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.
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.
The biggest reason is that I have been lazy. It takes time and effort to write.
When I sin, I feel like I have no right to write anything especially about God’s Word
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.
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?
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.
It helps me think through things.
It is a way, maybe just maybe I can reach out to someone.
Why start again this year?
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.
Help me learn to communicate more clearly.
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.
This last Sunday Pastor Craig preached a sermon called “From Death to Life“ (I am a little disappointed I have not seen any increase of traffic to my website because of his sermon). The text he was preaching from was 1 Peter 4:1-6. His main points was ”Arm yourself with the intention to suffer, understanding that it is inevitable. To do so is to make a decisive break with sin, imitating the thinking of Christ“.
He asked and answered several questions in this sermon such as:
What is the way of thinking we are to imitate Christ in regards to suffering?
Christ accepted suffering as part of being in the flesh.
Christ accepted suffering as the consequence of holiness.
Christ accepted suffering as doing the will of God.
He asked another question which was very pragmatic. He asked ”Why does it have to work this way?“ Why do we as Christians have to suffer, why is suffering inevitable for Christians?
Paraphrasing Pastor Craig’s answer (even typing on my computer I am not fast enough to keep up with him), he said ”When holiness touches a fallen world there is a violent reaction, there is push back, there are sparks of friction.” They are polar opposites.
With that answer is it at all surprising when Holiness personified (Jesus) touched the world that people reacted the way they did? Jesus was hated by the world but He was never polluted or stained by it.
So again why do we suffer (stealing from my notes again)?
We suffer because we choose God’s will and we inherit suffering.
We suffer because human beings hate holiness unless we embrace holiness
If we have been called (Romans 8:30) and we have chosen to follow God’s will, we will be transformed from the depraved lawless idolaters (1 Peter 4:2) to being holy and blameless, conformed into the image of his son (Colossians 1:22; Romans 8:29). The metaphors that describe this process in the bible is anything but fluffy bunnies, comfort and ease.
God knitted us together in the womb to make us the way he wanted us (Psalm 139:13-14). He once again takes up His tools to reshape and transform us into a holy image of His Son. One of His tools of choice is our suffering. God orchestrates our suffering to transform us as the master potter uses a clay knife and potter’s wheel (Isaiah 64:8) or as a metal smith uses a a refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:2-3) or furnace and files to forge and shape metal. (See Proverbs 17:3; Isaiah 48:10; 1 Peter 1:6-7; Titus 2:14)
God uses suffering to purify us from the world. Unlike Jesus we do get polluted and stained by the world. God needs to scrape, file and burn off the sludge of our sin and worldliness. That process hurts. We were born of the world and have always lived within it. Now God is scraping the worldly and sinful things that we have come to depend upon to replace it with His holiness, grace and love.
As God continues to work on me I am beginning to understand why both Peter and Paul see their suffering as a gift and are able to rejoice in it.
Thank you Lord for letting me suffer through my depression and bringing me from death to life. I pray that you continue to teach us all how to trust you especially in our suffering.
We talk often about the still soft voice of God. In 1 Samuel 3, Samuel, for the first time was addressed directly by God. God called Samuel three times and if it wasn’t for his teacher Eli’s discernment Samuel may not have answered (1 Samuel 3:1-10 ESV). The encounter with God was definitely not a meet and greet. God just promised to “do a thing to Israel that will make the ears of anyone who hears about it tingle”. On top of that God told Samuel that he is going to punish Eli’s (his teacher) family forever (1 Samuel 4:10-21 ESV).
I am not sure I could imagine what Samuel was feeling at this time. First Samuel just encountered the Almighty God. Second God declared in direct revelation that something profound was going to happen to Israel. Third, he is struggling with the fact that he needs to tell his teacher everything including the punishment of his family.
Eli, demanded and threaten to curse Samuel if he did not tell everything of his encounter of God. I could picture Samuel bracing himself for some sort of profound reaction of grief or anger or something as Samuel shared everything that God said (1 Samuel 3:11-18 ESV).
A teaching moment has come and Eli’s reaction was anything but predictable to me and I suspect Samuel was surprised and awed by it too. Eli said:
““It is the LORD. Let him do what seems good to him.”” – (1 Samuel 3:18 ESV)
I have been thinking a lot about this story in the Bible and how it shows Eli’s trust in the sovereignty of God in a time of struggle. One of the struggle that I have is cyclical depression. Living with depression is a taste of Hell that I hope most will never encounter. When I sink into the bowels of depression, self-pity, hopelessness, anger and despair. I strike out towards God and everyone around me. I am angry and frustrated that though I believe in God, he allows me to suffer through these bouts of depression. I am angry because I know that he can cure the depression without effort. He can sanctify me. He can transform me in a second.
And yet God chooses not too. God chooses not to end suffering, mine and others. At first glance (and yes, second, third, fourth, three hundredth glance) that is a hard thing to swallow. Then you encounter texts like in 1 Samuel 3:18 where you see Eli is facing the disappointment in his sons who are dishonoring the priest and more importantly God and facing the inevitable death of not only his family but himself and yet has complete faith in the Lord.
