Adorn Yourself with the Peace that Passes Understanding

I careened into the driveway and slammed the engine into park. My breathing was shallow and quick. I was hot and sweaty and felt like the car was closing in on me. I flung open the door and hung my legs out, hunching over on my knees.

What is happening to me? I wondered. I re-traced my day, realizing I had lost myself in a mental spiral about my career. I knew I would soon be looking for another job, though I didn’t know what kind, if I would have to move my family, or what that would even look like.

Fortunately, I was seeing a counselor around that time. I told her what happened, and she asked about my prayer life. “Huh?” I said, confused. “Your prayer life. How is it?” she replied.

Ugh, I thought, knowing it was basically non-existent. “It’s not very good,” I told her.

As we talked, I realized that as my anxiety increased, my prayer decreased. As my inner world became noisier, I filled the prayer space with podcasts, music, and audiobooks—anything to keep me from dealing with my thoughts.

And it was ruining me.

HEARTBURN

The more I hid from my thoughts, the more I felt like David in Psalm 39:

I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned . . .

I’m guessing you’ve felt the same before. You tie your stomach in knots while planning your next move. You’re not sure if that school is right for the kids: They might excel academically, but what about their influences? You’re wondering what’ll happen if you take that job: Will my family be upset? Will we regret it in a year? You feel exhausted even when you aren’t doing anything physically strenuous. You’re depleted, anxious, uneasy, discontent.

David was no stranger to these emotions. Before he was crowned king, he spent years on the run from Saul, who wanted him dead because Saul knew God had promised David the throne. At one point, David took to hiding in caves. Alone in those damp, dark caverns, he surely had to ask God, What are you doing? I thought I was supposed to be king, but here I am hiding from a madman. Will this ever end? How long, O Lord?!

THE LONGEST PSALM TO LEARN

I wouldn’t be surprised if David eventually worked himself into a tizzy like I did that day in my car. But David didn’t have a counselor to calm him down, so what did he do? He wrote this prayer:

 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

It may not look like much at first, but Psalm 131 is one of the finest gems in all the Psalms. “It is one of the shortest Psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn,” wrote Charles Spurgeon.

He’s right. I stumbled onto this psalm during those days of inner turmoil and it became a balm to my heart, soul, and mind. These three short verses reached down and plucked me from the cave I was hiding in.

Much like the other Psalms of Ascent, this song starts low but rises to great heights. It can take a wild-minded person and subdue them into an unhurried soul. And it starts with humility.

I DON’T WANT TO BE KING

David starts his appeal by admitting he has been humbled. Verse 1 shows the future king brought low by years of scrambling and surviving. His heart was no longer set on the throne. His eyes stopped gazing up as he daydreamed of ruling. He quit trying to figure out what only God can know.

David rightly connected his heart, eyes, and soul, for “What the heart desires, the eyes look for. Where the desires run, the glances usually follow.”[i]

God wanted David gazing up not at the throne, but at him. So it is with us. God wants us peering up with anticipation, but he wants our gaze fixed on him, not the things of this world.

Too often, I want to understand how the puzzle fits together. I want to know why things happen. I want all the information. But my eyes can only be one place at a time. When I’m fixated on planning my steps, I miss the God who establishes them (Prov. 16:9).

A humble and lowly heart is the beginning of sanctification. God works not with a heart of stone, but with a heart of flesh, softened and made malleable by being brought low. And what starts in the heart continues into the soul.

BE STILL MY SOUL

In verse 2, we see the result of David’s humbled heart—a calm and quiet soul. But this tranquil state didn’t happen on its own. David says, “I have calmed and quieted my soul.” It was an act of the will; in fact, it was a deliberate submission of his will before the Lord.

The word translated calmed can also be rendered composed. “To compose your soul means literally to level it. [To] bulldoze the building site,” writes David Powlison. “To quiet your soul means to silence the noise and tumult. [To say] ‘Sssshhh’ to your desires, fears, opinions, anxieties, agendas, and irritabilities.”[ii]

David stopped trying to control the uncontrollable, quieted his manic thoughts, and was left with a peaceful soul.

A peaceful soul is only possible when it has been hushed into submission. This surely rubs us the wrong way, but David gives us a word-picture to explain. He has calmed and quieted his soul “like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

As a father of four, I’ve learned that an unweaned child frantically roots around for milk when they’re anywhere near their mother. When it comes time to wean the child, they cry their little hearts out, breaking their mother’s in the process.

But the mother stays the course because she knows it’s necessary if the child is ever going to go on to solid food. After a while, the child moves on and is no longer overcome by their former desire. A weaned child can simply enjoy being in his mother’s lap, and this satisfaction is not a matter of food but of the heart.

This is a picture of David’s humbled heart. This infantile contentment leads to a parental concern for others, as seen in verse 3.

WAIT WITH HOPE

A humbled heart is freed to love and care for others. “Pride dies as the humility of faith lives,” writes Powlison.

As David’s pride died, his humble faith began to live, and the overflow of his contentment was to plead with his people not to make the same mistakes. “O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore,” he says.

Stop pursuing impossibilities and start pursuing certainties. Hope in God, who we know is unchanging and good and loving. Don’t get impatient and move forward without him.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased verse 3 this way: “Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!” A humble heart and submissive will allow us to wait with hope. Hope for the next phase, the next doctor’s appointment, the next meeting, the next day, even the next life. That hope then feeds and sustains humility in our hearts and helps us see the wisdom of submitting our souls to the God who formed our innermost parts (Ps. 139).

“When we cease to hanker for the world we begin hoping for the Lord,” wrote Spurgeon. The only way to cease longing for the world is to pick up our cross daily and follow the Lord of hope. That daily dying requires a humble heart, a submitted soul, and a patient hope.

THE PEACE THAT PASSES UNDERSTANDING

Once I realized I was ruining my soul by trying to control the uncontrollable, I calmed and quieted it instead. I memorized Psalm 131 as ammunition against my anxious thoughts. I fasted from podcasts and other audio while running or walking in the mornings. I deleted social media from my phone and blocked it in my browser.

I was back behind the wheel one morning when I realized I could feel the silence in my soul. I wasn’t inundated with anxieties. I was calm. I was quiet.

I wish I could say that tranquility has lasted, but I’ve relapsed many times since then. I am calmer and quieter than I’ve ever been, but I have a long way to go in turning over my heart, eyes, and soul to the Lord. Maybe you do, too.

If so, David’s last line in the psalm can bring us comfort. Linger over these words: “O believer, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.”

Spurgeon wrote that Psalm 131 is like a pearl that will beautifully adorn the neck of patience. Be patient, brother. Be patient, sister. Hope in the Lord and adorn yourself with the peace that passes understanding.

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[i] Charles H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David: Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings on Psalm 131, http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/treasury/ps131.htm.

[ii] David Powlison, “’Peace, be still’: Learning Psalm 131 by Heart,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol. 18 No. 3, Spring 2000, https://www.ccef.org/wp-content/uploads/archive/sites/default/files/pdf/dp_psalm131_1803002.pdf.

Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of four, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing, check out his website or follow him on Twitter.

You Become What You Trust

Humans have always loved idols. Israel’s history shows us that no matter how many miraculous wonders we witness, our hearts will always elevate the created before the Creator (Rom.1:25). What began as statues to Baal, Asherah poles, and Greek temples, continues to permeate our culture. These days, our idols look a bit nobler—a spouse, children, happiness, comfort, health—but they enslave us just like the idols of old.

Our idols don’t just settle for helping us break the second commandment, they permeate much deeper in our lives. The Psalms tell us that those who trust idols will become like them (Ps. 135:18). We may not turn into stone and wood, but eventually, the idols of our heart can chip away at significant areas in our spiritual lives.

The idols we create are blind, deaf, and mute, and if we continue serving them, we’ll eventually become the same. If left undisturbed and ignored, we may begin to lose our own sight, become deaf to others, and render our speech useless to the surrounding world.

Blind to Our Sin

One of the first ways we become like our idols is in becoming blind to our own sin. If we are in Christ, we have been given a new heart (Ezek. 36:26) and our eyes are opened to the gospel, yet the temptation to turn back towards darkness endures. It’s why the author of Hebrews exhorted the church to take care that no one has an unbelieving heart, “leading you to fall away from the living God” (Heb. 3:12-13).

Each person, feeling, circumstance, or dream we hold up as more important than God is ultimately a declaration of unbelief. Our idols make us believe that God won’t satisfy more than our they can. Our idols make us think that God’s grace isn’t enough, so we must make our own rules. They make us think that seeking our own comfort is more worthwhile than seeking the Lord’s glory.

We may not say these truths out loud, but the subtle deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13) will continue to feed our idols of unbelief, make excuses, and harden us to the sin we harbor. Some of us may continue to idolize health, blind to the ways we are trusting in our workouts to give us the peace that only God can give. Others may cloak our approval-seeking in righteous words like service or encouragement, but in reality, our idols stay hidden behind the sin we can’t see.

The trouble is, we can’t crush what we can’t see. This is where the passage in Hebrews gives us great hope. We must “exhort one another daily” (Heb. 3:13). Just as we could not open our eyes to Christ without his work, we need the Holy Spirit and Christ’s church to open our eyes to our blindness—even after salvation. It’s our brothers and sisters who can illuminate the darkness, and the Holy Spirit alone who can give us back our sight and put to death the idols of unbelief in our hearts.

Deaf to Our Brothers and Sisters

Our idols can make us become blind to our own sin, but they can also cause us to become deaf to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We see this played out in big and small ways in the church, whether it’s the prideful parent who refuses to seek any outside help, or the church member holding his politics so tightly that he can’t hear the concerns of a brother in Christ. Our strong opinions, steeped in the idolatry of self, can keep us so attuned to our own views that we can’t stop to give grace or charity to our dissenter.

But Christ calls us to something radical. He not only tells us to open our ears but to go even further by outdoing one another with honor (Rom. 12:10). We are told to bless those who hurt us, to be humble in our own eyes, and do what is honorable in the sight of all (Rom.12:14-17).

Beginning to knock down these idols begins by first finding the root. Where are we deaf to the concerns and wisdom of our brothers and sisters in Christ? What topics do we bristle at hearing a word of correction? Or what topics do we refuse to seek wisdom in?

You’ll likely have to ask a trusted brother or sister to help you see what you cannot. Of course, our brothers and sisters in these disagreements are sinners too, but Jesus tells us our first step is always to look upon our own sin (Matt. 7:3).

Mute to the World

Finally, our idols can mute our voice to the world around us, which fleshes out in two ways. The first is seen when our idols make us look exactly like the world around us. When we idolize comfort, a job, or happiness, we will inevitably be tossed into anxiety when these idols are not met. When the job is lost or life gets difficult, we will look no different than the unbeliever in the cubicle sitting right to us.

As Christians, however, our lives should look different because our hope is completely different. That doesn’t mean that we can’t feel stressed or experience difficulty, but it does mean that our priorities should look different than the unbelievers around us. When we continue to let the idols of our hearts take over, they rob us of the chance to preach a different and beautiful story to the world around us.

Secondly, our idols keep us from purposefully entering into the lives of those around us. Who has time to develop a relationship with a neighbor when we are too busy with our own projects? How do we encourage the woman behind us in the checkout when we are too concerned with our phone? The nature of man-made idols is that they must be maintained. We must keep feeding our need for approval, tone our body, multiply our entertainment—and when we do we are left with little time for else.

But again, Jesus calls us to something radical. We have a different mission than maintaining our idols. Instead, we are to give up our hold on everything in this world to gain everything in the beauty of Christ. We are to make disciples (Matt. 28:19-20) and to proclaim his name among the people God has put around us. And if we want to be ready to give an answer for the hope we have in Christ (1 Pt. 3:15), we must first clear away the idols that rob us of that voice.

Good News for Idolaters

While it’s painful to see the grip of idolatry, the good news is that we worship the God who stands above every idol. Just as the ancient statue of Dagon fell to the ground before the Ark of the Covenant, our own idols will fall prostrate before the true God of heaven (1 Sam. 5:2).

We don’t have to feel defeat but can seek out our idols so we can destroy them. We can stop to see what has been keeping us from speaking the gospel to those around us. We can ask God to show us where our ears have been closed to our family in Christ. And we can ask from the Holy Spirit and our brothers and sisters to help show us the sin we can’t see.

We may start to become like our idols, but it’s the power of the cross—the same power that raised Jesus from the dead—that gives us the power to crush them. Each day we can lean on the God who continues to breathe life and hope into our blind, deaf, and mute hearts.

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Brianna Lambert is a wife and mom to three, making their home in the cornfields of Indiana. She loves using writing to work out the truths God is teaching her each day. She has contributed to various online publications such as Morning by Morning and Fathom magazine. You can find more of her writing paired with her husband’s photography at lookingtotheharvest.com.

You Have One Job

I know it’s coming. I’ve read it before. But maybe the story will be different this time. But alas, it’s not. It never is.

Genesis 3 always follows Genesis 1 and 2. It’s like watching a train wreck over and over again, and I’m a passive observer with the unfortunate privilege of being an eye-witness to chaos and destruction. Powerless to stop it but forced to watch.

If I had written Genesis 3, things would have gone differently. Adam would’ve done his job, protected his bride, resisted temptation, vanquished the serpent, and left a heroic legacy for the rest of mankind.

But I don’t get to rewrite the story because the story itself tells us its Author is perfect. He doesn’t make mistakes.

Sometimes, I need the story to correct me. That’s what Psalm 127 does. It doesn’t let me long for what could’ve been, but rather live wholly—and trustingly—in what is.

A Garden Psalm

One of fifteen Psalms of Ascent—a set of songs regularly sung by Hebrew pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem—Psalm 127 reminds pilgrims that in every aspect of our created reality, God can and should be trusted.

And that really is the point of the garden story in Genesis—that God can and should be trusted.

But we have a hard time trusting him, don’t we?

When viewed alongside Genesis, we discover that the 127^th psalm is a garden psalm. It reminds us of the origin story that set the assigned rhythms and responsibilities of human life. It’s a psalm about how life was intended to be lived, how we’ve fallen away, and how we can once again be brought back into God’s intended design.

Psalm 127 is a hope-filled corrective in a fallen world, a glimpse into how a garden life is once again possible because of the reality of redemption. Ours is a fallen world, yes, but living as we were intended is also possible, even in the midst of brokenness.

To help him (and us) live as intended, God gave Adam a three-fold job description in the garden, which is echoed in Psalm 127: work, protection, and multiplication.

