truth

Follow Me

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“When Jesus Christ says ‘Follow Me,’ He never says to where; the consequences must be left entirely to Him. We come in with our ‘buts,’ and ‘supposings,’ and ‘what will happen if I do?’ (cf. Luke 9:5762). We have nothing to do with what will happen if we obey; we have to abandon to God’s call in unconditional surrender and smilingly wash our hands of the consequences” –Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Whither).

That’s just it. I want guarantees that if I follow, I’ll get the desires of my own heart. It’s true that God did promise that, but maybe not in the way that I’ve always believed or wanted it to be. I think that as I follow in obedience, God changes my wanter (to borrow a phrase from my pastor). In other words, the desires of my heart as a mature believer probably aren’t the same as they were when I first said Yes to Jesus way back when.

I don’t get to set the terms. I don’t get to tell Jesus what the conditions will be before I follow. The famous verse from Paul says that I am not my own. I have been bought with a price. And who am I to haggle percentages and conditions when Jesus paid for me with His very blood on that cross. As in He paid all of His blood, not most or some, but all.

I’m not leaving it completely to blind chance. I know in whom I have believed. I trust the One I have committed to follow. I know His plans are for good and not harm, for prospering and not for evil. I know that I can read a whole history of saints who have surrendered to Christ and not one has ever been worse for it. Not one.

It all goes back to my own stubbornness and pride to think that I know better than God how my life should go. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it arrogance to think that if God doesn’t give me what I want when I want it, He must not know what He’s doing. I’ve learned enough to know that He gives me what I would have asked for had I known what He knows.

And that’s enough for me.

We Remember 25 Years Later

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I can still remember where I was 25 years ago on 9/11/2001. That was the day that everything changed. I recall walking into the church office where I worked at the time and hearing about a plane that had flown into a building. It was so random and no one knew anything yet about who did it or why.

When the second plane hit, I think that’s when just about everyone figured it out. This wasn’t random. This was orchestrated. I spend the rest of the day in shock, feeling numb and disconnected and unable to process the scope of the tragedy that had just unfolded.

Those next few days were horrific as the rescuers combed through the wreckage looking for survivors but finding mostly bodies and debris. I can’t imagine being on the ground seeing what those people were seeing, especially when you consider how many were jumping from the towers because of the intense heat and flames.

Those days were also beautiful. We came together as a nation for the briefest of moments. For one shining moment, we weren’t white or black, male or female, young or old. We were all Americans. There was a spirit of cooperation and compassion that pervaded our way of life. Churches were full the next Sunday as people were seeking answers,

I can’t believe it’s been 25 years. It blows my mind that a significant portion of the population wasn’t even alive in 2001. So many know about the events only from reading about them in textbooks or seeing videos on social media. It’s easy for the next generation to forget and for all the lessons we learned to be forgotten.

That’s why it’s vital that we remember. It’s important that we pass on what we saw and what we learned. Life is precious and fleeting, and only a life that honors God is worth living. So many of those we lost were God-fearing men and women. We may never fully understand the why until heaven, but we can know that God took what was evil and made it into something good.

We can love each other well, never take those people in our lives for granted, and use every opportunity to tell people what’s most important to us — that Jesus still loves and saves sinners like us. We can keep the memories of those lost on 9/11 alive as we continue to remember.

An Excerpt from The Magician’s Nephew

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If you want a good read (and you’re okay with reading children’s books), then I suggest The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s best to start with The Magician’s Nephew, a story which tells of the origins of Narnia. I’ve included an excerpt to give you an idea. Also, good books are good books, no matter who the intended target audience is. I’ve learned that much in my life so far:

“Well,” said Aslan, “can you use a spade and a plough and raise food out of the earth?”

“Yes, sir, I could do a bit of that sort of work: being brought up to it, like.”

“Can you rule these creatures kindly and fairly, remembering that they are not slaves like the dumb beasts of the world you were born in, but Talking Beasts and free subjects?”

“I see that, sir,” replied the Cabby. “I’d try to do the square thing by them all.”

“And would you bring up your children and grandchildren to do the same?”

“It’d be up to me to try, sir. I’d do my best: wouldn’t we, Nellie?”

“And you wouldn’t have favorites either among your own children or among the other creatures, or let any hold another under or use it hardly?”

“I never could abide such goings on, sir, and that’s the truth. I’d give ’em what for if I caught ’em at it,” said the Cabby. (All through this conversation his voice was growing slower and richer. More like the country voice he must have had as a boy and less like the sharp, quick voice of a cockney.)

“And if enemies came against the land (for enemies will arise) and there was war, would you be the first in the charge and the last in the retreat?”

