The Infinite Joy of God

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"He is… the holiest and happiest being,
not only that is, but that can be conceived."

“You cannot conceive of a greater happiness than omnipotent power engaged in the omnipotent enjoyment of infinite glory.”

- John Piper, Why Expositional Preaching is Particularly Glorifying to God

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Scene Unseen

The dense aroma of abundant perfume

saturated the atmosphere of the room,

where He was seated, and worshiped.

Tears and messy hair rolled over His feet.

Questions permeated the minds of those who

could not see. Why this, why here and now?

For blinded eyes see not the glory of the flesh covered

God.  No, fleshy eyes cannot behold such spiritual majesty.

Yet in great contrast evident even to the blind,

in passionate adoration she was inclined to bow

before the eternal and incarnate One.

For her eyes had been opened; she beheld the Son.

Sometimes sight is contagious

when the blind are made to see.

Yet often 'tis thought outrageous

by those still blinded. Oh the travesty.

Yet had that worshipful scene

been deeply grasped, by eyes washed clean.

There would not have been only one 
bowed before Him in awful adoration.

- A. B. Seal

"My Records are Jesus Christ"

“When he is challenged by some men (presumably Jews) who refuse to believe anything that is not to be found in “our ancient records” (the Old Testament?), Ignatius responds, “But for my part, my records are Jesus Christ, for the the sacred records are his cross and death and resurrection and the faith that comes through him.”

- An Introduction to the New Testament, Carson & Moo, p. 738

The Mystery of Faith

Your physical eyes 

and your intellect 

are not sufficient  

to sustain you 

on this journey 

nor through these storms 

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (ESV)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  (KJV)

How is it possible to be assured of things hoped for?  The very nature of hope involves the not presently having that which is hoped for.  Being certain of that which is hoped for is almost an oxymoron.  The two generally don’t go together.  

Can one have evidence for that which cannot be seen?  Evidence is by nature something that can be witnessed.  For example; evidence in the courtroom is either something tangible like pictures, video, fingerprints or it is the testimony of a witness who saw or heard something relevant to the case.  Can you imagine going to court and only being able to rely only upon evidence that did not fit into either of these two categories?   

Intangible evidence and certain hope  

Could it be that faith is something that cannot be carefully explained sufficiently enough clear away the fog of mystery?  Could it be that mystery itself is a distinct characteristic of faith in the God who cannot be seen?  Could it be that faith is the mysterious means with which to relate to the mysterious Holy Spirit, God with us?    

It is not surprising that mystery abounds here for God is not seen, yet He is and has been believed in by countless people around the world both today and throughout history.  How does one relate to the God who is not seen?  Not with physical eyes, nor with intellect alone, but by something that God alone gives, namely faith.  It is a glorious grace that we may know God via the gift of faith that God alone gives.  He gives that which we need to know Him, and that apart from which we may never truly know Him. 

The 11th chapter of Hebrews, the famous “Faith” chapter begins with an interesting yet fairly mysterious definition of faith in verse one.  Yet it is noteworthy that after this brief definition, more effort is not given to further illuminate what this faith is exactly.  In stead of further defining this perplexing topic, the author of Hebrews instead resorts to a masterful historical list of what faith in the unseen God looks like when put into practice.  This beautiful chapter of Scripture is powerful in its description of many who displayed their faith in God via their actions.  

The Apostle Paul, who taught extensively on the massive importance of faith, turns to the Old Testament to illustrate and explain this topic.  Abraham is Paul’s subject to highlight the nature of the faith that justifies.  “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”  Three times this text is referenced, first in Genesis 15:6, and then by Paul in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6.  That this incident is thrice recorded in scripture is no doubt indicative of significant importance.  

The story of Abraham begins with him as a pagan living among pagans, when he is encountered by God.  This encounter is such that from the very beginning of this relationship, God gives Abraham instruction.  Almost as if one of the partners in this relationship was God, and the other a subordinate follower…  Maybe this is the pattern that would be repeated throughout time.  This relationship was initiated by God and followed by Abraham.  It is worthy of notice that the instruction given to Abraham was one that was both uncomfortable and mysterious.  “Go… to the land that I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1)  This required packing up and leaving the familiar, leaving family and friends behind, drastically impacting the lives of others who would go with him, and all while not knowing where it was exactly that he was going. 

God asked of Abraham the impossible.  Twice.  

Faith was the means that resulted in Abraham’s obedience to the unseen God.  He saw that which could not be seen.  He believed when the odds were insurmountable.  Faith beholds God beyond the impossible.  Faith trusts the God who is bigger than the trial.  Faith grabs ahold of God when there is nothing else to hold onto.  

Job

Faith is how battered Job endured absolute devastation, one minute at a time.  How could Job have weathered such colossal personal tragedies otherwise?  

The Church Throughout History

Faith was the means with which William Tyndale translated a significant portion of the Bible into English, despite death threats from the King.  By faith he persevered in this task until he was killed for his faithful obedience to the assignment of God.

Faith was the rock that Martin Luther stood upon as he confronted the only church of the day.  By faith he believed God’s Word though everyone else in the church, it seemed, believed many things contrary.  By faith he battled theologically, living as a fugitive and translating scripture into the language of the people.  By faith he persevered until the Protestant Reformation was birthed. 