The Dignity of Labor

God made it clear that humanity’s role on the earth included the responsibility of work:

“Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion” (Gen. 1:28, emphasis added).

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it . . .” (Gen. 2:15, emphasis added).

Work, labor, was not originally a toilsome thing, but as a result of the Fall, God cursed mankind’s labor with toil, making it a vanity, a chasing after the wind. It’s no wonder, then, that the psalmist says,

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain . . . It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” —Psalm 127:1a, 2

Rather than working from our identity, we fallen humans tend to try to work for our identity.

This misplaced identity comes when the creator God—the original and primary Worker—is disconnected from our work. We work in our own strength and for our own purposes, so our work ends up defining who we are. Those who “rise up early and go late to rest” are enslaved to their own need for validation through accomplishment or success.

Humans were made to work for God. Divorced from this reality, we allow our work to define us rather than allowing God to define both us and our work. Work becomes toil when it’s disconnected from the God who “works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

Since God should be our defining reality, work—a good thing in itself—has a natural limit. Labor should not be all-encompassing. It shouldn’t consume us. Work’s natural end is God-protected rest: “for he gives to his beloved sleep.” This is the natural rhythm that God himself observed on the seventh day when he rested from all his labors (Gen. 2:1-3). Without this rhythm, we cannot live as God intended.

The Role of Vigilance

Adam’s second responsibility in the garden was protection: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15, emphasis added). The Hebrew word translated as “keep” carries the idea of protection: Adam was to guard the garden. But from what? Hadn’t all of God’s creation been good?

From this language, it’s clear there’s an imminent threat, an Enemy at the gate. Adam’s job was to protect the garden from this insidious intruder.

Sadly, Adam wasn’t up for the task. He let his guard down and the intruder entered the garden, successfully tempted Eve, and Adam found himself falling into disobedience alongside her.

Psalm 127 echoes this protective responsibility with the image of the watchman:

“Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” —Psalm 127:1b

We Americans are a people obsessed with security and safety. Unlike the ancient Israelites who lived with constant threats from nature, disease, and foreign armies, our days are passed in relative ease.

We’re shocked when our sense of peace is invaded by natural disasters, terrorism, or senseless acts of violence. We observe tragedy on the news, then quickly coddle ourselves back into a sense of safety. We pad our bank accounts, increase our insurance coverage, and buy safer cars. But without God’s protection, it’s all for naught.

Implied in the verse above is that the watchman is trusting in his own vigilance to bring safety. He is not trusting in God’s protection. This was Adam’s weakness as well: forgetting to trust in his guardian, the God who had created him. Adam failed to turn to God for help in his protective role, trusting instead in his own vigilance and power.

What would have happened if Adam (or Eve) had turned to God and cried out for help in that moment? We’ll never know.

There is only One who can truly protect us. We have one Shepherd who knows the number of hairs on our head. In our moments of greatest fear and anxiety, we must look to him. When we do, we live into the lives we were made for.

The Task of Multiplication

The final task assigned to our first parents was multiplication: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth . . .’” (Gen. 1:28).

Psalm 127 echoes these blessings:

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” —Psalm 127:3-5

Children naturally reflect the ones who bore them. This was God’s intention in calling humanity to multiply, that those made in his image were to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” with his reflected glory (see Num. 14:21; Hab. 2:14). It’s an undeserved reward for men and women to join God in this glorious task.

When we partner with God in the work of multiplication, we’re pictured as warriors, armed with the arrows of proliferation. The enemy confronts each of us at the gates with the lie uttered since the garden: “You can’t trust God. He doesn’t love you. You aren’t blessed. He can’t use you.”

And yet in our work of multiplication—whether it be bearing and raising children or making spiritual children through disciples (see Matt. 28:18-20)—God uses us despite ourselves.

And like all human tasks, unless the Lord does his work, we remain fruitless, unequipped for the battle at hand and defeated by the lie. But equipped with our God-given arrows—the fruit of grace in our lives—we meet the enemy at the gates, ready and triumphant, just as we were intended.

You Had One Job

Adam had one job: to trust God. His sin was thinking he could work, protect, and multiply without God. Psalm 127 reminds us of our own similar tendency and calls us instead to a life of trust.

This kind of life is possible because there is one who did the job Adam couldn’t: Jesus. He boarded the train wreck of this world, bore its destructive consequences, and is putting it all back together.

We can’t rewrite the story, but Jesus has written it for us and redeemed the ending.

So instead of looking back at the garden and lamenting the Fall, we must look forward to Christ. We can trust what he has accomplished, rest in his finished work, and join him in the work he has for us.

Let’s meet our enemy at the gate with a ready answer: Our trust is in Christ, the Lord.

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Mike Phay serves as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as a Staff Writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has been married to Keri for over 21 years, and they have five amazing kids. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikephay) or check out his blog.

God Will Help You

I once survived a season of life when three of my daughters were ages three and under. It was nonstop sippy cups and naptimes and potty training and diaper changes and “Hey, that’s mine!” and “Share that toy right now or Mommy is going to take it away” My husband was pastoring a community of young adults at the time; he was gone almost every night. My best friend’s husband was a youth pastor and he also was gone almost every night. Her three kids were each two years ahead of mine. So nearly every evening was spent at the park, where two moms wrangled a total of six kids, running the children into exhaustion until we moms crossed the bedtime finish line.

Because my best friend was just ahead of me in the parenting marathon, I had the benefit of watching from behind how she handled the ages ahead. Each evening at the park I saw how she dealt with the fours and fives and sixes of her own kids.

As I watched her interact with her kids at the park, here’s what I heard her say over and over and over: “God will help you.” It was their family’s refrain, her motherly chorus.

A PARENTAL REFRAIN

“But, it's my turn!” God will help you.

“She pushed me!” God will help you.

“No! I don’t want to go home!” God will help you.

It probably sounds a little silly out of context like that. Of course she said many other instructive and helpful words. Of course she gave commands, doled out discipline, lavished warm hugs, and physically removed her children from harm.

“God will help you” wasn’t all she said. But she always said it.

I heard this truth so often that I began picking it up, too. It stuck in my mouth and sunk into my heart because nothing is truer. It’s no pithy, “Be nice . . .” or, “You can do it!” or, “Just obey, kid.” It’s real, robust truth.

There’s nothing I could say to my child, age one or twenty-one, that would be truer than the statement, “God will help you.” It turns out my friend was following the example of the Israelites.

Where Israel’s Help Came From

“God will help you” is the banner of Psalm 121, a Psalm of Ascent, which was corporately rehearsed by the Israelite pilgrims as they ascended the hill to the temple mount in Jerusalem for feasts three times a year.

Together, they sang, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps. 121:1-2).

As they climbed, they confessed. The Lord—and the Lord alone—was the source of their help. He was there, in the temple above, and they looked up, seeking him, and remembering how he made heaven and earth and that he would help them, too.

Their confession of need and call for help morphed into a reminder of truth to each other. They moved from speaking in the first person to the second person, and proclaiming to each another,

“He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night” (Ps. 121: 3-6).

It’s as if the pilgrims were first reminding themselves, and then one another, this is who our God is! He is our helper. He made the earth. He keeps our feet on the path. He never sleeps. Day and night he keeps us. God will help you.

The benediction is future-focused: “The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (Ps. 121:7-8).

Those ascending the hill were rehearsing these truths truth to one another. The Lord has kept you. He is keeping you. He will continue to keep you. He’s not changing. God will help you.

Where Does Our Help Come From?

My friend knew that her children needed the Lord’s help. She knew they were like the Israelites, helpless on their own. She knew that they most centrally needed help from God above, their maker, sustainer, and redeemer.

She knew that if she only demanded good, achievable behavior, then she would raise pharisaical children—children who would become adults who would rely on their own efforts to produce outward results rather than inner change. She knew their human efforts would eventually ring hollow, that they would be unable to do more or try harder. She rehearsed to them from a young age the truth that they would need God’s help. She taught them their help must come from the Lord.

We live in an age of self. Self-help, self-empowerment, do-it-yourself. We want to be self-made men and women who reach down and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

In this self-absorbed and self-reliant age, we need to be reminded that this same reality applies to us. You and I need to return to the truth of Psalm 121. It is God who made us. It is God who made heaven and earth. It is God who keeps us. It is God who will help us.

Self-esteem psychology says look within. The psalmist says look up.

Jesus says, “Come to me and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28-30). He harkens back to the psalm. The Son’s offer of rest reminds us that he is God saying to us, “I am the maker of heaven and earth. I hold your feet to the path. I keep your life. I never sleep. Come to me.”

Good News for a Weary Age

What do we need help with right now? Where are we striving after with our own efforts and energy? Where have we run dry, come to the end of ourselves? Where do we need to stop looking within and start looking up?

Both this psalm and the gospel of grace say, “behold” (v.4), not “behave.”^[i] The call of Scripture is to look up—look up to where our help comes from. It comes from the Lord.

God, through his Son and by his Spirit, will help you.

The words “God will help you” never grow old and never fall short. They are true and they are able.

To the woman in my church whose husband is unfaithful: God will help you heal. To the young man oppressed by addiction: God will help you be free. To the adult daughter whose mother is dying: God will help you let go. To the pastor whose faith feels burnt-out and dry: God will help you be refreshed. To the lonely single: God will help you rejoice. To the poor, the sick, the needy, the sad, the desperate: God will help you.

As you and I ascend, as we climb, as we journey like pilgrims in this life, let’s remember Israel and her song. Let’s lift our eyes to the hills. Let’s remember that God made heaven and earth. He holds our feet to the path. He does not sleep. He will keep us. He delights to help his children.

In this age of self, let’s return to the rhythms of the covenant community ascending the temple mount. Let’s confess that we are not enough on our own, but the Lord is. Let’s remind ourselves and each other, God will help you.

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Jen Oshman is a wife and mom to four daughters and has served as a missionary for 17 years on three continents. She currently resides in Colorado where she and her husband serve with Pioneers International, and she encourages her church-planting husband at Redemption Parker. Her passion is leading women to a deeper faith and fostering a biblical worldview. She writes at www.jenoshman.com.

[i]I am indebted to Jared Wilson’s book The Imperfect Disciple for this phrase.

The Blessing of Being Wrong

“YOU’RE WRONG!” Several middle school students I once ministered to competed in regional debate tournaments twice a year. They were well prepared on the topic of debate: they knew the rebuttals and oratory tactics to land their points, and how to demonstrate the logical flaws in their opponents’ arguments. Neatly dressed and armed with little index cards of research—and cut-throat for winning the competitions—these students were preparing for debating and defeating contrasting world-views.

When it was time for a tournament, I would famously offer any student debating in the competition $20 in hard cash if they would, in the midst of their debate, stand up, point at the other side, and yell “YOU’RE WRONG!” and then quietly sit down again, thus ending the debate.

Whether they wanted to avoid the scolding and potential embarrassment of losing the tournament for such a brash tactic, or whether they were unsure of my ability to pay, I don't know. But no one ever took the risk.

Hearing “YOU’RE WRONG!” is an awakening. I for one don’t like it. But I need to hear it. “You’re wrong!” forces me to look at my situation or point of view and assess where I may have missed a turn. Sometimes, being told I’m wrong leads me to hunker down into my convictions and stand my ground. No matter what, it’s always an awakening moment. There’s a blessing in being wrong.

Painfully Aware

The poet of Psalm 120 had a moment of awakening: “In my distress I called out to the Lord.” The weight of discovering he’d been wrong was startling and traumatic; it crushed his soul. He felt misery and anguish, a blend he called “distress.” Before we can appreciate the psalmist’s awakening, we have to understand his story.

Three times a year the Hebrews were required to leave their homes and journey to Jerusalem holy days of festival celebration. Their pilgrimage was an embodiment of the life of faith. Moving to Jerusalem was “ascending the hill of the Lord,” all the while asking, “Who can do this?” (Ps. 15; 24). As they traveled, a liturgy took shape to remind and provide “a guidebook and map” for the journey of faith, as Eugene Peterson would say. This liturgy was captured in fifteen Psalms—Psalms 120-134—affectionately known as the “Psalms of Ascent.”

Every so often I realize that an important date is so quickly approaching that unless I shift into high gear, there is simply no way I’ll be prepared. I’ve never waited to buy Christmas presents until Christmas Eve, but there have been a few close calls for birthdays and other holidays. The thought of missing the date gives me a much-needed awakening.

I imagine there were some busy Jewish families that would share that moment of sheer fright when they realized the festival was merely a day or two away. Pulling together a few essentials and getting out of the house was hectic and hurried. The frustration of living so far away and making the journey is heard in the psalmist’s cries: “I have stayed in Meshech . . . I have lived among the tents of Kedar,” as if to say, “I am so far from the city, so far from God’s place, so far away from being who I should be.”

The journey to Jerusalem was hard and perhaps painful, but necessary. Realizing our distance from God can get us moving. We hear “YOU’RE WRONG!” and realize we’re so far in the wrong direction that unless we get moving right now, we’ll never catch up. Welcome to repentance.

Becoming aware of his distance from God was the only way the psalmist could be changed. Awakening to his reality was the only way he could be moved. This is exactly what God wants for us.

The Refreshment of Repentance

Repentance is described by many as an emotion. We often hear of repentance in terms of sorrow, anguish, or contrition. While the awakened sense of wrongness that comes with repentance does bring true sorrow, repentance isn’t merely an emotional response. In the psalmist’s case, there is anger at his own decisions, disgust over his apathy, and desire for a new life. But his emotions don’t tell us he’s repenting. His actions do.

The singular verb, “called,” of Psalm 120 tells us how to respond to God when awakened to our sin. It directs us to action. After hearing “YOU’RE WRONG!” he realized the sinfulness of his hometown had worn off on him, and he called out for help: “In my distress I called to the Lord.”

Left to himself, he’d always be stuck, always be distant from God, always among those who love war. That was the painful realization of his heart and soul. He longed for peace, for justice, and for nearness to God.

Repentance must be an action for us too. We have restitution to make, changes to implement, steps to take. But repentance cannot and will not be real and refreshing until we make the first step—crying out for help.

So many self-help systems are geared around willpower; washing your face, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and other simple strategies. But growing near to God though takes another path—helplessness. The false notion that “God helps those who help themselves” falls short. God helps those who cannot help themselves, and so they cry out to him in desperation.

The refreshment of repentance is not in the actions we take or the sorrow we feel. The refreshment of repentance starts with the awareness that “YOU’RE WRONG!” coupled with the cry “GOD, HELP!” We can’t fix our wrongness but we can cry out for help.

