God Glorified in our Weakness
It is cause for great gratitude to God that human weakness need not limit God’s power. We are prone to think that where sadness is, joy cannot exist; that where there are tears, there cannot be praise; that where weakness is present, power must be absent; that where this is doubt, there cannot be faith.
But let me proclaim this with a clear voice: God is seeking to bring us to the point where we recognize that all that is of man is only intended to provide an earthen vessel to contain the divine treasure. Herein lies the glory of Christianity; that God’s treasure can be manifest in earthen vessels. This is a paradox. As we live the Christian life, this paradoxical life, we get to know God. The treasure becomes increasingly manifest, but the earthen vessel is the earthen vessel still.
This is very beautiful. Look at the divine patience inside a man who by nature is very impatient and compare it with the sight of a man who, by nature, nothing can move. See the divine humility in one who by nature is haughty and compare that with one who is always of a retiring disposition. See the strength of God in a person of weak temperament and compare that with a naturally strong character. The difference is tremendous!
Watchman Nee
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Oriental Advice For Perfect Health!
Q: Doctor, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
A: Your heart only good for so many beats, and that it...don't waste on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; it like saying you extend life of car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take nap.
Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiency. What does cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So steak is nothing more than efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef also good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And pork chop can give you 100% of recommended daily allowance of vegetable product.
Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that mean they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of goodness that way. Beer also made of grain. Bottom up!
Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio two to one, etc.
Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can't think of single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No pain...good!
Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A: YOU NOT LISTENING! Food are fried these day in vegetable oil. In fact, they permeated by it. How could getting more vegetable be bad for you?!?
Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise muscle, it get bigger. You should only be doing sit-up if you want bigger stomach.
Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy?!? HEL-LO-O!! Cocoa bean! Another vegetable! It best feel-good food around!
Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming good for your figure, explain whale to me.
Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?
A: Hey! 'Round' a shape!
Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
CONCLUSION?
Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you!
A: Your heart only good for so many beats, and that it...don't waste on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; it like saying you extend life of car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take nap.
Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiency. What does cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So steak is nothing more than efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef also good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And pork chop can give you 100% of recommended daily allowance of vegetable product.
Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that mean they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of goodness that way. Beer also made of grain. Bottom up!
Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio two to one, etc.
Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can't think of single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No pain...good!
Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A: YOU NOT LISTENING! Food are fried these day in vegetable oil. In fact, they permeated by it. How could getting more vegetable be bad for you?!?
Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise muscle, it get bigger. You should only be doing sit-up if you want bigger stomach.
Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy?!? HEL-LO-O!! Cocoa bean! Another vegetable! It best feel-good food around!
Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming good for your figure, explain whale to me.
Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?
A: Hey! 'Round' a shape!
Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats
and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
CONCLUSION?
Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you!
The Worst Sin
The Worst Sin
If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchasity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual; the pleasure of putting other people down, of bossing and patronizing and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.
For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
____________________
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under criminals than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The criminal’s cruelty may sometimes be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchasity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual; the pleasure of putting other people down, of bossing and patronizing and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.
For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
____________________
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under criminals than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The criminal’s cruelty may sometimes be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
Ever Learning, But . . .
The Bible has much to say about the condition of the church in the last days. There are two primary conditions I want to briefly discuss to help lay a foundation for understanding both the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of God’s highest priority for us in this generation.
First, according to 2 Timothy 3:7 many in our generation will be "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth". I believe this is applicable to what we might call the doctrinally sound, spiritually dead churches in our nation. They have made sound doctrine the end rather than the means to the end: Learning for the sake of learning, thinking that increased knowledge automatically implies increased spiritual advance.
These churches realize that Christians cannot move from infancy to maturity by spending their lives consuming nothing but the milk of God’s word without ever advancing to the meat of Scripture (Hebrews 5:11-6:2; 1 Corinthians 3:1-2). But they have made the mistake of thinking that God’s goal for us is to be academic scholars rather than spiritual men and women. They have fallen into the same trap as those our Lord addressed in John 5:39-40,
“You search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me. And you will not come to Me that you might have life.”
Life is not found in knowledge, it’s found in Christ (“I am the way, the truth and the life”, John 14:6). As mentioned earlier, these churches have made doctrine the end rather than the means to the end. The result is arrogance and spiritual disconnection from the Head. They basically worship the Bible rather than the One of Whom the Bible speaks.
The second group of churches in many cases is a reaction to the dead fundamentalism of the first group. They have seen the legalism, pride, critical spirit and self-righteousness of the doctrinally sound, spiritually dead, churches and have decided to avoid that at all costs. Unfortunately, one of the “costs” has been to throw out the baby with the bathwater – they have set aside the pursuit of meat and settled on a milk-plus-works system of Christianity.
These are the modern evangelicals. They are very busy people. They develop programs, outreaches, inreaches, accountability groups and a multitude of other activities believing that these things will provide spiritual advance. These things are meant to be the result of spiritual growth, not the cause.
In these churches in-depth teaching in the Word of God is seen as irrelevant to daily life. For those who hunger for this, they have to study on their own. Sunday morning and the weekly home groups are designed for outreach to the community and ministry to the practical needs of the saints. But since this is all occurring at the milk level (spiritual infancy) it will never reach fullness of spiritual life and impact. People will be saved and Christians will be helped, but it will be very minimal compared to what could happen in these churches if the members were to grow spiritually.
I understand the reaction to dead fundamentalism. I empathize. But the solution is not to disregard the diligent, in-depth study of God’s word. The problem in contemporary fundamentalism is not simply an imbalance in their emphasis on academic achievement, the problem is a heart issue combined with the way they approach the study of God's word.
Satan doesn’t want the church to grow into spiritual maturity. So, in our generation, he offers churches who understand the importance of Scripture the path of Biblio-idolatry resulting in academic arrogance and spiritual death. To the churches who because of either laziness or emotional reaction to dead fundamentalism opt to stay in milk and programs (religion), the enemy confirms them in infancy by providing community, activities, busyness, cool music, and countless books on how to live the Christian life, how to plant churches, how to bridge the lost, etc. With all that going on, why would anyone want to get quiet and dig deep into the wells of God’s word?
Some of these churches are trying to honor the need for Bible study by going through the whole Bible, week by week, verse by verse, on Sunday morning. But most of the time the pastor is simply telling us (with fun illustrations and applications) what we could easy figure out for ourselves if we read the text. It may be systematic, but it's systematic milk.
Both the fundamentalist and the contemporary churches seem to have an “either or” mindset. Either we get serious about the Bible and let the rest happen on its own or we get busy with the great commission and ministry to the Body and leave theology to theologians. The reality is – God never intended it to be “either-or”; He intended it to be both. Anything less is not His plan and both churches will suffer the consequences of stopping short of God’s full purpose for them (Revelation3:2; Hebrews 5:11-12).
As a brief warning to the leadership:
“From the least to the greatest of them, prophets and priests alike . . . they heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially . . . “ (Jeremiah 6:13-14; 8:11). “. . . for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account.” (Hebrews 13:17).
For the leaders of dead fundamentalism as well as those of modern evangelicalism, the real spiritual and emotional needs of your people are not being met. The day will come when you must give account for that.
I want to expand this a bit and focus on the contemporary churches which are in the majority in our country. In many of these program-based churches what we see is a simple reversal of God’s priorities in favor of man’s priorities. Since we no longer understand what God is ultimately after, we have come up with our own version of His purpose for us and wonder why the church of the 21st century has little resemblance to the church of the 1st century. If we want to live as they lived we must understand what they understood.
We seem much more concerned with our needs than God’s purpose for us. We’ve made this all about us under the pretense of it being all about Him. Here’s something I saw recently that brought this home to me. We went to a “ministry leaders” meeting. The auditorium was filled with home group leaders and others. The gathering was divided up into tables of 5-10 leaders. During the time of discussion intended to establish what our priorities in ministry to others should be, each table was to examine together the importance of a variety of spiritual and ministry ideas. We talked about inreach and outreach, about the needs of our city and church, about how to build relationships with the lost and the saved, and many other ministerial concepts. But the one thing the Scriptures demonstrate over and over again as God’s highest priority for His children was never even mentioned – the importance of being taught the Word of God.
I would have considered that perhaps it was simply assumed by everyone that such teaching was occurring, but I don’t believe that is the case. Whether from the pulpit or in home groups, the Bible isn’t actually taught it’s simply used as a springboard to deliver messages of practical application to the realities of the daily grind. There is a vast difference between being instructed in the full counsel of God (Acts 20:27) and hearing the latest “Biblical” theories on outreach, marriage (or singleness for God’s glory) and the victorious Christian life.
I honestly believe, as harsh as this sounds, that the contemporary church no longer understands what “teaching” is. They understand what preaching, sharing, messages, sermons, etc. are, but teaching, as it was done in the Bible, and as it has been done throughout history in healthy churches, is not only absent, but undesired. If someone actually did systematically and faithfully “rightly divide the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) and teach something (say, Ecclesiology), most would be bored out of their minds and demand that this sort of thing remain in seminaries where it belongs. There is no longer an understanding of why it’s important, of why there can be no real spiritual maturity without it, and of what needs to happen to restore real depth and integrity to the Body of Christ through it’s recovery. Satan has done an incredibly good job of holding the church in spiritual infancy by taking away her number one priority and replacing it with a thousand reasonable distractions.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. “Only one thing” is another way of saying, “This is your highest priority”.
Peter reiterated this truth in Acts 6:1-3;
“And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.
Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, ‘It is not reasonable that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, which we may appoint over this business’”.
Teaching trumps service.
At least it did for the Apostles who were trained under the ministry of Christ. Whether we look at Moses, the prophets, Jesus or the apostles, it is apparent from Scripture that Scripture is to be the most important thing in our lives. It is through the Word of God that we come to know Him and come to understand what this is all about.
We need to also look at the why of this. Why would God make His Word the highest priority for us? Why would this be more important than anything else and why has Satan labored so hard to redefine or remove teaching from our churches?
First is the issue of recovery.
After the fall man in rebellion sought independence from God. Man’s authority was made supreme and God’s authority was set aside. In recovery God must once again bring man back to a place of submission, both in his nature and in his behavior. So, from Abraham to the apostles, the Lord has established representative authority among His people. Those who submitted to this authority grew spiritually and were blessed just as those who rebelled were cursed (Numbers 16, 2 Chronicles 10, 2 Corinthians 10:8).
We learn under authority, both for the sake of unity, clarity and consistency, and for the sake of developing the character of humility and teachability. The word “disciple” (mathetes) means “student” or “learner” and that is what we must be first - before anything else.
“Remember those who have authority over you, who have taught you the Word of God . . . Obey those who have authority over you, and submit yourselves. . .” (Hebrews 13:7, 17).
Next, as shown consistently in the Bible, it’s our minds, our thinking, which determines the success (or failure) of our spiritual life and growth. In Romans 12: Paul tells us that we must be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
“But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7).
If we grow spiritually to become like Christ, seeing life as He does, we will be able to do His will in all things, both inwardly and outwardly. Spiritual service must come from within if it’s to be real. It must be based on who we are, not simply on what we do. If it’s based on observance to tablets of stone its religion not spiritual life – not the expression of the life of Christ within us.
We are constantly on a stretch, if not a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man, or sink the man, in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. (E.M. Bounds)
God will never put work or service in the place of character; and if we do that, eternity will reveal that however much we may have done, we are very small among the inhabitants of the Land, whose stature will be measured by the measure of Christ. . . the ultimate test is not how much work is done, but how much of Christ is present. (T.A. Sparks)
Again, learning trumps service. Now we know why.
Finally, all spiritual advance has the study of Scripture as its foundation. There is no spiritual growth without it. And since our growth from infancy to maturity spiritually is the most important thing in our lives as followers of Christ, the study of His Word must be our highest personal priority.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for corrections, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect (mature), thoroughly equipped for all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
Again, personal study is important (Acts 17:11) but coming under the authority of the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher is the only way to see the fulfillment of the principle of Ephesians 4:11-12
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”
First comes “the perfecting of the saints” then comes “the work of the ministry”. We have reversed those priorities. We serve in infancy (like Martha) and never reach spiritual maturity (like Mary) because we are too busy helping Jesus to sit down, stay still, and submit to the teaching of the Word.
Even if we did get our priorities straight and placed the teaching of God’s Word above everything else (Psalm 138:2, Proverbs 3:13-15) we have to know we are being taught not just messaged or sermoned. If we don’t know the difference nothing will change. Those whose authority we come under must be teaching what Paul calls “the full counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). We can’t come into spiritual maturity and fullness with only bits and pieces of God’s Word. If, as one commentator put it, we are only getting “sermonettes for Christianettes” (i.e. random topical messages and ‘series’), we will never be able to fully comprehend the life we have entered into in Christ.
The ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4b) must be recovered if the church is to move from division, infancy, defeat and confusion to fullness of life in Christ.
First, according to 2 Timothy 3:7 many in our generation will be "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth". I believe this is applicable to what we might call the doctrinally sound, spiritually dead churches in our nation. They have made sound doctrine the end rather than the means to the end: Learning for the sake of learning, thinking that increased knowledge automatically implies increased spiritual advance.
These churches realize that Christians cannot move from infancy to maturity by spending their lives consuming nothing but the milk of God’s word without ever advancing to the meat of Scripture (Hebrews 5:11-6:2; 1 Corinthians 3:1-2). But they have made the mistake of thinking that God’s goal for us is to be academic scholars rather than spiritual men and women. They have fallen into the same trap as those our Lord addressed in John 5:39-40,
“You search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me. And you will not come to Me that you might have life.”
Life is not found in knowledge, it’s found in Christ (“I am the way, the truth and the life”, John 14:6). As mentioned earlier, these churches have made doctrine the end rather than the means to the end. The result is arrogance and spiritual disconnection from the Head. They basically worship the Bible rather than the One of Whom the Bible speaks.
The second group of churches in many cases is a reaction to the dead fundamentalism of the first group. They have seen the legalism, pride, critical spirit and self-righteousness of the doctrinally sound, spiritually dead, churches and have decided to avoid that at all costs. Unfortunately, one of the “costs” has been to throw out the baby with the bathwater – they have set aside the pursuit of meat and settled on a milk-plus-works system of Christianity.
These are the modern evangelicals. They are very busy people. They develop programs, outreaches, inreaches, accountability groups and a multitude of other activities believing that these things will provide spiritual advance. These things are meant to be the result of spiritual growth, not the cause.
In these churches in-depth teaching in the Word of God is seen as irrelevant to daily life. For those who hunger for this, they have to study on their own. Sunday morning and the weekly home groups are designed for outreach to the community and ministry to the practical needs of the saints. But since this is all occurring at the milk level (spiritual infancy) it will never reach fullness of spiritual life and impact. People will be saved and Christians will be helped, but it will be very minimal compared to what could happen in these churches if the members were to grow spiritually.
I understand the reaction to dead fundamentalism. I empathize. But the solution is not to disregard the diligent, in-depth study of God’s word. The problem in contemporary fundamentalism is not simply an imbalance in their emphasis on academic achievement, the problem is a heart issue combined with the way they approach the study of God's word.
Satan doesn’t want the church to grow into spiritual maturity. So, in our generation, he offers churches who understand the importance of Scripture the path of Biblio-idolatry resulting in academic arrogance and spiritual death. To the churches who because of either laziness or emotional reaction to dead fundamentalism opt to stay in milk and programs (religion), the enemy confirms them in infancy by providing community, activities, busyness, cool music, and countless books on how to live the Christian life, how to plant churches, how to bridge the lost, etc. With all that going on, why would anyone want to get quiet and dig deep into the wells of God’s word?
Some of these churches are trying to honor the need for Bible study by going through the whole Bible, week by week, verse by verse, on Sunday morning. But most of the time the pastor is simply telling us (with fun illustrations and applications) what we could easy figure out for ourselves if we read the text. It may be systematic, but it's systematic milk.
Both the fundamentalist and the contemporary churches seem to have an “either or” mindset. Either we get serious about the Bible and let the rest happen on its own or we get busy with the great commission and ministry to the Body and leave theology to theologians. The reality is – God never intended it to be “either-or”; He intended it to be both. Anything less is not His plan and both churches will suffer the consequences of stopping short of God’s full purpose for them (Revelation3:2; Hebrews 5:11-12).
As a brief warning to the leadership:
“From the least to the greatest of them, prophets and priests alike . . . they heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially . . . “ (Jeremiah 6:13-14; 8:11). “. . . for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account.” (Hebrews 13:17).
For the leaders of dead fundamentalism as well as those of modern evangelicalism, the real spiritual and emotional needs of your people are not being met. The day will come when you must give account for that.
I want to expand this a bit and focus on the contemporary churches which are in the majority in our country. In many of these program-based churches what we see is a simple reversal of God’s priorities in favor of man’s priorities. Since we no longer understand what God is ultimately after, we have come up with our own version of His purpose for us and wonder why the church of the 21st century has little resemblance to the church of the 1st century. If we want to live as they lived we must understand what they understood.
