RFRC: We're not there yet

For so many believers there are remarkable stories of when they met Christ, when He became a real savior to them. I don't happen to think mine is terribly dramatic, but that moment still stands out to me as something life-giving and transforming. It was also something that had nothing to do with me doing enough good and right things, pleasing God by praying or giving enough, or achieving anything special. On the contrary, if anything I was at my weakest--God had systematically kicked away the idolatrous and prideful supports I had used to sustain my self- and worldview: academically, musically, financially. He didn't do it out of spite or anger, but life-giving love:

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.--Hebrews 12:7-11

And of course, such discipline did not end when I was baptized in the Spirit. It continues and I continue, pressing on towards the goal. There is so much to encourage me, in the Word and in the support from my brothers and sisters, but always the enemy works to trip up and discourage.

Being in Christ is a complex thing, and so it seems as Jesus uses so many different analogies to explain what He was establishing on earth. In Matthew 13 He compares the kingdom to a mustard seed and leaven, both things which start out so small as to be insignificant yet have a great impact: the mustard seed growing into a mighty tree, leaven growing and moving throughout a jar of flour until all the flour is leavened and ready to make bread. He compares the kingdom of God with a hidden treasure, one so valuable that when a man finds it, he'll rush off to sell everything he has so that he can afford it--and in the same moment, to a net that is thrown into the sea and drawn out bearing many fish, keeping the good ones and throwing the bad back into the sea. And yet each parable only shows a single facet of the mighty glory of the kingdom of God, slowly rotating the diamond before our eyes; it is here among us, growing and saving and granting life, yet at the same time those of us drawn into it are unsatisfied, longing and aching for the day that our King will return and set all things right. We pray that the eyes of our heart may be on Christ so that when the day comes that all eyes will see His return, we will rejoice at His coming, not fear in the unworthiness of our sin.

But the way to that day of culmination is not a complete mystery, as we see it plotted in the life and works of Jesus Christ. We follow Him in daily life, as we strive to love the people around us whether friend, neighbor, co-worker, stranger, or the guy who just cut us off on the highway. We follow Him in our roles in life, those proscribed by the Scriptures and what we are led to in the Spirit. What weighs most heavily on my mind is what Paul talks about in Ephesians 5:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.--Ephesians 5:25-33

I'm not married, yet the imperative of preparing my heart for this hangs before me--and yet knowing that the best way to prepare myself for that is to simply continue, walking daily with Him and trusting that He will provide each measure of faith necessary to see through. Loving my wife as Christ loves the church...a tremendously tall order. That is not simply following Christ in the way that I interact with the guy at the lunch counter, though certainly that is a part of it. That is giving myself, all of myself with nothing held back, for her sake. Western Christians scarcely can wrap our minds around such a sacrifice except perhaps in theoretical or symbolic terms; perhaps, for example, a man gives up all of his pride for the sake of lifting up his wife and protecting her, showing her deepest love and yet following behind Christ in putting her before myself.

Jesus led out by giving all of himself. He gave up His pride and dignity, descending to the level of a servant, allowing Himself to be turned over to wicked and violent men, men whose very beings were held together because He willed it so, and was mocked, savagely beaten, humiliated, and murdered. And yet He did it out of joy. He continued on the journey set before Him because there was something so much bigger and more beautiful at the end. And it is into that we are called to follow. How can I, a man proven to be wicked, selfish, lustful and arrogant, possibly be able to lead anyone on such a journey?

Only by the grace of God, by the blood of Jesus and the immeasurable joy that He has displayed before the eyes of my heart; I have seen it, and glimpse it in the distance before me. And so there is no room for arrogance. There is no time to stop and show off to all the other people around me, though I will joyfully call to others around me, "Can't you see! Look--there is life, there is the fulfillment of all things before us! Run with me!" There's no arrogance there! To believers who find themselves where I was, holding their beliefs like a weapon against other men...put it down. Look to Christ, and see life, and know that you are called to pray and work for the salvation of your "enemy."

