The Cost of Christmas

   Merry Christmas! It's late Christmas night, and I hope everyone had a great Christmas today! I'm going to spend one more day talking about Christmas and hope no one shoots me for talking about Christmas on the 26th.

    We have plenty of songs to memorialize our thoughts about this day, songs that paint a mental picture. "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head, the stars in the sky looked down as He lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay." There's an example of a classic Christmas song that paints a beautiful picture of our Saviors birth as a peaceful, pretty time.

    Again, I want to point us to a part of Christmas we prefer not to look at amid the incredible gifts that are our Savior's Advent. Christmas, the time we celebrate such enormous gifts to mankind was the time when our Lord was suffering an enormous cost.

    The picture we see in the song above paints a pretty picture of the manger scene, does it not? Clear skies, the baby Jesus peacefully sleeping in a manger of fragrant, golden hay, with softly mooing animals all around, right?

    Not a whole lot in common with a screaming teenage girl giving birth to a baby with no pain medicine on a manure stained, muddy floor. Or the newborn baby Jesus wrapped in stained, muddy rags and laid in a crude trough. Same picture? I don't think so.

    See, the advent of our Lord came at brutal cost to Himself. The reason this time of year is so incredible is, in fact, because of the incredible story it tells! The idea of God becoming man is so radical that it is unbelievable, but why? Why is it a crazy concept?

    Exactly because of the brutal cost to Himself. It's a crazy idea because we all can see, realize it or not, that God becoming man is an incredible humiliation, an insane demotion! And even aside from the obvious cost of Christ's advent (His death), we must examine that in coming as our Savior, His coming was at brutal cost to Himself.

    His coming was not peaceful or beautiful. It was not "silent night, holy night". It was a brutal night in a war-torn world. It was not a painless labor for Mary that night. It was not a care-free, relaxing night for Joseph. It was a wild night, a crazy night, a night the impossible happened.

    I don't say any of this to make us feel guilt or overly somber this Christmas season. I say this only to deepen our appreciation for what the advent of Christ means. The cost of our redemption was indeed very high. It just wasn't high for us; it was the lifeblood of our God. The cost was incredibly high for Him.

    This Christmas (even if it's the day after Christmas), remember. The story of Jesus is not the story of peaceful sleep. It's the story of the wild God of the universe who broke ever rule for how God behaves with humans; He became us. To reveal Himself to us, to free us, He became us. At an extraordinary cost to Himself, both at His birth and in His death, He sacrificed Himself, for the benefit of His creation. That is Christmas!

When Christ Came

    It's the night before Christmas, and all through the house, chaos is reigning, with noise from the couch. :) It's Christmas Eve tonight, and while I've had another post spinning around in my mind for the last week or so that I wanted to write, I am going to take a step back and spend a couple days (tonight and tomorrow) talking about Christmas.

     As we glide through Christmas season here in America, it's easy to get the idea that Christmas is all about peace on earth, goodwill, and lovely things. Our culture dictates that Christmas is shaped in such a way that we see the part we want to see and miss the rest, more specifically, the things that made "peace and earth and goodwill toward men" such incredible concepts and not just wise sayings from a Jewish rabbi.

     These are such amazing things during an amazing season for a specific reason. I mean, peace and goodwill toward men are concepts that most people ignore the rest of the year, though they're no less true. Why is this the time when people recognize these concepts of goodwill?

      Just the fact that we're celebrating "goodwill" implies there was a time when there was not "goodwill". That's the part of Christmas most people ignore. Goodwill and peace on earth is special because goodwill and peace on earth are the exception, not the rule, in God to earth relations.

     I knew this, but I had never spent much time thinking about it until we read over the Christmas story tonight as a family. We all enjoy and write songs about the parts of the story where the angels appear to the shepherds ("Angels We Have Heard on High"), where the baby is born ("Away in a Manger"), and the magii ("We Three Kings"), right? But the much less often read part of the story is the tragedy that follows the magii, the massacre of every male child in Bethlehem following Jesus' family's flight to Egypt.

     We prefer to ignore that part of the story, or at a minimum, we forget about it. But what this story details is a striking illustration of why Jesus came. There was not peace on earth or goodwill toward men. The earth was torn by sin since the fall. We were the objects of God's wrath and judgment, and as a part of the judgment for our rebellion, death entered the world. Of course, the poetic (and rightfully beautiful part of the story) is that through the death of Christ, death died, but even so, we do no service to a right understanding of Advent by dismissing the evil and the horrors of the state of the world before Jesus' incarnation.

    But the account given immediately after the incredible tale of a miraculous visit from the magii serves as a grim reminder of exactly why Christ came to die. He came to bring peace to a war torn world, to bring redemption to a people born evil, to be the hope of a hopelessly enslaved people. By focusing on the Redeemer, we must not lose focus of what He was redeeming us from.

