Jesus is able

Recently, I was thanking God for his salvation and reminding myself of my need for a savior. Part of my prayer went something like this: "Father, thank you for your Son who I need as much today as I did the day I was converted." At this I paused and started thinking... Did I just pray correctly? I would hate to be praying heresy... My justification (standing before God) was realized at a point in time (conversion). I am no longer condemned before a holy God, so how do I need a savior as much today as I did at that point? God brought these verses to mind:

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24-25)

The word "able" jumped out at me... I am not able to keep from stumbling. I will continue to sin if left to my own way. Sin is still present with me. While I am blameless before God based on the finished work of Christ, I also have a need to keep from stumbling. It is in this truth that I realize my daily need for a savior as actively as the day I was converted. Jesus is able to keep me from stumbling!

To Tatoo or Not to Tatoo, that is the question...

Ok, so I'd like to get a tattoo, I've picked out what it would look like:

Faith Alone - Grace Alone - Scripture Alone - Christ Alone - To the Glory of God Alone

I'd get it in a band around my calf, so it would only be visible when I wear shorts in the summer. In this way it wouldn't interfere with a professional appearance in regard to work.

These were the five "solas" of the Reformation. For me they represent five points or stakes that I've put down in my life. They are not open for debate.

I want to get some feedback (i.e. pros and cons) that you may think of... I've already asked a couple of guys what they thought and the range of responses has been from enthusiastic to tepid. My wife is all for it, in case you were curious!

My concerns in this are that:
A) I don't want to do anything that would damage Christ's name.
B) I want this to further future ministry opportunities rather than affect them detrimentally (i.e. I hope it would open more doors to share the Gospel rather than close them
C) I want it to look cool, but not to be a vain pursuit. (Just like when I choose the clothes I wear)
D) I don't want it to be a reaction toward the legalism of my childhood... (I don't think it is, but am just putting it out there)

To those who would say, "You going to ruin the beauty of your Atlas-like body..." You obviously don't know me! And how 2 Cor. 5:4 has become one of my favorite verses

For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Is my trial a loaf or a stone?

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

Recently, I was praying and during my prayer I asked the Lord to remove my problem with seizures. The above verses came to mind. My prayer was, "Lord, I'm just tired of dealing with this. I don't doubt your sovereignty, but I'm still tired of it." And I felt that God said, "Do you think this is a stone? Well, you've asked me for bread. I will not give you a stone, however if you do continue to have seizures, it's not that I don't hear prayer. But that they are bread for you."

What comfort we can draw in adversity when we realize that our Father cares enough to be concerned not only for our short term well being, but for our long term (eternal) well being. These things that we know as "trials" in this life are in fact "a light momentary affliction [that] is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." (2 Cor. 4:17)

Psalm 23

Psalm 23 is one of those oft quoted Psalms as it is a comfort Psalm. That is, the pictures given in Psalm 23 are of the Lord as our shepherd caring for us. This can give comfort in hard times. I've recently been using this Psalm as a fall back when I get nervous about my seizures. I'll quote the whole Psalm quickly in my mind, and God rarely fails to bring some different point of emphasis out of the Psalm. I want to write down a couple of thoughts from Psalm 23:1-3.

1. He is the restorer of my soul, no other thing on earth will bring me comfort. It is God alone who restores the soul.
2. He leads me in "paths of righteousness, for His name's sake". The paths we walk are ordained by our Father. They are not meaningless paths, but by our walking them, His name is glorified.

A little "Christmas spirit" from J.I. Packer

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians - I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians - go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that the Lord might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice-middle class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christian spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need.
-- J.I. Packer, Knowing God, pp. 63-64

2 Cor 8:9 - For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Phillipians 2:5 - Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus

Sawdust?

OK, I'm reading through the Bible this year and I must admit that reading large portions of the Levitical law is like eating sawdust. Yes, I know this sounds so immature to say, but I'm being honest. I intersperse my reading of the law with the NT.
However, on this day reading Deut. 28 brought tears to my eyes as I read the curses God had for his chosen people. Here's a few examples:

• Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
• [You will be afflicted] with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured...with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark.
• You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
• You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her.
• You will build a house, but you will not live in it.
• You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.
• Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it.
• Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned.
• Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.
• Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.
• You will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. The sights you see will drive you mad. [You will] will be afflict[ed] ... with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

Now I doubt you'd read that whole list, but as I did (and it goes on for much, much longer) I thought, "I doubt that anyone ever received all of those curses." Then God brought Gal. 3:13 to my mind, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us."

