The Purple Cellar

Life in Christ

2011-04-17T13:18:00.003-05:00

Do you know what it means to be "in Christ"?
You haven't quite grasped it if things go wrong and the first thing you do is anxiously try to dig up some unconfessed sin as the reason.

You haven't quite grasped it if you miss your quiet time one morning and think you'll be thrown off course all day as a result.

You haven't quite grasped it if you think you have to reach some spiritual peak before God will give you a husband or fix your marriage or save your children or give you a job.

You haven't quite grasped it if you don't really understand Jesus' invitation: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt 11:28–30).

Why is this so hard for us—even as Christians—to grasp? It's hard in part because Satan doesn’t want us to grasp it. It's also hard because we are natural legalists at heart. We don't want the yoke of Christ; we like finding our own way. We naturally bend toward self-righteousness rather than Christ-righteousness.

That's why Jerry Bridges said that Christians have to preach the gospel to themselves every day. The gospel isn't just for the lost; it's for the already saved, too. Jesus isn't just what gets us in the door—he's what keeps us in. And he didn't just die for us—he also lived perfectly for us.

We focus on his final days—his trial, crucifixion, death, and burial—but we need to look just as much at the 33 years that led up to that. Everything he did, he did on our behalf, in our place, for us.
His resistance to temptation in the wilderness is applied to our failures.
His kindness in the face of harsh treatment covers our retaliations.
His obedience to the Father atones for our disobedience.
His righteousness atones for our self-righteousness.

Here are a few implications of what it means to be in Christ:

1. Every sin we have every committed or will commit has been forgiven already.
2. We have no need to worry that God will do his part only if we do ours.
3. Our well-being doesn't hinge on our devotional time.
4. When we sin, we are disciplined in love, not punished in anger.
5. Our well-being doesn't hinge on how well we understand doctrine or theology, or on how much love we feel for Jesus.

Charles Spurgeon wrote: "Ah! what a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but his hold of you! What a sweet fact that it is not how you grasp his hand, but his grasp of yours, that saves you."

So, as we head into Easter week, before we ask God to give us:
*order in our daily life,
*healing in a difficult relationship,
*a sense of feeling good enough for him or for others, or
*any other thing we think we need to be happy,

Let's pray that he would:
*fill us afresh with his Spirit of adoption,
*humble our hearts to see his kindness and love, and
*lead us to the rest of soul that makes for joy, no matter what our circumstances are.

He is risen!

Who's a Fool?

2011-02-04T15:52:00.005-06:00

When we dip into Proverbs, we go there looking for wisdom. Sometimes we go there seeking wisdom in a particular area--relation wisdom, financial wisdom, moral wisdom--and that is good. But Proverbs is so much more than sage advice for getting along in the world. It shows us that wisdom isn't so much what we do as what we believe. Real wisdom is defined by Proverbs as "the fear of the Lord," which, to be brief here, is another way of saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37). In a nutshell, Proverbs points us to Jesus and our need of him, because he is the only one who lived wisely all the time. He is the perfect wise man, and we, more often than not, tend toward folly. As I've studied Proverbs in recent months, I've come up with a list of fool-traits. A few of them are listed here:

1. A foolish woman is easily enticed by the world. "If sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say . . . ‘We shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse” . . . do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths” (1:10–15). A woman easily enticed by the world is also often materialistic and ambitious for success by the world’s standards. She allows worldly philosophies to shape her understanding about everything. For such a woman, self-esteem and self-worth can seem to her more valuable than following Christ in a lifestyle of self-denial.

2. A foolish woman believes the lie that security lies in material blessings: "Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf" (11:28).

3. A foolish woman hates knowledge. She is one who shuns, ignores, disdains, scorns, or rationalizes away biblical wisdom and counsel. She lives by the dictates of her emotions, and she insists on fulfilling her personal desires and believes that her way of thinking is always the right way. To such a woman Proverbs asks, “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” (1:22).

4. A foolish woman is complacent. A complacent woman is contented with a mediocre Christian life. She fails to grasp the truth that there is no middle road, no fence-sitting, when it comes to discipleship; we are at all times either going forward or going backward. “The complacency of fools will destroy them” (1:32).

5. A foolish woman is lazy. Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise" (6:6). The ant-like principle of industriousness applies equally to spiritual matters and to every other area of our lives. Proverbs issues a call to exercise ourselves toward wisdom and good judgment in all our ways and relationships. Foolish women tend to sit back and wait for it all to just magically happen.

6. A foolish woman is sinfully independent. She seeks autonomy from God and others. “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment” (18:1)

Do we see ourselves here somewhere? If not, consider this:

There are six things that the LORD hates,seven that are an abomination to him:haughty eyes, a lying tongue,and hands that shed innocent blood,a heart that devises wicked plans,feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. (6:16–19)

We may think we aren't fools until we realize that haughty eyes are walking into someone’s home and taking pleasure because we have better taste in décor or because our outfit is more appropriate for the occasion. We may think we don’t shed innocent blood until we remember Jesus’ words that anger is murder. We may we think we don’t stir up trouble unless we realize that we do so by participating in gossip. Each one of us is, in some way, a foolish woman.

But that's okay, because it makes Paul's words real and personal: "God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God" (1 Cor. 1:28-30). Christ is the foolish woman’s remedy--our remedy.

Blogging in 2011

2011-02-04T15:27:00.004-06:00

Most of us go through seasons in which it seems as if the famous words of Robert Burns were written just for us: "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray." It's not all bad when plans go awry. After all, it's humbling, and it teaches us that the truth underlying Burns's words is found in Scripture:

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"— do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:13-15).

Last fall I expressed expectations to do more blogging. As it turned out, I blogged not at all in the months that followed. So, this year, I'm not going to talk about blogging intentions, and we'll just see what happens. In addition to my wonderful work at Crossway, I'm finishing up a book on Proverbs, and I have a rather heavy speaking schedule this winter/spring. But I miss the blog and hearing from TPC readers, so I do hope to interact with you from time to time in 2011. Soli Deo gloria!

Quote of the Week

2010-09-08T17:01:00.002-05:00

I came across a convicting message by John Piper called "The Radical Cost of Following Jesus." Based on Jesus' words in Luke 9:56-62, Piper talks about "fickle following" and "the danger of indecisive discipleship." He says this:

"No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." You can’t plow a straight furrow while looking back. You can’t serve Christ, that is, you can’t make Christ look great, if you are always second-guessing the value of following him. Looking back means longing back. It means that we are not really sure he is worth following, especially to Jerusalem. Divided hearts like that are not useful in displaying the worth of Christ."

You can read the whole thing by clicking here.

Left Off the List

2010-08-24T15:56:00.004-05:00

Rejected. That's how we feel when the invitations go out, but one doesn't arrive in our mailbox. As we near the end of summer wedding season, maybe you know what I'm talking about. You assumed you'd be invited. In fact, you arranged your schedule in advance to be able to attend. Then, five weeks before the wedding, you realize your invitation hasn't come. "Maybe their running behind," you tell yourself, knowing the insanity that ensues in the weeks leading up to the big day. Four weeks before the wedding, you make a few snarky remarks about the postal service. Three weeks before, you can no longer deny the reality--you just weren't invited. Some of us at that point might get angry. Most of us just feel hurt. We wonder whether we did something to offend the bride or groom. Once we have convinced ourselves that is not the case, we are further saddened by the thought that we just didn't matter enough to be included. All this sorrow is unnecessary, however, if we would just alter our perspective a bit.

First, think about it from the bride's perspective. I saw this firsthand in recent weeks, when a colleague was preparing for her wedding. She had a limited budget and, therefore, a limited guest list. I watched the bride-to-be labor over whom to include, knowing, as she did, that there would inevitably be hurt feelings. She decided the best approach was all-or-nothing: all the cousins, or none; all the sorority sisters, or none; all the nieces and nephews, or none. If neither cousin Sally nor cousin Sue was invited, they wouldn't be hurt, she reasoned. But that's not how it worked out. Cousin Sue rang the bride a week before the wedding and asked if she could come, and, oh, by the way, could she bring her new boyfriend? And cousin Sally called and said she assumed that being left off the list was an oversight, so she planned on being there--with her six kids. The poor bride was sent into a tailspin. After all, she loves her cousins. So she was left with a dilemma: more hurt feelings or going into debt.

Second, think about it from a broader perspective: It's not about you. Odds are good that you were not excluded because you offended, because you are insignficant to the host and hostess, or because you have an obnoxious personality that brings a good party to a crashing halt. It's pretty safe to say that you were left off the list for reasons that have nothing to do with you at all.

Third, think about it from a love perspective. How can we respond in a godly way to being left out, whether to a wedding or to something else? We can rejoice with God's good gift of marriage to the bride and groom. We can do all we can not to grieve the bride by letting on that we are hurt, or worse--by calling and asking why we weren't invited. We can also realize afresh that being willing to love means opening ourselves to the vulnerability of being hurt. It goes with the territory.

But how do we do this? We begin by asking God to change us. We can ask him to lift our focus outward and upward. We can also pour out our sorrow and feelings of rejection to him, and he will comfort us. We may never really know why we weren't invited, and we may have to cling to God for a season with those lingering feelings of rejection. If so, we can see it as an opportunity to know a little bit of what our Savior experienced. He offered more love than we ever could, yet he received primarily rejection. He knows what rejection feels like. "We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15).

Taking Responsibility

2010-08-20T09:47:00.002-05:00

In a culture that sues McDonalds for our own obesity we should not then be surprised that many blame God for their problems. . . . Understand this vital principle — you will never grow in gospel holiness until you acknowledge you alone, not God or anyone else, are responsible for your own sinful behaviour. This may be easy to say but it is very hard to practice daily. Until the alcoholic, for example, stops blaming his wife, friends, childhood trauma, or the devil’s tempting influence, then he will never make progress in holiness. Until the man given to outbursts of anger with his wife or children acknowledges that he is the culprit, not the tense circumstances of living with too little money, too little time; then he will make little progress in biblical holiness. Until the man addicted to porn quits blaming his miserable marriage or job, saying he only wants relief and a little pleasure; will he make progress in 'casting out the demon' of decadent passion. This is fundamental to gospel holiness. Quit passing the buck. Quit blaming God, your past, your circumstances, or the devil. I am not saying that these are not present, but you alone are responsible for your sinful actions.

This hard-hitting article by Allen M Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut, is a good note on which to end the week. You can read the whole thing by clicking here.

HT: Banner of Truth

Spiritual Depression

2010-08-17T08:03:00.002-05:00

Why does God seem far off sometimes--especially when we're suffering? At such times, we most want to know his presence. Where is he? On the flipside, why is it that sometimes we find ourselves far off? We just can't get into reading the Word, and praying feelings like a chore on the to-do list.

In either case, we wonder what's going on, and we can find ourselves greatly troubled by it all. It is crucial that we think about this kind of experience in biblical categories. If we don't, we are bound to wind up in a state of spiritual depression. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote a book called Spiritual Depression that outlines its causes and cures. The book is currently out of print, but there are copies for sale floating around the web. If you're struggling with the relational aspects of life in Christ, this book can help significantly. One thing he says at the outset is that we must avoid obsessing on the problem. The Bible tells us to examine ourselves, but often we don't know how to go about it or when to draw a line in the sand so that self-examination doesn't become this sort of crippling self-obsession. MLJ writes this:

We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it, that is introspection. And if we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems and troubles, and if we are forever going to them with that kind of frown upon our face and saying, "I am in great difficulty," it probably means that we are all the time centered upon ourselves. . . . We must talk to ourselves instead of allowing our selves to talk to us! . . . Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?

Quote of the Week

2010-08-13T08:01:00.003-05:00

"When what is due to the Lord is in question, it is with those nearest to you that you have to be most decided. . . . To take a definite stand for the Lord against influences which are not of him, even in those that you regard and truly love, secures great blessing."

--A. W. Pink, Gleanings in Exodus

Unequal Yoking, Part 2

2010-08-09T07:43:00.004-05:00

Over the past few months I’ve received a significant number of emails from Christian women who are involved romantically with non-Christian men. The majority are struggling with one of two concerns—whether to stay in the relationship or how to get out of it. Believe me… I know from past personal experience how painfully hard this can be.

For those of you who are wondering about whether to continue the romantic relationship: at some level you already know the answer to your question, which is why you wrote to a Christian blogger in the first place. Likely, what you’re really seeking is a strengthened resolve to embrace what you already know is right, which is to get out of it. You are simply one step behind those who have written with the second concern—how to get out.

What, after all, can be gained from staying in it? “He might come to Christ through it,” is the answer we tend to latch onto. But Scripture nowhere supports that conclusion. Paul tells us not to be yoked unequally with unbelievers; that is, involved with them in such a way that the bond tends to pull us away from the path of discipleship, or waters down our faith, or inhibits God’s glory from being visible in our lives. Conversely, Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:22–33 what sort of qualities in a romantic relationship aid discipleship, strengthen our faith, and show off God’s glory. He is speaking specifically of marriage in that passage, but all those qualities—at least, the seeds of them—should be evident to some degree in every romantic Christian relationship. But that’s impossible unless both are committed believers. An unbelieving man, no matter how kind and thoughtful, simply does not care about protecting a woman’s holiness, or about loving her as Christ loves the church.

What about Paul’s words to wives married to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 7)? He told them to remain married in hopes of winning their husbands. But Paul wasn’t speaking to girlfriends; he was speaking to wives. It is the bond of marriage that is sacred in God’s eyes, whether the couple is Christian or not. We may think we’ll change our boyfriend over the long haul, but more often than not, the reverse happens. Women in love so easily become chameleons. It happens without us even being aware of it, one little compromise at a time.

The reason you are struggling with what to do is that, on the one hand, you do want to please God. You know you’re in a situation that spells spiritual danger, and you know you need to get serious about it. On the other hand, you’re in love. And you don’t want to hurt him. On top of that, you are deeply burdened by the fact that ending the relationship will perhaps destroy the seeds of faith in him that haven’t yet fully bloomed. So you’re stuck.

The great thing is that you're not really stuck. God is so much bigger than you and your situation. Your relationship and falling in love didn’t take God by surprise. Your struggle is not beyond the scope of God’s sovereignty. And the fact is that remaining in the relationship might actually be hindering your boyfriend’s coming to faith. Every time you compromise a spiritual value in his presence, you are, by doing so, telling him that God’s Word and all God says can’t really be trusted, or just isn’t all that important. If you leave your boyfriend and he is hurt in the process, perhaps, for the first time ever, he will cry out for God and really find him, since you are no longer blocking the way. If he turns farther away from God, well, then very likely he was far away to begin with, and any interest he showed in spiritual things was solely a way to have harmony with you.

Maybe someday he will come to faith. And God can always bring you back together at some later time. He may or may not. But one thing is sure: he always blesses obedience.

Quote of the Week

2010-08-06T08:37:00.003-05:00

Here is John Piper's take (a really good take) on gray hair:

Age is a gift in the Bible. Getting old and, I suppose, losing your hair or having some gray hair is a gift. It's a sign of having been kept by God and having been brought toward ripening for heaven.

And to resist it seems to me a kind of unbelief that heaven is really good, and living a long time with God is good, and having the experience and the age to care in deeper ways for the young and share life-wisdom with them is good. Why would we want to be young-looking when we're old?

We live in a culture that is clearly youth dominated. The music is dominated by youth, and the styles are dominated by youth. And so all bodies are youthful bodies, and hardly any glory is given to age. We just need to be more biblical. It is good to grow old with God

. From the Desiringgod.org resource library. Click here.

Unequal Yoking, Part 1

2010-08-04T08:05:00.002-05:00

Thanks to all who wrote, both publicly and privately, with topic suggestions. Several of you indicated that you’d like to discuss the relationship between believers and unbelievers, so let’s start with that. Such relationships can be challenging to navigate, especially with family members and long-time friendships. When it comes to unbelieving spouses and boyfriends, it is much less difficult to discern how to apply God’s Word—we are to stay in the former and flee from the latter. But let’s start with family.

From the Bible’s standpoint, a Christian’s primary family is to be that of other Christians, but each of us also belongs to a biological family of one sort or another, and members of this family, whether believers or not, are among those we love most in all the world. We struggle with sorrow when they are not a part of our Christian family. We long for them to know Christ, and because they don’t, we can’t connect with them at the deepest level. So, when it comes to living out those relationships, how do we handle it? How do we apply Paul’s words about unequal yoking? He said, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14).

The best way to understand Paul’s words is to consider the fact that a yoke was used to lock animals into a side-by-side position so that they were forced to move in tandem. To be so yoked to a person, therefore, means we will find ourselves compelled to move in whatever direction they go. To be unequally yoked means that we are connected to someone whose general bent is an opposite direction from ours. Therefore, we must avoid being connected to anyone in such a way that doing so will hinder our ability to stay on biblical course. Therefore, we do well to consider if there are particular family events or occasions or situations that tend to pull us in an unbiblical direction and then make alternate plans.

That being said, this is most definitely not a mandate to sever all ties with unbelieving family. In fact, the Bible is clear that part of what demonstrates real faith is how we care for our families. “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). And honoring our parents has been part of the moral law since God first instituted it (Ex. 20:12). The only time we are told biblically to leave our family members is when remaining with them impedes God call on our life. “Lord,” said a disciple, “let me first go and bury my father,” to which Jesus replied, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matt. 8:21–22). And in the same vein Jesus said, “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother” (Matt. 10:35).

But Jesus is far from callous about the cost involved for those whose calling requires such a choice. We know that he understands the bond between family members because, while he was on the cross, he brought together his friend John and his mother Mary and made them into a family. God has a heart for families. My former pastor James Boice said that it is often God’s plan to save families (not just individuals) even if they are saved one at a time over a long period. If following Christ does mean we have to go far from home, here’s what Jesus promised:

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29–30).

If so called, we must follow—that is, if Christ holds first place in our hearts. But doing so doesn’t negate everything else Scripture says about honoring our parents and providing for family needs. Some words from Paul help us find our way if get confused about competing priorities: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).

Fleeting Summer

2010-07-27T15:15:00.005-05:00

So much for more regular posting! I had hoped to be back here at least three times a week by now. On the schedule is one more summer trip, and after that I hope to settle in for a nice routine August (and hence more blogging). For a while, I was participating in Crossway's "Tuesday Talk" on Facebook. That's over, but it made me realize I'd love to interact more with TPC readers. Any topics you'd like to see on TPC during August?

In Christ

2010-06-03T14:45:00.003-05:00

We've been considering what it means to be "in Christ." Once we grasp it, what we have thought of as a need for self-esteem goes right out the window. Once we are in Christ, we have his esteem. That becomes our identity. Dominic Smart includes at the end of his book When We Get It Wrong an appendix titled simply "New Testament References for Being "in Christ." If you are planning to make a study of what it means to be "in Christ," you might want to print out this list of passages or look them up in your own Bible translation (the author used the NIV). Here it is:

John 14:20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am with you.

John 15:2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

John 15:4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

John 15:7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.

John 16:33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Acts 4:2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

Acts 17:28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Acts 26:18 . . . so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 9:1 I speak the truth in Christ – I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit.

