Pigtails

We were at church the other weekend and a little girl was being baptized. I love baptisms, but this one was really making me think. 

"How can this little girl with pigtails have more confidence in the gospel than me?" I questioned in my mind.

"I can tell you why I disagree with J.I. Packer and why I do agree with John Piper. I can tell you why I think Driscoll & Spurgeon don't go far enough at some points. I can tell you why Dawkins is ultimately wrong. But I can't have the confidence this little girl has in the gospel?" My mind began to formulate the arguments against me.

For two weeks this has been bouncing around in my skull and I couldn't really get it out. But reading this has helped, 

"Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: Look you scoffers, be astonished and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not even believe, even if one tells it to you." Acts 13:40-41

Beware, O my mind, lest you miss what is going on before your waking eyes. Beware, O my mind, lest the preachers speak the truth of the ages to you and you do no believe. Beware, O my mind, lest the astonishment of your redemption is lost for want of knowledge.

I stand in no other place than that little girl with the pigtails stands. I know no more than the child in the water. The knowledge of the holy has not saved me - indeed it cannot. The coming of God in the flesh taking my sin, God's wrath and my shame has done it, finished it and won me.

Not so much that I believe this, or that I cling to this truth like a shipwrecked rat, but that this truth holds me - that it grips me tighter than my gradually loosening skin. I could want for more faith to believe the beauties of the realities of the gospel, but ultimately it is not something I hold, it holds me. It holds me. He holds me.

He holds me like a raft in the midst of the tempest of death. He holds me like the Shepherd holds the forlorn lamb. He holds me like the husband holds his weeping wife. He holds me.

You see, my knowledge or my faith could not convince me of my faith. They couldn't convince me because they're mine and the fallibility of me is astounding. But that faith is not mine, it's His. His faith in himself to save this sinners for his glory. This is my faith and confidence. The rope is tide tight roundabout my heartstrings and will not let me go, and I cannot let it go.

The Dad

So my dad, right?

He and I were sitting in a conversation yesterday, a conversation I was honored to be a fly on the wall at.

Have you ever had a moment of decent clarity, when you’re there, but you feel so distant because the way you’re seeing something has changed perspective? Do you know what I mean?

The gospel. Straight forward the gospel, unmingled with cultural wish-wash or downplaying on the blood, sweat and tears of the difficulty and beauty of a life lived in faith.

“This is what makes us men, what completes us,” he said while point at a line on a page, which read, “You must love Jesus.” “He is the truth of the universe, which holds all things together that are, and if we don’t love him we are lost men.”

That’s my dad, preaching the gospel with passion, fervency. Casting all his hope onto the 2000-year-old reality, Jesus saves sinners. “I was saved 2000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross for my sins and all of my life I’ve been coming to understand that more.”

Yet, this post shouldn’t be a praising of my dad, he’s cool alright (and he has Harry Potter classes), but he’s just a sinner. No, this should be a post which is interpreted as this:

 “[They] find so much perfection and goodness [that] not only answer and satisfy [their] affections, but master and  overpower [them] too: [they] find all [their] love to be too faint and languid for such a noble object, and [are] only sorry [they] can command no more. [They] wish for the flames of a seraph, and long for the time when [they] shall be wholly melted and dissolved into love: and because [they] can do so little [themselves], [they] desire the assistance of the whole creation, that angels and men would concur with [them] in the admirations and love of those infinite perfections.” ~ Scougal

May dad and I get to worship the same God together. Be infatuated by him, be set aflame by him, preach and teach to others about him, live and die in him. And that is well worth writing about.

Taken From the Journal

"It had been a while since the reality of the cross impacted my heart. Since an understanding of the brutality of the cross has shown to affect emotion.