Eli did not have the promises of the New Testament. He did not have the promise of Romans 8:28. Though he had a relationship with God which we will not have on this side of glory.
God will do what is good to Him. Thankfully what is good in His eyes is always good for us in His purposes.
I pray that we all are able to face our lives with the complete trust that Eli had in the Lord.
I was reading today in the Wall Street Journal a story about how the army is dealing with the increasing number of suicides that are taking place, the article is called “A General’s Personal Battle“ (This is on the Wall Street Journal site and I am not sure how long they will let non-subscribers read the story). What struck me about this story was the last two small paragraphs of the story.
Gen. Graham wasn’t a physically affectionate man before Kevin’s suicide. Today, he makes a point of hugging every father he meets who has lost a lost a child to combat or suicide.
“Men grieve differently,” he says. “But I still remember someone hugging me after Jeff’s death and just whispering, ‘Let me take a little bit of that pain off of you.’ ”
We are suppose to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). Here in this story is how one man, one hug, affected this General and changed his whole outlook.
Isn’t bearing one another’s burden offering to take a little bit of the pain and help give it to God? This looks to me as an example of how we are suppose to help bear one another’s burdens.
In my insomniac state, I was thinking about a question that Paul asks in Romans 6 that just stuns me. In the little bit of research I have done the commentators don’t say much on it. Maybe someone will have some thoughts.
“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.”
(Romans 6:20-21 ESV)
Earlier Paul states that either we are slaves of sin, which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness (Romans 6:16 ESV).
Several thoughts come to me about this:
Most unsaved people do not know that they are slaves.
Since you do not know you are a slave, they think they are free, no authority, no consequences.
When we receive the holy spirit, we finally realize we are slaves.
Yet we willingly go back to the slavery of sin, because of the immediate gratification.
What stuns me about the verse above is that Paul asks the perfect question, you have been living this life full of pride, greed, selfishness, lust (just name your sin) and what have you gotten from it other than shame?
What stuns me is that I now have been saved from the shame, guilt, punishment and death of my sinful life style and yet I crave to go back to my sin.
I am just thinking about application here.
If I want to complain about something… What fruit will that produce?
If I want to lust about something… What fruit will that produce?
If I want to gossip about someone… What fruit will that produce?
It is a question that I need to pray to God to bring in front of my face in every aspect of my life!
Barak Obama today has been sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. The roles have changed, the media who spent the last eight years hating the presidency and looking for every excuse to slander President Bush, begins their love fest in earnest with President Obama.
What is a Christian to do? We are angry, we are frustrated and we are concerned. It has already begun, I’ve watched my friends get more and more engrossed in watching and criticizing everything Barak Obama does. Are we going to spew the same hatred, vileness and vitriol that was spewed at us? Are we to become like those who hated us? Is it time for our revenge, to get back at those who hate us?
Right now I am sure many Christians want to question God about what is going on. Why is this man president? Someone who seems to disagree with many of the things that God cares about. Why is this man so successful, why did this man win the election?
I imagine the answer that we might get is the same answer that Peter got, when he questioned Jesus about what is going to happen with the beloved disciple John.
“When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!””
(John 21:21-22 ESV)
So what about this man Barak Obama, if God wills him to be President, what are we suppose to do? We are to do what we always are suppose to do, and that is to follow Jesus.
We have a choice, we can either obsess over everything President Obama does, get angry, get frustrated and become fruitless. Or we can continue to do what God has commanded us to do.
The Jews were looking for a powerful political messiah, the same as people today. Jesus refused to involve himself in the politics of the day because his mission was much more important. The Jews wanted to be saved from the Romans. Jesus saved us from ourselves, our sins, death and the wrath of God.
From the little I know of the New testament, neither Jesus nor the other New Testament writers often criticized or disrespected the governments that were in place. I think the story i below helps us understand how His focus was never to save us from the government, but we are to respect it.
“Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.”
(Matthew 22:15-22 ESV)
In fact his respect for the government authority placed by God took Jesus right to the cross (John 18:33-36 ESV)
Okay so what do we do?
Decide that our focus is on the ONE TRUE MESSIAH, we follow Jesus Christ.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the great and first commandment.And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””(Matthew 22:37-40 ESV)
Love your enemies and pray for them. We cannot become like many on the left became. (Matthew 5:43-44)
Remember that there is going to be people who hate us not only because we maybe conservative or republicans, but most of all because we are Christian (Mark 13:13 and John 15:18)
Remember we are being watched and the way we act reflects on Jesus Christ. See these posts: They Are Watching… and The Day After…
We realize that the field are white for harvest and we go out and make disciples (John 4:35 and Matt 28:19-20)
Barak Obama is “preaching” about unity, love, charity, and sacrifice as if they are new ideas. Take those openings and teach people about where those ideas came from, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We are exiles here in the United States of America, our ultimate authority is not the government of the United States. We don’t necessarily have to like our new president, but we have to remember it is our responsibility to do everything to honor and glorify God.
P.S. I definitely am not saying that we cannot question see this blog post by John Piper.
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