Faith was the weapon with which William Wilberforce and friends waged war against the evils of the slave trade for many decades.  They battled the socially accepted wickedness decade after decade until that great foe was vanquished from England, and ultimately America as well.  

Faith was the motivation with which countless missionaries left comfort and country for suffering, tragedy, and the unspeakable joy of spreading the Gospel throughout the world.

Faith was the furnace that forged a Nation that would become One Nation Under God.  Freedom to pursue a relationship with God, unsanctioned by the Government was the fuel that fired this great forge.  America was literally birthed through faith in God.  

Faith was the morning light that shown through the former slave Frederick Douglas and many others in America to overthrow the lengthy midnight of slavery.  

Faith was the courage that gripped Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others like him to combat the evils of the Nazi regime.  Faith would not permit these to succumb to the comfortable apathy of countless others who filled the pews in Germany.  Faith was action and speaking, thus lack of action and silence a lack of faith.  

Time nor ink would permit an exhaustive list, yet suffice it to say that eternity will provide enough time with which to learn of all the courageous battles of faith throughout history, and of the faithful God apart from which no such endeavors would exist.

You and I

What does faith look like in your life?  Is it like Job, trusting minute by minute in the goodness of God, while the hurricane rages?  Is it like Abraham, journeying without knowing where you will end up, or how or what you will end up doing?  

Has He called you to something?  If so, chances are that circumstances will be significantly difficult enough that it will take His faith to believe Him.  Your physical eyes and your intellect are not sufficient to sustain you on this journey nor through these storms.  Faith alone in Christ alone is the only way to follow wherever He leads, to weather the treacherous storms of life, and to arrive at your much hoped for destination.   

“And without faith it is impossible to please Him”
Hebrews 11:6a (ESV)

The Wastefulness of God

Guest Post by KG:

I went with my wife Su one day, one rainy day, as she stopped at a couple of garage sales. I sat in the car and waited while she ‘cased the joint’. As I set I began to watch the rain, how it washed everything: the streets the houses the cars and the lawns. Suddenly a fall leaf fell on the window and was immediately pasted there by the misting rain. My attentions to the effect of the rainfall shifted to the leaf. I was struck by its amazing beauty and complexity between the serrated edges, its symmetry and the articulate branching of the veins. As I looked closer and closer it seemed that they spread out ever more finely. "What a waste" I said to myself without thinking. I knew that there were millions of leaves that littered everything and each was as artistically crafted as the one on my car window.  “Isn’t such careful architecture and finery spent on this one leaf (or any leaf for that matter) just a waste of good art?” And it is all so temporary, just a few months of the year. The tree takes in sunlight, minerals and moisture and builds its bulky foliage. And not just any foliage but these masterfully crafted leaves... hundreds of millions of them. I knew that in the leaves that populate each tree (I’m told 6 million on the average large elm) there are millions and millions of cells in each leaf, every one of which has a blueprint for building another tree with leaves included.  In the end there is just decay and dirt, like the artist who completes a masterpiece only to crumple it up and throw it away. What a waste.

It didn’t take long for my thoughts to multiply. What I judged to be the case in the single instance of this one leaf/tree is true of even more that I wasn’t seeing. This is true of every living plant whether it blooms and is carefully cultivated in the flower pot or wild and grows on the remote and inaccessible mountain side. This is true of every enormously complex insect that roam's the forest floor or the farmer's field or for the briefest 24 hour life hovers over and inhabits the decaying carcass on the shore of an island. This is true of every animal that lives as a child's pet or inhabits the sea or roams the Serengeti or clings to the roof of the nearby cave. This is true of the grass that grows or the plants that sprouts up in the otherwise vacant field or the fungus that pops up everywhere and in abundance over all the earth however extreme the condition. Billions of times over again and again this exquisite parade marches relentlessly on. Finally, this is true of people whatever their color or size for however long their life may be.  And then the uninvited thought came to mind: and a large majority of all that wonder no one will ever see. What a waste.

Looking back I have to admit that it is clear to me now that I was indulging in an all too familiar way of thinking, a God absent or ‘horizontal’ way of thinking. I am a believer but I am not surprised at the things that go on in my head. I have found that it is not at all unusual for me to carry at least two contradictory ways of looking at events or issues in my head at the same time. In the case of my reflections on the leaf pasted against the window it is this sort of  ‘horizontal’ thinking. It is for me the default way of looking at things. It is that way because that is natural to me. And it natural to me because it is my earliest way of looking at life, i.e. with God there but only figured into the scheme of things. The other way of looking at life, a very different ‘other’, is the God tempered world and is ‘vertical’ in its orientation. I have been at pains to fit into it ever since God’s world caved in on me. It is the God-haunted world in which I now live. Because of that I live a dimensionally challenged life shuffling between life in the vertical and the horizontal.

