Your Identity: The Foundation of a Biblical View of Money

How do you handle money?

For example: Assume you’ve been renting a house, and are considering buying. How do you make that decision?

  • How much should you spend?
  • How much should you borrow?
  • Is that decision affected by Scripture? Should it be?

We spend money every day, from seemingly trivial expenditures, like a morning cup from Starbucks, to the purchase of major items, like a house or a car; from services that are expensive– like a college education – to those that are not, like haircuts and tips.

We buy insurance on our health and our cars and our lives, and we pay deductibles and co-pays over and above the premiums.

We have little say about the one-fourth of our income on average that we pay in taxes (and, as we saw in a recent sermon, we should pay those taxes), but we make decisions all the time about the remainder:

  • What do we buy?
  • When do we splurge?
  • How much do we save?

Again: Are those decisions affected by Scripture? Should they be?

Most of us would answer that question by saying, “Of course! The Bible speaks to all of life. Through Jesus, God saves us in this world of getting and spending.  And He doesn’t take us out of it immediately. Instead, He transforms us into His likeness, so that we reflect His image. We are thus to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; we are to our neighbor as we love ourselves. Surely those commands have implications for how we spend money.”

But having acknowledged  that truth, what are the implications?

  • Do you buy the big house or the small one?
  • Do you borrow to attend college or not?
  • Do you buy the full breakfast or only a cup of coffee?

When we look to Scripture, we don’t easily see these questions answered. That is, we don’t see clear rules to use in governing our spending.

We long for such rules, because by nature we are legalists, we are Pharisees. We want to look at a list and check off all the items, so we can say, “I’m all right! I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.” Or, we want to look at a list, see where we fall short, and make our New Year’s resolutions: “This time I’ll do it right! I’ll do what God requires!”

We so long to establish our own righteousness. As we have seen time and again in our series on Matthew’s Gospel, that’s what the Pharisees did. They re-wrote the Old Testament Scriptures as a set of rules, and then congratulated themselves on fulfilling Scripture – while looking down their noses at everyone else, including Jesus, who did not live up to those rules. As Jesus said, our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees.

With regard to money, many Christians today think something like this:

“I’ve earned a certain amount of money; I’ve worked hard for it. It’s all I have to meet my own needs and desires, as well as my family’s needs and desires. It’s all we have to pay for education, for food, for housing, for transportation, for recreation, for taxes, for insurance. God wants some of it, and, sure, He deserves some.”

Then we tend to continue the thought process in one of two ways:

  1. “So I’ll spend what I need in these other areas, and give God what’s left.” Or,
  2. “So I’ll give a certain percentage of my income to God and His work, and budget the rest to meet our other needs.”

A number of Christian books on money management argue against number 1 as unbiblical, and commend number 2. But as we shall see in the weeks ahead: Both of those ways of deciding how much to give are unbiblical. For in both cases, God has nothing to do with the bulk of our expenditures. Neither rule is commended by Scripture.

No, God does not give us a set of rules regarding money or giving in Scriptures.

Instead, He gives us something much more valuable:

  • He tells us who He is.
  • He tells us who we are before Him.
  • He tells us how to be reconciled to Him
  • He promises that if we come to Him thru faith in Jesus, we are His children – and He will meet our every need.
  • He promises furthermore that we are heirs of His Kingdom, joint heirs with Christ. We have an inheritance that will never spoil. It is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:4).

That is: He gives us an identity. In addition, He gives us security – and tells us what security really means.

Furthermore, He gives us joy– and tells us how to find it, and how to distinguish between false joy and genuine joy.

  • Identity
  • Security
  • Joy

Note that many people try to find these through money, through jobs, through investments and bank accounts. They think that money leads to happiness, that money leads to security, that my income and my job define who I am as a person.

Scripture argues strongly that those are lies, those are myths, those are falsehoods that enslave us.

So: If we are to manage money in biblical way, we need more than a set of rules.

  • We need to know our identity
  • We need to know what security is, and how to find it
  • We need to know what joy is, and how to obtain it

Thus as we begin to delve in to Scripture’s teaching on money, we must start with identity, security, and joy. If instead we start by discussing how to make day to day decisions on budgeting, we’ll never understand the thrust of biblical teaching in this area.

Therefore, we’ll begin by looking at our identity in Christ.

Identity

What are signs that we struggle with money and identity?

  • When unemployment or lack of promotion affects our self-image, leading to depression;
  • Or, when employment or promotion is what motivates and drives you.
  • When you go to a high school or college reunion, and are reluctant to talk about your work;
  • Or, when you only want to talk about your work at a reunion.
  • When you can’t imagine or don’t consider changing your work when you hear of the needs for missionaries to unreached peoples;
  • Or when, upon hearing of those needs, you think you must change in order to make your life worthwhile.
  • When others’ opinions about you depress you – or make your day.
  • When you try to spend money in ways that will influence others to think well of you.

We must ground our identity in what God says about us. Consider these words of the Apostle Paul:

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”  16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  17 and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17)

In this brief section, Paul highlights three aspects of our identity, if we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus: We are adopted into God’s family; we are thus His beloved children; and we are heirs of God.

Adopted Into God’s Family

What are you apart from God?  Lost. Condemned. By nature an object of God’s wrath.

Verse 15 tells us we have “received the Spirit of adoption as sons.” Imagine that you are a child in an orphanage, and God shows up. He will adopt some. Why does God choose you?

Scripture does not allow us to think that He chose us because we were the cutest, the strongest, or the ones with the most potential. No. Nothing distinguishes us; we, like all, deserve His punishment, not His grace and mercy. He loves us because He loves us (Deuteronomy 7:7-8).

Then having chosen you – does He make then establish solely a master/slave relationship with you? “Do this! Do that, or else! I saved you; now you owe me everything! So now I’ll use you and oppress you – but at least you’ll be alive.”

Is that way God treats us?

Note clearly: He could have done that – and it would have been a mercy! For we deserve death!

But instead: He adopts us. He brings us in to His family. He showers us with gifts we don’t deserve, gifts we can never deserve.

We’ve received that type of adoption.

God’s Beloved Children

So as verse 15 days, we cry out, “Abba! Father!” “Abba” was a familiar, intimate term for father – rather like “Daddy” in English. So Paul is saying, having been adopted, we cry out to God as His children, “Daddy! The One who loves me!”

