Elyse M. Fitzpatrick 5/13/18 Elyse M. Fitzpatrick 5/13/18

The Best Worst Day Ever

They had known him his whole life. As his aunt and uncle, they had watched him grow from a little boy into a man who had faithfully provided for his widowed mother and siblings. Then, as his public ministry began, they had followed him and had come to believe, however crazy the thought might seem, that their nephew, Jesus, was actually the Messiah, the One who would redeem Israel. But then the unthinkable happened. Right when they thought things were finally coming together, when Jesus had entered Jerusalem to songs of “Hosanna,” he had been betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed. The shock, fear, and grief that came crashing into their hearts would have been indescribable. Their dear nephew was dead. The Romans had done it again. Their nation would remain under their cruel oppressors.

And so, after a few days in hiding and mourning, when the Sabbath ended and they could travel, Cleopas and probably his wife, (another) Mary[i], began their journey home to Emmaus. It had been the worst weekend of their lives. But everything was about to change.

BURNING HEARTS

As they made the journey along the dusty road home, they were joined by a stranger. “What are you talking about?” he inquired. “Don’t you know what’s happened these last few days?” they answered.

They proceeded to describe how their dreams had been crushed beneath Rome’s heel. But then, as the stranger spoke to them, their hearts began to glow and then burst to flame again. Later they would say to their friends, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he . . . opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

What set them on fire? What changed them? The resurrection and their new understanding of the Scriptures.

That Jesus would have risen from the dead was completely unthinkable to them, even though they had actually heard stories from those who had seen the empty tomb, and even though he had foretold it. They simply didn’t have a category for understanding what had just happened. So Jesus had to open both the Scriptures and their understanding. And that’s just what he did, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). And as he did this, their hearts, once shattered, cold, and unbelieving, were set ablaze.

In one short conversation, Jesus explained the meaning of the Old Testament to them. Although they were certainly familiar with it and undoubtedly knew that it foretold a Messiah who would bring redemption, they had misread it. They had assumed the Christ would be a powerful king who would establish an earthly kingdom, exalting their nation and expelling their oppressors. They had misread all the stories about Abraham, Israel, Moses, David, and Daniel as being about them and their ultimate earthly success. And it was their misreading that caused their confusion and sadness. So he opened their eyes and they began to see.

Filled with excitement and joy, they made the journey back to Jerusalem and brought the news to the eleven disciples. And then, the Lord “stood among them” (Luke 24:36) and repeated the same conversation with the whole group. He “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).

IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS

What was the meaning of the Scriptures? What had Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms been about? They were actually about the gospel.

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47).

The entire corpus of the Old Testament was about the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the God-Man who would become one of us, live perfectly, die shamefully, then rise and ascend bodily. It was about mankind’s need for redemption, as seen over and over again in the epic failures of every one of its “heroes.” It was about the suffering that everyone deserved and the patience and forbearance of the Lord who had held out his hands to a disobedient and contrary people “all day long” (Rom 10:21). And it was about the child of the woman who would trample under and crush Satan, the tempter (See Gen. 3:15).

But how would this happen? Shockingly, it would happen through the suffering of the only One who didn’t deserve to suffer, the Sinless Son. As much as his disciples had believed that Jesus was the Christ, they had missed this message entirely.

ARE WE MISSING THE POINT?

And so do we. We miss the message when we try to turn the Bible into morality tales that tell us how to have our best lives now. Be like Moses! Dare to be a Daniel! we’re told. We miss the message when we use it like tarot cards, predicting our personal future: Should I move to Atlanta? What does this verse say? And we miss the message when we read the Bible as though we’re doing our algebra homework, so we can get a good grade from God for the day.

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are about Jesus, our need for redemption from sin, new life, and his mission supply all that we need. It demonstrates the truth that all people are fallen and in need of redemption from outside ourselves. And it shows us where that redemption comes from: the second Person of the Trinity who took upon himself our flesh and our debt, lived the life no one had ever lived, died the death we all deserved, and then broke the power of the curse of sin for disobedience by rising on the third day.

What turned the disciples’ worst day into their best? Nothing less than the gospel. And when we read it the way he taught them to, our hearts will blaze into zealous fire too!

Elyse Fitzpatrick is a frequent speaker at churches, retreats, and large conferences such as The Gospel Coalition and True Woman. She has an MA in biblical counseling from Trinity Theological Seminary and has authored 23 books on daily living and the Christian life and lives with her husband in San Diego, California. Learn more at www.elysefitzpatrick.com.

[i] http://www.jesus.org/death-and-resurrection/resurrection/who-were-the-disciples-on-the-road-to-emmaus.html

Brianna Lambert 5/8/18 Brianna Lambert 5/8/18

3 Ways Googling Hinders Your Growth and Your Church

Every day, I turn on my phone and scroll for wisdom. Sometimes it comes from friends that are friends in real life. Other times it comes from my carefully curated experts. There are some I go to for political analysis, and others for parenting advice. There are experts on theology, sexual abuse, and the commentators on racial division. They’re knowledgeable and instantly offer Biblical advice or encouragement.

But is this really what’s best for me or the church?