Romans 12:5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Romans 14:14 As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.

Romans 16:3 Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus.

Romans 16:7 Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Romans 16:8 Greet Ampliatus, whom I love in the Lord.

Romans 16:9 Greet Urbanus, our fellow-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.

Romans 16:10 Greet Apelles, tested and approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.

Romans 16:11 Greet Herodion, my relative. Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.

Romans 16:12 Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord.

Romans 16:13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.

Romans 16:22 I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and ours.

1 Corinthians 1:4 I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 1:5 For in him you have been enriched in every way – in all your speaking and in all your knowledge.

1 Corinthians 1:30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

1 Corinthians 3:1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ.

1 Corinthians 4:10 We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!

1 Corinthians 4:15 Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 4:17 For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

1 Corinthians 9:2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:11 In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

1 Corinthians 15:18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:31 I die every day – I mean that, brothers – just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 16:24 My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.

2 Corinthians 1:20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 1:21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us.

2 Corinthians 2:14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.

2 Corinthians 2:17 Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.

2 Corinthians 3:14 But there minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.

2 Corinthians 5:19 That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corithians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 12:2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows.

2 Corinthians 12:19 Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening.

2 Corinthians 13:4 For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.

Galatians 1:22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

Galatians 2:4 This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

Galatians 2:17 If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that
we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!

Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Ephesians 1:1 Paul, and apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in

Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Ephesians 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.

Ephesians 1:9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.

Ephesians 1:11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.

Ephesians 1:13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2:6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:7 In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 2:22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Ephesians 3:6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 3:12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Ephesians 4:21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.

Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Ephesians 6:21 Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing.

Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons.

Philippians 1:14 Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Philippians 4:1 Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:21 Greet all the saints in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send greetings.

Colossians 1:2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

Colossians 1:14 In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

Colossians 1:28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

Colossians 2:6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him.

Colossians 2:7 Rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Colossians 2:10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the Head over every power and authority.

Colossians 2:11 In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ.

Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Colossians 4:7 Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord.

Colossians 4:17 Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord.”

1 Thessalonians 2:14 For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own country men in the same things those churches suffered from the Jews.

1 Thessalonians 3:8 For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dear in Christ will rise first.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

2 Thessalonians 1:12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 1:14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 1:9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.

2 Timothy 3:12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Philemon 1:6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

Philemon 1:20 I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.

Philemon 1:16 No longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord.

Philemon 1:23 Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings.

Hebrews 3:14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

1 Peter 3:16 Keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

1 Peter 5:10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.

1 Peter 5:14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

1 John 2:5 But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him.

1 John 2:6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

1 John 2:28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

1 John 3:6 No-on who lives in him keeps on sinning. No-on who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

1 John 3:24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

1 John 5:20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true – even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

Revelation 1:9 I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Revelation 14:13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Sprit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

The Danger of Self-Trust

2010-06-03T09:01:00.006-05:00

What does it mean to be "in Christ"? We see that phrase all through the New Testament epistles,and it has come up in our discussions this week on self-esteem. Many of us can grasp what being "in Christ" means theologically, but when it comes to grasping it practically, we aren't alway quite sure. An extremely helpful book is Dominic Smart's When We Get It Wrong. He uses Peter's failure, his denial of Christ, to actually show what it means to be "in Christ." Here's a quote from the book about how our efforts to feel secure in ourselves actually harm us:

Insecurities that express themselves in fears are actually harbored and accommodated by what we think makes us secure. Somewhere inside we know that we're insecure, so we protect ourselves. We want to be thought well of, we want to be cool, we want to dress in a way that will make us acceptable to a particular group or individual. Not because acceptability will give us a greater opportunity to share the gospel, but so that we might calm the fears about what people will think of us. But fear actually exposes our self-constructed and ultimately false security for what it's been all along. Self-trust keeps [us]from throwing [our] whole existence in with Christ and letting Christ take care of [us].

Dominic Smart, When We Get It Wrong: Peter, Christ, and Our Path through Failure (Paternoster, 2001, 2002), 58-59.

Self-Esteem?

2010-06-02T11:26:00.003-05:00

I've been participating in a video chat, and this week's topic involves the concept of self-esteem. Is it a biblical concept? I don't think so. In fact, the pursuit of self-esteem is antithetical to all Jesus teaches about discipleship and life in God's kingdom. Years ago I read a book by Don Matzat called Christ Esteem: Where the Search for Self-Esteem Ends. (I believe the book is out of print now.) I want to share a couple of his insights throughout the rest of this week, beginning with the one below. After examining the life of the apostle Paul, Matzat wrote:

I discovered the answer to my problem. I did not like the answer very much, but it became very clear that I did not have a problem. Rather, I was the problem, and Jesus was the solution! . . . Arriving at this position simplified the entire issue of the Christian life. I did not feel good about myself, because I wasn't supposed to. I didn't have a negative self-image; I had a negative self. As an old joke put it: "He didn't have an inferiority complex. He was simply inferior." All the frustration that is experienced by those who search for a changed life and victory over sin is based on a wrong diagnosis of the human condition. We erroneously believe that God is in the repair business, that he compassionately repairs human lives like a friendly father fixing his children's broken toys. We make up a list of our specific problems and go about seeking the Lord for specific solutions, but nothing ever gets checked off the list and it seemingly never ends. . . . God does not repair and adjust human life. From his perspective, human life is beyond repair.

. . . I would prefer to have a Father in heaven who would lift me on to his lap, solve all my little problems and failures, assure me that I am a fine person, pat me on the rump, and send me on my way. In this way I could preserve my dignity and be a good Christian, but I would never realize how much I need Jesus. I could have my cake and eat it too. But this is not God's way of dealing with the human condition. God tells me that I am the problem, and his Son is the solution.

Don Matzat, Christ Esteem (Harvest House, 1984), pp. 52-53.

Detecting Unbelief

2010-05-19T07:55:00.003-05:00

Unbelief. It's what makes God seem like a taskmaster instead of a father and friend. But we don't get that, because unbelief doesn't announce itself in our hearts as unbelief. It wears all sorts of disguises. I found a "Faith vs. Unbelief" list by John Bunyan, and here it is (tightened up a bit):

1. Faith believes the Word of God; unbelief questions it.
2. Faith sees God's promise to help; unbelief says, "How can that possibly be?"
3. Faith makes you see love in Christ's reproofs; unbelief imagines only wrath.
4. Faith helps the soul to wait; unbelief gives up if made to wait.
5. Faith gives comfort in the midst of fears; unbelief causes fears in the midst of comforts.
6. Faith finds sweetness in God's discipline; unbelief finds no comfort in mercy.
7. Faith makes great burdens light; unbelief makes light burdens heavy.
8. Faith helps us when we are down; unbelief throws us down when we are up.
9. Faith brings us near to God when we are far from him; unbelief puts us far from God when we are near to him.
10. Faith sees friendship with God; unbelief sees a hard taskmaster.
11. Faith puts man under grace; unbelief holds him under wrath.
12. Faith purifies the heart; unbelief keeps the heart polluted
13. Faith rests in Christ's righteousness; unbelief clings to the law.
14. Faith makes all our work acceptable to God; without faith it is impossible to please him (Heb. 11:4).
15. Faith gives peace and comfort; unbelief gives trouble and tossing
16. Faith shows Christ precious; unbelief sees no beauty in him.
17. Faith gives life in Christ's fullness; unbelief causes spiritual starvation
18. Faith gives freedom from the law of sin and death; unbelief shackles us to them.
19. Faith shows us excellence in things unseen; unbelief sees only this world.
20. Faith makes all God's ways pleasant; unbelief makes them heavy and hard.

From Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ (Banner of Truth).

Friendship, Part 3

2010-05-17T08:38:00.002-05:00

What is a friend? That's what we've been thinking about over the past week. A friend is more than a simple association. It's someone we choose to trust. Trust is implicit in friendship, because when we choose a friend, we place ourselves in a position to be influenced. We’ve looked at how to choose godly friendships primarily by contrast—a shortlist of friendship don’ts. Now let’s spin that around. Are we in the do category or the don’t? In other words, how can we be a wise choice for someone else? Here are five suggestions.

1. Do guard your words. “A talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is of a faithful spirit conceals a matter” (Prov. 11:13). This gets to the heart of gossip, doesn’t it? Gossip includes not only what we say but what we listen to. Someone who gossips about one friend to another reveals an unfaithful spirit toward those friendships. The result, Proverbs tells us, is relational brokenness: “A whisperer separates the best of friends” (16:28). No matter how strong a foundation a relationship has, gossip will bring it down. No matter how close your friendship--the shared memories, secrets, hopes, and disappointments--Proverbs teaches that gossip has the power to wipe all that out.

2. Don’t be clingy. “Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house, lest he become weary of you and hate you,” advises Proverbs 25:17. Clinginess shows primarily in a possessive spirit. Do we find ourselves jealous of the time a friend spends with others, or when she reveals confidences to a different friend?

3. Don’t get mixed up in other’s friendships. Know when to stay out. “Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears” (Prov. 26:17).

4. Do hold your friend accountable for godly behavior. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Prov. 27:6).

5. Do recognize that even the best of good friends will let you down. Don’t drop a friend when she fails you; real love is offered with no contingencies. The only way to love like this is to remember we have an ultimate friend in Jesus. He is the only one who will never fail us.

Friendship, Part 2

2010-05-12T08:17:00.002-05:00

Friendship—godly friendship—is something we’re considering this week (scroll down for the first post). The sort of friendship in view here isn’t “friendship,” the kind with quote marks that alludes to “romance.” We’re talking about platonic friendship. Here are some friendships don’ts (next time we’ll look at some friendship dos):

1. Don’t get too close to someone who claims to be a Christian yet is consumed with the pleasures of the world. Sometimes we can be an influence for good; often we cannot, but discerning which is which can be terribly hard. One way to know: Am I drawn to God after spending time with my friend, or pulled away? Paul also wrote this: “I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother—or sister—who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person (1 Cor. 5:9–11).

2. Don’t give away your heart to an unbeliever. Proverbs 24:21 says, “Fear the Lord and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise.” This doesn’t mean we don't reach out with our lives and actively love unbelievers--just the opposite, in fact. What we are talking about here is linking ourselves emotionally to them so that they hold influence over us. “Do not be deceived: 'Bad company ruins good morals'" (1 Cor. 15:33).

3. Don’t get close to someone just because she admires you. This is a very tempting thing to do. The best way to detect whether this motive underlies a particular friendship is simple: we are drawn to a particular friend primarily because we know we are admired.

4. Don’t think that just because you’re popular, you have a lot of friends. It’s easy to collect a lot of people, but some are going to fall away when our brains or looks or talents no longer benefit them in some way. True friends love in the face of weakness, disappointment, and seasons of low-benefit friendship payoff. Do we love our friends the way we want them to love us? Or do we drop them when they fail or do something stupid or something that gets you irritated? True friendship is never conditional, apart from the condition of holiness.

Bad Boys

2010-05-11T11:37:00.002-05:00

Dianne Hawkins writes about choices in dating:

There’s the intellectual type, the athletic guy, the funny man, and then there are the bad boys. Oh, the bad boys. These guys are different. The secular world has them and the Christian dating sphere also has them. They’re smooth, confident, mysterious and gave me a flurry of butterflies. They were just a step above the rest of normal guys…or so I thought."

You can read the entire post by clicking here.

Friendship, Part 1 of Perhaps 3

2010-05-07T16:44:00.002-05:00

What is a friend? A friend is more than a simple association. It is someone we choose to trust. Trust is implicit in friendship because when we choose a friend, we are placing ourselves in a position to be influenced. That’s why we are wise to base our closest friendships on more than common-ground defaults. We naturally bond with someone who “gets” where we are in life or with someone we work with or who has a similar schedule. But although commonality makes for friendship, it isn't enough. That's because the choices we make in friendships are always a direct reflection of our relationship with God. Here are two general principles for spiritually healthy friendships:

1) A friend is not meant to take the place of God. If we find ourselves overly dependent on our friend’s advice or presence or voice on the phone, or we find ourselves jealous of her involvement with others, it’s time to consider the possibility that the proportion of the friendship is off.

2) A friendship is never just about what we get out of it. God didn’t give the gift of friendship so we could gratify ourselves. Sometimes we grow dissatisfied with our friends because we are seeking to get something rather than to give.

I'm working on a book based on Proverbs, and I've discovered how much timeless wisdom is there concerning the nature of friendships. More to follow next week.

Treasure, Part 3 of 3

2010-04-22T10:05:00.002-05:00

Personal treasure—what we do we value above all else? Is Christ our pearl of great price, or do other things dim the luster of that pearl? Sometimes it’s hard to know. As God said, our hearts are deceptive, and only he really knows what’s in there (Jer. 17:9-10). But we can—and should—take heart inventory from time to time, and one way to do so is by asking ourselves a few questions:

1. What makes us anxious?
2. What keeps us awake at night?
3. What do we sacrifice for?
4. What fills us with feelings of anticipation?
5. What do we fear?

David Powlison gets at the importance of asking this sort of question: “Fear and desire are two sides of a single coin. A sinful fear is a craving for something not to happen. If I want money, I fear poverty with its deprivations and humiliations. If I long to be loved, I’m terrified of rejection. If I fear pain or hardship, I crave comfort or pleasure. If I crave preeminence, I fear being subordinate to others.” Getting at what we fear and desire or what makes us anxious is a good way to uncover what vies for top place in our hearts.

Powlison issues this powerful challenge:

Can you change the things that you want? Yes and Amen! This is central to the work of the Holy Spirit. You will always desire, love, trust, believe, fear, obey, long for, value, pursue, hope, and serve—something. The Holy Spirit works to change the something, as he leads us with an intimate hand. The desires of the heart are not unchangeable. Your cravings are not a given. God never promises to give you what you want, to meet your felt needs and longings. He tells you to be ruled by other, different desires. This is radical. God promises to change what you really want! God insists that he be first, and all lesser loves be radically subordinate. The Christian life is a great paradox. Those who die to self, find self. Those who die to their cravings will receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come, eternal life. If I crave happiness, I will receive misery. If I crave to be loved, I will receive rejection. If I crave significance, I will receive futility. If I crave control, I will receive chaos. If I crave reputation, I will receive humiliation. But if I long for God and his wisdom, I will receive God and wisdom. Along the way, sooner or later, I will also receive happiness, love, meaning, order, and glory.

(David Powlison, course materials for Dynamics of Biblical Change, CCEF)

Treasure, Part 2 of 3

2010-04-21T10:38:00.002-05:00

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it”(Matt. 13:45). This kingdom parable has always gripped me. For one thing, I love pearls. But its tug on my heart really has little to do with jewelry and everything to do with priorities. Each time I read it I'm convicted about the disproportionate treasure in my life and heart.

What are some hindrances that keep us from treasuring Christ above all else? Three come readily to mind.

1) We are busy laying up treasures on earth.
Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19–21). Jesus is pointing out that devoting ourselves to getting earthly treasures isn’t a good use of our lives because earthly treasures never last. They eventually fall apart, or get stolen or destroyed. And the more earthly treasure have, the more opportunity for worry and stress.

2) We harbor competing treasure.
Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money”—or whatever else it is we overvalue” (Matt. 6:24). The truth, according to Jesus, is that competing treasures are never equal. One is always greater than the other in our hearts. And because this world and what it offers often feel more real—and certainly more immediate in terms of gratification—unless we safeguard our hearts in Christ, the competition all too easily wins. We do well to consider the words of Elijah: “How long will you go limping between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

3) We want a Savior but not a cross.
Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26-27). There is no discipleship without the cross, and it is only in taking it up that we find our true treasure, which is why Jesus also said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:39). We nod in agreement about the value of the kingdom until it hits our personal brick wall. Do we have a non-negotiable? Something we aren’t willing to part with in order to follow Christ? Jesus is never going to give us life on our terms, and if we are unwilling for the cross, we are going to miss out on the joy of our inheritance.

Treasure, Part 1 of 3

2010-04-19T07:55:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I was blessed to speak at New Hope Presbyterian Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I was energized by the strong faith of the women there—and had lots of fun, too. I was asked to speak on Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13:44–45 about treasure:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

The point, of course, is that the kingdom of heaven is the best there is; no earthly thing compares. If we know God in Christ, we certainly agree with that. But do we really believe it? Do we live it? What do we value most? What gets us up in the morning? What do we spend our time and thoughts pursuing?

Theologians teach that the best way to get at the true meaning of Jesus’ parables is to find the main point and not get lost in the details, but it doesn’t hurt to consider the details. All of God’s Word is inspired, not just the main point. So, with that in mind, there are fives features about invaluable treasure we might consider from the parables.

1) The treasure was something that was hidden.
The Bible makes plain in a number of places that the things of God can be seen only with the eyes of faith, eyes opened supernaturally by God himself. Elsewhere Jesus said, “Father, I thank you that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (Matt. 11:25). What Jesus was getting at is not about a demographic but an attitude. Children are needy, utterly dependent on others to provide and care for them. That sense of childlike helplessness before God is the heart attitude necessary to understand and know God and to know that he is the greatest treasure we’ll ever have. It’s an attitude of humility. If this weren’t necessary, there would be no need for the treasure to be hidden in the first place. It is revealed only to the humble.

2) The treasure is something that was found.
Because the treasure is hidden, we have to conclude that we find it only because we were first found. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

3) The treasure is accompanied by joy.
Are we joyful women? If we understand what it is that we’ve been given in this treasure, we will be. We find joy in getting what we treasure. On the other hand, we do not find joy if we don’t treasure what we get.

4) The treasure was worth letting go of everything else.
The only way we are going to know Christ as our supreme treasure is if we get rid of competing treasure. Anything—even good things—must go if they hinder Christ’s lordship in our lives and hearts. If we cherish and hold fast to competing treasures, our affection for God will dim. This is really what the pursuit of holiness is all about, and it’s why an avid pursuit of holiness is absolutely necessary for any woman who is serious about knowing and keeping Christ as her greatest treasure.

5) The treasure involved buying and selling.
Everything the treasure-finder in the parables owned was sold in order to purchase the treasure—their goods weren’t merely given away. The fact that the treasure was purchased implies an exchange. When we purchase something, it means we give up something we have in order to get something else. The point is twofold: (1) Getting Christ as our treasure is worth the cost. (2) Those who treasure God’s kingdom above all will trade in everything they have to get it. What has value for us? It might be certain habits or indulgences, or places we go, and even certain relationships. Are we willing to “sell” those things for the sake of God and his kingdom? Only those who know the worth of what they get will make the exchange.

Jesus said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost… and he concludes all this by saying, “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27–28, 33)

That’s what it will cost us. Do we want to know Christ as our greatest treasure? If so, it might cost us everything we have. Have we considered that? We want to hang on to all we have in this life and Christ. But we can’t fully know the full value of a particular treasure until it is our only treasure. We aren’t hardwired to truly value multiple treasures. And we can’t count the cost if we don’t know there is a cost. Those who know that cost and still hold Christ as their greatest treasure are those with real faith.

Certainly we glorify God by enjoying the blessings of this life, but that’s not what we’re getting at. It’s not the enjoyment of life’s good things but our insistence on them that defines treasure.

