Think - John Piper

Piper's main point in the book is that thinking is indispensable in our pursuit of God however that thinking must be "soaked in prayer, carried by the Holy Spirit, tethered to the Bible, in pursuit of more reasons to
praise and proclaim the glories of God and in the service of love." We are encouraged to think but without the help of the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to find the knowledge of God. As we think and learn about God it fuels the fire of our love for God which then in turn fuels the fire of wanting to know God more and they both continue to fuel each other.

As we read the Bible, we need to think in order to truly "receive what God has to give us from the Bible." "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything" (2 Tim 2:7) and "Seek (understanding) like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures...for the Lord gives wisdom" (Prov 2:4-6).  Thinking and asking God for understanding is not either or but both and. We can't think and not ask for God's help in understanding and expect to truly understand and we can't not think and just expect God to reveal.

In Matthew 16:1-4, Jesus is approached by the Pharisees and he said that they can use the skies to determine the weather and they could use the same reasoning to know Christ but their hearts are hardened so that they cannot use it to "draw true inferences from what is really there." This is where we need God to change our heart so that we can see the glory of Christ in the gospel.

Piper continues on to discuss how thinking is related to loving God. Loving God is only possible when something changes inside of you so that He becomes compellingly attractive and he becomes your surpreme treasure so that you love Him. This overflows into a love for others. This "second commandment" isn't equal to loving God but is the overflow of our love for Him. Our thinking  should be "wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express this heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things."

From here he goes on to take on relativism and anti-intellectualism. Relativism (the belief that there is no set truth, everyone has their own truth) is treason against God because God has clearly revealed himself (Romans 1) but since relativists state there is no standard of truth, it commits treason against God. The fact is, even relativists aren't true relativists because if they were in a court setting on trial, they would rely on set truths about their innocence.

For anti-intellectualism, if we give up on "raising a generation of people who give up serious, faithful, coherent thinking, we will have raised a generation incapable of reading the Bible." We need to think and use human reason in order to present and see Christ clearly.

In Luke 10:21, Jesus states that God has hidden the truths of the gospel from the "wise and understanding" but revealed them to "little children." The wise and understanding are those who have human wisdom which is prideful whereas "little children" are those who are humble and submit to Christ. If we were able to find God through human reason and human thought, we would have reason to be prideful and would have reason to boast. Therefore, as Christians and "little children" the only thing that we boast in is the cross.

To wrap it up, Piper wants to "encourage serious, faithful, humble thinking that leads to the true knowledge of God, which leads to loving him, which overflows in loving others."

be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is it's own trouble" (Matthew 6:34)

Worry, anxiety, fretting...these are all far too common words in our world today and in my world personally. But we don't just worry about today, we worry about tomorrow and the next day and the next year. For me personally, my worry is usually linked to finances. As the head of the household, I want to make sure everything is lined up so that my wife can stay home and raise our children instead of having to get a job and leave our children. So instead of just worrying about today, I worry about the rest of the week, month, year etc. I try to plan out my future to avoid anything happening to cause extra worry in the future when the bank account dwindles and we are out of options.

That being said, I don't think...let me rephrase that...I know that God doesn't want us to do this. First of all, he wants us to trust Him and rely on His strength instead of our own. But, I don't think He even wants us to rely on his strength to get us through the next week, month, year, etc...I think what he is saying is "My grace is sufficent" for today.

My worries are minor, I can't even imagine someone going through cancer or someone who has lost a child or a spouse. It has to be overwhelming to not only rely on God for the grace to get through today, but also rely on Him to provide enough to get through tomorrow and next week and next month but I think that is the key to what this verse is saying. Tomorrow will be anxious for itself or another translation says "Tomorrow will have it's own troubles" meaning that God's grace is new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Let God grace and strength get you through today and then tomorrow, He will provide you new and unique grace to get through the troubles that He knows you will face for that day. God is sovereign and God works out everything for our good and His glory in His timing, trust Him and wake each morning asking Him for fresh grace for today.

blinds open

So here is a time when I am going to be completely transparent. The blinds to my thoughts and emotions are going to be open for the next half hour or so that I take to do this blog. Then, they will be shut again until further notice.