Promised Reprieve

The full opening verse of Psalm 120 speaks for the whole: “I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me.” He was wrong and weary, misguided and messy. Far from home and far from God. Yet God answered him. This is the blessing of being wrong. But it’s only for those who are aware they are wrong and need some help. God answers those who realize they’re wrong and cry out to him.

What resounding hope and help this is for stagnated and sedentary disciples like you and me! No matter how wrong we are, no matter how painful the awareness of our sinfulness, God is there to meet us when we cry out. He’s there to bring a blessing when we are wrong.

Instead of self-importance or righteousness or religious performance, all we have to offer God is a cry for his help. He meets all our weakness with all his strength. This is the promise for those of us who hear, “YOU’RE WRONG!” and answer, “Yes, it’s true! God help me!” For those who will cry out in need and desperation for help and rescue from their sin, God promises he will answer. His answer gets us moving. His grace silences the shout of “YOU’RE WRONG” and tells us “Come, home!”

What are we waiting for? The loving, open arms of the Father are open to us. Let’s allow the painful awareness of our sin to urge us to cry out for his help, and let’s start on the road to God. He’ll not only meet us on the way, but he will also bring us the whole way there.

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Jeremy Writebol is the Executive Director of GCD. He is the husband of Stephanie and father of Allison and Ethan. He serves as the lead campus pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Plymouth, MI. He is also an author and contributor to several GCD Books including everPresent and That Word Above All Earthly Powers. He writes personally at jwritebol.net. You can read all of Jeremy’s articles for GCD here.

Sin is Crouching at Your Door—Don’t Let it in

He tried to let it go but he couldn't stop thinking about it. Cain's anger burned within him. Why had his brother, Abel, received God’s favor and he hadn’t? It wasn’t fair. When Cain’s mind lingered on thoughts of harming his brother, he didn’t try to stop it.

Then the Lord confronted him:

"Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." —Genesis 4:6-7

Sin was crouching at Cain’s door. He could let it in and be devoured or he could keep the door bolted. The same is true for us. Whether we open the door depends on what we believe about sin.

The Devastation of Sin

The Lord warns Cain of the devastating effects of sin, which he refers to as a ravaging animal waiting for its opportunity to pounce. Sin's desire is like the longing of a predator for its prey. If Cain does not repent of his evil thoughts, the crouching animal will devour him.

"Nothing about sin is its own; all its power, persistence, and plausibility are stolen goods. Sin is not really an entity but a spoiler of entities, not an organism but a leech on organisms," says Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. Like a rip in our jeans, sin is merely the tearing of something good. Or as C.S. Lewis writes, “Badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good before it can be spoiled."

God created everything and declared it good. When sin entered the world, it was not a new creation but a perversion of God's good design. God gives us food but we turn into gluttons. He gives us sex but we turn to adultery and lust. Relationships become abusive, codependent, or manipulative; material blessings devolve into greed; passion turns to uncontrolled anger.

Sin perverts God’s good gifts. While promising to fulfill us, our sin instead leaves a wake of devastation.

The Subtlety of Sin

"To do its worst, evil needs to look its best,” Plantinga, Jr. says. Satan doesn't come to us with horns and a pitchfork lest we recognize him for who he is. Rather, he "disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14).

Our sin disguises itself as good and only asks for small compromises. Just one more glance, one more “harmless” flirt, one white lie, or one more high. Inch by inch, our sin leads us down a path of destruction.

It doesn't require big steps. The small steps are much easier to justify. However, a thousand small steps will lead you into the same dark pit as a few big steps. Don’t let the subtlety of sin deceive you into believing your sin is “no big deal.”

Sin is crouching at your door. And it won’t settle until you are devoured—or until you decide to rule over it.

Repent Before Sin Devours You

Slowly but surely, Cain's jealousy led him down the dark road to murder. The Lord graciously confronted him and warned him of sin, the wild animal ready to devour him. It wasn't too late for Cain; there was still time to repent.

But he didn't. He gave opened the door to sin and the predator devoured him. Icy sin coursed through his veins, freezing his heart until he murdered his brother Abel in cold blood.

"Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden" (Gen. 4:16). Instead of fulfilling him, sin separated Cain from the Lord’s fulfilling presence. Instead of bringing Cain joy and satisfaction, sin isolated him from the Giver of joy, severing his connection to what is good and beautiful.

Like Cain, we must beware the danger lurking within us. Our sinful hearts cannot be trusted (Jer. 17:9). The distance between our thoughts and our actions is closer than we think. Sinful thoughts nudge us into sinful actions before we realize what's happening. The familiar quote, "Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay," comes to mind.

But the good news is that God's grace is greater than sin’s power. Take God’s advice to Cain: repent of your sin before it destroys you. Take every thought captive lest it lead you down a dark path (2 Cor. 10:5-6). If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off (Matt. 5:30; Mark 9:43).

Grace is Greater Still

After David was confronted with his sin, he cried out to the Lord, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow . . . hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities” (Ps. 51:7,9). David’s sin was great but the Lord’s grace was greater still. This triumphant grace is lavished upon the broken and repentant, or as David says, “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17).

God sent his Son to bear his wrath and free his children from the bondage of sin, and to set us on the path of life. Because God’s justice against our sin was satisfied on the cross, we are given this wonderful promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

God delivers those who cry out in genuine repentance and faith. Yes, the crouching at your door is ferocious and wants to devour you. But as devoted as sin is to your destruction, God is even more devoted to the good of those who trust him.

Don’t Let Sin Have the Last Word

Don’t go the way of Cain. Instead, follow the path of Abel: “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks” (Heb. 11:4).

What gift did Abel offer God? The firstborn of his flock of sheep, yes. But what he truly gave the Lord was his faith. And because of his faith, he still speaks today.

Sin may be crouched outside your door like a roaring lion (1 Pet. 5:8) but there is a greater lion still—the risen Lord Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. And this Lion rules over all (Rev. 5:5).

Don’t let sin have the last word. Rule over it through faith in the Greater Lion.

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James Williams has served as an Associate Pastor at FBC Atlanta, TX since 2013. He is married to Jenny and they have three children and are actively involved in foster care. He is in the dissertation stage of a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. You can follow James Twitter or his blog where he writes regularly.

Help My Unbelief

Have you experienced it before? The ever-irksome foe named Doubt darkens your door of faith, casting a shadow over everything you have believed for much of your life. Paralyzed by the fear of what this might do to your relationship with God, and to top it off, your reputation with those who have always identified you as “Christian,” this existential crisis brings you to your knees.

You wonder, How did I get here? I didn’t want this to happen. I thought I knew what I believed.

You may not readily admit it, but you’ve probably been there. Maybe you were hurt by someone you loved within the Church and thought following Christ was supposed to look different. Maybe you read some works of Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens and their arguments became compelling to you. Or maybe it was your inability to shake a recurring sin or a lack of feeling the presence of God in your life.

Whatever the case may be, that hideous Doubt has a way about him. He sneaks into your soul to try and woo you away from the everlasting source of hope and strength.

Doubt can be a discouraging and debilitating opponent in the Christian life. We don’t like to talk about it because it feels humiliating. It’s something we’re not proud of. It feels dirty to doubt.

WHEN DOUBT CAME TO MY DOOR

I remember my crisis moment. I was sitting in a stadium seat at a conference, stunned at what John Piper was unpacking in Scripture right before my eyes. That NIV with my name etched on the cover had been in my possession for years, but I had never noticed in it the things this preacher was saying.

I thought I knew who God was, but was he really this? I had professed Christ as my Lord and Savior, but is this what I meant by that? I had to do some serious searching in the days and months that followed to determine how I answered those questions.

This came at a time when I was fresh into college, and as you might have guessed, surrounded by new obstacles to faith: a philosophy professor who assigned me William James to read, and laughed out loud at my theological answers to real-world problems. A speech professor who flunked my speech defending Creationism as a viable explanation of the universe and gave an A to the girl in the class who presented a speech on evolution. Stump preachers setting up on campus to yell at the LGBT students. Varying campus ministries who put “doing life together” at the top of their values but made little room for gospel transformation. A roommate who said he was a Christian but could not have been classified as a “follower of Jesus.” And now this Piper guy wrecking my understanding of righteousness, the glory of God, and the atonement.

I had to answer for myself the question, “Who is this Son of Man?” (Jn. 12:34).

I decided to remove all the outside opinions and instead seek answers in the Word of God. I was determined to be illumined by the Spirit or find it all a ruse. I had to start from square one. “And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight” (Acts 9:18).

THE SPIRITUAL GIANT WHO DOUBTED

There was another man who wrestled with Doubt, a man with a far more gifted mind and compassionate heart than my own. His name was Francis Schaeffer.

In his exploration into the life and thought of Schaeffer, William Edgar, a friend to Schaeffer himself, outlines the crisis moment of Schaeffer’s life. It was early 1951, and during a season of everyday walking and meditation, Francis said he had to rethink “the whole matter of Christianity.”

This was coming from a man who was well-versed in nearly every world religion, every philosophical system. He could tie anyone up in their own logical fallacies like he was tying his shoes. But he was also human like the rest of us.

I imagine Schaeffer going for a walk, crying out with me in my dorm room, and the father of the child in Mark 9, “I believe. Help my unbelief!” I find great comfort in the fact that Schaeffer doubted. If he had to work out his salvation with fear and trembling, what of me? It’s not something that is wrong with me but something that is wrong with us.

As sinful fallen humans we are often tempted to disbelieve the truths about God. We are prone to forget what we know to be true about the Gospel. I share a piece of my own story and of Schaeffer’s story to demonstrate that Doubt pays us all a visit at different times and in different degrees. Even a man as “qualified” and esteemed as Francis Schaeffer faced doubts. The important thing, though, is that he didn’t allow himself to stay in his doubt. He did what was necessary to seek answers and reach a conclusion.

The solution to a struggle with doubt is first to devote yourself to prayer. In the famous “help my unbelief” passage, Jesus seems to imply in Mark 9:29 that finding growth in faith is spearheaded by a commitment to prayer. If we truly believe that Christ is our intercessor and great high priest, and that the Spirit is working to illuminate the Word of God to us, then let's ask the Lord to reveal himself.

FIGHTING DOUBT WITH THE WORD

If you find yourself struggling with the lures of Doubt, remember these additional comforts.

Our doubt is not the fault of God, but the fault of sin. In Eden, God was present with humanity. His existence was undeniable. He was so near that it would have been impossible to doubt his presence. But since man was driven out from his presence due to sin (Gen. 3:24), we now see through a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12). Sin, ultimately, is a rejection of (to borrow Schaeffer’s famous quip) “the God who is there” (see Rom. 1:19-20). Doubt happens not because God himself is doubtable, but because our minds need to be reminded of the light of the gospel.

Though we see in a mirror dimly now, there will come a day when we will see Christ face to face. Faith says, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Even a faith the size of a mustard seed can bring us hope in his coming (Mt. 17:20). Not only will our doubts be erased one day, but the doubts of all mankind will be as well. “Every knee will bow” is a wonderful refrain in Scripture (Isa. 45:23; Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10). All doubts will cease to exist one day.

Jesus never doubted, but he was tempted to. How did he respond to Satan in those moments? With memorized Scripture. There is something to this practice, especially in waging war against doubt. Remembering and rehearsing Scripture to yourself proves to be a strong weapon in the war against doubt.

When we call upon the Lord to help us in our unbelief, we should not expect “magic 8-ball confirmation.” In other words, it may not be as clear-cut and discernible an “act of God” as we may hope, but this should not drive us into despair. It should only drive us further into communion with God, time spent reading his Word, conversation with other believers, prayer, fasting, journaling, and more. This is the make-up of faith.

Don't let Doubt isolate you from others, and most of all, from God. Leap into this glorious opportunity to grow your faith on the sword of the Spirit and the truth of Christ. Allow God to mold and shape you like clay as you seek him more through your doubts. Search for the truth in the Scriptures. His Word always has purpose and never returns void, even on you.

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Zach Barnhart currently serves as Student Pastor of Northlake Church in Lago Vista, TX. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University and is currently studying at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, seeking a Master of Theological Studies degree. He is married to his wife, Hannah. You can follow Zach on Twitter @zachbarnhart or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.

This is What Intimacy with God Looks Like

It was not enough for God to make us his children. He wants us to know that we’re his children. He wants us to experience his love. And that’s why he sent the Holy Spirit. Galatians 4:6 says, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” The reason why God sent the Spirit is so that we can experience what it is to be sons and daughters loved by our Father. And notice how the Spirit is described. Most of the time in Galatians Paul simply refers to “the Spirit.” Often in the New Testament he’s described as “the Holy Spirit.” But here Paul calls him “the Spirit of his Son.”

Our experience of the Spirit is the experience of the Son, for the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son. The Spirit enables us to experience what Jesus experiences.

God Sent the Spirit of His Son So That We Might Know That We Are Sons

So the Father has given us the Spirit of his Son so that we can enjoy the experience of his Son, so that we know what it is to be sons like the Son, so that we can enjoy the love the Son experiences from the Father.

God gave his Son up to the whip, the thorns, the nails, the darkness, and the experience of forsakenness so that you could be his child. No wonder he sends the Spirit of his Son. He doesn’t want you to miss out on all that the Son has secured for you. This is his eternal plan: that you should enjoy his fatherly love.

The world is full of people searching for love and intimacy. Many sexual encounters and affairs are a desperate attempt to numb a sense of loneliness. Many people who seem to have it all feel empty inside. The actor and director Liv Ullmann once said, “Hollywood is loneliness beside the swimming pool.” We were made for more. The reason why we yearn for intimacy is that we were made for intimacy: we were made to love God and be loved by him. And this is what the Father gives us by sending his Son and by sending the Spirit of his Son.

What Does This Intimacy Look Like?

We Can Talk to God Like Children Talk to Their Father

“The Spirit . . . [cries], ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal. 4:6). The Spirit gives us the confidence to address God as our Father. A number of our friends have adopted children. And it’s always a special moment when the adopted child starts calling them “Mom” and “Dad.” God is infinite, holy, majestic. He’s a consuming fire before whom angels cover their faces. He made all things and controls all things.