Geese and Midlife

2010-04-14T13:33:00.007-05:00

Just outside my office is a retainer pond surrounded by flowering trees and grass, and in the spring the enclosure becomes home to a variety of Wheaton wildlife. However, as spring turns toward summer, this little ecosystem brings sorrow. Each year a pair of Canadian geese--the same pair year after year--comes to the pond and sets up housekeeping. Mrs. Goose sits patiently on her eggs for weeks while Mr. Goose gathers food and protects the nest. Once the eggs hatch, Mrs. Goose does what all good mother geese do--she pushes her babies into the water so they can learn to swim. Then comes tragedy. The walls surrounding the pond are several feet high, and since geese are unable to fly in early life, the gosling have no way to get out of the water. They swim helplessly around the pond, huddled together, until they all eventually die, while Mr. and Mrs. Goose flutter nearby in great angst. Our staff has tried every way we can think of to intercede to help the feathered parents. Board ramps, displacement of the eggs early in the spring, and a variety of improvised rescue craft have all been employed over the years to no avail. So Mr. and Mrs. Goose repeat the tragic cycle year after year. They know no better.

The instinct of geese that leads them to repeat their loss is greater than their capacity to learn from their experience. How wonderful that we have been created with the capability to learn from the past and to make choices! We can learn how to avoid things that lead to misery. Some things we just can't avoid, but even then we can still make choices.

First and foremost, our choice in every trouble is that between faith and unbelief. Unbelief worries and frets, or denies the reality of the problem, or seeks to escape it by any means available, no matter the cost to ourselves or others. Faith, on the other hand, trusts that God is up to something good in every problem we face. All our choices--every one of them--reflect either faith or unbelief.

In geese years, Mr. and Mrs. Goose have hit midlife, which, for people, is often a time of real faith testing. Unlike geese, people in midlife come to realize a particular truth: life is hard, and not all our dreams are going to come true in this lifetime. In our twenties and thirties, our optimism about obtaining all earthly satisfactions still runs high. If one door closes, well, the next one will surely swing wide open. But around or about forty or fifty, we recognize that some doors are unlikely to open ever. This discovery hits everyone, and it is the genesis of most midlife crises.

Whatever we do with that discovery is a revealer of our faith. Unbelief leads to bitterness and disillusionment and even turning away from God. A faith response, on the other hand, is willing to embrace that God is still a God of promise and hope even though the fulfillment of that promise and hope is different from what we'd wanted. It is this willingness to accept God as he is, not as we wish he would be, that deepens our faith and leads to the very thing we've wanted all along--peace, joy, and the ability to remain steadfast in the face of disappointment.

The apostle Paul knew all about this. As a result of great affliction, he had tasted despair, but because he trusted God in the midst of it, he found great hope to press on:

"We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again." (2 Cor. 1:9-10)

How are we responding to the pain of life's realities? We can choose to respond blindly, in unbelief, but that makes us no different from geese. If we choose faith, we are choosing hope like Paul did.

Comments

2010-04-09T17:39:00.002-05:00

Somehow all TPC readers' comments dropped out in the midst of this redesign. We are working on getting them restored!

Back on Track

2010-04-07T15:15:00.002-05:00

Spring greetings to TPC readers. I have missed interacting with all of you. The past several weeks have proven to be a test of endurance, but I trust that God has good intentions through it, and I look forward to sharing with you what I have been learning about our compassionate and powerful Lord. The fabulous design team at Crossway has offered to give the blog a redesign, and I figure that the launch of that (sometime next week) will be an ideal time to resume regular posting. Many thanks for all the kind notes in these last few months of sparse posts!

Loss

2010-03-31T16:38:00.003-05:00

“Where is the God of all comfort in this heartache?”
“How could a powerful God let my baby die?”
“Why would a good God allow my marriage to fall apart?”

Life falls apart at times. If we know God, we find ourselves crying out to him in the midst of the loss, asking that he'd make himself known. And often he does in very tangible ways. We hear people say in the face of some pretty horrific suffering, "This has been the worst time of my life, but I've never felt closer to God."

Sometimes, though, when we experience great loss, it seems as if we can't find him, that he's not close at all, but distant, and if we believe that to be true, we are going to be tempted to conclude that he just isn't as good and kind and powerful as we had thought. Our faith gets shaken, and we wind up turning away from God, because our own means of comfort and the people who love us seem safer.

Perhaps the most faith-shaking, fear-generating experiences are those in which God provides a blessing and then seems to pull the rug out from under us by taking it away. The single woman who has waited years for a godly husband meets Mr. Right. God has provided at last! She feels God’s smile as she prepares for her wedding and her new life as a married woman. And then two days before the wedding, Mr. Right changes his mind and calls the whole thing off. The grief-stricken bride wonders why God even allowed her to get her hopes up, only to see them dashed to pieces. “Why would a loving God do that?” she asks, and her faith crumbles. God is not who she thought he was.

When we go through that sort of experience, our foundations can be shaken to the core. "I obviously cannot depend on God," we think, however subconsciously, "so somehow I've got to fix everything. And if God could do this to me, what other painful thing might he do?" What we don't see at such times and in the midst of such thoughts is the fact that our view of God has actually been wrong all along. We thought we were relying on God, but the truth is we’d really been relying on our idea of God and on what we were hoping he would do for us to make our lives happier. We are missing the fact that disappointments and other difficulties that threaten our faith are really a blessing in disguise. They are designed by God to draw us closer to him, to enable us to see him as he really is, and to dispel our wrong understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

Those who know God most closely in times of suffering are those who are willing to let go of the god they want and bow to the God who is. May it be true of us!

The Best Kind of Valentine: Is He...Am I?

2010-02-12T15:21:00.004-06:00

My good friend Laura Moore, wife and mother of four daughters, gave a talk last night to group of lovely young college women on the different roles to which men and women are called in marriage. She concluded her talk with a series of questions that we do well to ask ourselves when considering a potential mate.

Concerning that man we like:

1) How good is he at dropping his own agenda to serve others?

2) Does he have a biblical understanding of the value of a woman? What is his understanding of how submission should look in marriage?

3) Does he understand the responsibility of a man to provide for, protect, and oversee the spiritual growth of the family? In other words, can you see this man loving as Christ loved the church?

4) Is he eager to lead? Does he understand servant leadership?

5) Cute as he is, is this a man I can learn from and respect? Do I trust his decisions? Will I be able to submit to him if I marry him?

Concerning ourselves:

1) Am I serving? If not, am I willing to try to find a place of "unrecognized" service in the church? Doing so is good preparation for the future, because marriage and parenting are SERVICE!

2) Where do my ideas about men's and women's roles come from? Are they biblical? If not, am I willing to find godly examples from whom I can learn?

3) How do I talk about the men I know? Am I consistently encouraging and uplifting in my comments or do I tend to be a man basher? (Sowing the seeds of good habits now will carry over in a possible marriage later.)

4) I were to continue on my current trajectory, where will these thoughts lead and where will these pursuits take me?

5) What am I advertising? Do I realize that I will likely get exactly what I am advertising?

Laura threw in a few pointers for our married friends:

1) Don't wait for him to earn your respect. Once you are married it's required of you in scripture! Give it whether he seems to deserve it or not.

2) Do not get frustrated and take the reins of control--especially early in marriage. This can set a pattern of passivity in the husband.

3) Do NOT critique his attempts at leadership. He is learning. Do your best to respond positively to his leading.

Unequal Yoking

2010-02-01T13:46:00.002-06:00

Sam Storms's new devotional on 2 Corinthians, A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ, just came out, and as I was thumbing through it, I came across his very practical application of 2 Cor. 6:14: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Sam writes:

The separation Paul has in mind between Christians and non-Christians is spiritual and moral, not spatial. The principle is this: enter into no relationship or bond or partnership or endeavor that will compromise your Christian integrity or weaken your will for holiness or cast a shadow on your reputation. . . . Some of the questions we must ask ourselves, in the effort to apply this principle, include:

“When I am with these nonbelievers, do I find myself in situations where I am unduly and dangerously exposed to temptation that may get the better of me?”

“When I am with non-Christians, do I find it easier than at other times to compromise on ethical matters? Do I find myself judging as “grey” what I would call “black” if I were with Christians?”

“Does my association with non-Christians tend to make me less vocal about my faith or less visible in my stand for Christ?”

“When I am with non-Christians, does conversation focus primarily on things of the world, or is there also opportunity for discussion of spiritual matters?”

“Does my association with non-Christians serve as an offense to others or a cause of reproach to the gospel?”

Sam Storms, A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ: 100 Daily Meditations on 2 Corinthians (Crossway, 2010), 221.

Quips and Quotes

2010-01-28T13:44:00.003-06:00

On my harddrive is a document titled "Quips and Quotes." It is a collection of random thoughts and comments I come across in the process of editing various books, comments that, for whatever reason, leap off the page at me. Maybe some of these will leap at you as well. Here's a couple from The Glory of God, set for release in June (Crossway).

"Preachers may promise that Jesus will bring health, wealth, and a “good life now” in order to attract crowds, but any who seek him primarily to serve their own interests will not find their soul’s satisfaction. None made in the image of God can find true fulfillment in paths that deny first priority to God’s glory.” --Bryan Chapell

"I believe that if we are God-centered simply because we consciously or unconsciously believe God is man-centered, then our God-centeredness is in reality man-centeredness. Teaching God’s God-centeredness forces the issue of whether we treasure God because of his excellence or mainly because he endorses ours." --John Piper

Self-pity

2010-01-20T09:21:00.004-06:00

I am currently editing Carol Cornish's book The Undistracted Widow. In this book, Carol, a widow herself, is seeking to offer biblical encouragement to other widows dealing with grief over the loss of their husband. The book is scheduled to be released by Crossway later this year, and it's one you'll want to read or recommend. I just came across a quote Carol uses from John Younts on self-pity, and it really struck me:

Anyone who thinks he deserves to have life unfold as he pleases is bound to be frustrated and discontent much of the time. People who don’t get their own way in life begin to feel resentful and sorry for themselves. Self-pity is a powerful, negative attitude that gives rise to many, many excuses for sin. People fall into Satan’s trap of giving themselves “permission” to sin to compensate for the difficulties and trials they’ve had to bear. Self-pity is a direct rejection of God’s control. It is saying, “I don’t like what you’ve done in my life, and I absolutely will not be content. I can’t change it, so I’ll just be angry and miserable."

(John A. Younts, Everyday Talk: Talking Freely and Naturally About God With Your Children [Wapwollopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2004], 140).

Trust

2010-01-06T13:11:00.003-06:00

Trust. It’s absolutely essential for anyone who wants to walk with God. That’s because we won’t walk with God if we don’t trust him.

We need to trust God for today with what’s right in front of us, and we need to trust him for tomorrow, which looms in front of us with a big fat question mark. We need to trust God in order to say no to temptationm and we need to trust him in order to live according to his Word, even when everything around us screams that doing so is crazy. And it is essential that we trust God when things go wrong. Every day we are confronted with the choice to trust or not to trust. And each day we have to decide.

So, do you trust God? Lots of us say we do, but our choices show otherwise. If we say we trust God but persist in a romantic relationship with an unbeliever, we don’t. We may intellectually believe that God is trustworthy, but real trust is revealed in how consistently our actions line up with Scripture. Our actions show what we really believe in our heart. We get off-track when we approach the Christian life as a formula: If we follow God’s ways, we can avoid troubles. Scripture tells us that walking in God’s ways does lead to a more blessed life. But it also says we can expect trouble. It’s all part of it.

So what particular thing are you struggling with as you enter this new year? is there something threatening to drive you into depression? Is there a difficult relationship that God doesn’t seem to be fixing? Are you perplexed about a direction your life seems to have taken? Have you prayed about something for a long time but God seems distant? Whatever your struggle, you can be sure it is something God has brought into your life to bring you closer to him.

Sooner or later, one way or another, there is a good chance that God is going to come and pull the rug out from under our life. He will do it because he loves us, although it may not feel like it at the time. When it happens, we are likely to question everything we have ever understood about God. That’s where the test of faith will happen; it is then that we will know what we really believe. Will we trust God, even if his idea of good is different from ours? If we will, we will learn that although his definition of “good” may be different from ours, it is better.

That bring us back to where we started: we will never trust God if we don’t believe he is good. And we will never see that he is good if we refuse to trust him. Will we risk real trust this year? God’s Word promises that those who do will never be disappointed (Rom 10:11)

Being All You Can Be--for the Glory of God

2009-12-30T15:22:00.005-06:00

Over the past few months I've come across an increasing number of articles and blog posts debating whether single young women should further their education or cultivate a career if they hope to one day be married. I must admit that I'm disturbed by material that patently discourages such pursuits. Is it wise to caution young women against developing and putting to use their God-given skills because using them might hinder their focus on that future family they hope to have? I think not, and here's why.

First, it is folly to put life on hold today because of somethng we hope will happen in the future, something for which we have no guarantee. Surely the choices we make today will impact us tomorrow, but applying such sanctified common sense doesn't mean we are to invest in tomorrow by mortgaging today. If we live like this, could it perhaps be masking some unrealistic wishful thinking or even an attempt, however subconscious, at divine blackmail? Giving up an education or a career does not obligate God to give us a spouse, nor, for that matter, does it necessarily position us to better receive one. A demanding career can and does make a huge impact, sometimes a negative one, after a woman has a family. But, overall, since a single woman does not know what her future holds, she is wise to cultivate the means to support herself.

Second, God, in his creative wisdom, has given everyone particular skills and talents. Doesn't it stand to reason therefore that he is glorified when we find ways to use them within biblical parameters? Not all gifts are good to use at all seasons of life, and surely there are cases in which some of our natural gifts will not be put to use because other biblical priorities ride higher. But identifying what we are good at and seeking to make use of it somehow, someway, is generally God glorifying.

Consider Lydia in the book of Acts. She was a business woman, and Scripture in no way denigrates this fact. We don't see her giving up her dye business after coming to faith. In fact, her business success accrued benefits that blessed the apostles. Consider too the Proverbs 31 woman. She was a wife and mother, yet "she considers a field and buys it." She cultivated and exercised her skills, not at the expense of her family but for their greater good. Maximizing our skills for the glory of God is a far cry from maximizing them for the glory of self, but because feminists promote the latter, evangelicals too often discount the former as far as women are concerned. The Proverbs 31 woman epitomizes the godly use of natural skills.

Some of the godliest women I know have developed their minds with graduate and post-graduate education, and, as a result, they have blessed those around them, brought glory to God, and gained insights for their role as mother later on. If God hasn't brought you a husband and family, what are you doing with your life today? Hopefully, it is more than merely waiting around for something that hasn't yet come--or may never come. There is a world of lost people out there and a church, and both need your gifts, your skills, your mind, your talent.

Quote of the week

2009-12-17T15:40:00.001-06:00

"I believe that if we are God-centered simply because we consciously or unconsciously believe God is man-centered, then our God-centeredness is in reality man-centeredness. Teaching God’s God-centeredness forces the issue of whether we treasure God because of his excellence or mainly because he endorses ours."

--John Piper, “Why God Is Not a Megalomaniac in Demanding to Be Worshipped,” a paper presented to the Evangelical Theological Society National Meeting, Providence, RI, November 20, 2008

Christmas Wonder

2009-12-15T12:07:00.002-06:00

Despite the expense and burdensome coordination that accompanies the Christmas season for so many, it's a favorite time of year. Some never lose that sense of expectation and wonder they knew as children all through the month of December. Others, however, remember the season as anything but wonderful. Those in law enforcement will tell you that reports of domestic violence are greatest during the holidays. But the joy-filled wonder of happy childhood Christmases is available for every one of God's children. That's because, in some ways, it reflects the wonder known by the shepherds and the wisemen who saw the star of Bethlehem--it's a wonder that has to do with the expectation that something long hoped for is near.

If you experienced Christmas wonder when you were a kid, you tasted something of what God wants for us all the time--a life lived in constant expectation of his appearing. Christ will return, and in the meantime, we are to look for our kind heavenly Father in his Word, in his providences in our daily lives, in our sorrows, in our needs, and even in our failures. He comes to us in Christ in all these things.

Are we looking out for him this season in whatever is going on in our lives? Or are we using Christmas festivities as a means of temporary escape? How we answer spells the difference between holiday stress and real Christmas wonder. The promise is that the God of hope will fill us with joy and peace in believing, not in creating a picture-postcard holiday.

Recapturing the memory of childhood Christmas wonder begins, in a sense, by going back there. "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3).

Update

2009-12-15T11:52:00.002-06:00

Christmas greetings, friends. I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted! The last month has been busier than usual, but I plan to post regularly again soon. I hope to close out 2009 and usher in 2010 with all of you.

Discovering God's Will

2009-11-03T15:18:00.004-06:00

We have an endless fascination with books and sermons on how to know God's will for our lives, but what underlies this passionate interest is not so much a desire to please God as it is a desire to please ourselves. We want a blueprint for happiness, and we know God has the power to provide it. But God's primary will for us is not circumstantial happiness, which is why our attempts to harness him for that purpose never quite work. Yet we don't stop trying. Every time we encounter a new book or blog post or sermon about guidance, we latch on, hoping that this one will provide the right formula.

Scripture is our blueprint for guidance, for knowing the will of God, and it gives us all we need to map out our lives. We don't see that, however, because we are looking for steps, not principles. The Bible provides us with guidance principles—what pleases God and what does not, what is wise and what is foolish. It is by following these principles that we live out God's will in our individual lives.

Paul tells us three things that are God's will for each of us: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thess. 5:16–18). We have there joy, gratitude, and constant prayer in every circumstance. They are always linked. Joy springs from gratitude and prayer.

The opposite is also true: pessimism and grumbling are linked to depression. It is perverse, then, that we so often disobey God in our outlook and attitudes. We choose to take a glass-half-empty outlook and complain about our lives, and the price we pay is our joy and peace. It just makes no sense. Rejoicing and giving thanks are how we say, "Not my will, God, but yours be done." Rejoicing and giving thanks is the essence of humility, and it is the way God connects our hearts to his good purposes in all things, big and small. That is God's will, and if we follow it, we will much more easily discern his will for the details of our lives.

What We Value

2009-10-27T13:51:00.003-05:00

The value we place on Christ can be measured by what we are willing to forego or give up in order to safeguard our relationship with him. It can also be measured by how we react when God takes away something we value. Do we get angry with God? Do we get depressed about it? He removes from us only what he knows will impede our spiritual growth. If we fight against his providences, inwardly or outwardly, it is an indicator that Christ is not our all. If it were, we would be eager to hunt down and set aside any interference.

The apostle Paul gave up prestige, power, authority, friends, the comforts of prosperity, and eventually his very own life. Why? He knew that the secret to possessing and enjoying the blessings of earthly life is to hold them loosely. Paul held all his blessings loosely because he had found something that mattered even more--life in Christ, which surpasses the best that this life can offer. That’s why he sought to get rid of anything that would hinder or water down a deeper intimacy with his Lord.

