I was just thinking about a point that impressed me after I finished reading Nancy Pearcy's book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
Her book attempts to liberate Christianity from its bondage to dualism and its intrinsic hypocrisy, and to encourage Christians to embrace the integrated, whole, and consistent reality revealed in Scripture. In the book's last chapter, Pearcy emphasizes how crucial authenticity is to the Christian message. The world is full of inconsistencies and incongruities, full of lies and empty rhetoric. People are weary of it. They want to know that there is real truth...they want to see real people being authentic to the hilt. They are hungry to see people living as if there were an "author". Authenticity. It is not easy. It is painful. It is humbling. However, it is the message which this generation is aching for, and it can only be found in true biblical Christianity lived out to the extreme...lived out at any cost...lived out to the death. The world is not dumb. It is not deceived. They are not impressed by piety, by puffed up theology, by imitations of other people's facades. They are awed by love. Awed by implicit trust in a Sovereign Creator. Awed by a voice that says, " Though He slay me, I will trust in Him. "
Awed by radical obedience at the expense of our own personal wants, plans, and lives.
Love is NEVER easy. There is never a "good" time for love. There is only daily, unceasing, repetitive, self emptying, love. Love that sends you crying at the feet of Christ begging for the strength to keep on loving. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love that is impossible without abiding in He who is Love incarnate. Love which is a daily repeated death.
Obedience and trust are NEVER easy. If they are easy...something is seriously wrong. If we feel comfortable with our obedience...something is seriously wrong. God asks for wholehearted, undiluted obedience, and the more we obey, the more He asks of us. He is the omnipotent Sovereign...we are not our own, we were bought with the ultimate price. His will is to be done every day...not ours. His kingdom is to be advanced every day...not our own. It hurts, and it is hard, yet it is the source of the truest happiness and the most satisfying joy, for, "In His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore."
So, Christ calls us to take up our cross daily, and to lay down our lives daily, for then
and only then will men see Truth incarnate.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Inconsistent Logic?
Just wondering:
1) If I truly believe God is completely sovereign.
2) If I truly believe he alone authors life.
3) If I truly believe His word is without error.
4) If I truly believe He is NEVER mistaken
5) If I truly believe He only does that which glorifies His name.
6) If I truly believe I am a living sacrifice to Him.
7) If I truly believe in His Kingdom on earth.
8) If I truly believe that I am part of a spiritual army.
9) If I truly believe I am a living sacrifice to Him.
10) If I truly believe I am not my own, but have been bought at the ultimate price.
11) If I truly believe abundant life and joy are found in keeping His commandments.
12) If I truly believe that his grace is sufficient.
13) If I truly believe children are a blessing from the Lord.
14) If I truly believe God was not making a mistake when he repeatedly says He
opens and closes wombs.
15) If I truly believe that children are arrows in the hands of a warrior...
How can I consistently defend attempting to control the number of children God sends me? Shouldn't my struggle be against the kingdom of this world...against my flesh...rather than against the will of the all loving, all compassionate, all knowing Sovereign Life-giver?
1) If I truly believe God is completely sovereign.
2) If I truly believe he alone authors life.
3) If I truly believe His word is without error.
4) If I truly believe He is NEVER mistaken
5) If I truly believe He only does that which glorifies His name.
6) If I truly believe I am a living sacrifice to Him.
7) If I truly believe in His Kingdom on earth.
8) If I truly believe that I am part of a spiritual army.
9) If I truly believe I am a living sacrifice to Him.
10) If I truly believe I am not my own, but have been bought at the ultimate price.
11) If I truly believe abundant life and joy are found in keeping His commandments.
12) If I truly believe that his grace is sufficient.
13) If I truly believe children are a blessing from the Lord.
14) If I truly believe God was not making a mistake when he repeatedly says He
opens and closes wombs.
15) If I truly believe that children are arrows in the hands of a warrior...
How can I consistently defend attempting to control the number of children God sends me? Shouldn't my struggle be against the kingdom of this world...against my flesh...rather than against the will of the all loving, all compassionate, all knowing Sovereign Life-giver?
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Rebellion At Any Cost
I was reading some excerpts from Thomas Hobbes' Levithan last night, and was reminded again of man's inescapable gnawing awareness of his need for God.
Hobbes' materialist and determinist beliefs required that he could not scientifically presuppose God. Therefore, knowing that which is self evident about unrestrained human sin, he found himself compelled to construct an totalitarian state upon which he endowed all the attributes of God. Rather than presuppose that there is a True Sovereign, whose laws are truly just, Hobbes presupposes that matter is the only truth and thereby forces himself to endow one man with the right to dominate, legislate, and oppress all other men in subjection to him (ie. play God).
