I've been thinking lately about some of the most well known verses in the Bible, and wondering whether or not some of them become too familiar to us and therefore lose significance. Many verses could be mentioned, but the one that comes to mind is Proverbs 3:5-6. In case you don't have it memorized (shame on you! Just kidding), it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths." This is one of the verses we will be using tomorrow night for youth group, particularly trying to answer the question "how do I know when I'm actually spending time with God?" My thesis if you will is that simply activities such as reading the Bible, going to church, going to youth group, and other activities do not guarantee that you are spending time with God. Basically, the simple formula "reading the Bible = spending time with God" is not always true.
For me, Proverbs 3:5-6 is helpful in answering the question about spending time with God. I believe it sheds some light on the issue, namely that if reading the Bible doesn't always equate to time spent with God, trusting in God with all my heart and acknowledging him in all of my life does indicate I'm spending time with him. And if that is the case, then it can often be that the "less spiritual" things like going to school, doing homework, going to work, eating a meal, exercising, and so on can indeed be times spent with the Lord. It seems to me that Christians do a great disservice when we believe (or teach!) that the spiritual things are prayer, solitude, studying the Bible, and church attendance and other things mentioned above are not-so-spiritual. In the end, God is with us at all times by the Holy Spirit living in us, and therefore we are always spending time with God; or, at the very least every activity can be spending time with God if we are trusting in him and acknowledging him in our lives.
What other verses are "all too common" verses for us today? How can another look at them help us grow in our walk with Christ?
Showing posts with label Christian spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian spirituality. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Martha, Martha
I wrote the other day about the spiritual funk that I've been in for a little while now. Funny how just after I acknowledge I'm in a funk and ask God to change whatever needs changing in my heart, he brought me to Luke 10:38-42. It's the story of two sisters, Mary and Martha. Jesus enters a village and is invited by Martha into her home. She is busy cleaning things up, getting food ready, and doing all the right entertaining things for her guest. Meanwhile her sister Mary just plops down and sits and Jesus' feet as he teaches (it seems to me there were other people Jesus was teaching too, making the entertaining job all the more difficult on just one person). Martha is frustrated with her sister, and out of this frustration says to Jesus, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." Now, I can't blame Martha for feeling frustrated. She and Mary were possibly the only women in the house and much work needed to be done while guests were there. I would think Jesus would excuse Mary from the teaching session to assist her sister. Instead he reveals what's really going on in Martha's heart.
Jesus looks at Martha and says, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." It isn't that Martha just wanted to be a good host, but Martha's heart was weighed down in anxiety. Martha's busy-ness was keeping her from the one necessary thing: time with her Lord. She acknowledged him as Lord and yet was not doing the one thing she most needed to do. Jesus could say the exact same thing to me! I'm busy doing ministry, hosting things, planning things, even reading my Bible for class and to prepare Bible studies. Yet it is so, so easy to get caught up in all the things I'm doing and hardly acknowledge that Jesus is "in the room" - that is, with me by his Holy Spirit, indwelling me and teaching me. But am I listening? Am I taking the time to just be with my Lord? To ignore the email, sports scores, facebook updates, and so on just to read his Word, receive his grace, bask in his mercies which are new each morning, and give him my heart? So often it is the trivial things (which are not evil in and of themselves) that are keeping me in the spiritual kiddie pool instead of swimming in the deep waters of the Christian life.
So, this is my life lesson this week. It came unexpectedly as I was preparing for Wednesday's Bible study, which focused on the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It caught my attention and so I read it - and felt the warmth of God's presence speaking gently to me that I needed to stop being such a Martha and recognize the one "necessary" thing is time with Jesus, giving him my whole self. Of course life is busy still and I shouldn't abandon my responsibilities for the sake of "more time with Jesus". What I need to do is prioritize: time with the Lord, learning from him, loving him for who he is and what he's done, and then going about the ministry he has appointed me to do. I hope this is encouraging for you - I have a feeling I'm not the only Martha out there.