Not too long ago, if you had a parenting question you would call your mom. If you wanted a book recommendation, you would ask a friend, or if you had a question on a difficult passage of Scripture, you would wait to talk with your pastor or Bible study group.

Then the search bar arrived with its instant, reliable answers. The rise of social media makes the availability of information even faster as we can now turn to a host of people we have personally vetted to feed us answers. It is true that the internet is a wonderful tool in our day and age that enables us to gain wisdom and see the global church of Christ with incredible clarity. Still, there is an underlying danger when we start to use social media as our go-to for expert information. This pattern hinders not only our own growth but the growth of Christ’s church in several ways.

STEALING HUMILITY

One of the ways it hinders our growth is by robbing us of opportunities to learn through humility. When I’m in a tough spot with my young children, I’d rather send off a quick post to my homeschool group on Facebook than call an older mom in my church who has walked this path before me. I make all kinds of excuses, but in reality, I’d rather receive instant encouragement from strangers than become vulnerable and teachable in the community God has given me. The truth is it’s easier to turn to our friends on the internet for advice or even confess our sinful struggles because we do not live, worship, and learn alongside these saints each week. We feel safer and protected in our online bubbles, but our attempts to save face actually hinder our spiritual growth.

Often times the means of greatest growth and grace in our lives is not through the cheers of distant acquaintances, but through the humbling counsel of the people who know us the most. Of course, we can still use the internet for advice and even for friendships, but are there some conversations we aren’t having with saints in our local church because we fear to be vulnerable? Proverbs tells us that with humility comes wisdom (11:2), and three times in Scripture it is repeated that God gives grace to the humble (Prov. 3:34, Jas. 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:5, ESV). The cost of laying down our pride is worth the blessings of growth and grace we will receive in return.

THE BEAUTY OF THE BODY

Another way seeking all our answers online hinders our growth is by limiting our ability to see how the body of Christ works. There is a distinct difference in the way we feel the church through social media than through our local church down the road. I could ask my favorite author for a book recommendation, but their answer would not be as encouraging to me as when my pastor handed me a giant theology book and said, “Here you go, eat it one bite at a time.” While I have learned much from my favorite authors, they don’t know me like my pastor. He is the one who sees me each week and has heard my questions and what I’m passionate about. He knows how busy I am with three kids, which projects my family is working on, and he’s both challenging and encouraging me in a way that no far-off Christian writer ever could.

As brothers and sisters we are called to serve one another (1 Pet. 4:10, ESV), to encourage one another (Heb. 3:13, ESV), to teach one another, and to hold each other accountable (Col. 3:16, ESV). While these commands can be carried out on the internet, they begin and flourish in the local church.

What if along with racing to see those end-of-year book lists we stopped an elder and asked what book he recommends? What if we asked a godly teacher what reading plan she was going through? As we purposely take these questions to those around us, it blesses them as they are allowed to pour into us, while at the same time showing us the accountability of the body of Christ. No longer are we faceless avatars, but fellow laborers in our community. We assume the role of a saint who not only wants an answer but a chance to form deeper relationships in the body of Christ.

THE RISE OF CELEBRITY

Finally, seeking all our answers on our smartphones contributes to the Christian celebrity culture that continues to ravage the body of Christ. It’s easy to believe our favorite authors, the wittiest podcasters, or the famous pastors on our phones have it all together, that their words can be trusted the most. But the reality is that behind that screen they are the same, sinful, flawed, and gospel-needing people like those sitting next to us in the pews. We must remember it is not because of any special skill or importance that some are elevated, but it is because “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor. 12:18, ESV). Christ is the head, and he has made each member of the body in need of each other. Moreover, Paul tells us that the parts that seem weak are indispensable, and we should bestow the greatest honor on the parts which seem less honorable (v. 22, 23).

When we start to use our social media groups as our primary source of advice, we see Paul’s definition of the body of Christ upside down. We don’t see each other in desperate need of grace, but we instead elevate certain members and forfeit the value of the “lesser members” sitting next to us. This warped sense of the body of Christ feeds our own pride and eventually sets us up for crushing disappointment when any of our esteemed leaders show their faults. We can and should benefit from the wisdom of public leaders, but we must make sure to prioritize and esteem the local church members God has given us. When we do this, we protect not only ourselves, but also those very leaders in the public eye.

FINDING THE BALANCE

God is sovereign over the internet and our online relationships. We don’t need to pull the plug completely, but we do need to examine the balance we’re striking. There may be some tweets we shouldn’t send and some conversations we can wait to have face to face. In doing this, God strengthens not only our own congregation but the entire body of Christ.

Next time you’re tempted to ask your phone to function as your church, think of who in your church might be able to answer the same question.

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.

Sean Nolan 4/29/18 Sean Nolan 4/29/18

Repentance: The First Step Out of Racism

Martin Luther King Jr. famously pointed out that Sunday mornings are “the most segregated hour in America.” Sadly, this still rings true as most churches in the West are still predominantly monocultural, despite neighborhoods around them becoming more and more diverse. The church, as an outpost of Jesus’ coming kingdom here on earth, is supposed to be a reflection of that final heavenly state. Yet many looking in might observe an unspoken reality of segregation inside our churches and mistakenly think following Jesus results in relationships between a bunch of people with the same skin color.