We seem much more concerned with our needs than God’s purpose for us. We’ve made this all about us under the pretense of it being all about Him. Here’s something I saw recently that brought this home to me. We went to a “ministry leaders” meeting. The auditorium was filled with home group leaders and others. The gathering was divided up into tables of 5-10 leaders. During the time of discussion intended to establish what our priorities in ministry to others should be, each table was to examine together the importance of a variety of spiritual and ministry ideas. We talked about inreach and outreach, about the needs of our city and church, about how to build relationships with the lost and the saved, and many other ministerial concepts. But the one thing the Scriptures demonstrate over and over again as God’s highest priority for His children was never even mentioned – the importance of being taught the Word of God.
I would have considered that perhaps it was simply assumed by everyone that such teaching was occurring, but I don’t believe that is the case. Whether from the pulpit or in home groups, the Bible isn’t actually taught it’s simply used as a springboard to deliver messages of practical application to the realities of the daily grind. There is a vast difference between being instructed in the full counsel of God (Acts 20:27) and hearing the latest “Biblical” theories on outreach, marriage (or singleness for God’s glory) and the victorious Christian life.
I honestly believe, as harsh as this sounds, that the contemporary church no longer understands what “teaching” is. They understand what preaching, sharing, messages, sermons, etc. are, but teaching, as it was done in the Bible, and as it has been done throughout history in healthy churches, is not only absent, but undesired. If someone actually did systematically and faithfully “rightly divide the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) and teach something (say, Ecclesiology), most would be bored out of their minds and demand that this sort of thing remain in seminaries where it belongs. There is no longer an understanding of why it’s important, of why there can be no real spiritual maturity without it, and of what needs to happen to restore real depth and integrity to the Body of Christ through it’s recovery. Satan has done an incredibly good job of holding the church in spiritual infancy by taking away her number one priority and replacing it with a thousand reasonable distractions.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. “Only one thing” is another way of saying, “This is your highest priority”.
Peter reiterated this truth in Acts 6:1-3;
“And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.
Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, ‘It is not reasonable that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, which we may appoint over this business’”.
Teaching trumps service.
At least it did for the Apostles who were trained under the ministry of Christ. Whether we look at Moses, the prophets, Jesus or the apostles, it is apparent from Scripture that Scripture is to be the most important thing in our lives. It is through the Word of God that we come to know Him and come to understand what this is all about.
We need to also look at the why of this. Why would God make His Word the highest priority for us? Why would this be more important than anything else and why has Satan labored so hard to redefine or remove teaching from our churches?
First is the issue of recovery.
After the fall man in rebellion sought independence from God. Man’s authority was made supreme and God’s authority was set aside. In recovery God must once again bring man back to a place of submission, both in his nature and in his behavior. So, from Abraham to the apostles, the Lord has established representative authority among His people. Those who submitted to this authority grew spiritually and were blessed just as those who rebelled were cursed (Numbers 16, 2 Chronicles 10, 2 Corinthians 10:8).
We learn under authority, both for the sake of unity, clarity and consistency, and for the sake of developing the character of humility and teachability. The word “disciple” (mathetes) means “student” or “learner” and that is what we must be first - before anything else.
“Remember those who have authority over you, who have taught you the Word of God . . . Obey those who have authority over you, and submit yourselves. . .” (Hebrews 13:7, 17).
Next, as shown consistently in the Bible, it’s our minds, our thinking, which determines the success (or failure) of our spiritual life and growth. In Romans 12: Paul tells us that we must be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
“But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7).
If we grow spiritually to become like Christ, seeing life as He does, we will be able to do His will in all things, both inwardly and outwardly. Spiritual service must come from within if it’s to be real. It must be based on who we are, not simply on what we do. If it’s based on observance to tablets of stone its religion not spiritual life – not the expression of the life of Christ within us.
We are constantly on a stretch, if not a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man, or sink the man, in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. (E.M. Bounds)
God will never put work or service in the place of character; and if we do that, eternity will reveal that however much we may have done, we are very small among the inhabitants of the Land, whose stature will be measured by the measure of Christ. . . the ultimate test is not how much work is done, but how much of Christ is present. (T.A. Sparks)
Again, learning trumps service. Now we know why.
Finally, all spiritual advance has the study of Scripture as its foundation. There is no spiritual growth without it. And since our growth from infancy to maturity spiritually is the most important thing in our lives as followers of Christ, the study of His Word must be our highest personal priority.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for corrections, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect (mature), thoroughly equipped for all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
Again, personal study is important (Acts 17:11) but coming under the authority of the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher is the only way to see the fulfillment of the principle of Ephesians 4:11-12
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”
First comes “the perfecting of the saints” then comes “the work of the ministry”. We have reversed those priorities. We serve in infancy (like Martha) and never reach spiritual maturity (like Mary) because we are too busy helping Jesus to sit down, stay still, and submit to the teaching of the Word.
Even if we did get our priorities straight and placed the teaching of God’s Word above everything else (Psalm 138:2, Proverbs 3:13-15) we have to know we are being taught not just messaged or sermoned. If we don’t know the difference nothing will change. Those whose authority we come under must be teaching what Paul calls “the full counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). We can’t come into spiritual maturity and fullness with only bits and pieces of God’s Word. If, as one commentator put it, we are only getting “sermonettes for Christianettes” (i.e. random topical messages and ‘series’), we will never be able to fully comprehend the life we have entered into in Christ.
The ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4b) must be recovered if the church is to move from division, infancy, defeat and confusion to fullness of life in Christ.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Why?
First, please note that there is some overlap in this article with others on this site that address similar subjects, but the repetition is needed to clarify the subject under discussion.
It’s difficult to have inner rest in the midst of the storm of personal suffering when we don’t know why it’s happening. I’ve heard so many people over the years tell suffering children of God that ‘why’ doesn’t matter, “Just trust God, He knows what He is doing”. Of course He does, but hearing that doesn’t help much when the pressure is overwhelming.
Fortunately, God knows we need answers to our questions and He fully provides those answers. The problem is not a lack of accessibility to the “why” of God’s ways with His people, the problem is that few know what those ways are, and it’s easier to just to tell people to “trust God” and leave it at that than it is to search out the answers for them in the Scriptures. But in times of suffering we need answers, not clichés.
Another road block for many in this area of discovering God’s “why” behind all that’s happening is that the explanation, the answers we need, involve theology and in our generation theology is felt to be both impractical and irrelevant. It’s not impractical or irrelevant, but to many it seems to be because at first it doesn’t appear to be addressing the immediate need we are facing. Theology, however, is what the Bible is comprised of and the Lord knows that those who understand the big picture will have a much greater personal understanding of the details of life when they come up against the mysteries and confusion that make up our lives. How those details fit into the overall plan of God cannot be understood without first knowing what God’s ultimate purpose is. So, please bear with a brief theological discussion. It’s needed to open our understanding of the ‘why’ behind all God is doing in His people.
To understand any of God’s workings we have to go back to His original intent for all of us – for humanity. When we see the goal of why we even exist, we can better understand the process or means God uses to reach that goal.
The goal is Christlikeness (Genesis 1:26, Romans 8:28-29, 1 John 3:2). Sometime in eternity past God decided to create race of beings that would provide a visible expression of God’s indivisible personality. They were to be “made in God’s image”. An image is a visible representation of the invisible reality from which the image is drawn (cp. John 14:7-9; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3a).
When Adam fell, that image was broken, distorted. The world around us, including the world of humanity, is not a representation of the image or character of God. All the pain, injustice, cruelty and suffering that characterizes our planet is the fruit of the image of Lucifer. When Adam fell and lost his position as the one who was to have dominion over this creation under God (Genesis 1:26a) Satan assumed that role. He is, for now, the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and it is his image, his character, that dominates the thinking and actions of this fallen race,
“The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now energizes the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2)
“The whole world lies under the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19)
When Christ was resurrected He became the “first born” of a new race of humanity (Romans 8:29b; 1 Corinthians 15:23). All those in Christ comprise a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). The old creation in Adam is destined for destruction (1 Corinthians 15:22). They will share the destiny of Satan, whose image they bear (John 8:44), in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15). Those in Christ share His destiny (1 Corinthians 15:22b-23). Jesus is the “Second Man” (1 Corinthians 15:47); He is the “Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). The ultimate decision regarding heaven and hell is based on one thing and only one thing, whether a person is “in Christ” or “in Adam” (cp. 1 John 5:12, w 1 Corinthians 15:22; w Revelation 20:15). This is why the new birth must occur; we must be taken from Adam’s race and through spiritual birth be joined to Christ. The cross and resurrection are the restoration of God’s original intent – to have a race conformed to His image and to bring that race into eternal glory in Christ.
Now, the application to our present life and the suffering it often entails.
The process of taking newly born again children of God and shaping them into the image of Christ involves God using everything in our lives (both external and internal) to develop a Christlike character and faith in each of us. There may be, in our minds, a million reasons why we go through what we do, but from God’s perspective there is only one – His desire to fulfill His original plan in having a race of humanity conformed to His image. He has never given up on this purpose as stated in Genesis 1:26. He had to recover a segment of lost humanity through the work of the cross to bring this purpose back, but He has done so and now in Christ the purpose continues on into eternity.
Here’s one practical example of how this works.
Much of contemporary Christianity involves what I would call “conditional faith”. It’s not the same as Biblical, or Christlike, faith. A person being crushed by circumstances or illness or whatever normally prays, “Lord please either deliver me or at least give me the strength to endure it for your glory”. This seems both reasonable and self-sacrificing. But it’s conditional. This person is only giving God two options – deliverance or enhanced inner strength.
The Lord may do one of those, but if He doesn’t, then what?
“Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.
Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude towards them changed. He ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual.” (Daniel 3:15-19)
This is unconditional faith. They didn’t know whether God would deliver them or not, but they still refused to compromise their faith in the true God.
When we get to Hebrews 11 we see a gallery of faith heroes, some were delivered in the end, some were not, but all glorified God because all of them continued to trust in spite of God’s apparent absence - just as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
There is no way God can take us to a place of unconditional, Christlike faith without putting us into “no option” situations; where He is neither delivering nor strengthening. At that point we make a decision as to whether we will trust God because of Who He is, or whether our faith is dependent upon God being Who we want Him to be.
We may be looking for “Steps to Freedom” or “The Ten Pillars of the Victorious Christian Life”, or maybe “God’s Way to Financial Wealth”. But God is still, faithfully and consistently, working from the position of original intent – having a race of humanity conformed to His image. And that image in Christ involves above everything else, Christlike faith. This faith, which perfectly represented God’s supreme ideal for all of us, was demonstrated in the garden of Gethsemane:
“And He went a little further, and fell on His face, and prayed saying, ‘O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39).
This was the pinnacle of Christ’s testing; the place where the perfect image of God was shown in the humanity of the Son. Jesus was filled with inner torment, so much so that “He sweat great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). This is an indication of how severe the anguish of His soul was (Isaiah 53:11).
He was not receiving ‘inner strength’ to face the challenge at hand. Also, His disciples had fallen asleep and His enemies were approaching. He would be tortured and murdered. He did not receive deliverance from His horrible circumstances. Inwardly, our Lord was in torment. Outwardly, He was surrounded by enemies and ultimately crucified on a Roman gallows.
This is the ultimate test of our Christlikeness – of being made in the image of God. To stand firm in faith in spite of all that is happening within and around us. This is to the glory of God and is the top rung of our spiritual ladder. God is glorified when our lives express Christlikeness. He can see the realization of His original purpose when we demonstrate faith like this. God will never settle for less than what He has always planned to accomplish in this new creation. In order to bring this race to fullness in Christ, we must consistently be placed in circumstances that provide opportunity for us to say from the depths of who we are, “Nevertheless, not as I wilt, but as Thou wilt.”
Sometimes God will deliver us or strengthen us. But ultimately, God’s greatest glory and our greatest victory will not be found in deliverance but in the full expression of His image expressed and confirmed by unconditional faith in the face of impossible situations. This is the “why” behind the “what” of the painful mysteries in our lives. For the Christian who intends to press forward in his or her spiritual growth, this will be their experience from time to time until eternity frees us from the flesh - and God’s historical revealing of the Christlike faith of His children to the accusing forces of darkness (Ephesians 3:10) is not longer needed.
It’s difficult to have inner rest in the midst of the storm of personal suffering when we don’t know why it’s happening. I’ve heard so many people over the years tell suffering children of God that ‘why’ doesn’t matter, “Just trust God, He knows what He is doing”. Of course He does, but hearing that doesn’t help much when the pressure is overwhelming.
Fortunately, God knows we need answers to our questions and He fully provides those answers. The problem is not a lack of accessibility to the “why” of God’s ways with His people, the problem is that few know what those ways are, and it’s easier to just to tell people to “trust God” and leave it at that than it is to search out the answers for them in the Scriptures. But in times of suffering we need answers, not clichés.
Another road block for many in this area of discovering God’s “why” behind all that’s happening is that the explanation, the answers we need, involve theology and in our generation theology is felt to be both impractical and irrelevant. It’s not impractical or irrelevant, but to many it seems to be because at first it doesn’t appear to be addressing the immediate need we are facing. Theology, however, is what the Bible is comprised of and the Lord knows that those who understand the big picture will have a much greater personal understanding of the details of life when they come up against the mysteries and confusion that make up our lives. How those details fit into the overall plan of God cannot be understood without first knowing what God’s ultimate purpose is. So, please bear with a brief theological discussion. It’s needed to open our understanding of the ‘why’ behind all God is doing in His people.
To understand any of God’s workings we have to go back to His original intent for all of us – for humanity. When we see the goal of why we even exist, we can better understand the process or means God uses to reach that goal.
The goal is Christlikeness (Genesis 1:26, Romans 8:28-29, 1 John 3:2). Sometime in eternity past God decided to create race of beings that would provide a visible expression of God’s indivisible personality. They were to be “made in God’s image”. An image is a visible representation of the invisible reality from which the image is drawn (cp. John 14:7-9; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3a).
When Adam fell, that image was broken, distorted. The world around us, including the world of humanity, is not a representation of the image or character of God. All the pain, injustice, cruelty and suffering that characterizes our planet is the fruit of the image of Lucifer. When Adam fell and lost his position as the one who was to have dominion over this creation under God (Genesis 1:26a) Satan assumed that role. He is, for now, the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and it is his image, his character, that dominates the thinking and actions of this fallen race,
“The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now energizes the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2)
“The whole world lies under the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19)
When Christ was resurrected He became the “first born” of a new race of humanity (Romans 8:29b; 1 Corinthians 15:23). All those in Christ comprise a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). The old creation in Adam is destined for destruction (1 Corinthians 15:22). They will share the destiny of Satan, whose image they bear (John 8:44), in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15). Those in Christ share His destiny (1 Corinthians 15:22b-23). Jesus is the “Second Man” (1 Corinthians 15:47); He is the “Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). The ultimate decision regarding heaven and hell is based on one thing and only one thing, whether a person is “in Christ” or “in Adam” (cp. 1 John 5:12, w 1 Corinthians 15:22; w Revelation 20:15). This is why the new birth must occur; we must be taken from Adam’s race and through spiritual birth be joined to Christ. The cross and resurrection are the restoration of God’s original intent – to have a race conformed to His image and to bring that race into eternal glory in Christ.
Now, the application to our present life and the suffering it often entails.
The process of taking newly born again children of God and shaping them into the image of Christ involves God using everything in our lives (both external and internal) to develop a Christlike character and faith in each of us. There may be, in our minds, a million reasons why we go through what we do, but from God’s perspective there is only one – His desire to fulfill His original plan in having a race of humanity conformed to His image. He has never given up on this purpose as stated in Genesis 1:26. He had to recover a segment of lost humanity through the work of the cross to bring this purpose back, but He has done so and now in Christ the purpose continues on into eternity.
Here’s one practical example of how this works.
Much of contemporary Christianity involves what I would call “conditional faith”. It’s not the same as Biblical, or Christlike, faith. A person being crushed by circumstances or illness or whatever normally prays, “Lord please either deliver me or at least give me the strength to endure it for your glory”. This seems both reasonable and self-sacrificing. But it’s conditional. This person is only giving God two options – deliverance or enhanced inner strength.
The Lord may do one of those, but if He doesn’t, then what?
“Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.
Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude towards them changed. He ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual.” (Daniel 3:15-19)
This is unconditional faith. They didn’t know whether God would deliver them or not, but they still refused to compromise their faith in the true God.
When we get to Hebrews 11 we see a gallery of faith heroes, some were delivered in the end, some were not, but all glorified God because all of them continued to trust in spite of God’s apparent absence - just as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
There is no way God can take us to a place of unconditional, Christlike faith without putting us into “no option” situations; where He is neither delivering nor strengthening. At that point we make a decision as to whether we will trust God because of Who He is, or whether our faith is dependent upon God being Who we want Him to be.