"Henry Scougal is right in saying, "Faith hath the same place in the Divine Life, which sense hath in the natural, being indeed nothing else but a kind of sense or feeling persuasion of spiritual things; it extends itself unto all Divine truths; but in our lapsed estate, it hath a peculiar relation to the declaration of God’s mercy and reconcilableness to sinners through a mediator; and therefore, receiving its denomination from that principal object, is ordinarily termed, ‘Faith in Jesus Christ.’"

"Both emotion and the intellect should be engaged in faith. For while one or the other will be primary both ought to be present.

"Because if faith is simply based on swinging emotionalism there is no knowledge or wisdom thus the person is stupidly ignorant. But if faith is a mass of knowledge and has no outlet the person is witlessly unwise and heartless, beating people with knowledge as though he wielded a battle-axe.

"So I must have both."

Rumored Thought (Pt. 4)

Here are Part1, Part 2, and Part 3.

“And who knows who are the people of God, when throughout the whole world, from its origin, the state of the Church was always such, that those who were called the people and saints of God who were not so; while others among them, who were as a refuse, and were not called the people and saints of God, were the Peoples and the Saints of God? As is manifest in the histories of Cain and Abel, of Ishmael and Isaac, of Esau and Jacob.” (Luther. p 97-98. Bondage of the Will.)

Just because one carries the title ‘Pastor’ does not make them a part of the Church. The title, you see, doesn’t make the Christian, not at all, Jesus makes a person a Christian and his Spirit gifts them to be pastor.

But leaders abound in all the world, in every religion, and in business. So is it possible to be a leader in the Church and not be a Christian? Yes. To the destruction of hundreds of souls, yes, it is possible.

Possible to preach week in and week out on the beauties of true religion, but not know it. Possible to elaborate on the nuances of the gospel and the life it ought to produce, yet dead. Possible to expound on the light of glory in the face of Jesus Christ, yet be blind.

Yet more horrifying than this, it is possible to lead a congregation to the pits of hell and be greeted by their screams upon his own entrance…

(Let that sink in and ask yourself whom are you following? A boy with a vendetta to have a following, or a man seeking to glorify God by giving up all he is to preach for nothing else than the glory of God?)

How does this tie into mission? By the pastor knowing the condition of his own soul before attempting to proclaim the gospel to other souls.

He is to be the leader in mission, and therefore he must believe what he will proclaim, or he will prove to be more of a hindrance than a help in the fight of faith; because his fight will be in another sector (maybe even another country) rather than on the same field as the true Church.

So simply being a pastor doesn’t make one Christian (and simply calling yourself a Christian doesn’t make it true). And sadly, now, it doesn’t always inspire hope that all pastors are Christian. So as those on mission for the glory of God and the good of the Church in the redemption of souls we must carefully submit to godly leadership to lead us in mission.

Innocent

“I am a whore I do confess, I put you on just like a wedding dress and run down the isle. I’m a prodigal with no way home I put you on just like a ring of gold and I run down the isle to you. So could you love this bastard child, though I don’t trust you to provide?” ~Derek Webb

Yes.

Writers write of the ‘loss of innocence.’ Singers sing of it. People speak of it to their friends. But we’ve never been innocent.

If we believe Scripture to be true and foundational, there was never a time in our lives when we were pure, when we were right, when we were good (Isa 64:6; Rom 3:9-18). We’ve always been deserving of hell.

I know, this is a happy Monday post, right?

But we have hope, that tiny yet beautiful word, hope. We can be expectant of our Savior to be enough. Clinging to this hope. We hope on hope that our hope will not be put to shame.

It’s faith really, faith in the unseen. For how can we hope in what we see? How can we have faith in the things we know break or fail?

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Faith?

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. “ Hebrews 11:1

“This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness and intercession of Jesus.” John Newton

“...a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous...” John Calvin

Faith, it’s a churchy word (just have faith!), it’s also a pop-Christian word (“O I just need more faith to choose between the Chris Tomlin album or the other pop-Christian artists.”), but more than these other two it is a biblical word. Often I marvel at the gravity of words, to take the biblical definition over the dictionary’s definition (for words folks that’s a big deal) and, by God’s grace, live it.