As the Apostle John writes,

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3:1)

Consider some implications of this image:

  1. LOVE – God, like a father, cares for us.
  2. INTIMACY – He treats us not just as a household servant  – that would have been good enough! Nor does He treat us like a nephew or niece: loved, but outside the circle of his responsibility. Instead we are with Him, and will always be His, always be close to Him.
  3. WISDOM – Like an earthly father, He knows better than we do what is in our best interest.
  4. CARE and PROVISION – He gives us what we need to become what He intends. This is central to our understanding of money. What do earthly fathers do for children? Will not our heavenly Father do at least as much? (Matthew 7:11, Romans 8:32)
  5. SAFETY – He is our help and our shield, our protector.
  6. SUBMISSION – It is both right and logical for us to submit to Him – not motivated by fear of punishment, but confident in His love and wisdom.

Heirs of God and Joint Heirs with Christ

Verse 17 tells us that we are not only children, but heirs. Looking more broadly at Scripture, we find ourselves called:

  • Heirs of the world
  • Heirs of the kingdom
  • Heirs of eternal life
  • Heirs of the promises
  • Heirs of salvation

We are God’s children. We enter into eternal life now. And there’s a sense in which we already have obtained an inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:11). But that inheritance in its fullness is yet to come:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (Revelation 21:6-7, NIV)

All this is yours. This is your inheritance. By grace. Undeserved.

  • Intimacy with God – forever.
  • All that money can buy – and much that it cannot – in abundance.
  • Love, care, purpose, fulfillment – all yours.

Imagine yourself, then, in these terms:

Adopted, saved from certain death, and given love, education, food, and clothing; given a purpose, a task, and instructions for how to fulfill it. Given a grant to be used for meeting your needs, for enjoyment, and for fulfilling the task.

Furthermore, you’re heir of a fortune – and your Daddy has promised: Whatever you need to complete the task, just ask.

In those circumstances: Given who you are, who your Daddy is, and what He has done for you: How will you use the grant?

If you are in Christ, you are a child of the King.

Live like that is true.

[This is taken from the sermon from 1/5/14]

How Should Christians Handle Money?

How should Christians handle money? How should we decide how much to give? How should we decide whether or not to buy a house – or a car, or a computer, or a smartphone?

We face these questions daily. How does Scripture guide is in answering them?

The Bible has much to say about these matters. But rather than giving us a list of rules – Give X percent! Don’t buy an Iphone! Only own cars more than five years old! – Scripture unveils the heart issues that strongly influence how we spend money. These heart issues include:

  • Who am I? What shapes my identity?
  • What is security, and how can I find it?
  • What is joy, and how can I find it?

This Sunday we begin a new sermon series: Where Do You Find Identity, Security, and Joy? A Scriptural Understanding of Money, Giving, and Material Possessions. Drawing on a variety of Scriptures, we’ll consider how the Bible answers these fundamental questions of identity, security, and joy, and explore the links between these answers and the way we use money and possessions.

Simultaneously, we’ll discuss how to apply these lessons practically during our adult Core Seminar (8:15am on Sundays), and, during the first half of the year, memorize several key passages on this theme. Read over these upcoming Fighter Verses below (they are divided week by week in this document). Meditate on them and pray over them. We trust that God will work powerfully through His Word to help us to hold firmly to who we are in Christ, thereby to find our security and joy fully in Him – and thus to handle money in a way that glorifies His Name.

Proverbs 3:13-18 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, 14 for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. 15 She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. 16 Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. 17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.

Luke 12:13-21 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:32-34  “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

1 Timothy 6:6-19 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. 11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time–he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

2 Corinthians 9:6-11  The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10  He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

Psalm 49:16-20 Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. 17 For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him. 18 For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed–and though you get praise when you do well for yourself– 19 his soul will go to the generation of his fathers, who will never again see light. 20 Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.

Proverbs 23:4-5 Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. 5 When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.

 

 

Read the Whole Bible in 2014

Should you read the Bible?

Jesus says, “Blessed . . . are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28)

How will reading the Bible bless you?

Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

How then should you read God’s Word?

Those same verses from Paul imply that we should read all of it, since every part of it is profitable.

Surely also you should read it daily; in addition you should read it submissively. In Proverbs 8, personified Wisdom cries out:

“Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death“ (Proverbs 8:33-36, emphasis added).

But what does this look like on a day to day and year to year basis?

If we are to read the Bible daily, with a goal of reading it in its entirety, we will need a plan. I first followed an annual, comprehensive Bible reading plan in 1984. This plan was purely chronological; I began reading with Genesis 1 on January 1 and finished with Revelation 22 on December 31, but in between the plan guided me through Scripture in the order in which events and prophecies occurred. This was eye-opening to me. Though I had grown up in church and in fact had read all of Scripture previously, I had never before seen the overall flow of God’s plan of redemption. In particular, the writings of prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah became much more meaningful to me as I read them in conjunction with the historical books. In addition, many psalms came to life as I read them in the context of surrounding events.

I followed chronological plans several more times in subsequent years. However, there are significant weaknesses in following such a plan repeatedly for your daily devotional reading. First of all, you read nothing from the New Testament for more than nine months of the year. Second, a strictly chronological plan jumps around in the four Gospels. The reader therefore misses what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John communicate through the way they each order and select from the events of Jesus’ life. Finally, following chronological plans requires a lot of page flipping.

So in December of 2000, I developed the Bible Unity Reading Plan, which yields the benefits of a chronological approach while avoiding these weaknesses.  The Bible Unity Plan has two tracks for each day. The longer track – the left hand column in each day’s reading – is chronological. The second track, in the right column, is a shorter reading from another part of Scripture. This second track includes Mark, Luke, and John – read straight through – and several epistles while the chronological track makes its way through the Old Testament; it then focuses on Psalms and Proverbs while the chronological track takes you through the remaining books of the New Testament. And with only two passages to read most days, there is minimal page-flipping. The Plan also follows a helpful feature of the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan, scheduling only 25 days of reading per month. This allows you to read something else on Sundays (which I like to do), or to catch up easily if you miss an occasional day.

I have used this plan (or a variant of it) every year from 2001 to the present. I enjoy beginning each New Year with Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1-3:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

I also enjoy the 14th reading in November, which pairs the message of Acts 15 – those from other nations need not become Jewish to be saved – with the foundation of that message in Psalm 67: “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!”