So tomorrow, God willing, will be the day we get to meet your little boy for the first time. I can't wait. It's going to be so awesome to just hold my little boy for the first time and see his face. I have been pretty sentimental tonight though, especially with Liv. It's somewhat sad knowing that today is the last day she'll be our only child. When we put her to bed tonight, it was crazy thinking that when she wakes up tomorrow, her whole world will be changed. She won't be the only center of our universe anymore but she'll now be sharing that with her baby brother. How is she going to react? How are we going to react? What's it going to be like having to share my love and attention with another child? Man our world is going to change in a matter of hours.

Another thing I am struggling with is, how in the world am I going to be a parent to Brayden? It's funny because Liv is only 3 years old but I feel like I was more prepared for being a parent when she was born than I do now. I don't know what it is. Maybe it'll just come naturally like it did with Liv. I hope that I will figure it out because I only have about a day to do so...

the gospel according to a three year old

Just a quick story. No real profound thoughts, which is pretty much par for my blog.

So let me set the stage first. Our daughter, Olivia, is an absolute maniac at night. I don't know what it is about nights that make her just go crazy, running around the house like she has espresso running through her veins.

So last night, I was doing a fantasy football draft while my lovely, patient wife was taking care of getting Liv ready for bed. In the middle of my draft I hear my daughter screaming bloody murder. My first thought was that she got hurt but I was able to discern based on her cry that it was a "I was just disciplined" cry instead of a "I just fell and hurt myself" cry. So I come up to say good night her and she is still crying. I grab her and hold her in my arms and ask her what happened.

She proceeds to tell me the story of how she disobeyed mommy and now she can't watch a show before bed. Then, came the most remarkable and poignant moments I have ever had with my daughter. After telling me the whole story she says to me, "Daddy, I still have sin in my heart. Why hasn't God taken the sin out of my heart yet? I want to follow God and not follow sin."

Wow! I stood there speechless staring at my wife. Now I know she is too young to understand the gospel but I gave her a quick summary of the gospel and asked her if we should pray that God would take the sin out of her heart sometime. She said yes and I prayed for her as my wife and I wrapped our arms around her.

It is a night that we will never forget. It just made me wonder how much of the gospel she understands at the incredibly young age of only 3. I pray that one day God will remove the sin from my little girl's heart and that she will trust Him as her Savior and submit to Him as her Lord.

simple math: no healing > healing

So years ago I used to be very interested in "healing ministry". I read books upon books on how to heal someone, what prevents people from being healed, etc. The main reason I had gotten so into healing was that my grandpa was dying from cancer and I wanted him to be healed.

Fast forward maybe 7 years or so to the present. I am now realizing that healings do happen, however we can't just expect everyone to be healed as long as they have enough faith. It's just not the way God operates from what I can gather. However, I know that God can and has healed people.

So with that "prelude" if you will, I take you back to this past weekend. Steph (my wife) and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary 2 months early because our baby boy, Brayden, is due right around our actual anniversary so we were pretty confident we wouldn't be able to celebrate on our anniversary. Anyways, so Friday night we spent downtown going to dinner, going to a movie, etc and by the time we got home we were both pretty thoroughly exhausted. So I went through my normal bedtime route, floss, brush my teeth, mouthwash, shower and then crash for the night. The next morning we both slept in later than normal but around 9 am I got up and did my normal morning routine, brush my teeth, wash my face, put my glasses on and then head out to the kitchen to read my Bible some.