Soli Deo Gloria
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Jesus looks at Martha and says, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." It isn't that Martha just wanted to be a good host, but Martha's heart was weighed down in anxiety. Martha's busy-ness was keeping her from the one necessary thing: time with her Lord. She acknowledged him as Lord and yet was not doing the one thing she most needed to do. Jesus could say the exact same thing to me! I'm busy doing ministry, hosting things, planning things, even reading my Bible for class and to prepare Bible studies. Yet it is so, so easy to get caught up in all the things I'm doing and hardly acknowledge that Jesus is "in the room" - that is, with me by his Holy Spirit, indwelling me and teaching me. But am I listening? Am I taking the time to just be with my Lord? To ignore the email, sports scores, facebook updates, and so on just to read his Word, receive his grace, bask in his mercies which are new each morning, and give him my heart? So often it is the trivial things (which are not evil in and of themselves) that are keeping me in the spiritual kiddie pool instead of swimming in the deep waters of the Christian life.
So, this is my life lesson this week. It came unexpectedly as I was preparing for Wednesday's Bible study, which focused on the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It caught my attention and so I read it - and felt the warmth of God's presence speaking gently to me that I needed to stop being such a Martha and recognize the one "necessary" thing is time with Jesus, giving him my whole self. Of course life is busy still and I shouldn't abandon my responsibilities for the sake of "more time with Jesus". What I need to do is prioritize: time with the Lord, learning from him, loving him for who he is and what he's done, and then going about the ministry he has appointed me to do. I hope this is encouraging for you - I have a feeling I'm not the only Martha out there.
Soli Deo Gloria
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Getting Rid of Idols
I preached on Sunday morning on worship and idolatry. To summarize, worship is the sum and total of what you and I are doing every day of our lives. Worship, as I put it on Sunday, is "giving our utmost devotion to something, it is setting our affection on something in such a way that it changes the way we live." This is not a perfect definition, but I think it's a good working definition from what we see in the Bible. The object of worship is anything that we revere most in our lives, that which we believe we "cannot live without" - if we lost it, whatever it is, we are ruined, failures, destitute. Idolatry is worshiping anything other than the one, true God. We are all idolaters, enslaved in various ways to something other than God. Anything can become an idol in someone's life, and usually they are good things that become ultimate things, which is where the problem lies. What I want to answer is the question "How do I get rid of idols"? How can idols be defeated in my life? And remember, the object is not that which is powerful necessarily; it is the spiritual forces of darkness behind the idol, motivating and deceiving us, that is powerful.
So, how do idols get destroyed in someone's life? One option, and a wrong one, is to recognize something as an idol and then try real hard to stop making it an idol. If you realize your pursuit of money has become an idol, to try real hard and stop worrying about money so much is not the right avenue to take. Or if you realize you idolize your children, or at least their happiness and success above all else, you don't need to try and ignore them and stop caring as much for them.
The only way to truly defeat an idol in your life is to turn to the One who has defeated every idol - who went to the cross for you and dominated, for all eternity, the "rulers and authorities" of this world. Colossians 2:15 speaks of this: "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by trimphing over them in him." God the Father destroyed the idols of our heart, the rulers and authorities who deceive us, through Christ on the cross. Not only this, he also put them to open shame, showing that they are no gods at all - they cannot provide true life, they cannot save you like God can, they are not worthy of our utmost devotion and obedience like God is worthy. This is the factual way God defeated idols, it is the objective way.
There is also a subjective way God has defeated idols, or you might say a "personal" way in your life that God defeats idols. This is where the rubber meats the road, this is where heart transformation is. I ranted briefly at the end of my sermon about Christ's victory through the cross and how we are freed from their power through him, and yet if this fact only enters your brain and isn't believed in the heart it will not do any good. One of the most important things to remember is what I said at the end, that this isn't about loving anything less necessarily (don't love your kids or your spouse less... but you'll need to ditch the unhealthy dating relationship and you'll definitely need to stop the porn watching). This is about loving Christ more, about "seeing and savoring Jesus Christ", as John Piper describes it in his book by that title. Idols fade from our hearts, their grasp on us is weakened and removed, when we see God as all-satisfying, worthy of our devotion, obedience, sacrifice, and love. When God is the center, is the One we seek to honor, and when His truth becomes THE truth in our lives, idols will be removed.