In 2001 – the first time I read through the Bible following the plan – I was astounded by God’s providence. Living in West Africa, on September 11 we did not hear about the destruction of the Twin Towers until late afternoon. That evening I turned to the 11th reading for September – and read three times of the heart-rending but long-prophesied destruction of Jerusalem from 2 Kings 25, Jeremiah 39, and Jeremiah 52.

Finally, every year I look forward to the final day’s readings, which sum up the entire storyline of the Bible:

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” . . . The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. . . . He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:12-13, 17, 20)

Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven (Psalm 148:7-13).

I expect to follow this plan, and to finish each year reading those words, as long as I live. I encourage you to join me in 2014.

[A shorter version of the Bible Unity Plan – which covers all the New Testament and about half the Old – is available here. This Sunday, copies of both plans will be on the table in the foyer. This article is edited slightly from the original, published in December 2012.]

 

Good Cheer For Christmas

[From Charles Spurgeon’s sermon of December 20, 1868 on Isaiah 25:6: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.”]

We have nearly arrived at the great merry-making season of the year. On Christmas-day we shall find all . . . enjoying themselves with all the good cheer which they can afford. Servants of God, you who have the largest share in the person of him who was born at Bethlehem, I invite you to the best of all Christmas fare. . . . Behold, how rich and how abundant are the provisions which God has made for the high festival which he would have his servants keep, not now and then, but all the days of their lives!

God, in the verse before us, has been pleased to describe the provisions of the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . When we behold the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed—when we see him offered up upon the chosen mountain, we then discover a fulness of meaning in these gracious words of sacred hospitality. . . .

I. First, then, we have to consider THE FEAST.

It is described as consisting of . . . the best of the best. . . . Let us attentively survey the blessings of the gospel. . . .

One of the first gospel blessings is that of complete justification. A sinner, though guilty in himself, no sooner believes in Jesus than all his sins are pardoned. The righteousness of Christ becomes his righteousness, and he is accepted in the Beloved. Now, this is a delicious dish indeed. Here is something for the soul to feed upon. To think that I, though a deeply guilty one, am absolved of God, and set free from the bondage of the law! To think that I, though once an heir of wrath, am now as accepted before God as Adam was when he walked in the Garden without a sin; nay, more accepted still, for the divine righteousness of Christ belongs to me, and I stand complete in him, beloved in the Beloved, and accepted in him too! Beloved, this is such a precious truth, that when the soul feeds on it, it experiences a quiet peace, a deep and heavenly calm, to be found nowhere on earth besides. . . . Here is marrow indeed when we perceive the truth and reality of the substitution of Jesus, and grasp with heart and soul the fact of our great Surety standing in our stead at the bar of justice, that we might stand in his stead in the place of honour and love. . . .

Meditate upon a second blessing of the covenant of grace, namely, that of adoption. It is plainly revealed to us, that as many as have believed in Christ Jesus unto the salvation of their souls, are the sons of God. . . . Shall a worm of the dust become a child of God? A rebel be adopted into the heavenly family? A condemned criminal not only forgiven, but actually made a child of God? Wonder of wonders! “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God!” To which of the kings and princes of this earth did he ever say, “Thou art my son”? He has not spoken thus to the great ones and to the mighty, but God hath chosen the base things of this world and things that are despised, yea, and things that are not, and made these to be of the seed royal. . . .

Passing on from the blessing of adoption, let us remember that every child of God is the object of eternal love without beginning and without end. . . . Long before the Lord began to create the world, he had thought of me. Long ere Adam fell or Christ was born, and the angels sung their first choral over Bethlehem’s miracle, the eye and the heart of God were towards his elect people. . . .

[Furthermore,] this love which had no beginning shall have no end. He is a God that changeth not. . . . Where he has once set his heart of love upon a man, he never turns away from doing him good. . . . Remember that not merely has the Lord thought of you from everlasting, but loved you. Oh! the depth of that word “love,” as it applies to the infinite Jehovah, whose name, whose essence, whose nature is love! He has loved you with all the immutable intensity of his heart, never more and never less; loved you so much that he gave his only begotten Son for you; loved you so well that nothing could content him but making you to be conformed into the image of his dear Son, and causing you to partake of his glory that you may be with him where he is! Come, feed on this, ye heirs of eternal life! . . .

[Now feed on] union to Christ. We are plainly taught in the word of God that as many as have believed are one with Christ. . . . They are in him as the branches are in the vine; they are members of the body of which he is the head. They are one with Jesus in such a true and real sense that with him they died, with him they have been buried, with him they are risen, with him they are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places. . . . They are dead and their life is hid with Christ in God. . . . . [If] we are one with Christ, then because he lives we must live also; because he was justified by his resurrection, we also are justified in him; because he is rewarded and for ever sits down at his Father’s right hand, we also have obtained the inheritance in him. . . . Oh, can it be that this aching head already has a right to a celestial crown! . . . That these weary feet have a title to tread the sacred halls of the New Jerusalem! It is so, for if we are one with Christ, then all he has belongs to us, and it is but a matter of time, and of gracious arrangement when we shall come into the full enjoyment thereof. . . .
I cannot bring forth all the courses of my Lord’s banquet; . . . but I would remind you of one more, and that is the doctrine of resurrection and everlasting life. This poor world dimly guessed at the immortality of the soul, but it knew nothing of the resurrection of the body: the gospel of Jesus has brought life and immortality to light, and he himself has declared to us of Jesus, that he that believeth in him shall never die. . . . Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Not the soul only, but the body also shall partake of immortality, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. . . . To us the coming of Christ will be a day of joy and of rejoicing: we shall be caught up together with him; his reign shall be our reign, his glory our glory. Wherefore comfort one another with these words, and as ye see your brethren and your sisters departing one by one from among you, sorrow not as those that are without hope. . . . Our expected immortality is not that of mere existence, it is not the barren privilege of life without bliss, existence without happiness—it is full of glory; for “we shall be like him when we shall see him as he is;” we shall be with God, at whose right hand there is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. He shall make us to drink of the river of his pleasures; songs and everlasting joy shall be upon our heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. . . .

