Strange fire

Last week, the hubbub on Twitter and around the Christian blogosphere was John MacArthur's Strange Fire conference, which was dedicated to discussing the issue of, for lack of a better term, the charismatic movement and what MacArthur believes is an avalanche of false teaching that, to some extent, has begun to reach the mainstream of evangelical Christian teaching.  I am stuck in a position where, while I share many of his concerns about "charismania" and will absolutely call things like the prosperity gospel, the Word of Faith movement and phenomena like the "Toronto Blessing" and the "Brownsville Revival" unbiblical, I am not a cessationist like he is.  The best understanding of my position is probably the phrase "charismatic Calvinist"--I absolutely believe that the gifts of the Spirit continue to this day and I have not seen a convincing case made from Scripture that they have ceased, but I also believe strongly that they exist for precisely the same purposes they did in Scripture: to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and bring others to repentance and salvation.

I grew up in a church that was extremely wary of anything even remotely charismatic (although on reflection, it was equally wary of anything remotely Calvinist), and after the Lord saw fit to pull me back in to Himself in 2007 I found myself in a place that was much more...exuberant than anything I was used to.  When I was a kid, the idea that someone would raise their hands in worship would have drawn stares and probably a talking-to from a deacon after service.  By contrast, at the Village people worshiped in such a way as they felt stirred their hearts for Christ. 

Changes

I mentioned earlier that I was closing in on marriage, and most of my posts lately have not been terribly personal in nature.  This is my fault, it's my nature to look at things from 30,000 feet, to take something small and use it as a microcosm of a larger picture.  And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, but it's only so helpful to myself or to others.  At the end of the day if I'm talking with someone who doesn't know Jesus, maybe someone who's even offended by the whole idea, being able to discuss big points of theology is only so useful.  It's absolutely necessary, and I have no intention of stopping, but being able to express Jesus' impact on my heart and my life requires more than an ability to explain the concept of atonement and propitiation.

And so, how has Jesus affected me?  Well, he has made me able to love a woman, to desire to be a godly husband to her and to be willing to give up my self for her own sake.  Those are not things I would willingly do on my own.  If you came to me ten years ago and said "Okay Dave, here's a woman, and she's going to do things you don't like and you're going to disagree on some things and there will be points that certain things you like will have to be let go of," I would have told you to kindly move along, I had no interest in such things.  But because I saw exactly how much Jesus was willing to give up for the sake of saving me--His life--and through His gentleness and grace shining through all the crud in my life to lovingly pull me closer in to Him, I have had the desire to be likewise with Jessica.  Rather than begrudgingly going along so that "I get what I want" out of a relationship, the Holy Spirit has planted in me a desire to become a husband that looks like Jesus in the way that I am with my wife.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

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 5:22-33

Now, I want to make one thing clear: the difficultly in expressing personal things here really comes from the fact that the work being wrought by the Spirit sounds so much more straightforward and simple than the actual path and walk through life while enduring it.  As I said: my natural inclination is to do what I want.  Doing what I want by its nature precludes being able to be the sort of husband described above: giving of all of my self for another's sake, seeking to present her without blemish rather than taking what I want, loving her as I love myself.  It is only by God's grace that the desire to be this way has been given to me, and I'll tell you right now...there are still times where I just want to say "Screw it, I'm gonna sit this event out."  There are times that I encounter that old, selfish self and again by God's grace, I'm able to be aware of it, to not be enslaved to sin but instead to know the danger lurking in front of me.  When those times come, there are still times where I have done the wrong thing...but God has been gracious to give me a loving and forgiving wife that prays with me and for me.  And so through up and down, sinful desire and frustrated prayer, God has slowly, lovingly continued His work to create a new man where an old angry, bitter, selfish one once stood.  My daily prayer is to endure day by day and rely solely upon the grace of Jesus on the cross, knowing that now He is my great high priest, interceding for me and providing what I need daily.

One point of contention that has caused frustration and conflicts that have required us both to spend a lot of time talking and praying for guidance has been church.  We come from different church backgrounds and while I have been a member of the Village for some years now, it seems that she has never been able to find a place there.  I have no intention of dragging her to a place she does not desire to be, but I am also concerned that we end up in a place that is a good watering ground for growing in the Gospel.  We live in the Bible Belt, with a seemingly endless number of churches around us--but many of them are run by "peddlers of God's word," endorsing self-help philosophies and theological notions that have nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus and more to do with feeling better about yourself and hoping in earthly gain of some kind, whether of the health and wealth type or of the self-righteousness type.

I do not pretend that there is a perfect church out there, because all churches are run by men and will have things that just don't work or end in the right place.  But after spending so much time in a church run by and filled with men and women who desire to submit themselves to the Gospel and have a deep love for Jesus, I can't bear to settle for less than that.  Jessica and I will have to work through and find a place that satisfies us, but I know that for both of us it will be a matter of sacrificing and of God working in our hearts to transform us further into the image of Christ.  We have had moments of frustration and charged discussions about it, but we love each other and we know that God is working actively in our lives to achieve the greatest good.  And so, we trust Him and walk forward, praying for a light to guide each step.

I've also been taking time away from the performing world, and I have stopped performing with the band I had played with for several years.  There are a few reasons, but it can be summed up in feeling that God was calling me at least out of that position.  More pragmatically, my job had become too much to deal with sudden trips out of town and the wedding preparations demanded more attention.  But again, here was a place that God had moved in me to make me open-handed about it, rather than trying to cling to it desperately until God had to painfully pry me out of it.  His mercy worked slowly, gently to change me, and I am thankful for His grace.  I'd like to get back into playing, and I have some plans I'm kicking around but I will probably wait until after the wedding and the busy season of work to start initiating them.

I don't know where God will take me, and to be honest I don't think I expected to be here.  But one thing that's been made clear, from all the work He's been doing in my life, is that He will not stop until He's accomplished what He set out to do when the Gospel fell in my heart.  I praise His name for that, and I desire that the things that hold me back from living it out fully would be healed and removed, so that more people would see the love of Christ in me.

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.

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.