Is there something in our lives that we know is a spiritual hindrance but that we have been unwilling to lose for the sake of knowing Christ better? For some of us, it may be a relationship. For others, it might be a particular calling or a home or an education. For still others, it might be a heart's desire. Whatever might hinder us from a deeper walk, letting go of it is the only safe solution.

Weeknight Supper

2009-10-20T14:04:00.003-05:00

Because I typically grocery shop for one, purchasing a roasted rotisserie chicken breast is a bargain. I get three or four dinners from that $7 purchase. But I am paranoid about keeping chicken in the fridge more than two days, so after that time I strip off the remaining meat and freeze it. As a result, I usually have several single-serving packets of roasted chicken on hand at any one time, and it's so easy to thaw and whip up something for supper when I get home late.

Last night I made chicken corn chowder, an old Cooking Light recipe that I've doctored over the years in various ways to make use of other ingredients I have on hand. It's so simple--nothing daunting after a long day--so, for a change of blog pace, I thought I'd share it. (The pic comes from the original Cooking Light recipe.)

2 TB butter
1/4 c. diced onion
1/4 c. mushrooms (I use shitake), quartered (optional)
1/4 c. any green vegetable, chopped (optional)
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped (optional)
2 TB. flour
3 c. reduced-fat milk
1.5 c. frozen or fresh corn kernels
2 c. cooked chicken
14.75-oz can creamed-style corn
dried thyme to taste (I use four shakes)
ground red pepper (two shakes when using a jalapeno, 6-8 without)
salt to taste

Melt butter in large soup pot. Add onion, mushrooms, green veg, and pepper and saute 4 to 5 minutes or till barely cooked. Add flour and stir, 1 minute. Add milk and stir till flour lumps are gone (about 1 minute). Add remaining ingredients and simmer 10 to 15 minutes. Makes about 4 large bowls.

The Burden of Beauty

2009-10-19T08:22:00.003-05:00

Some years ago a product was advertized by a string of attractive spokeswomen who smiled into the camera and said, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Each was making the point that there was no need to envy her because, if we use the product she was promoting, we too can be beautiful. Why is beauty something that women want—have always wanted? The desire for it is nothing new. Could it be that, at least in part, we want it because with it comes the power to influence? Beauty and influence go hand-in-hand. We find the truth of this in Scripture, and we find in our culture.

But beautiful women do not have happier lives than Plain Janes. In fact, their lives are often much more difficult. “Cry me a river,” you might be thinking. But stop to consider for a moment that a beautiful woman, like a wealthy one, attracts people just because of what she looks like. Is she valued for who she is? She may not really know for sure.

From a biblical perspective, being beautiful is shown often to be more of a trial than a blessing. We see this with Sarah, whose beauty got her into a heap of trouble (Genesis 12); we see it in the story of David and Bathsheba (1 Samuel 11); and we see it in the sad story of Tamar (2 Samuel 13).

Beautiful women are also burdened with the responsibility to use beauty wisely and for the glory of God and to avoid the temptation to use it selfishly. Rachel is a woman who used her beauty to manipulate her husband and to gain advantage over her sister (Genesis 29–30). Delilah used her charms to bring down Samson for financial gain (Judges 16).

But then there was Esther. She used her beauty to influence King Ahasuerus for the good of her people and saved many lives, including her own. However, she risked her life in the process.

Did God make you beautiful? If so, it wasn’t so that you might gratify yourself. He did so to glorify himself and so that you might be an influence for good. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that beauty and influence go hand-in-hand. In fact, it’s wise to recognize the truth of it. It’s what we do with this knowledge that’s key.

Fool Moon Rising

2009-10-14T12:23:00.002-05:00

I'm no expert, but Fool Moon Rising is one of the most winsome children's books I've seen in years. Written and illustrated by a husband and wife team, this is a rhyming tale about the moon stealing the sun’s glory, and it's designed to teach children about the importance of humility and the dangers of pride. Adults are loving it as much as children! The book is available now.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

2009-10-13T08:14:00.002-05:00

"Guaranteed to make you thin in just three weeks!"

"Lifetime warranty on all our merchandise."

"If your pizza isn't there in thirty minutes or less—it's free!"

Providing guarantees is a must for manufacturers today. We are suspicious of any product or service that doesn't come with a warranty. Trust extends no further than the terms of the guarantee. It's the American way.

A woman who desires to emulate the home economics skills of the Proverbs 31 woman does her research: "She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard" (Prov. 31:16). Today's woman reads Consumer Reports magazine and scours the fine print for terms and conditions. It's just good common sense.

The mistake we make is trying to apply the same principles to the Christian life. "I feel called to go to the mission field, but I don't know if that is wise financially," we say, or "Tom has asked me to marry him, and he sure is a godly man. I'm just so afraid of marrying the wrong person."

We don't want to trust God; we want a guarantee that things will work out in our favor, and we hesitate to make a move without one. So we take no risks; we settle for what we know because what we don’t know is just too scary. We accept the trade-off—an underlying dissatisfaction—so we can stay safe. The American way has led to unhappiness in the Christian life for many of us today.

Going to the mission field is financially risky; there are no guarantees of a nice, fat pension at retirement. And when we choose a marriage partner, we are choosing not to have whatever option might come along down the road. Christ offered no guarantees of the sort that make us comfortable.

The prophet Habakkuk was not a give-me-the-guarantee sort of prophet when it came to trusting God. We know that, because he wrote: "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places."

Desiring to know the outcome of our choices is only natural, which is why Peter asked Jesus, "We have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" (Matt. 19:27). Jesus replied that those who leave all to follow him will indeed be blessed for it and will ultimately want for nothing. But we want the details of those blessings in advance; we want guaranteed specifics.

There is only one absolute guarantee for Christians, and it is this: "For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." (Rom. 8:28–29).

That is why we can step out on a risky course, if God calls us to do so. It's why Habakkuk could rejoice with no figs, no fruit, no olives, no flocks, and no herds in the stalls. God was his strength, and he is ours. We may have no guarantees that the things we hope for will come, but God will do for us what he did for Habakkuk—lead us to life in the highest places with him, no matter where it takes us, no matter what we leave behind.

Taking the Edge Off

2009-10-06T11:36:00.000-05:00

How do we find peace at the end of a pressure-filled day? The best thing to do, of course, is to find a quiet place to pray, to lift up our concerns and cast our cares upon God. But often that is not what we do. We seek escape instead. When life is particularly stressful, we find ourselves craving something—anything—that will obliterate our anxiety or at least take the edge off. So we dig into the chocolate or the chips. Or perhaps we get lost in mindless sitcoms. We might crack open a bottle of wine. Maybe we head to the mall or go shopping on-line.

The problem with using life's little pleasures as life's big escapes is that before long, we come to depend on those pleasures. We find ourselves enacting tiny, daily rituals around our pet enjoyments, which only intensify the hold they have on us—a hold we often don't recognize for a long time. A woman who finds stress release in chocolate builds into her routine a three-o'clock run to the candy machine. Over time, she is resentful of any interference that disrupts that mid-afternoon chocolate fix. Another likes to relax with a glass of wine before dinner; she looks forward to it every day. Before long, she stops attending Bible studies or other evening functions that would preclude her evening drink. We become prisoners to the very thing that initially provided our escape.

A three-o'clock chocolate bar doesn't seem like all that big of a deal. Why shouldn’t we enjoy life's little pleasures in the midst of our crazy routines? Aren't such things a gift? Of course they are, but not when we use them to obliterate tension or boredom or depression. When we turn life's little pleasures into remedies for life's troubles, we are setting up idols in our hearts, which actually push God aside. When a woman makes a bag of chips a habitual quick fix, according to God, she "separates herself from me, taking her idols into her heart" (v. 7).

All idols are governed by the law of diminishing returns. The more we seek solace in our escape of choice, the farther from God we take ourselves and the more miserable we get. Eventually one chocolate bar won't be enough; we're going to want that after-dinner candy too. One glass of wine won't take the edge off forever; eventually two will be necessary. So how do we cope with those especially hard places, the situations we find so very difficult to cope with? The way out of the stress, the boredom, the loneliness, the depression, the fear, and the anxiety is found only by going through it. But we don't have to go it alone. Jesus tells us, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:28–29).

Looking Back

2009-10-01T12:26:00.001-05:00

Looking backward—it's something we are all tempted to do from time to time. For some of us, it is the company of worldly people and material pleasures that we miss, especially when living the Christian life costs us things we might enjoy otherwise. But often our backward look isn't so much to worldly gain as it is simply to a time that worked a little better than today. Perhaps now we do not enjoy the same quality of friendships that we knew before, or perhaps the teaching and worship in our new church isn't quite what we'd like. When life is lacking, we are prone to look back, and if our look is a lingering one, we are liable to wind up in trouble.

If we focus overly much on what we had rather than on what we have, we are sowing seeds of discontent, and once discontentment sets in, we may find ourselves pondering, "Maybe I should never have left. Maybe I should go back." We become consumed with regaining a time in our lives that "worked." Sometimes going back is the answer. We cannot discount the possibility that, unlike Lot and his family, it was our leaving that was wrong rather than our staying. But more often than not, this isn't the case. And regardless of why we left, we are where we are today by God's providence. "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps" (Prov. 16:9). Whether our leaving was right or wrong, finding our way back to happiness does not begin with packing our bags.

The changes we make in our lives usually stem from our desires for one or more of the things that we see in front of us—more fulfilling work, a better quality of life, more intimate relationships. When our lives change, some things will be better than what we had before; other aspects of life will not. If we set our minds on acquiring what is still missing, we will get caught up in comparing and contrasting the old and the new, and we will determine that we must keep going until we have it all because, we reason, if we don't have it all, we haven’t yet found where God wants us to be. So we leave one place—a job, a church, or a relationship—for yet another in hope of something better, only to find that we still aren’t satisfied.
Regaining our peace begins with the realization that God does not guide our steps in order to bless our earthly lot. If we are under the illusion that God moved us in order to better our circumstances, we are going to think that somewhere along the way we missed his guidance. But obtaining earthly ease is not primarily why God shifts our lives around. All God does in our lives and everywhere he leads us has one overarching purpose, which is to deepen our relationship with him and to further his glory through us. All other blessings we get in the process are just gravy. Fulfilling work, likeminded friends, and a nice house are simply extras. They are God's blessings, not his purposes, in his leading of our lives.

No matter where we are today and how we got here, we are here because God brought us to this place in our lives so that we might enjoy him more fully and bring glory to Christ. Contentment is to be found right where we are, and will lay hold of it when we thank him for his wise providence in leading us here, even if we cannot see how his primary purpose is playing out just yet. "Thank you, God, that I am in this place, in this job, in this marriage, because for reasons I cannot understand, it is benefiting my relationship with you and pointing me and others toward Christ."

A heartfelt grasp of God's primary purpose will enable us to enjoy his secondary blessings and also to live contentedly with those we lack. Once we grasp it, maybe then we will determine to stay put. Or maybe we will go back. Whatever we chose to do, we will see that happiness doesn't hinge on which way we go.

Being Real

2009-09-30T12:17:00.005-05:00

I may have posted this back when I wrote it (earlier this summer); I don't recall. I came across it this morning and found need to apply it personally, so I thought I'd throw it up here.

Joy is the fruit of love given and received. That’s why, if we try to go it alone, we are likely to wind up joyless. Part of our problem is our desire for autonomy, something we all have to one degree or another.

It may be there in the woman who turns down an invitation to dine with friends because she prefers a different restaurant.

It may be there in the woman who prefers to church hop rather than commit to a particular fellowship.

It may be there in the woman who always listens to others’ troubles but never shares her own.

We call it “independence.” A more apt term is “self-protection.” The Bible calls it selfishness. We cherish our ways, we insist on our rights, and we don’t want to get hurt. Love—real love—is never safe. That’s because the very nature of love exposes us, leaving us vulnerable to betrayal and rejection. Jesus understood this better than anyone. He spent his life on earth offering love—his very self—only to be rejected by the majority. They wanted him for his miracles, not for himself. He was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,” yet he never stopped loving.
God designed us to live alongside one another in love. The Christian family—believers worldwide and in our local fellowship—is God’s provision for our comfort, encouragement, affection, and sympathy. When we take the risk not only to give but also to receive comfort, encouragement, affection, and sympathy, the joy that results, despite the inevitable hurts along the way, exposes how utterly joyless and barren a self-protective existence really is.

We are afraid of what will happen if we reveal ourselves, even to (perhaps most especially to) other believers. If others see our sin, if they see us for who we really are, they won’t want us. They won’t respect us. We all crave love and respect, but living to get them always leads us away from them. If we open up and be real, others will feel free to do so. There is nothing more hollow and Spirit-quenching than a roomful of believers who whitewash their conversation with superficial piety. Paul told the Philippians that unity among them would complete his joy. It will complete ours too.

Trust--in the Right Thing

2009-09-22T14:47:00.003-05:00

Before my little devotional on trust was released by the publisher, one-third of the print run had been preordered. That fact revealed something big: trusting God is a struggle for many of us. But the book sales revealed something else: women who are struggling with trust want to solve their struggle. They want to know how to trust God.

The key to trust is simple—it's not always easy, but it is simple. If we want to become women who trust God, there are three things we must do:

(1) We have to let go of our heart's craving to control our lives and the lives of those we love. But we'll never to give up control unless (2) we believe that God is good. And in order to get the truth of God's goodness established in our minds and hearts, we've got to do the third thing: (3) cast ourselves on Christ—for everything—even for the enabling to trust. That's it, the three keys to trust: give up control, believe that God is good, and rely completely on Christ.

A long time ago I loved someone who became addicted to drugs. I prayed for him and poured my life into helping him. I wanted to fix that situation with all my heart. But nothing worked. And eventually I had to give up. No matter what I did, no matter what I forgave—the stealing, the lying, the excuses—nothing changed. There came a point when the godliest thing I could do was to stop rescuing him. Putting him out of my life was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But I did it.

Immediately after I was heartbroken, and I went through many moment of second-guessing my decision, so I asked a friend to come stay with me for a few days for moral support. I remember talking about it with her that first night, and I said, "I just have to trust that God won't let him end up dead in an alley with a needle in his arm."

I'll never forget her reply, because it got to the heart of the matter: "That's not trust. . . . Real trust is knowing that even if he ends up dead in an alley with a needle in his arm, God was still in control."

She was right. It gets to the heart of our problem, doesn't it? We usually believe God is able to intervene in our difficulty and do something about it. What we don't believe is that he's going to work out our difficulty—whether it's a relationship or a money problem or loneliness or an unmet longing--in a way that we're going to like.

So we try to take control of the situation so that we can manage the outcome.Instead of trusting God, we trust our idea of how things should be. Is it any wonder that we're anxious? When we try to take the place of God in running our lives, anxiety is inevitable, because deep down we know we can't really control anything.

Besides, because God is faithful to us, he won't let our efforts at control go smoothly for very long. Oh, we may feel on top of things for season, but eventually something happens to knock down the illusion.

There's only one path to peace, and that is trust—real trust. Genuine trust isn't wishful thinking, hoping that God will work things out in a particular way. Real trust is placing our problem in his hands and leaving it there, believing that whatever he does is good.

He knows our situation inside and out. He is totally in control of our employment status, our marital status, our finances, our friendships, and our health. And his control is governed by his kindness and love. Since this is the God to whom we belong, we can leave the answer to our problems completely in his hands. He will never arrive too late. What does God want from us more than anything else? He wants our trust in his kindness toward us in Christ.

Surrender Enabled

2009-09-21T11:50:00.002-05:00

Over the past week I've been editing Mark Dever's book What Does God Want of Us Anyway?: A Quick Overview of the Whole Bible. On Friday I posted a quote from this book, which will be available from Crossway in March 2010. I just came across something else that struck me:

Surrendering the things we long for requires a kind of death—the death of a desire. And willfully choosing that death is hard to do. It requires us to believe—really believe!—that what God promises is even better. Can you remember a time in your life when God proved himself faithful to his promise of something better? Do you think he would do otherwise next time?

Perhaps it will strike you, too.

Quote of the Week

2009-09-18T12:19:00.001-05:00

Where is your ultimate prize? You prize something the most. You can figure out what it is by asking what you spend all your physical, financial, social, and mental resources trying to build, protect, or accomplish. What is it? Is your life increasingly lining up with the great promise of the Scriptures—or with something else?

--Mark Dever, The Message of the Old Testament, Crossway, 2006

Green Eyes

2009-09-16T11:50:00.003-05:00

Why are we tempted to be jealous of others? Underneath sinful jealousy there usually lurks a desire that others not have what we ourselves cannot obtain. We are also driven to jealousy by the desire to be recognized and appreciated. Our hearts are a mixed bag of motives. We want to use our spiritual gifts and natural talents and temporal blessings for God’s glory, but we also do not like it if we are not recognized for them or if we cannot get all we want.

Do we struggle with jealousy? If so, could the underlying cause be discontent with the gifts God has given us? Do we wish that we had someone else’s gifts instead? Maybe we are jealous because someone else is getting married or having a baby--and we are not. If so, we do well to ask ourselves whose glory we are really seeking. Is it God’s glory or our own? If God’s glory is our motive, then jealousy is illogical, since God is well able to arrange our lives and blessings in the best way to glorify himself. We can leave the ordering to him. If he has not placed us in a certain position or given us something that he has given to someone else, it's because he has something else in mind better suited for us and more optimum for his glory.

New from Crossway

2009-09-14T14:42:00.002-05:00

Coming September 30, Crossway will issue a new release of John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress. This hardcover book has beautiful artwork, and it would make a terrific gift. Click here for more information.

Gospel Gaps, Part 4: Mysticism

2009-09-10T10:57:00.002-05:00

More from Paul Tripp and Tim Lane on "gospel gaps," ideas we fall into that sabotage the truth of the gospel. Here's what the authors say about the fourth gospel gap, mysticism:

Christine careens from emotional experience to emotional experience. She is constantly hunting for a spiritual high, a dynamic encounter with God. Because of this, she never stays with one church very long. She is more a consumer of experience than a committed member of the body of Christ. Yet in between the dynamic experiences, Christine's faith often falls flat. She struggles with discouragement and often finds herself wondering if she is even a believer. Despite the excitement of powerful moments, Christine isn't growing in faith and character.

Biblical faith is not stoic; true Christianity is dyed with all the colors of human emotion. But you cannot reduce the gospel to dynamic emotional experiences with God. As the Holy Spirit indwells us and the Word of God impacts us, most of the changes in our hearts and lives take place in the little moments of life. The danger of mysticism is that it can become more a pursuit of experience than a pursuit of Christ. It reduces the gospel to dynamic emotional and spiritual experiences.

Tim Lane and Paul Tripp, How People Change (Winston-Salem, NC: Punch Press, 2006), 9.

Gospel Gaps, Part 3: Legalism

2009-09-09T17:36:00.002-05:00

Tim Lane and Paul Tripp in their book In How People Change list several fall-backs, what they call "gospel gaps," we are prone to turn to that effectively push away our reliance on Christ. We started looking at these a couple weeks ago, and then I went on vacation and got out of the groove. Back to it! Here's another, "legalism":

Sally is a walking list of dos and don'ts. She has a set of rules for everything. They are her way of evaluating herself and everyone around her. Her children live under the crushing weight of her legalism. To them, God is a harsh judge who places unreasonable standards on them and then condemns them when they can't keep them. There is no joy in Sally's home because there is no grace to be celebrated. Sally thinks that performing her list gives her standing with God. She has no appreciation for the grace given her in Christ Jesus.