We may be looking for “Steps to Freedom” or “The Ten Pillars of the Victorious Christian Life”, or maybe “God’s Way to Financial Wealth”. But God is still, faithfully and consistently, working from the position of original intent – having a race of humanity conformed to His image. And that image in Christ involves above everything else, Christlike faith. This faith, which perfectly represented God’s supreme ideal for all of us, was demonstrated in the garden of Gethsemane:
“And He went a little further, and fell on His face, and prayed saying, ‘O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39).
This was the pinnacle of Christ’s testing; the place where the perfect image of God was shown in the humanity of the Son. Jesus was filled with inner torment, so much so that “He sweat great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). This is an indication of how severe the anguish of His soul was (Isaiah 53:11).
He was not receiving ‘inner strength’ to face the challenge at hand. Also, His disciples had fallen asleep and His enemies were approaching. He would be tortured and murdered. He did not receive deliverance from His horrible circumstances. Inwardly, our Lord was in torment. Outwardly, He was surrounded by enemies and ultimately crucified on a Roman gallows.
This is the ultimate test of our Christlikeness – of being made in the image of God. To stand firm in faith in spite of all that is happening within and around us. This is to the glory of God and is the top rung of our spiritual ladder. God is glorified when our lives express Christlikeness. He can see the realization of His original purpose when we demonstrate faith like this. God will never settle for less than what He has always planned to accomplish in this new creation. In order to bring this race to fullness in Christ, we must consistently be placed in circumstances that provide opportunity for us to say from the depths of who we are, “Nevertheless, not as I wilt, but as Thou wilt.”
Sometimes God will deliver us or strengthen us. But ultimately, God’s greatest glory and our greatest victory will not be found in deliverance but in the full expression of His image expressed and confirmed by unconditional faith in the face of impossible situations. This is the “why” behind the “what” of the painful mysteries in our lives. For the Christian who intends to press forward in his or her spiritual growth, this will be their experience from time to time until eternity frees us from the flesh - and God’s historical revealing of the Christlike faith of His children to the accusing forces of darkness (Ephesians 3:10) is not longer needed.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Time for a Nervous Breakdown
The following is taken from an article entitled, "Impossible God".
I have spoken with a number of believers lately who have been searching the Scriptures for answers to personal, often devastating, problems and feel they are finding no answers. At least they are honest enough to admit their discouragement. It’s not considered “appropriate” for Christians to acknowledge disappointment with God. In some circles it’s probably considered blasphemous. But like the father of the demonized child who cried to the Lord in Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. . .!”, acknowledging our weakness will do more to touch our Savior’s heart than pretending we don’t have any weaknesses to acknowledge. Do we think God is surprised by our feelings and failings? Even more importantly, do we believe that God is somehow disappointed in us for being disappointed in Him? If we do, we don’t understand “Grace” – we may not yet have seen the real heart of God.
I want to share a story about a man, Joseph Cooke, whose misunderstanding of God’s nature took him to a place real Christians aren’t supposed to go – a nervous breakdown. He writes,
“Such a thing isn’t supposed to happen to a good Christian, much less a missionary as I was. But it did happen. And I had to leave Thailand a failed missionary, no longer able to preach or teach, hardly able to pray or read my Bible, hateful to myself, a burden to my wife and useless to God and man.
“What went wrong?”
“Deep down in my heart I was living day by day with a nongracious God. I believed He was gracious, but this belief focused on beginning and ending; that is, when I first became a Christian there was plenty of grace; I had come to God with empty hands, and God had welcomed me. No price tag. No strings attached. Sheer unconditional love.
“Then at the end of the line there, too, was plenty of grace; I knew I was free from the terror of the coming judgment; my name was written in the Lamb’s book of life; and I recognized this as a gift I hadn’t earned.
“In between, however, life was one long deadly grind of trying to be perfect to earn the daily pleasure of a God Who simply could not be pleased. His demands were so high and His opinion of me so low, that there was no way I could really live under anything but His frown. I found I had to keep scrubbing myself in God’s bathtub.
“Another character of my self-invented nongracious God was His nagging. I don’t know whether you’ve ever lived with someone who nagged, but if you have you know what it feels like. They nag you about how you eat and dress. They fuss about how you walk and how you spend your time. They’re constantly on you to do this and not do that. And it doesn’t matter how hard you try, it’s never good enough.
“Imagine living with a God like that. All day long it was, ‘Why don’t you pray more? Why don’t you spend more time in the Word? Why don’t you witness? When will you ever learn self-discipline? How can you allow yourself to indulge such evil thoughts? Do this! Don’t do that! On and on and on. And there’s no place to hide!
“I had a God Who really, deep down underneath, considered me to be less than dirt. Oh, He made a great to-do about loving me enough to die for me. But I believed the day-to-day love and acceptance I longed for could only be mine if I’d let Him crush nearly everything that was really me. When you came right down to it, there was scarcely a word, feeling, decision, motive or thought of mine that God liked.
“The fact was, I knew very little about the God of the Bible – the God Paul tells us about and the One Jesus came to reveal. I had hardly met the God Who deeply cherished me and Who longed to free me to be a mature son and heir.
“I was living with a non-gracious God. And that’s what finally brought me down to the disintegration, pain and hopelessness of an emotional breakdown. There was no healing for me until I began to discover, or rediscover, a different kind of God – GOD AS HE REALLY IS – not as my distorted attitudes made Him out to be.
“In time my heart began to sense and trust the grace of the God my mind had long believed in. I had to accept God’s acceptance. And I had to accept myself in the same way God was accepting me. Not that I was content with the things that were wrong, but that these things could only be set right if I started from the grace ground of God’s unconditional love for me; I had to keep reaffirming my trust in God’s love even when I failed or was discouraged, when other people’s opinions and expectations pressed upon em, when I faced heavy responsibility, when my deepest relationships went sour, and when I hungered and thirsted for righteousness. Over and over again I have had to keep reminding myself that God’s love meets me here, not because of what I deserve, but because of His grace.
“For God IS gracious – more gracious than my most exalted thoughts or wildest dreams.”
My prayer for the “Grace” family, is that the real Jesus will become real to us – that we will see Him AS HE IS and allow the wonder of that seeing capture our hearts and minds.
I have spoken with a number of believers lately who have been searching the Scriptures for answers to personal, often devastating, problems and feel they are finding no answers. At least they are honest enough to admit their discouragement. It’s not considered “appropriate” for Christians to acknowledge disappointment with God. In some circles it’s probably considered blasphemous. But like the father of the demonized child who cried to the Lord in Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. . .!”, acknowledging our weakness will do more to touch our Savior’s heart than pretending we don’t have any weaknesses to acknowledge. Do we think God is surprised by our feelings and failings? Even more importantly, do we believe that God is somehow disappointed in us for being disappointed in Him? If we do, we don’t understand “Grace” – we may not yet have seen the real heart of God.
I want to share a story about a man, Joseph Cooke, whose misunderstanding of God’s nature took him to a place real Christians aren’t supposed to go – a nervous breakdown. He writes,
“Such a thing isn’t supposed to happen to a good Christian, much less a missionary as I was. But it did happen. And I had to leave Thailand a failed missionary, no longer able to preach or teach, hardly able to pray or read my Bible, hateful to myself, a burden to my wife and useless to God and man.
“What went wrong?”
“Deep down in my heart I was living day by day with a nongracious God. I believed He was gracious, but this belief focused on beginning and ending; that is, when I first became a Christian there was plenty of grace; I had come to God with empty hands, and God had welcomed me. No price tag. No strings attached. Sheer unconditional love.
“Then at the end of the line there, too, was plenty of grace; I knew I was free from the terror of the coming judgment; my name was written in the Lamb’s book of life; and I recognized this as a gift I hadn’t earned.
“In between, however, life was one long deadly grind of trying to be perfect to earn the daily pleasure of a God Who simply could not be pleased. His demands were so high and His opinion of me so low, that there was no way I could really live under anything but His frown. I found I had to keep scrubbing myself in God’s bathtub.
“Another character of my self-invented nongracious God was His nagging. I don’t know whether you’ve ever lived with someone who nagged, but if you have you know what it feels like. They nag you about how you eat and dress. They fuss about how you walk and how you spend your time. They’re constantly on you to do this and not do that. And it doesn’t matter how hard you try, it’s never good enough.
“Imagine living with a God like that. All day long it was, ‘Why don’t you pray more? Why don’t you spend more time in the Word? Why don’t you witness? When will you ever learn self-discipline? How can you allow yourself to indulge such evil thoughts? Do this! Don’t do that! On and on and on. And there’s no place to hide!
“I had a God Who really, deep down underneath, considered me to be less than dirt. Oh, He made a great to-do about loving me enough to die for me. But I believed the day-to-day love and acceptance I longed for could only be mine if I’d let Him crush nearly everything that was really me. When you came right down to it, there was scarcely a word, feeling, decision, motive or thought of mine that God liked.
“The fact was, I knew very little about the God of the Bible – the God Paul tells us about and the One Jesus came to reveal. I had hardly met the God Who deeply cherished me and Who longed to free me to be a mature son and heir.
“I was living with a non-gracious God. And that’s what finally brought me down to the disintegration, pain and hopelessness of an emotional breakdown. There was no healing for me until I began to discover, or rediscover, a different kind of God – GOD AS HE REALLY IS – not as my distorted attitudes made Him out to be.
“In time my heart began to sense and trust the grace of the God my mind had long believed in. I had to accept God’s acceptance. And I had to accept myself in the same way God was accepting me. Not that I was content with the things that were wrong, but that these things could only be set right if I started from the grace ground of God’s unconditional love for me; I had to keep reaffirming my trust in God’s love even when I failed or was discouraged, when other people’s opinions and expectations pressed upon em, when I faced heavy responsibility, when my deepest relationships went sour, and when I hungered and thirsted for righteousness. Over and over again I have had to keep reminding myself that God’s love meets me here, not because of what I deserve, but because of His grace.
“For God IS gracious – more gracious than my most exalted thoughts or wildest dreams.”
My prayer for the “Grace” family, is that the real Jesus will become real to us – that we will see Him AS HE IS and allow the wonder of that seeing capture our hearts and minds.
Mystery Worshippers
Worshippers for hire boost Sunday excitement
GRAND RAPIDS — On Saturday night Jim Kendall swivels on his bar stool at the Belly Up Tavern, snuffs out his cigarette and says, "Gotta go, guys. I'm gigging tomorrow."
The next morning at 10 a.m. Kendall, dressed in ironed Dockers and a Polo shirt, sings with gusto in the third row at Neighborhood Christian Center.
"Praise God!" he shouts, lifting his hands and prompting others to chime in with "amen" and "glory."
His infectious enthusiasm is just what the pastor ordered. Kendall isn't a Christian, but he and hundreds of other people across the U.S. are getting paid as much as $12 an hour by temp placement agencies to pretend to be exuberant worshipers.
"Praise decoy work is great," says one worshiper for hire who has lent his skills to more than 50 church services. He doesn't mind sitting through services, and considers the praise movements "good stretching exercise, like Tai Chi."
In the past five years, the worshiper-for-hire industry has flourished as pastors try to goose the energy level in dwindling churches. Temp agencies train decoys to clap, laugh and make affirmative noises during the sermon. Most prized is the ability to appear authentically engaged, but not overly so.
"It's a subtle art," says William Talbot, 67, who has temped as a worshiper since his retirement nest egg petered out. Talbot, a Jew by birth, says he writes grocery lists and the week's tasks while pretending to take sermon notes.
Pastors hire worshipers for various reasons, but most often to avoid the humiliation of empty pews.
"I did it to encourage the flock," says a pastor who wished not to give his name. "Membership had slipped so instead of dropping a service, this gave us an interim solution until the staff and I figured out what to do."
The worshipers for hire so enlivened his church that he hired them on a semi-permanent basis. Decoy crews rotate so the church's real members don't become suspicious.
Back at the Belly Up on Sunday afternoon, Kendall is proud of his morning praise performance, and says he'll ask his agency for a raise based on his improved emulation of sincere worship.
"I'd like to make a side career of it," he says, finishing his beer.
GRAND RAPIDS — On Saturday night Jim Kendall swivels on his bar stool at the Belly Up Tavern, snuffs out his cigarette and says, "Gotta go, guys. I'm gigging tomorrow."
The next morning at 10 a.m. Kendall, dressed in ironed Dockers and a Polo shirt, sings with gusto in the third row at Neighborhood Christian Center.
"Praise God!" he shouts, lifting his hands and prompting others to chime in with "amen" and "glory."
His infectious enthusiasm is just what the pastor ordered. Kendall isn't a Christian, but he and hundreds of other people across the U.S. are getting paid as much as $12 an hour by temp placement agencies to pretend to be exuberant worshipers.
"Praise decoy work is great," says one worshiper for hire who has lent his skills to more than 50 church services. He doesn't mind sitting through services, and considers the praise movements "good stretching exercise, like Tai Chi."
In the past five years, the worshiper-for-hire industry has flourished as pastors try to goose the energy level in dwindling churches. Temp agencies train decoys to clap, laugh and make affirmative noises during the sermon. Most prized is the ability to appear authentically engaged, but not overly so.
"It's a subtle art," says William Talbot, 67, who has temped as a worshiper since his retirement nest egg petered out. Talbot, a Jew by birth, says he writes grocery lists and the week's tasks while pretending to take sermon notes.
Pastors hire worshipers for various reasons, but most often to avoid the humiliation of empty pews.
"I did it to encourage the flock," says a pastor who wished not to give his name. "Membership had slipped so instead of dropping a service, this gave us an interim solution until the staff and I figured out what to do."
The worshipers for hire so enlivened his church that he hired them on a semi-permanent basis. Decoy crews rotate so the church's real members don't become suspicious.
Back at the Belly Up on Sunday afternoon, Kendall is proud of his morning praise performance, and says he'll ask his agency for a raise based on his improved emulation of sincere worship.
"I'd like to make a side career of it," he says, finishing his beer.
Christian Book Store "Near-Tragedy"
Near-tragedy: patrons of Bible bookstore found unconscious, overwhelmed by sheer boredom
OMAHA — In what police are calling a disaster narrowly averted, 12 patrons of Valley Book and Bible store were found unconscious Saturday afternoon, overcome by unbelievable boredom as they browsed.
"I was heading over to the bookmarks and Bible covers when I must have passed out," said one man, still drowsy, as police led him to an ambulance. "My mind went totally numb. The last thing I remember was staring at shelves of commentaries and devotional books."
Neighboring businesses phoned police after nobody left the store for several hours. Police arrived to find every person in the store asleep, snoring or in a half-conscious stupor.
"It was like they'd been gassed," said an officer at the scene. "We aren't letting our guys go in alone. It's still a dangerous atmosphere."
The clerk was found slumped over the register. Patrons lay in the aisles near the Gaither Christmas Homecoming and VeggieTales displays. Police were extracting them one by one and returning them to family members.
OMAHA — In what police are calling a disaster narrowly averted, 12 patrons of Valley Book and Bible store were found unconscious Saturday afternoon, overcome by unbelievable boredom as they browsed.
"I was heading over to the bookmarks and Bible covers when I must have passed out," said one man, still drowsy, as police led him to an ambulance. "My mind went totally numb. The last thing I remember was staring at shelves of commentaries and devotional books."
Neighboring businesses phoned police after nobody left the store for several hours. Police arrived to find every person in the store asleep, snoring or in a half-conscious stupor.
"It was like they'd been gassed," said an officer at the scene. "We aren't letting our guys go in alone. It's still a dangerous atmosphere."
The clerk was found slumped over the register. Patrons lay in the aisles near the Gaither Christmas Homecoming and VeggieTales displays. Police were extracting them one by one and returning them to family members.
Friends Are Friends Forever?
Friends not friends forever, even if the Lord's the Lord of them, former pals say
SALEM, Mass. — Two former "best buddies" from Saratoga Nazarene Church say they learned the hard way that a lifetime is too long to live as friends, despite the claims of a popular Christian song.
Theresa and Dalia, both 13, became best friends the day they met in third grade. They soon realized they were the only serious Christians in the school, and both had major crushes on Michael W. Smith.
"We used to bounce on my bed using hairbrushes as microphones and singing 'Friends' to each other," says Theresa. "I'd sing Amy Grant's part and she'd sing Michael W. Smith's part. Then we'd laugh and roll around. We knew our friendship was forever, like the song said."
But at the end of eighth grade, things hit a rough patch. Dalia quit wearing her Amy Grant Hearts in Motion Concert Tour T-shirt to school on Fridays, as she and Theresa had done for years.
"That felt like betrayal," Theresa said. "I was totally alone."
Then both girls developed a crush on the same boy, Brad Loudermilk, the only decent-looking Christian in the school. Out of spite, Dalia switched her crush to a non-Christian guy, and the friendship with Theresa was effectively severed.
