Gritty Life

     Life gets gritty sometimes. The past few months, I've really been forced to come face to face with the struggles some people face that I had not seen much of before, especially in the form of depression and extremely dark times. I've gone through periods of silence from God and times that just felt like a dark mist over my life, but the friends I have who struggle with it certainly feel it much more deeply. The darkness is as real as any feeling they've ever had.

     In trying to be an encouragement and a support to them, I have spent quite a bit of time looking at characters in the Bible who went through dark times. David, for example, being a character in the Bible who shows nearly all the signs of depression. He is complete with mood swings, extreme darkness, intense emotion, and loneliness. Job seems to show at least a temporary fight with depression (who would blame him!) after the death of his family that is archived for us in the book. Seriously, the whole book of Job is a long illustration of the darkness a man can feel in his life. Even our Lord Himself we see going through an extremely dark time in the Garden of Gethsemane, that while this I don't see as depression per se, it certainly is a glimpse into the heart of our Savior during a deep time of struggle.

     But one of the ones I like the best is one we don't think of because it's a little known story, Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Again, I'm no counselor and I'm no doctor. I can't diagnose depression, but any reader can see Elijah is going through darkness here. First off, let me take my first shot here. This is Elijah, a prophet who received messages straight from God! A chosen instrument! Elijah, this mighty man, messenger for God, coming off this mighty experience in the previous chapter of showing his faith to be so strong! Elijah has just seen God's hand move miraculously through Elijah's enormous faith, faith that put God to the test publicly and ended with a great victory for Jehovah.

     Coming off this experience, this is when we would picture Elijah to be bolder than ever! He just faced down hundreds of prophets of Baal, put God to the test, and saw God come through mightily; this is his moment now, right? I mean, he's preaching, he's praying, he's bringing people to God right and left... uh, no. Actually, Jezebel threatens to kill him, and within hours of this great, mountain top experience with God, Elijah is fleeing into the desert, crushed.

     What cause Elijah to wilt right there isn't said in the text. We can guess. Maybe Elijah really was overcome with loneliness, feeling as if he were the only one who really followed the true God anymore, but honestly, I think that was a secondary reason. Maybe Elijah expected God, after this great sign in front of all the people the previous day, to crush Jezebel and Baal altogether and institute the true religion back to Israel in the wake of the great victory. Whatever the reason, we don't know.

     What we do know is that Elijah is curled up under a shrub in the desert telling God, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” (v. 4) It's hard to picture. This hard man of God, this prophet who just the day before killed hundreds of men with his own hand and saw marvelous works of God, is curled up under a juniper tree in the wilderness, done. There's no better way to say it than to say Elijah was done. It is enough! "I've born enough, let me die."

      These dark times happen to the strongest men, the bravest leaders, and the most courageous prophets. Struggles are not a sign of being weak, being worthless, being less. In fact, if the Bible tells us anything, it tells us the righteous suffer more than the evil! Satan was not in a hurry to bring calamity on the evil people around Job, but on righteous Job. We don't see Jezebel crushed in her spirit begging for death. We don't see Goliath soaking his bed in tears at night. We don't see Caiaphas sweating drops of blood. If it's any indication, it's the strong and the righteous who many times suffer more! The dark times do not speak of our worthlessness.

      But secondly, it's what happens next that gives me joy and hope. Elijah is comforted with food from an angel, and he makes the journey to Horeb, the mountain of God. What happens next is breathtakingly fear inspiring and beautiful in the same moment. Here, in Elijah's darkest hour, God reveals Himself. Elijah stands before the mountain and lets out the deepest feelings of his heart. I've heard sermons where Elijah is called whiny or pitiful for saying what he does, but frankly, seeing Elijah as we do the rest of the Bible, I don't think that's the case. I think this was Elijah at his deepest, most raw, vulnerable moment, being honest with God with no charades and facades. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away."

     Here's Elijah pointing out to God that he has been God's servant, but not only has Israel not gotten better, but it's gotten worse! Now Elijah's running for his life and he is alone. Here is Elijah, this great, bold man, pouring our his heart to God in the mountain. Here is the place of raw vulnerability before the Almighty. And God answers. Oh, how He answers.

      What happens next is a testimony to God's enormous power.  "So He said, 'Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.' And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing."

      Ladies and gentlemen, this is God. This is God revealing Himself, in all His splendor and majesty, to Elijah. The crushing power on full display. Here is Elijah, standing on the mountain waiting for God to come and give him an answer. And what God does is show Elijah a tiny glimpse of His majesty.

      A massive wind races across the mountain. I remember a lake trip in Colorado to go fishing. We drove deep into the Rocky's, and came into a narrow valley between two mountains that hid this small lake from view. It was a windy day, and I have never seen wind like that before. It was ripping through the trees, bending them over, whipping that mountain lake like the ocean. It was raw power on display. I believe what Elijah saw made that wind look like a spring breeze. This wind was breaking the mountains apart and smashing rocks. Can you imagine Elijah cowering in the open of the mountain as rocks crash around him and mountains split? Can you imagine the glory of God on more full display?

     But God's not done. Next, an earthquake smashes across the mountains, rocking Elijah's entire world. What gets me is that these things were not only on Horeb. These are catastrophes that would have been felt the whole region over. Only Elijah had the front row seat on the epicenter of this display of God's power.

      Lastly, God sends a raging fire crashing across the mountain. Picture Elijah, cowering as rocks shower around him, the mountain splits at his feet, and fire rips across the ridgeline. The man, for the first time, comes face to face with the raw power of God. Ps. 97 speaks of the winds and the fire that come out before the Lord, and this fits perfectly. What we see here seems to be the precursor to the Lord's presence. When God revealed Himself, it was not in the cathedral to soft, flowing music. It was begun by the roar of wind and the crackle of fire and the crashing of falling rocks. 

      But then... a soft wind. A gentle breeze. What a marked difference! We see the power of God... and now we see His presence. His glory, His Shekinah glory descends. We don't know details, all we know is that God spoke. But I feel like His words were rather unnecessary after that display. I don't feel like Elijah's complaint was voiced with the same oomph and frustration the second time. I think his voice trembled a little bit, and his hands shook as he voiced his woes to God.

     But what I love to see here is what God has done. He does two things to Elijah. 1.) He demonstrates His utter and complete control over the earth. After that display, there will not be any discussion over whether or not God is totally sovereign. No questions asked, "He does what He pleases in heaven and in earth, and there is none who will stay his hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'" 2.) God does not strike Elijah in His fury. He does not look in Elijah's face and tell him, "I'm sovereign. Stop whining and get over it." No, God shows Elijah undeniable proof that He deserves Elijah's trust in His power and His magnificence, and then He continues on as if nothing had happened. As if Elijah had never asked for suicide. As if he had never cried and poured out his heart under a juniper bush. 

      God didn't look back. He gave Elijah a glimpse, first of His power, and then in His gentleness, second His nature. Elijah saw God that day. Yep, Elijah, the guy crying by himself in the desert. That one with the darkness and the death threats and the suicidal thoughts? Yep, that guy. That's the guy God chose to reveal Himself to in a way we never saw before since Sinai and will probably never see again until the final judgment.

      Life is gonna be dirty sometimes. You're gonna get dirt under your fingernails, dust in your lungs, and scars on your body. Surviving takes grit, it takes endurance. The weak give up, never bothering to fight. The strong don't win. The strong fight, they lose, they get up, and fight again. The strong in this fight are fighting for the sake of the fight, because their victory's already been won. They're not fighting because they have to win; they're fighting because their commander says to fight! We fight, we fall. The strongest of us fight, and we fall. And when we fall, we remember the truth, that our God is great, He is magnificent, and He is madly in love with His bride. And that is our hope when life is gritty.

Reflections

    This Sunday was communion Sunday at our church. When I celebrate communion, I like to take the time my church sets aside for self examination and use it to refresh the story of the gospel in my mind, mostly because that is, in my opinion, the means God uses to allow His body and blood to minister to us through the week. This rehearsal of the gospel in my mind and heart is what refreshes me in the Lord and redirects my focus from my own works and thoughts back to their proper place on Christ and His work.

