The Condescending God

Most of the time when we use the word "condescending" about someone, we think of it as a bad thing, especially here in America where we think of everyone as equal. Someone who is condescending is looking down on others as if they are better and the others need their help or want their attention. But there is a good sense of the word where someone in a position of authority like a King or the President stops and pays attention to someone in a lower station of life like their kitchen staff. In fact, most of us like to hear how a President condescends to spend a few minutes asking a staff member about their family. It shows us that they care enough about the little guy to spend some of their time and energy getting to know them. 

The incarnation is the ultimate condescension. God the Son steps down from eternal glory and enters the world so that we could commune with God. We could not on our own get to God, so God comes into the world to lift us us up to Him. We marvel at what Jesus did in coming as a baby. He condescends all the way to our level not because He needs it, but because we did and we still need it. In fact, we see throughout His earthly ministry that He recognized that His followers needed help in understanding who He was and what He was doing.

As I have been reading through the Gospel of John recently,  I've noticed a number of passages like this,

John 11:41-42 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Here Jesus prays a truth out loud not because He had any doubt about His relationship with the Father, but because His disciples needed to hear it. Further, it wad not just those disciples at the time that needed to here it, but all of the disciples throughout time that Jesus was trying to help.

Jesus entered our world and lived a perfect human life for the purpose of saving us through His death and resurrection, and his condescension goes all the way to the level of how He speaks to us. Like a good grade school teacher who gets on the level of her students, Jesus gets on our level, literally and figuratively, so that we can understand what He has done for us. Jesus in His perfection and glory is so far above us that in our limited state we could never get to Him, but His love is so great that He comes down to our level. He lives and speaks in such a way that we can see and understand the very nature of God. 

This Christmas season as you think of the baby in the manger, praise God for His condescension toward us because without His coming down we could never be raised up.

Take Up Your Cross Daily

The Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, and that quote came to me the other day as I was considering the day-to-day actions in my own life. How often do I consider why I am doing this or that thing? The majority of our lives are filled with routine actions that we do automatically because that's the way I've always done it, that's the way others do it, or that's the way it's always been done. Now in one sense, this is good for us because it would be impossible to consider deeply every choice we have to make. We would end up being paralyzed by trying to figure out which cereal to choose for breakfast. But in another sense, if we never stop to consider what our lives are about and why we do things, we might very well end up doing things that are meaningless or even outright harmful, just because we want to or just because others are doing it.

In Jeremiah 7, God admonishes the Jewish people for engaging in very sinful behavior such as oppressing the poor and even sacrificing their own children in pagan religious practices. They were doing it while still worshipping at the temple in Jerusalem which was supposed to be Yahweh their God who had explicitly commanded them not to do these things. So how did they, over and over again, end up doing the opposite of what God had told them to do? They almost certainly did not intend to end up evil. Rather it started with ignoring God's Word and not spending time examining their lives in comparison to it. Day by day they would have just gone along with whatever happened and slowly but surely started to take on the practices of other nations around them. Furthermore, humans are naturally inclined to be selfish and not to care for others, so the less they examined their own lives, the more their lives would trend toward loving themselves and not loving others.

This is not just a problem for the ancient Jews, this is the problem of being human in a fallen world. This problem of moral decay is widely seen in our society today. Why do marriages and families fall apart? Why do kids not respect authority? Why are drug use and other crime rampant in many areas of our country? No one intends to end up as an addict, criminal, abuser, neglectful parent, or simply a depressed person who has trouble managing their own life. We take little steps day by day giving in to our desires and going along with the flow of society. If we never consider what our life or society is really about, we will simply start to waste away morally. 

Our character is formed or misformed in the little choices we make day by day, and if we intend to have good character we are going to have to stop and consider what actions are the right actions. Then we need to regularly remind ourselves of our commitment to do these right things. Jesus commanded His followers to "deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23) As a follower of Jesus, I need to daily make a commitment to Him and choose to sacrifice my own desires so that I can love Him and love others well. I need to regularly look to Jesus for His example, guidance, and strength to become the man I am supposed to be. Unfortunately, I also regularly fail to live up to that standard, but because He took up His cross, I can keep coming back day after day, and He keeps helping me. Therefore, we do not have to just accept the decay of the world around us. Rather, with Jesus' help every day, you and I can be renewed and be part of the renewing of the world.

To Whom are You Thankful?

Hopefully this week you will be able to gather with family and consume way too many calories! I know at three family meals that we have scheduled, I will definitely be eating too much! As I do, I will almost certainly be able to look around the room and find much to be thankful for, from the food, to the family, to the homes, and cars. Even coming and going from the different relative's homes, I will be able to see the harvested field, herds of cattle, barns of animals, various industries and shops that have helped to make all this bounty possible. In the process, I will be thankful for the many people who have added greatly to my life such as my wife, my kids, my extended family, my friends, my church family, and the various communities that have added so greatly to my life. When people live sacrificially and give to others they deserve our thanks, not just at one time a year, but regularly.