“Well, sir,” said the Cabby very slowly, “a chap don’t exactly know till he’s been tried. I dare say I might turn out ever such a soft ’un. Never did no fighting except with my fists. I’d try—that is, I ’ope I’d try—to do my bit.”

“Then,” said Aslan, “you will have done all that a King should do.”

C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

We Wrestle Not

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what the late John MacArthur said. When it comes to those who are holding views that don’t align with the Bible, we must not view them as enemies but as our mission field.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places (Eph, 6:12. NLT).

In other words, people are not the enemy. The real enemy is the spiritual deception behind the lies. The prince of the power of the air is the enemy. And he is a defeated foe.

The best way to deal with those who wish to undermine biblical principles is to pray for their salvation. Pray that God leads them to the truth — not my truth or their truth or anyone else’s truth but THE truth that is personified in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the best example of someone being loved into truth is the Apostle Paul. He was an enemy of the Church. He persecuted and hated everything that the early believers stood for. Yet it was their prayers and an encounter with Jesus that led him to the light — in this case a literal blinding light on the road to Damascus. From there, this Paul became the most stout defender and proponent of the faith.

How cool would it be if some of the people who currently malign or twist Scripture eventually became the biggest apologists for the Bible? How amazing would it be if they were the ones pointing people to Jesus instead of to false doctrine or false worldviews?

Obviously, we should defend gospel truth. We should never stand by when people are being lied to and deceived. But we should also remember that those on the other side are just as much people that Christ died for as we were. They’re not the enemy. They’re the mission field, as we once were.

Love Standing in the Very Teeth of Suffering

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“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process” (Elisabeth Elliott).

Pain isn’t always bad. Sometimes pain means that healing is taking place. Those with broken bones can attest that while the breaking of the bone is painful, so is the healing of the break. But while neither is pleasant, the pain of healing must take place for there to be mending, or else the bone stays broken.

We are the same way. We’re broken. God is healing us. There’s pain involved in that process, but it’s better than the pain of remaining broken. And sometimes for a bone to set and heal properly, it has to be re-broken so it will mend properly.

If you want the ultimate picture of suffering in love, look at Jesus. God did not spare Jesus one moment of suffering, but He instead spared us from the worst of it. While we still undergo pain, God made sure that the worst of it fell on Jesus. He went through hell so we won’t have to. That’s love.

On a side note, parents that never allow their children to suffer or even be inconvenienced aren’t necessarily doing them any favors. Just as the butterfly’s struggle to emerge from the cocoon strengthens its wings to fly, so children struggle to become adults who are strong enough to think and live apart from their parents and on their own.

And for the record, I don’t believe the idea that God never gives us more than we can handle. He never gives us more than He can handle. Sometimes, it’s more than we can bear on our own, so we’re forced to rely on the God who made us to sustain us. That’s when we become more like Jesus.

Declaration of Dependence

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“We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there Our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves; we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

I think Jesus said something about this. Blessed are the poor in spirit? That seems to ring a bell. It’s only when I realize that I am spiritually bankrupt that I can open my hands to receive what God has for me. It’s only when I confess my own destitution that I can be useful to God. As long as I think I bring something to the table when it comes to serving the Lord, I get in my own way.

The way to blessing is through a declaration of dependence. We can go to God and say that we are completely helpless and can do nothing apart from Jesus. We confess that our own righteousness is like filthy rags. We declare that it’s only through abiding in the Vine that we can grow and flourish.

Lord, I commit myself to You. I know that apart from You I have nothing and I am nothing. Everything good in me is from You. I make my declaration of dependence in You and want to live from now on in the freedom of being nothing other than Your beloved child in whom You are well pleased because when You look at me You see Jesus. Amen.

Rock-firm and Faithful

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“You’re all I want in heaven!
You’re all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they’ll never be heard from again.
But I’m in the very presence of God—
oh, how refreshing it is!
I’ve made Lord God my home.
God, I’m telling the world what you do!” (Psalm 73:25-28, The Message)

Even to old age, God is faithful. When every last vestige of youth is gone, God remains the same. When everything in this world that we thought would sustain us is taken away, God is true to His word and true to us. Ultimately, when we leave this world we can take nothing with us but the faith that sustains us and the people we were faithful to share the gospel with.

I love the part in the gospel where Jesus has lost the majority of His followers after He told them some hard truths. He then turns to His disciples and asks if they’re leaving as well. Peter says, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life” (John 6:68, NLT).

Where else is there to go? Any other religion is bankrupt and false. Any other belief system leads nowhere and does nothing. The only way which guarantees us real and eternal life is the way of Jesus and the way to Jesus and the way through Jesus to the Father. He said that He’s the only way, the only truth, and the only life not because He was being exclusive but because He was being truthful. There is no other way.