The world is described in Genesis as a “good” thing. It is so not because God was merely commenting on how the things he had made met some necessity or satisfied some particular need he had.  When God said “it is good” he meant little more than that it flowed from his own goodness and was like himself, good. He liked what he had made, much like an artist who reflects on his own finished work. He liked it which is more than just a statement about God’s ‘tastes’.  It was good and he was satisfied with what he had made. If there was an audience it was the artist himself. It was what he wanted. As he said in his final inquisition of Job, “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt,  to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?” (Job 38:25-27). In other words, no one ever sees some of God’s best work. God’s ‘performances’ are meant to satisfy an audience of one.

This exquisite orchestration that I took to be a ‘wasted’ effort was and is for the designer of that leaf a personal thing, his thing, and because it is his work, his fingerprints are left all over it. G. K. Chesterton talks about his own experience  in his book Orthodoxy. There he says that the impression left on his thinking by this phenomena of recurrence in nature was eventually life changing for him. “Now, the mere repetition made the things to me rather more weird than more rational. It was as if, having seen a curiously shaped nose in the street and dismissed it as an accident, I had then seen six other noses of the same astonishing shape. I should have fancied for a moment that it must be some local secret society. So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot. I speak here only of an emotion, and of an emotion at once stubborn and subtle. But the repetition in Nature seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition, like that of an angry schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again. The grass seemed signalling to me with all its fingers at once; the crowded stars seemed bent upon being understood. The sun would make me see him if he rose a thousand times. The recurrences of the universe rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation, and I began to see an idea.” In other words, the occurrence of reoccurrence can have other than prodigal implications. Seen from the vantage point of the vertical our Father is younger than we are. He has the eternal appetite of infancy which in the moment of finishing a task shows his delight with the joyful appellation ‘do it again’. It is to his glory that he seems to exult so evidently in the repetition of the things he deems to be ‘good’. How else might a God drop hints about his life?

My time in those  idle ‘arboreal’ moments  eventually landed me in the lap of an ongoing project. It is a project begun years before when I had read something C.S. Lewis had written in Christian Reflections. It had made sense at the time but was hard to integrate into my selfish life, my life framed in the horizontal. Lewis had made the observation that there is an important difference between gratitude and adoration. Gratitude exclaims, very properly, "How good of God to give me this." Adoration says, "What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!" He adds,  in adoration “(o)ne's mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.” I suppose that for me gratitude begins and ends in the self. That’s not a bad thing. God calls us to do it. But adoration takes us beyond ourselves. It is genuinely “un-selfing”. It is a moment of wonder into which I am, for at least a moment, erased.  Adoration always leads me to follow the moment back to its source. It was just that sort of moment I was having that wet Fall day.

Sometimes our first thoughts on a given subject aren’t our last thoughts on that subject. At least it shouldn't be when two plains of existence are lodged in the same person’s head. In all of my attention to and thoughts about such beauty my first thought suggested the conclusion that without an audience, without watching eyes, all of this is gloriously wasteful. My second thoughts however led me to wonder about the kind of being who ladles such attention on something so ephemeral. It was truly (eventually) a timeless moment. While my bride was hunting treasures I was preoccupied with unpacking one, “lost in wonder, love and praise”.

The Subordinacy of Wisdom

"The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom."
- Proverbs 4:7a ESV

Scripture indicates that Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived.  Yet his life turned out quite messy.  For all of his wisdom, he neglected to put God above all else.  His many wives turned his heart away from the Lord.

Solomon's book of Proverbs is full of illustrations of the tremendous value of wisdom.  His book also has a great number of illustrations of the tragedy of foolishness.  As providence would have it, Solomon's life, like his great writings also demonstrated the value of wisdom and the tragedy of foolishness.  Thus evidence that is possible to be at the same time both wise and foolish.

Wisdom is to be sought after, yet wisdom is not ultimate.  Christ is ultimate.

One may seek wisdom and find it, yet fail to find Christ.  Yet one may never find Christ and not also find wisdom, for He is wisdom incarnate.

Is it Midnight?

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Christ calls me 
to believe his daylight
at midnight 
- Samuel Rutherford
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Awake or Asleep?

Guest post by KG:

And with this, where a better book would begin, mine must end. I dare not proceed. God knows, not I, whether I have ever tasted this love.  Perhaps I have only imagined the tasting. Those like myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have really reached. If we describe what we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that we have really been there. And if I have only imagined it, is it a further delusion that even the imagining has at some moments made all other objects of desire—yes, even peace, to have no more fears—look like broken toys and faded flowers? Perhaps. Perhaps, for many of us, all experience merely defines, so to speak, the shape of that gap where our love of God ought to be. It is not enough. It is something. If we cannot "practise the presence of God," it is something to practise the absence of God, to become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like men who should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there, or a man in a dream who stretches out his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch. To know that one is dreaming is to be no longer perfectly asleep. But for news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.

This quote is found as the last paragraph to the last chapter of C. S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves. It is an unexpected statement that seems to be an open confession, the final word, of a man who has just finished giving a guided tour of what is meant by God’s command to love one another. It is, for sure, an odd way to end a book. I say it is an ‘open confession’ because Lewis’ stated reason for not taking us any further is this: “God knows, not I, whether I have ever tasted this love.” Therefore he cannot be our guide taking us “further up and further in”.