But many blessings in life cannot be tied to a specific person, such as life itself, health, natural beauty, and our own gifts and talents. As a Christian, I know who to thank for these blessing. Many places in the Bible let us know that we should be thankful saying, "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Other passages let us know to whom we should be thankful saying, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever" (Psalm 107:1). When we reflect upon the world, we see that blessings are all around us every day and that many of the best parts of creation, from the intricacies of a leaf to the smile of a baby, if they are to have any meaning at all must come from somewhere or more specifically someone else. Upon reflection, we can see that, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" (James 1:17). 

What if I do not believe in God or at least do not make God a regular part of my life? Where then do all these blessings come from and to whom should I give thanks? Around this time of year, I often hear people declare that we should be thankful for the good things or that we should live thankful lives. But if they do not know where the blessing comes from, who are they thanking? The universe? The world in general? Nothing? Thankfulness untethered to a deeper reality feels hollow because giving thanks should be tied to a relationship with the person who gave us the blessing. Our conscience tells us that being thankful is the right thing, but if God is not acknowledged as the origin of the blessing then our internal desire to thank someone is left empty. We end up thanking a void, which makes us feel like the emotion itself is meaningless. Conversely, our very desire to give thanks is one of the evidences that there is someone to thank!

Therefore, I encourage you this Thanksgiving time, to yes, pay attention to and even list the many blessings in your life, but also to make sure you spend time reflecting on who gave you those blessings. Pray a prayer of thanksgiving to our good God who gives us all good things.

What's the Desire of Your Heart?

What do you want in life? Are your goals realistic? What if you never got that thing? Would your life have been a waste? For instance, when I was young I wanted to be rich, and I've heard the same thing from my kids at times, namely a desire to be a millionaire. Now, for me, it wasn't necessarily that I wanted money, but there were things that I wanted that I couldn't get because I didn't have enough money. So, therefore, I wanted to be able to buy whatever my heart desired.

For others, their heart desire might be that someone would love them or that they would have a relationship with their dream man or woman. Another person's heart desire might be to be famous, to have thousands or even millions of likes on their Instagram post or Tiktok video. Heck, I can understand that, because even in writing articles or blog posts, I wonder how many people I can reach.

What I've realized as I've lived a little bit of life now is that, money, things, people, fame, pleasure, etc., are only temporarily satisfying. They break, get lost, go away, get forgotten in history, and/or die. They don't, they cannot, really fill my heart and keep me satisfied.

So this morning as I was reading in the book of Psalms 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart," I was contemplating how the first part of the verse connects to the second part of the verse. God can give us the desires of our heart, but he doesn't promise to give us just anything that we might want. Rather, He will give us himself if we delight in Him. When He becomes the desire of our heart, He gives us Himself. 

But is God worth it? Can He really satisfy our hearts and keep us satisfied? In the Psalm right before this, it says, "How priceless is your unfailing love. Both high and lower among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from your river of delights, for with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light" (Psalm 36:7-9). 

But how can we know that this is true? I mean, sure, God is saying this about Himself, but is he really telling us the truth? In this case, there really is only one way to find out. As Psalm 34;8 says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."  Honestly, you can go through the process of trying everything out, like the teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes did, to see if those other things will satisfy you, but I would recommend starting with the one true God, who is eternal and wants relationship with us. 

We know this because he reaches out to us in the person of Jesus Christ who came to repair a broken relationship so that we could delight in the Lord. We could experience His love. He actually gives us a new heart and helps us understand how to delight in the Lord so that the desire of our heart, the eternal desire, the hole in our heart can be filled. 

The Bible Works

 

Last week, I got upset with someone, or more accurately, someone became upset with me, which "caused" me to become upset with them. I was feeling quite emotional at the time (I had knee surgery last week, so I was tired and sore), so I didn't handle my emotions very well, and I had to exit the conversation. After leaving, I began to reflect on some of the biblical principles of conflict resolution that I have often taught to others. Using these principles, I began to assess the situation and my emotions.

I realized that my identity needed to be grounded in what God says about me, and that my life and actions needed to begin with a willingness to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31), which is the first biblical principle of reconciliation I have learned. Then I needed to examine myself to see if I had a log in my eye, even though in my spirit, I wanted to remain resentful and blame the other person. In this reflection, I was able to recognize that I had sinned in my attitude and response. Before blaming the other person, I needed to repent to the Lord (1 John 1:9) and then ask the other person for forgiveness (Matt. 5:23). Therefore, it became clear to me that I had to seek reconciliation with my Christian friend (Romans 12:18). After a few minutes of more rational conversation and some apologies exchanged, we were reconciled. Our friendship was renewed, and we both learned more about reconciliation and how to love each other better.