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.--Romans 8:18-25

Rules for radical Christians

Some years ago I used to run my own website and a blog that was attached to it. Inspired by a lot of other writers of both the web and dead tree worlds, I was inspired to take to the Internet in defense and promotion of my conservative political beliefs. I was never any kind of "mover and shaker;" I wasn't saying anything new, I was no one of even remote consequence, and I was no better a writer than anyone who was already prominent. I was more a place for me to get on and vent about things that aggravated me in the news. And in the course of doing so, I said a lot of stupid, insulting, and nasty things that these days I regret. Thanks be to God, then, that His grace is bigger than my stupidity.

And I'll take just a second to reach out to my friends, to random readers, to people who find themselves in the position I did. Liberals: your enemy is not George W. Bush. It's not Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. Conservatives: your enemy is not Barack Obama. It's not Keith Olbermann or Jon Stewart. Our enemy, is the enemy, as well as our own sinful hearts that are so "deceitful and desperately sick" that we cannot truly understand them.

At any rate, there are still a couple of blogs I have read since back then, like Instapundit and a couple others. They're good roundups of news and interesting commentary, and it's been a habit for me like the morning paper is for others. I was scanning one of them and saw a link to a blog that was discussing Saul Alinski's book Rules for Radicals. The idea of people in power being the brain children of such thinking and desires is vexing to a great many people for reasons both good and bad, but it's not my purpose here to discuss that, nor is it my desire to make any sort of political case. My reaction is to the notion floated there that conservatives' response to liberal actions should be to use those rules against them, turn them back on those who have gained power through their execution. The entire notion is rooted in the idea that those who oppose me politically are not simply people with different viewpoints, different notions of how the world ought to work, but rather they are my enemy and it is my moral imperative to strike them down.

This inspired me to stop and take stock of where I was and where God has brought me in my heart. A mere five or six years ago I would have been right there, angry, full of self-righteousness and the belief that if "the enemy" wins the country is lost. The truth of Christ's victory rendered such thinking foolish to me. The enemy is no human, nor will any man turn aside the will of God. And even with an active enemy that is real, our victory is already won.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.--Ephesians 6:12

And so, the idea of writing this as the beginning of a series of posts came to mind. Not because I feel like I have the authority to dictate "rules" to other believers, but it is more of a time for me to outline, clarify and seek for myself more and deeper truth about the way God has called me to lead my life, inspired by what I wrote last week on the subject of living in such a way that my treasure is in Christ and not on Earth and what I can get here.

The word "radical" is bandied about a lot--as an epithet for beliefs another finds troubling as well as a badge of pride worn by those who consider themselves outside the bounds of normal society. It is, therefore, a good descriptor of the way the Bible calls us to be as Christians, though it is decidedly limited at the same time. Does living "radically for Christ" mean that you sell all you have and move to a remote island to spread the gospel to unreached people groups? It might...if that's the call God puts on you. Or it might mean that instead of just associating yourself with the people you work with, you spend time praying for them, seeking ways to love them and sharing the gospel with people around you just as needy and, in many cases, just as unreached as those who are far away.

That brings me to the first "rule:"

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
This comes from 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." Paul here is speaking directly about the issue of sexual immorality, but it descends from a word at the beginning of the chapter on the wrongness of believers suing one another. The entire chapter speaks to the greater point, that what we have and who are are is not to honor or glorify either ourselves, or anything else on earth, but is intended to honor God and point all glory to Him.

In this day of overhyped fear the driving urge is to dig in, or to fight--or, to shut it all out and just roll through life trying to ease the way as best we can. Yet we are again faced with a truth that apparently the writer of the Proverbs felt was important enough to mention twice, in 14:12 and 16:25: "There is a way that seems right to a man,but its end is the way to death." So no matter who is in office, no matter who sits on a nation's throne or in a governor's mansion, no matter how much we gather together for ourselves in terms of money or power or comfort, as long as we are relying on our own wisdom it will have only one, tragic ending. This is the struggle to comprehend the true weight of our inability to be good enough:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.--Ephesians 2:1-10

Or as Isaiah put it:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
--Isaiah 64:6

So what does this have to do with your life not being your own? If God has moved to purchase us, to adopt us, and make us His own by the blood of Jesus, what is there to be afraid of? God has established his sovereignty over all things, including rulers and authorities, so there is no profit in doing politics as if you are fighting an enemy rather than ministering to a friend, to a brother. There is no value in being dishonest or unscrupulous in business to gain extra profit or get ahead because God provides everything, and everything is for the glory of Christ.