Can you imagine calling him “Father”? Of course you can! You do it every day when you pray—most of the time without even thinking about it. How is that possible? Step back and think about it for a moment, and you’ll realize what an amazing miracle it is that any of us should call God “Father.” But we do so every time we pray, through the Spirit of the Son. This is how John Calvin puts it:

With what confidence would anyone address God as “Father”? Who would break forth into such rashness as to claim for himself the honour of a son of God unless we had been adopted as children of grace in Christ? . . . But because the narrowness of our hearts cannot comprehend God’s boundless favour, not only is Christ the pledge and guarantee of our adoption, but he moves the Spirit as witness to us of the same adoption, through whom with free and full voice we may cry, “Abba, Father.”[1]

Think of those adopted children saying “Mom” and “Dad” for the first time. What must that feel like for them? Perhaps they do so tentatively at first. They’re still feeling their way in the relationship. And that’s often what it’s like for new Christians, feeling their way in this new relationship.

But think, too, what it means for the parents. It’s a joyful moment. It’s a sign that their children are beginning to feel like children. It’s a moment of pleasure. And so it is for God every time you call him “Father.” Remember, he planned our adoption “in accordance with his pleasure” (Eph. 1:5 NIV).

We Can Think of God Like Children Think of Their Father

“So you are no longer a slave, but a son” (Gal. 4:7). Slaves are always worried about doing what they’re told or doing the right thing. They fear the disapproval of their master because there’s always the possibility that they might be punished or sacked. Children never have to fear being sacked. They may sometimes be disciplined, but as with any good parent, it’s always for their good. God is the best of parents. And we never have to fear being sacked. You can’t stop being a child of God—you’re not fostered. You’re adopted for life, and life for you is eternal!

The cry “Abba! Father!” is not just for moments of intimacy. It was actually the cry that a child shouted when in need. One of the joys of my life is that I’m good friends with lots of children. Charis always cries out, “Tim!” when she sees me. Tayden wants me to read his Where’s Wally? book with him. Again. Tyler wants me to throw him over my shoulder and swing him around. Josie wants to tell me everything in her head all at once in her lisping voice. They all enjoy having me around. But here’s what I’ve noticed.

Whenever any of them falls over or gets knocked, my parental instinct kicks in, and I rush to help. But it’s not me they want in those moments. They run past me looking for Mom or Dad. They cry out, “Dad!” and Tim won’t do. That’s what “Abba! Father!” means. When we’re in need, we cry out to God because the Spirit assures us that God is our Father and that our Father cares about what’s happening to his children.

We Can Depend on God Like Children Depend on Their Father

“And if [you are] a son, then [you are] an heir through God” (Gal. 4:7). When Paul talks about “sonship,” he’s not being sexist. Quite the opposite. In the Roman world only male children could inherit. So when Paul says “we” (“male and female,” 3:28) are “sons,” he’s saying that in God’s family, men and women inherit. Everyone is included. And what we inherit is God’s glorious new world. But more than that, we inherit God himself. In all the uncertainties of this life, we can depend on him. He will lead us home, and our home is his glory.

What could be better than sharing in the infinite love and infinite joy of the eternal Father with the eternal Son? Think of what you might aspire to in life—your greatest hopes and dreams. And then multiply them by a hundred. Think of winning Olympic gold or lifting the World Cup. Think of being a billionaire and owning a Caribbean island. Think of your love life playing out like the most heartwarming romantic movie. Good. But not as good as enjoying God.

Or let’s do it in reverse. Think of your worst fears and nightmares: losing a loved one, never finding someone to marry, losing your health, not having children. Bad! But Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). The only time Jesus is quoted as saying, “Abba, Father,” is in the Garden of Gethsemane as he sweats blood at the prospect of the cross (Mark 14:36). Even when you feel crushed by your pain, God is still your Abba, Father.

Where does joy come from? It comes from being children of God. How can we enjoy God? By living as his children. How can we please God? By believing he loves us as he loves his Son.

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[1]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill,  trans. Ford Lewis Battles, Library of Christian Classics 20–21 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3.20.36–37.

Content taken from Reforming Joy: A Conversation between Paul, the Reformers, and the Church Today by Tim Chester, ©2018. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org. 

Tim Chester is a pastor of Grace Church in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, and a faculty member with the Acts 29 Oak Hill Academy. He was previously research and policy director for Tearfund and tutor in missiology at Cliff College. Tim is the author of over thirty books, including The Message of Prayer, Closing the Window, Good News to the Poor, and A Meal with Jesus. Visit Tim’s website and read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

When We Steal the Spotlight from God

When I was entering junior high, my mom bought me a book I found irrelevant and a little rude. Although I don’t remember the title, it would be hard to forget such a cheesy cover illustration—a smug-looking teen girl with a cartoon planet Earth orbiting her head. The point of the book—and the message my mom wished to convey—came across clearly: Don’t think and act like the world revolves around you.

Although younger generations often are accused of self-centeredness, we’re all guilty at any age. An adult who talks incessantly about his or her achievements or problems is just as absorbed in their own affairs as a tyrannical toddler who calls everything “mine.”

As with my mother, the sins I see in my children—wanting to get their way all the time, and expecting others to cater to their demands—are a proximate illustration of my own egotism. In matters such as parenting, or even minor inconveniences like hitting all red lights when I’m in a hurry, I expect my will to be done and throw a grown-up temper tantrum when it’s not.

When I think and act according to my pleasure instead of God’s glory, I elevate myself above my creator. It’s both sinful and absurd, like a clay pot trying to commandeer the potter’s ceramic studio.

Stealing the Spotlight

Unlike more cut-and-dry sins like envy or murder, self-centeredness can be deceptively nuanced. We only have one pair of eyes through which to view the world, so we’re limited in our scope and ability to understand God, others, and even ourselves.

We’re also hardwired for self-love. It’s a survival instinct. We exit the womb crying to be cared for. But this basic urge is corrupted by our sin nature. Like Adam and Eve, we become dissatisfied with the role of steward and, despite our abundant provisions, crave greater wisdom, authority, and attention.

Paul warned his son in the faith, Timothy, about the temptation of self-centeredness, along with other sins that will abound in “the last days”: “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy” (2 Tim. 3:2).

Paul isn’t referring to innate self-love here; he’s talking about self-idolatry. He’s cautioning Timothy about the root sin from which the others grow: the desire to be God.

The Bible pulls no punches when addressing this attitude. God commands: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3)—including ourselves.

He promises to assert his rightful position as King: “The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day” (Is. 2:11).

And he issues severe warnings to the proud: “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished” (Prov. 16:5).

God cares about his own glory and opposes those who try to steal his spotlight. Of course, we don’t usually see it in those terms. Pride deceives us, cloaked as desirable gifts like fulfillment, peace, and pleasure. Although we already possess these benefits in Christ, we forget our true identity and look for worth by measuring ourselves against others.

C.S. Lewis comments on this tendency in Mere Christianity: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”

What We Really Need

In addition to battling the comparison trap and our fleshly desires for self-glorification, we face a barrage of cultural messages encouraging personal gratification through attention to self-care. “Take time to make your soul happy,” the inspirational memes suggest. “Find what fills your cup.” “Be your own light.”

While taking care of one’s physical and mental health is appropriate and necessary, this train of thought can sometimes lead to harmful overthinking about our needs, and incorrectly pointing to ourselves as supreme problem-solvers and soul-fulfillers. We also confuse needs with desires, resulting in frustration and disappointment when we don’t get what we believe we need.

That mindset reflects the age-old pattern of defiance first formed in the Garden of Eden. As Edward Welch describes in When People Are Big and God Is Small, “In the garden, man began repeating a mantra that will persist until Jesus returns. Adam said, ‘I want.’ ‘I want glory for myself rather than giving all glory to God.’ ‘I love my own desires rather than loving God.’ This came to be known as covetousness, lust, or idolatry.”

Any road that follows self for satisfaction will ultimately lead right off the cliff of insecurity into the chasm of despair. God made us not so we could make much of ourselves or our needs, but to praise him. When we fail to complete our primary purpose, seeking instead our own lust fulfillment, we’ll inevitably wind up disappointed. As Solomon laments in Ecclesiastes 6:7, “All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.”

We were created to delight, but not in our own accomplishments or self-actualization. Rather, we were created in his image to reflect God’s son, the light of the world. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:1-2).

Imitating God involves prioritizing his will above my own, seeking his pleasure more than my happiness. It means I must die to self so I can live for Christ to be seen and known—to be a light for his glory.

Dying to be Raised

If sin predisposes us to look out for ourselves first and foremost, how do we combat these impulses and reprogram our desires and subsequent actions? How do we shift our perception of the Earth’s axis from ourselves to its rightful place as God’s footstool?

We aren’t left to our own devices to deal with our pride; we have the founder and perfecter of our faith to model after and join with:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

Jesus taught, healed, worked, rested, and broke bread with others all for the glory of God. In every facet of his life, he didn’t exalt himself as Lord but rather submitted to “the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). Because we share Christ’s position and purpose through his redemptive sacrifice, we can also empty ourselves of selfishness by humbling ourselves before our mighty God.

For me, this emptying involves releasing my death grip on expectations. I have to make plans built on the knowledge I’m not in charge of whether or not they’re accomplished, trusting God’s sovereignty to prevail. I must die to the desire to see my will done and have my needs met, preferring his will and pleasure instead, just as Jesus did in submission at the cross.

Dying to self is a necessary part of sharing in the suffering of Christ. But the benefits of being raised with Christ far outweigh the costs of following him. We’re pardoned from sin and its punishment, free to enjoy the fruit of the Spirit alive in us, and filled with the hope of eternity spent with our Savior.

The problem of thinking too much about ourselves must be solved by thinking about Jesus. We can transform our self-centered attitudes by renewing our minds with the truth of his humble heart, and how he, for the joy set before him, endured the cross to obey and bring honor to his Father (Hebrews 12:2).

When we look up and fix our eyes on Christ, we realize the world and everything in it exists from him, through him, and to him—not us.

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Jenn Hesse is a writer, editor, wife, and mother of two sons. She co-founded a ministry that supports women walking through infertility, infant loss, and adoption, and has a passion for equipping others to know Christ through his Word. She writes at jennhesse.com and can be found on Twitter @jennmhesse. 

What's in a Name? For Christians, Everything

I resent my childhood nickname. My childhood wrapped up in the 1980’s, so naturally, the film Karate Kid enthralled me. Convinced I could take on the bullying hordes of my second-grade existence, and wanting to establish that you shouldn’t mess with me, I began to parade around the school playground chopping, kicking, punching, and yelling, “Hi-yah!” as loudly as I could. Instead of warding off would-be attackers, all these antics did was earn me the name “Chuck.”

This was not what I had hoped for. In trying to imitate Daniel Larusso’s training from Mister Miyagi, I thought I could take up the role of school hero and karate champion. Instead, I was the class weirdo, and, as a cool as being called “Chuck” today might seem, to a second-grader, it was decidedly not cool.

Ever since, the idea of imitating someone worries me. I’m afraid it will backfire and give me a bad reputation. What if I earn another odd nickname that will make me the butt of more jokes and ridicule? I think that’s why many people struggle with growing as a Christian.

WHAT’S IN A NICKNAME?

We are, so to speak, trying to become who we are not. And it’s obvious—we are not Christ. We don’t behave like Christ, we don’t love like Christ, we don’t sacrifice like Christ. And that makes it difficult for us because if we are not Christ then becoming like Christ seems foolish and doomed to failure. In the big picture, no one wants to earn the life-long nickname “loser.”

Yet, that’s the reality of the name that we possess by faith. If you are a follower of Jesus, then you have been given a nickname that speaks to your identity: Christian. The name itself is so familiar today we might forget it was used as a derogatory term for the earliest disciples. “Christ-people,” or “little-Christs,” was what the on-looking world used to call those first followers of The Way who were looking to imitate Jesus in all of life. And it is in that name we find who we are really are becoming—Christ-people.

The name “Christian” stands as the doorway into this new identity. True spiritual formation must recognize this reality. To be truly “Christian” means entering through the door of Christ (John 10:7). For the Christian, growing spiritually requires that we grow in Christ. So not only is Christ the entry-point of our spiritual journey, but he is also the culmination of our spiritual path.

WHAT IT MEANS—REALLY MEANS—TO BE A CHRISTIAN

In perhaps the clearest job description of a pastor, the Apostle Paul sets out the goal of the Christian life. Within the church we labor together “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness” (Eph. 4:13). True spiritual formation is marked by maturity in Christ. Another way to say this is the goal of spiritual formation is to become like Christ.

This goal of spiritual formation, to become like Christ, is spoken of throughout the Scriptures. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “we all, with unveiled faces are being transformed into the same image [Christ] from glory to glory.” The writer of Hebrews exhorts us to “run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). The identity of Christ will firmly and forever be fixed on the people of God.

This is nothing new within the teaching of church history. Christianity has long taught that true maturity and development is contained in becoming like Christ. Athanasius, one of the early church Fathers declared that Christ became a human so that humanity could become like Christ.^[1] Calvin said, “the end of regeneration is that Christ should reform us to God’s image.”^[2] In more recent days, one Biblical scholar has stated, “The glorified Christ provides the standard at which his people are to aim.”^[3]  Our trajectory, as Christians is to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29).

We must start with Christ as the entry point to truly being Christian, and the goal is to be like Christ as the culmination of his work within us. So how do we get there? What are the means by which cultivate the image of Christ within us?

YOU BECOME WHAT YOU BEHOLD

Paul writes in Colossians, “just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith” (Col. 2:6). Therein lies the whole arch of becoming like Christ: we begin in Christ, we continue in Christ, we are transformed to be like Christ. The means of Christlikeness is Christ himself. If Christ is the means to growing Christlikeness, then we are only changed inasmuch as we are looking to Christ, or beholding Christ.

The deeper we view, look at, and watch Christ, the deeper we are changed. “We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit,” (2 Cor. 3:18) writes Paul to the Corinthian church. As we look at the glory of Christ, we are transformed into the very same glory we are observing. Christlikeness comes from fixing our eyes on Christ for all of life.

Looking at Christ will devastate us because it will show us how unlike Jesus we truly are. We’ll see our brokenness, our need, our evil and vile hearts. If we’re sensitive to this devastation, we’ll be capable of repentance and crying out for grace. If we’re hardened by the distance between ourselves and Christ, we’ll turn away and fail to behold Christ any further.

Yet as we look and are humbled to repentance, we will also be transformed. We will see the grace, mercy, and goodness of Christ. We will long to follow and trust him. We’ll demonstrate true faith as we embark upon the calling and formation he has for us. As our faith grows, we will look more and more at Christ and at the day of our last breath, when we will depart this life and finally enter into glory alongside Christ.

Beholding turns into Becoming that leads to Being.

PATTERNED AFTER CHRIST

Perhaps, this is the one place we do want to take up an imitation of someone. More than trying to be the Karate Kid, imitating Christ can transform our lives. As we behold, we will receive a new nickname. The name itself might be scandalous to the world, but beautiful to the Savior who gives it to us by his grace.