Changing the run of the thought, . . . let me now bring before you the goblets of wine. . . . These we shall consider as symbolising the joys of the gospel. What are these? . . . One of the dearest joys of the Christian life is a sense of perfect peace with God. . . . A quiet heart, resting in the love of God, dwelling in perfect peace, hath a royalty about it which cannot for a moment be matched by the fleeting joys of this world. . . .
This joy of ours will sometimes rise to an elevation yet more sublime when it is caused by communion with God. Believers, while engaged in prayer and praise, in service and in suffering, are enabled by the Holy Spirit to hold high converse with their Lord. . . . We tell to God our griefs; discoursing upon our sorrows not in fiction, but declaring them in real conversation, as when a man speaketh with his neighbour: meanwhile the Lord’s Spirit whispers to us with the still small voice of the promise, such words as calm our minds and guide our feet. Yes, and when our Beloved takes us into the banqueting-house of real conscious fellowship with himself, and waves the love-banner over us, our holy joy is as much superior to all merely human mirth, as the heavens are above the earth. Then do we speak and sing with sacred zest, and feel as if we could weep for very joy of heart, for our Beloved is ours and we are his. . . .

We will place on the table one goblet more. . . . We have provided for us the pleasures of hope, a hope most sure and steadfast, most bright and glorious—the hope that what we know to-day shall be outdone by what we shall know to-morrow; the hope that by-and-by what we now see, as in a glass darkly, shall be seen face to face. . . . We are looking forward to a speedy day when we shall be unburdened of this creaking tabernacle, and being absent from the body shall be present with the Lord. Our hope of future bliss is elevated and confident. Oh, the vision of his face! Oh, the sight of Jesus in his exaltation! Oh, . . . the word, “Well done, good and faithful servant” from that dear mouth! and then for ever to lie in his bosom. . . .

II. Notice the Banqueting Hall . . .

III. Thirdly, let us think of THE HOST of the feast.

“In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things.” Mark well the truth that in the gospel banquet there is not a single dish brought by man. The Lord makes it, and he makes it all. . . . The Lord makes the feast; and, observe, he does it, too, as the Lord of hosts, as a sovereign, as a ruler, doing as he wills amongst the sons of men, preparing what he wills for the good of his creatures, and constraining whom he wills to come to the marriage-feast. . . .  If God spread the feast it is not to be despised; if the Lord has put forth all the omnipotence of his eternal power and Godhead in preparing the banquet for the multitude of the sons of men, then depend upon it, it is a banquet worthy of him, one to which they may come with confidence, for it must be such a banquet as their souls require, and such as the world never saw before. O my soul, rejoice thou in thy God and King.

IV. Lastly, a word or two upon THE GUESTS.

The Lord has made this banquet “for all people”. What a precious word this is! “For all people.” Then this includes not merely the chosen people, the Jews, . . . but it encompasses the poor uncircumcised Gentiles, who by Jesus are brought nigh. . . . Blessed be God for that word, “unto all people,” for it permits missionary enterprise in every land. . . . Dwell on that word, “all people,” and you will see it includes the rich, for there is a feast of fat things for them, such as their gold could never buy; and it includes the poor, for they being rich in faith shall have fellowship with God. “All people.” This takes in the man of enlarged intelligence and extensive knowledge; but it equally encompasses the illiterate man who cannot read. The Lord makes this feast “for all people;” for you old people, if you come to Jesus you shall find that he is suitable to you; for you young men and maidens, and you little children, if you put your trust in God’s appointed Saviour, there shall be much joy and happiness for you. . . . None have ever been rejected of all who have ever come to Christ and asked for mercy. Still is it true, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Some very odd people have come to him, some very wicked people, some very hardened people, but the door was never closed in any one’s face. Why should Jesus begin hard dealings with you? He cannot, because he cannot change. If he says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” make one of the “hims” that come, and he cannot cast you out. . . . Between the covers of the Bible there is no mention made of one person who may not come. There is no description given of a person who is forbidden to trust Christ. . . . Do not limit what the Lord does not limit. I know he has an elect people; . . . but still this does not at all conflict with the other precious truth that whosoever believeth in the Son of God hath everlasting life. If you believe in Jesus Christ, all these things are yours. Come, poor trembler, the silver trumpet soundeth, and this is the note it rings, . . . “Come and welcome, come and welcome, sinner, come! Come as you are, sinful as you are, hardened as you are, careless as you think you are, and having no good thing whatsoever, come to your God in Christ!” O may you come to him who gave his Son to bleed in the sinner’s stead, and casting yourself on what Christ has done, may you resolve, “If I perish, I will trust in him. . . .” You shall not perish, but for you there shall be the feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.

The Center of Christmas: Fully God and Fully Man

Luke 2:7  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths
and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Amidst gift-buying and Santas and reindeer and “folks dressed up like Eskimos,” what should be the center of Christmas?

Luke 2:7 tells us. “She gave birth.” Mary, a young girl, a virgin, a woman who had never had sexual relations with a man, gave birth. The conception was a miracle – but there is nothing here in the text to indicate that the birth was anything other than the normal process of labor. Mary gave birth just as billions of other women have given birth: her water broke, she began to have contractions, she felt overwhelmed by the process going on inside her body; her back hurt, there was pain and effort and sweat and pushing and stretching and burning – and then, finally, amazingly, this new little creature came forth from her body; a new creature covered with mucous and amniotic fluid and blood and vernix – hair (if any) plastered to his head, that head possibly misshapen from hours of pushing, his skin bluish in color until the first breath, and first cry. Mary gave birth – and the baby, Jesus, came into this world just as you and I did, through His mother’s strong efforts, bloody, slippery – and yet beautiful.

The point of all this? Jesus was a baby – a normal baby, born in the normal way.

Jesus was really human. Jesus was a baby who soiled himself, spit up, cried when He was hungry; He was completely dependent upon his parents for meeting His every need. He could do nothing for himself. With His little hands, he grasped fingers held out to Him. He couldn’t communicate at first except by crying. He took months to learn to crawl, and more months to learn to walk, and to speak. Jesus was a normal, human baby with normal human needs.

Jesus continued to exhibit normal human needs and problems throughout his life. The Bible tells us:

  • He became tired (John 4:6).
  • He became thirsty (John 4:7, 19:28).
  • He was tempted to sin (Matthew 4:1-10, Hebrews 4:15).
  • He wept (Hebrews 5:7, John 11:35).
  • He suffered (Hebrews 2:18).