If you would pick up Jesus and use Him as a tool to achieve an end, then as the kids would say, you're doing it wrong. Jesus came to save, to give life,and to do the only work that truly matters: giving glory to the Father. To honor Him is to worship Him as Lord. If you are a believer you push to build communities that love and honor Christ as Lord through loving discipleship and giving to fill what is needed, not to build a self-righteous community of moralists. And that charge goes in all directions, whether your particular moral issue is, well, declining moral standards, or whether it's the felt needs of your community, or a political and social end you believe will better the city, nation or world. Christ is the beginning, the end, and the means by which we travel from one to the other; as soon as something else becomes the end we arrive at idolatry and things go very wrong.

And so, since we regularly flee this truth due to our fractured nature, we try to soothe our souls through accomplishment and addiction. For me this takes two main forms: building myself up through the use of my musical talent, and my struggle against lust and the idolatry that drives it. Everyone has something, unique in specifics but uniform in end, that draws us away from God. We either make that thing God or we are set free to worship the true God.

And the most vexing of all, even those of us who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, who have been saved by grace through faith as a gift of God, we still struggle with hearts that remain broken and heavy-laid with the scars of sin. We still struggle against desires to run back to the sins that destroyed us, the old ways of pursuing meaning and pleasure when we have already known a far, far greater joy. It's why Paul can write in Romans both:

Let not sin therefore reign in your moral body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present yourselves to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.--Romans 6:12-14

and a chapter later:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. --Romans 7:21-25

There is no disagreement, no conflict here in the Scripture, except in that we see the conflict that is the new self, the life granted by God, conflicting with the old, dead self that is perfectly happy in its death, because in that death it got to rest and be comfortable in its own twisted ways on the trip to hell. We call the world to life, true life and real, lasting joy in Christ! This is not a list of rules. This is not a social cause. This is being called into our real identities, like coming to see clearly when before all things were fuzzy and learning the beauty of a sunset over a lake when before it was just growing darkness and water.

Our life is not our own, it was bought with a price, and that price was paid by Jesus on the cross. Because it is not our own, because of the river of life that is flowing to feed and strengthen us, we move in ways that make no sense to an earthly thinker. We give away our possessions and move to the darkest corners of the world to help and love and preach. We love our neighbors because Christ loved us. And we submit each day to Him that He might be glorified in it.

Life's worth knowing Him

"O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!
Selah

Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
--Psalm 39:4-6

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."--Luke 12:13-21

Why wait til you're old to live like you're retired?--billboard I saw while driving

These weeks have been fruitful with word from God through His Spirit, His Word and His people. The call is to reject the American call to pursue wealth, comfort, security, and to run after Christ with all speed. I don't know what that looks like in full at this moment; I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of important things and all I can do is wait for the sun to come up and show me a glimpse of what I'm about to leap into. So at the moment, what that looks like is going to work, loving the people around me and praying for them, prayerfully seeking opportunities to witness to them and taking life day by day like I do.

What I pray for is that God would loosen my hands around my earthly desires, the things that drive me to fear--because in those fears lie idols. Fear of losing financial security, fear of losing the ability to control and pursue what I want, of not being able to provide for myself or whatever family lies in my future. Those are fears that demonstrate where I don't trust God and I pray day after day that God will set my heart free from them.

"But God, being rich in mercy," has been gracious enough to teach me these things immersed deep in His love and through the words of grace with which he authored salvation for me and all who follow His call. I can't do enough to please God. I can't dig myself out, make myself better, clean myself up, prepare my own way--it is done, it is finished, in Christ and that burden is off my shoulders for now and all eternity. Knowing that makes me desire all the more to obey Him and to love Him above all things. Not that I'm there, but that God has shown Himself faithful to lead in love to make me what He intends for me to be.