    Under Him, Is. 9 (please take a moment and go read the first 7 verses of Is. 9) speaks of peace ushered into an otherwise destructive world. Jesus is spoken of us a ruling King and a leader, a ruler, a position that He holds in the shadows now and will one day proclaim in victory before all men. My encouragement to all of you is to spend a moment this Christmas considering what exactly we have been saved from in Christ. He is our Savior. We all get that. But is He our Savior from poverty? Our Savior from arguments? Our Savior from racism or bigotry?

     Maybe in a way. But first and foremost, He is our Savior from the fall, from our own wanton self-destruction. Most necessary to emphasize, He is our Redeemer, our High Priest, our Intercessor, and our Sacrifice. Most of us stop there, but He is our Redeemer from what? Our High Priest how? Our Intercessor for what? Our sacrifice why?

     The Christmas story takes on new meaning when we see that we were saved, not from cultural problems but from death and untold destruction, the results of our own decision. When Christ came, it was not to a beautiful manger full of soft, sweet hay, with groomed animals standing by, watching as Mary painlessly birthed our Lord.

     No, our God was born into a manure stained stable, with a muddy floor and rough manger as the only furniture in the room as a screaming teenager brought her first child into the world. God didn't come into a scenic world, prestine and beautiful. His sacrifice came at incredible cost to Himself. And as His teenage mother laid the God of the universe into a roughly formed, wooden trough full of day old hay and straw, wrapped in filthy rags, she was looking into the face of the only hope for all mankind.

Interesting Stuff

    Here are some pretty cool videos I ran across tonight from a 1995 discussion/debate with such evangelicals as James White (now Dr. James White), Dr. Dan Wallace, Dr. Don Wilkins, Dr. Sam Gipp, and Dr. Thomas Strouse on the subject of KJV onlyism. I had only done a very small amount of research on this topic previous to this past month, but what reading and listening I have been able to do has been very eye opening to the nature of this controversy. And honestly, the more I've found, the more I realize I'm just scratching the surface of the entire discussion.

    Below is a series of videos from the discussion I described before. There are 39 videos, all 3-8 minutes long, each a clip from the discussion addressing a certain idea or verse that has sparked controversy during the KJV only debate. I've watched through video 30 over my lunch break, in the evening while cleaning my room, as I've found time over the past couple of weeks, etc., and have found them extremely interesting, so I thought I would share. Feel free to listen to all 39 if you want or perhaps sift through them and listen to a couple that may specifically address your questions regarding this debate.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKaOWCeUGw&list=PL0EE0E14EA7B25055&index=2

When God Depends on Us

    I'm just a bit frustrated tonight... you know, my sister made the comment last year that I am a "sucker for punishment." It's a regular habit of mine to look up arguments and viewpoints of people who hold very different theological opinions as I do, and quite frequently, that winds up getting me frustrated. I'm working on just dealing with what I can and letting the rest roll off me, but it's a work in progress that isn't done yet. :)

    So just this other evening, I looked up some arguments for KJV onlyism. Honestly, I don't have a big issue with KJV onlyism. I personally use NASB the majority of the time, but it's not a hot topic issue for me. I've had plenty of KJV only friends that I've gotten along with fine. But the denomination that generally argues most vehemently for KJV onlyism is a denomination that I used to be a part of, so I spent a little bit more time poking around on some of their websites, mostly for old time's sake (or maybe my sister's right and I'm just a sucker for punishment). That was where I ran across this.

     Anyone who has spent any amount of time in that particular denomination knows that there is a big emphasis on "revival", a time of mass conversions and change in our country. I've heard both individual sermons and multiple month series on what is necessary for revival to occur in our country, so it's a concept I've heard a lot and honestly hadn't thought of in several years since I'd moved out of those circles and into more mainstream Christian theology.

     Anyhow, all that to introduce this statement. "If we're going to see revival, there must be: prevailing prayer, powerful preaching, personal purging." Now, I want to make something very clear. Strictly speaking, there is nothing incorrect about this statement (well, there might be a couple questionable points, but for the most part, it's not a bad alliteration). I mean, it's debatable whether or not you really need those things in order to have revival, but sure, as an opinion, that's fine. There's nothing theologically wrong with the statement, except for maybe the idea of purging being something I do on myself, but that's a side issue for the moment.

     Where I take issue with the statement is mostly because of my background in that denomination that makes me look deeper into the attitude behind the statement. There's something wrong if your formula for revival doesn't mention anything about the work of Christ or the working of the Holy Spirit. In fact, if you can get through your revival formula without mentioning God, something's wrong.

     My issue tonight is with the idea that the key to soulwinning/revival/missions is me. Yes, me. No, you won't hear it said that way, but that is the heart of the message. The key, the missing link to successful soulwinning/revival/missions is you! You need to do this, or that, try harder or present the gospel better or preach more powerfully or pray more prevailingly or purge more from your life. At the end of the day, God is waiting on you to get your act together (either you as a person or you as a church or you as a collective body of believers in America. The use of "you" varies) before He's able to continue on with His plan.

     He wants to send revival, but you're just not quite there yet, so He's stuck. Waiting on you, wishing you'd shape up. Poor God. Poor almighty Creator of heaven and earth, stuck, waiting for men to get their act together so He can get on with His plan!