Maybe as we come to Christ and behold Christ and imitate our lives after Christ we will enjoy fully the moniker “Christ-people” or, simply “Christian.”

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Jeremy Writebol is the Executive Director of GCD. He is the husband of Stephanie and father of Allison and Ethan. He serves as the lead campus pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Plymouth, MI. He is also an author and contributor to several GCD Books including everPresent and Make, Mature, Multiply. He writes personally at jwritebol.net. You can read all of Jeremy’s articles for GCD here.

[1]. Paraphrased from On the Incarnation

[2]. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 189.

[3]. F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984), 350.

The Big God Behind Your 'Small' Ministry

It was a big day in Jerusalem. The temple built by Solomon, but destroyed by the Babylonians, was being rebuilt. It was a day of great celebration for the Israelites. The Jews had suffered for decades because of their disobedience (see 1 Kings 9:6-9). They endured exile and captivity, besiegement and destruction. However, Ezra tells the story of a new day, when the people gathered together to celebrate the laying of the foundation on the second temple.

They celebrated the Lord’s mercy with trumpets and cymbals. They sang and thanked him. They shouted with great shouts to praise his name.

Though many shouted for joy, there were others who “wept with a loud voice” (Ezra 3:12). They wept because they were disappointed. These older saints wept because they remembered the former splendor of the first temple, and the meager foundation of the second was underwhelming.

WHEN YOUR DAYS SEEM SMALL

Haven’t we all been underwhelmed by the work of our own hands at some point? We have a vision of what our ministry or family or career should look like that is so much grander than the current view.

On this day when people were disappointed with the lack of splendor, the prophet, Zechariah said, “Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice” (Zech. 4:10).

Most of us will spend our whole lives living in days of small things. How do we navigate this space between what we see and what we want to see? How can we cultivate hearts that don’t despise these days, but rejoice in them?

Consider the following ways to be encouraged when you’re unimpressed with what God has entrusted to you.

See the Tree In the Seed

We’re attracted to the spectacular. Our eyes are drawn to all things bigger, brighter, and better, so we limit our scope of success to these ideals.

When we do, we overlook the significance of small things. The thing is, small is valuable when God defines the terms.

When Jesus spoke to a crowd that needed food, he didn’t despise Andrew’s suggestion of a boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fish (John 6:9). He used something small to glorify himself in a big way.

God is not disappointed by small. He uses the small things to accomplish his purposes.

Do you feel what you have to work with is small? Listen to Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matt. 13:31-32).

In God’s economy, the tiniest seed becomes a tree. The smallest of things becomes significant because of its role in the kingdom. The final product is not determined by its beginning.

Richard Sibbes writes in The Bruised Reed, “See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.” God’s grand plan for our redemption began with a fragile newborn in a manger.

Do we see great things in little beginnings?

Find the Glory in the Mundane

We have great expectations, especially when it comes to our place in the world. It’s no surprise, then, that changing diapers and mowing the lawn and paying the taxes all just seems so . . . boring.

But we must strive to see God’s work like he does. We must value what he values.

We want to be sensational; God wants us to be faithful. The desire to have maximum impact in our culture is not a bad one. But devaluing ministry that has a smaller reach contradicts God’s values.

Consider Eunice and Lois (2 Timothy 1:5), the mother and grandmother of Timothy, apprentice to Paul and early church leader. These two women are not known for wowing crowds and signing books. We know them because they poured into a young Timothy. By worldly standards, their ministry was small. But we have the benefit of seeing the great value of their investment in one person.

We value productivity but are often underwhelmed with progress; God values productivity and progress. God’s salvific work in our lives is a miracle, and we should praise him for it. God’s sanctifying work of transforming us into his perfect image happens by degrees (see 2 Cor. 3:18) but is no less miraculous. Sanctification is often small, mundane, and untweetable. Nevertheless, it is a miracle, and we should praise the Lord for it.

What about you? Are you disappointed at the footprint of your kingdom work? Are you envious of someone else who seems to have more influence than you do? Remember, any impact you have on the advancement of his kingdom is a work of grace. Praise him for his work in big and small things.

Trust God in the Tension

The celebrity culture we’ve created adds to the pressure not only to succeed, but to succeed publicly and grandly. We have no tolerance for the unimpressive. We’ve given others the power to validate our success, but that validation was never ours to give away.

In the tension between our vision and our reality, we must trust God to accomplish all that he desires for his glory. We trust him to make his name great in our smallness.

The gap between our vision and our reality is not to be despised. God doesn’t look at small things disapprovingly. On a day when the rich were making it rain in the temple offering box, a poor widow gave two copper coins. Jesus told his disciples that she gave more than all the rich people gave that day, because she gave all she had to live on (Luke 21:1-3).

What seems humbling, meager, and unimpressive to us may look glorious to God. Oh, to see what he sees! We can’t judge his work by our standards. When the people were unimpressed with the splendor of the temple, Haggai encouraged them by telling them to be strong and to work, for God was with them (Hag. 2:4).

Underwhelmed saint, heed Haggai’s words and keep striving in your kingdom labors, for God is with you. Desire to be faithful, not sensational.

WHEN GOD HAS HIS SAY

“Perhaps you are frustrated by the gap that still remains between your vision and your accomplishment,” Os Guinness writes in The Call. “You have had your say. Others may have had their say. But make no judgments and draw no conclusions until the scaffolding of history is stripped away and you see what it means for God to have had his say.”

God will have the final say. And it will sound like this: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

As we long for this day, let’s rejoice in the day of small things.

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Christy Britton is a wife and homeschool mom of four biological sons. She is an orphan advocate for 127 Worldwide. She and her husband are covenant members at Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, NC. She loves reading, discipleship, Cajun food, spending time in Africa, hospitality, and LSU football. She writes for several blogs, including her own, www.beneedywell.com.

How to Put Out a Dumpster Fire

A dumpster fire is like porn: it’s hard to define but you know it when you see it. Fortunately, Merriam-Webster is here to help. Its lexicographers added the term to the dictionary this year, calling it “an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence,” or simply a “disaster.” Depending on who you follow on Twitter, you may not have needed a definition.

Dumpster fires spread like wildfire through social networks. Whether it’s your beloved sports team’s abysmal season, another campaign nightmare, or a public official’s latest gaffe, you’ve surely witnessed a dumpster fire burning across your social media feeds. This is true even of “Christian Twitter,” where it’s not uncommon to see prominent figures sparring over a blog post or deleted tweet.

If Christians want to present a winsome gospel in this cultural moment (and I hope we do), we can’t get bogged down in the dumpster fires of the day. We have to find another way to engage the public square and bring the love of Christ to our neighbors. Fortunately, the book of Proverbs is full of countercultural wisdom for putting out dumpster fires.

Stop Heaping Trash

Fires need fuel to burn, and all too often, we’re happy to provide the fuel. Everyone’s first reaction to hearing about a dumpster fire is to add their take. Our negative reactions and hot-takes might seem clever, but all they’re doing is heaping trash on an already flaming dumpster.

The only way out of a world of dumpster fires is to stop fueling them. Proverbs 26:20 says, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” No wood, no fire. No whispers, no quarrels. Sounds easy enough. But is it?

John Stonestreet, when asked about the negative tone of public discourse in a recent Q&A, said, “Our ability to not escalate our emotions even when our opponents are is going to be the only way we can really obey Jesus in a cultural moment where our views have gone from being considered wrong or outdated to being considered wrong and evil” (emphasis mine).

Our ability not to engage in the day's outrage even when others are is crucial to following Jesus in our moment. If Christians choose not to add opinions and retweets to arguments that are clearly going nowhere, the quarreling would cease, at least in our spheres of influence. But as it is now, we are too often drawn into dumpster fires and come out looking just as foolish as everyone else.

Proverbs 26:4 tells us, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” The more we answer a fool (especially online), the more foolish we become, and the more foolish we make the church look.

The best way to extinguish a dumpster fire is to stop feeding it. After all, “If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet” (Prov. 29:9). It’s only in the quiet that we can learn to read the signs of the times. It might feel good at the moment to vent your anger, but as millions of deleted tweets can testify, you’ll regret broadcasting those unguarded thoughts soon enough.

The reality is, the more we talk or type, the more we sin. There’s wisdom in keeping quiet at the right times. “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back” (Prov. 29:11). Stop heaping trash on dumpster fires. Quietly hold back whatever you feel compelled to say. Wait 24 hours and ask yourself if it’s still worth it.

Be Slow to Anger

It would be great if we learned to stop stoking dumpster fires, but the real issue is in our quick-to-anger hearts. James writes, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (Jas. 1:19-20). The calamity of a situation dubbed a dumpster fire beckons us to be quick to anger, quick to speak, and slow to listen—the opposite of James’ command.

Our refusal to heed the Holy Spirit’s instruction in James puts our folly on display. Proverbs 14:29 says, “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” Only a fool jumps into a heap of burning refuse.

But when we control our emotions and exercise self-control, we demonstrate good sense. “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Prov. 19:11). Those who are slow to anger guard themselves from saying something they’ll regret, and, for Christians, they guard the witness and integrity of the church they represent.

Believer, be slow to anger. Not only does this reflect the character of God (see Ex. 34:6), but it makes good sense. What a witness it would be to have churches filled with men and women who gave measured responses and weren’t driven and tossed by the cultural winds.

But there are times when an answer is called for.

Give a Soft Answer

There are times when a response to a dumpster fire is necessary, times where conscience or faith compels a reply. In these times, believers can dampen dumpster fires with a gracious word. Proverbs 15:1 counsels, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

Our words can bring peace or pain. This was highlighted by a recent Washington Post article on Kristen Waggoner, the public face of Alliance Defending Freedom, the nonprofit behind high-profile religious liberty cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop. The author doesn’t appear to share Waggoner’s views, but she can’t help but be taken by Waggoner’s joy:

“Waggoner answers all questions about her work, even on the most contentious of issues, with a smile. Her colleagues say she is always, always smiling. Her incessant pleasantness can come off as strategic, a way of dismantling those trying to paint her as cruel or intolerant. She says joy is just the mark of a person of faith.”

Wouldn’t it be great if more Christians—if you—were marked by “incessant pleasantness” instead of backbiting and infighting?

Standing Out in a World Gone Mad

In a world gone mad, Christians have an opportunity to stand out in a good way. Instead of adding fuel to the dumpster fires around us, we can douse the flames with the wisdom of Christ.

There will never be a shortage of calamities and mismanaged situations. But if we stop heaping trash on dumpster fires, start being slow to anger, and learn to give a soft answer, we can put the grace of Jesus on display and show the world that there’s a better way to have a conversation.

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Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of four, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing, check out his website or follow him on Twitter.

10 Ways to Identify True Grace

We talk about grace a lot. We preach grace from the pulpit, say grace from the table, and strive to stay in each other’s good graces. “Grace” is one of the richest words in our Christian vernacular, and yet, that’s often all it remains—a word. But is grace more than something we confess in a statement of faith? Is it more than just a word on our worship screens or in our vernacular?

Thomas Brooks was a man who not only talked about grace; he lived it. He felt the power of God’s grace and saw the effects of it in his life. His book, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, identifies the various schemes of Satan and the ways Christians fight against them. But just as much, Brooks hopes the reader catches a glimpse of the true grace of God—a grace that does something.

For Brooks, grace was more than a theory. It was real. It was visible and visceral. He notes that one of Satan’s primary devices for keeping Christians in a state of despair and doubt about their faith is “suggesting to them that their graces are not true, but counterfeit.”

Certainly, for us to feel that we have been “duped” by grace that’s not really there would be devastating to our faith. But God desires that we live in assurance, knowing that if we belong to Christ, nothing can separate us from Him (Rom. 8:38-39).

TEN WAYS TO IDENTIFY “TRUE GRACE”

To really live in grace, we must learn to distinguish what Brooks calls “true grace” from a false imitation. So how do we tell the difference between the two? Luckily, Brooks provides ten particulars that help us better define what true grace is. Here are Brooks’ ten statements with some personal commentary:

“True grace makes all glorious within and without.” Grace is a transformative reality. It does not leave us unaffected or stagnant, but like the breath God breathed into Adam, it rouses and awakens us to a new life. True grace, Brooks argues, is not like a lion becoming caged, where his environment or circumstances change but his nature does not. It is rather like the lion becoming a lamb. Our nature is made new by grace. The old is gone, and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).

“The objects of true grace are supernatural.” When we have been captured by true grace, our motivations and affections move to supernatural objects. Having a changed nature, we also have a changed allegiance, a changed mission, and a changed perspective on what the world can offer us. We now, by God’s transforming grace, seek a kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36), treasures hidden in jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:17), and crowns of glory not made by human hands (1 Pet. 5:4).

“True grace enables a Christian, when he is himself, to do spiritual actions with real pleasure and delight.” Grace transforms internally, but it does not stop there. Grace changes us at the level of our actions. We do not act a new way merely because it’s our duty, but rather, because we delight to act in response to the grace we’ve been shown. Our service is not a burden but a joy to be spent for the souls of others (2 Cor. 12:15).

“True grace makes a man most careful, and most fearful of his own heart.” Grace has a way of turning our focus off of the shortcomings and defects of others. It levels the playing field. None can claim superiority to another in light of grace (Eph. 2:8-9). Grace does not jump to conclusions or make snap judgments.

“Grace will work a man’s heart to love and cleave to the strictest and holiest ways and things of God, for their purity and sanctity, in the face of all dangers and hardships.” There is a cost associated with following Jesus. We face internal pressure from our sin nature to put back on the old self and external pressure to cave to the world and all its opposition. But grace beckons us to behave in the world “with simplicity and godly sincerity” (2 Cor. 1:12).

“True grace will enable a man to step over the world’s crown, to take up Christ’s cross; to prefer the cross of Christ above the glory of this world.” Apart from grace, life is a quest to prove our worth and chase achievement. But because of grace, we have the freedom to boast in Christ alone. He makes us worthy. Our achievement is this: God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do (Rom. 8:3). We don’t need the world’s fool’s gold; we have an imperishable inheritance.

“Grace puts the soul upon spiritual duties, from spiritual and intrinsic motives…that doth constrain the soul to wait on God.” When our enemies Immediacy and Efficiency tempt us to despair, we have grace in our corner to remind us that Jesus declared from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). What’s more, the work he gives us to do, he is bringing to completion in his time (Phil. 1:6). This does not depend at all on our impressiveness. Grace frees us to wait on him.