And so when I drove past that billboard, the incredible wrong-headed, broken point of view seen there just struck me. The whole point of life, at least life in America, is...to get to maximum comfort and a life of ease as fast as possible? To flee any attachment or responsibility beyond pleasing ourselves?

What a phenomenal waste.

But even being able to recognize that is only possible through God's grace and His work in me; there was a time I would have gladly embraced such a thing, the classic American ideal of working to get as much as you can until you can bail out and live free and comfortably.

So what's my point? My point is the gospel. God saved me through the blood of Christ, filled me with His Spirit and has intended me for work to glorify Him, because there is no greater task one can have before them. I have no clue what that looks like tomorrow, but I know God will show me and I pray for a spirit obedient to run after it. His beauty is great beyond measure and yet I have to go to war against foolishness and sin in me that distracts me, blinds me to that and makes me want to cling to earthly things that do not save even in their moment, let alone ultimately.

Knowing Jesus, walking with Him and being able to know that He's made a path to where He intends for me to go for my good and His glory is the most freeing thing I've ever known in life. I'm free to take a risk, free to speak life to a loved one, free to give when I'm called and receive when I need. That certainly does not free me from pain, nor does it let me walk through life unhindered by the cold realities of this world--on the contrary, that's another mistake that points to my idolatry of comfort, trying to use Jesus as a painkiller when what He does is give pain meaning. Pain refines, it reminds, it restores. Joy in Christ is cold water in the desert, I walk knowing I'm going somewhere--the only place one could ever want to go. I'm going home.

I pray for you, friends. Not because I'm superior--I am right there with Paul calling myself chief of sinners. I pray for you because there is life here at the foot of the cross, there's real life and meaning beyond anything you can hope to find in work or family or religion or any of the billion other ways humans pour their lives away. I want you to know this joy, to walk in it and come to know Him.

Useful God

This weighed heavily on me this morning driving in, and requires a big chunk of Scripture for context, so here goes:

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!"

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

[...] On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.--John 6:1-15, 22-59

No matter the century, the circumstances or the technology, one of the biggest struggles over our view of Christ is that we are limited to this earthly scope, and for so many it becomes a question of what Jesus is providing for us. Last night I was thinking back over my testimony and this has been a huge part of what held me down for a long time. Unsurprising, of course, as comfort is a huge idol for me (and most Americans). I had to stop and think, where have and where do I look to Christ for what He will give me, rather than for Himself?

This passage displays one of the big points where people split away from Christianity into a place where they turn it into some kind of religion--if I do this, and think thus and so, then Jesus will be happy with me and I'll get to have x. But Jesus isn't after people performing a few cursory acts of goodness to curry favor. He's after the whole heart, after a true relationship. The Jews here had seen Jesus do amazing things, and as at other points in the gospels they were ready to declare Him their king, under the belief of their day that the Messiah was to come in order to throw off the shackles of Roman oppression and restore Israel to its position of prominence that it had held for a period of about twenty minutes under Solomon, before their own idolatry and rebellion resulted in a split kingdom and then, decades of slavery in a foreign land under the Babylonians. Now, it seemed, the predicted prophet, king and savior was here--now they can have what they desire!

But that's not what God was trying to effect all throughout the Old Testament and it wasn't what Christ came to establish in the New. Jesus didn't come to fulfill earthly, temporal desires, but rather to transform them into eternal ones, to point them towards what they were really after.

I struggle with the same thing, and have throughout my life. I viewed Jesus as a lot of different things before the Gospel really fell in me: as the provider of what I needed (true enough, but what I need isn't always what I understand it to be), as the one who would come to set things right (also true enough, but for a long time I viewed it through a moralistic/political lens that let me set myself up in self-righteousness), and as the one whom I could stand next to as I pointed to others and said "See? I told you so!"