However, as I began to walk to the kitchen, I noticed something strangely different. I couldn't see very well. My first thought was there must be a smudge on my glasses, so I went and got my glasses cleaner but to no avail, still my vision was foggy. So I thought maybe I had some "eye boogers" but after a thorough examination, this wasn't the case either. However, when I took my glasses off to rub my eyes, I noticed something out of the ordinary, I could see the clock across the room. This was strange because without my glasses, I definitely could not normally see that clock. I don't have terrible eyes but I have bad enough eyes that I would be a hazard to the general public if I drove without my glasses or contacts. My thoughts immediately went back to those books I had read about healing and I thought "I am healed! God has healed my vision and now I can see without any glasses or contacts!" I began to walk back to the room to explain to Steph how our great God had healed my vision...then I began to think some more. I began to get suspicious and after one close look at my eyes in the mirror I realized that a miracle had not happened after all. I had left my contacts in all night. You can imagine my disappointment...

How different are we as Christians though? We all have "bad eyes" if you will in our Christian life. The fact is, we can't do things without Christ. However, how many of us either walk around life with "bad eyes" relying in our own strength to do things and not trusting in the strength that Christ can provide our eyes. Or how many of us say to ourselves, if only I was (fill in the blank with your "weakness" becoming a "strength") then I could do this or that? If I had perfect vision, then I would no longer need to rely on my contacts or glasses anymore, in fact they would be collecting dust while I walked around in my own strength with no need of them. This is one of the reasons I feel that God doesn't give us perfect patience, strength, knowledge, etc. He wants us to rely on Him.

I think about Paul and his thorn in the flesh. It says in 2 Corinthians 12 how he asked God 3 times to remove it but God's response was simply "No I will not remove this hardship from you because my grace is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in your weakness." Then Paul says "I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamity. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

We may want all of our hardships to go away and to have the perfect strength to get through all the trials and junk that life may throw at us, but instead of that, we should pray that we, like Paul, will be content regardless of our circumstances and regardless if we feel that in our own power we can accomplish this or that. We pray this knowing that when we are weak and cannot see clearly, with God as our strength, we can see 20/20.

acceptance or surrender?

"Say this simple prayer. Dear Jesus, I admit that I am a sinner. I believe that you died for my sins and I accept you as my savior, I invite you into my heart and I receive your gift of eternal life. Amen." That is the "sinners prayer" in a nut shell. I would suggest that most of us were "saved" after saying this prayer. We rest our hope in this one time decision and one prayer that we said. Perhaps the pastor that was preaching that day was talking about hell and the torment and begged anyone who is not sure of their salvation to come forward, walk the aisle and say this simple prayer and be saved.

Now let me preface this entire blog post by saying that my intent is not to bash the sinners prayer nor do I think that it is wrong. Let me also say that many people who are genuinely saved have said the sinners prayer (I am one). However, what I firmly do believe (as I have seen it time and time again with friends that I grew up with at church) is that this sinners prayer and walking down the aisle has led to many false conversions. The scary thing of it all is, those false converts truly believe that they are still saved even though they have no spiritual fruit which is the only true measure of a Christian (Matthew 7:20). They were taught to not doubt their own salvation even though the Bible clearly teaches that we should "examine (ourselves), to see whether (we) are in the faith. Test (ourselves)" (2 Corinthians 13:5) or to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). I fear how many of my friends that grew up in church with me will be the ones at the judgement seat saying "Lord, didn't we go to church and worship you and read our Bibles" and He will look them in the eyes and say "Depart from me, I never knew you" (Matthew 7:23). 

I think that there are a couple of issues that need to be addressed in our evangelism and discipleship. First of all, I believe that when we share Christ with someone, we need to share with them the cost of following Christ. We are so quick to share verses like John 3:16 "God so loved the world" or Romans 6:23 "The free gift of God is eternal life" or Romans 10:9 "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." However, just as quickly, we skip over verses like Luke 14:26-27 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple" or Luke 9 when 3 men come to Jesus saying that they will follow Jesus wherever he goes but Jesus tells them that in order to follow Him, they are guaranteed no basic shelter, they need to abandon their family and place Christ above them and abandon their old life and follow wholly after Christ and we can make the assumption that they decide not to follow Him after this. 2 Timothy 3:12 says that "all who desire to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted."