Those curses were only partially fulfilled toward the nation of Israel, and they displayed God's utter abhorence for sin. And this abhorence was poured out in full on Christ. So as I continued reading through these curses,

• the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.
• He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
• The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
• You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God.
• Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.
• You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

How can you not celebrate the thought of God cursing man, but in reality cursing His Son for our sake?

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;

Spotless Lamb of God was He;

“Full atonement!” can it be?

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Resolution Three

Resolved, to see myself as I truly am, a beggar before God, and to live as if this were true in my interactions with others.

Washington, D.C. is not known as the cleanest of cities. I suppose every large city has "beggars" (not a politically correct word!), but there seems to be a lot of them around D.C. I personally walk by four to five regulars every day. Too often we have a high perception of ourselves. Truth is, however, before God we are far less than beggars! At least the homeless guy that I pass on the street shares many commonalities with me, while I share none with God.

I am indeed a beggar before God. I stand with nothing in my hands. If you're like me, I've even found my times of worship and prayer can be tainted with sin!

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift! (2 Cor. 9:15)

Resolution Two

Resolved, to place value on and pursue only activities which bring God glory.

There is an old Reebok commercial that says, "Life is short, Play hard!" Well, I agree with the first statement. Life is short. Also true is the statement, "You only go around once." If we put those together, we get one shot with a short life. How can we make it count for something? The world would have us enjoy our one shot at a short life. "Play hard!"

My own life is often filled with enjoyable things. And God did create us to enjoy life. The often quoted verse of 1 Tim. 6:17 says,

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

But it is interesting to note that the emphasis of this verse is not toward enjoying life, but placing our hope in the right place. It is not combatting those who are aesthetics and ignoring the secular for the spiritual; but those who, like us, are materialists and are placing their hope in their things. Even though God did create us to enjoy life, enjoyment of life is NEVER found in the things of life; instead as we place our hope in Christ, we are able to enjoy life. And when our hope FOR life is set beyond the things OF life we can find true enjoyment. No matter what our life situation is.

The best way to enjoy and to have a fulfilling and meaningful life is to fix our hope on Christ; as we do this it practically impacts the way we live. We will find ourselves pursuing only those things that have significance. I'm still trying to work out the ramifications of this. What actually has significance? My tendency in the past has been to ignore the secular for the spiritual, but I am not trying to say that we can only enjoy and pursue spiritual things in life. When God created the world, He took delight in His creation. One of His creations was mankind. As men and women, we can image Creator God and create many different things with our lives. In his book on common grace, He Shines in All That's Fair, Richard Mouw says,

Let me be concrete: I think God takes delight in Benjamin Franklin's wit and in Tiger Woods's putts and in some well-crafted narrative paragraphs in a Salman Rushdie novel, even if these accomplishments are in fact achieved by non-Christian people. And I am convinced that God's delight in these phenomena does not come because they bring the elect to glory and the non-elect to eternal separation from the divine presence. I think God enjoys these things for their own sakes.

I am inclined to agree, yet realize the danger of overemphasizing this truth would be placing too high a value on man's creations. So, God is glorified as we use our creative energies and image Him in this world, yet I don't find the pictures given us in Revelation have too many man made creations around the throne praising God. I think this area calls for much discernment, probably more than I have.

In the end, I am convinced of one thing - that God's greatest glory can be pursued in those activities which make much of Christ. When Christ is uplifted, God is glorified. If Christ is debased or marginalized, God is not glorified. It is my resolution to make each activity in my life a part of the pursuit of making much of Jesus.

Resolution One

Resolved, that my life would be about finding my joy in going after God's glory and not my own.
Our lives need purpose. A life without purpose is an empty one. For the the Christian, our purpose must be both based on and found in God. This resolution states my intent of basing my life on God and living for His glory.

Originally, I wrote "Resolved, that my life would be about pursuing God's glory and not my own." As I reflected on it, something seemed to be lacking. God's glory is, of course, the chief end of man according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism. But I realized that I had left out the other side of the coin; that which John Piper so vividly illustrates in Desiring God. It was Blaise Pascal who wrote:

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

Pascal is saying that happiness (or the pursuit of it) is at the very core of a person. And Piper's driving point is that God has designed us to find our ultimate joy and happiness in the pursuit of God's glory. If (as a person) I cannot help but pursue joy; then I am deciding to pursue joy in God, for it is only here that true joy may be found. This is easy to say, but not so easy to live. But it provides a foundation for the rest of the resolutions and is my overarching theme.