Many times we set other things, good things like having enough money or being healthy or having a family and make that thing ultimate, and then we look to Jesus as the one who gives us those things. The thing is...He does give those things. But He gives us what He does that we might see Him in them, be pointed to Christ and through it all be sanctified.

Here's the big thing that I see in this: either we are in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ by the grace of God, where our hearts are transformed over time as God refines us through the circumstances of life, hewing the rough edges, burning out the impurities...or, we're in the process of becoming more and more opposed to God, each life circumstance pushing us farther away until finally the day of judgment comes and there is no reconciliation possible anymore, because you are so far off. Our hearts are in so much danger and yet we subject them to so much that distracts and destroys joy in God, and we look to God, to Jesus, as what will get us what we want. That manifests in some ways that are more extreme than others--for example, the guy who sees Jesus as the way to a nice car and a big house--but here, the Jews see Jesus not as their savior from sin but as their savior from hunger and oppression.

And we struggle with that. Hunger is bad, right? Oppression is evil. Why wouldn't we look to God for freedom from those things? Because the end goal is not to be full of bread. It's not to be free from current government tyranny. The end goal is to know God, to love Him and be with Him; to be full of the Bread of Life, to be free from the tyranny of sin. If God fulfills my desires, grants me freedom from earthly oppression and lack, but doesn't give me Himself, lets me grow deeper into opposition even if I acknowledge in some begrudging way that He gave me these things, how on Earth is that good or loving? He's damned me and rightfully so, for I worshipped His gifts and not Him. And no matter the culture, or the time, or the circumstances, this is what we struggle with as humans--loving God, versus loving what He has made.

Lately I have been struggling with the desire for a wife. That sounds like a strange thing to pair with the word "struggle," but I do it because I recognize two important things: 1) I have let that desire drive how I worship, and 2) I have let that desire push me into sinful areas, such as lust and manipulation of others. A desire for something good, for a wife to love and serve and lead humbly in the way that Christ loved the church, is perverted so easily into a lust for comfort, self-fulfillment in something other than God and a desire to be served, by the enemy. I have to confess that continually, make war against it and offer my own weakness up to God, because whatever it is He gives me in the course of my life, I want the ultimate thing, the one thing greater than anything else I experience, to be Him. And so I pray, and walk, and trust that He knows better than I ever could each day so long as He gives me the grace to have such a realization.

Father, I thank you for letting me hear such truth in Your Word, through the gifts you've given men like those that teach in my and other churches and write great and sweeping books that point to You. I pray that I will be able to point to you as well in so enthusiastic and holy a way, not to glorify myself because to that end lies death, but to glorify You and love You more. The weight of your glory presses me and in such pressure and weight is a joy and freedom as I have never known. I thank You for it, and desire more, desiring You above all things. All this I pray in the name of Your Son..Amen.

Make me strong

Sunday Matt preached on Habakkuk 3 and the truth of our control over our lives--or lack thereof. Today I had a visceral moment of realizing how much I still think I hold power over various aspects of my life, as something I was counting on happening in a job-related matter didn't happen. I was disappointed, I was hurt, not to the point of some kind of tragedy but how frustrated and even angry it made me just went to show how much I still hold up control and comfort as an idol in my life. Thankfully, that realization was broken in such a way that the Spirit was able to minister gently to my spirit and let me confess my frustration and idolatry to a loving Father, one who has already covered my sin with the blood of His Son and strengthens me with the Holy Spirit.

Control is an illusion, and God's calling on my life is higher and greater than any bump in the road ever could be. While my control is nonexistant, wishful thinking of a rebellious mind that desperately needs to be transformed, God's control is absolute. Romans 8 is full of the truth of that promise:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.--Romans 8:26-30

Knowing the truth of that passage I call to my Father, I confess sin and pray for strength. Going to God I become stronger, strong enough to endure whatever life contains, because having my identity in Christ means I live as His son, with all the promises that contains. Make me stronger, Lord...let me serve Your call on my life and don't let me stumble from momentary pain. You are bigger.