Because I had specifically studied what the Bible had to say about repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, I knew what God wanted me to do in this type of situation. At that point, it was not a lack of knowledge but a decision of the will, whether I would obey or not, and whether I would truly trust that God knows best about how I should live my life.

God has laid out many truths in His Word about salvation, about what is right and wrong, about how we are created to live and love Him and others. When we know these truths, believe these truths, and act on these truths, our lives are better because, as our Creator, God knows best. Following His Word helps us have confidence in our eternal relationship with Jesus, have better marriages, be better parents, learn to honor our parents, be better citizens, be better friends, find and use our spiritual gifts, be more honest, be more humble, be better church members, be better employees, or students. In these and many other ways, if we spend time learning God's Word, then believe its truth and act upon it, we will be better humans.

If you don't believe me, I challenge you to read some of the Bible daily and find one truth to meditate upon, and then try to apply it in your life. Test God's Word and see if it contains both the big truths of life and eternity, but also truths that help you live from day to day.

Repent!! For Your Own Good.

As a child, I remember my Dad, who was also a pastor, pounding the pulpit sometimes. He did not do it often, but it was certainly memorable. He was a little bit scary, which was likely his intent because he was warning us about the seriousness of sin and its consequences. He was, at times, like the old image of a fire-and-brimstone preacher delivering the message that you need to repent of your sin or face eternal damnation. In our day and age, such a display from a preacher in the western world would be recorded, put on the internet, and then ridiculed by many as a crazy fundamentalist. But Dad had a point because the Bible is clear that part of the good news about Jesus is the bad news that we are sinners who need to repent.

John the Baptist said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). Jesus himself preached a message of repentance, saying, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). Peter reiterated in his Pentecost sermon, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). Finally, Paul said, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Repentance means changing our minds and going in a different direction. In biblical terms, it means acknowledging that we are wrong and turning toward Jesus to follow Him. Therefore, repentance leads to good results in our lives, but it can seem bad because, at first, we have to acknowledge that we have done wrong. Very few of us like admitting that we are wrong, and change can be hard. But when we know how much Jesus loves us, then turning from our own ways and towards Him is easier.

Sometimes, though, we do not deal with sin properly. In some cases, we feel bad about getting caught or experiencing the consequences of our sin. This is what Paul is talking about when we experience worldly grief. This is not true sorrow for our sin but simply a desire not to experience the consequences of our sin. We might also wrongly deal with sin by holding on to guilt and shame, thinking that what is necessary for true forgiveness from God is to punish ourselves. This can lead to depression, and for me, in my early 20s, it even almost led me to suicide.

Instead, God wants us to deal with sin through the means of confession and repentance. The apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Jesus died to take the consequences for our sins, and we can trust God that when we repent, we are cleansed and forgiven!! I do not want to pound the pulpit, but I do desire for you to experience the freedom that God intends you to have. When you know you have done wrong, do not hold on to it, but come to Him, repent, and experience His mercy and love.

12 Shifts of the 21st Century Church from Steve Pike

 

Here are my notes from Steve Pike's training session at EFCAOne 2023 in Fullerton, California.

 I believe this is condensed from his book,  

Next Wave: Discovering the 21st Century Church

12 Shifts

1. We have to rediscover the church.
1. Not building an institution, but rather catalyzing a movement.
2. Must rest on a solid, minimal ecclesiology.
3. Primary purpose of the church is to be a community of disciples with Jesus on His mission.
2. Re-imagine discipleship.
1. Lifestyle of disciplemaking.
2. First principle of the church - go and make disciples.
3. We give lip service to it, but have no idea how to do it.
4. How do I help people who don't think they need the church / Jesus.
5. What was happening in your life, just before you started to follow Jesus.
1. All of them said, they knew someone who was following Jesus.
1. How did you get in relationship with them? Some interest they have in common. Non-spiritual relational connection.
2. When you know someone by name, you can begin to pray for them.
6. Church full of disciplemakers, because that was what they knew. That is how they came to faith.
3. Reinvent funding.
1. The shift is from self-sustaining to sustainable.
2. This requires opening up a full spectrum of funding.
1. Tithes and offerings. Discipleship thing, not a pay-the-bill thing.
2. Donor-based giving.
3. Co-vocational ministry.
4. Non-profit partnerships. (i.e FOOF grant!)
5. For-profit partnerships.
4. Rethink team building
1. From titles and team building to communities of disciples on mission.
2. Not looking for the best person to run the program.
5. Redeeming architecture
1. Part of the mission.
2. Empty buildings to fully utilized assets.
6. Reclaim the ecosystem
1. From isolating to complementing.
2. What do we have in common rather than what is different?
3. Collaborate well you have to compromise.
4. Complement not collaborate.
1. You be really good at what you do, and we'll be really good at what we do.
7. Recalibrate the timeline.
1. Seeking side takes time. You have to a missionary mindset.
2. One to 5 years in the planting stage.
8. Refreshing the metrics.
1. Butts and Bucks is what often is counted.
2. What do we count and how do we count it??
3. Measure how many people we are making aware of us in a positive way.
1. Step of disciplemaking.
2. How can we learn their name so we can pray for them?
3. How can we transfer that into relationships?
4. How many people are we having spiritual conversations with?
9. Refocus church habits.
1. Spend more time with lost people.
2. How do we help them interact with lost people in an intentional way?
10. Reconsider core values
1. Moving from excellence to obedience.
11. Recommit to multiplication.
1. Foundation is making disciples.
2. Does everyone in your church see themselves as a disciple maker?
3. Have to have a good definition of disciple. They have to become a parent.
12. Reactive Spirit dependency.
1. When you are on mission with Jesus, He going to be calling you to danger and on the edge, and He will show up.