Legalism completely misses the fact that no one can satisfy God's requirements. While Sally rigidly keeps her rules, her pride, impatience, and judgmental spirit go untouched. Legalism ignores the depth of our inability to earn God's favor. It forgets the need for our hearts to be transformed by God's grace. Legalism is not just a reduction of the gospel; it is another gospel altogether (see Galatians) where salvation is earned by keeping the rules we have established.

Tim Lane and Paul Tripp, How People Change (Winston-Salem, NC: Punch Press, 2006), 9.

Gospel Gaps, Part 2: Formalism

2009-08-20T17:18:00.002-05:00

Tim Lane and Paul Tripp in their book In How People Change list several fall-backs, what they call "gospel gaps," we are prone to turn to that effectively push away our reliance on Christ. Yesterday we looked at the gospel gap called "psychology-ism." Here's another, "formalism":

If you want to know the church calendar, just look at Jim's schedule. Whatever the meeting or ministry, Jim is there, Bible in hand. He's done his stint as a Sunday school teacher and regularly volunteers for short-term missions trips. He is faithful in giving and a willing volunteer when work needs to be done around the church. But Jim's world and God's world never meet. All of his church activities have little impact on his heart and how he lives his life.

God railed against the formalism of the Israelites (Isaiah 1), and Christ condemned the formalism of the Pharisees (Matt. 23:23-28). Why? Because formalism allows me to retain control of my life, my time, and my agenda. Formalism is blind to the seriousness of my spiritual condition and my constant need for God's grace to rescue me. Jim sees his church participation simply as one healthy aspect of a good life. he has no noticeable hunger for God's help in any other area. For him, the gospel is reduced to participation in the meetings and ministries of the church.

Lane and Paul Tripp, How People Change (Winston-Salem, NC: Punch Press, 2006), 8.

Gospel Gaps

2009-08-19T17:23:00.002-05:00

Tim Lane and Paul Tripp in their book In How People Change list several fall-backs we turn to that effectively push away our reliance on Christ. Most often, they note, we don't do this consciously, but we all are prone to fall into these "gospel gaps." They include: (1)formalism; (2) legalism; (3) mysticism; (4); activism; (5) psychology-ism; and (6) social-ism. Here's how they describe "psychology-ism:

Jen always has a group of people ministering to her. She talks a lot about how many "hurting" people are in her congregation, and how the church isn't doing enough to help them. An avid reader of Christian self-help books, she is always recommending the latest one to someone. She often says that Christianity is the only place to find real help and healing, yet she doesn't seem to find that healing herself. Jen spends much of her time discouraged and often leaves church meetings in tears.

Jen is right that our deepest needs are met in Christ, but she sees Christ more as a therapist than as a Savior. Jen is convinced that her deepest needs come out of her experience of neglect and rejection, and so she sees herself more in need of healing than redemption. She is blind to how demanding, critical, and self-absorbed she actually is.

Without realizing it, Jen has redefined the problem that the gospel addresses. Rather than seeing our problem as moral and relational--the result of our willingness to worship and serve ourselves and the things of this world instead of worshiping and serving our creator (Romans 1)--she sees our problem as a whole catalog of unmet needs. But whenever you view the sin of another against you as a greater problem than your own sin, you will tend to seek Christ as your therapist more than you seek him as your Savior. Christianity becomees more a pursuit of healing than a pursuit of godliness. The gospel is reduced to the healing of emotional needs.

I'll post a few more over the next few days. We are all likely to find ourselves somewhere on the list! Tim Lane and Paul Tripp, How People Change (Winston-Salem, NC: Punch Press, 2006), 9-12.

Eating, Drinking, and the Link to Joy

2009-08-05T16:43:00.004-05:00

Paul writes in Romans 14:17: "The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Majoring in the minors is what Paul is getting at. He is talking about Christian freedom. Some of us have a clear conscience about things such as drinking alcohol and viewing movies for which the letter rating falls somewhere in the middle of the alphabet. Others do not. Who is right? It doesn’t matter who's right. That is Paul's whole point. What matters is whether everything we do is done for God's glory and for the sake of building up one another in faith. We are not really free to enjoy certain things in the presence of others if doing so discourages their faith, and sometimes the best thing to do is forego the freedom altogether.

The Bible attaches joy to this issue. What begins as a freedom becomes a prison if we insist on our right to have it. Paradoxically, if we give up a certain liberty for the sake of another's faith, we will find even greater freedom and accompanying joy. "Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble," Paul writes (vv. 20–21).

Drinking alcohol is perhaps the arena in which Paul's teaching is applicable to a lot of us. Many I know have wine with dinner, and equally as many do not. Those who do are careful about when and in front of whom they drink it. If our conscience is clear to enjoy that glass of merlot, God takes pleasure in our pleasure, but if we flaunt our enjoyment in the face of someone who believes drinking is wrong, we are going to grieve God. Freedom and joy will go out the window. Conversely, if we believe drinking any alcohol is wrong, we are not free to condemn others if they believe differently. God is equally grieved when we attempt to forbid something he hasn't expressly forbidden.

From an individual standpoint, freedom and joy will accompany what we eat or drink only when our conscience is clear about it. We do well to suspect ourselves anytime we find the need to tell others (and ourselves) about how very free we are to eat or drink a certain something. The old adage about protesting too much contains a lot of truth. True freedom in matters of eating and drinking will always be accompanied by indifference. Can you take or leave that glass of wine? If so, it is likely you are free to enjoy it. We can so easily kid ourselves here. Joyful women are those who recognize the link Scripture makes between eating and drinking—or not—and live accordingly.

Risk in Love

2009-07-13T16:44:00.004-05:00

A solitary life--we just weren't designed for it. But we all seek it, to some extent, married or single. The desire for autonomy lurks in all of our hearts.

It may be there in the woman who turns down an invitation to dine with friends because she prefers a different restaurant.

It may be there in the woman who prefers to church hop rather than commit to a particular fellowship.

It may be there in the woman who always listens to others’ troubles but never shares her own.

We call it “independence.” A more apt term is “self-protection.” The Bible calls it "selfishness." We cherish our ways, we insist on our rights, and we don’t want to get hurt. Love—real love—is never safe. That’s because the very nature of love exposes us, leaving us vulnerable to betrayal and rejection. Jesus understood this better than anyone. He spent his life on earth offering love—his very self—only to be rejected by the majority. They wanted him for his miracles, not for himself. He was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,” yet he never stopped loving.

We are afraid of what will happen if we reveal ourselves, even to (perhaps most especially to) other Christians. If others see our sin, if they see us for who we really are, they won’t want us. They won’t respect us. We all crave love and respect, but living to get them always leads us away from them. If we open up and be real, others will feel free to do so. There is nothing more hollow and Spirit-quenching than a roomful of believers who whitewash their conversation with superficial piety.

Taking the risk not only to give but also to receive comfort, encouragement, affection, sympathy, and love as God intended abolishes a joyless and barren self-protective existence, despite the inevitable hurts along the way. Real love risks.

Elisabeth Elliot on Feelings

2009-06-28T16:39:00.002-05:00

I was reading through some old books this weekend and found Elisabeth Elliot's sound insights on handling our emotions. Here are some excerpts:

"No one whose first concern is feeling good can be a disciple."

"If I insist on molding my life according to my own desire, so that I can always feel comfortable, I am by that insistence denying the Lord."

"The world says, 'Go with your feelings and be honest.' The Bible says, 'Go with your feelings and die.' The world says, 'Deny your feelings and you're dead.' The Bible says, 'If you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit, you are on the way to real living.'"

"It is the will that must deal with the feelings. The will must triumph over them, but only the will that is surrendered to Christ can do this."

"Choices will continually be necessary and--let us not forget--possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them."

"Do not debunk feelings as such. Remember they are given to us as part of our humanity. Do not try to fortify yourself against emotions. Recognize them; name them, if that helps; and then lay them open before the Lord for his training of your responses. The discipline of emotions is the training of responses."

Discipline: The Glad Surrender (Revell, 1982), 138-51.

Tip-offs to Idolatry

2009-06-24T09:20:00.002-05:00

John Piper asks, "What makes an enjoyment idolatrous?" He gives 12 tips for discerning idolatry in desire:

1) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is forbidden by God.
2) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is disproportionate to the worth of what is desired.
3) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not permeated with gratitude.
4) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not see in God’s gift that God himself is more to be desired than the gift.
5) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand.
6) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it draws us away from our duties.
7) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it awakens a sense of pride that we can experience this delight while others can’t.
8) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is oblivious or callous to the needs and desires of others.
9) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not desire that Christ be magnified as supremely desirable through the enjoyment.
10) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not working a deeper capacity for holy delight.
11) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss ruins our trust in the goodness of God.
12) Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss paralyzes us emotionally so that we can’t relate lovingly to other people.

You can read more about each of the 12 at the Desiring God blog.

New from Crossway

2009-06-09T13:14:00.003-05:00

Hot off the press: Martyn Lloyd-Jones's Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled. This paperback contains eight of MLJ's sermons from John 14:1-12. Here's an excerpt:

Half our troubles . . . lie in the fact that the world is too much with us; we are in the midst of it, we are immersed by it all and we are lost in the details. So what the Bible really does with us, in the first instance, is just to take hold of us and drag our attention away from the immediate scene to God. This is not escapism, because having got us to confront God and His Son, it brings us back to the problem and then it enables us to overcome it. And that is why the biblical method is such a healthy one. How different it is from many of the psychotherapeutic methods which, sometimes for years, delve into you and your experience, and make you talk about yourself and bring up your past and so on. The Bible does not need to know all the details of our past life; it knows already that our fundamental need is God, so it begins to talk about Him. That is where we must start.

Blog Update

2009-06-09T13:05:00.002-05:00

Many questions have been posed in the comments section, and I plan on answering all of them during the next few weeks. The questions reflect how many of us struggle and think, and it will be good to consider all this together, in regular posts, not just in the comments section.

Posting has been sparce lately. I am finishing up a book, and my Internet access at home has been nil, so I have to squeeze in on-line time wherever I can grab it.

Out and About

2009-06-01T08:08:00.001-05:00

I'll be out of the cellar until June 8. I hope to see you then!

The Way Out of Stuck

2009-05-29T16:02:00.003-05:00

“Why did I do that—again?” I overheard that groan from someone (I'll call her Alena) who struggles constantly with her weight. She had just eaten a brownie one too many.

Giving in to temptation provides fleeting pleasure, but frustration is sure to follow. If we give in repeatedly, our frustration grows into self-disgust and anger and eventually into discouragement. The negative feelings that follow a binge of whatever sort last a lot longer than the pleasure we enjoyed while binging. Knowing this, as we all do, why oh why do we repeat the pattern again and again? We do it because we have competing desires. The reason we struggle is that our desire to say no to one thing is constantly at war with our desire to say yes to something else.

Alena loses 15 pounds and gains them back—over and over again. Why can’t she keep the weight off? She wants to, certainly, and the fact that she has lost weight—repeatedly—proves that she can. She is caught between two desires, both of which offer tremendous appeal, and because both desires compete for her affection, she never makes lasting progress. Alena's real problem is a heart issue; it’s not as simple as a lack of will power. She may want to fit into a size 6 but she also craves the comfort she finds in eating.

Some scribes once accused Jesus of casting out demons by means of the prince of demons, but Jesus pointed out that doing so is impossible: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” (Mark 3:23–25). Jesus’ parable pinpoints Alena's problem. She can’t lose weight because she is a house divided. She is torn between two desires, which is why the scale never stays where she wants it to stay.

Alena will not solve her self-control problem by strengthening her desire for the size-6 clothes. The only way out of stuck is by discovering what the Puritan Stephen Charnock called “the expulsive power of a new affection,” specifically an all-consuming passion for Christ. Once she finds it, she will discover that she no longer needs food for comfort. The desire to wear a smaller size isn’t of much help because it is weak and hollow. Wearing a size-6 doesn’t bring lasting gratification any more than eating does. Alena's competing desires are both weak. Her way out—and ours—is to seek a better desire, which is fullness of life in Christ. If we seek and pursue that, we will find it, because God is on our side to give it to us.

Jayne Clark on Loneliness

2009-05-26T08:11:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend I came across an article on loneliness written quite some time ago by Jayne Clark, counselor and faculty member at CCEF. Here is an excerpt:

Some have implied, if not stated outright, that marriage is the solution to loneliness. But where does that leave a child who won't have that option for years? Or a prisoner with no hope of parole? Or an elderly widow? Maybe you're thinking they should be content with God alone, but Adam had God alone--without any sin whatsoever--and God said no, this is not good. And besides, aren't all of us--married or single--meant to find our contentment in Him? The notion that marriage is the solution to loneliness suggests that one category of people is potentially exempt from this experience, and the rest of us are just stuck with it. But that's not true. As a matter of fact, it was a married couple who first experienced loneliness. The real solution lies not in marriage, but in our union with Christ, which leads to our union with one another. When God created Eve, he created marriage, but more than that, he created community. . . . In our society today, we're big on family, but we tend to think of family in narrow terms--as in our own personal, nuclear families. But when someone told Jesus that his mother and brothers wanted to speak to him, he asked, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt. 12:48-50). Jesus redefined and enlarged the meaning of family. If marriage were God's answer to loneliness, why isn't there any giving or taking in marriage in heaven? That's a trick question because, actually, there is. But it's not individuals who are married in heaven; it is God's people corporately--the church, the bride of Christ--who will finally meet our bridegroom face to face.

"Loneliness: God's Remedy," JBC (Fall 2005): 8-9.

Repost: Life Lessons from a Toothbrush

2009-05-21T14:37:00.004-05:00

Someone I know has just been advised by her dentist to get a sonic toothbrush, and when she shared that with me, it reminded me of a post I wrote when I purchased my own almost two years ago.

My dentist convinced me—an electric toothbrush is an important part of practicing good dental stewardship. So I bought the model he sells at a discount from his office. This isn't just your average plug-in-and-brush model; this is a sonic toothbrush, a superior product for the dentally responsible. I opened the packaging when I got home and was surprised to find a four-page manual inside the box. Sonic magic and all, what could possibly be so complex about operating a toothbrush, I began to wonder nervously. Bracing myself for a complicated lesson in oral technology, I sat down to read. Instructions for operating the brush took up a few sentences, of course: Set it up on the sink. Plug it in. Turn it on. Turn it off. The remaining three pages were taken up with what the manufacturer calls "the brushing experience." Were they kidding me with this? Alas, they were very serious. Apparently it is of crucial importance that each quadrant of your mouth (did you know your mouth has four quadrants?) receives precisely 30 seconds of brushing. And not only that, once the initial two-minute cycle has been completed, you must start all over and brush the "chewing surfaces" in order to complete the brushing experience.

The biggest lesson I learned from that manual is this—we in America need to get a life. We have become the world's leading experts at turning the mundane into the major. We trivialize our lives and we trivialize society. We do it when we allow an iota of brain space to be taken up with whether Angelina or Jennifer will wind up with Brad. We do it when we give an ordinary case of post-holiday, mid-winter doldrums a name like Seasonal Affective Disorder. When we allow ourselves to classify our daily oral hygiene as "an experience," we are adding to the insanity.

A popular women's magazine just published an article on how to pick out a new hairstyle. The article advises us to invest time searching for the right stylist and asking everyone we know for good tips. Then we are advised to gather photos of cuts we like, and to browse the Internet for even more possibilities. The hours are adding up here. Then comes the all-important self-assessment during which we are advised to sit down and really ponder the "emotional factors" in changing our hair. Once we have worked through these complexities, we are advised to schedule a preliminary appointment with a stylist for a mere consultation so that "they agree to your limitations before a single strand is sheared." Then and only then is it wise to make the actual styling appointment.

Is it any wonder we are worried, hassled, harried, and anxious women? If we must "experience" our mouths and perform self-psychotherapy before getting a haircut, how can we possible handle real problems? We can't; today we escape them. And making much of the mundane is a primary escape route. But we are defeating ourselves, and when Christians fall into the void, they squander opportunity to speak and demonstrate some meaning into this mundane mess.

Just today I came home and found an article waiting in my mailbox. It's about a college student named Ariel who lives in the Dominican Republic, and in the article Ariel's daily routine is recounted: Each morning Ariel's mother leads the family in praise and devotions (6:30am). Ariel brushes his teeth in the back yard (6:50am). Just guessing here, but I think it's unlikely that Ariel is using a sonic toothbrush. Ariel eats breakfast—bread with mayonnaise (7:00am). Ariel then goes to school all day. In the evenings, Ariel returns home from school and then walks 20 minutes along the highway to church, a dangerous practice because robberies and accidents are common (7:00pm). Working by kerosene lamp (Dominicans receive only 12 hours of electrical power a day), he studies (10:00pm). And finally, Ariel thanks God for his mercies before going to bed (11:00pm).

I think we could all profit from a few bread and mayonnaise mornings.

Going Forward

2009-05-20T13:53:00.001-05:00

What can we make of this event in Paul's life?

A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. —Acts 16:9–12

If we read the rest of Acts 16, we see a series of events that led the apostles to understand that the Lord was directing their course to Macedonia.

Their story teaches us a good bit about how God guides our lives. God’s will about many matters is spelled out clearly in Scripture, but there are also many things for which the Bible gives us no black-and-white answers. Paul and his followers faced this very sort of situation as they attempted to go forward in their ministry. The Bible does not spell out for us where to work, to carry the gospel, or to settle down. Scripture provides us with all the criteria for making wise decisions, but the actual choosing is left to us.

Such decision making is scary. How can we know that today’s choice will turn out well tomorrow? We can’t, which is why we are fearful of having to choose, and the anxiety about it all can steal our joy. We have nothing to fear, however. Although God calls us to make choices and often puts us into situations that require us to do so, he never leaves us to ourselves. Like any good Father, he oversees our steps, and he is doing so even when—-perhaps especially when—-the way before us is unclear. God did exactly that for Paul. The apostle and his coworkers wanted to go to Bithynia, but God intervened in their plans: “They attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (v. 7).

Discerning God’s will in one of these gray areas requires us to think. Paul and the others weighed a number of factors. They took into account the work of the Holy Spirit in forbidding them to preach in Asia and enter into Bithynia. Then alongside their understanding of the Spirit’s leading, they set Paul’s vision about the need in Macedonia. By evaluating all these factors together, the apostles determined what God wanted them to do.

Guidance in the Christian life is always a matter of wisdom more than feeling, of Scripture above open and shut doors. Therefore, when we believe the Holy Spirit is leading us to follow a particular course, we are wise to check our understanding against the Bible and the counsel of other trustworthy believers. The Bible is clear that God has promised to guide us. He is a guiding God. For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me” (Ps. 31:3).