Hard work

There is so much that has been resting on my heart lately, it is difficult to describe it all or to believe that I will be able to walk away from this post feeling that it is truly a complete testimony of where I am in this moment. Rather, I believe a picture of the current state of things and the scripture that is pushing me forward will have to suffice. I have been struggling lately, not simply with sin and its inherent temptation but with the picture of God in the Word versus what my heart wants to believe. Knowing, as the Spirit has been gracious to teach me, that my salvation rests on Christ's sacrifice alone, that leaves the issue of conquering the sin in my life.

In reading John Piper's writing on this struggle, I am able to put things in a greater perspective; nothing is harder for me than to look at the weight of my sin on its own, the things that tempt me and pull me away from God, and to remember the truth in the light of that. It's a huge struggle for me and I am engaged in labor against it. But even in that, the difficulty is in remembering that I labor because I am cleansed of sin, not in order that I might be cleansed. Christ is all, in all, and in His sacrifice I am clean, not in anything I have ever done. And, so I work.

I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.--Romans 15:30-32

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.--Colossians 4:12

These passages are not directly related to what is on my heart, but they contain interesting language. Other translations of "strive" and "struggling" render that word as "labor," and I had memorized the verse from Colossians years ago as "laboring in prayer." I have realized that one of my biggest idols is comfort: I want to be able to go through my life happy, unperturbed, able to get the most out of my day and then to go home, relax and close out things without so much as a stumble or a concern. But such a day lacks one important thing: it lacks worship of the Almighty Creator God of the universe who made me in His image, for His purposes and glory, the very thing I was created to do as a part of my inward being. God did not make humans to lead comfortable, pleasant lives that end in death; He made us to live rich, fulfilling lives that are full of evidences of His grace and mercy, and often that takes forms of our struggles through difficulty and pain.

And so, I labor in prayer, now as much as I can. I used to pray that things would get better, that I would be able to get out from underneath this problem, and into that solution, but those prayers were fruitless and, as I dug deeper into the Word, not what was going to help me in understanding God or growing more deeply in Him. I'm a cancer patient going to the doctor asking for painkillers when he's offering life-giving (but painful) treatment. This is His loving discipline, His gentle working of my soul to transform me from selfish, idolatrous, wicked and angry, into a loving servant of God and of the people around me. The writer of Hebrews says it in chapter 12:

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?--Hebrews 12:4-7

And Paul says it in 1 Corinthians:

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.--1 Corinthians 11:32

God is tying it in with His earlier lesson of discipline versus wrath, and using this to continue to teach me about Himself, that I may love Him more. Perhaps the biggest, most joy-producing realization of my labor in prayer today is that God is absolutely answering my prayers, and He is doing so in such a way that I am not heavy-burdened with guilt but rather lifted up out of sin and despair into His joy. He has done it through guided reading of the Bible, through the words of the men around me, and through circumstances in my life; and even now, through my prayer and writing these very words.

Friends, I know there are some of you that know me and don't know Christ. If you're someone that's close to me and reading this, and this is just not making sense to you, please, feel free to ask me about this. I am ready and desiring to, as Peter says in his first letter, "make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in [me]." I write this blog as a record of where I've been and where I'm going, and I pray that if you're someone like this, that you'll read it and consider the words I've written here. This isn't some kind of moralistic message, nor is it an empty promise of happiness. This is God, moving and speaking into my life, giving me a joy rooted in Himself that can never be shaken by earthly troubles nor be reproved by man or spirit. I am working, I am pressing in and working to see the Father, because this is the only work that is truly fruitful, and everything else I do in my career and family and the rest of my life is for the purpose of pointing to that.