Theresa went home after school and ripped the Michael W. Smith poster from her wall, then crumpled onto her bed and sobbed.
"I guess friends will say never and the welcome does end," she said bitterly.
SALEM, Mass. — Two former "best buddies" from Saratoga Nazarene Church say they learned the hard way that a lifetime is too long to live as friends, despite the claims of a popular Christian song.
Theresa and Dalia, both 13, became best friends the day they met in third grade. They soon realized they were the only serious Christians in the school, and both had major crushes on Michael W. Smith.
"We used to bounce on my bed using hairbrushes as microphones and singing 'Friends' to each other," says Theresa. "I'd sing Amy Grant's part and she'd sing Michael W. Smith's part. Then we'd laugh and roll around. We knew our friendship was forever, like the song said."
But at the end of eighth grade, things hit a rough patch. Dalia quit wearing her Amy Grant Hearts in Motion Concert Tour T-shirt to school on Fridays, as she and Theresa had done for years.
"That felt like betrayal," Theresa said. "I was totally alone."
Then both girls developed a crush on the same boy, Brad Loudermilk, the only decent-looking Christian in the school. Out of spite, Dalia switched her crush to a non-Christian guy, and the friendship with Theresa was effectively severed.
Theresa went home after school and ripped the Michael W. Smith poster from her wall, then crumpled onto her bed and sobbed.
"I guess friends will say never and the welcome does end," she said bitterly.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A Day in the Life
A Day in the Life
As we wait for our Lord to return, we live a day at a time. We seek to reach the lost and strengthen the saints. We pray and worship. Some call living a day at a time “the daily grind” and there are pressures within and without that can potentially cloud our vision of an eternal perspective. The following thoughts are intended to provide some practical help in living in the moment. We are in a high-pressure generation; having an understanding of what’s happening to us, as well as around us, can help immensely when life threatens to undo us. The enemy seeks to wear us down; the Lord desires to build us up. In order to keep His perspective fresh in our minds we must have clarity on His ways with us.
In Matthew 6:25-33 Jesus tells us that we need never worry about food or clothing. In Psalm 37:25 David adds, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Yet, in 1 Corinthians 4:11 Paul writes, “Up to this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated and are homeless.” And in 2 Corinthians 6:4-6 he adds, “. . . in afflictions, hardships, distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger…” Jesus does not appear to be fulfilling His promises; at least not for Paul.
In John 14:27 Jesus said, “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives”. What’s different from the peace He gives and the peace the world gives? The world’s peace is based on circumstances. If things are going well, we have peace. If life is falling apart, our peace is gone. It would appear on the surface that Jesus is doing a poor job of taking care of Paul, so apparently Paul’s peace is not based on being cared for. As a matter of fact, listen to what Paul says in Acts 20:22-23, “I am on my way to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me, except that the Holy Spirit has shown me that in every city, bonds and afflictions await me.”
Not only does the Lord not take care of Paul, but instead, He promised Paul that the only thing he had to look forward to was suffering. How could Paul have peace knowing that? How much peace could you and I have knowing that even with God’s faith-giants like Paul, this is the way God might “take care” of us? Paul had no clue what was coming in life except the promise of “afflictions in every city”. He didn’t know anything about his future on earth except this. Yet consider what he wrote in Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts. . “
Yes, that does surpass all comprehension. Paul knew first hand that we can send our supplications to God and still face a life of hunger, homelessness, sleeplessness, loneliness and affliction. But in spite of complete uncertainty about the future, Paul has a difficult time finding words to express how incredible the peace of God is in him.
That makes no sense. Is it a contradiction?
Jesus has promised us protection and provision, and then He has shown us that the life of His greatest apostle was characterized primarily by persecution and deprivation. And we’re supposed to figure out how both can be true at the same time?
In Philippians 4:12 Paul says, “I have learned the secret . . .” What secret? “The secret of being filled and being hungry . . . of having plenty and suffering need.” There’s a secret in this!? He says he learned the secret of peace in all circumstances. This is not the peace the world gives – this is unique.
Consider Abraham in this context:
"By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise . . for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-11)
Abraham’s confidence or inner assurance did not come from anything he saw here on earth. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” If it’s “not seen”, what good is it?
Again, in Hebrews 11:10, “. . . he was looking for a city whose architect and builder is God.” What Abraham did see is a different city; an invisible city. Hebrews 12:2 says we are to “(fix) our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. . .and is now sat down on the throne of God”. Perfect faith, perfect peace, even extreme joy, in the midst of the worst suffering possible. How? He saw the throne. He saw another city, another reality. Not of this world. No city here for Abraham – no throne here for Christ.
Just faith.
Abraham saw, but never entered the city until after he left earth. Jesus saw, but didn’t attain the throne until after the cross.
Now, just to spice things up, let’s look at another confusing verse. “No one has ascended into heaven except He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven.” (John 3:13). Jesus was on earth and in heaven at the same time? What’s He telling us? He’s saying that we don’t just live here. This isn’t our world. Remember, Jesus told us in John 15:19 that we are “not of this world”. And in Ephesians 2:6 Paul wrote, “God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in heaven.” Has He? Is that where we are? In Colossians 3:1-4 Paul wrote,
"If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your true life is hidden with Christ in God."
Where do we live? Earth or heaven? Physically, we’re on earth; but what about spiritually? There’s another explanation of how this works found in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5,
"We do not lose heart (i.e. we have peace), even though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. For this temporary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen; the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens (remember what Abraham was looking for?). For indeed in this house we grown, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. . . for while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened . . . that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God."
Many Christians think our primary purpose is here. We do have work to do here, but God’s purpose for us reaches far beyond this planet and this life. Where was Paul’s focus? On that which is decaying and burdensome, or on that which can’t decay?
I suppose another question that might surface is simply: Why does it have to be this way? Why the emphasis in Scripture on faith in the unseen over, for example, victory in conquering the ‘seen’? You know, like, ‘Come to Jesus and solve your problems’. It might happen and it’s great when it does, but God’s ultimate purpose isn’t fulfilled here.
Time to unveil the secret.
For the past 2000 years God’s Spirit has been calling out a people from among all the nations to be the bride of Christ, to co-rule with Him in the age to come. Romans 8:18-24 says,
"I consider the sufferings of the present time not worthy of comparison to the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. . . for in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it."
And what is that hope? Revelation 20:6, “Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection (the church); over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” That is what God is preparing us for. We are pre-occupied with our successes and failures here, but God is looking beyond this life to the next. Everything we are going through here is to prepare us to share the throne of Christ. And how are kings and princes made? By intense training. Here, then, is Paul’s “secret” – it’s shown perfectly in what happened to our Lord as described in Philippians 2:5-11,
"Have this attitude in yourselves that was also in Christ Jesus. Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God something to hold onto. But instead He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the Name with is above every name."
Jesus trained for the throne through suffering and servanthood. The greater the testing in this life, the greater the exaltation in the world to come. To rule under God’s authority, one must become a servant that God can trust with His will. That’s why Jesus said He came to do the will of the Father and only His will. Now, Jesus is on the throne of the universe.
No one suffered more and still remained obedient; and now no one has greater authority or a higher Name in eternity than Him.
The circumstances of your life on this side of eternity are all planned specifically to prepare you as a co-ruler with Christ during His millennial reign. If in your daily activities and ministries you rarely think of the next life, you aren’t living in Paul’s understanding of Christianity.
You can tell by the way many pastors teach, by the topics they choose, and the programs they plan, that this life is paramount. Things seen are much more important to them than things not seen. With Paul it was exactly the opposite.
If your focus is here, nothing makes sense. Why the constant pressure? Why the unfulfilled promises and unanswered prayers? But if you see with the eyes of faith and understanding, as Abraham and Paul and Jesus did, everything makes sense. And the result? A peace that this world can’t give. One that comes only from seeing through and past this age and this life to that which is eternal. The intent is to see ourselves every day, in Christ, in training to share His throne. No matter where you live or what your circumstances, this is exactly what God is doing in your life.
It helps immensely to know what is happening and fortunately God has graciously explained it to us in His word. Those who know God and who know what He is doing, and why He’s doing it, can find inner rest in circumstances that terrify and confuse most Christians. We are ‘sons of the light’ and do not need to walk in darkness. Knowing the truth can set us free from the inner restlessness this world is filled with. We can have rest in the midst of adversity in this life and glory in the age to come.
As we wait for our Lord to return, we live a day at a time. We seek to reach the lost and strengthen the saints. We pray and worship. Some call living a day at a time “the daily grind” and there are pressures within and without that can potentially cloud our vision of an eternal perspective. The following thoughts are intended to provide some practical help in living in the moment. We are in a high-pressure generation; having an understanding of what’s happening to us, as well as around us, can help immensely when life threatens to undo us. The enemy seeks to wear us down; the Lord desires to build us up. In order to keep His perspective fresh in our minds we must have clarity on His ways with us.
In Matthew 6:25-33 Jesus tells us that we need never worry about food or clothing. In Psalm 37:25 David adds, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Yet, in 1 Corinthians 4:11 Paul writes, “Up to this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated and are homeless.” And in 2 Corinthians 6:4-6 he adds, “. . . in afflictions, hardships, distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger…” Jesus does not appear to be fulfilling His promises; at least not for Paul.
In John 14:27 Jesus said, “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives”. What’s different from the peace He gives and the peace the world gives? The world’s peace is based on circumstances. If things are going well, we have peace. If life is falling apart, our peace is gone. It would appear on the surface that Jesus is doing a poor job of taking care of Paul, so apparently Paul’s peace is not based on being cared for. As a matter of fact, listen to what Paul says in Acts 20:22-23, “I am on my way to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me, except that the Holy Spirit has shown me that in every city, bonds and afflictions await me.”
Not only does the Lord not take care of Paul, but instead, He promised Paul that the only thing he had to look forward to was suffering. How could Paul have peace knowing that? How much peace could you and I have knowing that even with God’s faith-giants like Paul, this is the way God might “take care” of us? Paul had no clue what was coming in life except the promise of “afflictions in every city”. He didn’t know anything about his future on earth except this. Yet consider what he wrote in Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts. . “
Yes, that does surpass all comprehension. Paul knew first hand that we can send our supplications to God and still face a life of hunger, homelessness, sleeplessness, loneliness and affliction. But in spite of complete uncertainty about the future, Paul has a difficult time finding words to express how incredible the peace of God is in him.
That makes no sense. Is it a contradiction?
Jesus has promised us protection and provision, and then He has shown us that the life of His greatest apostle was characterized primarily by persecution and deprivation. And we’re supposed to figure out how both can be true at the same time?
In Philippians 4:12 Paul says, “I have learned the secret . . .” What secret? “The secret of being filled and being hungry . . . of having plenty and suffering need.” There’s a secret in this!? He says he learned the secret of peace in all circumstances. This is not the peace the world gives – this is unique.
Consider Abraham in this context:
"By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise . . for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-11)
Abraham’s confidence or inner assurance did not come from anything he saw here on earth. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” If it’s “not seen”, what good is it?
Again, in Hebrews 11:10, “. . . he was looking for a city whose architect and builder is God.” What Abraham did see is a different city; an invisible city. Hebrews 12:2 says we are to “(fix) our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. . .and is now sat down on the throne of God”. Perfect faith, perfect peace, even extreme joy, in the midst of the worst suffering possible. How? He saw the throne. He saw another city, another reality. Not of this world. No city here for Abraham – no throne here for Christ.
Just faith.
Abraham saw, but never entered the city until after he left earth. Jesus saw, but didn’t attain the throne until after the cross.
Now, just to spice things up, let’s look at another confusing verse. “No one has ascended into heaven except He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven.” (John 3:13). Jesus was on earth and in heaven at the same time? What’s He telling us? He’s saying that we don’t just live here. This isn’t our world. Remember, Jesus told us in John 15:19 that we are “not of this world”. And in Ephesians 2:6 Paul wrote, “God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in heaven.” Has He? Is that where we are? In Colossians 3:1-4 Paul wrote,
"If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your true life is hidden with Christ in God."
Where do we live? Earth or heaven? Physically, we’re on earth; but what about spiritually? There’s another explanation of how this works found in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5,
"We do not lose heart (i.e. we have peace), even though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. For this temporary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen; the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens (remember what Abraham was looking for?). For indeed in this house we grown, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. . . for while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened . . . that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God."
Many Christians think our primary purpose is here. We do have work to do here, but God’s purpose for us reaches far beyond this planet and this life. Where was Paul’s focus? On that which is decaying and burdensome, or on that which can’t decay?
I suppose another question that might surface is simply: Why does it have to be this way? Why the emphasis in Scripture on faith in the unseen over, for example, victory in conquering the ‘seen’? You know, like, ‘Come to Jesus and solve your problems’. It might happen and it’s great when it does, but God’s ultimate purpose isn’t fulfilled here.
Time to unveil the secret.
For the past 2000 years God’s Spirit has been calling out a people from among all the nations to be the bride of Christ, to co-rule with Him in the age to come. Romans 8:18-24 says,
"I consider the sufferings of the present time not worthy of comparison to the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. . . for in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it."
And what is that hope? Revelation 20:6, “Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection (the church); over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” That is what God is preparing us for. We are pre-occupied with our successes and failures here, but God is looking beyond this life to the next. Everything we are going through here is to prepare us to share the throne of Christ. And how are kings and princes made? By intense training. Here, then, is Paul’s “secret” – it’s shown perfectly in what happened to our Lord as described in Philippians 2:5-11,
"Have this attitude in yourselves that was also in Christ Jesus. Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God something to hold onto. But instead He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the Name with is above every name."
Jesus trained for the throne through suffering and servanthood. The greater the testing in this life, the greater the exaltation in the world to come. To rule under God’s authority, one must become a servant that God can trust with His will. That’s why Jesus said He came to do the will of the Father and only His will. Now, Jesus is on the throne of the universe.
No one suffered more and still remained obedient; and now no one has greater authority or a higher Name in eternity than Him.
The circumstances of your life on this side of eternity are all planned specifically to prepare you as a co-ruler with Christ during His millennial reign. If in your daily activities and ministries you rarely think of the next life, you aren’t living in Paul’s understanding of Christianity.
You can tell by the way many pastors teach, by the topics they choose, and the programs they plan, that this life is paramount. Things seen are much more important to them than things not seen. With Paul it was exactly the opposite.
If your focus is here, nothing makes sense. Why the constant pressure? Why the unfulfilled promises and unanswered prayers? But if you see with the eyes of faith and understanding, as Abraham and Paul and Jesus did, everything makes sense. And the result? A peace that this world can’t give. One that comes only from seeing through and past this age and this life to that which is eternal. The intent is to see ourselves every day, in Christ, in training to share His throne. No matter where you live or what your circumstances, this is exactly what God is doing in your life.
It helps immensely to know what is happening and fortunately God has graciously explained it to us in His word. Those who know God and who know what He is doing, and why He’s doing it, can find inner rest in circumstances that terrify and confuse most Christians. We are ‘sons of the light’ and do not need to walk in darkness. Knowing the truth can set us free from the inner restlessness this world is filled with. We can have rest in the midst of adversity in this life and glory in the age to come.
Mark Driscoll Kicks His Own Ass
Mark Driscoll Kicks His Own Ass
By Jesse Benjamin
Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, took a dramatic stand against girly men at a Pastor’s Conference in Houston last week.
The conference, called “re:tool and re:load,” previously billed as “jesus 2.0,” featured speakers from around the country with the stated focus of “Making the Gospel and Missiology Relevant to Post Modern Culture.” Speaking at the last session of the conference, Driscoll focused his three-and-a-half-hour talk on the need for pastors to be more alpha.
“The problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters, has The Carpenters dialed in on his iPod, gets his hair cut at a salon instead of a barber shop, hasn’t been to an Ultimate Fighting match, works out on an elliptical machine instead of going to isolated regions of Russia like in Rocky IV in order to harvest lumber with his teeth, and generally swishes around like Jack from Three’s Company whenever Mr. Roper was around.”
Pacing the stage in a vaguely threatening manner, Driscoll focused on Biblical examples. “Jesus and Paul were serious dudes. They had teeth missing. Jesus was a carpenter, Paul was in prison. These guys didn’t eat tofu dogs and bean sprouts. They didn’t play tennis. If there were trucks back in their times, they would have been doing driveway lube jobs on a Saturday afternoon. Same thing with King David. Yeah, he might have played a lyre, but he slaughtered thousands of guys.”
The 300 pastors from around the country roared with approval, even though many of them had heard the same labored formulations at previous conferences called “reGeneration” and “resurge and reform.”
“At the Re:Ignite conference he talked about how Jesus and Peter didn’t wear matching sweatshirts that said ‘Best Buds’,” said John Kinston, a conference attendee who was live-blogging the event.
Kinston is emblematic of the many young pastors who support Driscoll. He planted Kiona Community Church three years ago in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. He attends 37 Mark Driscoll conferences each year, because he said he needs the support of fellow church planters and the inspiration of steroidal statistics.