So Lord, at the end of the day, You’re all I want in heaven and on earth. Long past when I’m gone from this world, You will still be faithful and true. You will still have the words of eternal life. May everyone who trusts in Your name always be faithful to love Your name and share Your name with all the world from now until You return. Amen.

Transforming Not Conforming

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“The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity” (2 Cor. 10:3-6, The Message).

I had a pastor who used to say regularly, “Don’t let the world teach you theology.”

I still think about that statement a lot, especially since so many believers get their theology from just about any any every source out there except for the Bible. We’re judging the Bible and God by our own humanistic standards of right and wrong. We have the mentality of saying that “God would never” because we would never, making ourselves the standard to which even God must abide.

But thankfully Romans 12:1-2 talks about being transformed not conformed. Being conformed means that eventually you cease looking like Christ and look exactly like the world. You end up with no message to give a sick society because you have become equally sick. But being transformed means that we no longer are carried along by every wind and wave. It means that we stand out as beacons of hope in a dark world that is desperately searching for meaning and a way out of the chaos it created.

Lord, help us no longer to be conformed to this world and the messages it is constantly sending us through the news and social media and advertising. Instead, transform us by the renewing of our minds through Your holy Word as we saturate ourselves with Scripture. May we be in the world but not of it. May we show the world not what it is but what it can be and be the means through which You can continue to rescue people out of a perishing world into a glorious Kingdom of Light. Amen.

The Blessing of No

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In my daily Bible reading, I ran across a bit of a strange event in the life of David. The text says that God was angry with David, so He incited David to to a count the number of people in Israel. Even Joab, the commander of David’s army who mostly looked out for himself, didn’t think this was a good idea. But why would God incite David to sin?

I think by this point, David has become a bit prideful and probably had the idea of taking a census so he could feed his own ego about how strong he was militarily. What God did was allow him to get what he wanted and to find out how bad that would turn out.

I think one of the hardest yet most worthwhile lessons we can ever learn as believers is that sometimes God not giving us what we ask for is a blessing rather than a punishment. He knows that if we got what we wanted when we were not ready for it, it would destroy us. Or He has something different and better in store for us that we would ask for if we knew what He knew.

Conversely, God often disciplines us by allowing us to have our own way for the sole purpose of seeing where our own desires lead us apart from God. One of the major points of Romans 1 was that one of the consequences of rejecting God was that they got everything they wanted and it only further alienated them from God, each other, and their very selves.

Sometimes, a NO from God is a blessing. He’s protecting you. He knows that you’re not asking from a place of faith but of lustful desire or a thirst for power or selfish ambition. He also knows that ultimately He can’t give you peace or security apart from Himself because He is our peace and security. He is the ultimate fulfillment of every longing and desire, even though we may not see it at the time.

Thank God for every time He says no or not yet. Trust that what He has for you is better. Believe and live in the knowledge that He is enough. Seek Him and His kingdom first above all else and everything else will fall into place.

Prone to Wander: A Prayer for Prodigals and Deconstructers

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“O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above” (Robert Robinson).

I read where Robert Robinson, author of the famous hymn “Come, Thou Found of Every Blessing”, actually walked away from his faith for a while but eventually returned. I don’t know any details. I know that God’s power to restore and redeem His own children is amazing and never failing.

My prayer is for those who have altogether left the true faith or have watered it down to make it humanly palatable. I pray you come back. I pray that you will know that the God who made you is the same God who loves you. He is the same God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as revealed in the Old Testament. He is the same God as the God who became incarnate in Jesus in the New Testament. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Truly, we are the ones who are prone to wander. We’re the ones who will drift into error and heresy if we forget our first love or quit striving for Christlikeness and settle into complacency and compromise. It’s easier to let go of our convictions for the sake of so-called peace and fitting in. It’s so much easier when we’re liked and when all people speak well of us. But Jesus said woe to those when everybody praises you and says nice things about you.

The truth of the matter is that Jesus said much that made people quit following Him. He said some hard truths that people didn’t like because what they heard made them uncomfortable and challenged them to change. He preached love toward those who were the least but He also emphasized repentance because the Kingdom of God was at hand. He told the woman that He didn’t condemn her but also to go and sin no more.

Lord, I’m praying that those who have fallen away will come back to true faith. I’m praying for some who were never Yours but who thought they were and even did amazing things in Your name though You said that You never knew them. May they truly embrace Your gospel of grace and find forgiveness and salvation in You. May they know not my truth or their truth but Your truth because You are the Truth, the Life, and the Way.

Restore Your truth to churches and denominations that have lost their way. Redeem them to places where Your Word is taught and Your gospel is preached. Revive Your Church, Lord, so that we can again be the ones who bear Your name well and share Your love faithfully until everyone has heard. Amen.