But how do we know we have faith? What makes our faith solid and true faith and not simple some popish thing which whelms us one day and is completely absent the next day?

Allow me to relay what we, as Christians believe. 1) God created something out of absolute void. 2) We jacked that creation up. 3) He sent his Son (who is one with Himself, yet different). 4) Through a women, there was no human dad, God was the Father. 5) This Kid (Jesus) lived a completely sinless perfect life (imagine a six-year-old boy not punching his sibling in the face… difficult?). 6) He was wrongly convicted of being sinful (basically he was too perfect). 7) He was killed (ya know like dead, without a pulse, ummm lights out). 8) He rose from the grave (wha?). 9) He ascended (floated up) into heaven to make intercession for those who have faith in him.

That takes faith to believe. So how do we know whether or not we have faith? “This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness and intercession of Jesus.” Because everything else is worthless in our eyes when compared with knowing Christ Jesus our Lord; because even though the facts seem ludicrous they make complete sense; because God loved us and made us alive together with Christ; because there is an assurance beyond reason and logic which presses us to know and love and die for this irrefutable truth.

“Therefore… let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2

My Climbing Tree

I have a tree and no it’s not the one in my front yard. It’s my, “Climbing Tree,” tucked away nicely in Riverside Park, it’s a big birch tree (and now that I’ve told you, you can’t go steal it, ok? Good.).

Perfect for climbing or sitting at its base and thinking. I’ve been finding myself there often lately. It’s a true statement to say the tree has seen me cry more than most people. It’s also seen me laugh a whole dang lot (my mind is kinda odd… if you didn’t already catch that little factoid).

Which brings me to my point. Suffering or pain or misunderstanding whatever vocabulary you’d like to chuck its way. And on top of it joy, ‘cause I think joy is misunderstood to mean happiness. But I don’t think joy means feeling happy, no; I don’t believe that by any stretch of the imagination.

What I mean is this: In the midst of misunderstanding the circumstances I am in complete understanding (and more than that, believing) the reality of the gospel. So in loss recognizing the vast gain found on the treasure of the gospel. Or in pain realizing the comfort found in the refuge of Jesus.

Joy is understanding your eternity is secure. Not as seeing your circumstances as painful. Oh though they might be more painful than you’ve ever felt before, and all the crushing weight of fear and the unknown come washing over you like some torrent of needles… Joy is planted in the heart so firmly so as to be the roots of faith.

But these lyrics ring true, “Soon shall close the earthly mission, swift shall pass thy pilgrim days, hope soon change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise.”

Quick Thoughts on I Corinthians 16:13

“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” I Corinthians 16:13

This verse has been popping up in my little brain for the past 3 weeks like clockwork (and no that clockwork is not orange). It’s simple enough, right? I mean, Paul gives 5 statements, how hard can that be to understand? Let’s take ‘em in stride.

“Be watchful…” It’s Paul, so let’s assume he's speaking of being watchful for the return of Jesus as well as being vigilant against wolves seeking to lead people away from Jesus. Yet at the same time seeing your own heart for what it is and knowing the necessary antidote is nothing more or less than Jesus. You must be watchful in all things (and by all I really mean all).

“… Stand firm in the faith…” Not wavering with every turn of your heart or gust in the relevant theological trends. Believing so boldly and so soundly in your mind and heart so as to understand Martin Luther’s words of, “sin boldly.” Seeking above all things the truth of Scripture and wisdom of the Lord.

“… Act like men…” Yes. Not a boy who is being rebuked and thus cowers with his head hung low not looking into the eyes of the rebuke. Not a boy who would rather have momentary gratification than protect and lead a family. Not the pansy who thinks working out more and having more sex and drinking more than anyone else makes him more "manly." Act like men. (Eph. 5:25-33; I Tim. 6:11-21; Titus; I Peter 3:7)

“… Be Strong.” Be strong for the weaker vessel. Be able to protect the one in need of protecting. Be strong in the faith for your family and friends. Be strong in the Lord because he has made you that way for his own glory. Not weak of mind, but strong; not weak of spirit, but strong; not weak of heart, but strong.