Joy

2009-05-17T12:14:00.003-05:00

Joy. It’s what makes Christians stand out from the world. Along with the gift of Christ himself comes everything we will ever really need. Our security is guaranteed. Our provision is sure. Our path is guided. Undoubtedly we pass through seasons of difficulty and sorrow and uncertainty, but real joy isn’t conditioned upon our circumstances. So why are we gloomy much of the time? We don’t have to be gloomy. We should most certainly not be gloomy! But all too often our thoughts and words are punctuated by grumblings and bad moods. We look at what we lack rather than all we have.

We are privileged women, not only spiritually but temporally. That is part of our problem. We are over-privileged. Available to us is a pill for every ailment, government aid for financial difficulty, and thirty choices of breakfast cereal in the grocery aisle. On top of that we have free access to the Word and the people of God. Because those things are so easily had, we have come to see our privileges as rights, and such an outlook is a joy crusher. Everything we have—health, freedom, friendship, family, job, government protection—is a gift, not a right. Remembering that truth when things go wrong keeps joy alive. Joy is always available to those indwelt by the Holy Spirit, which is why gloominess is a copout.

The apostle Paul was probably the most joyful man who ever lived, yet he had few privileges. Here is how Paul described his life:

Far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches (2 cor 11:23–28).

The man who lived those things also wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil 4:4). Despite all he went through on a regular basis, he could rejoice because “the Lord is at hand” (v. 5) He never lost sight of who controlled his life, and he lived for his Lord: “for to me to live is Christ” (1:21). Joy and Christ-centeredness go hand-in-hand, so if we lack more joy more often than we have it, we aren’t Christ-centered. It’s that simple. The trick is how to change our self-oriented, worldly focus to Paul’s focus.

First and foremost, we have to want to. Some of us find a perverse satisfaction in our gloom, much like a baby pitching a tantrum to get what she wants. But God doesn’t respond to tantrums. Our moodiness dishonors God and robs us of the joy that lies right at our fingertips.

NLD on Carrie Prejean

2009-05-16T10:02:00.002-05:00

Concerning the Carrie Prejean story, I think Nancy Leigh DeMoss has it right:

Carrie has made a strong public profession of her faith in Christ. As Christians, we are called to live as redeemed men and women and to reflect to the world the beauty and holiness of God. I’m not in a position to judge Carrie’s motives or her heart. But while I applaud her courage, I also believe some of her choices and public actions, past and present, are representative of many women who consider themselves Christians, but who lack clear biblical thinking and conviction on such matters as virtue, womanhood, beauty, modesty, and discretion.

You can read all of Nancy's article by clicking here.

Cable News

2009-05-14T10:35:00.004-05:00

I came across an article at the Christ and Pop Culture blog that gives four reasons why 24-hour news networks aren't good for us.

1) It diminished our hope. You are no doubt familiar with the old adage about the news, “if it bleeds it leads.”News can’t help but crave conflict and the controversial. It’s the stuff that makes headlines. But when the news is a constant barrage of despair, violence and chaos, it can cause us to become cynical and fearful. We can risk losing any sense of hope.

2) It elevates the trivial. Certainly the news covers important and life altering events. But because there is so much air time to fill, most times the cable news channels find themselves covering the inane, superficial and trivial issues of the day. For instance, was it news when Eliot Spitzer resigned as Governor of New York because of a prostitution scandal? Certainly. But was it equally newsworthy to know every gritty detail of the prostitute that he was with? I don’t think so.

3) It discourages a Sabbath rest. There is an expression in the newspaper business (though I’m not sure if they use it anymore) of putting the “paper to bed”. In the past there was a sense of closure and completeness with the news for the day. There was a point in the day when it was done and finished. With cable news, that is no longer the case. It never stops. It never rests. It never takes a vacation. That fact alone makes cable 24/7 news a potentially unhealthy addition to the rhythm of our life.

4) It cultivates a sense of entitlement. I get news when I want it. There is no delayed gratification. It is there at my fingertips. It creates in us a sense of presumptuousness.

Worth thinking about. You can read the article, "Retropost: Has Bill O'Reilly Overstayed His Welcome?" by clicking here.

Quote of the Week

2009-05-13T10:10:00.001-05:00

"Satan does not mind family values--as long as what you ultimately value is the family." --Russell Moore

HT: Justin Taylor

Mothering Outside the Box

2009-05-11T16:59:00.005-05:00

How was your Mother's Day? The answer likely depends on whether you are a mother. The holiday (is it really a holiday?) is often dreaded by those whose desire for children remains unfulfilled, but it doesn't have to be that way.

If God hasn't provided us with biological children, there are many other avenues to motherhood. "Blah, blah, blah," you might be thinking. "I'm weary of hearing about the spiritual alternative." But God's "alternative" is no mere consolation. It's a privilege, and living it is also a mark of godly character since God's Word steers us to to it. If we are willing to be mothers outside the box, we will find that God provides ways for us to fulfill our maternal yearning.

Spiritual mothering is, indeed, all it's cracked up to be. We miss out on the joy, however, if we refuse to value it. Sometimes motherless women are turned off by the concept of spiritual mothering because they believe they have to fit others' ideas of what it should look like. Personally, I'm just not interested in working in the church nursery. I just can't get onboard with the idea of changing ten diapers in the course of an hour. And I refuse to feel guilty about that. I do, however, seek to embrace God's call to spiritual motherhood, and I have found ways of doing so that fit my life and all that God has called me to do. I love to mother the high school girls and young college women in my church, and I lavish all the love I can on my four nephews.

Speaking of aunt-hood, my friend Carolyn McCully has written a great article on spiritual mothering, and she has some good biblical backing for the importance of aunts:

If the role of aunt seems unimportant to you, then please read 2 Kings 11:1-3. When the Baal-worshiping, power-hungry, vengeful Queen Athaliah decides to destroy the entire royal family in Judah, she comes within one baby of wiping out King David’s royal line. But Jehosheba, sister of the deceased King Ahaziah, “took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons which were slain,” hiding the one-year-old boy and his nurse at the temple of the Lord for six years while the ambitious Queen Athaliah ruled.

Joash’s mother was Zibiah of Beersheeba (2 Kings 12:1), and Jehosheba was his aunt. Who knows whether you have been put into the lives of your nieces or nephews for such heroism as this, or more simply to follow the command in Psalm 145:4 to be part of one generation that praises God’s works to another? Either way, you are investing in the eternal.

You can read the rest of her article by clicking here. Perhaps you will not become a biological mother this year, but if you will embrace spiritual mothering while you are waiting, come next year you just might look forward to Mother's Day.

A Beautiful Headdress

2009-05-04T09:32:00.001-05:00

When Kathy was a child, she was sexually abused by a pastor. The abuse went on for years. Did her parents suspect what was going on? That question remains unanswered to this day. But the abusive pastor held a powerful and charismatic influence over everyone in his congregation. Needless to say, the scars of the abuse are visible still today, not only in Kathy’s life but in her relationships with her parents and her husband. The pastor was eventually found out and is serving time in prison, but that doesn’t undo the damage, and Kathy can’t seem to get past it. Her life is characterized by anger and a deep mistrust of God. Hopefully that will change one day.

If Kathy knew the character of God, she would know that he didn’t sweep aside the damage done to her just because the pastor was found guilty in court. Man’s court isn’t God’s. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19). Therefore, the wrath of God concerning that sin either fell on Christ or it is yet to fall on the abuser.

If Kathy knew the character of God, she would know that God grieves deeply over what happened to her all those years ago by one who claimed to come in his name. If Kathy would turn to God, she would find the healing she so desperately needs and which God holds out to her in Christ. She would find the reality of Isaiah’s prophecy:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. (Isa. 61:1–3)

Kathy doesn’t realize that the pastor isn’t really the one who stole her purity. She has rejected it herself in her refusal to forgive and let go of the past. She can’t be pure while harboring bitterness. She has allowed what happened all those years ago to define her identity. Sexual abuse is a terrible thing, but although it can take away bodily purity, it can’t touch the heart. Our body is really no more than temporary housing for our soul, anyway. Jesus came to give Kathy and all women like her a beautiful headdress to cover the ashes of abuse. The question isn’t whether it’s available to them; it’s whether they are willing to let go of the past and to embrace the renewal of purity that Christ offers them.

Harmful Grief

2009-04-29T08:35:00.006-05:00

Night was falling so it was hard to tell, but the man on the sidewalk looked like Michael. And walked like him and dressed like him. But it couldn’t be him, I knew, as I drove on past. His life is lived, I assume, far away someplace else. I hadn’t thought much about him for a long time, although he is always somewhere in back of my mind. But since that evening last week, he’s been before me almost constantly, and it’s been painful. Why, I’ve wondered, am I mourning afresh a loss from long ago? I haven’t seen him for the better part of two decades.

We all face relational loss, but relationships rooted in Christ don’t ever really get lost. They are eternal. No matter where we go, no matter how far apart life takes us from those relationships, there is always continuity, whether physical or spiritual, and therefore no permanent loss. The converse is also true. Relationships forged apart from Christ will inevitably end, either in this life or the next.

The relationship I’ve grieved this past week is one of those. This was a love that I wasn’t entitled to; the relationship wasn’t forged on biblical grounds. In trying to push past it this week, I’ve been encouraged by the divine instruction the Old Testament prophet Samuel received. God had rejected Saul from being king over Israel, and Samuel was sad: “Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul" (1 Sam. 15:35). God’s response to Samuel’s grief may seem callous: “The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go.’” (16:1). But God is never callous. Rather, he is zealous for the holiness of his people, and while sorrow is natural and acceptable, it’s dishonoring to the Lord to harbor grief over the loss of anything or anyone opposed to God and his ways. Grief—what we grieve and how we handle it—can serve as a huge tip-off about the state of our heart for the Lord.

How do we get out of the muck of harmful grief? How can we cope with such losses biblically? We recognize that God has graciously delivered us from a destructive situation and set us on a good course. We remember that “no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Ps. 84:11). And we accept the loss—not a grudging, sighing acceptance, but one that peacefully trusts that God’s ways are good, acceptable, and perfect (Rom. 12:2). Finally, we seek after and pray for a heart like Paul had:

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:8–14)

Honey Speech

2009-04-28T08:17:00.002-05:00

"The lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil," proverbs 5:3 tells us. There is a strong link between talk and moral purity, but we can easily overlook the link unless the words we are hearing—or saying—are blatantly sexual. Proverbs warns us here about "honey speech," but words that drip honey aren’t necessarily pornographic; in fact, seductive speech usually comes in disguise. Some of the most potent honey is flattery. Proverbs also refers to "the seductress who flatters with her words" (2:16). We tend to think of flattering words as fawning compliments and buttering up someone, but if that were all, it would have very little power. It's just too obvious.
We must keep our tongues from flattering, certainly, but we must also guard ourselves from the flattery of others. Flattering words are often a hint to immoral intentions, as Proverbs 5:3 makes clear. The sort of flattery that leads to immorality is dangerous and subtle, and it's something that hooks us when and where we are weak. Dangerous flattery isn't just words; it includes tone of voice, look, and intent.
How can we tell the difference between seemingly harmless compliments and those that mask an agenda? It takes wisdom—the sort that comes from basking in Scripture. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word” writes the psalmist (Ps. 119:9). A well-meaning compliment that comes our way might actually be an invitation, and if it comes to us while we are craving something we aren't getting in a legitimate way, our radar is going to tune in to the signal. That’s why the danger doesn't necessarily lie with the flatterer. Just as often it's found in the heart of the "flatteree." A middle-aged man feeling a loss of youthful vigor might be tempted to sin when he's admired by the twenty-something receptionist who takes his messages. The woman whose husband is bored by marital familiarity might find herself drawn to one of her male dinner guests as he praises her delicious meal with a warm gaze and brief touch on her shoulder. Flattery—whether given or received—is an entry point for trouble. If we find ourselves exhilarated by or dwelling on a seemingly innocent exchange of pleasantries, we'd best beware.
How do we know if we are susceptible? We are at risk anytime we are living with unresolved anger, frustration, or discontentment. We are more easily tempted when we desperately want something that God hasn't given us. If we find ourselves thinking a lot about someone who has noticed us in one way or another, we do well to consider why. What are we getting from it? Why does it make us feel good?
We don’t think of flattery as much of a problem, but just consider where the connection between flattery and immoral behavior is made—God's Word. Let's beware of verbal honey—ours or that of another.

Lost in the Middle

2009-04-24T08:17:00.004-05:00

Many of the publishers attending The Gospel Coalition this week offered give-aways. Among them was Shepherd's Press, which was giving away Paul Tripp's book Lost in the Middle. It's basically about dealing with midlife from the foundation of faith. The middle years, which can seem like the end of many things, can actually welcome us to a brand-new way of living. Midlife pain can, in God's economy, be midlife grace, and the way to find is by facing up to what underlies our regrets. Paul gives four reasons why midlife hits us so hard.

1) We have tended to be our own personal con man. We have shifted blame for our sin onto others. When we play the con man and offer ourselves false atonement, we take ourselves off the moral hook. In doing so we not only get in the way of God's sanctifying mercies, but we also set ourselves up for moments of shock and dismay when it becomes quite clear that we were not, in fact, as rightesous as we thought.

2) We have signed a premature armistice agreement with our sin nature. Because God has brought us to himself and delivered us from many sins, we begin to live with a peacetime mentality. The problem is that we tend to think that the enemy has been conquered long before that is actually true. We live as if there were peace when there is no peace. And because we think we are at peace, we turn our attention to other things, becoming even blinder to the war for our hearts. The Christian life is one of serving in an armored division in the middle of an ongoing war. When we forget this, we declare victory and peace too soon and set ourselves up for the rude awakening of regret in midlife.

3. We have fed the beast while being surprised that we have been bitten. We are too naive when it comes to the presence, power, attractiveness, and danger of sin. All of us, in our individual ways, feed the beast every day through moments of bitterness, anger, or lust. If the devil is a roaring lion on the prowl for food (and he is), then we should do everything we can in our daily living to stay at a safe distance.

4. We have bandaged our wounds without healing the diease. Only when the heart changes will lasting change take place in our behavior.

The Modesty of Personal Restraint

2009-04-22T10:06:00.007-05:00

I am caught up in the whirl of the wonderful Gospel Coalition, which is taking place this week in Chicago. The teaching is amazing, and for those who cannot attend, you can stream the messages live or download them by clicking here. There are over 3000 in attendance, and it is encouraging to see so many--especially the sheer number of young men--who are passionate for the gospel. It's been a blessing to catch up with friends and colleagues that I see so rarely.

In light of the event, I have little time to blog this week, so it's more cut-and-paste from previous writings. Here's a recent article that I was privileged to contribute to the Next webzine.

As the spring season blooms, talk about modesty heats up in Christian conversation as fast as the weather. Bloggers, radio hosts, and the rest of us lament the shorter hemlines and deeper necklines. But immodesty deals with a lot more than revealing too much skin. We are just as prone—if not more so—to overexpose what’s under our skin. Revealing too much about ourselves is immodest too. When Peter painted his picture of godly womanhood, it included outward modesty—how we handle “the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing”—but it also included the modesty of personal restraint—“a gentle and quiet spirit,” which, he said, is very precious in God’s sight (1 Pet. 3:4).

I wish Carrie had known the wisdom of Peter’s words. Fresh out of college and starting her first “real” job, she came to work each day eager to be part of the team. But after just two months of work, Carrie experienced a personal crisis, and it began to affect her performance. Carrie was never at her desk. Instead, she spent the better part of the workday pouring out her struggles to her colleagues behind closed office doors. Finally, a female colleague was asked to talk to Carrie and to put a stop to it. But Carrie didn’t understand. What was wrong with being open and honest? Were office friendships forbidden? “It’s not appropriate, especially with the men,” she was told. “After all, how would their wives feel if they knew you were pouring your heart out to their husbands?” Carrie had no boundaries because she lacked a “gentle and quiet spirit,” the modesty of personal restraint that Peter taught. Happily, Carrie learned through the experience and went on to cultivate a godly self-restraint.

There is a time and place to open up and share our sin struggles and personal concerns, and if we are careful to apply Peter’s words about the modesty of personal restraint, we will be wise not only about the time and the place, but also about the people we choose to share our hearts with. The book of Proverbs warns us, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (4:23). Along with this is the general biblical call on all of us to love one another, which means that we are called to guard the hearts of others, too. We might be tempted to think that this verse is guiding us toward self-protection, but it is not. What we are called to guard is our heart—our passion—for God, and we do this primarily by holding at bay anything that would compete with that passion in ourselves or in those around us.

Sharing confidences and personal experiences with someone forms a bond. There is always an element of vulnerability when we choose to trust another with our confidences and with not rejecting us when our weaknesses are exposed. If we share a little bit with someone and all goes well, it seems safe to share more, and before we know it, a bond has formed. This can be a great blessing, but when we allow it to happen in the wrong context, it is unwise, and great hurt can result.

Single women are free to enjoy the company of single men, but there is a way to go about it that reflects Peter’s idea of modesty and keeps hearts guarded. Time spent in groups is always wise because group conversations tend to be less personal. The group dynamic provides a safety net for the heart. On the other hand, private conversations and e-mail chats lead naturally to bond-forming, and if you overexpose your soul in a relationship where there has been no stated commitment, you are risking the hearts of both involved.

Single women are not free to enjoy the company of married men—other women’s husbands. This includes pastors. Pastors are our God-given shepherds, certainly, but many if not most are also husbands. We are free to take our concerns to them, but there is a way to open up without foregoing a modesty of our person. It's one thing to seek our pastor's counsel, perhaps repeatedly. But there is a difference between a genuine need for his wisdom and our desire for his attention and involvement in our lives. Countless phone calls and endless e-mails are probably going too far. This is the point at which most pastors will wisely redirect us elsewhere.

Inward and outward modesty is also a must in the workplace, as we saw with Carrie. Many women today are likely to spend some portion of their lives out in the job market. This means that men in the workforce spend more waking hours with their business colleagues—a significant number of which are women—than with their wives. Those of us in the workplace ought to consider that one of the primary motivations for modesty is safeguarding the marriages of our colleagues. A low-cut blouse isn't necessarily going to lead to an extra-marital affair; however, when we recall Jesus' words about what constitutes adultery—"everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:28)—we see the need to be extra careful about what we wear in the office.

Modesty of speech is also crucial in the workplace. Office banter can be a slippery slope. Working together is also a bonding experience, and, naturally, friendships arise. But because this is so, it is all the more reason to restrain what we share about ourselves with our coworkers. "Wait a minute," we say, like Carrie did. "We're just friends! There's nothing wrong with that." Oh, but there is. Sharing verbal intimacies with a man is the exclusive right of his wife. It takes something away from her when we focus her husband's attention onto ourselves, however harmless our intent. The best of marriages takes work, and because of that there are certainly seasons in which a man can be especially tempted by an illicit attraction. The new and different is exciting to almost everyone, so even the most innocuous revelations about ourselves can prove distracting.

Of course, there exists the very real possibility that friendship with a man—a single guy or another woman's husband—however innocent at first, will morph into something more. But if there is no commitment to accompany the attachment, or if it violates a commitment made to someone else, heart destruction is sure to follow. Believing that this can't happen makes the possibility of it happening even greater. "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall," Paul warns (1 Cor. 10:12). We're not above it. None of us is. No one intentionally seeks out a destructive relationship, but they happen all the time. And they typically develop one conversation, one shared laugh, one lunch meeting at a time.