     I hope the sarcasm above just gave you a glimpse into the problem with that attitude. If revival is basically dependent on me, we're in sorry shape and so is God's "sovereign" (that isn't so sovereign) plan. In fact, the beauty of God's sovereignty is gone. Instead, God is enslaved to man's self sanctification, waiting for men to fix themselves (a hopeless situation according to Scripture), whether the self sanctification is in the form of more powerful preaching or more personal purging or more prevailing prayer. In any of those cases, God is stuck waiting for man to get to work so He can continue with His plan.

     Basically, my hope is that we can get over ourselves. We're not the beginning and ending of God's plans. He's not waiting for us to get our act together so He's free to act. Actually, revival happens when God's Holy Spirit moves among people, drawing the lost to Himself and the saints closer to Himself. The idea of revival depending on us is not only daunting, but downright discouraging!

     How much "powerful preaching" is enough? How much "prevailing prayer" is enough before revival happens? Is God watching us as we vainly struggle to preach more powerfully and pray more prevailingly, waiting for us to purge just enough in ourselves for Him to finally be free to work? How much must we purge out of ourselves before God decides we're holy enough to do "His" part (as if the salvation of souls is divided in any way into God's part and my part)?

     I believe the things this quote doesn't say are, in point of fact, the more beautiful of the facts about salvation! That God saves those whom He chooses despite every difficulty and every conflict, despite a lack of powerful preaching, prevailing prayer, or personal purging is more beautiful by far! God has chosen for Himself a royal priesthood, a peculiar people in whom to reveal Himself, and He will save them, regardless of the state of the church at the time or of the country or of the world! He is not bound by humanity or by our shortcomings.

     Part of the beauty of Christ's sovereign plan of redemption is that it is not able to fail. He will not fail in saving those whom He intends to save. He cannot fail! God doesn't need us to accomplish His will, either in revival or anything else. He's God.

Good Quote

“We can grasp the full meaning of the Resurrection, we first have to witness or experience crucifixion. If we spend our lives so afraid of suffering, so averse to sacrifice, that we avoid even the risk of persecution or crucifixion, then we might never discover the true wonder, joy and power of a resurrection faith. Ironically, avoiding suffering could be the very thing that prevents us from partnering deeply with the Risen Jesus.”
                                                                   -Nik Ripkin, The Insanity of God

There is No Condemnation

    I still remember it clearly. I was in Italy for the Taekwondo World Championships as a member of the 2015 Team USA. It was my first international tournament, and my first event was individual sparring with Russia, a team with quite the reputation. Our team has had a history of getting thrashed to us by the Russians (I had heard the story before I left of one of the instructors in our area being knocked cold in his first round vs Russia), so there was quite a bit of intimidation there.

    When I finally got to the ring, the pressure of hundreds of people watching was too much. And as I walked out of the ring having just lost the most major fight of my taekwondo "career", I did it, the unthinkable. The perfect homeschooled, Christian teenager cussed as he walked out of the ring.

    As soon as I did it, the guilt was there. So I slipped on my tracksuit and my sunglasses and went outside to cool down and compose myself. And promise myself I would never do such a thing again.

    Take a guess what this perfect homeschooled, Christian teenager did the next morning when he lost patterns competition? Yep, you guessed it. I failed, again. Just 24 hours after I had promised myself that I would never do such a thing again, I fell to the same stupid sin.

    I tell that story, one that I'm very not proud of though no one but my coach knew about it until tonight, to illustrate one very important point, one we've all experienced before but we convince ourselves isn't true this time every time we trip and fail again.

    It's the idea that I can just make myself stop sinning. Maybe if I try hard enough, motivate myself enough, or muster up enough self will, I can convince myself to stop sinning, as if it were a habit rather than an ingrained fabric of our very natures. But no matter how much our previous track record should make us do a double take before we try this strategy again and again, we keep doing it, keep convincing ourselves that the secret to holiness and a sanctified life is more self-will, more effort, more determined behavior patterns.

    But it's a lie that leaves us more and more disillusioned as we slip deeper and deeper into the realization that I do not have the power of my self-will to defeat sin or counter my natural urges. As we try again and again, maybe winning sometimes, but definitely failing others, we gradually lose hope in my ability to resist temptation by pushing myself harder or for higher aspirations of holiness.

    And at some point, you will find yourself along the road of disillusionment saying, "What can I do? What possible other option is there?" And this is the point where so many believers slip, going either 110% toward higher and higher standards of holiness that instead propels them over a cliff into legalism, abandoning any pursuit of holiness and instead living a life of license under the guise of "grace", or leave the faith altogether, purposing that holiness was a bunch of garbage anyway.

    But there's a pivotal piece of Scripture I think we should examine while we're thinking about this idea of temptation. Rom. 7:14-24, "For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. ¹⁵ For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. ¹⁷ So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. ¹⁹ For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. ²⁰ But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.


^"21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. ²² For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, ²³ but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"

    In case you haven't put it together yet, that is not the typical confession of a famous missionary to a church that's supporting him. You don't hear messages like this from pastors in the pulpit very often. Come to think of it, rarely will we as believers ever be frank and honest enough to actually say anything approaching a confession of this magnitude. And this is an apostle! This is the greatest missionary who's ever lived!