Some denominations and networks even urge their leaders to follow a “homogenous unit principle” that teaches how to gather a church core based on cultural commonalities further perpetuating this problem. That may be a savvy method for growing a business, but it is a thoroughly unbiblical way to build a church. How do we allow the scales to fall off of our eyes in order to long for the multicultural beauty of heaven to be realized here in our midst on earth?

A good place to start is to take to heart the vision of heaven’s citizens as being comprised “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9), and then asking God to change our hearts to actually desire and work to see that reality in our churches.

FROM PRIVILEGE TO PEACE

Another Martin Luther kicked off the Reformation with these words: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

What place has repentance played in your spiritual journey? If it hasn’t played a central role, you might reconsider Jesus’ command to “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). This gospel says that apart from trusting in Christ’s death on your behalf and miraculous resurrection, the only thing you deserve is death and hell.

And if you’re white like me, the privilege you experience is a gift—not a right. What would it look like to humbly follow Jesus in casting aside your privilege to imitate him (Phil. 2:6-8) for the benefit of those “strangers” (Heb. 13:2^[1]) in minority cultures around you?

Martin Luther King Jr. noted that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Now, fifty years after his martyrdom, those words are just as true as they were then. If we don’t seek to end injustice for those of other cultures, it is a threat to the existence of justice in our own bubbles. All humans bear the imago dei, and injustice to any of them is an assault on that image.

Many of the unchurched folks in America are seeking answers to systemic racism and injustice that mark those in minority communities. God has revealed answers to these problems in Scripture and in the person of Christ, who broke “down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” and created “in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and [reconciling] us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph. 2:14-16).

Those in a position of power and privilege should initiate this ministry of peace and reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18).

UNITY IN BELIEF, DIVERSITY IN BELONGING

One day we will share God’s perspective. On that day we “shall know fully, even as [we] have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). We’re given insight into that perspective in Revelation, where the people of God’s prayers look much different than ours. There, God’s people long for him to purge sin from the earth entirely. The prayer of the martyrs:

“They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ ” (Rev. 6:10)

What’s remarkable about this passage is not that these martyrs are crying out for vengeance, but that they are doing so with one loud voice. Not many voices, but one—unified. They embody the “one man” of Ephesians 2 above.

These folks are with Jesus in paradise (Luke 23:43), and yet we are given a glimpse into their focus on the events transpiring on earth. They are eager for God to execute his vengeance on sin and injustice. So eager, in fact, that their pleas form one voice. So while we rate worship services based on what we get out of them, the saints in heaven are in solidarity that God’s wrath against wickedness and rebellion (which includes turning a blind eye to injustice) is an agenda item worthy of their fervent prayers.

If we sense a dissonance between our prayers and those of the saints in heaven, maybe that’s because we haven’t quite grasped that “network of mutuality” that exists between this earth and the new earth that is to come. Are we blind to injustice around us? Have we hunkered down in bunkers of believers to keep the world out? What kind of witness are we presenting to a world that is aching for reconciliation between races when the church—God’s proclamatory outpost—is silent on these matters?

LINKING THE LUTHERS

Jesus Christ came as the ultimate prophet in order to deliver us from ignorance. In recent months God has taken me on a personal journey in which he has opened my eyes to the injustice and pain of those in minority cultures. Having new insight into a topic to which I was formerly ignorant has burdened my conscience to share insights with others in majority cultures. It has also revealed places in which I myself have sins of a racial nature. God is gracious to forgive the repentant sinner and unite those who were formally hostile.

It may be uncomfortable to embrace, but the prayer for the earth to reflect heaven means striving for a diverse church. Uncomfortable? Absolutely. But violent? Never! And that’s where I see a huge link between the two Luthers.

Martin Luther the reformer understood that the church was to be comprised of a repentant people; a people that shun the ways of the world and its pride. He was adamant that the Civil Rights movement should be a peaceful one. He winsomely cast a broad vision in which black children played in harmony with white children. He knew his Bible, that’s where the vision came from. He was martyred for his zeal in proclaiming the coming peaceful kingdom.

What does it look like for us white folk to follow Martin Luther in repentance realizing our hands are not free from sin and blood? What does it look like for us to follow Martin Luther King, Jr. in seeking an end to injustice everywhere?

It’s easy to build a church on a “homogenous unit principle.” But any foundation other than Christ is sinking sand. The world is capable of imitating and building similar structures because they don’t require the work of the Spirit. The church that reflects heaven is a safe place for people of all backgrounds to belong because the only thing they will have in common is Christ.

When we agree on that, it will drive us to our knees to pray, be humbled, and welcome in those that are unlike us—because in our brokenness we have a lot more in common than we might see with worldly eyes. I’m praying for a Church in the West that reflects heaven: united in the belief that God saves sinners from his wrath, but diverse enough for all who believe to belong regardless of class or color.

^[1] The Greek word translated “strangers” is “xeno” the root of “xenophobia.”