“Numbers aren’t important, but we’ve grown 81.7% a year since our launch date and I still can’t get the guys to step up and be warriors," said Kinston. "We want to love our city and we can’t do that with a bunch of pansies who would rather play video games than go to a monster truck rally or tattoo their faces like Mike Tyson.
“At last year’s Converging Conference, Driscoll talked about standing up when you pee and I got really excited. We started a men’s-only Bible Accountability Group. It was a combination of scripture study and Muy Thai Stick Fighting. It was great for a few weeks, until my worship pastor lost an eye. I had to make a tough call then and there: no more Muy Thai Stick Fighting at Kiona Community without protective face gear. I still think it might have been a spiritual compromise.”
In Houston, Driscoll was intent on making absolutely clear that he is in favor of masculinity. At the 2 hour, 15 minute mark, he invited five pastors from the audience to take the stage, put his hands behind his back, stuck out his chin, and said, “Hit me with your best shot. Go on. I won’t hit you back. I want to show everyone what this is all about.” When none of the five took a swing, Driscoll had them escorted from the building and proceeded to hit himself five times.
“This is what being a pastor is about, guys. If you can’t handle it, go back to teaching yoga or playing My Little Pony with the other girls.”
The rest of the session followed the same general tone, with Driscoll ridiculing insulated coffee cups, haiku and dental floss as feminine while extolling athletic cups, tobacco spit and broken load-bearing bones as being “essential for a pastor.”
The blogosphere heated up quickly in the wake of Driscoll’s talk. At Jesuswasaman.blogspot.com, one post read, “This is the only thing that will turn back the tide of the Church’s decline in America. Until more guys step up and start punching themselves in the face, people will continue to leave the Church.”
Driscoll’s detractors had their say as well. Angel23 said, “It doesn’t matter that Driscoll’s church has 6,000 people coming to worship God, if he continues to use words like sissy he will be smited.”
Driscoll turned down our request for an interview, saying, “Interviews are for wimpy guys who wear Sans-a-Belt slacks and chew sugar-free gum.”
By Jesse Benjamin
Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, took a dramatic stand against girly men at a Pastor’s Conference in Houston last week.
The conference, called “re:tool and re:load,” previously billed as “jesus 2.0,” featured speakers from around the country with the stated focus of “Making the Gospel and Missiology Relevant to Post Modern Culture.” Speaking at the last session of the conference, Driscoll focused his three-and-a-half-hour talk on the need for pastors to be more alpha.
“The problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters, has The Carpenters dialed in on his iPod, gets his hair cut at a salon instead of a barber shop, hasn’t been to an Ultimate Fighting match, works out on an elliptical machine instead of going to isolated regions of Russia like in Rocky IV in order to harvest lumber with his teeth, and generally swishes around like Jack from Three’s Company whenever Mr. Roper was around.”
Pacing the stage in a vaguely threatening manner, Driscoll focused on Biblical examples. “Jesus and Paul were serious dudes. They had teeth missing. Jesus was a carpenter, Paul was in prison. These guys didn’t eat tofu dogs and bean sprouts. They didn’t play tennis. If there were trucks back in their times, they would have been doing driveway lube jobs on a Saturday afternoon. Same thing with King David. Yeah, he might have played a lyre, but he slaughtered thousands of guys.”
The 300 pastors from around the country roared with approval, even though many of them had heard the same labored formulations at previous conferences called “reGeneration” and “resurge and reform.”
“At the Re:Ignite conference he talked about how Jesus and Peter didn’t wear matching sweatshirts that said ‘Best Buds’,” said John Kinston, a conference attendee who was live-blogging the event.
Kinston is emblematic of the many young pastors who support Driscoll. He planted Kiona Community Church three years ago in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. He attends 37 Mark Driscoll conferences each year, because he said he needs the support of fellow church planters and the inspiration of steroidal statistics.
“Numbers aren’t important, but we’ve grown 81.7% a year since our launch date and I still can’t get the guys to step up and be warriors," said Kinston. "We want to love our city and we can’t do that with a bunch of pansies who would rather play video games than go to a monster truck rally or tattoo their faces like Mike Tyson.
“At last year’s Converging Conference, Driscoll talked about standing up when you pee and I got really excited. We started a men’s-only Bible Accountability Group. It was a combination of scripture study and Muy Thai Stick Fighting. It was great for a few weeks, until my worship pastor lost an eye. I had to make a tough call then and there: no more Muy Thai Stick Fighting at Kiona Community without protective face gear. I still think it might have been a spiritual compromise.”
In Houston, Driscoll was intent on making absolutely clear that he is in favor of masculinity. At the 2 hour, 15 minute mark, he invited five pastors from the audience to take the stage, put his hands behind his back, stuck out his chin, and said, “Hit me with your best shot. Go on. I won’t hit you back. I want to show everyone what this is all about.” When none of the five took a swing, Driscoll had them escorted from the building and proceeded to hit himself five times.
“This is what being a pastor is about, guys. If you can’t handle it, go back to teaching yoga or playing My Little Pony with the other girls.”
The rest of the session followed the same general tone, with Driscoll ridiculing insulated coffee cups, haiku and dental floss as feminine while extolling athletic cups, tobacco spit and broken load-bearing bones as being “essential for a pastor.”
The blogosphere heated up quickly in the wake of Driscoll’s talk. At Jesuswasaman.blogspot.com, one post read, “This is the only thing that will turn back the tide of the Church’s decline in America. Until more guys step up and start punching themselves in the face, people will continue to leave the Church.”
Driscoll’s detractors had their say as well. Angel23 said, “It doesn’t matter that Driscoll’s church has 6,000 people coming to worship God, if he continues to use words like sissy he will be smited.”
Driscoll turned down our request for an interview, saying, “Interviews are for wimpy guys who wear Sans-a-Belt slacks and chew sugar-free gum.”
The Reality Beyond Our Perception
An article by T.A. Sparks
Eph. 1:7-14; 3:14-21.
God has a great goal for us; that we would be conformed to the image of His Son: "foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son..." God is doing something in us by the exceeding greatness of His power, deeper than our senses, deeper than our recognition, than our perception. There is something which God has done, and is doing, which is settled beyond the interference of all the fluctuations and variations of our more superficial life. We live so much in that superficial realm, in what we call our soul realm, where we register all the influences and sensations which come from without, where we react to all such influences and impacts, and where we have a world of our own feelings, our own consciousness; this world which is so rarely quiet and calm for any length of time. It is the realm where all the fret is, all the anxiety, the worry, the care, the forebodings, and everything that can make us believe that it is the most real and positive and solid and true world in God's universe.
When we are in a mood, that mood is the most real thing to us, and if anyone tells us it is only a mood, and not to be taken seriously, we have little patience with such people. To us it is the most real thing. We are passing through something that is in the realm of this natural, this human life, and while we are passing through, it is terribly real. Yes, it may have a physical basis, it may rise from some disorder; it may be anything in this natural life, and this natural life is a terribly real thing to us, and very often we are dangerously near believing that it is the most real and ultimate thing, and that with it we stand or fall. Now what I want to say is that that is not the deepest thing in the child of God. There may be physical disorder and mental derangement, damaged relationships and personal fears, and there may also be all the most positive sensations of which this complex nature of ours can be conscious, but there is a deeper thing than that which is not touched, not moved. Right down in the depths of our being, if we are children of God, there is something which survives all that. You know that it has survived a thousand such moods and experiences. You have again and again thought that it was the end; that now you were going to be swamped and submerged, now the finish had come, through despair, melancholy, misery, or for some other reason, and you have survived that kind of thing again and again; you have come through, you have come out, you have come up. There is something there in a child of God which is deeper than that, more abiding, inviolable, a foundation of God unshaken.
Any power that can survive what we sometimes have to go through in the realm of our own souls is a very great power indeed; and, believe me, this power that works in the Church is going to survive all the accumulated sensations of all the members of the Body of Christ.
Now bring all your despair together, all your sensations, all the helplessness of the outlook, and, if you are a child of God, there is a power that works within which is more than sufficient to meet and counter and triumph over all that. That is the means by which God reaches His end in us, and if His end in us is conformity to the image of His Son, then the power that worketh in us is more than enough to meet and overcome all that which is contrary to His Son in us. Do you believe that? Not always! If we really believed that we would never be found occupied with ourselves, we would never be discouraged because of our imperfection, there would be no room for any question as to our standing. Oh, if we did but believe this, what triumphant people we would be; for is it not true that the greater proportion of our trouble, of our despair, of our unhappiness is due to the consciousness of our own imperfection, all that we are that we would not be and should not be, and all that we are not that we feel we ought to be. His eternal purpose and His exceeding great power are linked together. Do not forget that. We are the object of both, and His exceeding great power is at work within us to effect the purpose. He will ultimately accomplish all His will in us.
Eph. 1:7-14; 3:14-21.
God has a great goal for us; that we would be conformed to the image of His Son: "foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son..." God is doing something in us by the exceeding greatness of His power, deeper than our senses, deeper than our recognition, than our perception. There is something which God has done, and is doing, which is settled beyond the interference of all the fluctuations and variations of our more superficial life. We live so much in that superficial realm, in what we call our soul realm, where we register all the influences and sensations which come from without, where we react to all such influences and impacts, and where we have a world of our own feelings, our own consciousness; this world which is so rarely quiet and calm for any length of time. It is the realm where all the fret is, all the anxiety, the worry, the care, the forebodings, and everything that can make us believe that it is the most real and positive and solid and true world in God's universe.
When we are in a mood, that mood is the most real thing to us, and if anyone tells us it is only a mood, and not to be taken seriously, we have little patience with such people. To us it is the most real thing. We are passing through something that is in the realm of this natural, this human life, and while we are passing through, it is terribly real. Yes, it may have a physical basis, it may rise from some disorder; it may be anything in this natural life, and this natural life is a terribly real thing to us, and very often we are dangerously near believing that it is the most real and ultimate thing, and that with it we stand or fall. Now what I want to say is that that is not the deepest thing in the child of God. There may be physical disorder and mental derangement, damaged relationships and personal fears, and there may also be all the most positive sensations of which this complex nature of ours can be conscious, but there is a deeper thing than that which is not touched, not moved. Right down in the depths of our being, if we are children of God, there is something which survives all that. You know that it has survived a thousand such moods and experiences. You have again and again thought that it was the end; that now you were going to be swamped and submerged, now the finish had come, through despair, melancholy, misery, or for some other reason, and you have survived that kind of thing again and again; you have come through, you have come out, you have come up. There is something there in a child of God which is deeper than that, more abiding, inviolable, a foundation of God unshaken.
Any power that can survive what we sometimes have to go through in the realm of our own souls is a very great power indeed; and, believe me, this power that works in the Church is going to survive all the accumulated sensations of all the members of the Body of Christ.
Now bring all your despair together, all your sensations, all the helplessness of the outlook, and, if you are a child of God, there is a power that works within which is more than sufficient to meet and counter and triumph over all that. That is the means by which God reaches His end in us, and if His end in us is conformity to the image of His Son, then the power that worketh in us is more than enough to meet and overcome all that which is contrary to His Son in us. Do you believe that? Not always! If we really believed that we would never be found occupied with ourselves, we would never be discouraged because of our imperfection, there would be no room for any question as to our standing. Oh, if we did but believe this, what triumphant people we would be; for is it not true that the greater proportion of our trouble, of our despair, of our unhappiness is due to the consciousness of our own imperfection, all that we are that we would not be and should not be, and all that we are not that we feel we ought to be. His eternal purpose and His exceeding great power are linked together. Do not forget that. We are the object of both, and His exceeding great power is at work within us to effect the purpose. He will ultimately accomplish all His will in us.
Intensification
Intensification
The Church Age is unique. Unlike the age of Israel before us, we have no formal priesthood (i.e. the Levites) to represent us to God. In union with Christ we are a “royal priesthood”; we represent ourselves (1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 1:9). We are not under the Mosaic Law (Galatians 3:23-25; 4:19-31). We are indwelt by God’s Spirit so that we might be conformed to the image of Christ. Conformity to Christ results in the fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no Law (Galatians 5:22-23). There are many other contrasts between the age of Israel and the Church age, but there is one principle, one distinctive, unique to our generation: The principle of Intensification. As one author put it,
The feature of intensification is inherent in all realms; the physical and the spiritual. In nature, harvest is the intensification of a process. The end is but the full outworking or development of what was inherent in the beginning. We are living in an age when, in every realm, this process has reached an enormous proportion.
Sin, lawlessness, and deception have always been with us. They are from the beginning. But in our age, called the “last time” (1 John 2:18; 1 Peter 1:20; Jude 1:18) and the “last days” (Hebrews 1:2), we draw ever closer to the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom and the final dethronement of the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). We know from Revelation 12:12 that the closer we get to the end of this age, the greater becomes the wrath of Satan, and the more intense his attacks on God’s people (whether physical, emotional, or spiritual).
In Ephesians 6:12 Paul says we “wrestle” against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world. In the original ‘wrestle’ is a description of intense conflict, not mild conflict. As the time of the coming of the Christ draws near, the conflict between the people of God and the forces arrayed against us intensifies. Demons go insane (maybe I should say ‘insaner’). We saw the intensity of the attacks against Christ in His humanity. The church is the body of Christ, and as such, faces a similar conflict, especially for those in the church who intend to go on to God’s full thought for their lives. Each step forward is met with fierce resistance. The greater our spiritual advance, the greater the antagonism against us. We are at war. And in the church age, that war is the hottest battle in the history of mankind.
The forms this war takes against the saints are varied. The primary form (which has always been at the top of Satan’s list) is deception. As bad as sickness, persecution, and all we see in Job and other Biblical examples are, the most effective and lasting way to neutralize the spiritual impact of God’s people is to deceive them.
We see deception beginning early in the Church Age. In our generation deception is global and is greatly intensified in both saturation and subtlety. There are many truths we simply don’t understand anymore. Our thoughts are clouded and distracted. The key principles and concepts of the teaching of this dispensation are a mystery to us. But what’s really scary is that we believe we are fine (we would say there’s always room for improvement of course, but overall, we believe we’re doing great),
Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and do not realize that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind.
Revelation 3:17
Do we even consider it possible that verses such as this could apply to us? Jesus isn’t talking about material poverty when He says the Laodecians are “poor”; He’s talking about spiritual blindness. Of course these verses were addressed to the church in Laodecia and we all know about them. We couldn’t be as closed or as blind as the Laodecians, or the Galatians, or the Hebrews, or the Corinthians, or . . . . could we? Why do we think we’re not equally at risk?
This age of intensification is a spiritual battle for the minds and hearts of the people of God. It is the time when all of us are on the frontlines of spiritual conflict. What did we think war would be like?
As Bob Dylan said, “When you gonna wake up . . . and strengthen the things that remain?” There is a slow train coming and when it arrives the spiritual condition of each of us will be revealed in truth. There will be no more hiding, no more playing church, and no more self-justification. Those eyes which are “as a flame of fire” (Revelation 1:14) will pierce to the depths of our souls and expose the life (or lack thereof) that resides within each of us. “Let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6)
One other area of intensification should be looked at briefly in this context. In Revelation 12:12 we are told that at some point in the near future Satan will be unleashing “great wrath” upon the earth “knowing that he has but a short time.” This coincides with our Lord’s teaching in Matthew 2421-24 (and similar passages) that stress the exponential intensification of spiritual warfare and deception which will characterize the final generation. Satan appears to be both aware and unaware of his pending doom (a symptom of insanity?). As the time of his judgment draws near, his anger increases, as does his assault on the Body of Christ. Our wrestling against principalities and powers will increase significantly as we come nearer to the close of this age. One implication of this reality is shown in the following,
It is true that the true children of God are going through a time of intense trial and testing spiritually in these last days; everywhere it is so. Why? Because the Lord must have something against which hell is impotent and by which He demonstrates to the universe that strength of His might which causes to stand and withstand, having done all to stand. If one were asked what the last issue for the church in this age is, I would say that it stands, and that is saying a tremendous thing. Oh, you say, that is surely limiting things, are you not expecting much more than that? Progress,, advance, sweeping movements?
The intensification of the conflict will be so overwhelming that the church will have its work cut out in the end just to stand, but its standing will be its victory. Just to be able, through testing, trial, when everything is blowing round you like a blizzard; when everything is dark, mysterious, and even God seems far away and unreal, and faith is tested and you are being assailed on the right hand and on the left, and there is every reason outwardly for giving up, falling down, surrendering, lowering your standard. Just to stand and not be moved in your faith is the greatest possible victory in the final generation.
As our Lord Himself stated in Luke 18:8, “. . . when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” I am certain the Holy Spirit will be graciously using a number of God’s children to accomplish wondrous things in the world at the time of the end, but for many of us, holding on to our faith and standing firm in the midst of the most intense spiritual battle of all time, will be the great test – and the great victory for those who do stand.