Do we ever stop running after idols completely? Maybe not completely, but certainly we can to the point of returning quickly when we realize we've strayed from the only God that truly exists. The Gospel is good news... great news actually... precisely because you and I are slaves to sin, mastered by all kinds of lusts and desires, transgressors and offenders of the Most High, and yet are given grace and mercy freely from the Judge of all mankind, through his Son's sacrifice for us. He becomes our Father, King, Lord, Savior, Friend, and lives in us by his Spirit. This isn't theory, friends. This is real life, real freedom, and really worth pursuing at the cost of anything and everything.
Soli Deo Gloria
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So, how do idols get destroyed in someone's life? One option, and a wrong one, is to recognize something as an idol and then try real hard to stop making it an idol. If you realize your pursuit of money has become an idol, to try real hard and stop worrying about money so much is not the right avenue to take. Or if you realize you idolize your children, or at least their happiness and success above all else, you don't need to try and ignore them and stop caring as much for them.
The only way to truly defeat an idol in your life is to turn to the One who has defeated every idol - who went to the cross for you and dominated, for all eternity, the "rulers and authorities" of this world. Colossians 2:15 speaks of this: "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by trimphing over them in him." God the Father destroyed the idols of our heart, the rulers and authorities who deceive us, through Christ on the cross. Not only this, he also put them to open shame, showing that they are no gods at all - they cannot provide true life, they cannot save you like God can, they are not worthy of our utmost devotion and obedience like God is worthy. This is the factual way God defeated idols, it is the objective way.
There is also a subjective way God has defeated idols, or you might say a "personal" way in your life that God defeats idols. This is where the rubber meats the road, this is where heart transformation is. I ranted briefly at the end of my sermon about Christ's victory through the cross and how we are freed from their power through him, and yet if this fact only enters your brain and isn't believed in the heart it will not do any good. One of the most important things to remember is what I said at the end, that this isn't about loving anything less necessarily (don't love your kids or your spouse less... but you'll need to ditch the unhealthy dating relationship and you'll definitely need to stop the porn watching). This is about loving Christ more, about "seeing and savoring Jesus Christ", as John Piper describes it in his book by that title. Idols fade from our hearts, their grasp on us is weakened and removed, when we see God as all-satisfying, worthy of our devotion, obedience, sacrifice, and love. When God is the center, is the One we seek to honor, and when His truth becomes THE truth in our lives, idols will be removed.
Do we ever stop running after idols completely? Maybe not completely, but certainly we can to the point of returning quickly when we realize we've strayed from the only God that truly exists. The Gospel is good news... great news actually... precisely because you and I are slaves to sin, mastered by all kinds of lusts and desires, transgressors and offenders of the Most High, and yet are given grace and mercy freely from the Judge of all mankind, through his Son's sacrifice for us. He becomes our Father, King, Lord, Savior, Friend, and lives in us by his Spirit. This isn't theory, friends. This is real life, real freedom, and really worth pursuing at the cost of anything and everything.
Soli Deo Gloria
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Thursday, August 20, 2009
Worship, part 2
I finished worship, part 1 questioning whether or not it is even possible to keep God in his rightful place and keep other things from becoming idols in our lives. As you may have guessed already, the answer is YES, we can do this. However, the method that often times is prescribed seems a bit wanting in my opinion. Often times churches give practical, religious ways to stop habits, stop worrying, and focus more on God. The prescription usually includes prayer, consistent Bible reading, and asking God to help us get over whatever we're worried about or hooked on. I'm certainly not advocating the abandonment of prayer or Bible study, but I think there is something more fundamental than these things that often isn't mentioned. The thing left out is this: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The answer to our idolatry problem (worshiping something else besides God) is not to work harder at Christian practices and white-knuckle our way through it. The answer is to learn, in deeper and deeper ways who Jesus is and how he is the greatest news in the world.