NextWave Discovering the 21st Century church.

Trust and Obey

 

There is an old hymn that many older Christians know, and that I love to sing with the folks at Oakland Heights called "Trust and Obey." The chorus goes, "Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey." I have been reflecting on this song recently as I thought about another topic and wondered if the message of this refrain is true and based on scripture. I concluded that it is true because trusting Jesus and obeying Him are not different things, but rather two ways of doing the same thing. When we act on our faith, it is a practical application of our trust in Jesus. This leads to happiness because we are made to be in a relationship with God, and the way to have a relationship with Him is to trust Him. Jesus is not just our friend but also our Lord and King, and by admitting this and thus trusting Him as Lord, we find the only secure place of identity and purpose.

Abraham is seen as a model of having this kind of faith in God because he acted on his faith by moving to a new land, by trusting God for a son, and by being willing to sacrifice his son (see Hebrews 11:8, Romans 4, James 2:21-24). His trust in God was shown when he obeyed, and the New Testament uses him as an example of how our trust can and should be shown by obedience to Jesus.

This thought came to mind recently in a conversation after church when someone asked if we can accept Jesus as Savior and not Lord. In other words, can we ask Jesus to save us from sin and its consequences without also desiring to follow Jesus as our Lord? My answer is no because of verses like Romans 10:9, which says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." The confession that Jesus is Lord and the idea that He is your King is a major part of becoming a disciple or follower of Jesus. What does it mean to confess that Jesus is Lord? Well, it means that you are acknowledging Him as your sovereign or master. It means you will do what He says. In Jesus's day, people understood the term "master" or "Lord" because many people were slaves and had to do what the master, Lord, or King said or face punishment. In our case, when we become or say we are Christians, we are saying that we voluntarily put ourselves under Christ's lordship because we trust Him to be a good master. We turn from our own sinful ways and desire to follow His way and thus become more like Him.

Our obedience does not save us; rather, Jesus's actions save us. His death and resurrection pay the debt for our sins, and His perfect life becomes our righteousness before God the Father. Our obedience is simply a response to what He has done for us, and it shows that we are learning to trust Him. We do not have to perfectly obey Jesus for salvation, but we should desire to follow Him perfectly. By admitting that Jesus is Lord, we are saying that even though we may not yet trust Him in all aspects of life, we know that we should. We are saying we believe He is a good Lord, worthy of obedience, and that He wants what is best for us. In fact, our growth as Christians can be described as learning to trust Jesus more and more, and that trust means obeying Him more and more.

How does this actually work its way out in real life? Well, we need to ask ourselves where God is calling us to obey Him today. Perhaps He is challenging you about where you spend your time. Do you spend too much time on social media and not enough time with your spouse or kids? Maybe He is challenging you about being sacrificial with your finances. Do you give generously to your church and to ministries of mercy, to the point of sometimes sacrificing something you want for the sake of helping someone else? Perhaps you're being convicted to be more engaged as a parent by stepping in and helping to regulate what your kids view on the internet. Or maybe you are facing hard decisions at work about how to live out your faith when you are specifically asked to affirm non-Christian values.

Maybe you do not know where God might be calling you to trust and obey Him. In that case, your first act of obedience might be to start listening better by being intentional about getting into God's Word. Get a reading plan or a Bible app with a plan and start writing down your thoughts as you read. Ask God to reveal to you how you might begin to trust Him more by obeying Him in new and fresh ways. I submit to you that it will not take long, if you are truly open to His leading as your Lord, for Him to reveal specific ways that you can trust Him. Furthermore, I am quite sure that the more you learn to trust and obey Jesus, the more lasting peace and joy you will find.

What is eternal life?

 

I have to admit that the idea for this article was inspired by Pastor Cory Martin's sermon on John 17:1-5 last week. He discussed the concept of eternal life and how we often perceive it in terms of infinite time. However, John 17:3 states, "And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." From this, we learn that eternal life is not simply about existing forever, but rather about being in an eternal relationship with the true God through the work of His Son, Jesus.