Sean Nolan (B.S. and M.A., Clarks Summit University) was born and raised in Upstate New York where he is now returning to plant Engage Albany, a church in the heart of the capital. Prior to that, he served at churches in Troy and Maryland and taught hermeneutics. He and his wife, Hannah, are raising three kids: Knox, Hazel, and Ransom. You can read all of Sean’s articles here.

^[1] The Greek word translated “strangers” is “xeno” the root of “xenophobia.”

Zach Barnhart 4/22/18 Zach Barnhart 4/22/18

When Gospel-Centered Goes Too Far

Many in the church today live under the banner of “gospel-centered.” It’s in our Twitter bio. It’s in our books, our conferences, our worship. The phrase defines an entire philosophy of ministry. It even curates the content we consume—after all, you did visit Gospel-Centered Discipleship to read this.

When does gospel-centered, and all it represents, go too far? You might chafe under the notion that gospel-centeredness may not be the be-all and end-all of our lives and ministry, but allow me to explain.

THE FOREST AND THE TREE

One of the most haunting condemnations Jesus hands down is found in the Gospel of John. Jesus had just miraculously healed a disabled man, allowing him to walk again. When the man discovers that it was Jesus himself who made him well, he reports what happened to the Jews. They were furious at these reports and confronted Jesus, accusing him of performing these works on the Sabbath, which went against Jewish religious practice.

Jesus’ response only made them angrier: “My Father is still working, and I am working also” (John 5:17 CSB). Not only was Jesus working on the Lord’s Day, but now he was making himself equal to God! (John 5:18).

As the Jews derided and persecuted him, Jesus rebuked their inability to understand the point of it all. After exhorting the crowds, he stuns the Jewish leaders by saying, “You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40).

Jesus diagnosed their problem as being so consumed with the message that they missed the Messiah. Eugene Peterson paraphrases Jesus’ words this way: “You miss the forest for the trees!” The Jews were so concerned with the what of their faith that they failed to see the who behind it all.

And so we often do the same. We drive home the need to focus on Scripture as narrative, but sometimes forget to focus on the Protagonist. Less-than-careful preachers point their church to theology, and somehow, not to Christ. We walk through the forest and fail to notice the beauty of the one mighty Tree before us.

Gospel-centered goes too far when we miss the forest for the trees; when we’re so gospel-centered that we miss Jesus.

This is more than mere semantics. We must remind ourselves that the gospel is only something worth centering our lives on if, standing at the center of that gospel, is Jesus Christ. “He is before all things, and by him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Indeed, the news of the gospel is only good because of who it proclaims.

PREACHING CHRIST IN OUR GOSPEL

In his new book Spurgeon on the Christian Life, Michael Reeves observes that Charles Spurgeon felt compelled to say that he was preaching Christ, “because of how easily we reduce ‘the gospel’ or ‘the truth’ to an impersonal system.” Reeves notes that “Spurgeon saw theology much like astronomy: as the solar system makes sense only when the sun is central, so systems of theological thought are coherent only when Christ is central. Every doctrine must find its place and meaning in its proper relation to Christ.”

The book cites multiple excerpts of Spurgeon commending preaching Christ, including this one:

“Yes, it is Christ, Christ, Christ whom we have to preach; and if we leave him out, we leave out the very soul of the gospel. Christless sermons make merriment for hell. Christless preachers, Christless Sunday-school teachers, Christless class-leaders, Christless tract-distributors—what are all these doing? They are simply setting the mill to the grind without putting any grist into the hopper, so all their labour is in vain. If you leave Jesus Christ out, you are simply beating the air, or going to war without any weapon with which you can smite the foe.”

I appreciate the wide lens with which Spurgeon applies our need for preaching Christ, because this is not just a pastoral issue. Yes, preachers have an obligation to preach the same message—“Christ!”—every Sunday. But this is also true for the youth pastor, the children’s ministry worker, the elder or deacon, the layman.

This is not a call to abandon the “gospel-centered” banner. But it is a call to remember that standing at the core of our message is Christ—the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Yes, our biblicism and crucicentrism and conversionism and activism and all our other -ism’s are all fundamental to our gospel-centeredness. But each of these attitudes fall miserably short if Christ is not present and precious in all and through all.

KEEPING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING

If we believe that Christ belongs at the center of our solar system of faith, then we will see that he affects everything and holds all things together. Here are just a few implications of a faith focused on preaching Christ.

Preaching Christ affects how we read Scripture. Too often we limit discussion of Jesus to the New Testament, but as Jesus affirmed in John 5, the Old Testament is all about him, too. It’s more than a few passages here and there, like Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 53; the whole of the Old Testament is centered on the person of Christ. As Tim Keller reminds us, “Each genre and part of the Old Testament looks toward Christ and informs us about who he is in some way that the others do not.” The echoes of Christ ring through the hallways of Proverbs and Hosea and Exodus. The Old Testament is an unfolding of God’s redemptive plan, but rest assured, Christ is there throughout.
Preaching Christ affects how we pray. Prayer is one of the most personal tools we have to communicate with God, and when we remember our prayers are to a Person, we begin to speak as we ought. We do not pray to the abstract or the impersonal. We pray like a child of God showing love and crying out to his Father who hears him and takes notice.
Preaching Christ affects how we sing. When we gather for worship, it’s easy to sing about the gospel—that “Christ has died for us”—but which word do we emphasize? Too often, we emphasize for us, when it is Christ that should get the emphasis. A worship service focused on Christ will join together in songs that turn our eyes off of ourselves and onto Christ, helping us engage in more vital worship.
Preaching Christ affects how we serve. Serving because it’s part of the membership covenant is a poor reason to serve. Yes, the gospel’s good news compels us to live as servants of all, but a stronger motivator will always be our love for someone—namely Christ. May the gospel compel us to serve and live sacrificial lives, but may we be even more compelled to lay down our lives because of the Savior who did so for us.