There is something about Lewis’ admission that I have always liked. Admittedly, for me, there is a lot to like in Lewis’ writings. I need to explain. I am by no means a C.S. Lewis expert. The hyperactivity of my youth had not given me much time for interest in reading at all. But when God became a serious pursuit in my life I began reading in earnest. Apart from the Bible, providentially I began reading Lewis’ books. The reason was that on almost every page of most of the books I read I made discoveries that I have blessed God for these discoveries ever since. I have since found along the way of my Christian walk that I have lots of traveling companions. I am not alone in my appreciation of his work.

In regard to the quote under consideration, Lewis explains why he did not go any further than he went is not merely a matter that will be solved by a bit of  academic insight. When he says that he fears he may have only tasted this love he goes on to clarify: “Perhaps I have only imagined the tasting. Those like myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have really reached.” At least part of what he seems to be saying is that though a person possesses a great deal of technical understanding of the meaning of ‘love’ both in the biblical and historical senses (which of course he has), it should not therefore be assumed that they are the right sort of person to tell us about what it means. In other words, just because it can be reached does not mean that it has been grasped.

The apostle John does not hold back when it comes to telling us about love. He simply points to Jesus: “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 Beyond that, as if he has only partially defined love,  John says that the fullest definition comes with an application, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” In other words, part of the fuller definition of love is its exercise, both for God and for his children. According to John, loves practical expression is so much a part of its definition, he can go on to make a remarkable observation: “If we love one another God abides in us” (which is startling enough) “and his love is completed in us.” This is truly amazing. As if pointing to Jesus and his sacrifice for our good is not summary enough, it seems that love’s fullest and most complete meaning is found in its practice. We apparently play a part in the fuller description of the love God intends. Exegesis only tells part of the story. I suppose Lewis’ professed hesitancy to go any further into a description of the biblical meaning of love has something to do with the fact that in the end its fullest meaning is found in its expression in our lives.  It seems the test of love is how the person expressing it actually relates to saints, scholars and, perhaps more so, how that person relates to rascals.

The real ‘bang for the buck’ for me in this final word to Lewis’ book on love however had little to do with the high calling of God’s love on us and more to do with what bubbled up in me when I read the quote.  It should not be assumed that I am trying to finish Lewis’ thoughts after him. Nor that I am attempting to ‘psychoanalyze a dead man’. He says he dare not go any further because he may only be fleshing out his own imaginations rather than describing the complete truth about love as it is laid out in the bible.  It was there that I saw not Lewis but myself. Here Lewis had acted on what he feared about himself. Despite his considerable academic strengths he knew he could very well lead himself into mistaking the ‘imagined’ for the ‘real’. Suddenly I saw myself and what I had not been humble enough to fear that I might discover in myself. Years in college and more than adequate grades, reading good books, preparing and delivering thousands of lectures, lessons and sermons,  responding to skeptics and giving biblical counsel to saints in need had all led me into imagining  that my grasp equaled my reach. In this Lewis quote God t-boned me. (It is because I am such a headstrong disciple God has on a number of occasions, in his sometimes severe mercy, gotten my attention in just this way. It is not unlike the word to king David, “Though art the man.”)

One of the many happy discoveries of following Jesus is that my God is both knowledgeable of my truest condition and dedicated to correcting it. The discovery that Lewis had no doubt made in his own life is no doubt what the apostle Paul had previously discovered about the believers around him. And as a result he passed on to us grateful saints who live now generations later: “Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” (Philippians 3:15) Yet another reason to give thanks to a God who is good in both his description and his expression.

Lessons From the Stairs

Guest post by KG:

Several years ago we purchased a house. My wife was sold on it the first time she saw it. Little did I know that half of what she saw in the house was not what anyone else could have seen. When I looked at the house I saw what needed to be done. When she looked at the house she saw what COULD be done. What could be done involved, among other things, removing all the lath and plaster walls. I knew very little about home repair/improvement when I started and debatably more when it was all said and done. Anyway, part of the project of removing the plaster involved removing the plaster along the stairway. 

It was just those stairs that provided me with a trip… all the way down. It started at the top. About half our time on the stairway starts at the top. But this time was unique. Rather than traveling by foot I used a variation of back, bottom, and head. Now, the way I see it, some experiences are so powerful that they need to be thought through - things like marriage, raising children, surgery, IRS audits, auto accidents, angry exchanges, investing in a house, and on occasion falling down a flight of stairs. So as not to waste a golden opportunity, that is just what I did... think about it.

On the way down, I can assure you, I was not rethinking the color scheme for the bathroom. It was just crack, thump, bump all the way down. By the time I had reached the bottom I had lost my interest in how painful line 32 of that year's income tax form was going to be. I was mostly interested in where parts of my body were in relation to other parts and whether or not most of them came along for the ride. Almost nothing else mattered! Life on the stairway, for the moment, was screaming at me and that's about all that I had time for. Mark Twain was right; a man who has had a bull by the tail (or in my case has fallen down a flight of stairs) knows four or five things more than someone who hasn't.