A prayer from World Mandate

Lord, You are mighty, righteous, holy, and over all things. But just as much You are loving, merciful, and full of grace. Our sins are black upon this world, and all creation is aching and groaning under the weight of sinful rebellion. Your wrath on us, Father, is just and deserved, upon a world that embraces condemnation in its dark works rather than embrace the light. But Lord, I pray that You will shower mercy and grace on us; I pray that You will move mightily in this world to destroy sin's stronghold in the hearts of man and break our hearts for You, that the world may come to worship You. I know that much is yet to come before all things are renewed, but I pray that You would grant those of us You have rescued boldness to speak of Your love and power to touch hearts through our words and deeds. I pray to live in that perfect love which casts out fear, and that in You I and the men and women You have put around me would find healing, wholeness, and true life far beyond what this world could ever hope to offer. In the name of the Son, in the power of the Spirit, amen.

The Wise Horticulturist

"Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit."--John 15:2

Jesus frequently compares people, Jews and Gentiles alike, to plants--trees and branches, vines, wheat and chaff. This is a picture that is very much in line with the Biblical view of man and his salvation (and thus, opposed to the way all other religions and even a lot of evangelicals and others who have attached Jesus' name to their beliefs view salvation): we are grown by God, we are chosen, made into what He wills and for His greater pleasure. I've been reading through John after a brief series of events involving a conversation with a couple Jehovah's Witnesses and this verse in particular stuck out to me for a myriad of reasons. All of Scripture is like a diamond that reveals different things when viewed at different angles, so I just want to take a moment and look at the facets here.

Firstly: who are the branches? We are, and God the Father is the one who is maintaining us--but Jesus, God the Son, is the vine from which we are growing, as the preceding verse says. This is remarkable to me because it reminds me that God did not throw me out here alone and without support, but rather He is both the One who planted me here and the One in whom I am growing and deriving strength from. He has placed me into the perfect spot and God both watches over me and nourishes me. Yet that by itself is insufficient for a look at this verse because it makes it seem like God made me for my own sake, which is certainly not true in light of the first part of verse two: the branches that don't bear fruit, He removes.

This is pretty harsh to us in modern evangelical America. God removes us? And as verse 6 says, those branches are burned? Isn't it God's fault that those branches didn't bear fruit?

But in examining the Word we see that there is a much deeper element to what God is doing in the whole world. He isn't just looking at humanity and saying "you were good, you go to heaven; you were bad, you go to hell." He's creating something that reveals our intense need for Him; branches that wither were not deprived by God of nutrition except in that He gave them over to their heart's desires. And even that is not done except in hope of reconciliation.

The second half of the verse gives me a lot of pause, because lately I've had a lot pressing on me while I've been going through the recovery/step studies process at my church. Not bad things, but just stuff working me and pushing on me serving to crush pride; my endurance through it has been by God's grace in providing strength and a community of Godly men around me. Branches that produce fruit--people that display Christ through the way they live their lives and fight against their sin--are pruned. Pain is a difficult thing but its presence is not an indication of God's punishment, but rather that God is cutting out the parts of us that inhibit growth into the fullness of life in Him. It's joy and it's hope even for those who are suffering and struggling.

I'm very thankful that it's not my will that saves me, but God's grace and the faith He imparted to me as a gift I don't deserve. What I pray is that more and more, I would display the fruit of the Spirit in my life, in my words and way of being. I pray to walk in that and to be refined into a man who fights the enemy at every turn by the way that I am. I want to be a Christian hedonist.

Idolatry vs. life: to die is gain

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.--Philippians 1:18b-23

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."--Mark 8:34-38

Today is a huge day of worship in the United States. Together we raise our hands and voices in joy at the celebration of victory and curse defeat just as readily. I speak, of course, about the big game, the battle that was waged a scant fifty miles from where I sit now.

I don't want this to come across as some kind of anti-football or anti-sports line. I watched the game like everyone else, in the company of friends as is the general way of things. But it is interesting to me to see how people react to things and how visceral and, perhaps, unwise people can be in their reactions and words, myself included. I didn't really have a dog in this hunt and in general I've never been terribly sports-oriented, but I always enjoy watching games with others just for the fact that frankly, this is the sort of thing we're wired for: coming together in celebration of something big and grand, bigger than ourselves. And yet so many put their worship into things that, while big, are ultimately unfulfilling because they were never intended to fulfill, only to point to something bigger.