The truth we all intuitively know is that life is not merely about going through the motions each day, but about living with purpose, love, and in connection with others. When our lives are filled with suffering, loneliness, depression, and pain, we often contemplate ending our existence because we recognize that essential elements of life are missing. We experience the brokenness in our lives and understand that a part of us has succumbed to a little bit of death.

What Jesus expresses in His prayer to the Father is that true life is not found in simply finding temporary meaning and significance in worldly things or relationships. Instead, it is found in a relationship with the eternal God. When we truly know Him because we have been saved by Jesus, we discover the true meaning of life, experience boundless love, and have a relationship with someone who is always with us. This means that eternal life does not commence when we physically die in this world but rather when we die to ourselves and accept Jesus as our Savior. Paul articulates this in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."

Moreover, eternal life should not be understood as simply existing forever in a place that might eventually become dull or tiresome. Instead, eternal life means living eternally with God. This is the same creative God who fashioned the entire universe and who will forever be infinitely creative. The goodness we experience in this world and universe is an expression of His own goodness and will continue to exist in the next life. Life with Him will be infinitely good and infinitely captivating.

If you currently know God through the work of His Son and are deepening your relationship with Him, you should be growing more and more excited about spending eternity with God. During the same service that Cory spoke about, an 80-year-old man shared his testimony of how he came to know Jesus. Afterwards, we watched a video featuring a song about spending eternity with Jesus. It is my hope, at 52, that I will be even more excited about knowing Jesus at 80 or 90, so that I will be fully prepared to meet Him face to face. I hope you, too, are excited about eternity with Jesus.

Where stands it written?

 

"Var står det skrivet?" is the actual title of today's article, which, when translated from the original Swedish, means "Where is it written?" This was one of the common phrases from the Free Church movement in Europe and the United States. The meaning of the phrase is an encouragement to go back to scripture as the primary authority of our faith. Now, I could talk about a lot of different doctrinal controversies where this phrase might be used, but instead, I want to describe how I use the idea in interpersonal conflict resolution.

As a Christian, it is important to be willing to hear criticisms and accept correction. So when someone comes and tells you that you have hurt them or done something wrong, it is important to listen to them and be willing to examine yourself. God wants to examine our hearts (see Psalm 139:23-24), and He often uses other people to help us see where we have gone wrong (see Proverbs 27:6). On the other hand, just because someone is upset with you or perceives that you have wronged them does not mean you have actually sinned. It is important to examine yourself in light of what scripture says. Second Timothy 3:16-17 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." So we can and should use scripture to correct us and help us grow.

Therefore, both when examining ourselves and when considering correcting another person, we should look to scripture and ask, "Where is it written?" In other words, how have I specifically broken a command of God, either according to the letter of the law or the spirit of the law? Likewise, when we feel wronged by someone else or think they have sinned, we should try to be specific about how they sinned. We should think about what specifically happened and how that made us feel (it's a good idea to write it out), and then search the scriptures for how these actions, words, or attitudes violated specific principles and commandments that God has given us.

A good example of this can be found in an article by Rosaria Butterfield, where she identifies what she did wrong by going to scripture and referencing the specific commandment. She goes further and identifies the motives and why those were wrong. She also explains why she is making a public apology for a public sin.

Getting specific from scripture helps in a number of ways. First, when we have sinned, we cannot know what to apologize for or what to correct unless we know specifically what we have done. Therefore, identifying the specific wrong helps to correct it so it will not happen again. Second, it takes the burden away from the interpersonal conflict and helps us see that sin is first and foremost against our Creator and Judge. It is easy to get defensive when you believe that the offense is primarily against another imperfect human. You can look at their faults and fail to take your own wrongs seriously. But when you know that you have sinned against the perfect and holy God, you know you cannot use the excuse of being no worse than the other person (See Psalm 51:4 for David's example of repentance to God).

Third, sometimes we discover that, in fact, there is no sin for which we need to repent. People might feel bad or take offense for any number of reasons, and sometimes their emotions are directed at the wrong cause. Emotions tell us something about what is going on in us but are not very accurate indicators of the truth. Therefore, we need to examine them to discover what is causing them and whether our thoughts and feelings conform to the truth of scripture and the reality of the world around us.

If we ask, "Where stands it written?" before and during a conflict, we will more likely get to the truth of what is happening. Then rather than escalating it, we can either defuse it by discovering that no sin had taken place or resolve it by repentance and forgiveness for the specific wrongs done.

Rejoice Always?

 

 

 

I was recently working on memorizing Philippians 4:4, which says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice." This passage does not recommend being joyful; rather, it commands us to be joyful and gives us the object of our joy, namely the Lord. This reminded me of a teaching from Pastor John Piper, where he encourages his listeners to fight for joy. The ideas that we are commanded to be joyful and that we should fight for joy seem counterintuitive because joy appears to be an attitude or emotion that we cannot simply generate spontaneously when we want it. Yet if God does command it (see 1 Thessalonians 5:16 as well), then God also gives us the ability to fulfill His commands.