    I want you to put together what you just read. The man who authored most of the New Testament is confessing that "the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want." When was the last time you heard someone confess something like that to their best friend, much less to a body of believers by letter hundreds of miles away, some of whom Paul had probably never met!

    But astounding or not, Paul paints a fairly bleak picture, does he not? If this were a typical Baptist sermon, this would be the part where the pastor would come into the "application" portion of the sermon about striving for holiness against the flesh, trying harder, working more. But if we read the next couple of verses, that's not at all what Paul's reaction is. In fact, I think if Paul were in many of the congregations I've been in, he would have been accused of abusing grace with his next statements.

    "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin." Hold up, Paul. You close off with a statement that you wish you could do good, your desire is to do good, but that your flesh often wins out, but thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord? For what!?

    "Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Can you imagine ending a recitation of your sins and failures this way? My flesh is a constant battle. It consistently beats me, enough so that my desires to follow Christ and my desires for instant gratification and pleasure are at constant war. But... there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

    This is the rest for the weary soul burdened down by legalism and Pharisaical Christianity. This is the hope that inspires us to trust in the working of Christ for sanctification rather than my own self will. This is the peace with God promised to His elect, the fruits of His intercession before His Father for each of us. This is what it means to be redeemed.

    There is no condemnation. Despite our sins, despite our struggles with the flesh, despite all of that, there is no condemnation. There is no condemnation!

    The solution to sin in our life is not more self-will; at least, it wasn't Paul's. The solution is greater adoration and focus on Christ. An understanding of who He is and what it means to be His child brings us closer and closer to Him, further and further along our path of sanctification as He shapes and molds us into the person He wants each of us to be. Sanctification is an act of God, a gift of God, in each of our lives, not as the result of our effort and will, but as the result of overflowing grace, constantly making us new before God through Christ!

    There is no condemnation! 

Good Song

It has been revealed to me...

    I was shown something in a dream last night. I received very clear directions from a glowing, white figure in my dream promising health, riches, and wisdom if I would follow his advice: that I should follow this link: here, and vote for the picture on the top left of an Aussie puppy in the snow by an Aimee Crank. Which is quite coincidental, since my sister's name happens to be an Aimee Crank. Weird, right?

    I must be honest, I was already pretty healthy, but the riches and the wisdom haven't shown up yet. I'm still hoping though for a late night delivery by UPS (or maybe the glowing, white figure was cheap and didn't want to pay for overnight shipping for my riches and wisdom), but in the mean time, I thought I would post on here so y'all would have the same opportunity I did!

    Okay, in all seriousness, y'all, this is a photography contest my sister entered for a nice camera and some great lenses. I don't want anybody to feel like you have to vote or anything, I just thought I would spread the word for my amazing sis (She's pretty great...).

    So seriously, guys. It's a great picture. Click on it. :)

    

But I'm Not Perfect

    I've spent a lot of time in thought this afternoon. Radical grace is an understanding that is fairly easy to understand but oh so difficult to comprehend, and I continually struggle with understanding how it applies to my life, whether I'm on top of the world in close communion with Christ or I'm walking through the fog in the valley.

    The all too common idea in Christianity is that being a Christian means you are a "little Christ", a miniature Christ. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that phrase used to preach a message of "push harder so you look like a "little Christ"! "You should be a sermon in shoes" as the kid's song goes.

    I don't know how long it takes to get a bit disillusioned with that message, but in my case, I am by now. I'm going to make a very different argument today, one that has nothing to do with preaching a sermon with our lives or becoming a miniature Christ by our self-will. I'm pretty sure if it were possible to become that little miniature Christ in our flesh, Paul never would have penned his words in Romans 7.

    Tonight, I ran across another passage of the Bible that speaks volumes to me about who I am in Christ. Rev. 7:9-10, 13-17 says, "After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'These who are clothed in white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?' I said to him, 'My lord, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

    "For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to the springs of the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.'"

    I struggle with who I see in this passage. See, my first thought is that these are the perfect ones, those church members and elders who just aced their life here. That one who prayed the long, theological prayer from the pulpit on Sunday? That one who had every answer to every question? That one who never seemed to doubt, whose faith and confidence in Christ never wavered? Those are the ones I see in this picture.

    But as I look closer, we don't see the perfect ones. We see the doubting Thomas, the foot in mouth Peter, the murdering, adulterous David, the thorn in the flesh Paul, the prostitute Mary somewhere in there as well, the murderer Moses, the questioning Job, the suicidal Elijah. We see this crowd of failures, mess-ups, and doubters. We see that guy with the tattoo, that girl with the nose ring, the guy who struggled with pornography, that girl who struggled with self-harm, that former headhunter, and over there we have an Indian temple girl.

    How did they get here? We look closer, wondering where the saints are. Where are the perfect ones? Where are the saints? And as our eyes shift from the crowd around the thrown, they rest on the center of attention, the object in the center of the room. The thrown, surrounded by this sea of faces, and on it, sits the Lamb.