Part of being a worshiper, of being created to worship, is that we are setting our deepest affections on the object of our worship and we are willing to sacrifice many things for it. Another important part of worship (or idolatry) is that we become enslaved to whatever it is we worship. If it's your family, you will be a slave to all your family demands of you, usually feeling that you've never done enough to measure up.
Tim Keller tells a story of two women, each with terrible husbands who didn't father well, and each with one son. He counseled each of them at nearly the same time with the same advice: each needed to forgive their husband, work on loving him, and leave the rest up to God to work on their heart. The woman who seemed less mature in her faith successfully forgave her husband, improving the marriage and slowly seeing improvements of her husband's fathering. The other woman, who seemed more mature, did not forgive her husband. The son became suffocated under the mother's love, the marriage went south (I can't remember if they divorced or not), and the mother was bitter for many years.
Keller reflected years later on the events of these two women and realized one crucial difference between them: the woman who forgave her husband trusted God in such a way that her son was not an idol, yet the other one, the one that he thought would fare better, made an idol out of her son's love and wouldn't forgive her husband. The issue was not just bitterness or parenting, but idolatry on the part of the mother. When a relationships becomes an idol, we become a slave to it in such a way that we MUST have "it" - approval, success, praise/affection, power, control, etc. Every other idol becomes a master as well, though it may manifest itself in different ways.
So, how do we a.) discern idols, and b.) destroy idols? We went through how to discern them briefly in the last post, so I want to focus on destroying them. The deepest answer is that we need our hearts to see and take its greatest joy in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When we recognize Christ as our master (for that is what he is), we will come to see that he is the only master who can forgive us when we fail him and satisfy our heart. Career, romance, family relationships, education, money, sports, leisure, control, you name it - none of those things can forgive us if we fail them. We will know we are guilty of disappointing our master and work harder than ever to make it up and get in good standing. Only Christ gave his own life for us in order to become the Master of our hearts and lives - calling us to deeper trust in him and promising us grace when we fail him. We deserve infinite wrath from God our Creator - we have abandoned him, trusted in created things above him, and set our heart's affection on anything but him.
Yet Christ came, eternal God in human flesh, to reconcile us to himself. And the wild thing is this: only when we come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, when he is our Master, do we become free. Only by setting our heart's deepest affection on him, tearing down any idols that threaten that Lordship and seeing him as all-satisfying, will we find true satisfaction in other things as well. When Christ is Lord in our heart, then career, money, family, education, success, leisure, comforts, will become be subordinate to him. Instead of ruling over us, they will matter properly (these are good things, and should be important) but not so much so that we are consumed and ruled by them.
I know this post is long, but I hope it is a good encouragement for you. You don't need to work harder at stopping bad habits, you need to see and love Jesus Christ above all else. You don't need to work harder at changing your attitudes, you need to look to Christ, belonging to him and being satisfied in him.
Soli Deo Gloria
To make a comment, click "comments" just below any post, then type in the box
Part of being a worshiper, of being created to worship, is that we are setting our deepest affections on the object of our worship and we are willing to sacrifice many things for it. Another important part of worship (or idolatry) is that we become enslaved to whatever it is we worship. If it's your family, you will be a slave to all your family demands of you, usually feeling that you've never done enough to measure up.
Tim Keller tells a story of two women, each with terrible husbands who didn't father well, and each with one son. He counseled each of them at nearly the same time with the same advice: each needed to forgive their husband, work on loving him, and leave the rest up to God to work on their heart. The woman who seemed less mature in her faith successfully forgave her husband, improving the marriage and slowly seeing improvements of her husband's fathering. The other woman, who seemed more mature, did not forgive her husband. The son became suffocated under the mother's love, the marriage went south (I can't remember if they divorced or not), and the mother was bitter for many years.