“Grace will cause a man to follow the Lord fully in the desertion of all sin, and in the observation of all God’s precepts.” We kill sin and follow the law because we have been given the privilege to do so. The wages of sin is death, and we came into the world totally bankrupt (Rom. 6:23). But now, because of grace, not only have our debts been paid—but we also have the opportunity to live righteously, with our whole hearts.

“True grace leads the soul to rest in Christ, as his chiefest good.” Grace enables us to draw near to our Lord’s throne with confidence and comfort (Heb. 4:16). Without grace, we would have every reason to be on edge, anxious, and fearful. But His love has cast out fear (1 John 4:18). His grace is a deep breath to the weary Christian.

“True grace will enable a soul to sit down satisfied and contented with the naked enjoyments of Christ.” Grace does not leave us lacking. We are like the sheep laid beside still waters by our Shepherd; we shall not want (Ps. 23:1). He is our Daily Bread and Living Water. Grace is unmerited favor, and it not only feeds the soul but fills it. It does not need to be dressed up. Grace alone is enough.

BLESSED ASSURANCE

Believer, do you find it hard to have confidence and assurance that you stand approved before God? Are you wondering what God thinks of you and whether or not you’re doing this Christian life the right way? How the grace of God has affected a person can tell you a lot about their spirituality.

If you’re finding yourself struggling to be sure of God’s grace in your life, run a diagnostics test. Ask yourself these questions:

• Has grace transformed your nature?
• Has grace changed your perspective?
• Has grace changed your actions?
• Has grace made you look inward?
• Has grace created a desire for holiness in your heart?
• Has grace freed you from having to prove your worth?
• Has grace caused you to wait on God in your life?
• Has grace made obedience to God a delight?
• Has grace allowed you to rest in Christ’s finished work?
• Has grace grown your contentment in Christ?

Your answers will help you determine what grace is really up to in your life.

GRACE IS NOT GRAY

A final note on grace that we cannot leave unnoticed as it relates to our assurance: When Jesus died for sinners, he did not do so in part. The grace found in salvation does not vary from person to person. Calvary eliminated the gray area. There is no one who has lived a good enough life or been a good enough person to make them “sort-of” righteous. And there is no one who has been justified and forgiven who will only have access to some of God’s grace. There is no scale from zero to ten that determines how much grace we’ve been shown; it is either a zero or a ten.

It’s fitting to close with one more word from Brooks:

“We have all things in Christ, and Christ is all things to a Christian. If we be sick, he is a physician; if we thirst, he is a fountain; if our sins trouble us, he is righteousness; if we stand in need of help, he is mighty to save; if we fear death, he is life; if we be in darkness, he is light; if we be weak; he is strength; if we be in poverty, he is plenty; if we desire heaven, he is the way.”

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Zach Barnhart currently serves as Student Pastor of Northlake Church in Lago Vista, TX. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University and is currently studying at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, seeking a Master of Theological Studies degree. He is married to his wife, Hannah. You can follow Zach on Twitter @zachbarnhart or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.

5 Ways to Speak Life

I love to play golf. More than the game itself, I enjoy being out on the course, the fresh air, the exercise, and the conversation with friends. As kind of a duffer, one of the privileges I often enjoy on the course is the “mulligan,” a “do-over” used in informal games of golf when the score doesn’t matter and everyone is playing for fun. Each player is allowed one mulligan per round. I often take two or three.

In those common instances when I botch the first shot off the tee or slice the ball into a water hazard, I simply tee up the second ball and start over. The bad shot goes unnoticed and forgotten, failing to make its way onto the score sheet, and normal play resumes. The beauty of the mulligan is that it leaves no trace that something bad ever happened.

MULLIGAN DREAMS

Unfortunately, life doesn’t always play out like a round of golf. Most of us can think of times when we wish we had a do-over: a career mulligan; a marriage mulligan; a money mulligan. Sometimes these are simple regrets—“I wish I had stuck with piano lessons.” Others are more serious—“I wish I had gone to college,” or “I wish I’d been nicer to my parents.” A few are life-altering—“I wish I hadn’t rushed into marriage,” or “I wish I had called a cab instead of trying to drive.”

But some of our greatest and most common mulligan-dreams are centered around our words, which seem to escape from our mouths before they can be caught. These naked words are powerful realities, affecting far more than just our ears, even shaping our and minds and hearts. Hurtful and callous remarks, venomous and destructive critique, thoughtless and angry comments. Words like these have no return address.

The tongue can speak either life or death, and through it, we bring either healing or destruction into the world. The scriptures are serious about the power of our words, warning us to carefully and vigorously guard what comes out of our mouths (see Prov. 10:19, 13:3, 17:27-28, 18:21, 21:23, to name a few). Our use of words could well be the most crucial issue for our discipleship, and the most poignant indicator of our spiritual state. As Jesus said, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matt. 15:11), “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34).

PRACTICE SPEAKING LIFE

In golf, the best way to avoid the mulligan is through practice. The same is true with our mouths: we must intentionally practice not only being “slow to speak” (Jas. 1:19) but also speaking life-giving words. And there are certain types of speech that, when frequently practiced, naturally train both our mouths and our hearts to produce life instead of death. Here are five ways to speak life instead of death.

Praise

In order for words to bring life, they must be aligned with reality. Charles Wesley, the famous 18th-century hymn writer, bemoaned his limited physical capacity for praise: “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!” For the believer enamored with Jesus, a solitary tongue just isn’t enough. Even a thousand is too few to render God his due.

The greatest task for which human words can be employed is the heartfelt rendering of affectionate praise to God. Praise is not simply truth-speaking; it’s the passionate expression of a heart fully taken by its subject. Words of praise give life by shaping our hearts, minds, and mouths with truth of the highest order. We should devote time every day to using our God-created tongues to sing and speak words of adoration and worship to the Author of our salvation.

Gratitude

Paul commanded his readers to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18). Words of thanks are an important part of life-giving speech and can be directed to both God and others. Gratitude trains us to see that life itself is a gift, and for this reason, we are all recipients of constant grace.

Practice saying out loud those things you’re grateful for. Tell God you’re thankful for his Son who endured the cross on your behalf. Tell a friend how grateful you are for what God is showing you in this season of life. Giving thanks in all circumstances starts with giving thanks in one circumstance—and you can start today.

Prayer

Like praise and thanksgiving—two forms of prayer—prayer gains its beauty, character, and dignity from the One to whom it is addressed. As conversation with God, prayer begins with an open ear and is, by nature, responsive. Theologian Eugene Peterson calls prayer “answering speech,” noting that God always gets the first word—through his Word—making prayer a verbal response to divine initiative.

Our prayer life—our speech-life with God—should guide, direct, and shape our speech-life with others. As we think about how to speak to others in God-honoring, Spirit-directed ways, a good starting place is to speak about the other person to God and allow God to speak to us about them. In essence, we are praying for others, but we are also enabling our prayer life to shape our conversational and relational life with others. As you do so, you may be surprised by how much prayer shapes your thoughts, moods, and conversations.

Confession

Confession is truth-telling. It is, like scientifically precise language, meant to be an accurate description of the world (in this case, your own soul) as it really is—or at least as you experience it to be. Words of confession help us find where we really are in the world. Confessions are compass-like words that recalibrate our souls to the reality of our own brokenness and the astonishing grace of the gospel.

We are afforded no mulligans in our speech. Instead, we are given the much better gift of confession and the forgiveness that accompanies it. Go to the Father and confess the sins of your mouth, and taste the forgiveness that’s sweeter than any do-over.

Encouragement

Who doesn’t like to be encouraged? Encouragement is a generous use of speech that freely bestows affirmation, solace, peace, comfort, thanksgiving, praise, and appreciation to others. It costs very little, yet breathes an immense amount of life into the weary and beaten down souls around us.

Encourage someone today—a neighbor, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, a stranger, an enemy. Use your words to speak peace into their life. Make it your goal for everyone you talk with to leave feeling better than when they came to you.

CONCLUSION

Jesus was clear that our words matter. “I tell you,” he said, “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:36-37).

We don’t get any do-overs with our speech, but we do have access to forgiveness and grace when we misspeak. Perhaps more than anything, we have the ability to counteract thoughtless, careless, violent, and destructive speech with words that build up, care for, love, and give life.

Let’s be people whose words are a wellspring of life in a world filled with words that too often produce death.

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Mike Phay serves as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as a Staff Writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has been married to Keri for over 20 years, and they have five amazing kids. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikephay) or check out his blog.

Unquenchable Love and Unconquerable Hope

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtain­ing the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Pet. 1:6–9)

The year 2016 marked the centennial anniver­sary of America’s National Park Service. In celebra­tion of the anniversary, a particular issue of National Geographic contained some amazing photos of several parks—as only National Geographic can capture. Now, I pride myself on having a Jed Bartlet-like appreciation for the national parks, so when I looked at these photos, I was captivated. They were unlike anything I had seen. In a single image, you could see both day and night, shadow and light, sun and moon. The photographer, for hours at time, took thousands of pictures, and with the aid of technology, “com­pressed the best parts into a single photograph.” The result is a massive and sweeping image comprised of thousands of smaller photos.[1] Yet, the more I looked, the less certain I was that I liked it. For these photos are attempts at seeing what is not meant to be seen— a full day all at once. The scenery was beautiful, yet odd. It was unnatural. Frankly, it wasn’t real.

When we face trials for which we don’t know the outcome or don’t understand the purpose, and strug­gle with wanting to know all the answers at once, it is like we are wanting to see a full photo of the end and the beginning, in one frame. But were we to see such, I think we would be disappointed. It likely wouldn’t make sense, for it is neither real nor what God intends. God, in his kindness and wisdom and mercy, uses trials and hidden things to draw us closer to himself, and even when we can’t understand the outcome or the purpose, joy is revealed in the process.

After Peter reminded his exiled readers that they have a living hope in a God who has saved them and will strengthen and sustain them to the end, he turns to address their trials and suffering.[2]

THE END OF SUFFERING

When enduring the onslaughts of a cynical age, we’ve seen how looking in to find Christ Jesus, our living hope, cannot only sustain until the end of time, but also provide strength for the present. Peter rightly acknowledges that this kind of reliance will lead to joy, much like the supportive James 1:2 that instructs believers to “count it all joy” in the face of trials. With the end still in view, Peter also reminds that these tri­als are only “for a little while” (1 Pet. 1:6). This is not Peter’s attempt to minimize them or belittle the pain and challenges they produce, but to offer another bol­ster of hope that even the longest of trials will, in fact, end. Trials and sufferings are a part of a post-Genesis 3 world. They were not what God intended when he created the world. Whether the result of sin, physical malady, or material loss, trials and sufferings do not escape the believer in Christ (John 16:33) and, indeed, can serve as painful instruments of the evil one.

As we behold and experience the trials that are a shared burden in this world, believers often under­standably question why God allows such to happen. Even though God, in his faithfulness and wisdom, may never allow his children to have the full under­standing of why he permits suffering, Peter’s words here give a great deal of insight and help. Trials, of all kinds, test our faith in crucible-like ways—ways that will show the greatness and goodness of God and result in our greater praise to him. This is, in part, because he endures the trials with us. The living hope we have of Christ himself within us is even better than the appearance of an additional man alongside Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3:25). Through Christ, in every trial we have a shield of faith “with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one (Eph. 6:16). When we are tempted, God is faithful and “will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but . . . will also provide the way of escape” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Often the way to rejoicing is the way of weakness through suffering, and a powerful New Testament portrait of this is the life of the apostle Paul revealed in 2 Corinthians. As J. I. Packer explains in is marvel­ous book Weakness Is the Way, the testimony Paul gives shows

"pain and exhaustion, with ridicule and con­tempt, all to the nth degree; a tortured state that would drive any ordinary person to long for death, when it would all be over. But, says Paul, Christ’s messengers are sus­tained, energized, and empowered, despite these external weakening factors, by a pro­cess of daily renewal within."[3]

Paul begins 2 Corinthians declaring that “we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9). From this reliance comes “good courage” (2 Cor. 5:6) and the ultimate lesson that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

Packer writes Weakness Is the Way from personal experience. He has lived a life of “physical and cogni­tive weakness” due to a head injury as a child. Yet, Packer’s early learning to rely on divine strength has sustained him. Writing in his eighth decade, after recovering from hip replacement surgery, he shares of his growing “acquaintance with Satan’s skill in gener­ating gloom and discouragement.” Yet, in these years, he reveals, “[m]y appreciation of 2 Corinthians has also grown as I have brooded on the fact that Paul had been there before me. . . . The whole letter is an awe­some display of unquenchable love and unconquerable hope.”[4] By looking in at Christ Jesus, both Paul and Packer show us the way to the fountain of our hope. 

LOVING WITHOUT SEEING

Much like C. S. Lewis’s Orual, Peter’s readers never saw Jesus in the flesh. Yet, despite their exile, trials, and sufferings, they loved him and believed in him. Peter’s commendation of them comes from a man who knew something about faith without seeing. Peter was there when Jesus, in response to Thomas needing to see to believe, said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Of course, Peter also knew much about love for Jesus, as part of his early discipleship involved his restoration by Jesus asking him three times about his love (John 21:15–17).

Therefore, when Peter writes of this faith and love resulting in an inexpressible joy (1 Pet. 1:8), he writes of what he knows. When he was with Jesus before the crucifixion, Peter saw him with his eyes, but did not fully love him. Only after the Resurrection, did Peter truly see Jesus with love and joy—and then once Jesus ascended to heaven, Peter continued to love him even without seeing him—to an inexpressible extent.

While the believer’s joy may not find adequate words for expression, we can get a glimpse of why by the idea that it is filled with glory. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul recounts the time Moses came down from the mountain and—his face being filled with glory to such a degree that the Israelites could not look at him—wore a veil (Exod. 34:29–33). Yet Paul says that the Spirit has “even more glory” (v. 8), and believers in Christ are able to “[behold] the glory of the Lord” (v. 18) and will one day see Jesus face to face.

Jesus Christ remained Peter’s fountain of hope, even though Jesus was no longer on earth. Thus, Peter relays how much more it is true and possible for other believers to love Jesus without seeing him.

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[1] Patricia Edmonds, “Photography That Layers Time,” National Geographic 229:1 (Jan. 2016): 144.

[2] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6:75.

[3] J. I. Packer, Weakness Is the Way (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 99–101.

[4] J. I. Packer, Weakness Is the Way (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 99–101.

Excerpted with permission from Mere Hope: Life in an Age of Cynicism by Jason G. Duesing. Copyright 2018, B&H Publishing Group.