    And then, out of nowhere, a thought pops into our head. "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you from darkness into His wonderful light." And then another, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God... For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Suddenly, we see what it means.

    Who are these failures? These are the saints.
    Who are these sinners? These are the perfect ones.
    Who are these screw-ups? These are they who have washed their robes and been made white in the blood of the Lamb.  
    Who are these people? They are we.

    The crowd around the thrown is us, the screw-ups. The failures. The ragamuffins. The sinners. That's us! The crowd around the thrown is us. We are the saints.

    But we're not perfect! Maybe some of y'all are like me, at this point you're thinking in your head, "Brother, that sounds great and all, but you don't know me! If you knew my doubts and my struggles and my temptations, you wouldn't group me in this bunch! If you saw my average thought life, you'd kick me out the door! If you saw who I really am, you wouldn't be so sure!"

    But realize it or not, that's not who you are. There's two pertinent details here. 1.) In God's eyes, you're righteous. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away, behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation... He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of Christ in Him." (2 Cor. 5:17-19, 21)

    2.) We are in the process of not just being recognized as perfect, but have even our natures transformed into perfection. "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 1:6) Not only has He declared us righteous and imparted His righteousness to us, but He is even transforming us, even if we don't see it, more and more into His likeness.

    We are those saints, those ragamuffins, whose robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. That's us. We don't realize it. We don't always see ourselves in that crowd around the thrown. But that's us, the mess ups, the sinners. We're the failures who have been made perfect and are being made perfect. We are they whose robes have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Not ivory, or dinghy gray, or dusty brown, or any shade lighter than black but darker than white. We have been made white. Thank God!

Good Song

He is Jealous for Me

    To begin, I must explain the absence of posts this month. I have been out of town, sick, and extremely busy off and on this month. So posting on either of my blogs has been delegated to another time! To top that off, this week has been a very rough week on me.

    The line from Tenth Avenue North's song "Worn" describes me very well right now. "I'm tired; I'm worn; my heart is heavy from the work it takes to keep on beating." Life just seems to drag on and on, with struggles popping up everywhere.

     But tonight a line from one of my favorite songs hit me hard. "How He loves" by John Mark McMillan is one of my all time favorite songs (don't me started about David Crowder. Suffice to say, you haven't heard "How He loves" until you've gotten Crowder's version out of your head so you can fully enjoy McMillan's). It starts off with the line, "He is jealous for me."

    On a night tonight when I'm struggling with being down after a long week of struggles, those words and that concept are like a breeze across my face. He's jealous for me. His love for me is so relentless and strong that He pursued me. Me, specifically. He wanted me. He desired me. He is jealous for me.

    God, the almighty God of the universe, is jealous for me. He yearns for fellowship with me. He desires me. It's an incredible thought. He isn't tolerating me or just putting up with me because He said He would. His desire for me isn't the grudging fulfillment of a promise, but the joyful yearning of the One who created me, who knows me more intimately than I know myself.

    He is jealous for me. God is jealous for me. Your Father is jealous for you. He is yearning for you. He desires you. It's an incredible thought, isn't it?

The Key that Unlocked Grace

    When I first began embracing the doctrines of grace and studying theology for myself, I was attending the same church I do now, a traditional, conservative Baptist church. The turning point when I began to change from my formulaic thinking was a particular concept that has become the cornerstone of my disagreement with most of the messages I see and hear about grace today. With this concept comes most of my beliefs about my standing with God and my opposition of anything related to works salvation or works righteousness.

    The idea is the imputed righteousness of Christ. Let me start this off with a question. When was the last time you heard a sermon on this topic? Okay, step closer. When was the last time you heard this phrase even mentioned in church? One more step closer. Do you even know what it means? If you don't, you, my friend, are in for a treat tonight!

     We hear salvation described very frequently when we're kids as "Jesus died to take the punishment for our sins." And while the phrase is strictly true, it sadly leaves us with an incomplete view of what salvation is and means. We realize we're sinners, and we realize that I'm no longer in danger of hell. But we still miss a pivotal point.

     But the problem is here. We understand that our sin forces us to have a deficit with God, but when the atonement is presented as simply payment, then it doesn't fully communicate grace. We leave with the idea that salvation deletes by debt and brings me to zero in God's eyes, no longer in debt, but neutral rather than righteous.

     This was my understanding of salvation for years. It was also why I misunderstood the idea of God's grace for so long. My view of salvation was that my salvation in Christ paid my debt, and what happened next was on my shoulders. Now I'm free to do right or wrong, and that is where my standing with God comes in. Since I'm neutral, now God is proportionately pleased or displeased by my actions; when I do good, God adds it to the good side of the balance, when I sin, He adds it to the bad side. His favor depends on which side wins out. Sure, I knew my salvation wasn't dependent on it, but God's favor was.

     But that definition alone is a crystal clear example of merited favor, favor dependent on my actions, which is exactly the opposite of true grace. And that's one reason why this concept is so pivotal to understanding radical grace. To understand how far reaching and how all-encompassing grace truly is, we have to understand just how far it goes in my salvation.