Indeed, the book of Hebrews tells us he was “like his brothers in every respect” (2:17).

Scripture is clear: Jesus was a real baby. Jesus was a real man.

But Jesus was not only a man. He was “Immanuel, which means God with us” (Matthew 1:34). Jesus is truly God. How do we know this? The Bible shows this in three ways:

1) While on earth, He claimed to be God

a) Jesus said, “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30-31). His audience clearly understood him to claim deity – for they proceeded to try to stone Him for committing blasphemy! Now, there are many pantheists who would say something that sounds similar on the surface: “All things are God – all things are one – I am one with the universe.” But that’s clearly not what Jesus meant. The Bible never confuses God with His creation. Indeed, the very first sentence in the Bible makes a clear distinction between God and the created order: “In the beginning God created.” Jesus is not saying, “I and the Father are One – You and the Father are One – we’re all One!” He is saying, “I am unique. I am God.”

b) Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58-59). Here Jesus clearly claims to have existed prior to Abraham – who lived more than a thousand years earlier. But He is claiming even more than that. Why does Jesus say, “Before Abraham was born, I am” instead of “Before Abraham was born, I was”? Remember God’s revelation of Himself to Moses at the burning bush. There God answers Moses’ request to tell him His name by saying,

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” Exodus 3:14

So when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was born, I am,” He is echoing the name of God. He is hinting at His equality with God. Once again, His listeners understand this and consider such a statement blasphemous.

c) Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 15:24). This is an audacious claim. “Look at Me and you will see what God is like.” Only the God-man can say that.

So Jesus clearly claimed to be God. Now, over the centuries, a number of men have claimed to be God. Today, we put most such people in mental institutions. So making the claim does not establish the point. That leads us to the next point: These other claimants to deity have not done what only God can do.

2) While on earth, Jesus did things only God could do

  • He fed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish (Mark 6:35-44).
  • He turned water into wine (John 2:1-11).
  • In the midst of a storm, He commanded the wind and the waves to be still – and they obeyed (Mark 4:39).
  • He raised the dead to life (John 11:43-44).
  • He Himself was raised from the dead, and was seen by more than 500 people (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)
  • He forgave sins (Mark 2:5-7).

Consider this last incident. Friends bring a paralyzed man to Jesus. They can’t get in the door, so they climb on top of the house, open a hole in the roof, and let the paralytic down through the hole. Jesus looks at him, and the first thing He says is, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” The scribes who are present think, rightly, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At that point, Jesus chooses to heal the man – to show that He had authority to forgive sins. He thus proves He is God by forgiving the man’s sins, and then showing that those sins are truly forgiven by the physical healing.

We could point to many more incidents, but these alone show that Jesus did what only God can do.

3) Other New Testament writers tell us that Jesus is God

Once again, we could point to any number of passages. We’ll look at only two:

Hebrews 1:3 [The Son] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

The second phrase is the easiest to understand: Jesus is the “exact imprint of [God’s] nature.” He is exactly like God. Since God is perfectly loving, Jesus is perfectly loving. Since God is perfectly just, Jesus is perfectly just. Since God is perfectly holy, Jesus is perfectly holy.

Use that phrase to help you understand the first: “The radiance of the glory of God.” Jesus is the glory of God shining forth! He displays God’s attributes in ways that no one else does, in ways that nothing else can.

Finally the last phrase: “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” The entire creation is sustained by His might. He not only created all things, but without Him all things would cease to exist.

Clearly the author of Hebrews claims that Jesus is God.

For our second passage, consider four verses from John 1:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John tells us that Jesus existed before creation – but more than that, He was God from the beginning.

John 1:3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Jesus was the active agent of God in creation. Apart from Him, nothing has come into existence.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is man, but Jesus is God also. His glory is the glory of God. He, like God, is full of grace and truth.

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known

Look at this verse carefully. When John says, “the only God, who is at the Father’s side” who is he talking about? Jesus! So he says, “No one has ever seen God the Father, but Jesus, who is God also, who is at the side of God the Father, has shown us what God is like. When we see Jesus, we see God the Father.”

There can be no question. These passages say that Jesus is God.

Put these thoughts together now. Meditate on what it means for Jesus to be both God and man:

Those same infant hands which grasped Mary’s finger were the hands that created the myriads of stars; that same voice that cried out moments after birth was the voice that named each of those stars.

So consider the tremendous truth of the incarnation. We get so used to the words “Immanuel, God with us, God incarnate, God in the flesh,” they role off our lips and we don’t begin to fathom what they mean. Think, now think! The One who made the sun became infinitesimal compared to it. The One who had all glory and power and purity and praise became despised, poor, needy, helpless; the One who was before the world began became – a tiny, seemingly insignificant speck in that world.

Jesus is man, fully man. Jesus is God, fully God.

That’s the mystery in Bethlehem’s manger. That’s the center of Christmas.

[Much of this is taken from a 2004 sermon, “Knowing and Loving God Through the Incarnation.”

When Do You Give Up on Someone?

When do you give up on someone?

Think of someone you have prayed for time and again, someone who has heard the Gospel and rejected it for years. Should you conclude, “It’s hopeless – this person will never come to faith.”

We considered Jesus’ story about two sons last Sunday:

“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” (Matthew 21:28-31)

The sermon emphasized the second son; consider now the first. He initially refuses to obey his father. Later, however, he regrets that decision and fulfills the command.

Any follower of Christ who speaks the Gospel regularly has heard such refusals. God makes His appeal through us: “Be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ!” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Yet as we make this appeal, many reject the command. Like the first son, they answer, “I will not.” Even after multiple appeals, many continue to say no.

