“[The apostle Paul] exhibits the two great counterparts of sin and righteousness as equal realities – the one as the world’s ruin, the other as its restoration. The one is a completed fact as well as the other. They are the only two great events or facts in the world’s history, and they confront each other.”

George Smeaton – Nineteenth-Century theologian

A couple of days ago I finished the book of Leviticus and I was struck by what was in chapter 26. After God laid out His law for the people of Israel he warned them what would happen if they disobeyed. The warnings were stern, the punishment severe:

““But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.”
(Leviticus 26:14–17 ESV)

Four more times in this short section of Leviticus God warns what will happen to us to Israel as their disobedience deepens (Leviticus 26:18-20; 21-22; 23-26; 27-33). Each time the punishment gets more severe. Sadly Israel didn’t listen. Sadly we don’t listen to the warnings God gives us either.

But… God gives them and us a way back home again. Back to Him

““But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.””
(Leviticus 26:40–45 ESV)

We are just like the Israelites of 3500 years ago. We let our sin and pride carry us away. While today we don’t get carried out of country to another land, we do lose our focus on God, which makes it seem we are very far away. The advise is the same as it ever was, come to God to confess and repent of our sin with a humble heart and then we can be be rejoined with our Heavenly Father.

What strikes me most about this, is as outraged as God is for the sin of Israel (and our sin), He gives a way back to Him.

What would happen if you went up to one of the more profane entertainers and ardent atheist and gave them a bible. If you know the person hates everything you believe in. Do you think it would be a waste of time? Is it worth the effort? Or would you just go looking for someone easier to go talk to.

One day someone gave Magician and Atheist Penn Jillette a bible. This video has been floating around for a while, but it once again challenged me when I was asked if I was going to invite my parents and sister’s to our ELQ (which is like alpha). Hear his reaction from his own mouth and be challenged by his words.

Here is what he said:
“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, and not getting eternal life or whatever. And you think that it’s not really worth telling people this because it would be socially awkward. And atheists who think that people shouldn’t proselytize, just leave me alone, keep your religion to yourself. How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that. I mean, If I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn’t believe it that that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you, and this is more important than that.”

One of my favorite books that I have ever read on the Christian Life is “The Discipline of Grace” by Jerry Bridges. One of these days I need to sit down and do a book review explaining why I think this book is so good and helpful. As I am reading through this book for the fourth time, I am doing a book study with a friend, I was really struck by this quote. I think this really gives some very practical advise on how to live by the gospel.

To live by the gospel, then, means that we firmly grasp the fact that Christ’s life and death are ours by virtue of our union with Him. What He did, we did. This is the only sense in which we can understand Paul’s bold statements in Romans 8: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1); “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31); and “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33).

These statements by Paul are objective truths; that is, they are truth whether we grasp them or not. So often, however, we find it difficult to believe them. Because of our frequent failures before God, we do feel under condemnation, we do not feel God is for us but rather must surely be against us, we do think He is bringing charges against us. At such times we must preach the gospel to ourselves. We must review what God has declared to be true about our justification in Christ.

Justification is a completed work as far as God is concerned. The penalty has been paid and His justice has been satisfied. But it must be received through faith and must be continually renewed in our souls and applied to our consciences everyday through faith. There are two “courts” we must deal with: the court of God in Heaven and the court of conscience in our souls. When we trust in Christ for salvation, God’s court is forever satisfied. Never again will a charge of guilt be brought against us in Heaven. Our consciences, however are continually pronouncing us guilty. That is the function of the conscience. There we must by faith bring the verdict of conscience into line with the verdict of Heaven. We do this by agreeing with our conscience about our guilt. but then reminding it that our guilt has already been borne by Christ.

(Jerry Bridges; Discipline of Grace; page 54)

A good word here from Jared Wilson:

When our heavenly Father looks upon the broken mess of our lives, he doesn’t snicker or sigh.

He ministers to us a sweeter comfort than any temporary and worldly comfort we’d sought before.

We are told by the prophet, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” [Ps. 51:17].

God doesn’t despise us in our brokenness; he comforts us in it.

The greater the brokenness, the greater the impulse to trust him.

The greater the trust in him, the greater the joy of his salvation.

So, then, the further to the end of ourselves we go, the more of Christ we will enjoy.

This was what I needed to hear today…

HT: Justin Taylor

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you.”
John Owens “Communion with God”

It is going on five years since I have given my life over to Christ. The more that I learn, the more I understand, the more my faith grows in Jesus Christ. One of the things that I have struggled with over my time as a Christian is that God not only, so LOVED the world, but He so loved me, that he gave His only begotten Son… (John 3:16).

I have spent most of my life isolated from the world. Only in the last 5 years or so have I really started being a bit more social. I am not very good at relationships. I am not very good at having people close to me, I struggle on how to do relationships. In a lot of ways I am very immature when it comes to dealing with people. In a word I tend to be a misanthrope, far easier to avoid and hate everyone, than have to deal with people. It is hard enough for me now to believe that I have such quality people in my life. It is even harder for me to believe that these people would befriend, and even go further to love me and call me brother.

Though I have been a Christian for the last five years I could never wrap my mind around the fact that God loved me. Just like in my relationship with people I always take the cynical route. I just couldn’t believe for any reason that God really wanted me to be part of the Kingdom. I could certainly see why God loved others, but never could understand how he could me. I often sabotage myself to fulfill the self-proclaimed “prophesy”. Sometimes even sinning, just to thumb my nose at God, and to try to put up another barrier between God and myself. To be loved has always scared me.