Rather than humbly bowing the knee to the King of Heaven and Earth, and being completely subject to His compassionate law, Hobbes chooses to place himself in bondage to the will of one man (supposedly endowed with the "autonomous rights" of his subjects). He would prefer to be stripped of all freedom and creativity, for the sake of crying from his disgusting little cage, "Look at me, I am free! I made my own prison! I chose to join this social contract, but never forget, the source of the sovereignty was me. Once upon a time I was God, but I have chosen of my own to create this hell!"
I cannot be amazed enough at the extent to which man will deceive himself in order to rebel against the King. We will make hell on earth, just to say, "I am the Beginning and the End...not God!"
Hobbes' materialist and determinist beliefs required that he could not scientifically presuppose God. Therefore, knowing that which is self evident about unrestrained human sin, he found himself compelled to construct an totalitarian state upon which he endowed all the attributes of God. Rather than presuppose that there is a True Sovereign, whose laws are truly just, Hobbes presupposes that matter is the only truth and thereby forces himself to endow one man with the right to dominate, legislate, and oppress all other men in subjection to him (ie. play God).
Rather than humbly bowing the knee to the King of Heaven and Earth, and being completely subject to His compassionate law, Hobbes chooses to place himself in bondage to the will of one man (supposedly endowed with the "autonomous rights" of his subjects). He would prefer to be stripped of all freedom and creativity, for the sake of crying from his disgusting little cage, "Look at me, I am free! I made my own prison! I chose to join this social contract, but never forget, the source of the sovereignty was me. Once upon a time I was God, but I have chosen of my own to create this hell!"
I cannot be amazed enough at the extent to which man will deceive himself in order to rebel against the King. We will make hell on earth, just to say, "I am the Beginning and the End...not God!"
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Embracing Seasons
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace."
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
As faithfully as the seasons blend and merge, so the seasons of my life blend...no season lasts forever. Each must be embraced and enjoyed in its own unique way. I must find my joy exactly where God has me, knowing that each day bears its own unique gifts...never to be offered again.
I struggle to discern "seasons", to appreciate the appropriate time for things. I go, go, go, never stopping to think what God's will for this moment is. I order my day around the tyranny of the urgent, forgetting that my chief end is to, ( as Piper says) glorify God by enjoying Him forever. I find myself coveting the labor and fruit of other seasons, forgetting that this one will pass all too soon, along with its own particular joys.
What would my life look like if I actually embraced its seasons? If I reveled in the beauty of each phase, instead of despising or fearing its weaknesses? In Genesis, God ordained that humans should order their lives about the ebb and flow of seasons, and again, He reminds us in Ecclesiastes. Seasons are a gift. They are a God given way of pacing me, of reminding me to enjoy Him. They are my Shepherd's rod and staff comforting me. When I refuse to embrace them, I grow blind and dull of Spirit, insensible to the abundant variety, beauty, and growth around me. Jesus reiterated it again when He said, "I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly."
Lord, help me to slow down and delight in You, to enter wholeheartedly into the seasons you delight to place me in, and to revel in the works of Your hands.
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace."
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
As faithfully as the seasons blend and merge, so the seasons of my life blend...no season lasts forever. Each must be embraced and enjoyed in its own unique way. I must find my joy exactly where God has me, knowing that each day bears its own unique gifts...never to be offered again.
I struggle to discern "seasons", to appreciate the appropriate time for things. I go, go, go, never stopping to think what God's will for this moment is. I order my day around the tyranny of the urgent, forgetting that my chief end is to, ( as Piper says) glorify God by enjoying Him forever. I find myself coveting the labor and fruit of other seasons, forgetting that this one will pass all too soon, along with its own particular joys.
What would my life look like if I actually embraced its seasons? If I reveled in the beauty of each phase, instead of despising or fearing its weaknesses? In Genesis, God ordained that humans should order their lives about the ebb and flow of seasons, and again, He reminds us in Ecclesiastes. Seasons are a gift. They are a God given way of pacing me, of reminding me to enjoy Him. They are my Shepherd's rod and staff comforting me. When I refuse to embrace them, I grow blind and dull of Spirit, insensible to the abundant variety, beauty, and growth around me. Jesus reiterated it again when He said, "I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly."
Lord, help me to slow down and delight in You, to enter wholeheartedly into the seasons you delight to place me in, and to revel in the works of Your hands.
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