The Church Age is unique. Unlike the age of Israel before us, we have no formal priesthood (i.e. the Levites) to represent us to God. In union with Christ we are a “royal priesthood”; we represent ourselves (1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 1:9). We are not under the Mosaic Law (Galatians 3:23-25; 4:19-31). We are indwelt by God’s Spirit so that we might be conformed to the image of Christ. Conformity to Christ results in the fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no Law (Galatians 5:22-23). There are many other contrasts between the age of Israel and the Church age, but there is one principle, one distinctive, unique to our generation: The principle of Intensification. As one author put it,
The feature of intensification is inherent in all realms; the physical and the spiritual. In nature, harvest is the intensification of a process. The end is but the full outworking or development of what was inherent in the beginning. We are living in an age when, in every realm, this process has reached an enormous proportion.
Sin, lawlessness, and deception have always been with us. They are from the beginning. But in our age, called the “last time” (1 John 2:18; 1 Peter 1:20; Jude 1:18) and the “last days” (Hebrews 1:2), we draw ever closer to the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom and the final dethronement of the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). We know from Revelation 12:12 that the closer we get to the end of this age, the greater becomes the wrath of Satan, and the more intense his attacks on God’s people (whether physical, emotional, or spiritual).
In Ephesians 6:12 Paul says we “wrestle” against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world. In the original ‘wrestle’ is a description of intense conflict, not mild conflict. As the time of the coming of the Christ draws near, the conflict between the people of God and the forces arrayed against us intensifies. Demons go insane (maybe I should say ‘insaner’). We saw the intensity of the attacks against Christ in His humanity. The church is the body of Christ, and as such, faces a similar conflict, especially for those in the church who intend to go on to God’s full thought for their lives. Each step forward is met with fierce resistance. The greater our spiritual advance, the greater the antagonism against us. We are at war. And in the church age, that war is the hottest battle in the history of mankind.
The forms this war takes against the saints are varied. The primary form (which has always been at the top of Satan’s list) is deception. As bad as sickness, persecution, and all we see in Job and other Biblical examples are, the most effective and lasting way to neutralize the spiritual impact of God’s people is to deceive them.
We see deception beginning early in the Church Age. In our generation deception is global and is greatly intensified in both saturation and subtlety. There are many truths we simply don’t understand anymore. Our thoughts are clouded and distracted. The key principles and concepts of the teaching of this dispensation are a mystery to us. But what’s really scary is that we believe we are fine (we would say there’s always room for improvement of course, but overall, we believe we’re doing great),
Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and do not realize that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind.
Revelation 3:17
Do we even consider it possible that verses such as this could apply to us? Jesus isn’t talking about material poverty when He says the Laodecians are “poor”; He’s talking about spiritual blindness. Of course these verses were addressed to the church in Laodecia and we all know about them. We couldn’t be as closed or as blind as the Laodecians, or the Galatians, or the Hebrews, or the Corinthians, or . . . . could we? Why do we think we’re not equally at risk?
This age of intensification is a spiritual battle for the minds and hearts of the people of God. It is the time when all of us are on the frontlines of spiritual conflict. What did we think war would be like?
As Bob Dylan said, “When you gonna wake up . . . and strengthen the things that remain?” There is a slow train coming and when it arrives the spiritual condition of each of us will be revealed in truth. There will be no more hiding, no more playing church, and no more self-justification. Those eyes which are “as a flame of fire” (Revelation 1:14) will pierce to the depths of our souls and expose the life (or lack thereof) that resides within each of us. “Let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6)
One other area of intensification should be looked at briefly in this context. In Revelation 12:12 we are told that at some point in the near future Satan will be unleashing “great wrath” upon the earth “knowing that he has but a short time.” This coincides with our Lord’s teaching in Matthew 2421-24 (and similar passages) that stress the exponential intensification of spiritual warfare and deception which will characterize the final generation. Satan appears to be both aware and unaware of his pending doom (a symptom of insanity?). As the time of his judgment draws near, his anger increases, as does his assault on the Body of Christ. Our wrestling against principalities and powers will increase significantly as we come nearer to the close of this age. One implication of this reality is shown in the following,
It is true that the true children of God are going through a time of intense trial and testing spiritually in these last days; everywhere it is so. Why? Because the Lord must have something against which hell is impotent and by which He demonstrates to the universe that strength of His might which causes to stand and withstand, having done all to stand. If one were asked what the last issue for the church in this age is, I would say that it stands, and that is saying a tremendous thing. Oh, you say, that is surely limiting things, are you not expecting much more than that? Progress,, advance, sweeping movements?
The intensification of the conflict will be so overwhelming that the church will have its work cut out in the end just to stand, but its standing will be its victory. Just to be able, through testing, trial, when everything is blowing round you like a blizzard; when everything is dark, mysterious, and even God seems far away and unreal, and faith is tested and you are being assailed on the right hand and on the left, and there is every reason outwardly for giving up, falling down, surrendering, lowering your standard. Just to stand and not be moved in your faith is the greatest possible victory in the final generation.
As our Lord Himself stated in Luke 18:8, “. . . when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” I am certain the Holy Spirit will be graciously using a number of God’s children to accomplish wondrous things in the world at the time of the end, but for many of us, holding on to our faith and standing firm in the midst of the most intense spiritual battle of all time, will be the great test – and the great victory for those who do stand.
Friday, January 22, 2010
A Taste of C.S. Lewis
A Taste of C.S. Lewis (Four quotes from his works)
One of the great difficulties to keep before the audience’s mind is the question of Truth. They always think you are recommending Christianity, not because it is true, but because it is good. And in the discussion they will at every moment try to escape from the issue of “true or false” into stuff about a better world, or morals, or the (incomes of televangelists), or the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition, or whatever. You have to keep forcing them back to the real point. Only thus will you be able to address their belief that a certain amount of “religion” is desirable but one mustn’t carry it too far. One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance at all, and if true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.
The middle-aged male has great powers of passive resistance.
There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of Heaven ridiculous by saying they do not want to “spend eternity playing harps”. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they shouldn’t talk about them. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.
If it were not commanded, I would have no interest whatsoever in fellowshipping with Christians.
One of the great difficulties to keep before the audience’s mind is the question of Truth. They always think you are recommending Christianity, not because it is true, but because it is good. And in the discussion they will at every moment try to escape from the issue of “true or false” into stuff about a better world, or morals, or the (incomes of televangelists), or the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition, or whatever. You have to keep forcing them back to the real point. Only thus will you be able to address their belief that a certain amount of “religion” is desirable but one mustn’t carry it too far. One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance at all, and if true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.
The middle-aged male has great powers of passive resistance.
There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of Heaven ridiculous by saying they do not want to “spend eternity playing harps”. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they shouldn’t talk about them. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.
If it were not commanded, I would have no interest whatsoever in fellowshipping with Christians.
Who Can Be Saved?
Who Can Be Saved?
The accessibility of the gospel is the greatest wonder of the world. Salvation is offered to those who believe (those who put their trust in Christ to save them) - it is by faith only. No strings attached.
The examples of Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman, Peter, and other Biblical writers show us our bankruptcy so that we would enter our relationship with God on honest ground. When we reach that point, God can begin to fashion us into something beautiful.
The faith required is no greater than the least faith we can muster - as a mustard seed, the smallest seed. . .
Jesus said, "I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved." (Jn. 10:9). The gate is always open!
Let's say one hundred people enter that gate in the next ten minutes.
One may come hopping on one foot, tired out and wondering if he can make it, but he hops through the gate at last into the arms of the Lord.
Another, his head up and shoulders straight, does a little march through the gate.
One comes with purpose and vision for a lifetime of serving Christ.
Another comes with the bare thought, "Just don't let me burn in hell."
One hears the invitation, and runs for the gate.
Another loiters around outside for years, and finally steps across the line, not entirely sure he made the best decision.
Still another starts for the gate, turns back, changes her mind, starts for the gate again, and repeats this process numerous times before realizing she needs help getting through the gate. "Lord, help me decide,", she prays. A compassionate, tender hand reaches through the gate and helps her through.
A mother won't go in without her children. She gets them ready and as they pray to receive Christ together they enter the faith-gate to eternal life.
Another stands restlessly outside the gate. "He doesn't want me like He wants the others," he bemoans. "Maybe if I stand here he'll notice me." "Come," Jesus cries out to him. "It was for you I died." With awe the fellow passes through the gate.
Still another, hurt by the years, stands at the gate, angry with the Master for the way her life has gone. "I don't want you," she thinks, "but I have no other place to go; so I must go through the gate."
Jesus takes them all, because that's how we come - as needy, blind, hungering, frightened, confused, Satan-dominated, lost human beings. Jesus is the only One who can save us. "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28)
The accessibility of the gospel is the greatest wonder of the world. Salvation is offered to those who believe (those who put their trust in Christ to save them) - it is by faith only. No strings attached.
The examples of Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman, Peter, and other Biblical writers show us our bankruptcy so that we would enter our relationship with God on honest ground. When we reach that point, God can begin to fashion us into something beautiful.
The faith required is no greater than the least faith we can muster - as a mustard seed, the smallest seed. . .
Jesus said, "I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved." (Jn. 10:9). The gate is always open!
Let's say one hundred people enter that gate in the next ten minutes.
One may come hopping on one foot, tired out and wondering if he can make it, but he hops through the gate at last into the arms of the Lord.
Another, his head up and shoulders straight, does a little march through the gate.
One comes with purpose and vision for a lifetime of serving Christ.
Another comes with the bare thought, "Just don't let me burn in hell."
One hears the invitation, and runs for the gate.
Another loiters around outside for years, and finally steps across the line, not entirely sure he made the best decision.
Still another starts for the gate, turns back, changes her mind, starts for the gate again, and repeats this process numerous times before realizing she needs help getting through the gate. "Lord, help me decide,", she prays. A compassionate, tender hand reaches through the gate and helps her through.
A mother won't go in without her children. She gets them ready and as they pray to receive Christ together they enter the faith-gate to eternal life.
Another stands restlessly outside the gate. "He doesn't want me like He wants the others," he bemoans. "Maybe if I stand here he'll notice me." "Come," Jesus cries out to him. "It was for you I died." With awe the fellow passes through the gate.
Still another, hurt by the years, stands at the gate, angry with the Master for the way her life has gone. "I don't want you," she thinks, "but I have no other place to go; so I must go through the gate."
Jesus takes them all, because that's how we come - as needy, blind, hungering, frightened, confused, Satan-dominated, lost human beings. Jesus is the only One who can save us. "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28)
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Overcoming Life
Spiritual Advance - The Overcoming Life
We have three enemies: The World, the Flesh and the Devil. Fortunately, our Lord has made provision for us to be “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37) in each of these three battlegrounds. The following is a discussion regarding the spiritual applications that have been given to us to live above these enemies and prevent them from sabotaging God’s plan for our lives. This message is adapted from a teaching series I heard several years ago entitled “Spiritual Dynamics”.
Genuine contentment and being in contact with reality in the midst of the problems and hardships of life are offered to us in Christ. God wants our lives to reflect the incredible inner peace that our Lord experienced under the extreme pressures of the Incarnation. He overcame every slander, persecution, stress, and test that the world and the devil launched at Him. He pioneered a spiritual life now available to us as Church Age believers. We glorify God by learning and utilizing His plan for us.
I know this is probably an unnecessary exhortation but sometimes reminders help - it does no good to learn these truths and not apply them to our circumstances. We learn the truth so we can apply the truth. Through spiritual growth we progress from the simplest faith decisions to the ultimate motivation and meaning for our existence—obsession with the Person of Jesus Christ.
In spiritual childhood we learn complete dependence on the infallible promises of God and the irrefutable rationales of Bible truths. In spiritual maturity we sustain an intense love for the Lord and share the complete contentment that marked the unique spiritual life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Armed with these spiritual assets we can solve life’s dilemmas.
Fellowship Maintained
Spirituality is the status of being in fellowship with God having the Holy Spirit in control of our lives. It is not dependent on pious living, penance, remorse, guilt, or confession to others. It is a system of privacy and freedom that depends solely on God’s grace. You can learn in a matter of minutes the uncomplicated procedure for gaining and maintaining spirituality and use it to pursue a lifetime of meaning, purpose, and definition.
When we sin we break fellowship with God. When we turn to Him and confess our sin, fellowship is restored. 1 John 1:3, 9 says,
“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, so you may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. . . If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
As John points out, the issue in confession is fellowship or communion with God, without barriers, without controversy, without the Spirit being grieved by our sin (Ephesians 4:30) or quenched by our resistance (1 Thessalonians 5:19). We want to live under an open heaven walking with God. Sin cannot destroy our relationship with the Lord. God’s love never changes and He will “under no circumstances” cast us out (John 6:37), but our fellowship with Him can be broken by sin. If there was something we needed to do to restore this fellowship (i.e. penance, feel guilty, beg for forgiveness, etc.) then the spiritual life would depend on works, not grace. But confession of sin, as shown in 1 John 1:9, is simply agreeing with God regarding the particular sin which needs to be forgiven (“homologeo” – “To speak the same thing; to agree”).
This restoration of our fellowship with God is based on the same grace that saved us – an appeal to the blood of Christ. It’s His merit, not ours, that forms the basis of both our salvation and our fellowship with the Father. Guilt has no place in the Christian life. When we confess our sin God not only removes the fellowship barrier but also “cleanses us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9b) thereby removing any barriers we may not be aware of. When we are young Christians many of the sins we commit are not seen as sin to us, it takes some degree of maturity to be sensitive to all the Lord would have us avoid and He will not leave us, no matter what our spiritual age, in a place of broken fellowship through ignorance. He knows our hearts. If we agree with Him concerning what He reveals to us as sin, then our hearts are right before Him and the blood of Jesus Christ fully restores our fellowship with the Lord (1 John 1:7).
To put this in 21st century terms, ‘confession’ is simply telling God in the privacy of your heart that you agree with Him, “You’re right, Lord, what I did (or thought) was wrong.” You don’t have to feel guilty about it, or plead for forgiveness, or promise to never do it again (you will do it again, or something similar – 1 John 1:8). You simply confess it (1 John 1:9), forget it (Micah 7:19; Philippians 3:13b), and move on (Luke 9:62).
The Filling of the Holy Spirit
The biblical mandate to be “filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) is not an order to undergo emotional ecstatics or to raise your consciousness to mystically commune with God. When you compare Ephesians 5:18-21 with Colossians 3:16-17 you can see that being filled with the Holy Spirit has exactly the same results as being “filled” with the Word of God. The Scriptures are, after all, “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) and when our minds are occupied with the Word, the Spirit is directing our lives. By staying in fellowship with our Father, every Church Age believer has the privilege and opportunity of being controlled by God the Holy Spirit instead of by the flesh. The Spirit empowers us to reject the sin nature’s control of our life, learn the Scriptures, and grow in the unique spiritual life He’s given to each of us. All of us, whether newborn or mature (1 Peter 2:2) grow by prayerful study of the Word. The truths of Scripture must become our thinking in every circumstance. This is the true “Spirit-filled” life; a mind and heart saturated with the thinking of Christ and by faith living out that thinking in the power of God’s indwelling Spirit.
Faith & Inward Rest
As a growing but still immature believer, what do you do when difficulty strikes? Do you seek counsel from others, lean on your Christian friends, or just deny the existence of the problem? When we learn to cling to God’s promises until they become more real than our emotions, our experience, our circumstances, or our problems we have learned the secret of resting in Christ. As our Lord offers in Matthew 11:28-30
“Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest . . . learn of Me . . and you shall find rest unto your souls.”
There is no promise in Scripture for “rest” in circumstances. This world is, and will remain, a battle ground for the growing believer. But our souls can be at rest in the midst of the fiercest of battles if we give our troubles to the Lord and leave them there. We must let Him decide what we need and what we do not need in our lives to shape us into His image. We can trust Him fully with all things and with the outcome of our lives. There is rest and inward peace available to those who will cast their cares on Him (1 Peter 5:7). He has provided this rest for us (Hebrews 4:9-10) and we glorify Him when we trust Him.
The Grid of Grace
Pride creates problems; humility solves problems. When you grasp God’s grace and how little you deserve the inconceivable bounty He provides, your soul is humbled within. If we learn humility, the attitude for teachability, we can build a life in Grace.
A story is told of one of Napoleon’s soldiers. The doctor was seeking to extract a bullet that had lodged in the region of the heart, when the soldier called out, “Cut deeper, you will find Napoleon graven there.” Christ is abiding in the deepest recesses of our hearts and in time He will be seen in us.
The old covenant (Law) versus the new covenant (Grace) is the difference between Christ without and Christ within. God has always, from Adam on, desired and demanded obedience. Under law, men are left to their own resources to obey. Under grace, Christ in us through the indwelling Spirit becomes the Divine enablement of obedience. Under the new covenant the Lord indwells His people and if you ‘cut deep enough’ into the soul of the Christian, you will find the Savior.