    I won't say anything you don't already know tonight. I just want us to take a moment and ponder afresh the gospel and its depth and richness. It's a story we've all tuned out before on Sunday afternoon when we're hungry or sleepy or just bored. It's not new information. It's nothing original or new, but it should remain mind boggling.

    Before time was, before the world existed, God knew me. I italicize it because it means more than what we commonly associate with "knew". To us, that means anything from acquaintance or a familiar face to bosom friend and deepest confidante. When the Bible speaks of God "knowing" us or "foreknowing" us, the idea is not simple knowledge. The idea is intimate knowledge of details, an intimate acquaintance with and familiarity with every facet. When it says that those who God justified and redeemed were those whom He knew in Rom. 8, the "knew" is not mere facial recognition or recognition of our cosmic name tag. It was deep, abiding knowledge of who we would be.

     So before time was, before any concept of matter or energy or mankind existed, God was intimately knowledgeable of every detail of my life. He knew me, in the deepest, most real sense of the word. His knowledge of me walks hand in hand with His choice of me. This choosing is not the result of the knowledge, but a truth that walks hand in hand with the knowing. Just as God knew me, He chose me.

     Apart from any goodness or redeeming quality in myself that would earn my favored status with God, God chose to set His love upon me, to redeem me, not because of me or anything beautiful in me, but in spite of the evil stain that permeated every part of me. He chose to take what was imperfect and make it perfect, what was evil and make it good, what was ugly and make it beautiful, what was garbage and make art. It wasn't because of my wisdom, my goodness, my beauty, my innate desirability, but only the mercy of God.

     As I partake of His body and His blood symbolically through the communion table, we reflect on the truths of who I was and who I am, what I did and what God did. My vast contributions to salvation consisted of my sin and my own insufficient works. My only part in salvation was my sin. Everything great in my life and everything beautiful in me comes from the greatness of the God who chose me and the glory of His grace.

     The last thing I want to consider is why He did this. Every week, we are confronted with people's opinions of why God chose to show such extreme grace to rebels. Some say so that He can enjoy our free love, as if He was some lovesick benefactor in the sky wanting appreciation. Some say that He was lonely by Himself and created man for companionship, again, as if the God who breathes out stars and creates galaxies with words feels compelled to turn to man for companionship instead of in His own complex unity of three persons in one identity.

     But instead, we see in Col. 1 that all things were made for Him. We were made for His glory. The entire gospel plan does not end in our salvation but in God's ultimate self glorification. He receives glory and honor through the proclamation of His attributes, His grace and mercy on those He has chosen and His justice and wrath against those who have rejected Him. His attributes perfectly point to His character, pointing all the world to the recognition of His greatness and His worthiness.

      When the Lamb is declared worthy in Revelation, He is declared deserving of all praise and glory and honor. Through His revelation of Himself through the gospel, He is declared to be worthy to receive every honor and every glory possible to bestow on Him! This is the gospel. This is what we remind ourselves of every time we take the cup in our hands. This is what our self-examination drives us to consider.

    Our consideration of our own failure drives us to see the sufficiency of Christ and be awed anew by the magnitude of His mercy. Communion offers us yet another timeout to observe and reflect on the reality of the gospel, this beautiful art that displays God's attributes in their blinding ferocity and awe-inspiring greatness!

Why I Sing (Even Though I Don't Sound that Good)

    I sing a lot. I sing while on hold talking to friends on Skype. I sing in the shower. After I'm done with this post, I'm gonna sit down at the piano and sing, even though I have a cold and I sound like I have a clothespin over my nose. I sing while I do school, I sing with my music that I stream, I sing to my Christian music, I sing to my fight music, I just sing a lot!

     One of the more interesting changes I've noticed in myself since I began listening to more contemporary music with a clear conscience is that I have become unafraid to get caught up in my music. I'm willing to sway to my music, willing to raise my hands (though usually that's when I'm by myself in my room), willing to clap. I'm willing to get involved with the worship, something I absolutely would have frowned upon three or four years ago.

     After looking over an online discussion on the subject, I started going over my arguments and thoughts for more free worship and expressive worship. The most striking passage I have ever come across is Ps. 150, particularly the simple phrase, "Praise Him with the loud, clashing cymbals!"

     Now, I have yet to walk out of a Baptist church service with our grand pianos and hymnbooks and say, "Whew, that was a Ps. 150 service!" Shout to the Lord? Dance before Him? Praise Him with loud, clashing cymbals? Where is our passion to worship and glorify God, to stand in awe of Him and praise Him for who He is and all He's done?

     The psalms are in so many cases strikingly different from the songs we sing. The psalms over and over again point back to the greatness of God and the smallness of men. They praise Him for His attributes, praise Him for His sovereignty, praise Him for His mighty deeds, praise Him for His just judgments, and praise Him for His omnipotence.

     I'll be honest, I don't know why we believe it's normal to go through life as believers without enthusiasm for God and His glory. How is it that we can go to church, listen to the proclamation of the gospel and God's deep and abiding love for us, but then worship by glumly singing "I Surrender All" for the fiftieth time.

     What David calls for in Ps. 150 (if you haven't yet, you really should look at it (here). The kind of passion David is describing is loud, boisterous, and quite frankly, there's no other way to say it than dramatic. Loud clashing cymbals? Dancing? His basic message is to praise God with every instrument at our disposal at the loudest pitch possible. As is consistent with his statements in other places to "shout to the Lord", our praise should be loud and wildly joyful in who He is, not restrained by intellectual knowledge alone. There should be an intellectual and an emotional response to a gospel that appeals to both our intellect and our emotions.

     David's psalm reflects passionate worship, vocal and very loud worship. So my thoughts are rather simple. We should not be afraid of worshiping loudly, vocally, and passionately. So yes, clap those hands, sway that body, and raise those hands in the air. Praise Him for all His wondrous deeds!

How He Loves

    Y'all probably think I spend all my time listening to "How He Loves", but very few songs get me as emotionally charged about Christ's love for me and His affection for me as much as this one. I simply can't think of a better way of saying it than "How He loves us, Oh, how He loves us! He is our portion, and we are His prize, drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes. If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking!"

     Paul prays in Ephesians 3 that we would come to know the height, and depth, and width, and breadth of the love of Christ.The idea conveyed there is Christ's love as a vat or an ocean of incomprehensible dimensions. There's no mathematical way to calculate the perimeter or the area; it's just there, in front of us, immovable.

     This is the picture Paul prays that we would one day be able to fathom. I spent some time pondering that prayer this morning. It's interesting his prayer is that they would become more and more infatuated with the concept of God's love, that they would in some way be able to comprehend the enormity of God's affection for them.

     I want to spend a moment at looking at two aspects of God's love: His decisive love and His emotional love. Honestly, His decisive love, though incredible is something we all hear about in church. God is love. We're usually discussing His character trait of love which He has fixed upon us, right?

     He decided to love us. But what I want to hone in on is the emotional love. I know at times I get stuck picturing God's love as this decision, this cosmic gamble that if He loves me, I might turn out right and that every time I sin, God is reminded of how I don't deserve love, but He has to cause He said He would. It's grudging love, like a man married to a woman who doesn't shower in a country where divorce is illegal (there's a mental picture! :). Okay, so He has to love this sinner, so He will, but it's begrudgingly, like He's fulfilling His obligations.

     There's one word picture that shatters all that in my mind. See, His decisive love is in many ways pictured by His being our Father. That's often where I get this idea of frustrated love, like He didn't quite know who He was getting when He decided to love me. Kind of like a dad with a child. He loves the unborn child, but it's kind of a gamble. And like the often repeated jokes during the teen years we hear, now we see that love tested. And I picture in my mind that God is looking at us when we sin like a disappointed father when he hears his teenage daughter got a tattoo. Oh, he loves her, he just wishes she'd turned out differently, and now he'll love her cause he's her father, but...