To put it simply, what makes us Christian is Christ. We ought to keep the main thing the main thing. As Spurgeon quips, “If [Christ] be omitted, it is not the gospel…you are only inviting them to gaze upon an empty table unless Christ is the very centre and substance of all that you set before them.”

Continue to be gospel-centered, by all means. But as we invite people to the table, let’s not forget to invite the Guest of Honor.

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.

Scott Slayton 4/17/18 Scott Slayton 4/17/18

Put Down Your Phone, Pick Up Your Cross, and Follow Jesus

I am convinced that one of the greatest enemies of joyful living is our constant addiction to technology. Because we spend so much time staring at our phones, we don’t have the productivity at our jobs that we should, we don’t spend enough time outside, we ignore our spiritual disciplines, and we spend too much of the time that we spend with people staring at our phones.

This year, I have worked through several books that address this issue. The book that has had the most influence on my thinking about technology this year is Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Georgetown Associate Professor of Computer Science Cal Newport. This book changed the way I think about my work and, as I continue to reflect on the book, my walk with the Lord.

THE DEEP WORK OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

Newport argues that deep work, work which requires hours of focused concentration, is increasingly rare and valuable in our culture. The type of concentration we need to do good work is difficult because we are living in a distracted world.

If distraction makes work difficult, how much more difficult does it make our spiritual lives? We struggle to spend time in our Bibles because of our distractions, our minds wander when we are in prayer, and we find corporate worship difficult because the forty-minute sermon is longer than our declining attention spans can handle.

If we struggle to develop our walk with the Lord because we spend most of our time distracted by shallow things, can we adjust our lives and eliminate distractions? Yes, I think so. Here are 5 tips for following Jesus in a distracted world.

CULTIVATE A DEEP WALK THROUGH TIME IN HIS WORD

Yes, every post about growing spiritually begins with a discussion about time in the Bible. I make no apologies for this and don’t intend to amend my practice anytime soon. We need God’s word. The Bible’s own testimony about itself shows how desperately we need it. Moses spoke of the man not living by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus quoted this passage during his temptations in the wilderness. The psalmist describes the Bible as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

What if you committed to going to bed twenty minutes earlier so you can wake up to read God’s Word before you start your day? How much different would your walk with the Lord be if, over the course of a month, you spent almost ten hours basking in the glow of God’s beautiful Bible?

You only have to do two things to make it happen: put down your phone or turn off the TV so you can go to sleep earlier, and do not grab your phone first thing in the morning when you wake up. Instead, work on the discipline of not looking at your phone or turning on the TV until you have set your heart upon the Word of God.

When you read the Bible, make sure you are paying close attention to it. Most of us have slaughtered our attention spans, so do whatever you have to do to make sure that your head is in the game when you are reading. Read with a pencil and journal in your hand so you can jot down notes or underline things that strike you. Do everything you can to get into God’s Word and do not walk away from it until you have allowed it to bear down on your heart.

CULTIVATE A DEEP WALK THROUGH TIME IN PRAYER

If we think our minds wander during a sermon, it is nothing compared with how they wander when we’re praying. In prayer, we commune with the God who made the whole world and gave his Son to bring us back to him. What should capture our attention more than that?

You must devise strategies that will help you have laser-like focus. First, do not think of Bible reading and prayer as two separate and unrelated activities. Instead, look at one as feeding the other. I recommend finding at least one thing in your Bible reading that can jumpstart your prayer time. Did you see sin that you need to confess? Did you read a promise that you need faith to believe? Was there a command that you need help obeying?

Also, use a journal or a list when you pray. This can be a list of people you are praying for and of things going on in your own life that you need to bring before the Lord. You may want to write out your prayers while you say them so you stay engaged and your mind does not wander. In addition, when you do this you can read over your prayers years later and be encouraged by how the Lord has been at work.

You may wonder where you will “find” the time to do this. You will not “find” the time. Life does not work that way. You must make time by ruthlessly cutting out things that are of little or no importance so you can make time for things that are of supreme importance.

CULTIVATE A DEEP WALK BY MAKING TIME FOR PEOPLE

We experience an interesting paradox in the digital age: we are connected to more people in more places than ever, yet we are lonelier than ever. Very little of the time we spend connected to others takes place in face-to-face conversations, around the dinner table, or working together on a shared project. Unfortunately, we spend much of our time in the presence of other people looking at our own screens.