     The clearest passage about this doctrine is 2 Cor. 5:21, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Let's look at this passage a little more closely.

     Paul is speaking of our salvation found in Christ and what exactly Christ was doing on the cross in fairly clear, illuminating language. Jesus wasn't just "taking the punishment for our sins." He was literally becoming sin on the cross. The nature of Christ became sin. Christ was being punished for sin that He had not committed but were now committed to His charge, willingly.

     And the corollary holds. If Christ became literal sin, the rest of the passage that speaks of us becoming the righteousness of Christ is also just as true. We aren't made figuratively righteous. We aren't just made pretty much righteous, or righteous enough. We are made righteous, pronounced innocent before God, because we have been given righteousness not our own.

     A believer after salvation is not just a sinner brought to a balance of neutral in God's eyes, or simply another person who is a sinner but is no longer going to hell because Jesus died "for our punishment." That view is incomplete. It leaves us clear of hell, but short of heaven. We are, in fact, made righteous while still sinners. We still sin, and those sins, past, present, and future, are thrown onto a holy Jesus Christ who has been made sin for us.

     When I first heard this idea, I didn't believe it was true. It was simply to radical. It was too far out for me to accept. It took me a couple months to actually come to grips with the idea that this was what the Bible taught. In Christ, I am perfect. In Christ, I am sinless. In Christ, I am viewed with as much favor as is possible. I can be no more despised if I sin or more cherished if I don't; my status with God is certain and set, based on the unchangeable nature of Christ's blood and His sacrifice alone.

     It's a beautiful thought, one that thrusts the praise for my salvation forever out of my hands and into the hands of the One who has so wonderfully redeemed me. It is His righteousness I stand clothed in, not mine. It is His goodness that grants me audience with God, not mine. It was His blood that was shed, not mine. It was His intercession before God's throne, then and now, that continually grants me growth in grace, not mine.

     My sin is His. His righteousness is mine. Can you understand now why grace has been called a scandal by so many? Can you see now why so many deny these teachings, claiming that if believers only knew them, there would be no striving for holiness? But how wrong they are!

     A heart chasing holiness out of love, pure, changeless love is more beautiful and more steadfast by far than a heart chasing holiness out of fear of judgment or hope for reward. In the first, Christ remains the center, the star of the redemptive play and our continuing sanctification; in the second, the emphasis drifts from Christ as Savior to us as perfectors.

     That is the scandal of grace. That is the very doctrine that will forever make some believers scream from the sidelines "License!" when they should be calling "Freedom!" Not freedom to sin, but freedom from the bondage of sin! Freedom to approach our Father unashamed! Freedom to embrace my standing with God, no longer as the hard Judge of every motive and intention of my heart but as the Father who offered His very Son for my redemption.

     This is what grace is. It's not license. It's not "grace abused". It's true freedom. It's freedom that is found in the person and finished work of Christ on my behalf, a freedom that's both undeserved and forever unmerited. No work of mine could earn it then; no work of mine after can make me deserving. I stand forever in the debt of a relentlessly merciful God.

     When I got this concept in my head, my journey toward an understanding of grace was sure. Yeah, there was uncertainty and certainly plot twists, but I had had a taste of life! I had a taste of what it meant to "rest in Christ", to stop striving to earn my way further into Christ's favor.

      I am His.

      He is mine.

      That is enough.

The Ramblings of a Frustrated, Confused High Schooler

    I've spent the last couple nights researching colleges since I will be beginning that step of life next fall. Since I intend to pursue some sort of Biblical or Theological Studies major, the theology of whatever Bible college I decide to go to is important to me. One of the ways I have begun observing the practical theology of a college is by reading their student handbook.

    Allow me to run down a rabbit trail for a moment. Everyone has doctrinal theology and practical theology. Doctrinal theology is your beliefs-about-God system; your practical theology is how that affects your life. It's possible to have phenomenal doctrinal theology (head knowledge) and fail miserably in the area of practical theology (practice and behavior). It's much less likely (and maybe impossible), but I suppose it is theoretically possible for someone to have poor doctrinal theology and good practical theology (their beliefs about God cause good practice and behavior even though their actual knowledge about God is skewed).

    So, for example, I read the college's doctrinal statement to see their doctrinal theology. This is their belief system. I read the college's student handbook to see their practical theology. How do their beliefs about God affect how they live their lives and expect their students to live their lives? The last couple of day's have been an eye-opening experience in that area.

    I'm a conservative Christian. In fact, strictly speaking, I'm even a fundamentalist (I believe the fundamentals of Christianity, such as 1. salvation by grace alone, 2. the virgin birth, 3. the bodily resurrection of Christ, etc.). However, I don't exactly fit the mold of a fundamentalist, conservative Christian, particularly not the stereotype that next comes to mind if you know that I'm homeschooled, raised in family integrated Baptist churches for most of my life, and have most of my Scripture memorization done in the KJV.