But gloriously, many also, after decades of refusal, change their minds, come to faith in Christ, and are reconciled to God. We could tell of those among our own church family, but instead hear of “Staffordshire Bill,” who came to faith in a poor town in Wales around 1930, under the ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Bill was near 70 years old at this time. He drove a fish-cart around town, pulled by a pony, selling fish door to door – and it was not uncommon for the pony to pull the driverless cart back home after Bill, drunk, fell back, asleep, into the rear with the fish. One evening Bill was drinking in a club:

There he was, drinking himself into his usual sodden condition, and as he afterwards confessed, feeling low, hopeless, and depressed, trusting to the drink to drown those inward pangs and fears which sometimes disturbed him.  There were several men in little groups of twos and threes in the Club room, drinking and talking, and suddenly he found himself listening, at first involuntarily but then anxiously, to a conversation between two men at the table next to his [discussing Lloyd-Jones’ preaching]. . . . ‘Yes,’ said the one man to the other, ‘I was there last Sunday night and that preacher said nobody was hopeless – he said there was hope for everybody.’  Of the rest of the conversation he heard nothing, but, arrested and now completely sobered, he said to himself, ‘If there’s hope for everybody, there’s hope for me – I’ll go to that chapel myself and see what that man says.’ . . .

[He aborted his first two attempts to attend, as his nerves failed him.] The third Sunday evening he was again at the gate, ‘wondering nervously what he should do next’, when one of the congregation welcomed him with the words, ‘Are you coming in, Bill?  Come and sit with me.’

That same night ‘Staffordshire Bill’ passed from condemnation to life.  ‘He found,’ Mrs, Lloyd-Jones tells us, ‘that he could understand the things that were being said, he believed the gospel and his heart was flooded with a great peace.  Old things had passed away, all things had become new. The transformation in his face was remarkable, it had the radiance of a saint.  As he walked out that night, [a church member introduced him and said], “Mrs. Jones, this is Staffordshire Bill.” I shall never forget the agonized look on his face, for he flinched as though he had been struck a sudden blow.  “Oh no, oh no,” he said, “that’s a bad old name for a bad old man; I am William Thomas now.”‘

William Thomas was a new creation. He died at peace with God three years later.

How many times had Staffordshire Bill heard something of the Gospel? How many times had he refused to obey the call? How many times had he cursed those who spoke to him of Jesus?

The power of God can transform the greatest drunk and the most arrogant intellectual, the vilest criminal and the most upstanding citizen. God commands all: “Be reconciled to Me!” There are many “first sons” who have responded, “I will not!” But, like Staffordshire Bill, God may not be done with them.

So be His mouthpiece. No matter how many rejections you have heard, no one is hopeless. “In Christ God [is] reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19). So don’t give up. Be His ambassador. And may God be pleased to bring many who have rebelled for decades into His family.

[The story of Staffordshire Bill is taken from Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years (Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 222-223.]

Thankful for the Word

In this Thanksgiving season, I am especially thankful for the Word of God.

Consider: Why don’t you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?

Here are three barriers that hinder such love:

  • The bad things in this world – including natural disasters, oppression, torture, and slavery. These can lead to doubts about the existence or power or love of God.
  • The good things in this world – God’s good gifts that we love more than the One who gives them. These lead us to take our eyes off of God. Even a wonderful spouse can lead us away from having an all-encompassing love for God, as we love that husband or wife more than we love Him. But temptations fit into this category also. Most temptations are for good things that we want in the wrong context: Sexual expression outside of marriage, more money or possessions than what God has granted us. So, often we respond in two wrong ways to the good things in this world: We either have them, and let our enjoyment and love for them become greater than our love for God; or we don’t have them, and spend our lives coveting them, thus failing to love God above all else.
  • The busy-ness of this world. Third, a lack of love for God may result not from some other desire or from tragedy – but just because we never even think of Him. We are so busy! We get up, get to work, get home, get dinner, watch our regular TV programs, exercise, call our parents, help the kids with the homework, take care of the dog. And, suddenly, it’s bedtime. The day’s over. Oops, no time with God today. So we say, “Well, tomorrow I’ll do that.” But then tomorrow zips by in the same manner.

How can we overcome these barriers and truly love God?

At the heart of all these barriers is ignorance of God – a practical ignorance if not an intellectual ignorance. If we let these barriers interfere with our love for God, then we are ignorant of God’s ways, of God’s delights, of what is most important.

How do we combat this ignorance? How do we tear down these barriers to loving God?

God’s Word is the key. God’s Word is the revelation of Who He is. God’s Word is the revelation of the only way to know Him, the only way to be acceptable to Him – through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. God’s Word shows us the way to true life, giving us the right perspective on all the rest of life.

So the key way, the only way to deal with those impediments to loving God is knowledge of His Word.

Note this carefully: Knowledge is necessary for love.

This is very different from the way many people think. Even some churches say, “Let’s not emphasize teaching. Let’s not emphasize doctrine. Let’s just give everyone enough teaching so that they are saved, but then forget the rest. Doctrine divides. Let’s just all love God, and love our fellow man.”

But the Bible tells us that we must know His Word if we are to love Him, and through His Word we are enabled to love our fellow man. Correct doctrine, rightly taught and rightly prompting love, is key for the Christian life.

Consider Philippians 1:7-11. Paul says he holds the Philippians in his heart. He yearns for them with the affection of Christ Jesus. So what does he pray for them? He prays that their love may become like His love: that is, coupled with or abounding with knowledge:

[I pray] that your love still more and more might abound in knowledge and all discernment, so that you might test and approve the things that really matter, in order that you might be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11, own translation)

Do you see what he is saying? He starts by acknowledging their love for God. He then prays that that love might be coupled with more and more knowledge, so that they can know the difference between what is important and what is not. Then they will take on character of Jesus Christ – thus fulfilling their purpose of glorifying Him, and loving Him that much more. So for Paul, love and knowledge are intimately related.

We must think in these categories! Love and knowledge are not antithetical. To say ‘I love God” and

  • not to be in His Word,
  • not to hear Him proclaimed through preaching,
  • not to listen to the public reading of the Scripture,
  • not to read good books about Him –

is to be stating a falsehood. You do not love God if you are not trying to know Him better. Truly to love God is to have the desire to know Him. And we know Him first and foremost through His Word.

Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:28-30). But these are not four independent ways of loving God! We cannot love God with all our heart unless we are also loving God with our mind. And vice versa.

Rather, loving God with all our mind is the way to love God with all our heart. So as we love God, we desire to know Him better. We thus will prayerfully fill our mind with His Word, and ask that God would open up His Word to us all the more. We therefore will know Him better, and love Him more – prompting us to seek Him through His Word all the more.