Coming face to face with the “burning heart” of God has destroyed all pretense that the Love of God is only for those who are better than me. God’s Word says that in love he predestined us for adoption before the foundation of the world. God knows exactly who and what I am. He knows how I am going to succeed and how I am going to fail. He chose me anyway. He didn’t choose me because of who I am, but because of who He is. Though I am not a very good Christian, a slow learner, I want to live a life that honors and glorifies God. I want to learn to be holy and be sanctified and transform from one degree of glory to another.

It is through His promises that he makes out his great, passionate, steadfast love that sustains us on the trail of holiness. Even as I struggle through some of my darkest times of depression, His love is a beacon in the darkness.

His love has brought me from death to life, and if you let Him, He will do the same for you!

In the book bearing his name, God introduces Job to Satan in an incredible way (Job 1:8 ESV). And the only thing Satan could do is agree with God and suggest that the reason why Job is blameless and upright is because God puts a hedge around him. Job’s reputation was well earned especially after God through Satan put him to the test. When push came to shove after losing everything including his health Job kept his faith and got it mostly right. God did have to straighten Job out on several things, but in the end Job learned even more who God is and why he should fear God (Job 42).

How many other people in the Bible could God introduce in the way He introduced Job? How many men living today could be introduced that way? My guess is not many. Job was the gold standard of men, in the time he lived and even to this day.

This brings me to the cross, because I know that without Christ’s death God could only see me as an enemy. I know full well how sinful and terrible of a person I am. It is only through the blood of Christ that God could see me as someone worth considering, as a servant, and even a son. It is not through who or what I am, but through God’s loving plan the God would even deign to look at me, let alone adopt me as His son.

I have not written in my blog for a long time. There have been a few reasons for that lack of writing. None of them good.

1. The biggest reason is that I have been lazy. It takes time and effort to write.
2. When I sin, I feel like I have no right to write anything especially about God’s Word
3. Intimidation. I am privileged at my church to study and work with people who have great minds, who sometimes listening to them makes my head hurt. I think that I have to write and think on their level. I am not smart enough to be the next John Piper, CJ Mahaney, or Craig Muri.
4. I might be wrong about something and someone will think less of me. I have people who I admire and respect read this blog and do not want to be looked at as stupid.

So why do I blog?

1. It started off with the fact that I use to like to write and every once in a while I was able to write coherently.
2. It helps me think through things.
3. It is a way, maybe just maybe I can reach out to someone.

Why start again this year?

1. Help me think through new Biblical and life concepts that I am learning. Reading and studying through the Bible and trying to live a holy life it is not enough to just read and listen, you need to interact and wrestle with the text from the Bible and try to integrate concepts into your life.
2. Help me learn to communicate more clearly.
3. To possibly learn from others. Instead of being wrong, I will get a chance to learn.

My goal is to write at least two blog entries each month. With the hope of doing blog posting at least once a week. I am hoping that as I write I am able to wrestle and learn things that will help me become closer to the image of Christ. My hope is through His help that I am able to write things that are God glorifying.

Today is the first day of a New Year. It is all shiny and new. It is a new beginning. How appropriate it is to start reading the bible from the beginning.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.”
(Genesis 1:1-4 ESV)

God calls the light out of the darkness and so begins the shaping of the world. After the six days of creation the world was all shiny and new. It was pure uncorrupted and undamaged, kind of like the year seems to us as the calendar turns from December 31 to January 1.

As I read this morning the first three chapters of Genesis, I wanted to luxuriate myself in the Creation Story and the newly God created earth. I really struggled to start reading chapter 3 of Genesis. I wanted to read more about what it was like to live in Eden and to be able to walk in the garden with God, to live in the newness of the world.

I am always surprised how quickly the fall comes in the Bible. It seems that as soon as man was created we fell. First two chapters talking about God creating the world and mankind, the very next thing is our pride got better of us. It seems that paradise wasn’t enough for us.

The same will happen with our shiny New Year. Suffering, tragedy and sin will start invading and corrupting our new year, if it hasn’t already started happening.

If I ended here this would be a very depressing blog post…

Genesis is the beginning of the Bible, but not necessarily the beginning of the story. The story begins in eternity past with an all knowing, sovereign God knowing full well, what will happen when he created the earth, and created man in His image. This sovereign God knowing exactly what he is going to do.

The fall is not the ending of the story, but the beginning. The fall is one of the most important events of the Bible, but in some ways it is just the back story of what is to come both in the Bible and the world. The fall is the beginning point of a story of How God is going to save and redeem His people and His creation.

The world may seem like it is in chaos and completely out of control, but there is a God who is in perfect control of everything. This year as I read through the Bible I pray that I will get to know more of who God is (Exodus 34:6) and be assured by both the things he has done and the things (John 3:16*) he has promised to do (Micah 7:8-9*)

*There are numerous examples of who God is, what God has done, and what he has promised. I just chose the ones in my thoughts today.

On Wednesday night in our prayer challenge we were challenged with some verses out of Hosea. One of the verses that caught my eye (not the verse which we were being challenged with) was the first part of this verse:
“The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame.” (Hosea 4:7 ESV).

Israel at this time had grown in number, riches and prosperity. The more that God allowed them to increase the more they sinned against him.

Contrast that to what John the Baptist said:
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”” (John 3:30 ESV)

I wonder if John the Baptist was thinking of this verse in Hosea when he said this to his disciples about Jesus.

One more reason on the importance of humility.