    This makes looking for a college somewhat complicated. For example, I am probably too conservative to be comfortable somewhere like TCU or DBU. At the same time, I would get expelled from BJU or PCC in a matter of weeks, most likely. So in researching colleges, part of my aim is to find a college that I will neither be influenced wrongly toward liberalism or legalism.

    That was a long story just to get you to this point, but I have been stunned by the sheer number of rules some colleges are advocating! I am not going to name the names of the colleges I pulled these rules from, but just to name a few, these are some direct quotes from college handbooks.

     *Physical contact: On and off campus, physical contact between unmarried men and women is not allowed.

     *Men and women should guard their testimonies; they are not to be alone together in a classroom, rehearsal studio, or other room.

     *Students are not to patronize restaurants with a tavern or bar-like atmosphere or reputation or that do not have a dining room separate from live entertainment.

     *In this Christian college setting, care must be taken to avoid association with companies (Hollister, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc.), lifestyles, and trends that oppose Christian values, including gothic dress styles, tattoos, body piercings or ear piercings, and unnatural hair colors (e.g., pink, green, blue).

     *(Paraphrase) No tattoos, piercings, bracelets, or necklaces on guys; or facial hair on lower classmen. 

    Now, these schools have a perfect right to institute whatever rules they see fit on their campus (though many of these rules specifically said they applied off campus as well, which was an interesting dynamic. What, is campus police going to follow you home on spring break?), and students are perfectly free to attend these colleges. I have multiple friends attending these colleges, and many more destined to go in the next couple of years: good, godly young men who want to serve Christ. 

     But to me, I'm there for a Bible degree. My purpose at college is to be equipped in Biblical study techniques, theological viewpoints, Biblical languages, etc. I'm not a liberal looking at these colleges; I'm a fellow conservative observing these colleges. And one phrase comes to my mind: standards.

     I got no issue with standards (despite what you may think from reading up to this point!). As I said, these colleges are welcome to implement whichever standards they wish on their campus. Individuals are welcome to implement whichever standards they wish in their personal lives. But I do believe these standards allow a quick glance into the attitude of the college's practical theology: a theology of standards and lines drawn in the sand.

     These extra rules don't bring us closer to Christ; they separate us from the world, negate much of our influence and understanding on our own culture, and may even promote an attitude of self-righteousness (which is possible in any setting, liberal or conservative, I admit). That is not my desire in a school. In fact, I would like to do the exact opposite both in my Bible college experience and my church experience away from home for the first time: involvement with the world for the purpose of impacting our peers and lost friends for Christ, and learning in an atmosphere of humility, not spiritual arrogance born of higher standards and more enlightened spiritual eyes.

     Do good things comes from these colleges? Absolutely. Every year, hundreds of students graduate these colleges with a genuine love for God and a genuine passion for Him having learned many great things. But my question is whether or not the extra standards we're generating are actually keeping us from the world or the world from us. Is this college a place where my beliefs will be challenged Biblically, or where my beliefs (as long as they are consistent with the outward appearance the faculty wishes to convey) are left virtually untouched and doctrine considered far less important than practice and outward appearance? Furthermore, will this college allow me to make an impact for Christ on those around me by being a part of my culture, or am I simply a pretty cover photo for the school's website, another clean-shaven, hymn-singing conservative?

     Yes, I'm confused. I'm confused by the reasons behind the hard lines in the sand that we Christians draw. Just this week, I found that I was ineligible to enter a preaching contest I was going to sign up for at a Bible college because I have facial hair. Being stubborn, I refuse to shave simply so I can obey a stupid rule, so I will not be preaching, but the line drawn once again astounds me. The emphasis on the outward, on the dress standards, the hair color, the tattoos, the facial hair, the preferred musical style, or restaurant choice has me flustered.

    Yes, it also has me frustrated. I watch as friends of mine, rightfully cautious of the liberality of many college influences, swing hard right to avoid them and instead swing straight into a rigid spirituality that Christ never taught. The options today are not (I hope) either let loose liberality or strict conservativism, complete with impassable drawn lines between us and the very people we're called to reach.

     Yes, I also believe that observing a school's practical theology can tell me a lot about their doctrinal theology, no matter what is said in their doctrinal statement. Yes, I believe the hard lines of extra Biblical mandates do show an attitude of legalism. And yes, excessively strict standards are enough to drive me away from even considering some colleges. Being in a stifling religious environment affects you, rarely positively, I think it is safe to say more often negatively. 

     I do not have a particular reason why I wrote this post beyond to vent some of the feelings I have been having the last few days as my frustration at the colleges my circles recommend I attend has mounted. I truly believe that while some may decide to go to these colleges, they should go fully prepared to encounter legalism and moralism, demanding outward conformity over inward sanctification. 

     I do not intend this to be bashing toward certain colleges, the reason I didn't name any by name. I have no grudge against any college. But as a high schooler trying to go to a college that neither abuses grace toward liberalism or toward legalism, I'm frustrated. Rant over. :)

The Sovereignty of God

    There are few topics that are debated with same the vehemence that the sovereignty of God vs the free will of man discussion brings about. I happen to be someone who holds that both the absolute sovereignty God and the limited free will of man walk hand-in-hand throughout Scripture, yet I still find myself in discussions and debates (honestly, I often start them :) on the sovereignty of God.