Are you as modest with your heart as you are with your clothing? It is a great way to love your brothers in Christ. It is also the best way to guard your heart and the reputation of your Savior.

If God Made You Beautiful . . .

2009-04-17T09:07:00.000-05:00

Some years ago a product was advertized by an attractive spokeswoman who smiled into the camera and said, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” She was making the point that there is no need to envy her because, if we use the product she was promoting, we too can be beautiful. Why is beauty something that women want—have always wanted? The desire for it is nothing new. We want it because with it comes the power to influence. We find the truth of this in Scripture, and we find in our culture; the proof of the link is everywhere to be seen.
But beautiful women do not have happier lives than plain Janes. In fact, their lives are often much more difficult. “Cry me a river,” you might be thinking. But stop to consider for a moment that a beautiful woman, like a wealthy one, attracts people just because of what she looks like. Is she valued for who she is? She may not really know for sure. Additionally, beautiful women often have more exposure to sexual temptation. From a spiritual perspective, being beautiful can be more of a trial than a blessing. We see this in Scripture with Sarah, whose beauty got her into a heap of trouble (Genesis 12); we see it in the story of David and Bathsheba (1 Samuel 11); and we see it in the sad story of Tamar (2 Samuel 13).
Added to the burden is the responsibility to use beauty wisely and for the glory of God and to avoid the temptation to use it selfishly. Rachel is a woman who used her beauty to manipulate her husband and to gain advantage over her sister (Genesis 29–30). Delilah used her charms to bring down Samson for financial gain (Judges 16). But then there was Esther. She used her beauty to influence King Ahasuerus for the good of her people and saved many lives, including her own. However, she risked her life in the process.
Did God make you beautiful? If so, it wasn’t so that you might gratify yourself. He did so to glorify himself and so that you might be an influence for good. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that beauty and influence go hand in hand. In fact, it’s wise to recognize the truth of it. It’s what we do with this knowledge that’s key.

When to Make a Change

2009-04-16T08:19:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled across this quote in some miscellaneous folder on my hard drive, and it struck me forcefully, since just this morning I prayed about changing a particular circumstance. If you are in the midst of a choice, the quote might speak to you too. I didn't record the name of the author, however, I did record that I got it off the Monergism website.

Unless something different from your present situation offers itself to your serious consideration, you are not to be desirous of changing your state, except in such cases as the following. Perhaps providence begins to render your present situation very uncomfortable, and really unprofitable to yourself or others; or makes your continuance in it truly impracticable. If so, we may assuredly gather that we should look out after and seek for some alteration. Or perhaps, though your present condition may be easy and profitable, yet there may be such changes attending it as to render it unlawful for you to continue; you cannot remain in this business or place any longer without making a breach upon your conscience, without violating the divine law, without omitting some incumbent duty, or depriving yourself of some necessary privilege, or being exposed to the prevailing power of some sin or temptation. Whever your situation appears such, as to render it impossible for you to abide in it without sustaining such sad consequence, you may assuredly gather that it is now the will of God that you should immediately look out for some other place or employment. You are not to be given to change; but in such cases as these we are warranted and required by prudence and duty to change our state or circumstance, and seek out after something else, whether there be any immediate proposal of another nature or not.

MLJ on Contentment

2009-04-14T07:52:00.004-05:00

In Martyn Lloyd-Jones's book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cures, there is a chapter titled "Learning to be Content." MLJ is describing how the apostle Paul learned to be content despite the persistent thorn in his flesh (2 Cor. 12), and he sets out a scenario for how Paul likely came to terms with the thorn. MLJ gives this seven-step scenario for contentment:

1) Conditions are always changing; therefore I must obviously not be dependent upon conditions.

2) What matters supremely and vitally is my soul and my relationship to God--that is the first thing.

3) God is concerned about me as my Father, and nothing happens to me apart from God. Even the very hairs of my head are all numbered. I must never forget that.

4) God's will and God's ways are a great mystery, but I know that whatever he wills or permits is of necessity for my good.

5) Every situation in life is the unfolding of some manifestation of God's love and goodness. Therefore, my business is to look for this peculiar manifestation of God's goodness and kindness and to be prepared for surprises and blessings because "his ways are not my ways, neither his thoughts my thoughts."

6) I must regard circumstances and conditions not in and of themselves but as part of God's dealings with me in the work of perfecting my soul.

7) Whatever my conditions may be at this present moment, they are only temporary. . . . They can never rob me of the joy and glory that awaits me with Christ.

Narcissism

2009-04-08T08:22:00.002-05:00

Narcissism--we're all guilty to one degree or another. It's part of being human. It's part of being American. Our narcissism is exposed in our obsessive thoughts about our weight. Retailers have taken our obsession straight to the bank with today's vanity sizes. Yesterday's 10 is today's 6. It's exposed in the nail salons and the tanning booths that bookend every strip mall in the country. It's exposed in our $150-every-eight-weeks hairstyles. It's exposed in how easily duped we are by the promise of expensive cellulite vanishing cream. Our self-obession hasn't made us a happier nation over all. Our French tips and all-over tans have done nothing to diminish the number of anti-depressant prescriptions sliding across pharmacy counters everyday. In fact, our absorption with our appearance has increased the number.

Narcissim is also exposed in our claims and possessions: My happiness, my goals, my desires, my rights, my family, my schedule. Me, my, I--it's what we live for. Self involvement breeds more self-involvement because it all just seems so normal. Think about the conversations we have around the water cooler or in the parking lot:

"Do you think I've lost weight?"
"Well, now that you mention it, you do look a bit thinner--not that you needed to lose anything. I'm the one who could stand to take off a couple."
"You? Don't be silly. Your still wearing a size 4, aren't you? What's the problem?"
"Well, actually, I'm a 2 now. But I've only been able to get to the gym three times a week lately, so I've been worried about my weight."

Can we imagine holding a conversation like that in front of a missionary from our church who spends fifty weeks a year in a poverty-stricken, war-torn community? For that matter, can we imagine walking up to anyone we really respect and admire and asking, "Does this outfit make me look fat?"

"Of course not!" you protest, "Those conversations are personal and private!" No they're not. They're just stupid. Wouldn't it be glorifying to God, and utterly freeing to us, if we made a pact to help one another recover from our narcissistic tendencies rather than remaining narcissism enablers?

(TPC archives 2007)

The Seed of Immorality

2009-04-06T10:49:00.003-05:00

I came across Proverbs 7 this weekend, and I noticed the vivid picture of immorality that is painted there. Here's a bit of it:

And behold, the woman meets him,dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She is loud and wayward;her feet do not stay at home;now in the street, now in the market,and at every corner she lies in wait. (vv. 9–12)

Women like this aren't found only in the dance clubs at 2 am; they might also be found in our very own homes—we might be like her. Even if we cannot see ourselves here, there are some things we can learn her.

It is apparent that she was a discontented woman. She was loud and rebellious--traits that tend to characterize those who refuse to accept their situations and life’s limitations. It is apparent that the woman in Proverbs was looking for an escape, some sort of diversion, from a life that she obviously didn’t value very highly.

Are we loud and rebellious? We might be, if we are single and we manipulate everyone and everything we can to meet a man. We might be, if we are teenagers who break curfew because we fear we’ll miss out on something vital if we go home at nine o'clock. We might be, if we are married yet look for understanding, admiration, and affection from someone other than our husband. A loud and rebellious woman is one who refuses to accept the circumstances she is biblically forbidden to change and the limitations imposed by those circumstances, and if we persist in setting our hearts against God’s ordering, we are likely to find ourselves dangerously close to temptation. The woman in Proverbs 7 had a wily heart, and such a heart grows out of discontent. If we don’t deal with it, soomer or later we are going to find ourselves drawn, like the woman in Proverbs 7, to secretive things done in dark places.

This woman was seen out and about on the street corners, lying in wait. What was she waiting for? If you read all of Proverbs 7, you will see that she was waiting for someone to seduce. You will also see that she had no qualms about enticing others to sin. In fact, she delighted in doing so.

So how do we keep the same seed from growing in our heart? We do what the psalmist instructed:

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger;but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Ps. 34:8–10)

The seed of immorality is a discontented heart, and out of such heart spring rebellion, darkness, relational destruction, and misery. It doesn’t have to be that way. In Christ we have everything we need to be content and to live in the light, to experience relational harmony and great joy. The seed of purity is the fear of the Lord.

Barbie Bodies

2009-04-03T13:44:00.003-05:00

I’ve discovered over the years that women find ultra-thinness considerably more attractive than men do. In fact, many men do not view super skinny women as especially attractive. One of the most sought-after single women I know isn’t thin, yet men wait in line to spend time with her. The reason for this is that she is comfortable with herself just the way she is; her identity is found in Christ, a fact which far outweighs her body type in creating personal appeal.

Not all men, however, have the mature outlook of those who pursue my friend. Part of the reason is the fact that some men are just as influenced by cultural trends as women are, and no matter the recent efforts in the fashion industry to modify it, thin is still in.

The husband of a Christian couple I once knew used to give his wife a list of the foods she could eat so that she would remain thin, and he told her that she was biblically required to submit to him in this area. He did not understand that a husband is to exercise his God-given leadership based on what is best for his wife and her growth in holiness, not for the benefit of his ego. It’s no wonder that this woman simmered with resentment and began to experience a weakening respect for her husband. A woman existing in such a relationship has no confidence that she is loved just for who she is, independent of her appearance.

I was grieved when another woman told me about her husband’s fears of starting a family. He was reluctant because he was afraid he wouldn’t be attracted to his wife once the pregnancy began to alter her body shape. She was quick to defend her husband, saying, “But all men are like that.” She is wrong. Not all men are like that. If a super-model wife was a necessary component of a good marriage, God would have designed us differently. Let’s face it: pregnancy wreaks havoc with a woman’s body. It takes a major effort to regain our former figure after giving birth, and some parts, no matter the effort, will never look the same again. God designed us this way, and the same God who designed us this way has commanded our husbands to love us. Therefore, keeping up with the world's beauty ideal is not a biblical mandate for marital bliss.

(more from the archives)

Gossip

2009-04-02T10:40:00.002-05:00

Gossip--it's something we don't take all that seriously. It's one of those "little" sins, something we know is wrong but that everybody does. We spiritualize it and call it "prayer concern." But the Bible makes a very clear connection between our speech sins and the health of our relationships. “A talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is of a faithful spirit conceals a matter” (Prov. 11:13).

Someone who gossips about a friend, colleague, or family member reveals an unfaithful spirit toward the relationship.No matter how strong of a foundation a relationship has, gossip will bring it down. “A whisperer separates the best of friends” (Prov. 16:28). Think about your closest friendships and all that has bonded you together—shared memories, shared confidences, and helping each other through the hard times—and then consider what Proverbs teaches: gossip has the power to wipe all that out."

I don't talk about other people," we protest, but do we listen to talk about others? Listening to gossip is still gossip; either way we are willing participants. Gossip is a trust destroyer. Even while we listen to Sue impart some juicy news about Sally, at some level we realize that if Sue can talk to us about Sally, she can just as easily talk to Sally about us. And even as we listen to Sue, we are thinking how glad we are we didn’t tell her about that slip-up last weekend.

Gossip does nothing but stir up relational trouble. So why do we do it? "The words of a talebearer are like tasty trifles, and they go down into the inmost body" (Prov. 18:8). We do it because it's enjoyable. We stand in the checkout line and read gossipy trash and trivia in the tabloid headlines because it makes us feel better about our own lives. "At least I don't have that trouble," we think, or "my sin isn't as bad as hers."Gossip is something we are going to have to choose to avoid because it is unlikely that it will lose its appeal in this lifetime.

(more from TPC archives, 2007)

Ladies Who Lust

2009-04-01T08:22:00.003-05:00

Is sexual lust just a men's struggle? Many seem to think so, but we can't relegate lust into a gender-specific category so easily. Lust isn't a male issue; it's an opportunity issue. Women exposed to pornography, whether by choice or by force, have sexual images burned on their minds the same way men do. Women who choose to engage in illicit sex--whether in mind or body--have the same power of recall and susceptibility to fantasy as men do. And it's what we've seen or done playing over and over in our minds that stimulates the heart toward sinful actions.

Men tend to be ensnared visually, whereas women are more likely to get hooked by the lust to be lusted after. Either way, it's a lust issue. Yet we rarely see lust linked to women when the topic is addressed in evangelicalism. The problem with that is, women who face a struggle with lust are going to feel abnormal and will therefore keep their struggle a secret rather than seek the help of trusted fellow believers. Men have known and named their struggle for generations, and as a result, they feel free to seek support and prayer in their temptations. If women are to live above this supposed male-only mire, they too must not hesitate to adopt the words of James: "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

(adapted from the TPC archives)

Steps to Contentment

2009-03-30T08:13:00.004-05:00

I found this in my email inbox yesterday--the perfect thing to open up on the Lord's Day. Many thanks to my friend Kate Sunday for sharing these five steps to contentment:

1. Allow thyself to complain of nothing, not even of the weather.

2. Never picture thyself under any circumstances in which thou art not.

3. Never compare thine own lot with that of another.

4. Never allow thyself to dwell on the wish that this or that had been, or were, otherwise than it was, or is. God Almighty loves thee better and more wisely than thou dost thyself.

5. Never dwell on the morrow. Remember that it is God’s, not thine. The heaviest part of sorrow often is to look forward to it. “The Lord will provide.”

—E. B. Pusey 19th century church leader

Quote of the Week

2009-03-27T10:50:00.004-05:00

This week's quote also provides a sneak peek at a September book release, The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. The book contains the talks given at last fall's Desiring God conference by speakers including John Piper, Paul Tripp, Mark Driscoll, and Sinclair Ferguson. I have just begun editing the book, and today I came across this great insight from Paul Tripp:

I am persuaded that much of what we call love just isn’t love. Let me use marriage as an example. Maybe what a wife- and husband-to-be think is real love may not actually be love. It might be a woman who, not realizing the selfishness of her sinful nature, is actually shopping for a man whom she hopes will be the final piece of the puzzle of the dream that she has for her life. She shops through seemingly endless dating relationships until she finally finds him. She’s amazed and excited that she has found the “perfect” man. She doesn’t have to bend the tabs to make him fit into the puzzle of her life. He already fits right into the space. Could it be that she doesn’t actually love this man? Could it be that she’s attracted to this man not because she loves him, but because she loves herself? Could it be that she’s excited that this man now appears like he will be the deliverer of all her claustrophobic, little kingdom-of-one dreams?

The quote is oh-so helpful for single women, but the book overall is about the importance of godly speech. You can find out more about it by clicking here.

Candid Words from a New Mother

2009-03-26T08:02:00.003-05:00

You might remember "Hannah." She was featured in two previous posts, parts 1 and 2 of "Candid Words from a Would-Be Mother," which you can read by clicking here. Hannah (not her real name) agreed to be interviewed about how infertility had affected her heart, her life, her marriage, and her walk with God. We firsted posted Hannah's story in May of last year, and shortly thereafter, Hannah learned she was pregnant. Hannah gave birth to a daughter just a few weeks ago. This week I asked her how the mom thing is coming along, and here is what she told me:

All the clichés are true. It’s the most wonderful and most difficult job in the world. I must admit that I was pretty ignorant about what the demands would be as far as the daily schedule goes. But you really can’t describe it to someone, I guess; you have to go through it to understand it. I look back now at all the ways I could have been a better help to my friends, if only I had really understood! But hopefully I’ll be a better help in the future. The love I feel toward her is amazing. It’s a physical, achy love. My belly does flip flops when I look at her, kind of like when I first fell in love with my husband. I didn’t expect that kind of feeling! One of my friends told me that our children will never love us as much as we love them. That’s true, but I’m realizing that:

* My parents love me a whole lot more than I ever knew.
* God loves me more than I can ever love him.
* God loves my daughter more than I love my daughter. Wow! And that’s how much he loves me, too. Amazing.

Heart Purity, Part 2

2009-03-24T08:23:00.003-05:00

Love at first sight—has this ever happened to you? Probably not, because it is virtually impossible to love someone you don’t really know. “Love at first sight” or “You had me at ‘hello’” is really about the infatuation that occurs when feelings, thoughts, and hormones have a head-on collision. Real love is always based on knowledge, and knowledge comes from the intimacy produced through shared confidences and experiences. The same holds true in our relationship with God. We won’t love him purely if we don’t know him, and the only way we will know him is by means of his Word.

That is why we find a strong link between purity and a passion for God in Psalm 119. This psalm is an acrostic poem written in praise of Scripture. According to the psalmist, to be pure is to be wholehearted; it is to have our heart set on just one thing—the pursuit of God and his ways. But we will never develop a heart like that by ourselves. The Holy Spirit uses Scripture to transform us—our interests, our hopes, our desires—so that we increasingly love what he loves and hate what he hates. We will never love God purely—wholeheartedly—apart from immersing ourselves in God’s Word because it is only in Scripture that we learn what God is like. To know him is to love him, and we always desire more of what love most.

“I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart” (vv. 33–34), the psalmist prays. Perhaps this is what the apostle James was thinking of when he wrote, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James and the psalmist make clear that purity can characterize only those who have set themselves in a single direction, and we will only set ourselves in that direction as the result of love. The reason we are so often defeated in our battle for outward purity is that we are torn in two directions. We love God and his ways, but we also love much of what this world has to offer, and because of that we don’t seek God with our whole hearts. We seek him for what he will give us more than just for himself.

The psalmist tells us that purity comes by guarding our hearts according to the Word, but this is much more than simply mining God’s Word for a list of do’s and don’ts. The primary thing we discover in God’s Word is the character of the one who gave it. The Bible is God’s autobiography. It is the way we get to know him intimately, the sort of knowing that fosters deep love and devotion. The psalmist loves God’s Word because it reveals to him more and more of the God he loves. I'm not talking about "the study" of God's word as an exercise in knowledge. We need that too, of course, but getting to know God so that we love him and grow our relationship with him comes as we read his Word devotionally--talking to him about what we see in it, asking for wisdom to understand him better through it, asking that he would show us Christ in it, and praying that God's Spirit would apply the Word to our lives.

Double-Minded

2009-03-20T08:22:00.003-05:00

"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded," writes James (4:8). Here is one place in Scripture where we see that purity is way more than sexual innocence, which is how we usually tend to think of it. Purity in its most biblical sense is to be single-minded and whole-hearted in our passion for God.

The problem is that we are all double-minded. Our double mind is revealed by the fact that we don't find God to be enough for us. We want God and a husband, God and a better husband, or house or job. The and is what makes us double-minded. We well know that many of the things we want are good things that God designed us to enjoy, and he delights to give them to us. So it's not the actual wanting that makes us double-minded. It's the fact that we believe we must have them in order to be happy. If we believe there is something—anything—essential for our well-being besides God, we are double-minded.