So, how can we rejoice always? First, we have to understand our own limitedness and the brokenness in the world, which means being happy or having the emotion of happiness all the time is not realistic, at least at the beginning of our joy journey. I have conducted several funerals in the last year, and while there is often smiling and laughter as we consider the good times, there is certainly a time to cry and not be happy when sad things happen. Likewise, there are times when we are simply tired and worn out from long days of life, and even if we are not exactly sad in those moments, we are not exactly happy either. On the other hand, the words for joy in the Bible are about having the emotion of joy, so how can we be joyful always? The answer must lie in finding a deeper sense of joy in life that flows beneath all the day-to-day events and shapes how we view the events of life. Therefore, the command is not simply to be joyful on its own, but rather to be joyful in the Lord and establish our foundation of joy on Him.

To maintain this constant state of joyfulness, we need to nurture our relationship with the Lord. We need to incorporate practices into our lives where we spend time seeing the glory and beauty of the Lord, allowing Him to remind us of who He is, who we are, and what our eternal purpose in life is. A famous Christian teacher from the 19th century, George Müller, learned the lesson of daily finding his joy in the Lord. He said, "I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord... Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, so that my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed, and that through the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord."

Even if we have a morning practice of finding our joy in the Lord, we will often lose our joy throughout the day when we encounter difficult situations, difficult people, boring times, pain, and temptations to find joy in other things. So, another practice of joy that God is working on in my life right now is that when I become aware of a non-joyful attitude, I need to stop and fight for my joy in the Lord. I need to reflect on the truths that I know. I need to pray and ask God for help. I need to preach to myself and believe what He has said. In each situation, by stopping and reminding myself of the truths I have learned from Him, I can release the cares and concerns and be reminded of the big picture where God is in control, and I am in His hands. I can then rest in peace and have joy in the Lord.

Rejoicing always does not come naturally. In fact, God calls us to have a supernatural attitude that we can only have when we find our joy in Him.

PS. Here is an article by John Piper about how to fight for joy, where some of these ideas came from.

The Reason for Worship

The other day, I was listening to Coleman Hughes' podcast, "Conversations with Coleman," and he was interviewing, Samaneri Jayasāra, a Buddhist Nun. I have done a little study on Buddhism in the past, and I was curious to learn what more. Coleman is an atheist, but he often has interesting guest who deepen my understanding of the world. Furthermore, because he is not a Christian, he helps me to understand a different point of view. I like to see how he views life and how he handles day to day situations.

He had this particular guest on because meditation is one of the ways that he has attempted to deal with the stresses of life. Samaneri apparently teaches some of the practices of Buddhism on her youtube channel, including how to meditate. She has lots of people who watch her channel because like Coleman they have stresses or have not found peace in this world, and she appears to have found a path to contentment through her Buddhist practices.

I was curious to know if she came to some of the same conclusions that I had read and heard from other Buddhists, namely that the key to peace is to get rid of desire. Whenever you fight internal strife, you just identify what you are desiring and then deny the reality of your need for that thing. When you stop desiring things, you stop having discontentment, and you can feel peaceful. In fact Samaneri did promote such a view of the world, and in fact promoted a view that in fact nothing in the world is real. Once you realize that then your meditation becomes a practice of reminding yourself of the unreality of the things you desire.

Now I can see several real problems with this perspective. First, it calls people to deny their own experience. Yes, we often desire things that we cannot attain such as money, health, or fantasy relationships, but that does not mean all of reality is an illusion. The physical world is real. Your body is real. Relationships are real. In fact, we even seem to have an internal sense of the goodness and then the brokenness of things in the world. When we see a baby, a flower, a mountain, the stars, or a thunderhead, we see incredible beauty and have a desire to extol their beauty. The same goes for good tasting food, beautiful music, and love between a man and woman. Likewise, when we see good things used wrongly or abused, we are angered because we know that something has gone wrong with the goodness. Our internal nature seems to confirm both Genesis 1 where God calls His creation good, and Genesis 3, where the whole of creation was affected by sin. Buddhism seems to recognize the suffering caused by the brokenness in the world, and proposes the solution to deny the reality of both the bad and the good.

This leads to my second problem with Buddhism, namely that is it primarily a solution to a negative problem, namely suffering, but gives us no way to go toward or extol the good. Since there is no ultimate reality, Samaneri's form of Buddhism is like many forms, ultimately atheistic, in that they do not propose a higher being or reality to explain the good things of the world. Coleman is someone who also does not believe in a personal god, although I believe he comes at it more from a scientistic or naturalism mindset, so he also does not have anything higher that gives us a reason to believe that the beauty and goodness are real things beyond our personal experience of them. In other words, something beautiful or good is just relative to the experience of individual people, and does not conform to some higher or supernatural definition of good.