      But there's another picture; Christ as our bridegroom. Now, it's an interesting idea, because He doesn't call Himself our husband (at least not that I know of). He calls us His bride and thus Himself the groom. Well, what's the difference, you're probably wondering.

     Him as our bridegroom refers to our constant relationship to Him compared to one day in a marriage, the first one. Now, there aren't a ton of grooms on their wedding days who aren't utterly infatuated with their bride. I remember when my brother got married. I've rarely seen him that distracted as before the wedding. His mind was focused on one thing and only one thing, Jeannie. It was single focused excitement and all out affection for his bride.

     That's the picture. The picture of a groom on his wedding day, totally infatuated with his bride; only instead of it being a one day feeling or a honeymoon affection, this is God's love for us all the time. It's an emotional love, an affection. It's not limited to a decisive love, a condescending, sometimes grudging love, but a radical affection for us that sees us on our worst day as still something inordinately beautiful because of His grace. It's the purest, strongest love, both in decision and in emotion, that can ever exist, and it is unbreakable.

     That's the love. Oh, how He loves us; oh, how He loves!

The Sovereignty of God (Pt. 2)

    I'll be continuing my series on the sovereignty of God, tonight specifically aiming at explaining why I believe God is sovereign specifically in the area of salvation, though in theory that is included under the blanket sovereignty I was speaking of yesterday. Tonight's goal is more specific though, and I will be honing in on one area of His sovereignty: sovereign election. Again, I'll begin with texts as my first line of argument.

     "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 

     "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to the kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory." (Eph. 1:3-12)

     I know that's a long passage, but it is the foundation of God's sovereignty in salvation. This passage is nine solid verses of God "choosing", "predestinating", "intending", "purposing", and "willing". But let's walk through this. Notice the recurring "us". There is a specific group to whom all of this applies, not an open ended "everyone". These are those for whom Christ's death secured these blessings. From the onset, there is a specific group (us) who are the beneficiaries of this, and there is thus, apparently, a group excluded.

      But why are we accepted and others not? Why are we the "us" and those who aren't included not? I think the next verse articulates very clearly, "...just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world..." The reason some are included in this mass blessing is not ultimately because we chose to accept and others did not, because that answer doesn't take us anywhere. We're still left to answer why did we accept and others not? The answer of our acceptance simply does not satisfactorily answer the question, because all we did was rephrase it and push the question further down the road. It still has to be answered, just differently worded.

     Paul goes straight to the answer. Why are we blessed, why did we accept and thus are blessed? Because He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. The necessary implication of that is that He did not choose others, because not all are included in this blessing. Not all have obtained an inheritance or forgiveness.

      Again, why has He made known this great mystery of His will to us? Because of the kind intention of His will. Not because we chose for Him to do so, that's only the result of this kind intention of His will. Paul is taking the question back as far as it can go, past all of the "why" questions, to the root of the matter: God willed it this way. We were blessed by the kind intention of His will. We received an inheritance by the kind intention of His will. We received forgiveness by the kind intention of His will. Not by our wills, but because of His.

      One more point I want to make from this passage is that every active verb in this passage is an action on God's part, not ours. He willed, He predestined, He chose, He lavished, He blessed, He bestowed, He made known, He purposed, He works, in the active sense. We are blessed, are chosen, we are predestined, we are redeemed, we are forgiven, in the passive sense. Basically, this is monergism in its clearest sense; God acting, man receiving. We are not the authors, the perfecters, or the choosers of our faith. We are the beneficiaries of God's authorship, perfection, and choice.

     At no point does Paul describe God's actions as the result of our choice or as a result of God having looked forward in time and then acted based on what we were going to do (which would make us the sovereign ones, wouldn't it?). At every turn in this passage, Paul goes above on beyond to point to our salvation as entirely God, not a synergistic work of God and man together.

     "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified." (Rom. 8:29-30)

      I want you to read the verse and follow the chain of logic. Those He foreknew, He predestined; who He predestined, He called; who He called, He justified; who He justified He glorified. Now, following this chain, are there any He justified who He did not foreknow and thus predestine? Are there any He foreknew who are not justified? I think it's very clear from how the passage is worded that there is a specific number of people, each of whom are specifically known and chosen by God, who are justified, and only that number. Those glorified and justified are exactly the same as those foreknown and predestined.

     I have heard people try to say that this is not predestination for salvation but rather predestination to being conformed to the image of Christ, which is God's desire for everyone. But isn't that salvation? The imparting of Christ's righteousness to my account, perfectly conforming me to Christ's image, if done for every person, would, in fact, save the entire world. So if we hold to this non-sovereignty position, we are forced straight into universalism, the belief that all are saved.

     There are more passages, most notably Rom. 9 in its entirety, that point to the same doctrine. However, I think those two are sufficient at this point to at least show my reasons for my belief. I'd like to move on and point out some more systematic and logical arguments for my belief beyond simply the texts.

     In geometry, there are two methods of proofs (that I was taught). First, the direct method. List your reasons in a chain of logic for your conclusion with the axiom, theorem, or corollary that makes your reason true. This is what I've attempted to do with the texts above. The second method is the indirect method. Basically, you assume for the moment that what you're trying to prove is false and that an alternate statement must be true.

     That is what I'm going to do. For the moment, I am going to accept the idea that man chooses God, and that God's choosing is only based on having looked forward in time and then chose based off of our choice. The most glaring problem there is that it directly contradicts the two passages I just went into depth about, which speak of God as the initiator and continuer of our faith. If God's decision is based off of mine, I am, in fact, the author of my faith.

      Secondly, this view of salvation makes me the final arbiter of my own redemption. God does His part (admittedly the larger, harder part), but I still must do mine. But that doesn't fit into the Biblical picture. If God has a part and I have a part, we're back to a synergism, a co-working of God and man, not a salvation from God. So, how is God glorified in doing His part for everyone (so effectively saving no one), and leaving the actual act of salvation (choosing Him) to us?

      When Eph. 1 spoke of God's redemption of us being for His own glory, how is He glorified in this? Is it not a much smaller glory, a glory that makes us simply nod and thank God for making it possible for us to save ourselves rather than fall on our knees and gasp out our thanks for such a radical redemption?

      Lastly, this view leaves all of us on an equal plain, those who are destined for heaven and those for hell, all people for whom Christ died in exactly the same way, then lets decide on their own. So, why does one choose and not another? Inerrant goodness? Inerrant wisdom? If God calls all men equally, then there must be differing levels of good or wisdom in different people which gives them to the tools to respond or turn to or away from God. But if God is our Creator, doesn't He create us with all our traits, including wisdom? If that's the case, then does He not still control who does and does not accept Him?

      If we keep following the logic backward, is there any way we can escape that our salvation ultimately was based on God's choice and not ours? If we say that we choose and God's choice is based off ours, then we must answer the question of why some men accept Christ and others reject. They are His creatures, ones He created. Secondly, it's undeniable that some men receive more opportunity than others. Aaron and Pharoah did not receive the same revelation of God. So even here, God showed more grace in His revelation to Aaron than in His revelation to Pharoah. Even if you accept the free will position, is this not simply another method of election, choosing to show this knowledge to the one and less to another?

     I think that's probably enough for today. I encourage you to please, please, examine this issue in the light of Scripture and critical thinking. Do not decide for yourself how God must behave and then attempt to fit the Bible into that. God doesn't like boxes. Please think through your position, more than just "I believe x". Why do you believe x? Is it Biblical? Is it systematic? Is it consistent? If any of those three questions are answered with a no, I think you should begin rethinking where you stand on this topic, even if you agree with me. Truth is far more important than winning the discussion.

The Sovereignty of God (Pt. 1)

    This has been a series I've been turning over in my mind for quite some time now, several months at least. Honestly, I've been putting it off because it's not a simple topic and it would require quite a time commitment to research and write about it to the extent that I want to here, but I've decided to go for it. A couple recent discussions I've seen and a book I read last month both motivated me to go ahead and try and see what I can do.