Jason G. Duesing serves in academic leadership at Midwestern Seminary and is the author of Seven Summits in Church History, and editor and contributing author of First Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Liberty, Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary, and other works. He is married to Kalee and together they have two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve.

4 Ways to Foster Faithfulness in the Face of Futility

The mammoth ship started sinking into the bone-chilling North Atlantic waters. Distress rockets exploded into the sky. You could hear the pandemonium and sheer terror over the buckling, twisting steel. Amidst the chaos, eight musicians began playing a serene, unearthly melody; “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as rumor has it. They kept playing when it was their turn to get into a lifeboat. They played faithfully until their untimely end, the sweet, soft sounds echoing off the unforgiving waters.

This April marked 106 years since the Titanic sank into the Atlantic, killing well over 1,000 passengers. Those musicians have mystified historians for the past century. What was going on in their minds? How could they keep playing in the face of certain death?

FAITHFULNESS IN THE FACE OF FUTILITY?

In the account of their last hours, we see a picture of faithfulness in the midst of seeming futility. So many times, we find ourselves in dim and seemingly hopeless situations. We might not aboard a ship sinking into frozen waters, but our hearts sink from the loss of a loved one, a battle with cancer, or feeling the weight of our bodies getting older and falling apart. We might not face certain death, but we have witnessed the death of our dreams; the death of what we thought our lives should look like.

Our day-to-day circumstances can feel like waves threatening to drown us in sorrow. The tempest tempts us to look away from our Savior and down into the swirling abyss. Too often we let circumstances take the rudder of our ship, steering us forward instead of into God’s promises.

We are so often faithless. But the good news is that God is faithful in the midst of our faithlessness (2 Tim. 2:13). God is committed to his people and his promises. But how can we be faithful to God in the midst of turmoil and trouble? How can we have an unwavering, unflinching trust in him? God’s Word gives us four ways.

1. ASK AND SEEK

First, the Bible tells us to ask and seek for faithfulness. The Greek word for faithfulness in the Bible literally means “being full of faith.” It means being reliable, steadfast, unwavering, not wishy-washy or fickle. God imparts this gift of faith through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and through the hearing of God’s Word. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (RoM. 10:17).

If we are to be completely dependent on God to open our eyes of faith, our prayer should be, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We should spend time daily reading and preaching the gospel to ourselves because God works in hearts through his Word by the power of his Spirit. God’s Word is our light when we find ourselves in dark, distant waters. His Spirit will be our bravery when everything is falling apart.

2. REMEMBER AND REMIND

The second way the Bible tells us to foster faithfulness is simply by remembering. When we reflect on what God has done in our lives, we can say, "The Lord’s loving-kindnesses indeed never cease; for his compassions never fail; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness" (Lam. 3:22-23).

The tossing waves won’t be so threatening when we know our God is bigger than the oceans. Our circumstances will seem trivial in light of eternity. Let’s choose to remember how God has been faithful, and let those memories embolden us to keep playing a beautiful tune to the glory of God in the midst of trouble and travail.

Not only do we need to remind ourselves what God has done, but we need to remind others of his faithfulness. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:12-13).

Telling others what God has done in our lives protects them from the enemy’s lies and from doubting God’s promises. We need to hear stories of God’s faithfulness daily, and so do our brothers and sisters. Like the eight musicians who played their way into their icy graves, we need others to stand with us, playing the song of God’s faithfulness into the long, cold night.

3. SURRENDER AND ABIDE

Third, the Bible tells us we can foster faithfulness by surrendering and abiding. The fruit of faithfulness is not the fruit of our works, but the result of the Spirit’s work in us. If you are in Christ, you are like clay in the potter’s hands. He is the one molding and shaping you in his image. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

When we abide, or remain in unbroken relationship with God, seeking to know him, to be like him, and to surrender to his work in our lives, we will bear the fruit of faithfulness in due time. But we can only do this by God’s keeping power.

We can take comfort that God is steadfast in his commitment to sustaining us. The Lord “will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (1 Cor. 1:8-9).

4. REPENT AND OBEY

When the Titanic hit the gargantuan iceberg that doomed the “unsinkable ship,” most of the passengers were asleep because it was midnight. We too fall asleep. We get comfortable and lose the urgency in following Jesus. We give our allegiance to the idols of comfort, control, approval, or power.

Let’s heed this stark warning Jesus gave to the church in Sardis: “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you” (Rev. 3:2-3).

Jesus’ words here are startling and might even seem harsh. But when he called his people to follow him, he told them to take up their cross—to die to themselves—daily. Let’s search our hearts and ask the Lord to show us the sins we cling to. If we find we have been faithless, let’s repent and turn back to following Christ with all our might in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We can know God’s grace is sufficient and his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). We can be confident that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Whichever comes first, Christ’s return or our last breath, let us be found faithful, by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s power. Let’s be on our guard, daily repenting from sin.

FINDING CALM AMONG THE STORM

As the Titanic disappeared into the dark waters, there was a faithfulness amidst the chaos and dread. Eight musicians played a lively tune as they met their earthly deaths.

In this world, we will have trials and tribulation but let’s be found living faithfully to the glory of God. May our lives be a startlingly beautiful, hopeful harmony resounding in the ears of the world around us.

When the storms of life come, let’s play our song all the louder, clinging to God’s promises. Let’s live lives that burn brighter by the day instead of sinking into the night. Let’s press forward by God’s grace power until we hear those sweet words from our Lord: “Well done, good, and faithful servant … enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).

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Delilah Pugsley is a wife, friend, sister, daughter and a Christ-follower serving in a church plant in Mid-Missouri. She writes on her blog https://www.graceinreallife.com, and you can reach her at delilahpugsley@gmail.com.

The Essence of a Gospel-Soaked, Faithful Teacher

How did we get to a place where Christians turn against Christians in the name of political power? How did we get to a place where we demonize one another by oversimplifying our beliefs and convictions?

How did we get here? By quarreling over words and secondary matters to the neglect of what matters most; by not faithfully teaching and demonstrating those things which matter most. Without faithful teachers, God’s people have few, if any, guardrails against worldly pursuits and thinking.

But what does it look like to be a faithful teacher of God’s Word? In 2 Timothy 2, Paul paints three compelling pictures of a faithful teacher for his young protégé, Timothy: the unashamed worker, the clean vessel, and the Lord’s servant. Taken together, these three pictures convey the essence of a gospel-soaked, faithful teacher.

THE UNASHAMED WORKER

The first picture Paul gives Timothy of a faithful worker is a sharp contrast between a good and bad workman:

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness." – 2 Tim. 2:15-16

The good workman does his best to present himself as one approved. He is diligent about the work of teaching. He reads good books, takes classes, and disciplines himself to learn God’s Word. The good workman is humble. He knows he needs his instruction just as much as those he teaches. The good workman is careful to ensure he is presenting the Bible’s truths clearly and accurately. He knows the more clearly he presents God’s Word, the more powerful it is.

The bad workman, on the other hand, gets lost in endless controversies, inevitably entangling others in their foolishness. Their talk spreads like gangrene, infecting people everywhere it goes. Quarreling over such things as secondary or tertiary matters creates divisions and hurts the people you teach.

Don’t get tangled up in the parts of the Bible that are unclear when there is so much that is clear. Be like the good workman: present yourself as one approved, with no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

THE CLEAN VESSEL

Next, Paul explains that a faithful teacher is like a clean vessel:

"Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work."– 2 Tim. 2:20-21

“Vessels” refers to containers that would be found in one’s home in Paul’s day, like Tupperware in ours. Some vessels would have been used for honorable things, like eating, whereas others would have been used for dishonorable things, like washing feet.

We have a Tupperware cabinet in my kitchen (you know, the cabinet where every container falls out every time you open it). One of the “vessels” in that cabinet is a yellow, plastic bowl we use for thawing raw meat. I wash the bowl every time we use it, but even though I cleaned it, I’m not about to eat out of it. Why? Because that would be gross. That bowl is used for a dirty, or dishonorable, task.

In the same way, people are used for either honorable or dishonorable tasks. Without Christ, each of us was a vessel for dishonorable use—we were far from God and probably cared little for others. We were slaves to sin and set ourselves apart for dishonorable use.

But in Christ we have been made clean through the blood he spilled on the cross. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension justify us in the sight of God once our faith is in him. We have been cleansed, made holy, and are now set apart for honorable use.

Honorable vessels are “useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” As believers, we are useful to God in the sense that we are equipped to do good works here and now for people made in the image of God in a way that brings him glory (Eph. 2:10).

The words Paul uses—“honorable” and “set apart”—indicate that his clean vessel picture is about holiness. Paul wants to remind Timothy, and us, that holiness matters.

Holiness has fallen on hard times, though. We want to be accepted, so we wink at the number of drinks we have when we’re out with friends. We’re loose with our tongues, or we’re quick to laugh at a crude joke. But each time we participate in sin, we’re making dirty what Christ has made clean; making dishonorable what God has set aside as honorable.

Believer, pursue holiness and set yourself apart as useful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE LORD’S SERVANT

Paul’s third picture of a faithful teacher is the Lord’s servant:

"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will."– 2 Tim. 2:22-26

Paul first tells Timothy to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” This is related to holiness, and it relays the Bible’s most basic instruction for how to deal with sin: to flee from it. As fast as you can.

Most of us have an overinflated sense of how strong we are. We think we can stand up to temptation and beat sin through sheer strength or willpower. But we can’t—that’s why Jesus had to die for us.

The Lord’s servant is not prideful. He knows he needs the grace of Jesus and the power of his Spirit to stand up to temptation. Sin and its consequences are scary enough to the Lord’s servant that he wisely runs the other direction. Instead of running to temptation, he should run to righteousness, faith, love, and peace. These are the fruit of the Spirit—attributes he will cultivate in us as we pursue them alongside him.

The Lord’s servant should also be gentle. In contrast to the devil’s quarrelsome servant, the Lord’s servant should be “kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.” Think of your relationship with the people you lead: are you kind to them? Patient with them? Do you endure their questions and hardships? Are you gentle in your conversations and sensitive to their struggles?

The world is filled with impatient, prideful, power-hungry leaders. God’s Kingdom should house leaders who are just the opposite. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct people when necessary—Paul clearly states that Timothy should be correcting his opponents. But he should be doing so in gentleness, because “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”

Be patient with your flock. Be kind to them. Love them. And if they have strayed, instruct them in gentleness, and perhaps they will come to their senses and find their way back to the truth.

JESUS IS THE FAITHFUL TEACHER

Faithful teachers should be like a good workman, a clean vessel, and a servant of the Lord. And if, like me, you feel woefully inadequate to be all of these things, then take heart, because you don’t have to be.

You don’t have to be the perfect workman, the cleanest vessel, or the greatest servant because Jesus is.

Jesus is the perfect workman who never shrank back from declaring the truth and correcting false teaching. He never mishandled the Word of truth. He never quarreled over inessentials and never tired of telling his people of God’s goodness and their need for salvation.

Jesus is the clean vessel who presented himself pure and blameless before the Father. He was an honorable vessel his entire life but willingly gave himself up to dishonorable treatment on our behalf. He was willing to be dishonored so that we could become honorable through him.

Jesus is the Lord’s servant who was perfectly pure, never sinning though tempted in every way as we are. He was focused, never straying from his mission to bring the gospel to bear on all mankind through his sacrificial death on the cross. He was gentle, treating the lowliest of men and women with the highest amount of dignity. He patiently corrected, continuously endured.

Jesus is the faithful Teacher. He is the only leader who can do all of these things. And it is only by looking to him and relying on him that we will become the faithful leaders he means for us to be.

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Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Big Lessons from a Wee Little Man

On my best days, I stand 5’6”. My wife, in a display of self-sacrifice typical of her, wore flats in our wedding so as not to—quite literally—show me up. The bond I feel to Zacchaeus, then, should come as little surprise. We have relegated his story from Luke 19 to the cute side of Christianity. If you grew up in an evangelical church, odds are you remember this tune:

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.”

A song like that never quite dislodges itself from your head, yet adult believers rarely sing it back or spend time considering Zacchaeus. Revisiting his brief moment within the story of Jesus reveals significant lessons and serious stakes. Zacchaeus isn’t just for children’s church or puppet shows—his interaction with Jesus raises implications we might rather avoid.

A RICH MAN BROUGHT LOW

Let’s quickly re-acquaint ourselves with Zacchaeus, this time with less music.

The first details Luke shares about Zacchaeus are his vocation and class. He clocked in and out as a tax collector, a vocation despised all along history’s continuum from Jesus’ day up through our own. It’s safe to assume Zacchaeus tried to dodge the question, “So, what do you do?” in social situations, though the story suggests he wasn’t invited to many parties.

Luke spells out Zacchaeus’ status as a matter of fact: “He was rich.” But his wealth didn’t come with a place of honor. As Jesus, the provocative religious teacher, walks through Jericho, Zacchaeus wants to see the man for himself, like everyone else in town. But he found himself crowded out and unable to see the mysterious rabbi.

“He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man. So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since he was about to pass that way” (Luke 19:3-4).

On his way by, Jesus looks up and calls out, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house” (Luke 19:5). Jesus invites himself over to Zacchaeus’ house, pleasing the diminutive tax collector and flustering the crowd, who know not only what Zacchaeus does for a living, but what he’s like.

Jesus’ welcome and acceptance are not lost on Zacchaeus. Immediately, he pledges to give half of what he owns to relieve the poor and, hinting at ongoing sin, says he’ll repay “four times as much” as he has extorted from others (Luke 19:8).

Jesus, who always knew what he was doing, acknowledges he was after Zacchaeus’ heart from the jump and declares that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ home. Then Jesus restates his mission and locates Zacchaeus within it: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

SEEING JESUS

Zacchaeus’ story isn’t about climbing trees. It’s about a change of heart, a reorientation of desire that expresses itself through action. If like Zacchaeus, we want to experience salvation, then his response to Jesus warrants deeper reflection.

Zacchaeus’ response to Christ was a desire to change the way he lived. Zacchaeus had little public credibility left, but he was willing to debase himself further to see who Jesus was. Paul puts the same desire in his own words: “More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

We sing words like these on Sunday mornings. In our public prayers, small groups, and coffee shop conversations, we claim we want to see and know God. But how many of us actually look for Jesus everywhere we go? How often do we consider knowing him—intimately, completely—as important as knowing about him?

Zacchaeus should be commended. Once he had even an inkling of who Jesus was, he put aside everything to see him more clearly. Will we follow his lead?