Now interestingly this actually agrees with a main point from the book of Ecclesiastes, namely that everything under the sun is meaningless or vanity. Buddhist, like atheist,like all of us have to deal with how to live at peace in our world, but they have limited their view of the world to "under the sun" or just to the natural world. Christians on the other hand, have resources to look for outside just the physical world, which is where the author of Ecclesiastes finally leads his readers too. We internally feel the need to worship or extol the goodness of good things, but when we try to find their ultimate reason inside the universe, we cannot find it. Therefore, it seems that we desire something that can only be explained by something outside the universe. C.S. Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

The solution then for the desires is to look beyond this world. The good things in this world have their origin and meaning outside this world in the very nature of God. Christians then do not need to deny reality and their own innate knowledge of goodness, rather we need to acknowledge its source. When we do we see that the goodness of creation leads of beyond creation. When we see that baby or mountain, or hear the beauty of a melody and harmony, or experience the look of love in your spouses eyes, we know that they are expressions of God's goodness. Our hearts turn to worship, not the creation, but the creator. And since His goodness and beauty are infinite, we will never in all of eternity grow weary of His goodness, like we often do of earthly pleasures. He grounds our desires in something, no someone, real, and the way to true peace and contentment is not to deny our desires, but to turn them toward God in worship.

I am find myself worshiping more and more as see the frailness of our world, and as I see my own need for fulfillment can only be met in Him. I not only worship by turning on music, but when I am biking and feel the muscles of my body being used or see the sunset, or when I look in the eyes of my wife and give her a kiss, or when I listen to my daughter ask a great question, or I hear my son's excitement about his first day of work. In any number of ways throughout my day, God reminds me of His goodness, and my heart turns to Him in thanks and adoration. I cannot image that the emptiness of Buddhist meditation can possibly bring the type of rich fulfillment that worship of the one true God and His son, Jesus Christ brings.

Multiverse, Aliens, but no God?

The following is a quote from Neil Shenvi's book, Why I Believe,

Yet, no matter how counterintuitive, shocking and bizarre the constructs of modern physics become, many in our culture continue to insist that whatever it portrays is "ordinary" while the supernatural is "extraordinary." We balk at the existence of immaterial realities but seem seriously unconcerned with the proliferation of ten-dimensional strings, parallel universes, closed-time loops, and nonlocal entanglement. You can even see this inconsistency in our science fiction, where magical plot devices are barely concealed by a thin patina of scientific jargon. The presence of actual angels or ghosts in Star Trek would be exceptionally jarring. But if the captain announces that a "hyperdimensional tachyon-based life-form has materialized on the bridge," we can suspend our disbelief. Why the disconnect?

 As a Sci-fi fan, I have had this same thought a number of times, while watching Star Trek, Stargate, or Fringe. Why are scientific-minded people willing to believe in the possibility of aliens & multiverses but not even consider the possibility of God?

I have theorized at least these two reasons for this skepticism. First, like Neil says, the God explanation sounds like magic or an appeal to an illogical "faith," whereas the other sounds scientific and they desire to think themselves logical and/or grounded in "reality" by which them mean physical things that they can feel and explain. Of course, the problem highlighted in these shows is that there are many areas of life that are not strictly physical and for which we do not yet have any good explanations, such as morality, origins or destiny. Thus the writers often propose sciency-sounding explanations that are far-fetched or that appeal to some long-forgotten or distant alien culture that knows more than us. I believe that for many scientifically minded people a possible naturalistic explanation, no matter how unlikely, is still better than proposing God might be involved because they believe that God is like Santa or the Tooth Fairy, namely a being that can do anything necessary to fill whatever gaps we have in our understanding. Having "faith" in this kind of God is indeed like magic with no need for evidence, and unfortunately, some Christians behave as if God does desire us to have this kind of faith in Him.

Christians should counter this by explaining that God as described in the Bible is not illogical, nor does He demand faith without evidence. In fact, even in Hebrews 11:1 where faith is described as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," it is still not a faith based on no evidence. In fact, in each of the stories described in Hebrews 11, the individuals had evidence of God's existence and plan, but they still needed to trust Him for the future. All over the Bible, God encourages people to examine the evidence for the truth of who He is and even to compare Him to other gods to see that He is real. He points to the order of the universe as evidence for Himself. Many early Christian scientists believed in the order of the universe because they believed in a God of order who had created with a purpose. The writers of the Bible do understand that humans are limited and do not fully understand the spiritual realm, but they never describe it as chaos or a magical place without rules. Rather it is a place where we do not have access to all the information yet.

But should we fail to believe in something just because we cannot fully understand it yet? Why should a spiritual realm where there exist creatures with purpose and will, not at least be one of the options for helping to explain phenomenon here? I do not assume subatomic forces do not exist or are disordered just because I cannot explain them. Likewise, I do not assume God is capricious or random, just because I cannot yet explain all of His actions. 