There was a second reason that this particular moment would get my undivided thoughts. "Why fall down the stairs in the first place?" That's a pretty good question and in my case there was a pretty good reason, but to tell why would only add insult to injury. One thing I will say is that whatever my reflections may amount to, the short of it is that I only had myself to blame. Even if I didn't have myself to blame for what happened it had all happened just the same. Gravity worked! A fall is a fall. You can say "I'll never do that again" or "Man, I'm glad that's over with" or of course a variety of other things that saints just shouldn’t say even if the heat of the moment suggests them. In the end I had to conclude this one thing: It's just like life. We are constantly asking questions of it like, "Why did this happen to me?" or "What's the meaning of that?" We can bless it or curse it, but still, what happens happens. But more often than not and despite the needling questions we ask of it, we still get the silent treatment. When we ask "why?" we the typical response is the silent treatment.

If we change the frame of reference from ‘it’ to ‘you’, from addressing ‘life’ to addressing ‘God’ we may get some work done.  As it turns out we may not be asking the right questions of our disagreeable encounters with the sharp edges of life. More to the point, we may not be asking them of the right object. If we think about it and listen hard enough rather than being the interrogator we will realize we are being interrogated. So often it turns out that we sit in the seat of the questioner throughout the experiences of our lives. Despite the fact that it is not just an idle enquiry. Meanwhile he demands an answer - an answer in deeds, not just words: "What do you live by? What makes you tick? What/who do you trust?" ‘Life’ will not say a thing. It will remain mute. Whatever questions come will come from the one who is not silent. ‘Life’ is just God’s a sock puppet. All things play into his hand.

Poor pathetic Job had plenty of questions that he needed answered. He was up to his 'potsherds' in questions. But when God finally spoke he didn't answer one of Job’s questions. Don't misunderstand. He didn't address one of Job's questions directly, but what he did say satisfied all of his questions. He turned up asking questions of Job, dozens of them. His questions weren't malicious or angry. It's not until Job began to listen that he finally understood himself. (see Job 42:4-6) The most important questions are not our serrated “why’s!?” rather the questions God is asking us.  More often than not he asks us through our struggling encounters with life.

There comes the time, and it's more often than we think, when we need to listen. We talk too much. Whose side of the conversation do we think is more important anyway - ours or his? Admittedly, sometimes life "gets in our face" demanding our attention. But the counsel of the sages is, "be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10) My lesson/advice? Use the stairs, and life with caution. And always, through thick and thin, "be slow to speak and quick to listen."

- KG

Scandalous

"The idea that evangelical pastors can be sent to ministerial oversight of congregations without first having a solid grounding in biblical theology is one of the scandals of our time.  Show me a church without a good appreciation for the Old Testament and biblical theology and I'll show you a church with a weak understanding of the gospel."

- Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture

Crosses?

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Neither need we fear crosses, 
or sigh, or be sad for anything 
that is on this side of heaven, 
if we have Christ. 

- Samuel Rutherford
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The Primacy of the Holy Spirit

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The tragic reality is that the Holy Spirit is as unsettling and unwelcome in our day as Jesus was in his.  Jesus was scorned, mocked, ridiculed, belittled, he was the target of numerous assassination attempts, and ultimately killed.  Is it really any surprise that His Spirit is treated in like fashion today?    

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“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth:it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

John 16:7 ESV

Can you imagine the response of the disciples to these troubling words of Jesus?  How could it possibly good for Jesus to leave?  How could there be any advantage to such a predicament?  After all, Jesus was the one who healed the sick, raised the dead, confronted the power hungry religious leaders of the day, and who had, “the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Yet Jesus indicates that the more advantageous situation for the disciples is the one in which Jesus leaves and the Helper, the Holy Spirit, comes.  Jesus indicates that this would not happen unless Jesus were to leave.  This unknown territory to the disciples was not unknown to Jesus.  Jesus was the Immanuel, God with us (Mat. 1:23).  Yet when he left he sent the Holy Spirit to be God with us.  

Some theological schools have deplorably been referred to as teaching a new trinity, “The Father, The Son, and the Holy Scriptures.”  It is not a trite nor humorous thing to refer to another so called trinity, yet it rather painfully highlights a distressing problem in our focus.

The study of theology can be a wonderful thing, encouraging, and enlightening.  Yet it is not sufficient to define a relationship with God.  For a relationship with God does not consist in the reading of books.  Without a doubt books can be helpful, yet books permit us to remain in our comfort zone while the Holy Spirit would draw us further out of our comfort zones and into waters that are well over our heads.   

The tragic reality is that the Holy Spirit is as unsettling and unwelcome in our day as Jesus was in his.  Jesus was scorned, mocked, ridiculed, belittled, he was the target of numerous assassination attempts, and ultimately killed.  Is it really any surprise that His Spirit is treated in like fashion today?    

Of Thunder & Prayer

A guest post by KG:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 

Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 

There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 

Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. 

(Psalm 19:1-4)

Our age has the distinct privilege of looking more deeply (whether microscopically or telescopically) into the physical world than any generation that has gone before us.  It is hard to avoid the notion that we are looking at something that has been crafted. (Even Richard Dawkins, the inveterate atheist concedes as much.) Whether we considering the architecture of ameba or galaxies everything has an artistry that invites us to look at it as well as beyond it to what must be an artist. Even chaos has a calculus. The heavens do have a language all its own. And we are so crafted that we can understand its dialect. We can hear its speech and it is “talking its head off”.     