When we function like this, we miss many of the blessings of following Jesus. When you are reading the New Testament, look carefully at every occurrence of the words “one another.” Can we experience the value of true Christian community while we sit in our homes and stare at a phone? Of course not! The one another passages beckon us out of our cocoons and into real life with other people. When we do this, we get the blessing of being an encouragement to them and experience them being a blessing to us.

In community, we discover areas where we struggle with sin and need to grow. When we walk with others, we learn where we are deceiving ourselves and where we have blind spots. While this sounds like bad news, it is actually a great grace to us. Through seeing our sins in community, we can repent and grow with the help of other believers. We are not on our own in the struggle. Maybe some of the powerlessness in our own personal walk with the Lord and in the witness of our churches comes from our neglecting time with each other.

CULTIVATE A DEEP WALK BY MAKING TIME FOR CORPORATE WORSHIP

There was a time in the life of American Christianity when we measured our involvement in the local church by how many times we were engaged each week. Now we measure it by how many times we attend in a month. I have no desire to return to the days when something was going on at the church building every night of the week. It was not healthy, and we did not give people enough time to spend with their families and neighbors.

But we have gone way too far in the other direction. When you consider that we are being discipled by the world every day, worship with the church twice a month is not sufficient to grow as a believer. How can we grow when we are neglecting the means God has given to help us grow?

If you have so much going on in your life that you are too tired to worship with the church on Sunday, cut something out. If you are too busy to do what God has commanded, you are too busy. Make time for the Sunday worship gathering. Allow nothing but providential hindrances to come in the way. When you come into worship, bring a physical copy of the Bible, turn off your phone, talk to the people around you, and completely engage in worship with the body.

Your time in worship will be more beneficial. You will discover that while one sermon may not change your life, repeated exposure to God’s Word week after week will. You will find that you learn those songs you claim not to know when you sing them more often. The people you say you never see will become more familiar to you. Partaking in communion more often will not cheapen its meaning but will make it a vital means of grace in your life.

CULTIVATE A DEEP WALK BY KNOWING WHAT IS TRULY IMPORTANT

Although I wrote the first draft of this on a typewriter, this has not been a screed against technology. Technology is a good thing when it is a tool that we use. It becomes dangerous when it is something that is using us.

We must learn to be master of these tools and not their slaves. So, we must reacquaint ourselves with the things in our lives that matter most. We need to give them the priority they are due so we can cultivate a walk with the Lord that goes deeper than we have ever gone before.

A while back, my doctor told me that I need to lose weight. Since she ended her speech to me with “and I’ll be praying for you,” I’m assuming she was serious. Waking up at 4:30 a.m. to work out has not been fun, and I wish I could eat more chocolate, but after a month I feel better, have more energy, and my clothes fit better. It has been worth it.

In the same way, putting down our devices at night and getting to bed earlier will not be easy. Cutting down on our weekend activities means saying “no” to things we would like to say “yes” to. However, we find that in saying “no” to mundane things, we get to say “yes” to things that things that are better and more beautiful.

Being dazzled by God’s Word is better than being entertained by one more show on Netflix or one more scroll through your Facebook news feed. The encouragement from time in prayer before the Father is infinitely better than bathing in social media gossip. The correction or encouragement of a Christian friend to your face is worth way more than hundreds of likes from people you never see.

When we cultivate a deep walk with the Lord, we are not denying ourselves the best things in life—we are cutting out things that bring no lasting satisfaction so we can have the infinite and lasting joy that only God can give.

Scott Slayton (M.Div., SBTS) serves as Lead Pastor at Chelsea Village Baptist Church in Chelsea, Alabama. Scott and his wife Beth have four children: Hannah, Sarah Kate, Leah, and Matt. He regularly writes at his personal blog One Degree to Another.

Justin Huffman 4/1/18 Justin Huffman 4/1/18

Why the Resurrection is No April Fools' Prank

It was only a matter of time before they were caught. You can’t hide 5,000 people believing in Christ. Peter and John, sore from spending the night in jail, were shoved into the presence of the rulers and scribes. The members of the high-priestly family stood. The crowd hushed.

“By what power or by what name did you do this?”

The question hung in the air. Everyone expects them to say, “Jesus”—but would they do so in the face of beatings, and maybe even death?

Peter rises to his feet, surveying the scene. Then it happens again—the promised Spirit fills him for the task at hand. Unsure of what he’s about to say, he opens his mouth in faith and declares,

“This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

These words were offensive then—and they’re offensive now.

AN EXCLUSIVE CLAIM

Do you find Peter’s claim of exclusive salvation through Jesus Christ alone offensive? How could he make such a bold claim?

Flavius Josephus (37-97 AD), a defected Jew turned court historian for Emperor Vespasian, is quoted in AD 324 by Eusebius, and speaks of “Jesus, a wise man” who was condemned to the cross and then “appeared to them alive again the third day.” Belief in this Jesus turned the Roman empire upside down in just a few years.

But it wasn’t merely belief in Jesus that propelled the movement; it was a belief in his life, death, and—most importantly—his resurrection from the dead that was the chief apologetic of the early church.

We see this exclusive claim of salvation in Christ over and again in the New Testament. In Acts 4:10, Peter made his claim for the exclusivity of Christ largely based on the resurrection of Christ: “Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.” Similarly, Paul on Mars Hill contended that “[God] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

The apostles continually referenced the resurrection as their chief argument for the truth of Jesus’ claims.