This is a type of virtuous circle, or positive feedback loop. Consider John 15:7:

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

Loving God prompts us to pray, and prayer leads us to love God more. So our primary request is that the first part of the verse be true for us: We pray that we might abide in Him, and that His Words might abide in us. Note that Jesus chooses to say, “If My words abide in you” and not simply “If I abide in you.” He is thereby making the point that abiding in Jesus is not a state of higher consciousness that we somehow attain. Knowledge of Jesus does not come in some mystical way, but from His revelation of Himself. Jesus became incarnate, and those who saw Him, wrote of Him, and the prophets who lived prior to Him were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write of Him. God superintended all that, so that we might come to know Him through the way He ordained.

So our love for God – as well as our love for each other – must be based on the truths presented in God’s Word. Our love for each other is not based on some general idea of human worth. Nor is it based on feelings of human oneness. Our love for God is not based on whatever conception of God and Jesus I come up with in my head. Our love for God – if it is a love that fulfills the Great Commandment – must be a love that is based on the revelation of God in His Word.

Therefore, a genuine love for God must prompt us to know more of His Word. If it does not, it is not a true love for God.

So be thankful for God’s Word! And may we be devoted to that Word in our churches, in our homes, and in our private lives. May we know His revelation better and better – and so love Him and love our neighbor more and more.

[This devotion is an edited version of the introduction to a sermon on Psalm 119 from 2005.]

Reflections on the Loss of a Daughter

[Dr Fred Zaspel is pastor at the Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia, PA and Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, PA. He posted these thoughts on the October 31 death of his daughter at credomag.com on November 13. This is an edited version; the entire post is well worth reading. Credo Magazine has many helpful articles. The latest issue focuses on the grand story of the Bible.  – Coty]

For a dozen or so years our daughter, Gina, suffered unspeakably from more maladies and on more levels — physical and otherwise — than I could begin adequately to explain. The infection that ravished her central nervous system, the years of sleeplessness, the constant nausea, the passing out and the many falls and concussions that came as a result, the severe and relentless headache pain, the haunting hallucinations, the struggles with confusion, the blood clots, the systemic infections, and so very much more, all in the extreme, made her life the most severely agonized I have ever witnessed. Amazingly — yet true to form — she found moments of laughter almost daily, and we delighted in her company even while hurting for her. But the suffering became increasingly severe on so many fronts. And as we watched her suffer, how we prayed, often in despair, that God would deliver her from it all.

About three years ago he did. In a dramatic and miraculous moment the disease was gone, and for a short while it seemed her life had been returned to her. But further setbacks were to follow. The suffering again became intense and unspeakable. Until finally, on Thursday, October 31, it was all over. Forever. Gina is now with the Lord.

At several points over the years it seemed she was dying, but then she would rally. And on occasions she and even we could have wished it for her sake — her suffering was so awful, death would have been considered a mercy. We still feel all that, but nothing could have prepared us for the pain we now feel over our loss. She was Daddy’s girl, Mommy’s soul mate, and brother’s very closest friend. We are a very close family, and we loved Gina more than words could ever express — and we told her so many, many times every day, verbally and with countless hugs and kisses. Surely a day will never pass, in this life, without sensing this deep, gaping hole in our hearts. We just cannot imagine life without Gina. How we loved her.

I have often suspected over the years that Christians who romanticize death have likely never experienced the loss of a close loved one. Death remains a dreaded and a devastating enemy, and there is just no way to make it pretty. It still stings, deeply so, and when it comes close like this it leaves us feeling all but completely undone.

Yet for Christians there truly is a difference. And during this past week since Gina passed, agonizing as it has been, we have learned first-hand that we really do not sorrow as those who have no hope. The weighty promises and massive truths that God has revealed to us in his Word truly are life-shaping and soul anchoring, and they provide a sure point of reference for even the most hurting heart.

United to Christ by faith Gina belonged — and belongs — to God. And through the years of her suffering we reminded ourselves often that the God who in grace had rescued her in Christ from sin loves her even more than we do. And so we trust his providence. He is too wise ever to make a mistake, and too good ever to do us wrong. And we acknowledge that just as he was free and sovereign in giving Gina to us 29 years ago, so now he is free and sovereign — and good and just — in taking her. He has not wronged us. Indeed, not only do we affirm this great truth — we rest in it. This God is himself our Father, a Father who knows what is best for his children and faithfully directs our lives accordingly. Moreover, he is the Father who in love one day gave up his own Son to bear our curse in order to redeem us to himself. Yes, of course there are many “Why?” questions that we cannot answer, but we lack no proof of God’s love or his goodness. And we bless him today with deeper passion than ever.

We are so very grateful not only that God gave us our daughter for 29 years, but also that in grace he saved her and made her his own. This is really everything — everything — and we recognize that we are blessed to know that Gina is rejoicing today in the presence of our great Redeemer. How she loved him! How she loved the gospel. Gina was marked by passion in everything she did, but nothing so stirred her like the gospel of Christ. She loved to hear it, she loved to learn it more deeply, she loved to sing it, and she loved to share it with others. Her whole hope was in Christ. Virtually every day, even in much pain, she would sit down at the piano to play and sing and refresh her aching soul with some of her favorite songs about Christ, God’s love in Christ, salvation in Christ, God’s faithful love and providence, and the glory that awaits us. And this same gospel is what assures us still. And we rejoice that neither death nor life nor anything else in all God’s creation could ever separate Gina or us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And we have come better to appreciate that our hope in Christ is not for this life only. We eagerly await the day of Christ’s return when we will rejoice together in his glorious presence and discover for ourselves that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will then be revealed in us. . . .

We are hurting for our loss. The pain is massive, and on one level I’m sure it will never be absent in this life. But deep as this hurt is, we are not left adrift. With minds and hearts shaped by gospel truth, with the love of God marvelously shed abroad in our hearts by his Spirit, with confidence in his unerring providence, and with an unshakable joy and hope in Christ, God has given us more than all we will need. . . .

 

C.S. Lewis on Prayer

C.S. Lewis died 50 years ago today. God used him powerfully in my life, as in the lives of so many others. In celebration of and thankfulness for his life, this morning I read one of his less well known works: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963).

Lewis is properly humble about the shortfalls of his own prayer life:

If God had granted all the silly prayers I’ve made in my life, where should I be now? (28)

For me to offer the world instruction about prayer would be impudence. (63)

And his speculations, while always stimulating, in my opinion sometimes stray from their biblical moorings. But you will profit from meditating on the following quotes. The lengthy quotations from chapter 17 have been especially powerful for me.