Faith pleases God simply because faith rests all it’s hope on Another, on the One Who is willing and able live a holy life through us. Faith is trusting Someone else to do for us what we know we cannot do for ourselves. Faith and Grace work together to live the spiritual life and glorify God. Every command, every leading of the Spirit becomes a challenge, not to our ability, but to His; our challenge is faith.
“From the Dohnavur Fellowship in India comes this story. Various nurses had tried to interest a certain woman, but she had never been concerned about the Way. They were simply talking, she thought, and turned an unconcerned and uncomprehending face upon them till she saw Kohila nursing a sick baby. She said nothing for awhile. Then one day she said to her, ‘Why do you do it? Why do you work for this baby night and day? What makes you do it?’ ‘It is nothing in me,’ said Kohila; ‘It is the love of my Lord Jesus. It is He who gives me love for this baby.’ ‘I have heard talk of Him,’ said the woman, ‘but I thought it was only talk; now I have seen Him, and I know it is not mere talk.’ She listened and accepted Christ in truth, though she know what it would cost when she returned home. Two months after she had returned home, a strong woman, she was dead. That death for her meant the end of what she had known must come—sharp persecution for the sake of her new-found Lord; not peace, but a sword. Before her unconcerned and uncomprehending face, Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified in Kohila. It is only as we embrace and live the Cross that the world sees the Crucified today. There is a sense in which Christ must be ‘lifted up’ in flesh and blood before the eyes of the world. Only thus can He still ‘draw all men.’” L. E. Maxwell, Born Crucified
The foundation of spiritual life is grace; the fruit is love. Grace was working in Kohila, freeing her to love with the love of Christ. Was she operating under ‘duty’ or under ‘law’? Was she following a checklist of rules and regulations, and now it was time to produce an act of kindness? No! Love is spontaneous, creative and free from law. Love is an issuing of Life, not a compliance with legal obligations.
The greatest act of love in history, the cross, was it mere duty to the Father’s will that took Jesus to the cross or was love (both for the Father and for us) motivating the sacrifice? “ . . . Who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20b). And what about the Father, did He feel obligated, duty-bound to provide us so great a salvation? “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .” (John 3:16). Which is most likely to win your heart, an act of duty done against personal desire, or an act motivated by personal, intimate love?
As we are growing in God’s grace, much of what we do is out of duty. Our love is small and undeveloped. It is better to act out of duty than to not act at all, but actions born of law are far from the ideal and eventually those we serve in this way will sense the fact that obligation, not compassion, has been the basis of our service. At some point, in everything we do, the burden of duty must give way to the freedom of love; and that transition, that freedom, is the fruit of moving from law to grace: “ . . . the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The One Who emptied Himself of all but love demonstrated the life of grace. Under law people are anxious, restless, busy, and self-condemned; under grace they are free to love.
The freedom to love and the obedience of faith spring from our understanding of God’s grace, and grace is something that must be learned experientially as well as theologically.
We have three enemies: The World, the Flesh and the Devil. Fortunately, our Lord has made provision for us to be “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37) in each of these three battlegrounds. The following is a discussion regarding the spiritual applications that have been given to us to live above these enemies and prevent them from sabotaging God’s plan for our lives. This message is adapted from a teaching series I heard several years ago entitled “Spiritual Dynamics”.
Genuine contentment and being in contact with reality in the midst of the problems and hardships of life are offered to us in Christ. God wants our lives to reflect the incredible inner peace that our Lord experienced under the extreme pressures of the Incarnation. He overcame every slander, persecution, stress, and test that the world and the devil launched at Him. He pioneered a spiritual life now available to us as Church Age believers. We glorify God by learning and utilizing His plan for us.
I know this is probably an unnecessary exhortation but sometimes reminders help - it does no good to learn these truths and not apply them to our circumstances. We learn the truth so we can apply the truth. Through spiritual growth we progress from the simplest faith decisions to the ultimate motivation and meaning for our existence—obsession with the Person of Jesus Christ.
In spiritual childhood we learn complete dependence on the infallible promises of God and the irrefutable rationales of Bible truths. In spiritual maturity we sustain an intense love for the Lord and share the complete contentment that marked the unique spiritual life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Armed with these spiritual assets we can solve life’s dilemmas.
Fellowship Maintained
Spirituality is the status of being in fellowship with God having the Holy Spirit in control of our lives. It is not dependent on pious living, penance, remorse, guilt, or confession to others. It is a system of privacy and freedom that depends solely on God’s grace. You can learn in a matter of minutes the uncomplicated procedure for gaining and maintaining spirituality and use it to pursue a lifetime of meaning, purpose, and definition.
When we sin we break fellowship with God. When we turn to Him and confess our sin, fellowship is restored. 1 John 1:3, 9 says,
“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, so you may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. . . If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
As John points out, the issue in confession is fellowship or communion with God, without barriers, without controversy, without the Spirit being grieved by our sin (Ephesians 4:30) or quenched by our resistance (1 Thessalonians 5:19). We want to live under an open heaven walking with God. Sin cannot destroy our relationship with the Lord. God’s love never changes and He will “under no circumstances” cast us out (John 6:37), but our fellowship with Him can be broken by sin. If there was something we needed to do to restore this fellowship (i.e. penance, feel guilty, beg for forgiveness, etc.) then the spiritual life would depend on works, not grace. But confession of sin, as shown in 1 John 1:9, is simply agreeing with God regarding the particular sin which needs to be forgiven (“homologeo” – “To speak the same thing; to agree”).
This restoration of our fellowship with God is based on the same grace that saved us – an appeal to the blood of Christ. It’s His merit, not ours, that forms the basis of both our salvation and our fellowship with the Father. Guilt has no place in the Christian life. When we confess our sin God not only removes the fellowship barrier but also “cleanses us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9b) thereby removing any barriers we may not be aware of. When we are young Christians many of the sins we commit are not seen as sin to us, it takes some degree of maturity to be sensitive to all the Lord would have us avoid and He will not leave us, no matter what our spiritual age, in a place of broken fellowship through ignorance. He knows our hearts. If we agree with Him concerning what He reveals to us as sin, then our hearts are right before Him and the blood of Jesus Christ fully restores our fellowship with the Lord (1 John 1:7).
To put this in 21st century terms, ‘confession’ is simply telling God in the privacy of your heart that you agree with Him, “You’re right, Lord, what I did (or thought) was wrong.” You don’t have to feel guilty about it, or plead for forgiveness, or promise to never do it again (you will do it again, or something similar – 1 John 1:8). You simply confess it (1 John 1:9), forget it (Micah 7:19; Philippians 3:13b), and move on (Luke 9:62).
The Filling of the Holy Spirit
The biblical mandate to be “filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) is not an order to undergo emotional ecstatics or to raise your consciousness to mystically commune with God. When you compare Ephesians 5:18-21 with Colossians 3:16-17 you can see that being filled with the Holy Spirit has exactly the same results as being “filled” with the Word of God. The Scriptures are, after all, “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) and when our minds are occupied with the Word, the Spirit is directing our lives. By staying in fellowship with our Father, every Church Age believer has the privilege and opportunity of being controlled by God the Holy Spirit instead of by the flesh. The Spirit empowers us to reject the sin nature’s control of our life, learn the Scriptures, and grow in the unique spiritual life He’s given to each of us. All of us, whether newborn or mature (1 Peter 2:2) grow by prayerful study of the Word. The truths of Scripture must become our thinking in every circumstance. This is the true “Spirit-filled” life; a mind and heart saturated with the thinking of Christ and by faith living out that thinking in the power of God’s indwelling Spirit.
Faith & Inward Rest
As a growing but still immature believer, what do you do when difficulty strikes? Do you seek counsel from others, lean on your Christian friends, or just deny the existence of the problem? When we learn to cling to God’s promises until they become more real than our emotions, our experience, our circumstances, or our problems we have learned the secret of resting in Christ. As our Lord offers in Matthew 11:28-30
“Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest . . . learn of Me . . and you shall find rest unto your souls.”
There is no promise in Scripture for “rest” in circumstances. This world is, and will remain, a battle ground for the growing believer. But our souls can be at rest in the midst of the fiercest of battles if we give our troubles to the Lord and leave them there. We must let Him decide what we need and what we do not need in our lives to shape us into His image. We can trust Him fully with all things and with the outcome of our lives. There is rest and inward peace available to those who will cast their cares on Him (1 Peter 5:7). He has provided this rest for us (Hebrews 4:9-10) and we glorify Him when we trust Him.
The Grid of Grace
Pride creates problems; humility solves problems. When you grasp God’s grace and how little you deserve the inconceivable bounty He provides, your soul is humbled within. If we learn humility, the attitude for teachability, we can build a life in Grace.
A story is told of one of Napoleon’s soldiers. The doctor was seeking to extract a bullet that had lodged in the region of the heart, when the soldier called out, “Cut deeper, you will find Napoleon graven there.” Christ is abiding in the deepest recesses of our hearts and in time He will be seen in us.
The old covenant (Law) versus the new covenant (Grace) is the difference between Christ without and Christ within. God has always, from Adam on, desired and demanded obedience. Under law, men are left to their own resources to obey. Under grace, Christ in us through the indwelling Spirit becomes the Divine enablement of obedience. Under the new covenant the Lord indwells His people and if you ‘cut deep enough’ into the soul of the Christian, you will find the Savior.
Faith pleases God simply because faith rests all it’s hope on Another, on the One Who is willing and able live a holy life through us. Faith is trusting Someone else to do for us what we know we cannot do for ourselves. Faith and Grace work together to live the spiritual life and glorify God. Every command, every leading of the Spirit becomes a challenge, not to our ability, but to His; our challenge is faith.
“From the Dohnavur Fellowship in India comes this story. Various nurses had tried to interest a certain woman, but she had never been concerned about the Way. They were simply talking, she thought, and turned an unconcerned and uncomprehending face upon them till she saw Kohila nursing a sick baby. She said nothing for awhile. Then one day she said to her, ‘Why do you do it? Why do you work for this baby night and day? What makes you do it?’ ‘It is nothing in me,’ said Kohila; ‘It is the love of my Lord Jesus. It is He who gives me love for this baby.’ ‘I have heard talk of Him,’ said the woman, ‘but I thought it was only talk; now I have seen Him, and I know it is not mere talk.’ She listened and accepted Christ in truth, though she know what it would cost when she returned home. Two months after she had returned home, a strong woman, she was dead. That death for her meant the end of what she had known must come—sharp persecution for the sake of her new-found Lord; not peace, but a sword. Before her unconcerned and uncomprehending face, Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified in Kohila. It is only as we embrace and live the Cross that the world sees the Crucified today. There is a sense in which Christ must be ‘lifted up’ in flesh and blood before the eyes of the world. Only thus can He still ‘draw all men.’” L. E. Maxwell, Born Crucified
The foundation of spiritual life is grace; the fruit is love. Grace was working in Kohila, freeing her to love with the love of Christ. Was she operating under ‘duty’ or under ‘law’? Was she following a checklist of rules and regulations, and now it was time to produce an act of kindness? No! Love is spontaneous, creative and free from law. Love is an issuing of Life, not a compliance with legal obligations.
The greatest act of love in history, the cross, was it mere duty to the Father’s will that took Jesus to the cross or was love (both for the Father and for us) motivating the sacrifice? “ . . . Who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20b). And what about the Father, did He feel obligated, duty-bound to provide us so great a salvation? “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .” (John 3:16). Which is most likely to win your heart, an act of duty done against personal desire, or an act motivated by personal, intimate love?
As we are growing in God’s grace, much of what we do is out of duty. Our love is small and undeveloped. It is better to act out of duty than to not act at all, but actions born of law are far from the ideal and eventually those we serve in this way will sense the fact that obligation, not compassion, has been the basis of our service. At some point, in everything we do, the burden of duty must give way to the freedom of love; and that transition, that freedom, is the fruit of moving from law to grace: “ . . . the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The One Who emptied Himself of all but love demonstrated the life of grace. Under law people are anxious, restless, busy, and self-condemned; under grace they are free to love.
The freedom to love and the obedience of faith spring from our understanding of God’s grace, and grace is something that must be learned experientially as well as theologically.
Spiritual Maturity
The following is a brief excerpt from T.A. Sparks' article on Spiritual Maturity;
He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30).
The hallmark of true spiritual development and maturity is this; that we have grown so much less and the Lord Jesus has grown so much more. The mature soul is one who is small in his or her own eyes, but in whose eyes the Lord Jesus is great. That is growth. We may know a very great deal, have a wonderful grasp of doctrine, of teaching, of truth, of the Scriptures, and yet be spiritually very small, very immature, very childish. (There is all the difference between being childish and child-like.) Real spiritual growth is just this: I decrease, He increases. It is the Lord Jesus becoming more. You can test spiritual growth by that.
He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30).
The hallmark of true spiritual development and maturity is this; that we have grown so much less and the Lord Jesus has grown so much more. The mature soul is one who is small in his or her own eyes, but in whose eyes the Lord Jesus is great. That is growth. We may know a very great deal, have a wonderful grasp of doctrine, of teaching, of truth, of the Scriptures, and yet be spiritually very small, very immature, very childish. (There is all the difference between being childish and child-like.) Real spiritual growth is just this: I decrease, He increases. It is the Lord Jesus becoming more. You can test spiritual growth by that.
Monday, January 4, 2010
The Passion of Missions
Since Jesus says that “(we) are not of this world” (John 17:16), what is to be our involvement with those outside the church? I want to begin my attempt to answer that question by making two statements,
- Every Christian, without exception, is to have a missionary heart. This means that he/she will either be a missionary or will pray for and support those who are missionaries.
- Missions was the primary vocational work of the early church. All other areas of life were secondary and were allowed to exist only if they enhanced the missionary enterprise. The New Testament is essentially a book of missions; missionary outreach was the context and atmosphere in which the New Testament was formed.
Several years ago, Brother Andrew of “Open Doors” experienced the following American response to an appeal for missions:
I remember going to Denver to one of the biggest churches there. We had an emotionally moving service, with many people in tears as I described the plight of the suffering believers behind the Iron Curtain and showed slides to illustrate what I was saying. At the end of the meeting, the pastor came to the pulpit and made an impassioned plea for the entire congregation to dig deep into their purses - TO PAY FOR NEW CUSHION COVERS FOR THE PEWS! (Emphasis his).
Now, I want to build my case for the statements I made in the beginning. Let’s start with a few observations on the New Testament related to missions by L. E. Maxwell;
Every book in the New Testament was written by a foreign missionary
Every letter in the New Testament that was written to an individual was written to a convert of a foreign missionary
Every epistle in the New Testament that was written to a church was written to a foreign missionary church
Of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, every apostle except one became a missionary.
The only one who did not become a missionary, became a traitor.
Missions was the context of action, the vocational call of the Body of Christ in the first century. What was it that led these early Christians to develop such a passion for missions? It has been said that if we could see as Jesus saw and feel as Jesus felt, we would do as Jesus did. From a publication called “The Baptist Missionary Review” comes the following excerpt from an article on their early pioneers in Assam, India;
The religious vocabulary of these men often seems a bit overdone to us today. But to them life was a serious pilgrimage between two eternities. Their theology put backbone into them and gave them a powerfully constraining apologetic for foreign missions. They were very sure that the heathen were already damned and going to hell; they had not the slightest doubt but that all heathen religions were contraptions of Satan to hide the truth and entrap men’s souls; they were very sure that Jesus Christ was the only Savior of the world; they did not come to the mission field to share with the Indians the truth of their respective faiths; they came to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ revealed in the Gospel of the grace of God to sinners as the one hope of salvation. They preached these beliefs and lived in the power of them day by day. Missionary service to these men was a question of supreme loyalty to Jesus Christ. Flippancy had no place in their make-up. They were ambassadors for Jesus Christ. They took themselves and their work seriously.
Is this a fanatical branch of Christianity or is this simply the outshining of the image of Christ in His people? If it is true that the more we are conformed to Christ the deeper will be our heart for missions, then this passion for missions would have to be true of God Himself.
John 1:14 tells us that the “Word”, God’s Son, became a Man and dwelt among us. Why? Why did the Son of God take upon Himself the form of a servant? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”, and in Luke 19:10 our Lord says, “The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.” God left heaven and came to earth in Christ for the express purpose of securing our redemption. He left His home and traveled to a foreign land to reach the lost. The Incarnation is both the central theme of the New Testament and the greatest missionary enterprise in history! The missionary spirit is rooted deep in the heart of God as revealed in Christ.
That heart for reaching the lost at any price was transferred to the apostles who followed in the footsteps of their Lord. In Romans 9:1-2 Paul writes, “I tell you the truth in Christ . . . I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart . . . for my countrymen according to the flesh.” Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, His apostles were inwardly driven to reach those who needed Jesus’ love.
Now the baton has been passed to you and me. We are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is to be Christ in His people, continuing His work beyond the first century “. . . even unto the end of the age.” (Matthew 18-20).