A SIGNIFICANT CLAIM

Why is the resurrection of Christ so significant? Because Christianity stands or falls on the truth of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:14-17). The resurrection also reveals that Christ has the power to raise us from the dead (John 11:25-26). Third, it confirms the validity of Christ’s teachings about his own deity.

Because a real man Jesus rose from the dead, he proved his own claim to divinity, sealed the salvation he promised to purchase, and now demands that we trust and submit to him.

Philosopher and broadcaster C.E.M. Joad was once asked who he would most want to interview if he could choose anyone from all of history. He chose Jesus and said that he wanted to ask him the most important question in the world: “Did you, or did you not, rise from the dead?”

The resurrection, more than any religious claim, is investigable and therefore verifiable because it is a historical—not a philosophical—claim. And if it is true, it has universal implications.

The resurrection is the foundation of Christianity: if Jesus were dead, the church of Jesus would be speechless, powerless, and pointless. Yet we find in history that a handful of devastated Apostles frenzied the first century with the message that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. They gave their lives for this message—a message, we must not forget, they would know to be true or not.

These men—the ones who heard the hammers crush nine-inch nails through Jesus’ bones, saw the spear pierce his lifeless flesh, and watched the corpse of Christ be removed from the cross—were convinced of the resurrection. They weren’t giving their lives for some dogma, but for the man they knew and loved named Jesus, who they saw, touched, and talked with after his horrible and humiliating death.

A SPECIFIC CLAIM

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is recorded in all four gospels—the same divine, multi-faceted, unified truth is presented from different, harmonious perspectives. A summation of these accounts is found in the ancient Christian creed (probably from about 37 A.D.) in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.

These gospel writers, as representatives of early Christianity, make clear their assertion: the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a predicted, bodily, historical event.

Jesus’ resurrection was predicted in the Old Testament, centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. In the messianic Psalm 16, David speaks prophetically: “You will not abandon my soul … or let your holy one see corruption” (v. 10). In the New Testament, Jesus explained to his disciples before his death that he would rise from the dead: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matt. 16:21).

Jesus’ predictions were so well known that even his enemies were aware he planned to rise from the dead (see Matt. 27:63). Jesus’ resurrection was prophesied hundreds of years before his birth, and in the days immediately preceding his death.

Jesus’ resurrection was also a bodily resurrection. The New Testament makes it plain that Jesus literally and physically rose from the grave. Thomas was able to put his finger into Jesus’ nail-prints and feel the spear-wound in his side (John 20:27). Luke tells us that, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to his frightened disciples in a locked room, he invited them to handle his body, and then ate in front of them to assure them it was him and not just a spirit (24:36-43).

Christ’s resurrection was also historical. This was no April Fools' Day prank. As we’ve already seen, it is referenced by numerous Christian and non-Christian historical sources. Christianity is not based on a myth or fairytale.

AN INVESTIGABLE CLAIM

The evidence for the resurrection is plentiful. First, there is the empty tomb. If the tomb were full, no one would have believed the disciples’ testimony. The Jews would certainly have produced the body if they could have and silenced the apostles. However, they couldn’t, and subsequently, we see Christianity explode around the known world in (historically speaking) no time at all.

Second, the eyewitness testimony of the apostles (John 20:19-20; 1 Pet. 3:18-21; Matt. 28:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:3-8) verifies Jesus’ resurrection. Three of these four witnesses died for their testimony, and all of them suffered for it.

Third, the Sabbath was changed to Sunday by devout Jews. The only reason such a ground-shift in a centuries-long tradition would occur is if something tremendous and extraordinary—a sign from God—had taken place.

Finally, consider the remarkable growth of the church. The early church—against great opposition, persecution, and rejection—grew by leaps and bounds in the first century. This can only be explained by some incontrovertible evidence, especially as many of their converts (e.g. Saul of Tarsus, better known as the Apostle Paul) came from among their enemies.

Despite all of this, you may still be skeptical of—or indifferent to—the evidence for and implications of the resurrection of Jesus. The gospel writers, as am I, are sympathetic to the doubting or struggling investigator. In fact, the disciples themselves were slow to believe. But once they were convinced, they became irrepressibly inspired.

In the resurrected Christ, even the skeptic may find the confirmation he or she needs in order to turn to Jesus. Truly, there is salvation in no one else; his is the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.

The resurrected Jesus has the power to escape a sealed tomb and enter a locked room. If you are a skeptic, may he enter the locked room of your heart and bring you out of unbelief. And may you find yourself, like the Apostles and millions of others, irrepressibly inspired to tell others about the poor, wandering rabbi from Nazareth who came not to serve, but to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for many—including you.

Justin Huffman has pastored in the States for over 15 years, authored the “Daily Devotion” app (iTunes/Android) which now has over half a million downloads, and recently published a book with Day One: Grow: the Command to Ever-Expanding Joy. He has also written articles for For the Church, Servants of Grace, and Fathom Magazine. He blogs at justinhuffman.org.