The glory we see in the Superbowl points to God's glory, just as when we gaze into the vastness of an ocean, the size of a great mountain--or, when we contemplate the microscopic world beyond normal human sight that perpetuates our lives in ways only recently knowable. It is rather silly that we worship football or performers or anything else earthly, yet it is a natural outgrowth of what we were designed to do, twisted by sin towards something never designed to receive it. But when we are saved, when Jesus opens our eyes and our hearts to Himself, that worship suddenly terminates on Someone who sustains and does not disappoint. Coming home I felt...unsatisfied, and I knew why: I had expected fulfillment of something, on any level, and there was none to be found no matter the result.

After coming home from watching the game, I ran across this article about an Afghan man who is facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity. He lost one of his legs in a close encounter with a landmine and spends his days now helping others who have had similar experiences adjust and learn to live with their new disability. Christianity is being oppressed even as American forces still fight in the country against the Taliban, and he has been forced to ask a question so many American Christians never have to ask themselves: do you value your life more than you value Jesus?

Of course, we do face that in small ways all the time, but it's easy to live in America without facing up to the Big Question at the same level that people throughout history, beginning with the apostles and those who followed them, have had to face it. Said Musa's answer to the question has been a resounding echo of Philippians 1:21--"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." My own prayer is a heart that can be as bold and strong in that same answer. Yet at the same time, I know it isn't my strength on which such an answer lies, except in that God provides such strength at the exact time it's needed. So I pray, and I hope, and I long for the day when hoping is replaced with knowing. In the meantime, I look to the apostles for an example and I pray that God strengthens Said Musa in this time of trial.

I do not want to lose my worship in idols and foolish things that are gone as quickly as they arrive. I want to worship Jesus as my Lord and Savior and be unshackled from all the things that distract me.

Living in brokenness

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
--Psalm 51:16-17

It has been a difficult week for a myriad of good reasons, but I am grateful for God's work to strain out sin and produce good work in me. Today I listened to a couple of sermon podcasts from my church that tore me up as they first, pointed to points of weakness and failure in me, and at the same time showed me how incredible God's grace is and how much He has done to heal me and continues to do. The first was Matt Chandler's sermon on knowing God, and the second was Eric Mason on brokenness, given several months before I began attending the Village. The first one made me take stock of my life to date and realize that, as far as it seems to me that I've come, there is still such a long way to go and so much in me that still rebels, still loves sin and hates the light. But in the second, the Spirit moved to follow up with hope in showing me that God uses moments like that to make us useable, moldable, and ready to become fully His.

Psalm 51 has been huge for me, a proto-gospel of the Old Testament and a display that God was no different in the Old than in the New--He still called His people to submit their hearts fully and covered the sins of those who confessed and repented. I am doing that formally in recovery through the step studies, and I do it daily in my prayers and the men around me. But I still know my deepest foolishness and pray to be set free from being drawn into earthly lusts. Not just lust in the sexual sense, although that is a big part of it, but desires for things like money, security, success, and such that I feel like I need and yet have nothing to do with knowing God and with the truest success which is life in Christ.

Saturday is a couple of meetings leading into the next men's Bible study, and I am simultaneously excited and sobered. This study is seeking to move simply from a passive "show up and we'll talk about the Bible" mode into active discipling and missionary work, using the book of Acts, and Saturday we start to learn about what we as leaders will be doing. I actively pray for wisdom in this and a great deal of humility, and I hope that you, reader, will do the same for me. My roommate showed the pictures from his recent trip to Asia at homegroup as he pursues a vision of church-planting there, and the needs of the people there not simply in a felt-need sense but the need for Christ and truth was palpable. It weighs heavy on me that to date, my work has largely been focused on me.

Yet God's call to move beyond is not stifling but life-giving and I love Him for it; he never lets me sit on my heels but always woos me, calls me forward, telling me that ahead is better and bigger and more of life than where I am. That is why today's message of my lack and God's providence producing that sense of being broken in me was so crucial and yet so welcome: in being broken, I am where I ought to be as long as I am on this earth, and Christ is still so beautiful.