 I just heard the thunder the other evening. It was great. I have always enjoyed thunder and thunderstorms. It was one of my childhood thrills while growing up in the Texas Panhandle. Michigan/Missouri thunder is not quite so "mythic" but it is thunder none the less. Thunder speaks to something within me. And it almost always meets me when I’m in the middle of doing something else. It never needs to be introduced. It rumbles into my awareness, echoes between my ears and almost always swamps every other conversation. Thunder is an unapologetically rude wonder. 

Job says "He unleashes his lightening beneath the whole heaven ...after that comes the sound of his roar. He thunders with his majestic voice ...God's voice thunders in marvelous ways. He does great things beyond our understanding (Job 37:3-4)." Being an audience to a thunder storm makes it a little easier to imagine how falling into the hands of the living God would be a uniquely alarming experience. Sometimes I wonder, "How could I possibly approach such a thundering God”?  At the same time I think “How could I avoid him”? Sometimes it seems like I'm on a fool's errand when I pray to God, that only a fool would enter into such a dangerous circumstance. (In prayer, Eugene Peterson reminds us, we are brought into proximity with the one that breaks cedars, shakes and strips forests bare making the oaks whirl. Ps. 29) Only a fool would believe that such thunder cares that it exists, let alone that it would hear our squeaking words.  The remarkable promise, the even more remarkable experience is that, unlike climatologically turbulence, he does hear our squeaking words.

Sometimes it seems like a fool's errand to pray. Other times, however, it's clear that only a fool wouldn't pray after coming to this bellowing God. John Donne said about his own life with God that he did not need God's music, he needed God's thunder. We all need to be interrupted. To fall into the hands of the living God is a terrible thing we are told. But when you think about it, though terrifying, his hands are also the only place where we can find an answer to our deepest londings.  "Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of heavenly lights." (James 1:17) As Mr. Beaver says in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,  “He may not be safe but he is always, always good.” Pray on.

- KG

Opposition Equals Opportunity

Facing Opposition?  If so you're not alone.  Scripture is full of examples of God's people encountering opposition, as is the rest of history.

Opposition is not only par for the course in this life, it is the wind which fills the sails of faith.  

In Matthew 8:23-27 Jesus and several of his disciples were on a boat.  Their opposition that day was a great storm and apparently a boat that wasn't sufficient to handle the storm.  Not surprisingly fear was the response of the disciples.  

In the midst of the storm Jesus says, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?"       

A few implications of his words; 

A lack of faith, in the face of opposition, results in fear.

Genuine faith sees beyond the opposition, and is mindful that God is always aware of the storms in our lives and that he remains ever present with us in the midst of them?

Opposition equals opportunity to put faith into practice.

  

If you faint in the day of adversity,

your strength is small

- Proverbs 24:10

His Life in Me

Guest post by KG:

I have labored under the burden most of my life with not having reached a saints perfection. I am a practicing ‘imperfectionist’. Worse yet, I think of myself as an incompetent perfectionist. I am bothered by my many failures. I desire to be and do better but I, sadly, I am not. That very same annoyance is only magnified by my Christian walk.  I have been included ‘in Jesus’. Not only is my history literally littered with failed attempts at life lived in the horizontal, when I became a Christian I gladly included a vertical dimension which has Jesus Christ at the center. In light of that fact, the trail of littered failures only grew exponentially. When compared to Christ understandably the failure factor has not gotten any smaller.

Lest my moaning confessions sound like an all too public airing of my own dirty laundry I need to add something that in the end transforms the crisis. In 2 Corinthians 4 Paul says that God has illumined our dark hearts with the light of Jesus.  “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Vs. 6 He says it is not unlike placing a treasure inside a clay jar.  What appears to be a monumental waste of God’s good efforts, he goes on to clarify has the genius of God’s purpose in it.  His intention is to show that the goal of his project has little of us in it, save the storage space. His purpose is to point to himself as being our rescue—our savior. And then he says, what for the life all too familiar with failed attempts, the complicating words: “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Jesus’ life is shown to those around me through my mediocre life. It seems like a bit much.

I said before that all this is intended to add something that turns my failure rate into something entirely more than a mere moaning confession. Paul’s intention is to turn my eyes off of myself and onto another. He says so explicitly—“ to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us”. It is the way God has of showing that it is his work and no one else’s, least of all our own. He first shows us it is so by saving our muddy lives and continues the project by living within us. The light that illumines my inner darkness is not somehow the light that I am somehow commanded to approximate. As Paul describes things, to show that “the surpassing power belongs to God” and not to us, he surrounds that sacred event with a veneer of failure and defeat, my failure and defeat. In fact our failure becomes a significant factor in the course of God’s plan. The first failure was the world’s response to Jesus which culminated in the cross. Since the world’s response was my first response to him, the burden to muster Christ’s life does not rest on me. After all I am the problem. My burden is to reflect not generate his light in me. I must decrease and he must increase. C.S. Lewis captures Paul’s thought in a way that only he can.

