Personal Post

There was a time a couple of months ago when I was heavily impacted by this statement:

"There is a God-enthralled, Christ-treasuring, all-enduring love that pursues the fullness of God in the soul and in the service of Jesus. It is not absorbed in anthropology or methodology or even theology - it is absorbed in God. It cries with the psalmist, 'Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.... Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of the earth (Ps. 67:3-4; 47:6-7). There is a distinct God-magnifying mind-set. It is relentless in bringing God forward again and again. It is spring-loaded to make much of God in anthropology and methodology and theology. It cannot make peace with God-ignoring, God-neglecting planning or preaching or puttering around." ~ John Piper

I first read this leading a small group of junior-high boys six years ago. Then it set something off in my heart that has lead me to where I am now.

Now I pray it again.

To be a God-centered man, not a man-centered man. To be a God-honoring man, not a man-honoring man. To be a God-fearing man, not a man-fearing man. To look at past failures and pains and know that by the grace of God he has lead me to where I am for his own sake and therefore to breathe grace and forgiveness in the same manner I have been shown it. To be forgiven my sins of man-centeredness and man-fearing, of future-worrying and past-atrophy, of making much of man, methods and books but forgetting God.

May it be that freedom reigns, freedom which was purchased at the highest of costs to cause this once bound and dead soul to live and move finding all it's being and hope in the God of the miraculous and mundane. The one who both spoke the world into existence and taught my soul to know there are acres of hope in him because there is none like him, none.

Dangerously Important

"Be assiduous in reading the Holy Scripture. This is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived. Therefore let not this treasure lie by you neglected." Jonathan Edwards

Scripture that blessed gift of God to man wherein he reveals himself to us, he teaches us the gorgeous reality of the gospel and the shameful existence of our depravity. Giving flight to the life which was yet unknown under the safety of his wings.

This book which is too often misread and misused and disposed of. This book which ought never to, “be applied to us,” yet rather we ought to always be applied to it.

We are not the solid line or are we the consistency to which it must be judged. No, the plum-line is not we it is itself. Scripture, this we know yet forget to do, is the interpretation of Scripture.

It’s a book about God.

He is the main character, the main actor. Scripture is the story of God to man.

Far too often we see it as the story of men to men. No, it is the story of God redeeming his Church. Yet to read the Bible and think solely of man is to read Harry Potter and think only of the Weasley twins, or to read Lord of the Rings and think only of the Shire, or to read The Hunger Games and think only of Katniss’ mom or to read The Chronicles of Narnia and think only of what was happening in London.

Do you see the point - the point of missing the point? The reason for Scripture is not to give us helpful hints and models to attempt to be like, no, the reason for Scripture is to teach us all that God has revealed to us.

All we can know of God is within its pages. This does not mean we’ll know him completely, it means we’ll know him partially, but the part that we’ll know is exquisitely beautiful.

And yet the quote from last week’s post is still wonderfully true, ““We have scarcely begun to see all of God that the Scriptures give us to see, and what we have not seen yet is exceedingly glorious (John Piper).”

Obligatory Duty.

“He died for me why wouldn’t I live for him.” I hate this statement. Not only because it’s cliché but also because it is filled with bad Theology. But this mindset is a very difficult thing to get away from.

The mindset is this: To live in such a manner that is either 1) attempting at paying God back for saving one's soul or 2) attempting at making God love one more by doing or not doing a prescribed list. The affect of this is to kill the Christian, to choke out the newly forming plant because there is no air for it to be itself.

(We’ve this idea in our brains that all Christians should look exactly alike… I'm gonna go ahead and completely disagree. Will there be similarities, for sure, but will we all look just like each other, no, thank God. Because, quite frankly, I don’t want to be another Billy Graham or John Piper.)

The issue with the above (dumb) cliché is this: The Christian life is lived out of gratitude not duty. To hold to the above statement is to simply say that because someone did something for me now I’ll pay him or her back. Do you see the nonsense here? If there ever were a love for the one who redeemed one there would be an understanding of the great incapableness to even attempt at paying him back.

It must be understood to live for Christ is to do so gratefully as a since of love toward him, an overflow, if you will. To love him as a sense of duty would be like buying something for someone you love and telling them, “I got you this because I have to.”

In All Things

“I don’t pray enough.” I’m fairly certain most people I know have said this at least once – if not more. And it’s true I don’t pray enough. But what is prayer? Is it just talking to God? Is it a, “War-time walkie-talkie (John Piper)?” Is it for comfort? Or, maybe, is it for strengthening? Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father (Matt. 6:9-13), so does this mean prayers are ineffectual if they are prayers to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus?

You see, we say (rather I say) we don’t pray enough but when it comes to the actual act of prayer we don’t really 1) know how to pray or 2) know what it is.

As to how we ought to pray I would say there is no better outline for it than the way Jesus taught us. This is not to say that praying to the Holy Spirit or Jesus is sinful, but it is to say it is not how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. We pray to the Father through the redemption of the Son in the power of the Spirit.

As to what prayer is -- it’s everything. For are we not supposed to be doing all things to the Father through the redemption of the Son in the power of the Spirit? So if this were done perfectly (ahem) would it not be conceivable for all of life to be constant prayer?

So comfort, strengthening, war, talking, humbling, emboldening, and discouraging are all encompassed in prayer, and not simply those but also our jobs and families and friends and driving. These are all encompassed in the scope of prayer. We are to be doing all things to the Father through the redemption of the Son in the power of the Spirit (Phil 4:6; Col 4:2).

Perhaps it would be better to live a life of prayer than any other form of life.