    Why is this an important topic? I mean, really, why does it matter? It matters because when we say we "trust" God, whether for protection or anything else similar, we assume that He is at work on earth and that He does have a plan that He can accomplish. We pray because we believe God does, in fact, involve Himself in the affairs of earth.

    This is not the place for a raging debate on free will and God's sovereignty. Suffice to say, we see in Scripture verses that speak of man's free will, and others that speak of God's sovereignty. I will admit that I do not understand where the two mesh, but since both are found in the Bible, I must trust that they do. The focus of this post, however, is on what to me is one of the most comforting doctrines in the Bible, God's absolute sovereignty. It does not demand that free will no longer exist; it simply shows the affairs of earth from heavenly perspective. While what happens here on earth may appear to be simply choices made by men, an examination of the Bible quickly makes it clear that much more often (if not in every case), it is in fact, God's guiding hand at work rather than simply men dictating their own fates.

    There are several passages I want to examine. First, Daniel 4:34-35 is the statement of a heathen king who has been brought low before a mighty God. Nebuchadnezzer, the most powerful of the Babylonian kings, is brought to his knees (literally) before God because of the pride of his heart for seven years. At the end of seven years, he is returned to his senses (the full story is in the entirety of chapter 4) and reinstated to his throne in Babylon. He immediately sends out a letter to all the provinces he rules over which is closed with these words.

    "For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?'"

    That is an incredible statement about the incredible, sovereign hand of God. He doesn't just have power to be involved in world affairs or enforce His will if He wanted to; He actively "does according to His will." Not just sometimes, or occasionally. It's an incredible thought!

    The second passage is in Psalms (No great surprise there. David seemed to understand the greatness of God better than most.) 33:9-11, "For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart form generation to generation."

    David draws an interesting parallel between God's plans and man's. Man's are at God's whim. He cancels their plans at will and frustrates their strategies whenever He pleases. On the other hand, His counsel is unstoppable, and His plans have stayed the same for generations. 

    One of my favorite testimonies of God's sovereignty is found in Job 1:8, 2:5 where Satan himself comes before God before being able to touch Job. God is so sovereign on earth that Satan himself needs permission from God before engaging God's servant Job! Another favorite is in Prov. 16:33, where Solomon identifies that even how a lot falls into a man's lap is from God's hand, not random chance or coincidence.

    The undeniable end conclusion? God is sovereign. "For I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps." (Ps. 135:5-6) God is God. He does what He pleases. Whatever we in our free will may decide is subject to change whenever and however God pleases.

    Now, this realizations brings two thoughts to my mind. First, if God is absolutely sovereign, why do bad things happen here? Frankly, God does not grace us with an answer here. God's omnipotence dictates that it is within His power to change the world and men's hearts to only do and desire good. But God has not chosen to do that.

    While we may not understand why, it is a Biblical fact that while man may try to get God to play by our rules, God rarely does. For example, when Jesus was hanging on the cross, the thieves beside Him and the crowds around Him taunted Him by mocking His power, demanding He pull Himself off the cross and save both Him and them! Yes, He certainly had the power, but He Himself saw the bigger picture that the crowd did not see: He was procuring a redemption for His people! Yes, in our limited human understanding, we would have rathered Him jump off the cross and extend His righteous anger upon the Roman soldiers, the Sanhedrin, and the gathered crowds! But God's mind is bigger than ours. In the larger picture, the goodness of God dictates His decisions, not man's desires.

    Psalm 115:2-3 is another example of this. "Why should the nations say, 'Where, now, is their God?' But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever pleases Him." The nations around may challenge Israel and taunt, demanding a sign, demanding to see their God. But God isn't required to satisfy man. God simply does what pleases Himself, whether that is to show Himself to man or to hide Himself.

    But another thought then enters my mind from studying this topic. If we believe that God is sovereign, then literally nothing can hurt us that has not come from God's sovereign hand. This truth shouldn't spur us to inaction; it should spur us to greater action! God's sovereignty means that He offers equal protection to us in a suburb of Atlanta or a suburb of Mogadishu. His will rules and reigns. Our number of days is in God's hands. The trials, the tribulations, the temptations are all things God can stop if He sees fit. I daresay He frequently does so.

    But the ones He, in His sovereignty, doesn't stop, are the ones we know aren't meaningless. They aren't purposeless. A sovereign God allowed them to happen, because they are a part of a plan He is accomplishing throughout the earth.

    We serve a God with all power, deserving of all glory. And as servants of God, we know that our days, our lives, our circumstances, our struggles are all in the hands of God. We can trust Him. We can rely on His goodness in His sovereign. Thank God!

An Interesting Memory

    I do have some longer posts in the works, but pardon my recent grouping of short posts and videos. I simply have been preoccupied by other things. Today, I was looking up the old Irish song "Bridgit Flynn" because I remember my oldest brother playing it years and years ago. I found this version, and it was incredible! If anybody else likes Irish music, maybe take a second and listen to it.