“Let all that you do be done in love.” Again, I’m fairly sure that, “all,” here means – ALL. Paying the bills, doing the laundry, speaking with that annoying person, let all that you do be done in love. I would dare to say there is nothing more powerful or dangerous than love. It is thus understandable for God to command us to, “Love the Lord with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matt. 22:37)

Simple enough, right? Only by the grace of God purchased at the cross of Christ will our sinful hearts be able to do any of these. Only by Jesus are we made free. Free from cowardice, weakness, apathy, faithlessness, and blindness. So, you see, we don't just need to act better, we need to be born again.

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Hoping Against All Hope

Hope. It’s a word I love. Probably, it would be safe to say, this is my favorite word. It’s tossed around in political campaigns and desires for grandeur, fame, relationships, food and money. But hope is such an all-encompassing feeling like joy or love. Yet it’s much more than simply looking forward to something.

I would submit that most of what we feel as hope is something we would classify as nostalgia. Remembrances of our past, good things which cause us to hope for their return, C.S. Lewis hits it square in the face by saying, “These things-the beauty, the memory of our past-are good images of what we really desire… [But] they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”

Our hope in so far as it is deemed to be true and solid hope is not simply in what we desire for the future, but what we know from the past, mostly Jesus’ finalized work on the cross and victory over death. For if we hope in the future there must be an understanding of this past accomplishment not simply as fact but as faith.

But to hope in things seen is to not hope at all for hope is in the unseen, the eternal rather than the transient. Sure it may be a desire of things to occur, but it is not hope. Hope is founded in faith. But faith in the transient is misplaced faith. For though I can have faith in a relationship working and hope for it to last, that faith and that hope will not change what will be. But faith in the Eternal and hope in the Lasting leads to not simply to momentary satisfaction but lasting joy in the love of God.

So hope is just as complex as joy or love. But rightly placed hope will never put one to shame. For rightly placed hope does not merely look to the future of what will be but simultaneously looks to the past of what has been finished in one’s place for one’s sins.

Plateau-ing

Recently I was chilling in one of my favorite coffee shops working on a few thing when I over heard this statement, “I like my Christianity just the way it is.” Needless to say I dropped eves for the rest of their conversation – I know wrong, somehow.

But it got me to thinking, how many Christians live in this same mindset, “I like my belief just the way it is.” It seems ridiculous to me. To think where your faith is now is where you'll want it to be for the rest of your life. Quite frankly, I don’t think that is the point of faith.

Oughtn’t our faith to be growing and changing? Morphing us from who we were to who we are to who we’ll be. And as our faith grows oughtn’t our capacity to love increase as well? To see those we once held in contempt as either dear brothers or people in need of friends.

To think oneself of having arrived in the perfect position of faith is to not have faith in the least. For if, “you’ve arrived,” then you’ve done everything that is possible leaving nothing more to be done and that’s not faith, it’s legalism.

It’s a dangerous thought – the plateau – killing what little faith might have been present (The Parable of the Sower Matthew 13:1-9). But the thing with the Gospel is it leaves little room for, “arriving,” or, “plateauing,” in fact it leaves little room at all for anything you’ve done (Isa 64:6). The beauty of grace is it makes life unfair and the wonder of Jesus is he makes you good enough.

So in a sense the plateau is real, for Jesus is the plateau and on him we stand. But in the sense of growing faith the plateau is dangerous and ought not be trifled with, for we simply will never arrive at needing Christianity just the way we like it.

