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.

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Slaughter of the Midianites - Numbers 31

The Bible is quite violent. Any one reading a-Bible-through-a-year plan knows this, thus the blog posts have been a bit intense lately. Yesterday I read about the slaughter of the Midianites, in Numbers 31, where during Israel's conquest into their inheritance--the Promised Land--God directed them to kill every male, every male child, and every woman who was not a virgin of the people of Midian. This, according to Holy Scripture, was a war of the execution of "the Lord's vengeance on Midian" (31:3). God through Israel was judging the nations, specifically, the nation of Midian.

Why? Well, one of the reasons God gives, is because of the sin of Peor where the Israelites "play[ed] the harlot with the daughters of Moab" because "they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods" (Numbers 25:1-2). This made God angry, because God hates idolatry. He hates that which is elevated above Himself, and He hates it when His people bow down to false gods. Israel, in fact, spared the women, but God would have none of it, and would only spare the "girls who have not known man intimately" (31:18).

Let's be honest, to put it mildly, seems a bit drastic doesn't it? Yes, it is drastic. It is severe. It is extreme. It is so, because God is holy and He is just.

Why did God do this and yet spare so many other evil nations throughout history? I do not know; but it is a lesson, and not just a metaphor, because this really happened--sword and screams--and all that goes with it, but I know from this story, from this happening, that God is holy, righteous, and an avenger of His own Name.

Christopher Wright tells us how to read this difficult story:

"I have to read the conquest in the light of the cross...when I do set it in the light of the cross, I see one more perspective. For the cross too involved the most horrific and evil human violence, which, at the same time, also constitututed the outpouring of God's judgment on human sin. The crucial difference, of course, is that, whereas at the conquest, God poured out his judgment on a wicked society who deserved it, at the cross God bore on himself the judgment of God on human wickedness, through the person of his own sinless Son--who deserved it not one bit." The God I Do Not Understand, 107.

Maybe one of the reasons why you and I turn away from the slaughter of Midian and mostly choose to ignore these types of passages is because we are the Midianites. We are the idolatres. We too deserve God's judgment.

Maybe we ignore these kind of stories, because our view of the cross is too small. We see the cross-event as a nice picture of God's love and forget that it is the culminating point of God's great wrath and His triumphing love. Sin is judged at the cross and it is judged in horrifying violence upon one perfectly innocent. We are stunned at the fact that God wouldn't spare the idolatrous Midianite women, but the cross should stun us more--God would not spare His own innocent Son, but instead gave Him up. The Midianites weren't innocent. Jesus was and is, yet the son of God died a violent and Godforsaken death, in the place of sinnners so sinners would never face the judgment of God.

Read the slaughter of Midian in light of the slaughter of the son of God.

Jesus is not Soft

For my morning Bible-readings I came across some passages in the Psalms that were a bit, well, bloody.

"The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." Ps. 58:10

Lest one think that is just an OT Psalm, my Bible-reading-plan led me to Jesus' words about those who get slothful toward his coming and begin to engage in drunkeness and obnoxious revelry; those who lose their sober-mindedness toward his Return:

"...the master of the slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Mat. 24:50-51

Not exactly a Bible-verse your kids are going to find in Sunday School Bible-memory drills, or the Bible-verse laden sweathshirt you will purchase for your Grandma next Christmas.

Jesus' cutting people into pieces isn't exactly what we want to hear, but there it is in your Bible. When the Son of Man comes to earth for the second time it is not to die humbly on a cross, but to gather the elect and punish the wicked.

Any Christian pacifist will cease to be one someday, because Christ will be leading the final war.
The book of Revelation is quite clear.

How should we then respond to this? Should I get out my sword? No, I should live a life that seeks to die daily to myself and for others, trusting that vengeance is not mine to take, but will be taken someday by my Lord, and it will be swift, ferocious, and just. I should also tell of the Jesus, the Lamb, who died in the place of sinners, and saves all who call on His name, because the Day is coming when He will not save, but will damn.

This is sobering--Jesus is not soft, but he is loving, and holy, and righteous, and good. Turn to him all the ends of the earth and be saved, because the day is coming when every eye will see Him come again and some will cry out for rocks to fall upon them in fear of His coming.

Self-Progress - Institutes of Christian Religion 9

John Calvin:

"...he who is most deeply abased and alarmed, by the consciousness of his disgrace, nakedness, want, and misery, has made the greatest progress in the knowledge of himself. Man is in no danger of taking too much from himself, provided he learns that whatever he wants is to be recovered in God." Institutes of Christian Religion, Book II, Chap. II, 231.

Nobody, well hardly anybody, says this kind of thing nowadays, which is why guys like John Calvin are good for the soul. It rescues the modern person from thinking more highly of themselves than they ought.

The "greatest progress"? Wouldn't many say that is nothing close to progress? Progress is thinking of yourself better; of realizing self-actualization; of esteeming yourself more...not of being conscious of your disgrace, your nakedness, your want, your misery; yet that is where, Calvin says, is the greatest progress of self-knowledge you can find. Most consider this foolishness. For many this is not progress but retrogression.

There is a key qualification here, lest one think that Calvin is simply a sin-monger and on a self-negativity binge; it is: "provided." Provided one knows that Jesus has recovered all that was lost in the fall of man; provided one knows that in Adam all are dead, and in Jesus dead men are made alive again; provided one knows that the old man has been crucified and the new man has been resurrected; provided one knows that Jesus has restored and changed fallen humanity into a new humanity--this kind of self-knowledge is good for you.

So, yes, consider your utter sinfulfness and you will know yourself truly, and then looking at your sinfulness turn your eyes to Jesus and trust in him. He has recovered and restored all that you've lost in and of yourself, and replaced sinfulness with righteousness.

I pray phrases like this increase your view of the debaseness of yourself and the deliverance found in Jesus. Think worse of yourself and more of Jesus. This is a good thing, and demonstrates mental health and psychological wholeness. To me all this sounds like that crazy guy at the beginning of the New Testament, John the Baptizer, who would probably be categorized in the DSM-IV with a mental illness due to just eating grasshoppers and honey and wandering in the wilderness, but was one of the most mentally healthy men alive. He said, speaking of Jesus and himself, "He must increase, and I must decrease" (Jn. 3:30). Thank God for this kind of self-depreciation, which is self-progress.