“'Originality' in the New Testament is quite plainly the prerogative of God alone … The duty and happiness of every other being is placed in being derivative, in reflecting like a mirror… If I have read the New Testament aright, … our whole destiny seems to lie in the opposite direction, in being as little as possible ourselves, in acquiring a fragrance that is not our own but borrowed; in becoming clean mirrors filled with the image of a face that is not ours. ….. I am saying only that the highest good of a creature must be creaturely—that is, derivative or reflective—good.”

Otherwise called grace, God’s labor in us is not to teach us new tricks but to let him shine through us, to point to Jesus by habits that express what God’s grace has done in us.

Oswald Chambers says it well:

“It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life. Do I manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God, or the essential irritation of "myself" apart from Him? The only thing that will enable me to enjoy the disagreeable is the keen enthusiasm of letting the life of the Son of God manifest itself in me.”

I suppose this in part of the reason that so often in Paul’s letters all of the action of the life of a disciple of Jesus is said to take place “in Christ” or of Christ being “in us” (over 160 times in a variety of different contexts).

The whole idea raises a number of questions. But to side step the questions by ignoring the glory of such a remarkable event seems an odd and costly way to proceed. In fact, I suppose I may have ‘failed’ to get it right. If so, I will have to deal with that very familiar habit. Until then I motor on in the sobering and wonderful implication of his life in me.

- KG

A Prescription for Wisdom

Whoever walks 
       with the wise 
            becomes wise

- Proverbs 13:20a ESV

News From a Christian Worldview

Dr. Albert Mohler's The Briefing is an excellent resource for a wise perspective on current events throughout the U.S. and the World as seen from a Christian Worldview.

I have come to greatly appreciate Dr. Mohler's efforts in this regard for multiple reasons.  First it is a succinct and thought provoking response to current events.  Secondly Dr. Mohler is uniquely capable in his ability to apply the lens of Scripture to the vast array of issues that make headlines today. Lastly it is brief enough to regularly appreciate it's entirety.

So often the listening to or watching the news becomes nauseating.  This is a welcome and non-nauseating alternative. So rather than a cup of coffee and the morning news, I have a 5-hour energy drink and listen to The Briefing.

Afraid to Fly

My gray haired friend and mentor, full of wisdom, shared with me what I perceived to be one of the most important lessons he had ever learned.  

The gravity of his words weighed heavily on me from the moment he spoke them, and they still do.  In fact I hope I always feel the weight of this lesson upon my shoulders.  

For years I was privileged to meet with this dear man one on one.  For hours at a time I endeavored to soak up his wisdom.  Yet it was more than wisdom alone that I was drawn to.  This friend bears a stunning Christ-likeness the likes of which I have not encountered elsewhere, ever.  

For years my silent prayer request was that I would be able to grab ahold of and incorporate the lessons that this man had learned through a lifetime of ministry.  For years I wanted ask him what is the most important thing you have ever learned, yet I didn’t, for every time I met with him I learned more than I could retain.  

What a painful moment it was for me when he advised that he would soon be moving away, out of state, in order that his wife and he could be closer to their kids and grandchildren.  I endeavored to meet with him more frequently until they moved.  

During one of these meetings over a poor quality Chinese buffet lunch, I first felt the weight of the lesson.  I was more nourished by the wisdom that he shared with me that day than I have been by a thousand meals.  He spoke from deep and personal pain.  Sometimes a tear would reveal itself and then slowly disappear down his face.  

He said something like, “I think I’ve got it wrong for all of those years.  In fact I wonder if I ever got it right.”  Referring to his multiple decades in ministry, he explained what he meant.  He had so combined the idea of ministry and his walk with God that the two had strangely morphed into one.  Once he retired due to significant physical ailment, and his involvement in ministry stopped, he looked around to find his relationship with God was also strangely absent.  

These words were particularly shocking coming from my mentor friend whom I held in such high esteem.  How could he say this?  Why would he say this?  I had to know.  I desperately wanted to stand in his shoes and know the reality of what he was saying yet it was slipping through my hands like oil.  

We talked about it for weeks.  I had to get to the bottom of this.  What follows is a portion of my efforts to boil the lesson down to it’s essential components:

One can substitute ministry for a walk with God, even a vibrant ministry.  Ministering to people is important, it is something that we are called to, yet it is not ultimate.  Christ is ultimate.  Therefore a genuine relationship with him is vital, and of dire importance.  

A genuine relationship involves two way communication.  Is he communicating, are you listening?  Are you communicating?  Is He leading and directing?  Are you following?  

We default to going our own way, doing things our own way, not listening, not communicating, and not following.  I think this is precisely what my wise friend meant when he said he thinks he got it wrong and wonders if he ever got it right.  

In John 16:7-15 Jesus comforts his disciples about his leaving, telling them it is good that he leaves in order that he would send the Holy Spirit.  Then in verse 13 he says, “whatever he (the Holy Spirit) hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”  Jesus clearly, explicitly tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will communicate with them, with us.  “He will speak… He will declare…”  This is crystal clear teaching of a personal God who relates in a very personal way with his people.    