     I don't know how many parts this will be, but specifically, I want to address God's absolute sovereignty over all things, His sovereignty specifically in salvation, and I'd like to take the time to address many of the common objections to this worldview that I've heard. Hopefully, this will 1.) show you some thoughts in Scripture you may not have considered before, 2.) give you a resource to come back to when you have questions or thoughts about God's sovereignty, and 3.) give you an idea and at least basic understanding of why those of us who believe in sovereign grace believe the way we do.

     I would like to start off by briefly defining what I mean by "the sovereignty of God". Most advocates of even a solely free will position also claim to believe in a sovereign God, so I'd like to articulate what I mean. By God's sovereignty, I mean that God, by the freedom of His will and His power ordains, establishes, and brings to pass His will and only His will on earth. The result of that is that everything that happens on earth is directly within the sovereign will of God.

     My first argument in favor of this position that I would refer to as the absolute sovereignty of God would be the Bible. I believe there is systematic necessity for this position as well, but there are quite a few direct texts that specifically say this. That would be my first line argumentation.

     "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?'" (Dan. 4:34-35) My 1599 Geneva Bible actually renders it in an even clearer (though more archaic) way when it renders v. 35 (or v. 32 in the Geneva), "And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and according to his will he worketh in the army of heaven, and in the habitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, nor say unto him, 'What doest thou?'"

     In either of those translations, the point is very clear. God's will is described as being done. He doesn't just desire a certain thing in heave and in earth; He does according to that will, and no one can stop it. He does what He desires to do. His will is accomplished, and there is no circumstance or interference that is effective in stopping it. This is not a picture of God eventually bringing good out of a tangled web of man's free will decisions, but rather God working His will on earth in the same manner as in heaven, specific sovereignty.

     "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. But the counsel of the Lord stands forever, and the plans of His heart from generation to generation." (Ps. 33: 10-11) Notice the parallel. Man's will is directly compared to God's. The nations and the people desire this, God desires that. What happens? It very clearly says. God nullifies what the nations want and what the people plan in order to bring His own will to fruition.

     That Ps. 33 passage is to me the most compelling argument that God does not allow man's free will to go unchecked or that God gives men free will and is working around the free will to bring good in the end. The text is very clear that God does not allow men to do what is not according to His will for them to do. Every single thing that happens here is what God has already decided to bring about.

     "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." (Prov. 16:33) This one is as simple as it gets. Even down to the most random thing, a die being thrown, the outcome is God's. I do not believe Solomon was just grabbing one specific thing God is sovereign over but rather choosing the most random thing he could think of as a picture of God's specific sovereignty down to the smallest detail of our lives.

     Solomon also gives us another powerful argument in Prov. 21:1, "The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes." Again, I'm going to ask you to let the text speak for itself. After hearing this verse, I see the conclusion to be that no, a king, the most authoritative of people, cannot look at himself and say that by his free will he made a decision. No, in fact, he must admit that while he made a decision with his reasoning and his mind, the ultimate conclusion was the conclusion God ordained he would come to.

     I want to pause for a moment to discuss the results of this. Many people believe that to accept my interpretation of these verses delegates men to mere robots and no longer responsible for their own actions. My first response to that is as long as we claim the Bible to be the Word of God, whatever the results, we are called to base our theology on the Bible. So whether or not you like where the conclusion leads, we must take the Scriptures at face value.

     Secondly, my argument is not that man has no free will. Man's freedom to act (or seeming freedom to act) is what we can see, and to the best of our knowledge, we make decisions and do what we want. We do not realize that we are doing what God destined us to do, because we make the conscious decision to do it. In His sovereignty, He has created a system so intricately designed that He can ordain every single thing that occurs and yet allow us freedom of choice.

     Charles Spurgeon stated it in his famous sermon on Calvinism that free will and God's sovereignty are lines so closely parallel that we cannot see where they intersect, but they do. In a mystery, in a way only God can explain, His sovereignty meets our free will in such a way that God's will always happens and yet I am never forced, kicking and screaming, to do something which I am opposed to doing and thus am not responsible for.

     To return to my original argument, my first line of argument for God's sovereignty would be direct Scripture quotations. The texts I listed above seem to point out a definite idea that God is ordaining not some things or somehow working out what man decides in his free will into something good, but actually ordaining even the trivial details of life to form a much larger plan that brings Himself maximum glory.

     My second argument is to look at Biblical prophecy and certain stories in the Bible and examine the results of the story with both worldviews. Stories like Job and Joseph both reflect staggering amounts of God's sovereign intervention in human affairs, and both offer us a peak into the veiled world we cannot ordinarily see.

     Joseph, in Gen. 45, pronounces that the decision to sell him into Egypt was God's. Twice, Joseph says it was God's plan, and once, he specifically tells us his brothers that they were not the ones that did it, but that it was God who was at work, to the point that he did not even hold them responsible. Joseph's statements cannot be interpreted from a solely free will or limited sovereignty position. If God does not ordain what happens in this world, then Joseph could not have identified Him as the Author of what happened and he certainly wouldn't have told his brothers that they were not the perpetrators.

     Job gives us another glimpse into the sovereign workings of God. Job 1 gives us a staggering picture of Satan standing before God and at God's pointing at Job, Satan even goes so far as to get permission from God to harm Job's family and his wealth. But again, if we do what we want and God just brings good out of it, why didn't Satan just go ahead and do what he wanted? Why did he have to get God's go ahead, and even then, God set parameters on what he could and could not do to Job? Is this not yet another evidence that what happens on earth must be a part of God's will or it will not be allowed to happen?

     The last example of this I want to give is that of Jesus himself, more specifically, the crucifixion. Now, answer this question in your mind. Who was responsible for the crucifixion? The crowds? Herod? Pilate? Judas? Well, the Bible tells us in Acts 4:27-28.

     "For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur." So what were the crowds, Herod, Pilate, and Judas doing? They were doing exactly what was ordained for them to do. This was not simply them using their free will (though they were willfully making the decision to do so) to crucify Jesus and God used it for good. From before time (Revelation refers to Him as "The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world" in looking at this event in human history), this was what God had planned to happen, and Judas and the crowds and the Romans were simply playing their part in this great cosmic act of redemption.

     So, the point of today's article is to make the case for God's absolute sovereignty, that every detail of what happens on earth is something God has ordained from the past, and that nothing can stand in the way of that ordaining. In the next few days, I will get more into the specifics of this sovereignty and how that applies in our lives. But for now, I figure this was long enough!

Why Masks Stunt Growth

    I was rereading a book I read quite a while back tonight, and some of the thoughts I read make much more sense now than they did when I first read them during the first few weeks of my journey toward grace. Then, they were a little too complex and a bit beyond me. Tonight, they were a great reminder, and I thought I would share them here since in a way, it went along with my last post.

    So, radical grace changes our thinking in two ways. 1.) It changes how we think of God. God is no longer "over there", separated from us by our sin. God is not dutifully loving us but not really liking us. God is, in fact, desirous of a relationship and passionately loving of us, with an affection that does not change, not when we're behaving rightly or wrongly. 2.) It changes how we think of ourselves. We're no longer sinners who get just enough mercy for God to overlook my sin and let me slink into heaven. Instead, we're beneficiaries of God's own righteousness. We lack nothing in the way of righteousness to make us blameless before God. We're perfect.

    But how does that affect us? Well, when we live in guilt and shame because of our old understanding of God and ourselves, we have to wear a mask so we measure up to the standard, right? We have to pretend to be righteous, or to have temptation beaten, or to pray more than we do, or any number of things. Our shame compels us to keep up appearances of being something we're not so that people will see us in the way we desire them to see us; more truly, in the way our guilt dictates we will be loved if they see us this way.

