to permeate the new heavens and the new earth. Therefore "resist the Devil and he will flee from you," because the Devil will soon be crushed by God under--isn't this amazing--your (the church's) two feet (James 4:7).

Yes, I'll be happy when Satan goes to Hell.

The Hidden Floodlight

JI Packer:

"[The Spirit] is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Saviour.

It is as if the Spirit stands behind us, throwing light over our shoulder, on Jesus, who stands facing us. The Spirit's message to us is never, 'Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me,' but always, 'Look at him, and see his glory; listen to him, and hear his word; go to him; and have life; get to know him, and taste his gift of joy and peace.' The Spirit we might say, is the matchmaker, the celestial marriage broker, whose role it is to bring us and Christ together and ensure that we stay together." Keep In Step With the Spirit, 66.

Serving God with Joy and Gladness

I remember years ago hearing John Piper quote this verse in one of his sermons, and today I came across it again in Deuteronomy. It is one worth reading a few times and meditating on:

"Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and with a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you." Dt. 28:47-48

A couple points to draw your attention to:

• This is an understatement, but one that is needs to be said: Serving God is to be accompanied with joy and gladness.
• Serving God is not just a duty to be done, but a joy to be experienced. Attitude matters. Motivation matters. The service; the work; the action itself is not the point.
• Abundance and prosperity are to be rejoiced in as the gifts of God. God is not looking for his people to be cold-hearted asectics, but warm-hearted, happy people who when the tummy is full, the kids are runnning around, the wife and husband are hand-in-hand, and the pocketbook is bulging the glory goes to God and it does so manifestly. Thankfulness to God for his abundance and blessing should be on the lips of a prosperous people. The flip-side of course is also true: when times are tough the heart is still to sing. (One last point to this point, to be robustly biblical, isn't it also true that sometimes when God makes people fat with abundance that itself is its own kind of judgment.)
  
• If God's people are not happy in abundance and serving Him with gladness with all that they have, sometimes God sends lack.
• Joy and gladness are the mark of the people of God, not grumbling and complaining. The Israelites, especially as seen in the book of Numbers, were a grumbling and complaining people. I, at times, am not different. This verse is a rebuke to my soul.
• Serving God and obedience to God is not to be perceived as an "iron yoke." Service and obedience is for joy of one's soul. The "iron yoke" is given to a people who in their service and in their abundance are not glad. The service of God by the people of God are to be done in the relationship with a Father who loves them and knows what's best for them, not as being under a hard and rugged taskmaster.
  
• This verse means the way in which I serve God matters very much.

Save the Trees

"It's all going to burn anyway." I don't know how many times I said that as a kid. Usually as I threw a candy bar wrapper on the ground and sinned by littering. Overall, for the most part I grew up with little understanding that God actually cares about the earth. Truly, for me, it was all going to burn. This is a sinful attitude. Now don't get me wrong, things are going to burn (see 2 Pe. 2:10) but, more importantly, God is making all things new.

I caught a whiff of this new creation by a simple word from God in Deuteronomy this morning. God is speaking through Moses about how the people of Israel are to spare women and children in the cities that they besiege. Basically he tells them to kill all the men but spare the kids, the women, and the animals. Oh, and also the trees.

"When you besiege a city a long time, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging the axe against them; for you may eat from them, and shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?" Dt. 20:19

God says, save the trees. Don't cut them down. He does this because of two reasons, creation is good and creation is meant to bless humankind. The fruit trees, specifically are saved, because they are a blessing, as they feed and nourish man.

Creation is never to be abused. The earth is God's and the earth and God's earth was made for humankind. For whatever reason we get the notion that because something is made for us it means we can abuse it. No, it means you nurture it; you cultivate it; you bless it.

God is making all things new, and one day, when the curse is lifted, righteousness will permeate all things and God's people will worship Him in a new heaven and a new earth where trees will clap their hands.

The Bible is a Book of Lament

Christopher Wright:

"In the Bible, which we believe is God's Word, such that what we find in it is what God wished to be there, there is plenty of lament, protest, anger, and baffled questions. The point we should notice (possibly to our surprise) is that it is all hurled at God, not by his enemies but by those who loved and trusted him most. It seems, indeed, that it is precisely those who have the closest relationship with God who feel most at liberty to pour out their pain and protest to God--without fear of reproach. Lament is not only allowed in the Bible; it is modeled for us in abundance...

It surely cannot be accidental that in the divinely inspired book of Psalms there are more psalms of lament and anguish than of joy and thanksgiving...