Therefore, as Christians, I think we can and should undertake to help skeptics see their inconsistent thinking when they propose theories like aliens or multiverses which have no evidence and really do not have any explanatory power, and at the same time reject even the possibility of a supernatural realm. We can do this by reframing the biblical understanding of supernatural realm from a magical mystical place with no rules, to one which is like another dimension where there are rules, but ones that we cannot access yet.

Unfortunately, even if we could help skeptics reframe their understanding of the supernatural, many would likely still reject God as a possible explanation for anything, because of a second reason which is spiritual and psychological. If God exists, then He not only created the universe with order and purpose, but it also means He created humans with order and purpose. Therefore, if we really wanted to understand ourselves and how we should function in the world, we might have to figure out if God has told us anything about that. In other words, God's existence might impact our existence and how we live our lives. To live our best lives, we might have to learn from and obey someone other than ourselves. Often, people are either afraid of a bad authority, or they simply do not want anyone to be an authority over them. Very few skeptics are likely to admit this kind of psychological prejudice, but often in conversation, I have heard experienced a level of anger at God that seems completely unjustified if the skeptic really did not believe He existed. What about the possibility of God's existence would cause them to be so emotional toward Him or toward believers in God if they did not have some much more personal reasons to doubt His existence. 

The most vocal critics of any belief system are those who have been hurt within that system, and if you hear the personal stories of many skeptics, you will hear many such stories. I am not suggesting that person hurt is the only reason for disbelief, any more than the only rationale for believing is psychological benefit, but it is clear that personal experiences play a large role in determining what we explanations we might accept as possible. 

In conversations with skeptics, Christians can help overcome this barrier in two ways. First, to be transparent about our own biases. If personal experience, such as dreams or some fantastic worship time, is one of the reasons we believe, we need to admit that. If God is real, than having such an experience should not be discounted, but that sort of evidence is not transferable to others, so we should be willing to also have and be willing to discuss other reasons to believe, which is exactly what Shenvi is doing in his book. If we can admit our biases and bring more neutral evidence, we can perhaps help the skeptic to be willing to examine their personal biases and how those might influence their conclusions. 

Knowing these reasons or any others for why someone might not consider believing in God will not necessarily overcome someone's disbelief, but they might help us further the conversation. If we think of sharing our beliefs with someone as gardening or farming, which is a metaphor the Bible uses, then we might simply be tilling the soil making it possible for someone to later on consider believing in Jesus. Ultimately God uses many different means to draw people to Himself, and the more we learn about the world, ourselves, and other people will help us to be available to be one of the tools God uses in the lives of others.

Loving Intent versus Loving Outcomes.

As a pastor, I often get to participate with our associate pastor, Cory Martin, in deciding how to help people who come with a specific financial or physical need. They often make a compelling case for why they need help with rent or utilities, and I am glad to be able to help them when we have the resources to do that. Our church takes an offering once a month to help in this ministry, and I know that other churches do as well. There is certainly a biblical command to help those with less.(see Proverbs 19:17, Luke 14:12-14 among many others).

But as we help we also have to be careful that our help does not end up with bad results in the lives of people who we intend to be actually helping. Just because your intention is to do good for someone doesn't mean the result is good for them. This holds true in any number of areas of life, where people have desires that they want to be fulfilled, and they think need to be fulfilled, such as drug addiction, eating disorders, sexual desires and all kinds of co-dependencies. We sometimes want to help, but if we're not wise we end up hurting the person instead. 

This example of a time when people with the intention of helping ended up hurting someone is what inspired me to write this post. 

 Often times people get themselves into problems because they're following their desires which have led them astray.  If we affirm them by simply giving them more money without helping them understand how to use it properly, or affirm them by telling them that their desires are OK even when we can see those desires are in conflict with reality that will never be changed, we end up hurting them in the long run. In this article, we see how empathy for a person's problems can sometimes be a sin instead of a help.

 A wiser and more loving response would be to examine the long-term outcomes of certain behaviors, or studying what has worked historically and the wisdom of the ages. Then when we go to help someone, our intentions are more likely to line up with actual good and loving outcomes. 

This response takes more time and effort and frequently it also means we have to get more personally involved with someone, which can be scary because unhealthy people frequently wound those around them. We need to stay close to the Lord in the process and have our primary motive be love for and obedience to Him rather than expecting results from the other person who may or may not show appropriate gratefulness. 

God does call us to reach out and help all kinds of hurting people, those poor in physical resources and poor in spirit, such as those who might be emotionally distressed, but He also calls us to be wise. I want to encourage you to be willing to go deep with people that you desire to help, so you are not just meeting their immediate need, but rather are able to be wise and see what their deeper needs might be. This will give you insight into how you can help them in a way that is truly loving by helping without leading to further negative consequences in their lives.

If you are interested in studying this more, I recommend the book, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.