    It all comes back to our desire for comradeship and love. We are designed to want love, and our guilt tells us that our sin makes us impossible to love. So we fashion masks to cover our sin, to make us as lovely as possible, as desirable as possible, in a desperate effort to be good enough to earn love, whether it be God's or other people's. We wear our masks to cover up our faults, our sin, our feelings of never measuring up. We try to cover up our pasts, our current struggles, our temptations in the desperate fear that if people really knew what we were really like, no one would want us.

    That's the lie our guilt tells us. But what our guilt never tells us is that no matter how much a mask may be accepted and loved, the person underneath will never feel that love and acceptance, because the real us was never the one loved and accepted. Only the image we decided to put forward can be loved. Without the vulnerability of honesty, of both our light and dark sides, there can be no true friendship.

    Our guilt makes us wear our masks to cover up our dark side, but that guilt only controls us because we have not yet grasped the truth of who we are and who our Savior is. With that realization, we can place reckless confidence in who our Savior is and who we are in Him. We are righteous, perfect, whole, and blameless, on our worst day.

     Thus, the truth of who we are is not something we must hide. In fact, with our confidence in our new identities in Christ, we can be open with who we are, who we really our, both our victories and our struggles, our defeats and triumphs. There's no need to pretend, no need to cover up, no need to protect, no need to insulate. When the mask comes off, we're free to love and accept love. That's where real friendships begin.

    Real friendships begin when people become vulnerable, when the masks come off, when you know another person knows the darkest truths about you and loves you anyway. You kindle strong, deep friendships when someone else knows your darkest side, yet loves you, regardless. In fact, they want to know your struggles, even that side of you that's kept hidden behind the mask, so they can love you deeper and stronger. Real friends are the ones who pull off our masks, let the world see who we really are, who see exactly who we are, and love us anyway.

    The Cure poses a question I ran across again tonight. "What if there was a place so safe that the worst of me could be known, and I would discover that I would not be loved less, but more in the telling of it?" That, ladies and gentlemen, is what can never happen when we wear impenetrable masks that hide who we really who, that push a veneer of perfection or of togetherness to the forefront. Masks can't love or accept love. Only the vulnerable can love and be loved.

     Masks stunt our growth by choking us off from fellowship, from deep friendships. Yes, they protect us from hurt, from those who would judge us by our failures, but they also shield us from experiencing the love we were designed to experience and the relationships we were designed to foster. We were created to be real, and in Christ, we are free to be that way. Our guilt tells us to cover up; my confidence in Christ tells me to proclaim who I really am to the world so that the entire world can see Christ in me, as the One who loves me through it all.

     Real relationships are free to happen when we are free from guilt and recklessly confident in our identity in Christ, enough so that we feel free to let our guard down, first with a person, then two, then three, then a circle of people. We drops the masks and embrace the loving and being loved that comes with genuineness. I ran across another little tidbit of truth that just about knocked me down tonight while rereading The Cure.

     Speaking of a life that radically embraces our new identities in Christ and dares to live without a mask, "Once you imagine it, you can start to consider the risk and reward of it. Once you can consider it, you can begin to believe it. Once you can believe it, you can begin to risk trying it out. Once you try it out, you can begin to enjoy it. Once you can enjoy it, you will find others to join you. Once someone joins you, others will follow. And once others follow... well, you get where this is going.

     "So, here we are, daring to risk believing that His arm is around us, and He is not embarrassed or disgusted. Maybe I'm beginning to grasp the concept, for moments at a time, that I have, at this exact moment, all of God I'm ever going to get here on earth. And to enjoy it and avail it, all I have to do is trust! We feel seditious and frightened to even imagine thinking such a thing. But there it is. And now the fun begins."

A Look at Christ

    One of the most impactful books I've ever read is The Cure by John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, and Bill Thrall. Here's a quote from it that I found especially meaningful to me. It did much to dispel many of the ideas I had in my head about God as my Judge and as my Ruler rather than God as my Father and as my Lover. A large piece of the book is allegory, a character choosing between the Room of Good Intentions and the Room of Grace. Here is the character's first night in the Room of Grace.

     "I take off my shoes and rub my sore feet, overwhelmed by it all. I'm tired, but in the good kind of tired, like when you know you've put in a full day's work. I think back on the banner I read (the banner read, "Standing with God, my sin in front of us, working on it together."), and suddenly I know what it means. Before, God was always 'over there', on the other side of my sin, obscured by the mound of trash between us. But now I realize He's here, with me. I can picture it as clearly as if it's happening.

     "He puts His hands on my shoulders, staring into my eyes. No disappointment. No condemnation. Only delight. Only love. He pulls me into a bear huge, so tight it knocks the breath out of me for a moment. At first, I feel unworthy. I want to push away and cry out, 'I don't deserve this. Please stop. I'm not who you think I am!' But He does know. And soon, I give in to His embrace. I hear Him say, 'I know. I know. I've known from before time began. I've seen it all. I'm right here. I've got you.'

     "And now I'm holding on with all my might. He stays right there in the moment, until He's certain His love has been completely communicated and received. Only then does He release His grip, so that He can turn to put an arm around my shoulder. He then directs my sigh to that mound of filth now out in front of us.

     "After several moments, with a straight face He says, 'That is a lot of sin. A whole lot of sin. Don't you ever sleep?' He starts laughing. I start laughing.

     "Gazing at that mound of pain, I consider that I never thought I'd experience this kind of moment. All the pain, regret, and damage of my life is laid out in front of me. All that has caused shame and condemnation. All that has caused me to pretend and impress and yearn for control. All that has broken my heart and His. But now I'm viewing it with Jesus' arms around me! He's been holding me with utter delight, with all my sin right here in our midst, never allowing it between us. He wants to know me in the midst of this, not when I get it cleaned up. I know now if this mound is to ever shrink, it'll be by trusting this moment for the rest of my life."

The Emotion of our Lord

    It's a common idea in our culture that to show emotion is to show weakness. Part of that is self fostered, I admit, since I would be the first to admit that I do my utmost to keep tears from ever being seen in my eyes. Part of it is pressure our culture puts on us, particularly on men, but also on women, to come across strong. Part of it also comes, I know, from the cultural push to look cool, to seem distant and uncaring, to avoid all feelings of vulnerability. I'm not sure why emotionless is interpreted as coolness, but for some reason it is.

    But a couple months ago, I started thinking about how Jesus describes His relationship with us. That led me to have a conversation with my brother along the same lines and to do some more reading and thinking. Honestly, I came to an inescapable conclusion: Our Lord Jesus was a very emotional person. I don't mean that in the sense that He wore His tears on His sleeve, and at the slightest pointed jab from a friend or stubbed toe, He would throw Himself down on the road and cry or stomp His feet. I mean that the Jesus in the gospels seems very free to show emotions.

    For example, we all remember the story of His chasing the money changers from the temple. Now, I find it very hard to picture Jesus stoicly fashioned a whip and whipping people from the temple with a somber step and downcast eyes. I picture this scene as a passionate anger, a holy wrath that God is expressing. When I read this scene in the Bible, I see a side to Jesus I don't see anywhere else, but for possibly the first time in the gospels, I'm glad I wasn't there. This is an example of the Son of God expressing extreme anger (I mean, really, how many of us have reached the point of whipping people when we got passionate?).

     Here's another. Shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35. The background here is that Jesus' friends Mary and Martha had a brother, probably another friend of Jesus' since He had spent quite some time in Mary and Martha's house. In any case, friend or acquaintance, Lazerus died and Jesus comes to Mary and Martha's house three days late. Now, we know the story; most likely, we've all read it. Jesus winds up healing Lazerus.

    Usually, we skip over the little two word verse there. "Jesus wept." I mean, seriously, what's the point of that? I want to put this out there as another example of Jesus expressing another emotion, one that really doesn't seem to go with a sovereign God. I mean, okay, anger, that's understandable. He's zealous for the holiness of His Father.