I feel that the language of lament is seriously neglected in the church. Many Christians seem to fell that somehow it can't be right to complain to God in the context of corporate worship when we should all feel happy. There is an implicit pressure to stifle our real feelings because we are urged, by pious merchants of emotional denial, that we ought to have 'faith' (as if the moaning psalmists didn't). So we end up giving external voice to pretended emotions we do not really feel, while hiding the real emotions we are struggling with deep inside...

But our suffering friends in the Bible didn't choose that way. They simply cry out in pain and protest against God--precisely because they know God. Their protest is born out of the jarring contrast between what they know and what they see...

Lament is the voice of that pain, whether for oneself, for one's people, or simply for the mountain of suffering of humanity and creation itself. Lament is the voice of faith struggling to live with unanswered questions and unexplained suffering." The God I Don't Understand, 50-53

The Christian Life is Supernatural

JI Packer:

"The Christian's life in all its aspects--intellectual and ethical, devotional and relational, upsurging in worship and outgoing in witness--is supernatural; only the Spirit can initiate and sustain it." Keep in Step with the Spirit, 1st edition, 9.

If this is the case, which it clearly is, how critical is prayer? Prayer is asking God to do all that we cannot do, and there is nothing that we can do without God.

The natural and supernatural aren't so far apart. Asking God for the ordinary and extraordinary should be the constant affair of the Christian, because nothing is ordinary. The weirdest thing about not asking for miracles, extraordinary things, is that we have forgotten that life itself is extraordinary and the gift of God.

Holy Spirit come.

Keep Your Soul Diligently by the Voice of God

Reading today in Deuteronomy 4:

"Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life..." (v. 9)

These are the words which Moses spoke to Israel, God's people, in the wilderness. They are the words, which still speak today, to the people of God. They are an exhortation to God's people:

Give heed to yourself. Keep your soul diligently.

Why? Because we forget what we've seen and heard and the things God has done. Moses had to remind the people of God consistently to remember. Therefore one way a person keeps their soul and gives heed to themselves is to remember.

"Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, 'Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me...You came near and stood at the foot of the moutain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form--only a voice..." (Dt. 4:10-12)

Moses is saying: Remember that God has spoken to you. He did so by fire, cloud, darkenss, and thick gloom, yet did so without form. Moses calls the attention of the poeple to the event of God's voice.

Throughout this chapter one finds that Moses is explicitly reminding them that God did not show himself in form but he showed Himself by voice. The revelation of God comes by the word of God. In fact, the rest of the chapter shows that, idolatry comes from human hearts that long to seek "likeness" and "form" and "graven images." Human hearts want god's they can see. Not simply a voice. Yet, Moses consistently calls the people back to the words they have heard--the voice of the living God.

It goes the same for God's people today. We like images. We enjoy telivision. We want an image we can see. Words, for the most part, are of little importance. Image trumps word. Therefore one must keep watch over their soul and beware of the love of image and return to the love of word--God's word.

This is New Testament Christianity as well. One can tell that the writer of Hebrews 12, at the very end of the chapter , spent much time meditating on the work of Jesus, the God-man, and Deuteronomy 4. The New Testament people of God, have not come to the mountain blazing with fire, as the Israelites, but they have come to Mount Zion, the city and church of God, the angels, God the Judge, and to Jesus who has given the new covenant of His blood.

This writer, like Moses, also tells the Hebrews to which he writes, "See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking..." (12:25). God, the same God, who is a consuming fire, that spoke at the blazing mountain, now speaks in His Son, Jesus. This writer calls us to listen and not ignore the message of the Gospel. Like Moses called Israel to remember the event of voice at the mountain, so this writer calls God's new covenant poeple to remember the person and work of Jesus Christ and the words connected to the event that tell of Him.

God has spoken in Jesus. Therefore keep watch over your soul by remembering God's words in His Son. Read the Gospels. Listen to the words spoken by the apostles that tell of Him and the implications of that event in the New Testament Epistles.

Do not ignore this word. Remind yourself daily of the word God spoken in the person and work of Jesus. Listen to God's voice in your Bible. Keep your soul from the idolatry of images by reading the word of God, because if you begin to rely upon forms and images and move away from the word of God you will craft for yourself a god that is created in your own image. You were created in God's image, and thus, God's voice is to be heeded for the sake of your own soul. Heeding the words God's speaks creates the image of God in man. Ignoring them distorts man's very humanity.

Neglect of God's voice is the pathway to idolatry. Neglect of what the Bible tells of Jesus is the pathway to a different Jesus. A Jesus made in your own image. A Jesus formed by your own hands. A Jesus that is not Jesus at all.

"For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, 'Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven...Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire." (Heb. 12:25-29)

Keep your soul by the word and voice of God, and respond in fear, the kind of fear that is also full of gratitude.