How to be single-minded? James tells us: "purify your hearts," he says. Yet this is something we just won't do unless we believe that what we give up in the process is worth the price. We can't have it both ways, but we are always going to try unless we are convinced that living for Christ is well worth whatever lesser things we lose along the way.

EGRs

2009-03-17T07:49:00.004-05:00

Orphans and widows—all through Scripture we see God's command to care for them. But orphans and widows are merely biblical representatives of all the poor and needy in society. Whenever we see God's command to care for widows and orphans, we know that he has in mind everyone who by virtue of birth or circumstance lives in vulnerability. It includes the elderly, the poverty stricken, the handicapped, the sick, and the homeless. It also includes single women, children, and those without government protection.

One category of "widows and orphans" that's easy to overlook is the socially poor. In one of my former circles, we referred to them as EGRs—extra grace required. I look back on that now and cringe. What made us think that we weren't EGRs ourselves? The very fact of the cross proves that we are. But what we had in mind when we used the term are those who make others uncomfortable by their lack of the social niceties--those who can’t talk about anything other than themselves, those who complain constantly about their problems but refuse to take the advice they so often ask for, and those who make a mess of their lives but blame it all on someone else. We all know such people (maybe you and I are among them), and they are among those whom God calls needy. They are typically very lonely people because sooner or later they alienate everyone around them. Such people aren’t in need of our money or anything material, which is why we often fail to recognize them as “widows and orphans.” What they need is our friendship. What they often get, if anything, is merely our pity, and after a polite word or two, we are quick to move away.

To care for this sort of "widow and orphan" is sometimes nothing more than being willing to listen—again. It is to offer encouragement—again. It is to steer them along a godly path—again. It is to stay alongside them when every fiber of our being yearns to be anywhere but in their company. Gritting our teeth and doing it isn’t enough. They might be unable to tell the difference between politeness and genuine caring, but God can tell. Yet the only way we can do it without gritted teeth is by means of God’s grace. If we ask him for the ability to love the EGRs around us, he will give it to us. After all, he has only EGRs to love.

Quote of the Week

2009-03-15T16:29:00.005-05:00

"We can measure our spiritual state not by our devotional life but by our relationships. . . . Our problems are not horizontal but vertical. We don't love people because we don't love God. Our battles with others are because we are at war with God." --Paul Tripp, Sunday school class notes, 2003

Touched by the Curse

2009-03-12T14:52:00.004-05:00

Rick and Sharon Phillips came out with a book on dating a few years ago, but the content has many applications beyond matching up. Here is an excerpt that all women, married or single, will find helpful. In it the authors are explaining the implications of the curse in Genesis 3, "Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you":

If you are a woman, take a moment to complete these two sentences. "As the deer pants for . . . " (Ps. 43:1). For what? How about this one: "I would be happy if only . . ." If only what? If you complete either of these sentences by using a man's name or referring to a man in general, then you are experiencing the effects of the curse of sin. The woman was made to be a helper to the man, but not to be his worshiper. For you to seek your ultimate fulfillment in a relationship with a man is to be guilty of idolatry. God is your first husband. Only by making God your first love can you put your desire for a man into proper perspective. Remember the essence of the sin into which Adam and Eve fell: it was to deny God's goodness and faithfulness, and to make a god of each of other in the place of the one true God. God will not allow anything to rob him of his position and glory in our lives. He will not idly sit by while we worship the gift instead of the Giver. . . . Without God at the center of her life, [a woman] finds love with a man to be as much of a burden as a blessing.

Whether it's a husband we want or an improvement on the one we have, these words get to the heart of the angst. Holding Hands, Holding Hearts, Richard and Sharon Phillips (P&R, 2006), p. 46.

Let's Not Fan the Flame

2009-03-12T10:58:00.005-05:00

The Cross and the Switchblade author David Wilkerson put up the following post on his blog:

I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message to all on our mailing list, and to friends and to bishops we have met all over the world. AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE - EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US. For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires—such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.

The media has, of course, picked up on this, so no doubt you have already heard about it. Sigh. The media delights in this sort of thing because they delight to expose things that make evangelicals seem loony. And no question about it, with this blog post, Wilkerson has added fuel to the fire.

It is to be hoped that those who view Scripture as authoritative will not for a second view Mr. Wilkerson as authoritative, as he seems to view himself. Perhaps he is just overwhelmingly sad and frightened about the state of our nation. Either way, those who claim that God has given them urgent doom-and-gloom messages seem to trust in the authority of their own spiritual receptiveness more than in Scripture. Will the outcome of David Wilkerson’s dire prediction be any different from Hal Lindsay’s or Oral Roberts’s or Harold Camping's? Probably not. About this latest self-styled prophet, Kim Riddlebarger writes:

Uncertain times often bring out the worst in people. . . . It is remarkable to me that these "dire warning" messages seem to come more often when a democrat (especially one considered to be no friend of evangelicals) is in the White House. But didn't 9-1-1 came to pass when an evangelical was president??? Meanwhile, so much for the sufficiency of Scripture. Wilkerson gets his news directly from the Spirit.

There is no question that America is collapsing under the weight of moral compromise. Collapse is always the eventual consequence of sin, whether that of an individual or a nation. And God’s wrath will indeed come upon those who aren’t sheltered under the protection of Christ’s atonement. So in that sense, Wilkerson is on the right track. Scripture tells us how we are to handle such things, which Scripture predicted would characterize “the last days”—the time from Christ’s ascension until his return: we are to flee from sin and take the gospel to the lost. Every era throughout history has abounded with wars, rumors of wars, and natural catastrophes, so in every age there are going to be those who cry, “It is the end!” Wilkerson’s post doesn’t mention “the end,” but his prophecy of God’s judgment carries similar overtones. What did Jesus say about this?

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matt 24:6–7).

Wilkerson and his ilk see these "beginnings of sorrows," which every age since Christ has seen, and they attempt to make short-range, preliminary applications of God's judgment. But when Jesus spoke of the signs of God's impending judgment, he concluded his prophecy with this:

Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." (vv. 42–44)

Being ready doesn’t mean stockpiling a 30-day supply of food and water. It means examining our hearts to be sure we are in the faith. Bad things are happening and will continue to happen until Christ returns, and as the world grows ever darker, we have an opportunity to shine the light of Christ ever brighter.

Addendem: a TPC reader wrote in to express some objections to this post, and she pointed out that I unfairly omitted some of David Wilkerson's message. Many thanks to her. Allow me to amend my original excerpt of Mr. Wilkerson's post with some of his concluding words:

I will say to my soul: No need to run...no need to hide. This is God’s righteous work. I will behold our Lord on his throne, with his eye of tender, loving kindness watching over every step I take—trusting that he will deliver his people even through floods, fires, calamities, tests, trials of all kinds.

Another on Guidance

2009-03-11T13:07:00.002-05:00

As posts in recent months have shown, I am in the process of collecting sound biblical teaching on God's guidance. I just found a great article by pastor Ian Hamilton on the subject. He makes this helpful observation: "While the Puritans never wrote one book on guidance, they wrote many books on the grace and godliness of obedience. That is where right thinking about guidance begins." He gives a reason for why we never have to worry about "missing" God's guidance:

Guidance is pre-eminently the responsibility of the Lord. In our earthly families, the father will gently grasp the hand of his young child and lead him in the way he is to go. It is the father, not the child, who is responsible for the guidance.

Read the whole article by clicking here.

Single Women and Their Pastors

2009-03-10T10:07:00.009-05:00

I recently received a letter from a single woman who finds herself attracted to her pastor, and she wonders what she should do about it. Her dilemma is not uncommon, which is why I've chosen to post about it--I receive lots of letters just like this. The struggle goes in your church and in my church and in everyone else's church. Here is something of the reply I sent to her:

The dilemma you are facing is common to single women. It is a huge challenge. You yearn for a man of your own, but when God doesn't seem to bring one along, it is all too easy to find yourself attracted to what's right in front of you. In your case, it's your pastor. Pastors often represent everything a single Christian woman is looking for: spiritual leadership, kindness, willingness to listen, and perhaps above all, an aura of authoritative masculinity. You mention that your pastor is happily married, but the happiness of his marriage is irrelevant so far as making your friendship with him okay. It is not okay, whether you perceive that his marriage is happy or not.
The Bible is clear about how you are to handle this--you are to flee (1 Cor. 6:18). Whether fleeing involves leaving the church, only you know if that is the best approach in your case. If you suspect that the attraction is mutual, then I think leaving the church is a good idea. It is the best way to love your pastor and, more importantly, God. If you leave, I wouldn't broadcast your reason for doing so. Just do it, and find a truthful but nebulous answer to give those who ask. On the other hand,
perhaps you can stay at your church and simply make plans to avoid the pastor. I guess it all depends on how big your church is. In either case, I think sharing this with an older, godly woman in the church would be wise for accountability.
Something you may not realize is what underlies all this. Very likely it is anger or doubt about God's good intentions toward you. Make no mistake: attractions of this sort don't spring from any sort of love; in fact, they spring from just the opposite. And if you take joy in the thought that the pastor might be attracted to you, then there is envy in your heart--the desire to take what someone else has. The bottom line is that very likely you are angry at God because he has not given you your own husband. If so, and if you fail to address that root problem, fleeing the current situation will be only a band-aid. No matter where you go, the issue will come up again with a different married man.
So, there is both a spritual and a practical way out of your tangle: the spiritual way is to be honest with God about your anger and lack of trust in the area of marriage, and the practical way is to do whatever it takes to get out of this. No one is strong enough to stay close to temptation like this unaided. You've got to get away from it--at any cost. You'll see later that God will bless your obedience, whereas no blessing will come from disobedience. Think it through. Pray it through. Seek discreet and wise counsel. Then act definitively and radically without delay. Isn't the reputation of Christ of more importance than your gratification? I am sure you would agree that it is.

Unbelieving Family

2009-03-06T08:54:00.007-06:00

Many of us grew up in Christian homes (James Boice once said that it is normally God's way to save families, not just individuals), but others may be alone or nearly alone in their faith, family-wise. Those with an unbelieving family know that living out a Christian witness before them is a tremendous challenge. Because family are the people we love most, it matters most to us. We want them to know Christ, and we want to reflect the love of God into their lives, but we also want them to love us. We yearn that they would know Christ, yet we also fear their rejection--not only of Christ but of us. Also, because our family knows us--the ups and downs of our personal history--we fear that our visible failures and sins counteract whatever witness we have among them. Here are five tips to help us live as Christ's ambassadors among unbelieving family:

1) How we change over time is vitally important. Family members see our sins and failures, but what they notice most is how we change. How are we living today compared to ten years ago? Is there a marked difference? Growth in grace trumps past failures in our witness. Just consider the apostle Peter.

2) Recognize and accept that there can never be total unity and intimate connection between believers and unbelievers, including family. "What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?" (2 Cor. 6:14-15). If we spend our energy trying to break down those walls on a personal level, we are ultimately working for ourselves rather than for them or for Christ.

3) Accept that they may be uncomfortable asking you questions about your life and interests. It's not they don't care; it's more likely that they want to avoid getting caught in conversations that involve your faith. Those who spend life pushing away all conscious awareness of God don't want to get too near. "We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life" (2 Cor. 2:15-16). Forget yourself and focus instead on their interests. Love them, regardless of whether they reciprocate. Be available to listen to their problems and respond with compassion and encouragement. Don't just throw a Bible verse at them. "Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda" (Prov. 25:20). Certainly seek and pray for opportunities to share your faith, but be discerning about when and where you do so.

4) Don't be a worrier. If God is all you claim he is, you have no business worrying about the economy or the fact that your son-in-law isn't raising your grandchildren the way you would. There is nothing that belies our witness more than worry. God is in control. A refusal to worry, no matter what, demonstrates the truth about God in a powerful way.

5) Be joyful and content. God is our loving, kind father, and Jesus has adopted us into his family for all time. Therefore, a gloomy Christian is an oxymoron. Contentment is also vital. I have learned over time that my unbelieving family notices this perhaps more than anything else. Over the years they have seen my failures aplenty, but what really stands out to them is how I handle my singleness. I am content in it, and they are baffled by that. If I were to spend the majority of my energies trying to change my marital status, I'd be saying, in essence, that God's ordering of my life isn't good. Whatever you may lack, are you content? The unbelievers in your life are watching to see.

Hospitality Tips Reposted

2009-03-02T13:54:00.003-06:00

Last year I posted my friend Susie's tips on hospitality. She recently gave the hospitality talk again, and since I found it just as motivating the second time around, I thought it was worth posting again too.

My friend Susie Cassel is the personification of hospitality. She opens her home to friend and stranger alike, and she is always prepared for drop-by guests. One-on-one or large groups--Susie hostesses all with grace and love. Her practical tips are well-worth sharing. Susie bases her open-door attitude on Romans 12:13: "Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality" and on 1 Peter 4:9: "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." Susie says that when seeking to have a hospitable heart, there are four primary things to keep in mind:

1) Hospitality isn't based on having the "right" house.
2) Hospitality isn't always convenient.
3) Hospitality isn't always comfortable.
4) Hospitality is always about serving others.

Susie defines two distinct types of hospitality, both of which we should prepare our hearts to offer. First is calculated hospitality, which includes hosting our friends, making meals for the sick--basically, the sort we can plan ahead. The second type is spontaneous hospitality, which is opening our home and heart to that drop-in neighbor or friend who calls at an inconvenient time. How we handle spontaneous hospitality is a matter of mindset, of putting others ahead of our personal comfort. But that doesn't mean there aren't great rewards for such service: generosity comes back on our heads! But, primarily, every time we open our homes and hearts to someone in need, it is Jesus we are serving. Do we think about that? Do we see today's interruption or inconvenience as an opportunity to love Christ? Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matt. 5:40).

Here are Susie's hospitality habits:

1. Decide to get organized. Clean the kitchen immediately after dinner; pick up your room before bed; make your bed as soon as you jump out each morning; in preparation for unannounced guests, keep Windex and papertowels under the bathroom sink so you can dash in and give the sink and mirror a freshening spritz.

2. Alter your attitude about your home. Offering loving hospitality is easiest in a low-maintenance environment. Susie has selected furniture and carpeting that can withstand spills, feet, and large crowds. Another key aspect of hospitality that we often don't think about is how well our homes reflect who we are. Who cares if the artwork on the walls is well-coordinated? If our decorative pieces tell a story about something in our lives--a place we love, a memory, a gift--it is a way of opening up to our guests.

3. Get fixed with food. Susie suggests having two fail-proof meals memorized, meals that can be thrown together in a hurry without needing to pull out measuring cups or read a recipe. Doubling or tripling recipes, such as lasagne or meatloaf, is great preparation for serving others. When Susie makes lasagne, she'll make four pans: one for a family in need, one for her own family, one to keep in the freezer for a spontaneous evening with friends, and one to give away just for fun. In the freezer Susie also keeps homemade, ready-to-bake cookies. After making the dough, she freezes individual cookies on a cookie sheet, and once they are frozen, she transfers them to a baggie for freezer storage. When friends drop by, she pops a few in the oven.

4. Prioritize people. The food you throw together casually and quickly can and often does show more love than a gourmet meal. It's all about your attitude. Is it more important to you to make your guests feel welcome and comfortable or to impress them with your cooking skills? A good way to sabotage the effects of hospitality is to apologize for your home--a messy room, a simple meal, the paper plates. In prioritizing people, Susie emphasizes that hospitality starts with our family. Are we showing hospitality to our husband and children? Do we stop what we are doing when our husband gets home from work to engage him? How about when our children come from school? Do we welcome them home, or is the first thing they hear, "How many times do I have to tell you to hang your coat up!" The hospitality we show to our children will radiate to our guests, and the hospitality we show to our guests will be communicated to our children, and it has a ripple effect outward.

I've spent a good bit of time in Susie's home, so I know these things aren't just theoretical for her. She lives them. I've watched her react to booted feet on her coffee table and spills on her floor--she always rolls with it. There is no fake, polite smile trying to hide an internal freakout; Susie is really okay with it. Why? Because she loves people and she loves Jesus.

Emotions vs. Emotionalism

2009-03-02T08:53:00.002-06:00

Martin Lloyd-Jones makes a helpful distinction between emotions and emotionalism in his new book, Living Waters: Studies in John 4. He describes emotionalism as emotion without any intellectual content. True emotion, on the other hand, always results from truth, and it is a vital aspect of the Christian life. Here are some ways we can tell which is which when our feelings are super-charged, whether we are experiencing pure emotion or the less helpful (sometimes harmful) emotionalism:

Truth 1:
Am I being moved by the truth, or am I just being moved by something such as lilting music or an affecting story?

Truth 2:
With emotionalism, there is always an element of loss of control. Because it is divorced from the intellect and the mind and the understanding and truth, emotionalism always has an element of excess. It is a form of intoxication similar to being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Truth 3:
Emotionalism is always exhausting. It is bound to be because the mind and the will have not been affected but only the emotions. The result is that, as with artificial stimulants such as alcohol, when the stimulus has been removed and its influence has passed off, the person is in a state of exhaustion. True emotion, on the other hand, involves the whole person because it is the result of great truth coming to bear on the will, the mind, the heart, and the feelings. Because of that, true emotion is always invigorating, it is always stimulating.

Truth 4:
True emotion always leads to action. This is one of the basic disctinctions between true emotion and emotionalism. Emotionalism leaves someone exhausted and also with a failure in the realm of the will. Certain sins creep in, sins that always find their opportunity when the intellect is out of action and when the feelings are aroused. True emotion always moves and affects the will. It is deep, energizing, and invigorating, and it moves the total personality.

Quote of the Week

2009-02-28T08:24:00.002-06:00

"Love to Christ is the mainspring of work for Christ. There is little done for his cause on earth from sense of duty, or from knowledge of what is right and proper. The heart must be interested before the hands will move and continue moving. Excitement may galvanize the Christian's hands into a fitful and spasmodic activity. But there will be no patient continuance in well-doing, no unwearied labor in missionary work at home or abroad, without love. . . . The great workers of the church, [those] who have led . . . in the mission field and turned the world upside down have all been eminently lovers of Christ." --J.C. Ryle, Holiness

Just for Fun

2009-02-24T14:51:00.005-06:00

Some months ago we discussed table centerpieces, and I got mail and comments from lots of TPC readers with ideas for fun ones. Here's a new one that I made from the beautiful roses my mother sent me for Valentine's Day. I love that holiday and am firmly convinced that romance is not a prerequisite for enjoying it. It's a great mid-winter pick-me-up and chance to bake and decorate something with pink icing and to show affection to those you love. On Saturday, February 14, I hosted a single girl Valentine brunch. It was a beautiful snowy day, and we had fun drinking coffee and talking girl talk for over two hours and reading updated message hearts, where today you are more like to find "Email me" than "Be mine."

Upcoming Trilogy

2009-02-24T10:40:00.002-06:00

Condeleeza Rice, 54, has just signed a three-book deal with Crown Publishers. The first, scheduled for release in 2011, will be a memoir of her years in the White House (2001-2009). She will also write a memoir about her family, scheduled for 2012, and a young-adult edition of her family book that will come out at the same time. This will surely be of interest to single women in search of inspiration for making the most of the time and season. You can read more about it by clicking here.