    But sorrow? Tears? Especially when we think about the fact that He was going to heal Lazerus in just a moment, tears really don't make sense. There are a couple of theories about why He was crying. One, He may have been crying over the disbelief of the people. Another idea is that He was mourning simply out of sympathy for Mary and Martha's hurt and pain in their brother's death.

     Whatever the reason, the point is there. We see our sovereign, all powerful God standing before a tomb, wetting the ground with His tears. Picture this for a moment. Jesus, crying. God, crying. Whatever the reason, this is God letting loose His sorrow, whether it be for Lazerus himself, his friend's deep sorrow, or the disbelief of the crowds.

     Last example is a little phrase we see quite a bit in the gospels: "moved with compassion." He sees the crowds, He's moved with compassion. He sees the lepers, He's moved with compassion. He sees a blind man, He's moved with compassion. It's a common phrase that again, I think we just read over when we shouldn't.

     We're talking about God, mind you. He's looking at the lost, or He's looking at the sick, and He's moved. He's visibly (to the point that His disciples are looking back and recalling this) shaken, stirred, moved. That's what this means. The hurt in the world, the physical hurt, the spiritual hurt, it shook Him emotionally.

     Now, I gave those three examples to make one point. Our Jesus Christ was not a silent, strong man. He was a man who at times showed tears, showed stirring emotion, showed anger. Stoicism was not something our Lord aspired after.

     I ran across a teaching in reading some conservative homeschool writings several years ago that I never really gave much thought to until I started talking with several friends who had struggled some with depression. One of them talked about the pressure they felt to always look happy, to have "shining eyes", to always glow with the joy of the Lord, to the extent that they felt required to be fake, like a mask, all the time.

     I've had other people describe similar feelings before, and honestly, it sort of disturbed me. I wanted to spend some time thinking it over and deciding what I thought before I wrote about it here, but this is the second or third time I've tried to write about this. I do feel that this needs to be addressed though.

     To be a joyful Christian does not mean you have to walk around all the time smiling, say "fine" when people ask how you're doing, or pretend that nothing's going on when your heart feels like it will break. That's not joy. That's a mask. Our Lord (who obviously filled the bill for whatever it means to be a joyful Christian) cried. He was angry. He felt compassion to the point of showing it on His face.

     Being joyful in Christ has nothing to do with remaining stoic or pretending to be happy when you're hurt. Fake joy healed no one. Masks only hide the real person behind them, not change the person behind them to resemble the mask. I fear we wear masks hoping they will conform our faces to match, that by wearing a happy mask, by pretending we're joyful when we're torn, we'll somehow make ourselves be joyful.

     But it doesn't work. God gave emotions for a reason. They're not intended to be stifled, but controlled. I didn't say they should be repressed, I didn't say they should be unleashed. I said they need to be controlled. Now, only you can determine what that means in your own life, but the point of my post is that God never requires us as believers to repress our emotions, particularly if you're naturally an emotional person. God gave you that personality, and it's okay to be emotional!

     It's okay to be human. It's okay to drop the mask, to let those you trust see you for who you really are. It's okay to not walk through your whole life singing and whistling. It's okay to feel anger, to feel compassion, to feel sorrow, to be moved to the point of tears, to feel loneliness, to feel these things. In the perfect world of the garden, Adam experienced loneliness. Our perfect Savior shed tears. It's human, and that's okay.

This is for you, my friend

    This is for you, my friend. This is for you, you who struggle with how the Father sees you. This is for you, who thinks your failure. This is for you, who thinks you'll never be enough, successful enough, pretty enough, smart enough. This is for you. You know who you are.

    This is for you, you who believes God is disappointed in you. This is for you, you who believes that God is waiting for you to get your act together before He will truly love you. This is for you, my friend who believes, but doubts. This is for you.

    I'm going to tell you a story tonight, a story I preach to myself during the day. You're a character in the story, friend, but you're not the hero, I'm afraid.You know the story. You've been told before. Maybe you heard it as a child, maybe you heard it as a teen, maybe you heard it as an adult. But don't roll your eyes and walk away yet.

    Because I'm not going to start where most people start. I'm not going to start at the cross. I'm not going to start with Abraham. I'm not even going to start with Eden. My starting point is a millennia ago, before time, before the world was. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." 

     Don't bother with a moment for your Calvinist/Arminian/Calminian viewpoints for a minute. Just read the text. This is what God talks about His role in salvation before time began. This is where the gospel begins. It was not the knee jerk response of God's to His creation's actions. It was God's sovereign plan from before He even began the actual physical beginnings of bringing His plan about.

     Before the world had shape, before time existed, the Father knew you. This is not a word that communicates a far out, mere knowledge of you. He knew you, intimately. He saw your face. He knew your name. He even loved you before you even existed. Ponder that for a moment. God, the sovereign Creator, the perfectly holy, immensely powerful God of the universe, the One that breathes out stars and calls Leviathan His play toy and nations His foot stool, He saw you before time, and He chose you. He placed His love on you; He desired you.

    Are you special, my friend? Your face, your name, every detail of your life, was intimately known by our Creator 1000 years, 10,000 years, 1,000,000 years before you existed. And with that knowledge, full knowledge of who you were, every action, good or bad, your light side and your dark side, with knowledge of your deepest, darkest secret, He chose you. He chose you. He made you His. He purposed to cut down every barrier, every obstacle, and to bear every toil and every torment it took in order to make you His own.

    But you, my friend, would have none of it. See, we're rebels. We're defiant. We hated Him. We took His love, His blessings, His heart, and we crushed it. We turned our back on Him, we spit in His face, and we waved our fists in the face of His blessings. You, my dear friend, became an enemy of God's.

    That's where the story should have ended. By all the rules of human justice and fairness, God had given us a chance, we rejected it, and holy justice demanded that His wrath fall on us. His wrath, His just nature would not be denied. Defiance would be punished, no exceptions, no free runs. If we had been god, the story would have ended there.

    But thank God, we don't serve a civilized God. We don't serve a God who follows human rules and human understanding. He is a wild man, wild enough to break the rules of our understanding and forever destroy the box of our understanding we would try to fit Him into.

    Our enemy gloats. He stands over us, fully knowledgeable that God's righteous nature demands satisfaction for sin and that with our rejection of Him, our enemy gains legal right to us. We are his to enjoy, to destroy, and he will relish every moment of his triumph over these rebels. He stands, ready to strike the blow.

    When in walks, the Intercessor. He stands between us, and He takes the blow. Our blow. He takes death, He takes hell, He takes on Himself everything that is or every will be necessary to make me perfectly right with God, to make me His own child. He bears hell, He walks the flames of hell and stands beneath the Father's wrath and genuine fury against sin, for us.

     But, if the story stopped there, as beautiful as it would be, it would fall short of the truth. The magnitude of mercy remains unknown in the story we normally say. But we don't walk into the Father's presence as just His sons, His miserable failures of children who come in forlorn and by the skin of their teeth. No, never that.

     Because not only does the Intercessor take the blow, but He takes the scars, the failures, the rebellion, the defiance, the dirty cloths that are our puny attempts at goodness, and He takes them for Himself. He lets the full cup of God's wrath pour out on Him as our substitute. But in their place, He gives us His beauty. Rags for robes. Ashes for art. Scars for saints. Brass hearts for beauty.

     With one fell blow, every rule, every idea of justice, every principle we ever thought we know comes falling, shattered, to the ground. That God would die, for me? In what world is that the way it goes? It what novel does that happen? What God, of any religion, gives Himself, tortures Himself, out of love for His enemies, because of His great love for them, His desire for them? What God calls enemies His bride? What God calls rebels His children? What God calls His murderers His friends?

     A God who loves recklessly, unconditionally, relentlessly. A God who loves the undeserving, the scarred, the failures, the ragamuffins, and makes us perfect. A God who desires us so relentlessly that He will overcome every obstacle, do whatever is necessary to make His. A God who loves us not grudgingly, but intimately. A God who willingly allows His heart to be hurt and grieved so that He can love, so that we can be His. A God who would pour Himself out for His creation. A God who would describe Himself as our lover, one who has won our love despite all odds and all obstacles.