Second of all, when people make a decision to follow Christ, we need to disciple them. We are good at the "making disciples" if we equate "making disciples" with "making Christians" and we are good at "baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" but we neglect that "teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded." (Matthew 28:19-20). When we lead someone to Christ or the reality is, when God graciously and mercifully calls someone to Himself and uses us to be His instrument to proclaim His gospel, we need to immediately begin discipling them.

The sad reality is that with easy-believism and the health and wealth gospel, so many people are being led to believe that they just need to say this simple prayer and they will spend eternity in heaven and not only that, they will be blessed with good health and material goods from a God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Sadly we have replaced surrender and dying to self with accept and have your best life now. What the world needs is less casual follows and more lifelong disciples and slaves to Christ who are willing to embrace the cost of being a disciple of Christ for the sake of His name and His glory.

unceasing anguish and great sorrow - part 3

This is the third and probably final post on Romans 9:1-3. So far I have discussed our state apart from Christ which in turn leads to our just punishment of eternal damnation in hell. And now we get to the good news. 

Ephesians 2:1 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,” and then down in verse 4 come two of the best words in the entire Bible…”BUT GOD!”

You were dead “But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved”

We were “alienated from God” (Colossians 1:21) BUT GOD “brought us near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 1:13)

We were enemies of God (Colossians 1:21) BUT GOD made us “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19) and adopted us as sons by which we cry out “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15)

We couldn’t submit to God’s law or please God (Romans 8:7-8) BUT GOD “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify Himself His own special people, zealous for good works (Titus 2:14)

We were slaves to sin and the devil (John 8:34 and 2 Timothy 2:26) BUT GOD “freed us from sin and we have become slaves to God” (Romans 6:22)

We couldn’t understand the things of God, they were foolishness to us (1 Corinthians 2:14) BUT GOD gave us His spirit so “that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12)

We were completely unrighteous and sinful (Romans 3:23) BUT GOD made Jesus “who knew no sin to become sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This is good news! All of us who have trusted Christ as their savior and submitted to him as their Lord have had our current state and our future completely turned upside down by God!

There is nothing we could have done for this to happen it was only by a miraculous work of God. Romans 9:16 says “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy”

C.H. Spurgeon once remarked: "If Niagara could suddenly be made to leap upward instead of forever dashing down-ward from its rocky height, it were not such a miracle as to change the perverse will & raging passions of men. Conversion is a work comparable to the making of a world. The labors of Hercules were but trifles compared to this: to slay lions and hydras, and cleanse Augean stables-all this is child’s play compared with renewing a right spirit in the fallen nature of mankind."

I think that these three points are key to Paul’s sorrow and anguish for the lost and should be key to ours. He realized his state apart from Christ. Even though he was “Hebrew of Hebrews and as to righteousness under the law, blameless” he realized that it was all rubbish and he saw himself as what he really was. Then he realized what his just punishment should have been and finally he saw that because of Christ, he was now a new creation and a child of God. I think those 3 things contributed to his anguish for the lost. Knowing where they were heading and knowing the joy they were missing.

So three quick applications that I hope that you take from this and I hope that I take from this. First of all, for those who are in Christ, I hope that reminding ourselves of what we have been saved from and what we have been saved to, gives us a renewed sense of awe and deep gratitude and thanksgiving to God. Second of all, for those who are in Christ, I hope that realizing the state of our lost family members and friends will give us "unceasing anguish and great sorrow" for them that leads us to action in sharing with them the good news. Finally, again for those who do not know Christ as their Savior and Lord. I pray that today is your day of salvation. I pray that God would open your eyes to the truth of His gospel and you will trust in Him today.

Finally, I want to end with two quotes:

"If God would grant us the vision, the word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ. - Nate Saint, two weeks before he was martyred by the Aucas

"Someone asked Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? It is more a question with me whether we – who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not – can be saved." – Charles Spurgeon