Now your feathers may ruffle a bit at this, and you might be thinking, “But God speaks to us through his word, the inspired Scriptures.”  With this point I would agree, yet I would ask you this; is it possible to have a relationship with the word of God, yet miss a genuine relationship with God himself?  Here is where my old friend would say something like this, “Ah, but we prefer a comfortable distance from God.”  

Scripture itself testifies that one can substitute a relationship with the Bible for a relationship with God.  This is evident in Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”  (John 5:39 ESV)  It is entirely possible to have deep knowledge of Scripture and yet completely miss the point.  And what a tragic thing it is to miss the point, especially this one.   

The professional religious people in Jesus’ day got it wrong.  They dedicated their entire lives to the topic and missed the central subject.  I suspect that today this is in large part also the case with many of our professionals.  I’m certain that this has been the case for the overwhelming majority of my life as well.  My heart breaks that it may not be this way any longer.  Yet it is not as if I can pick myself up by the bootstraps and take the reigns to steer myself back onto proper course.  This is in fact the most disconcerting issue about the whole matter.  I am not the head in this relationship.  And I am so used to being the head, the granite headed way maker.  The reality however, is quite the opposite; Christ is the head.  He is leading in this dance and I can only hope to be enabled to follow.  Oh, but this is precisely what the Holy Spirit does.  He both teaches and enables us to follow Jesus’ lead.  

My gray headed friend, who only walks with the assistance of a cane or a walker, may have just taught me what it is to fly.

Going to those who will come & dangers along the way

"Why do you come here?" That was one of the first questions of the night on last night's addictions class at the jail. The inmate was in the class for the first time and would be released from the jail the next morning. The question seemed sincere. Although my response to his inquiry was a little lengthy one of the main answers to his question was, "because you guys may listen."

There is a hunger in the jail that is very unusual in other places in our society. In jail people to begin to ponder things they would never otherwise think about. They consider that their lives are not perfect and they may possibly need to learn some things. They seem to have ears to hear when others outside of the jail, who are stuffed with the little pleasures of this world, simply have not the time nor the desire for anything greater. While the rest of the world seems to be feasting on the junk food of life, those in the jails seem to be given opportunity to hunger for something different. It is possible that this hunger resonates in this environment because access to the junk food of life (less satisfying pleasures) is significantly limited. During this forced fast from such things the divinely placed hunger (which resides in all of us) to be ultimately satisfied is allowed to ring more clearly.
One of the other inmates who has gotten out of the jail, and has been meeting in a small men's group at the church for a month now, was quick to be able to point out this situation as well. After he spent a few months in the jail he agrees there is a unique hunger for God that is experienced by many in the jail.

Go to those who will come. That seems to be the point of the below passage in Luke. This passage appears to demonstrate a divine and intense intolerance for those who are so satiated with the simple things in life that they no longer hunger for the greatest thing in life.

Luke 14:16-24
14:16 But he said to him, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 14:17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.' 14:18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.' 14:19 And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.' 14:20 And another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' 14:21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.' 14:22 And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.' 14:23 And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 14:24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.'"

Many places and resources in our society can quickly diagnose problem behaviors such as trouble with drugs, alcohol, greed, gambling, and sex issues. These issues are not remotely difficult to point out as bad. These dangers are well marked and those who encounter them generally have a fair idea as to what they're getting themselves into. There are however more subtle dangers that are not nearly as well marked. These are the "little" dangers such as being so satisfied with your health, home, money, family, and hobbies that your heart is no longer hungry for the greatest good.

While society is somewhat guarded against those big dangers (as we should be) we all too often are left susceptible to the flank attack. Jesus wasn't messing around when he said, (Mark 10:25) "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."

That is a statement that should give us cause for concern. The average citizen in America is richer than the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world. Thank goodness Jesus also said, (Mark 10:27) "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God."

(Originally posted in May of 2008)

Too Blind To See

Simply too blind too see
thy loving kindness,
and all You'd like to show me.
For my eyes can barely open
and when they do, I see people walking
around that look a bit like trees.

Surely You could help me to see.
I've heard of Your grace,
Your mercy and majesty.
Yet I'm almost entirely blind here,
and cannot see Your face.
Neither can I see Your hands
which have given all of these gifts,
nor the glorious worth of Your commands,
for all I see in this dark place is pain and breaking
loss and tears and sorrow and overwhelming fears.

Yet I have heard Your words of life.
It seems I may see best with my ears,
for my eyes do not see so well.
Yet this life now full of years
a map can draw for those friends
who like me cannot see.
Directions to the course which leads to the end
promised by You, one which steers clear of hell,
and makes the blind to see
that You are the only true treasure,
though so often as hidden in a field.

All the while as we seek pleasure
our blindness to Your glory leads us to yield
to many things we would not touch;
if seeing clearly were our gift.
Yet blinded eyes lead foolish hands
to the rubbish which makes us sick.
Then sickened stomach places us back on course
to find that which truly satisfies,
that which never ever fades, nor spoils, nor dies.

May our blindness lead us to You.
And our gift of hunger to Your table.
Thank You for granting such gifts;
that we would never ask for,
and now would never trade.
For these have brought us here
to dwell in Your magnificent shade.

- A.B. Seal


(Originally posted on 02-28-10)