     No one, I repeat, no one who can say this is the story of their life can say that they are not special. You are not a failure. You do not fall short. You do not lack any beauty, any successes, any goodness. In our Intercessor, is life. He is our Father; we are His children. He is our lover; we are His bride. He is our King, we are His servants. He is our commissioner; we are His ambassadors.

     Our guilt stares us in the face. It slaps us. It knocks us down. Our perception of who we are tells us we are not enough, that we fall short too much, that that last sin was the last straw that chased God away or made us no longer desirable to Him. But the truth, the truth! It stares us in the face if we'd only grasp it. It sits at our fingertips as we gasp, and cry, and pray to find our way back into God's favor.

     The truth is that where I fail, Christ succeeds in me. The truth is that where I am not pretty, God is my beauty. The truth is that where I fall short, God is my portion. The truth is that when I am defenseless, God is my fortress. The truth is that when I need help, God is my Father. The truth is that when I am alone, God is my lover.

     The truth is that God, yes, God desires you. No one whom God desires can call themselves ordinary. No one whom God calls beautiful, no one for whom Christ died can ever call themselves anything less than beautiful, justified, perfect, loved.

     This truth is for you, my friend. For the doubter, the ragamuffin, the one who cries at night alone. The truth is for you. It stares in your face, it lies at your fingertips. He desires you. He chases after you. Ted Dekker is so true when he says, "He chooses. He pursues. He woos. He protects. He lavishes." That is your Father. That, my dear friend, is the truth.

    

The Cost of Discipleship

    “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸ For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
³⁴ “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? ³⁵ It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  (Lk. 14:26-35)

    When Jesus Christ becomes our everything, He precludes our family, our loves, our desires, our dreams, our everything, because He becomes our everything. He becomes our desire, our aim, our love. He becomes the single strongest longing of our hearts. 

    This is what it means to be a follower of  Christ. This is the cost of discipleship. So help me, God.

Good Quote

    I have been listening to some sermons by John Piper the last few days, and I have to admit, I have yet to find another speaker who so aptly sums up the gospel that I long to hear every day than what I'm hearing from Piper. His proclamations of the gospel are so passionate, contangiously so, that I cannot help but feel the yearning for Christ reawakened.

    “Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of biblical stories like Joseph and Job and Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ.”
                                                             -John Piper

When life hurts...

    ...Christ is sufficient.

When my dreams crash...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When words hurt...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I am afraid...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I cannot see through the black...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I can't take another step...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When the fight is too hard, or too long, or too costly...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I am inadequate...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When the future is uncertain...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When temptation comes...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I sin...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I am too weak...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I wish I was someone else...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I am healthy, joyful, and satisfied...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

When I am sick, broken, and lost...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

In everything...
    ...Christ is sufficient.

    He is my Adequacy. He is my Joy. He is my Prize. He is the One for whom I will lose all things that I can be found in Him. He is worth any cross, any toil, any pain, any trial. He is worth every storm. He is my Father. He is the One who purchased me. The One who redeemed me. The One who pursued me. The One who wooed me, who drew me to Himself. He is my Lover, the One who relentlessly pursued me and unconditionally loved me.

    He is sufficient.

A New Year

    I'm not going to lie, 2015 was the hardest year of my life. I have had more struggles and more burdens this year than ever before. But as another friend brought up to me, 2015 has also brought some of the most amazing circumstances into my life, circumstances that brought me through the hard times. 2015 was a year that was marked with incredible times of struggle and incredible times of joy.

    This is the time of year that everyone starts running around, working on all their New Year's resolutions. The gyms are packed and junk food sales probably go down these first couple weeks of January. Lights are going out earlier around the neighborhoods as people enact their new bedtimes.

    I have never really gotten into the whole New Year's resolution thing. I see the logic and the reasoning, but I have never jumped on board. Well, this year, I thought I would put my New Year's resolutions into a post on here. I have a very long list (hold up, my secretary is correcting me there. It's not that long...) of resolutions and changes to enact in my life this year.

    1.) I want to love more and more like Christ. If the first and second commandments, the hinge that all the law hangs on, revolve around love, it seems rather obvious that that's one area I need to focus on. First of all, I hope and pray that my love for Christ will deepen this year. I want to desire Him more, to yearn after a deeper and deeper relationship with Him, a relationship that will carry me through the times of silence and struggles I know will come this year.

    2.) I want to have fun this year. Yeah, I know that sounds incredibly shallow. Frankly, I don't mind how it sounds. This year, I want to enjoy, wildly, the world that God has given and the gifts and passions He has given me. I want to enjoy to the fullest the hobbies, the interests, and the desires that God has placed in me, and there's nothing shallow about that! I want to enjoy the world that God created for our enjoyment and His glorification!

    This last year, I spent far too long procrastinating and dragging out my work, which left me schooling half-heartedly all the time, with hardly any down time (might explain a lot of the moodiness that happened this year in case you were wondering, mom and dad). This year, I'm focusing on doing what I need to so that I can truly go out and fish, hike, camp, read, sing, play my piano, write, kayak, shoot, and whatever else I can think of that God has given me interest in. I'm going to find wild joy in the things God has provided for man's enjoyment this year!

    I encourage you all to do the same. You've probably all heard songs about buckling down and exercising discipline this next year. It's a great message, and one that needs to be taught and preached everywhere across America this year, particularly to my own generation. But I want to encourage us in that discipline to take the time to find joy in what God has given us to enjoy.

    It was never His intention to create bleary-eyed, somber robots who wandered about doing whatever He had said. He created us to find joy in Him, and in doing so, to serve Him and to live lives of joy! One of the ways we find joy in Him is through the passions and hobbies He has created us with, each of us special in our own way with our own. Go out and enjoy them this year!

    So, guys and girls, this year, don't sit at home all night and stare at a computer screen. Don't make yourself sit down every night from 6-10 and study that deep theology book. Don't make yourself school until 9:00 at night every night. Get your stuff done, read that theology book, don't get me wrong. But go outside, enjoy God's world! Read that fiction book you've been wanting to read! Pick up that new hobby you've wanted to try! Try your hand at writing a book! Use the passions and drives God has given us to enjoy the good gifts He has given us.

    It's a new year, people. Enjoy it. That's why I wrote this post after coming in from doing some archery outside and before going to a taekwondo workout tonight. I'm just using a little discipline to live up to those stringent new year's resolutions. It's going to be hard, but I think I can actually stick to them this year!

Authority

   Some things I get angry about because I go looking for them, like debates about KJV onlyism or comments about why Calvinists don't believe in missions. Sometimes, it's my own fault, me being a "sucker for punishment" as my sister once called me. But other times, ammunition for my frustration is lobbed into my lap, and this blog turns into the place I wind up responding to the issues I see.

    About a week back, a friend of mine and I got into a discussion about authority. Some things she said (not beliefs she held to, but occurrences that had happened) seriously ticked me off, and I decided then to write a blog post about it. Too much has happened for me to be able to do that, but I'm finally getting to it now! This friend's story is not mine to tell, so I am not going to share any details of it here. Suffice to say, it was enough to make me sit in a chair and stare sulkily at a Christmas tree for quite some time, frustrated that I could do nothing to remedy the situation or address the problems.

    But today, I hope to spend some time discussing the issue of handling authority. I've already written before (here) about authority, but I'm going to restate many of my statements there, possibly just for the sake of therapy to calm my temper :), but also because in order to think through your response to authority, both godly authority and abusive authorities, we need to know what the Bible says about it.

    There's a common idea in conservative Christianity that authority is boundless, that the voice of your authority is the voice of God, and that these authorities reveal God's will for you. These views vary in how far their authors take them; I've heard some say that if you were to directly contradict the Bible in favor of obeying your authorities, God will hold your authorities accountable instead of you. I've heard some say that what's revealed to you through your authorities becomes God's will for you and that you are required to obey it or sin against God. Those tend to be some of the more radical views I've seen, but there are a plethora of these viewpoints.