REJOICE AT AMAZING GRACE

Jesus’ outstretched hand of friendship to tax-collecting Zacchaeus laid the crowd’s heart bare. Rather than be amazed that Jesus wanted to spend time with this sinful man, they recoiled.

And so it is with us. We believe God can save the well-mannered pillar of our community. They’re already so good and so decent, we reason. We even recognize his intent with those on the other end of the spectrum, the poor or homeless person with whom we have no history.

We express less enthusiasm when Jesus begins to draw someone we can’t stand, someone who has hurt us, or someone we’ve watched lay waste to their relationships.

The childhood bully, the cheating spouse, the cheerleader for another political tribe. Can we find it within ourselves to recognize grace at work within them? Or will we grumble like the crowd, shaking our heads and wagging our fingers at Jesus?

A WHOLE GOSPEL

Even if you’re able to make peace with the story so far, Zacchaeus has to go and do something that completely meddles with our comfortable ideas of call-and-response, conversion, and repentance.

The evidence that he already has seen something in Jesus, that the Spirit truly is loosed within his heart, comes as he promises to restore what he has stolen and make others whole (v. 8).

We plunder others all the time, even when we don’t recognize it. We pinch a little dignity, steal a piece of their reputation in the eyes of others. What if the gospel, as it works within us, directed us to make others whole?

Our movement toward healing and restoration is not a means of earning favor with God. We can only make others whole because God has made us whole. He has restored all that sin, death and the locust has taken—and now, out of his storehouse supply (Phil. 4:19), we can play our small part, imitating him by doing the same.

BIG LESSONS FROM A LITTLE MAN

How different would our lives and relationships look if we adopted Zacchaeus’ mindset? We would repay any honor we’ve stolen, with interest (Rom. 12:10). Forgiveness withheld would be replaced with reconciliation. What we extract through shame and guilt would find its recompense in acceptance and affirmation.

Following in the footsteps of Zacchaeus, bending our gospel encounter into real life, we would pursue a whole and unified church by making others whole.

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and he only gets ten verses in Scripture. But the lessons therein loom large. Disciples who truly want to see Jesus would do well to hear ourselves in his song and sing it over and over.

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Aarik Danielsen is the arts and music editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Missouri, where he also serves Karis Church as a lay pastor. Find his work at facebook.com/aarikdanielsenwrites and follow him on Twitter: @aarikdanielsen.

Spelunking Our Way to Salvation

My favorite Batman movie is The Dark Knight Rises. And not just because it has Christian Bale, and not Ben Affleck, playing Batman. I love this film because it resonates with my soul. Batman’s back is broken in a battle against the evil Bane, and the Dark Knight is left for dead in a dark, inescapable pit. Bruce Wayne, our strong hero, is broken, hopeless, confused, and trapped in a deep cave.

Caves are dark, musty, disorienting, and lonely. And sooner or later, we all end up in one.

Not literally, of course. But in the course of life, our souls stumble into caves of brokenness, pain, hurt, grieving, and suffering. We feel like David fleeing his family, friends, throne, land—everything—because his son Absalom betrayed him. This is the cave.

LIFE IN THE CAVE IMPACTS EVERYTHING

Loss brings us to the cave. Loss of friendship, loss of dreams, loss of family, loss of hope. Often, loss is accompanied by even more loss, as friends, fans, and supporters who were around distance themselves.

The cave feels like rock bottom. The damp, cold, walls are all you have to cling to.

Life in the cave impacts everything.

Your finances, marriage, and career can be great, but it doesn’t matter—you’re in the cave. What brought you here hurt so deeply that the pain bleeds into every part of life.

If part of you is in the cave, all of you is in the cave.

WHAT DARKNESS BRINGS TO LIGHT

In the cave we are stripped of every hope other than Jesus. Hobbies, entertainment, food, and iPhones—none of these can help. They can distract from the pain, but some caves are just too dark to find comfort in distractions.

In the cave our pride is crushed. We become more aware than ever that Jesus—only Jesus—will never leave or forsake us. We are stripped of all the idols that are so prevalent outside.

In the cave we find out how much we really love Jesus, and how much we really trust him.

Caves are lonely, but you’re never alone in the cave. We have a God who does some of his best work in the cave. This makes even the darkest of caves beautiful.

The God of the Bible is a good God. He uses our pain and suffering, our brokenness, to bring about something beautiful. He uses all things for the good for those who love him (Rom. 8:28). He woos us in the cave.

CAVES REVEAL US

Spelunking is the exploration of caves. Spelunkers grope around in the dark with headlamps lighting their way. They never know what they might find, but in the end, the adventure reveals something about themselves.

I wouldn’t wish time in the cave on anyone, yet I wouldn’t trade my time there for anything. I’ve been in it more than once, and I would rather not enter it again.

Yet I know I would not know Jesus the same way I do today without times in the cave. Just as a miner delves deeper into the mountain to uncover flecks of shimmering gold, there is beauty in the depths of our cave because God is committed to mining our hearts and revealing the stone encasing them.

Caves reveal our hearts, and they reveal our closest friends. Jonathans reveal themselves to Davids in the cave. No friend can live there with you. Only you and Jesus can dwell there, but true friends can and will visit you in the cave. They will enter your pain, listen, pray, comfort, point you to Jesus and help in any way they can. It is these friends that help you see the dim, distant light that is the way out. These friends are priceless. They have seen the way out, and even though they don’t dwell in the cave, they can offer tremendous hope.

Jesus uses friends and family to help us take our first wobbly steps out of the cave. He uses them as a due north, a compass in the midst of a confusing, lost and dark time. That doesn’t mean everyone who abandons you is not a true friend. Certainly, some are inch-deep friends, but many just do not have the courage, maturity or time to visit you in the cave.

Some are in a cave of their own, and some are in such a time of joyful frolicking outside they don’t even recognize others are in caves. Don’t hold on to bitterness. While it reveals your truest and deepest friends, the cave also grows our compassion for those in caves and those who have no idea what this pain is like. We bear with one another and we grow in learning how to share one another’s burdens.

PURIFIED FOR COMMUNITY

While the cave is a very lonely place, the Lord never intends to use it for isolation, but as a furnace to melt away the impurities of superficial, self-centered community, purifying us for community with him and a newfound compassion for others.

Time in the cave deepens our longing for authentic Jesus-centered community, marked by dependence, brokenness, vulnerability, confession, and love. He reveals true friends, but also makes us into true friends, the kinds of friends that would visit others in the cave.

Jesus and Peter are restored after Jesus enters his cave, but Judas and Jesus were not. Finding the way out doesn’t mean every relationship is restored, but that every person is forgiven and Jesus is fully trusted to be the just judge. Confess all that you can confess, own all that you can own, and leave God to judge the rest. This helps us get off the floor of the cave.

Look to Jesus. Trust Jesus. Some things will reveal themselves over time as you wait upon the Lord. Sometimes the Absaloms show themselves to be Absalom, and the Jonathans show themselves to be Jonathan. Other times we never know. Either way, trust in Jesus. He is trustworthy.

THE ULTIMATE CAVE IS EMPTY

How do we know he is worthy of our trust? Because he willingly entered into the ultimate cave in order to keep us out of an eternal one.

Jesus left a heavenly paradise willingly to enter a cave on Earth. He was respected, followed, sought after and had a ministry that impacted villages, cities, towns and drew audiences from royalty to peasants and the sick. He walked with close friends, had moments of validation and appreciation both from people and from the Father. He knew life on Earth outside the cave.

He also knew ministry in the caves. He was a man of sorrows. He wept. He knew betrayal, abuse, false accusations, and abandonment. He knew physical, spiritual and relational pain and torment.

On the cross, he took on the sins of the world. He took every man, woman and child’s personal cave, all the sin they committed to get there, and all the sin committed against them that sent them there.

Jesus entered a very real cave. He was beaten, mocked, abused, abandoned and buried in a dark, cold, musty cave and left breathless, lifeless, dead. The king of heaven was crucified on a cross and buried in a cave. He didn’t have to do this. But he chose to out of love for us!

The Dark Knight Rises ends with Batman learning from his past and coming out of the cave stronger than ever. He defeats Bane, saves Gotham, and marries Catwoman.

Jesus is better. He defeated the ultimate cave. The stone was rolled away, the cave is empty, and Jesus is alive!

Jesus heals, restores, saves and resurrects. We have hope new life will come bursting forth from our deep, dark caves because Jesus Christ burst forth from his.

We get to ask for help, prayer, and friendship and be honest about our condition. And even in the darkest cave, we can have hope, knowing no cave is permanent for those who have trusted in Jesus.

And one day he will make all things new, even us. He will shine brighter than the sun, wipe away every tear, and turn every dark cave into a life-giving meadow! All creation will join together in worshipping and praising our King Jesus! And we will frolic for all of eternity, together in community, with him.

In the meantime, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, in both the meadows and the caves. Let us rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn. Living like a true friend to those around us who are in the meadow or in the cave, always pointing to the one who truly will never leave them or forsake them, always pointing to Jesus!

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Jake Chambers is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to Ezra, Roseanna, Jaya and Gwen. Jake is passionate about Jesus and helping others meet and follow Jesus. He helped plant Red Door Church in San Diego and enjoys serving the local and global church through preaching, teaching, listening and praying.

The Sweet Salvation in the Cup of Christ

I’m a terrible gift-giver. I don’t give bad gifts as much as I don’t give any gifts. I’m not anti-gifts; I’m just not good at picking them. So most of the time I don’t. But about once every five years, I experience a stroke of gift-giving brilliance. My father’s tendency to stand in front of the refrigerator, looking for something to drink, has become something of a running joke in my family. He would fling the double-doors wide open, staring expectantly at the contents, hoping something would stand out. This Christmas, my stroke of gift-giving brilliance kicked in. I decided to solve his problem. I went on a drink-buying binge and bought him twenty-five different kinds of non-alcoholic drinks, one for every day of December, leading up to Christmas.A vast majority produced indifference, while only a few stood out as true winners.

Then there were the few outright epic fails. I won’t name brand names in order to protect the guilty, but one involved a cold-pressed juice with cucumber, spinach, kale, lemon juice, romaine, and apple. My dad has a stomach of steel, mind you, but he took one swig of that drink and practically snorted it out his nose. “That’s like drinking a bale of hay,” he said. The rest of the bottle promptly made its way down the drain without so much as a second sip.

As I reflected back on my dad’s twenty-five days of drinks, picturing his distorted facial features, I leafed through the pages of Scripture and found a group of people with a similar experience. But their drink of choice carried far more significant reminders than a bale of hay.

SIN LEAVES A BAD TASTE IN YOUR MOUTH

When the Israelite people, led by Moses, left behind 400 years of slavery and escaped from Egypt, they experienced the miracle of parted waters at the Red Sea, the provision of manna and quail from heaven, the delivery of the Ten Commandments, the precise blueprints for the tabernacle—one move of God after another. Even after all that, their appetites weren’t satisfied and their thirsts weren’t satiated.

While Moses was taking his sweet time up on the mountain with God, the Israelites down below cried out to Aaron, his brother: “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Ex. 32:1).

Aaron asked the people to give him all their gold, and “he took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool” (Ex. 32:4). And then the real fun began.

The next day, the people held a festival, rising early to sacrifice burnt offerings, present fellowship offerings, and indulge in basically every sort of sexual immorality imaginable. The people let loose, and the miracle of the parted Red Sea became a distant memory in light of the present pleasures.

Both Moses and God looked down from the mountaintop, witnessing the short-term memories and sin-filled sacrifices of the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and their anger burned. Moses eventually made his way down the mountain and "took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it” (Ex. 32:19-20).

Bottoms up, he told them. Cup your hands and start scooping. Drink long and slow and deep, and find out exactly what your sin tastes like. Feel that finely-ground gold wash across your lips, over your tongue, bumping into your taste buds along the way. Feel the grit between your teeth.

There’s nothing that burns your throat quite like the taste of your own sin. Moses knew it wouldn’t be enough for the people to simply tear down the calf and melt it into something else. They needed to ingest the very sin they were so determined to relish just hours before. They needed to know what idolatry tasted like so they never did it again. The fools were to drink the fools’ gold. So, drink up, he said. Drink down to the very last drop, let there not be a single speck of gold left in the waters.

I imagine their faces twisted and distorted with disgust much like my father. Sin always tastes disgusting when we are forced to drink it for ourselves.

ANOTHER CUP SET BEFORE US

That’s the way of sin, though, isn’t it? It seems enjoyable and harmless when we first set out. We rationalize it, justify it, defend it. A friend of mine used to preach sexual abstinence until she found herself giving her own purity away to a long-time boyfriend. After that, she repeatedly had sex outside of marriage with various different boyfriends and had a ready defense every time. She made no apologies, and after a while simply became desensitized to her own sin. Her rationale was that since she already crossed the line, she might as well keep going.

The Israelites did their own rationalizing. They exchanged the glory of God for a lie, and God gave them over to their sins in the same way we read about in Romans 1:21-24. He eventually gives us over to exactly what we want when we persist in our sins. A holy and righteous God can do no less. If sin is what we choose, then he will see to it that we freely drink of those sins.

But praise Jesus, there is another drink we can choose from, another source to satisfy our thirsts that does not involve finely ground gold.

“Then [Jesus] took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to [his disciples], saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you.  This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ ” (Matt. 26:27-28).

Drink from it—all of you—he said. Drink of his blood and find the sweetness of salvation instead of the sickness of sin. Drink of his blood and find the forgiveness of foolishness instead of the finality of flaws.

Jesus raised a glass to all that could be different for sinners like you and me. He raised a glass to the blood of the covenant, his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. The beauty of the gospel is we no longer have to live like the Israelites, grinding up our sins and pouring them into the waters to scoop up with our hands. We no longer have to walk around with twisted and distorted faces, forcing ourselves to down our bitter-tasting sins. We no longer have to make the exchange, giving up the truth of God for lies.

You have a choice: drink from the cup of your sins and feel the burn all the way down, or drink from the cup from which the precious blood of Christ was poured out and feel the burn of redemption all the way down. His cup overflows and never runs dry. It’s the cup that always satisfies, always quenches, always fills, always redeems, always forgives.

May the fools drink no more of the fools’ gold, but of the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

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Courtney Yantes spends her days as an event planner, coordinating events and conferences designed to inspire change and promote access for people with disabilities. She graduated from William Woods University with a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s in business administration. She enjoys blogging, traveling, and generally organizing anything she can get her hands on. She is a lover of all things Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and relishes a life free of social media accounts.