So thank you, Father God, for the life of C.S. Lewis – for your sovereignly drawing him to Yourself, for his devotion to you, for his careful thought about You and Your Word. Continue to use his writings for the glory of Your Name – and may we, like him, strive to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration.

(Should you want to explore more of Lewis, Desiring God’s fall conference on him was excellent. All the talks are available online. I particularly recommend those by Joe Rigney and Kevin Vanhoozer. ) – Coty

[A writer] has substituted religion for God—as if navigation were substituted for arrival, or battle for victory, or wooing for marriage, or in general the means for the end. But even in this present life, there is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the social, the intellectual, the recreational, and all the rest. But that whose claims are infinite can have no standing as a department. Either it is an illusion or else our whole life falls under it. We have no non-religious activities; only religious and irreligious. (30)

One of the purposes for which God instituted prayer may have been to bear witness that the course of events is not governed like a state but created like a work of art to which every being makes its contribution and (in prayer) a conscious contribution, and in which every being is both and end and a means. . . . Let me hasten to add that [prayer] is also an end. The world was made partly that there might be prayer; partly that our prayers . . . might be answered. But let’s have finished with “partly.” The great work of art was made for the sake of all it does and is, down to the curve of every wave and the flight of every insect. (55-56)

How or why does such faith [in particular answers to prayer] occur sometimes, but not always, even in the perfect petitioner? We, or I, can only guess. My own idea is that it occurs only when the one who prays does so as God’s fellow-worker, demanding what is needed for the joint work. It is the prophet’s, the apostle’s, the missionary’s, the healer’s prayer that is made with this confidence and finds the confidence justified by the event. The difference, we are told, between a servant and a friend is that a servant is not in his master’s secrets. For him, “orders are orders.” He has only his own surmises as to the plans he helps to execute. But the fellow-worker, the companion or (dare we say?) the colleague of God is so united with Him at certain moments that something of the divine foreknowledge enters his mind. Hence his faith is “evidence” — that is, the evidentness, the obviousness — of things not seen. (60-61)

On the one hand, the man who does not regard God as other than himself cannot be said to have a religion at all. On the other hand, if I think God other than myself in the same way in which my fellow-men, and objects in general, are other than myself, I am beginning to make Him an idol. I am daring to treat His existence as somehow parallel to my own. But He is the ground of our being. He is always both within us and over against us. Our reality is as much from His reality as He, moment by moment, projects into us. The deeper the level within ourselves from which our prayer, or any other act, wells up, the more it is His, but not at all the less ours. Rather, most ours when most His. . . . To be discontinuous from God as I am discontinuous from you would be annihilation. [68-9]

It is well to have specifically holy places, and things, and days, for, without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and “big with God” will soon dwindle into a mere sentiment. But if these holy place, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could I but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm.  . . . We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.  And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.

Oddly enough, what corroborates me in this faith is the fact . . . that the awareness of this presence has so often been unwelcome. I call upon Him in prayer. Often He might reply—I think He does reply—“But you have been evading me for hours.” For he comes not only to raise up but to cast down; to deny, to rebuke, to interrupt. The prayer “prevent us in all our doings” is often answered as if the word prevent had its modern meaning. The presence which we voluntarily evade is often, and we know it, His presence in wrath.

And out of this evil comes a good. If I never fled from His presence, then I should suspect those moments when I seemed to delight in it of being wish-fulfillment dreams. That, by the way, explains the feebleness of all those watered versions of Christianity which leave out all the darkest elements and try to establish a religion of pure consolation No real belief in the watered versions can last. Bemused and besotted as we are, we still dimly know at heart that nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges, that it should be resistant, should be itself. Dream-furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang your knee. You and I have both known happy marriage. But how different our wives were from the imaginary mistresses of our adolescent dreams! So much less exquisitely adapted to all our wishes; and for that very reason (among others) so incomparably better.

Servile fear is, to be sure, the lowest form of religion. But a god such that there could never be occasion for even servile fear, a safe god, a tame god, soon proclaims himself to any sound mind as a fantasy. I have met no people who fully disbelieved in Hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heaven. (75-76)

It’s comical that you, of all people, should ask my views about prayer as worship or adoration. On this subject you yourself taught me nearly all I know. . . .

You first taught me the great principle, ‘Begin where you are.’ I had thought one had to start by summoning up what we believe about the goodness and greatness of God, by thinking about creation and redemption and’ all the blessings of this life’. You turned to the brook and once more splashed your burning face and hands in the little waterfall and said: ‘Why not begin with this?’

And it worked. Apparently you have never guessed how much. That cushiony moss, that coldness and sound and dancing light were no doubt very minor blessings compared with ‘the means of grace and the hope of glory’. But then they were manifest. So far as they were concerned, sight had replaced faith. They were not the hope of glory; they were an exposition of the glory itself.

Yet you were not – or so it seemed to me – telling me that’ Nature’, or ‘the beauties of Nature’, manifest the glory. No such abstraction as ‘Nature’ comes into it. I was learning the far more secret doctrine that pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility. As it impinges on our will or our understanding, we give it different names-goodness or truth or the like. But its flash upon our senses and mood is pleasure.

But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them’ bad pleasures’ I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean ‘pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.’  It is the stealing of the apple that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory. That does not palliate the stealing. It makes it worse. There is sacrilege in the theft. We have abused a holy thing.

I have tried, since that moment, to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it?

We can’t – or I can’t – hear the song of a bird simply as a sound. Its meaning or message (‘That’s a bird ‘) comes with it inevitably-just as one can’t see a familiar word in print as a merely visual pattern. The reading is as involuntary as the seeing. When the wind roars I don’t just hear the roar; I ‘hear the wind’. In the same way it is possible to ‘ read’ as well as to ‘ have’ a pleasure. Or not even’ as well as’. The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognise its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.

Gratitude exclaims, very properly: ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says: ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!  One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window–one’s whole cheek becomes a sort of palate – down to one’s soft slippers at bedtime. . . .

One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We-or at least I-shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have’ tasted and seen’. Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are, patches of Godlight ‘ in the woods of our experience. . . .

In this world everything is upside down.  That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends.  Joy is the serious business of Heaven. (From Chapter 17, p. 88-93)