    I'll admit, I am not neutral about how I view these positions. To me, these are some of the more dangerous lies the church has ever bought into. There's an element of attractiveness to the idea that someone older and wiser than me can explain to me the harder things and the uncertainties of my Christian life, simplifying the uncertainty of things like finding God's will and staying attuned to His leading into simply taking the word of my tangible, physical authorities. In a way, it's an easier, more secure feeling way. It's always easier to listen to the voice of men rather than the voice of God.

    There's another draw to this argumentation beyond just attractiveness to the certainty of it. There's also a definite attitude of holiness (sometimes even superior holiness) that is not always but often taught unknowingly along with this attitude of stringent submission to authorities. You're only holy, or sometimes it's taught as you're more holy, if you remain in obedience to your authorities, and those who don't are not holy, or at best, are simply not as holy as those who do.

    The sum of the argument I will be attempting to refute this evening can be shown in this statement from ATI/IBLP website that says, "If you resist God-given authorities, you will experience God’s judgment." Or this statement, "Those under authority are accountable to God for their responses to authority. Since God placed authorities over us, to obey them is to submit to God’s design and authority in our lives." (Emphasis not mine) While the obvious lines drawn in the two statements above are softened by comments following them about our ability to "appeal" if our authorities ask us to do something contrary to God's Word, the message is clear (even in the language of the appeal. An appeal is a request, not a statement of conviction).

    So, is this a Biblical concept? I do not believe so, but for the sake of consistent argumentation, let's address one of the most powerful verses in defense of an authoritarian (I use this term for lack of a better one. As far as I know, there is no name for this particular belief system). Rom. 13:1-3 says (KJV, the more often quoted translation for those that prefer this sytem),“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

    At first glance, this seems like an open and shut case for the authority position, does it not? But I would contest that no believer in Christ would ever argue this verse in the authoritarian position taken to its logical conclusion. In short, no one believes this verse literally and by itself, only interpreted through other passages. No Christian would ever espouse rejecting Christ if your authority told you to. Why? I'll answer that question momentarily, but answer it in your mind. Why, if the passage commands we be subject to the higher powers (in this case specifically government), do we not feel under the need to submit in all things to the rule of government?

    The answer is all too simple. In matters of conscience, nay, in all matters, by submitting to Christ, we are in submission "unto the higher powers." This is based on the one principle that I believe correctly balances this authoritarian worldview: My one supreme authority is Christ and Christ alone. All other authorities and my obedience to them are of lesser importance than my submission to my Lord Jesus Christ.

    That position (which I will explain Biblically in a moment) balances the dangers of over emphasis on human authority by transforming my unquestioning obedience to humans into a thoughtful and conscientious life of submission to Christ first and my human authorities only after my initial authority is pleased. My first and foremost authority (and the one that ranks above and trumps all others) is Jesus Christ Himself.

    Now, why do I make this argument? Frankly, because Jesus leaves us no other. The Jesus of the gospels never, ever leaves even the vaguest possibility that there is another option in following Him that involves following a human being rather than Him or that He will direct your steps through someone else. Rather, He demands full, unfledged, unflinching allegiance and submission not to His followers or to your authorities but to Himself. Whatever authority relationships are given in the NT are secondary to the demands Jesus makes personally.

    Lk. 14:25-33 is one text that I preached from in Africa and one that is near to my heart. My Bible labels this passage "The Test of Discipleship", and I personally believe that is a very apt name for what Jesus says. I won't quote the entire passage (though please read it yourself), but He starts off with these amazing words that don't really fit into the authoritarian mold. "...if anyone comes to me, and hates not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and yes, even His own life, He cannot be my disciple. Whosoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

    If you want clearer words denying that any authority (not even your own parents) or any relationship (not even your own wife) can overpower the leading of Christ in your own life, you'll be hard pressed to find them. These are clear, hard English words that clearly enunciate the fact that if we claim the name of Jesus, it means we must be constant and wholehearted followers after Jesus, not followers of His followers. Our first allegiance and authority is never to our earthly father who then reveals what God wants for us or our pastor who shows us God's will and doctrine for us to believe. If we don't cling to Christ with a love and radical affection (and obedience) that far surpasses our allegiance to our own families and friends (yes, and pastors), then we are in grave danger.

    Gal. 3 also provides an eye-opening insight into our status with God in the New Covenant. In the OT, our access to the Father was regimented and harsh. The Jews and only Jews had access to God through the law. Only the high priest could approach the holiness of God, and only a priest could approach God and intercede for the people. Only the prophets could receive His revelation and His will. And the hierarchy didn't stop there, because once this first tier of people received the news from God, then it was passed along under the authority of the men of the tribes as leaders of families to the enact and guide their families that way.

    The OT was rigorously regimented in how God related to mankind in revealing His will and in man communicating back with God. But we see striking change occur in the NT. Suddenly, there is no upper tier of people to whom God reveals His plans who must then reveal it to us. There is no detached "Holy of Holies" that cuts God off from His people, that only an elect, special, holier few can come inside. Rather He offers the same offer to all of His elect, that His Holy Spirit will come upon each of them and will guide each of us into all truth.

    Gal. 3:28 says,"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." I want you to notice the clear picture drawn, a direct contrast between Old and New Covenants. Before there was a line between Jew and Gentile. If a Gentile wanted to be close to God, he had to be circumcised and become a Jew. Before, slaves were the bottom of the ladder, the last ones in the social hierarchy. But now, they have equal standing with God, equal ability to discern His words and follow His leading. Before, women were lower class citizens who God spoke to and directed through men. Now, they have equal standing with God, and thus equal ability to hear from Him.

    All that to say, God is no respecter of persons. God no longer works by class, showing one hierarchy of people His will who are then to reveal it to the masses. God doesn't withhold His leading from certain people as if they are unable to understand it and instead show it to their authorities to impress it upon them. He works directly with His people, not in a hierarchy or ladder of cultural, social, or religious standing.

    As I close this post, I want to take a moment to address concerns I have with the authority position. Today, there are many who believe that maybe there are some people who just take these teachings too far and that while that's wrong, it's not terribly harmful. I believe such an attitude misses an understanding of how detrimental these teachings can be.

    To teach that an authority figure knows God's will better than you or is required to reveal God's will for you is to enslave entire congregations of believer's to the conscience and discernment of one individual. For that one individual to reveal God's will for others is not only unprecedented in Scripture (something that cause warning flags to jump out all over the place in our minds), but frankly is much more mindful of a Catholic doctrine than a Protestant one! 

    There is a second concern, a more subtle one, the idea of spiritual manipulation. This occurs when an authority figure holds his authority over your head to try to convince you that he knows God's will for you better than you can know God's will for you. Sometimes, this can even go so far as to label you as a rebel if you decide that you are not required to follow the teachings of mere men but are required to follow the teachings of your Lord.

    I have one response to this manipulation. Acts 5:29 records beautifully the apostles response to their authorities in the form of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin (who were not only their government authorities but were also considered their spiritual authorities). Their response to quick and to the point, pulling no punches, "We must obey God rather than men." 

    That, my friends, is the whole crux of the issue before us tonight. Our authority is God and God alone. Yes, He delegates that authority to other men (to a point) that we are to obey as long as they do not come between us and our first love, our Lord Jesus Christ. Any authority figure that attempts to manipulate by using their authority to draw in a direction away from how God leads you and toward their own preference or doctrine is an authority figure to be on guard against. A good authority presses us closer toward Christ and toward following Him, not drawing us away from following Him.

    The apostle's response is the most eloquent I could say tonight to sum up the entirety of this issue. At the end of the day, we must obey God rather than men, even men in authority positions. Even family members. Even pastors. Even presidents. Even friends. To call ourselves followers of Christ is to declare that all other relationships are subservient to my allegiance to Christ.