By way of scriptural backing, Romans 11:36 is a great place to start, "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen." The scripture that explicitly says this best is probably Revelation 4:11...

You are worthy, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.

Resolutions (Heading)

I want to write a series of posts detailing (primarily for myself) what each of these mean, why I put it in this list, the scriptural backing, and the practical application. But first I need to address the heading...

Relying solely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ who by his life and death has become my justification and sanctification, I do purpose the following:

It is critical to recognize that anything we do that is pleasing in God's sight, is not because of our own goodness (Is. 64:6), but exclusively because of Jesus. Righteousness is not something that we can achieve, but something we are given. (2 Cor. 5:21) Would I never make a resolution, my standing before God would not be different in the slightest.
Christ's death appeased the wrath of God and payed for the penalty of our sins, but his life gave us our righteousness. His 33 years of sinless life are counted as mine!
Based on this understanding, these resolutions are written as my attempt to state my convictions. Imperfectly lived, but still convictions. Or one may say convicting convictions.

Reflections on Resolutions (Day 3)

Well, just wanted to write down what is running through my head three days after writing those hard core resolutions down! I'd love to say that I'm now a different person, but guess what? The same sinner woke up the next morning! I do have a couple of high level observations, though.

Convictions unstated are rarely lived out.
When we don't write our or state our convictions, it is very easy for them to disappear. There was something in the writing down and "publishing" of those resolutions that I can look back to and remember. By reading them again, my dedication is renewed. It reminds me that, "Yes, that's the way I want to live."

Resolutions help us evaluate how we spend our time.
It may sound a little overboard, but as I check my activities against these resolutions, I have been more efficient and intentional with my time.

Resolutions should be generic enough to have room for added depth.
What does living life pursuing God's glory look like? Can this include watching football? Does God delight in acts we might classify as common grace? If so, to what degree should they be pursued? If the resolutions have too much detail they would cease to have effectivity as my life changes. Keeping them generic will help them have continuing effect down the road.

Resolutions must be Biblical.
It can be easy to make resolutions without firmly grounding them in the Word. One of my future endeavors is to take each point and back it with God's Word. Otherwise, I am drifting in a sea of Matt's thought. Scary!

Now the real question - have I kept them? Maybe you've missed my drift - NO! The point is not to keep them perfectly but to give guidance.

May God give more grace!

Resolutions

Ok, finally got around to compiling some of my own thoughts... I pulled from JE's format because I liked the force of conviction with which he listed his resolutions. I know that these are not something to be kept perfectly, but hope that by God's grace they will form a reminder to me on a consistent basis of what my life is about. This week God had to grapple with my heart as He revealed to me my lack of true dedication to Him. I realized Lewis' quote in The Weight of Glory described me when he said:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

I tend to fool around with tv, computers, reading, fun, etc... when infinite and eternal joy is offered. It is to be found in life lived to God's glory. If you don't get what I mean, go read Desiring God.

So, here they are...

Relying solely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ who by his life and death has become my justification and sanctification, I do purpose the following:

1. Resolved, that my life would be about pursuing God’s glory and not my own.
2. Resolved, to place value on and pursue only activities which bring God glory.
3. Resolved, to see myself as I truly am – a beggar before God – and to live as if this were true in my interactions with others.
4. Resolved, to never live lackadaisically, but to live with all my might.
5. Resolved, to make the Gospel my meta-narrative.
6. Resolved, to love my wife and give up myself as Christ did for the church.
7. Resolved, to never accept lazy spirituality.
8. Resolved, to always place others above myself and to regard myself as nothing.
9. Resolved; to lead my wife, family, and in any other sphere God may place before me.
10. Resolved; to repent from my failures, plead the righteousness of Christ, and make reconciliation with those I hurt.

Resolutions and The New Year

By God's grace we have entered 2007. The changing of the calendar is, along with the birthday, one of those days that God has placed in our lives that can cause us to pause for a little reflection. In this way, New Year's resolutions are a positive thing. How do I want to be different at this time next year? The old saying, " If you aim at nothing, you are sure to hit your target" is true. Being intentional is important. I haven't sat down and really given the thought I want to to this year's goals, but to help me to that end, I wanted to put out the first eight resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (written at age 20)... These are not as my resolutions, but are helping me begin to think deeply about life and the end to which we are living. Numbers 6,7, and 8 hit me like a ton of bricks.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God' s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.
2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the aforementioned things.
3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.
5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.