Fight to Love

“Fight the good fight of faith.” Paul said it; I use it at the end of e-mails, Facebook messages and letters. But what does it mean? Sure it means, fight the good fight of faith, but more than that simplistic definition what does it mean for our lives? Let me tell you how I think.

I like to romanticize things, it’s a way of coping, I suppose. You see, if I think about something in terms of a story than I am much more apt to be appreciative of them, it or whatever. So when I read, “Fight the good fight of faith,” my instant thought is, “God knows how to talk to my brain – Duh.”

Look at it like this, rather than the monotony of the drudge of simplistic life see it as war. Well, really, believers should be seeing every moment as a war.

In each corner of our lives we are struggling against an enemy who is very much apart of us. We cannot escape his ruse, for a part of us wants his ruse to win. Striving to push back the fall but failing all the while.

Fight the good fight of faith doesn’t mean strive to live perfectly. It means fight to believe. Fight to see Jesus as sufficient. Fight to see this life as war. Fight to see this war as won but not yet over. Fight to love your family. Fight to cherish your friends. Fight to see a sip of coffee as worship. Fight to believe.

All of everyday of each moment of our lives will be – as Christians – a battle to see any of this Jesus stuff as wonderful. Sure we believe it, but we simultaneously don’t. So to see this life, this belief as easy, is quite frankly, to not know Christ. For why else would it be called a fight if it was really a cake-walk?

Friday's Ripped from the Journal

It is becoming increasingly important in my mind that we use our words properly. A higher level of vocabulary is not what is needed rather an understanding of the words already known. For true eloquence is not in the refined spinning of a phrase but in the speaking of the heart.

In the proper use of words is meaning conveyed and pressed forward, but in the flippant sentence is a misunderstood meaning and thus something is done unintentionally. (Saying something off cuff and instantly regretting what you’ve said, It’s kind of like the dream where your running around your high school naked. That sense of ‘uh-oh I’m embarrassed.’)

Yet, if we grasp what we are saying and are endured to its truthfulness then there will be conviction in our voices and belief in our eyes. Because words are the only real magic we possess.

For with words people are transformed--changed--what was once unknown to them is now known, what was once unknown to you is now a possibility. Do you see what I mean by ‘magic’?

Life is given, pictures are painted, blindness is cured, deafness can hear, people are devastated or built up and all of this comes from our use of words. We must use them properly. They are powerful. The can cut deep and run many away from what we ‘believe.’

This is a recent conviction of mine, to think before I speak (a conviction I so often fail at). Weighing the meaning of a word and its use in a sentence to grasp and saying exactly what I mean to say. Because if it is true (and I believe it to be so) and, “Faith comes hearing and hearing from the Word of God.” (Rom. 10:17) then I’d better watch my words carefully.

Made to Last

I like old things. If you’ve ever been to my house you’ll understand immediately what I mean. Trunks, radio, books, tables, all these things have seen time and, “lived to tell about it.” A few items take places of prominence, a hundred year old copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s Poems, two family Bibles that came from the motherland (Scotland) and a radio from the 1920’s (which still works).

Trinkets I could live without very easily, but things holding special places in my heart. Poe has always been my favorite poet because of his raw use of words and his vast understanding of depression. The family Bibles teach my more than just where I came from, they teach me who I am. The radio, though for most is an interesting talking point, still works ninety years later – it was made to last.

Faith. Belief. Biblical terms thrown around like paper airplanes in a fourth grade classroom. Often I worry/wonder at why I use the words I use. For I wholeheartedly agree with Dumbledore but will adapt him for reality: Words are the only real magic we know.

If we understood faith like Poe understood depression; if we gleaned information from belief through the love of Scripture; if we looked at faith and belief as made to last longer than the radio how would things be different?

Rather than seeing faith as a cheap trophy for your shelf to see it as a treasure to be protected, loved, polished and grown. Things just might change. Rather than seeing belief as all about what you do to see it as made for eternity by the Eternality. This just may push you over the edge of fiction into reality.