If the church is not going to reach the world, who will? Jesus was a missionary; the apostles were missionaries; the early church became a missionary venture into the known world. So, why does the 21st century church not reflect this same passion? I believe there are two primary reasons:
1. We don’t believe in the urgency of missions. We don’t believe, beyond theological theory, in the lostness of the lost - their plight and destiny do not grip us as it did our forefathers. From A.S. Ormsby’s book, Alone With God comes this story written by an atheist,
If I were a religionist, did I truly, firmly, consistently believe, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and the practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, religion would be everything to me. I would cast aside earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as less than vanity. Religion should be my first waking thought and my last image when sleep sunk me in un-consciousness. I would labor in her cause alone. I would esteem one soul gained to heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences should never stay my hand nor seal my lips. I would speak to the imagination, awaken the feelings and stir up the passions. Earth, its joys and its griefs should occupy no moments of my thoughts; for these are but the affairs of a portion of eternity on the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlastingly miserable or everlastingly happy. I would deem all who thought of only this world merely seeking to increase temporal happiness, and laboring to obtain temporal goods, pure madmen. I would go forth to the world, and preach to it, and my text would be, ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
The Bible teaches that our faith is evidenced by our works (James 2:18). If we truly believe anything, will that belief not manifest itself in action?
2. The second reason that modern Christianity lacks in regard to missionary passion is our unwillingness to suffer. We are bothered by the cross.
Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place, and labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore, I beg you, be ye followers of me. (1 Corinthians 4:11-16)
As soon as many of us get a glimpse of the implications of missions, whether across the street or across the ocean, we pull back. To be “followers” of Jesus would exact too great a price from our lifestyle, our comfort zone. The Bible does not play down the personal sacrifice and suffering involved in the work of missions. In 2 Timothy 2:3 Paul tells Timothy, “You must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
Some years ago, my wife and I attended a mission’s conference. We heard many stories of missions but one particularly touched me. A missionary had taken some Bibles into a Soviet republic and had given one to an elderly woman in a small church there. It was the first Bible she had ever received and as tears streamed down her face she rubbed the Bible against her cheek and thanked the missionary and the Lord with all her heart.
At the conference, we saw speakers themselves crying over the longing they saw in the faces of young Christians on foreign fields. They hungered for the Word and for the Lord, and had almost no one to help them.
God is moving in these last days. I personally believe this is the last generation, the church will soon be taken from this planet and the night will fall, Antichrist will rise and reign. “Darkness, like a funeral pall, will settle down on the empires of the earth” (Walter Scott). Those churches throughout the world which are open to God’s purpose are being ignited with the spirit of evangelism and missions. Though the majority of Christians are not called to jump on the first plane to Africa, I still contend that all Christians should be involved in some way in missionary work, whether it involves going out themselves or supporting those who do. We are all called to witness (Acts 1:8), but I also believe that we are all called to do our part in penetrating the darkest areas of our world with the Gospel of Light.
The following is a poem written by a missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission in Nigeria,
If you had been to heathen lands,
Where weary souls stretch out their hands
To plead, yet no one understands,
Would you go back?
If you had seen the women bear
Their heavy loads, with none to share,
Had heard them weep with none to care,
Would you go back?
If you had seen them in despair
Beat their breasts and pull their hair
While demon powers filled the air
Would you go back?
If you had seen the glorious sight,
When heathen people seeking right
Were brought from darkness into light,
Would you go back?
If you had walked through Africa’s sand,
Your hand within the Savior’s hand
And knew He’d called you to that land,
Would you go back?
If you had seen the Christian die,
With never a fear though death were nigh,
Had seen them smile and say goodbye,
Would you go back?
Yet still they wait, a weary throng,
They’ve waited, some, so very long.
When shall despair be turned to song?
I’m going back, would you?
And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations . . . and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)
One final comment on this subject: T.A. Sparks warns concerning the tendency of the flesh (personal agendas) to enter spiritual service,
Now He (Jesus) has shaken off all His chains. Time and space no longer have any power over Him. Geography, the material things, Satan, demons, men, nations, thrones, all have been fully stripped off by Him. Now, by an inward dynamic, in spite of every threat and peril, men and women are moving out in every direction with a passion for the glory of His Name. Now, not as an historic figure, known “after the flesh,” but, by an inward revelation of transcendent magnitude, He is known after the Spirit. Now, the once dreaded, unacceptable, offending Cross is all their glory. Now, suffering reproach has supplanted pride; selfless, disinterested sacrifice takes the place of ambition; a mighty energizing faith—not their own—has destroyed doubt; they lay down their own lives gladly and suffer the loss of all things for that Name.
In one strategic stroke He begins with a multitude representing “every nation under heaven.” See how this fire spreads without artificial and forced agencies.
In the year 33 A.D., a few Galilean fishermen were seeking liberty of speech in Jerusalem, and were severely handled as men poor and ignorant. In the year that Paul died, how did the matter stand? There were churches in Jerusalem, in Caesarea, in Antioch and all Syria, in Galatia, in Ephesus, Sardis, Laodecia and throughout the west coast of lesser Asia, in Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Rome, Alexandria, in the chief cities of the islands and the mainland of Greece, and the western Roman colonies.
There are some significant omissions from this record of conquests. We never read of the organizing of a missionary campaign. Such things as deputations, lecturers and lectures, exhibitions, appeals, advertisements, and so on, with all their cost and expenditure of time, money, energy, all to try to get Christians interested in the souls of the unsaved, are never hinted at. Any reporting of what God had done in the regions beyond was never by way of propaganda or advocacy. Statistics as mental stimulants; tragic, sensational stories as emotional stimulants; urge and drive as volitional stimulants had no place here, so far as we can discern. The thing was firstly of the Spirit, not of the soul. The endeavor to reverse this order is undoubtedly the reason for a tremendous amount of the weakness and breakdown of today.
Speaking generally, this whole matter of the world-mission of the Church is on pre-resurrection ground today. The Lord is not straitened in Himself, but He is straitened in His people. On the one hand, there is a need of workers, for almost half the human race is without the knowledge of Christ; and on the other hand workers are often ready to go forth, yet there are no means to send them. A third condition, almost more tragic, abounds, that of the spiritual breakdown of many who do go, so that ‘converts’ are not really and genuinely born from above with the Spirit of sonship becoming truly resident within. Demon powers persist in dominion and challenge. A policy of slow absorption of ‘Christianity,’ through education, familiarization, and so on, as a compromise between failure to work upon the basis of genuine regeneration and an honest acknowledgment of the same with its practical implications, has been adopted. Finally there are the many who return home with lost assurance.
Surely all this stands in direct contrast to the spirit and experience of the New Testament. It is not difficult to go on at great length making distinctions between the two standards, that of the New Testament and that which has largely been since, but the more important thing is to display the secrets of that former glory.
- Every Christian, without exception, is to have a missionary heart. This means that he/she will either be a missionary or will pray for and support those who are missionaries.
- Missions was the primary vocational work of the early church. All other areas of life were secondary and were allowed to exist only if they enhanced the missionary enterprise. The New Testament is essentially a book of missions; missionary outreach was the context and atmosphere in which the New Testament was formed.
Several years ago, Brother Andrew of “Open Doors” experienced the following American response to an appeal for missions:
I remember going to Denver to one of the biggest churches there. We had an emotionally moving service, with many people in tears as I described the plight of the suffering believers behind the Iron Curtain and showed slides to illustrate what I was saying. At the end of the meeting, the pastor came to the pulpit and made an impassioned plea for the entire congregation to dig deep into their purses - TO PAY FOR NEW CUSHION COVERS FOR THE PEWS! (Emphasis his).
Now, I want to build my case for the statements I made in the beginning. Let’s start with a few observations on the New Testament related to missions by L. E. Maxwell;
Every book in the New Testament was written by a foreign missionary
Every letter in the New Testament that was written to an individual was written to a convert of a foreign missionary
Every epistle in the New Testament that was written to a church was written to a foreign missionary church
Of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, every apostle except one became a missionary.
The only one who did not become a missionary, became a traitor.
Missions was the context of action, the vocational call of the Body of Christ in the first century. What was it that led these early Christians to develop such a passion for missions? It has been said that if we could see as Jesus saw and feel as Jesus felt, we would do as Jesus did. From a publication called “The Baptist Missionary Review” comes the following excerpt from an article on their early pioneers in Assam, India;
The religious vocabulary of these men often seems a bit overdone to us today. But to them life was a serious pilgrimage between two eternities. Their theology put backbone into them and gave them a powerfully constraining apologetic for foreign missions. They were very sure that the heathen were already damned and going to hell; they had not the slightest doubt but that all heathen religions were contraptions of Satan to hide the truth and entrap men’s souls; they were very sure that Jesus Christ was the only Savior of the world; they did not come to the mission field to share with the Indians the truth of their respective faiths; they came to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ revealed in the Gospel of the grace of God to sinners as the one hope of salvation. They preached these beliefs and lived in the power of them day by day. Missionary service to these men was a question of supreme loyalty to Jesus Christ. Flippancy had no place in their make-up. They were ambassadors for Jesus Christ. They took themselves and their work seriously.
Is this a fanatical branch of Christianity or is this simply the outshining of the image of Christ in His people? If it is true that the more we are conformed to Christ the deeper will be our heart for missions, then this passion for missions would have to be true of God Himself.
John 1:14 tells us that the “Word”, God’s Son, became a Man and dwelt among us. Why? Why did the Son of God take upon Himself the form of a servant? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”, and in Luke 19:10 our Lord says, “The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.” God left heaven and came to earth in Christ for the express purpose of securing our redemption. He left His home and traveled to a foreign land to reach the lost. The Incarnation is both the central theme of the New Testament and the greatest missionary enterprise in history! The missionary spirit is rooted deep in the heart of God as revealed in Christ.
That heart for reaching the lost at any price was transferred to the apostles who followed in the footsteps of their Lord. In Romans 9:1-2 Paul writes, “I tell you the truth in Christ . . . I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart . . . for my countrymen according to the flesh.” Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, His apostles were inwardly driven to reach those who needed Jesus’ love.
Now the baton has been passed to you and me. We are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is to be Christ in His people, continuing His work beyond the first century “. . . even unto the end of the age.” (Matthew 18-20).
If the church is not going to reach the world, who will? Jesus was a missionary; the apostles were missionaries; the early church became a missionary venture into the known world. So, why does the 21st century church not reflect this same passion? I believe there are two primary reasons:
1. We don’t believe in the urgency of missions. We don’t believe, beyond theological theory, in the lostness of the lost - their plight and destiny do not grip us as it did our forefathers. From A.S. Ormsby’s book, Alone With God comes this story written by an atheist,
If I were a religionist, did I truly, firmly, consistently believe, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and the practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, religion would be everything to me. I would cast aside earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as less than vanity. Religion should be my first waking thought and my last image when sleep sunk me in un-consciousness. I would labor in her cause alone. I would esteem one soul gained to heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences should never stay my hand nor seal my lips. I would speak to the imagination, awaken the feelings and stir up the passions. Earth, its joys and its griefs should occupy no moments of my thoughts; for these are but the affairs of a portion of eternity on the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlastingly miserable or everlastingly happy. I would deem all who thought of only this world merely seeking to increase temporal happiness, and laboring to obtain temporal goods, pure madmen. I would go forth to the world, and preach to it, and my text would be, ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
The Bible teaches that our faith is evidenced by our works (James 2:18). If we truly believe anything, will that belief not manifest itself in action?
2. The second reason that modern Christianity lacks in regard to missionary passion is our unwillingness to suffer. We are bothered by the cross.
Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place, and labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore, I beg you, be ye followers of me. (1 Corinthians 4:11-16)
As soon as many of us get a glimpse of the implications of missions, whether across the street or across the ocean, we pull back. To be “followers” of Jesus would exact too great a price from our lifestyle, our comfort zone. The Bible does not play down the personal sacrifice and suffering involved in the work of missions. In 2 Timothy 2:3 Paul tells Timothy, “You must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
Some years ago, my wife and I attended a mission’s conference. We heard many stories of missions but one particularly touched me. A missionary had taken some Bibles into a Soviet republic and had given one to an elderly woman in a small church there. It was the first Bible she had ever received and as tears streamed down her face she rubbed the Bible against her cheek and thanked the missionary and the Lord with all her heart.
At the conference, we saw speakers themselves crying over the longing they saw in the faces of young Christians on foreign fields. They hungered for the Word and for the Lord, and had almost no one to help them.
God is moving in these last days. I personally believe this is the last generation, the church will soon be taken from this planet and the night will fall, Antichrist will rise and reign. “Darkness, like a funeral pall, will settle down on the empires of the earth” (Walter Scott). Those churches throughout the world which are open to God’s purpose are being ignited with the spirit of evangelism and missions. Though the majority of Christians are not called to jump on the first plane to Africa, I still contend that all Christians should be involved in some way in missionary work, whether it involves going out themselves or supporting those who do. We are all called to witness (Acts 1:8), but I also believe that we are all called to do our part in penetrating the darkest areas of our world with the Gospel of Light.
The following is a poem written by a missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission in Nigeria,
If you had been to heathen lands,
Where weary souls stretch out their hands
To plead, yet no one understands,
Would you go back?
If you had seen the women bear
Their heavy loads, with none to share,
Had heard them weep with none to care,
Would you go back?
If you had seen them in despair
Beat their breasts and pull their hair
While demon powers filled the air
Would you go back?
If you had seen the glorious sight,
When heathen people seeking right
Were brought from darkness into light,
Would you go back?
If you had walked through Africa’s sand,
Your hand within the Savior’s hand
And knew He’d called you to that land,
Would you go back?
If you had seen the Christian die,
With never a fear though death were nigh,
Had seen them smile and say goodbye,
Would you go back?
Yet still they wait, a weary throng,
They’ve waited, some, so very long.
When shall despair be turned to song?
I’m going back, would you?
And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations . . . and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)
One final comment on this subject: T.A. Sparks warns concerning the tendency of the flesh (personal agendas) to enter spiritual service,
Now He (Jesus) has shaken off all His chains. Time and space no longer have any power over Him. Geography, the material things, Satan, demons, men, nations, thrones, all have been fully stripped off by Him. Now, by an inward dynamic, in spite of every threat and peril, men and women are moving out in every direction with a passion for the glory of His Name. Now, not as an historic figure, known “after the flesh,” but, by an inward revelation of transcendent magnitude, He is known after the Spirit. Now, the once dreaded, unacceptable, offending Cross is all their glory. Now, suffering reproach has supplanted pride; selfless, disinterested sacrifice takes the place of ambition; a mighty energizing faith—not their own—has destroyed doubt; they lay down their own lives gladly and suffer the loss of all things for that Name.
In one strategic stroke He begins with a multitude representing “every nation under heaven.” See how this fire spreads without artificial and forced agencies.
In the year 33 A.D., a few Galilean fishermen were seeking liberty of speech in Jerusalem, and were severely handled as men poor and ignorant. In the year that Paul died, how did the matter stand? There were churches in Jerusalem, in Caesarea, in Antioch and all Syria, in Galatia, in Ephesus, Sardis, Laodecia and throughout the west coast of lesser Asia, in Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Rome, Alexandria, in the chief cities of the islands and the mainland of Greece, and the western Roman colonies.
There are some significant omissions from this record of conquests. We never read of the organizing of a missionary campaign. Such things as deputations, lecturers and lectures, exhibitions, appeals, advertisements, and so on, with all their cost and expenditure of time, money, energy, all to try to get Christians interested in the souls of the unsaved, are never hinted at. Any reporting of what God had done in the regions beyond was never by way of propaganda or advocacy. Statistics as mental stimulants; tragic, sensational stories as emotional stimulants; urge and drive as volitional stimulants had no place here, so far as we can discern. The thing was firstly of the Spirit, not of the soul. The endeavor to reverse this order is undoubtedly the reason for a tremendous amount of the weakness and breakdown of today.
Speaking generally, this whole matter of the world-mission of the Church is on pre-resurrection ground today. The Lord is not straitened in Himself, but He is straitened in His people. On the one hand, there is a need of workers, for almost half the human race is without the knowledge of Christ; and on the other hand workers are often ready to go forth, yet there are no means to send them. A third condition, almost more tragic, abounds, that of the spiritual breakdown of many who do go, so that ‘converts’ are not really and genuinely born from above with the Spirit of sonship becoming truly resident within. Demon powers persist in dominion and challenge. A policy of slow absorption of ‘Christianity,’ through education, familiarization, and so on, as a compromise between failure to work upon the basis of genuine regeneration and an honest acknowledgment of the same with its practical implications, has been adopted. Finally there are the many who return home with lost assurance.
Surely all this stands in direct contrast to the spirit and experience of the New Testament. It is not difficult to go on at great length making distinctions between the two standards, that of the New Testament and that which has largely been since, but the more important thing is to display the secrets of that former glory.
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