Keller reflected years later on the events of these two women and realized one crucial difference between them: the woman who forgave her husband trusted God in such a way that her son was not an idol, yet the other one, the one that he thought would fare better, made an idol out of her son's love and wouldn't forgive her husband. The issue was not just bitterness or parenting, but idolatry on the part of the mother. When a relationships becomes an idol, we become a slave to it in such a way that we MUST have "it" - approval, success, praise/affection, power, control, etc. Every other idol becomes a master as well, though it may manifest itself in different ways.
So, how do we a.) discern idols, and b.) destroy idols? We went through how to discern them briefly in the last post, so I want to focus on destroying them. The deepest answer is that we need our hearts to see and take its greatest joy in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When we recognize Christ as our master (for that is what he is), we will come to see that he is the only master who can forgive us when we fail him and satisfy our heart. Career, romance, family relationships, education, money, sports, leisure, control, you name it - none of those things can forgive us if we fail them. We will know we are guilty of disappointing our master and work harder than ever to make it up and get in good standing. Only Christ gave his own life for us in order to become the Master of our hearts and lives - calling us to deeper trust in him and promising us grace when we fail him. We deserve infinite wrath from God our Creator - we have abandoned him, trusted in created things above him, and set our heart's affection on anything but him.
Yet Christ came, eternal God in human flesh, to reconcile us to himself. And the wild thing is this: only when we come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, when he is our Master, do we become free. Only by setting our heart's deepest affection on him, tearing down any idols that threaten that Lordship and seeing him as all-satisfying, will we find true satisfaction in other things as well. When Christ is Lord in our heart, then career, money, family, education, success, leisure, comforts, will become be subordinate to him. Instead of ruling over us, they will matter properly (these are good things, and should be important) but not so much so that we are consumed and ruled by them.
I know this post is long, but I hope it is a good encouragement for you. You don't need to work harder at stopping bad habits, you need to see and love Jesus Christ above all else. You don't need to work harder at changing your attitudes, you need to look to Christ, belonging to him and being satisfied in him.
Soli Deo Gloria
To make a comment, click "comments" just below any post, then type in the box
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Why this blog
To be honest, I'm not sure where the desire to start a blog of my own came from. I've been blogging on my church's site for some time but it occurs to me that I have so many more thoughts than I actually write on the site, and need some accountability to write them down and develop what I consider a God given gift and passion.
So, why "I know where the Bread is?" Because I am a beggar trying to tell other beggars where the Bread is. This is a popular phrase within the Christian subculture, referring to a humble approach to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel, as Tim Keller has summed up so eloquently, is this: you are far worse than you ever dare believe, and you are far more loved than you ever dare imagine. We tend to have a very high view of our humanity, a view which the Bible shatters on nearly every page. We are not our own god, nor are we nearly as "free" as we wish we were. We are slaves and beggars, enslaved by our sinful nature and addictions, and in desperate need of grace. So I'm beginning this blog with the hope of being an encouragement to everyone, writing painfully transparent thoughts on the beautiful struggle that is the Christian life. I'm a beggar who has found his bread (fulfillment and meaning in life) from Jesus Christ, who called himself the Bread of life. I hope this post will be thought provoking and will be used by God to lead you to Himself.
Soli Deo Gloria
To make a comment, click "comments" just below any post, then type in the box
So, why "I know where the Bread is?" Because I am a beggar trying to tell other beggars where the Bread is. This is a popular phrase within the Christian subculture, referring to a humble approach to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel, as Tim Keller has summed up so eloquently, is this: you are far worse than you ever dare believe, and you are far more loved than you ever dare imagine. We tend to have a very high view of our humanity, a view which the Bible shatters on nearly every page. We are not our own god, nor are we nearly as "free" as we wish we were. We are slaves and beggars, enslaved by our sinful nature and addictions, and in desperate need of grace. So I'm beginning this blog with the hope of being an encouragement to everyone, writing painfully transparent thoughts on the beautiful struggle that is the Christian life. I'm a beggar who has found his bread (fulfillment and meaning in life) from Jesus Christ, who called himself the Bread of life. I hope this post will be thought provoking and will be used by God to lead you to Himself.
Soli Deo Gloria
To make a comment, click "comments" just below any post, then type in the box
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