Jonathan Dodson 3/27/18 Jonathan Dodson 3/27/18

How the Resurrection Reshapes Success and Regret

The Discovery is a 2017 film about a scientist who makes a find so significant it drastically alters the world. He discovers brain waves continue to emit from the mind after a person is dead. What’s so significant about that? It’s scientific proof of an afterlife. Somehow, someway, the deceased’s brain continues to function after their heart has stopped.

People respond by committing suicide, millions of them, all around the world. Why? With definitive proof of an afterlife, they now have hope for a better life. They don’t have to linger in loneliness or struggle with cancer. All they have to do is pull the trigger, and they can be reunited with their loved ones.

If you had definitive proof of an afterlife, how would you respond? If you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you’d enter another life after you die, what would you do? Would you pull the trigger?

PULLING THE TRIGGER

St. Paul also made a powerful discovery that radically altered history. He encountered a person from the other side, the resurrected Christ, and came to believe that Jesus was not only raised from the dead, but all who hope in him will be raised to eternal life.

But his response was different. Instead of taking his life, he gave his life. Instead of leaping to find what’s on the other side, he transformed his life on this side. You could say he “pulled the trigger” on his old life, and his old life wasn’t too shabby.

He formerly went by Saul and, according to the standards of Judaism, Saul was no slacker. He was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil. 3:5). In other words, he wasn’t a newbie in the faith; he was circumcised so early he was raised in the faith. And of all the ethnicities in the world, he was from the chosen people. And out of all of Israel, he was from a special tribe, the tribe that furnished Israel with their very first king. Saul had a great pedigree, but he had even more.

His zeal eclipsed many of his contemporaries, aligning him with some of Israel’s greats (Moses, Elijah, Phineas). An expert in the Law, Saul was esteemed by many. You might say he was the Steve Jobs of Judaism, with a passion for perfection to go with it. Saul arrested and persecuted Christians who perverted his Jewish faith. No one questioned his commitment, until his encounter with the risen Christ.

Then something switched, and his zeal ran toward Christ in a life of hopeful self-denial. He traveled unreliable roads and weathered seas throughout the Mediterranean to share the good news about Jesus, all while living off of his tent business and the support of friends. He wrote letters to struggling churches, and his writings eventually comprised half the New Testament. Along the way, he encountered misunderstanding, ridicule, rejection, prison, flogging, and even shipwreck. Yet he persisted. Why? The resurrection of Jesus had radically changed his notion of success.

REDISCOVERING SUCCESS

If you’ve been around successful people, you know how suddenly small and insignificant it can make you feel. A tiny voice pops into your head and starts interrogating you. What have you accomplished? What do you have to show? Why is that?

Sociologist Ernest Becker says it’s a response to death. Sensing our ephemeral nature, we create what he calls “immortality projects.” We might get a higher degree, establish a family, start a business, engage in philanthropy, or take a selfie, all in an attempt to avert death. We’re haunted by questions like, “What will people think about me after I die? What will they say at my funeral? Will anyone remember me?”

Becker says this undeniable impulse is an attempt to deny death. To construct a way for us to live on, long after we are gone. Paul comes along and puts a gun to his immortality project when he says, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ (Phil. 3:7–8). Resurrection fundamentally alters the meaning of success.

Paul looks back at all his accomplishments and describes them as loss—three times he uses the word. What would compel a person of his stature to throw shade on his success? Christ. Each time he mentions loss, he pairs it with a gain: loss for the sake of Christ, loss because of the surpassing worth of Christ, counting achievement as rubbish to gain Christ.

The word surpassing means “above the mark.” He’s saying when I stack my accomplishments next to Jesus, they can’t even see him. The risen Christ is so good he’s off the scale, valuable beyond measure. By comparison, my accomplishments are rubbish.

Instead, success is this: “knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection” (3:10). It’s knowing the one who holds all things together, the God who swallows death, the rider on the white horse who will judge the quick and the dead, the King of a renewed creation. Knowing him is the greatest discovery—ever. And when you’ve got the greatest thing, you can live without a lot of things.

GLORY IN REGRET

Eventually, the scientific crew working on the “the discovery” realizes the post-mortem brain signals are actually connected to episodes of a person’s past, not to an afterlife. When they convert the waves into images, they observe the episodes actually are moments of regret in a person’s life. Unknowingly, the suicides are waking up, not to a circle of loved ones but moments of intense regret. The central character gets stuck in a loop trying to prevent the suicide of a woman he loves.

Faith in Jesus, however, does not lead to an eternal loop of regret. Rather, to borrow a phrase from C. S. Lewis, it allows heaven to work backward. The meaning, love, joy, and goodness of heaven are transported back into the heart through union with Christ, which helps us weather things like loneliness and cancer.

Of course, our experience of heaven working backward is uneven. We are, after all, still on earth so to speak. And once we reach heaven, Lewis notes that even a past agony, and I’ll add even a regret, will turn into a glory. Why? Because that old pain will serve to intensify the present, everlasting comfort of Christ’s nail-scarred hands. Our regret will be faint, but a vivid reminder of the grand discovery—the remarkable mercy of Christ, who rose to forgive and renew all things.

Jonathan K. Dodson (M.Div, Th.M) is the founding pastor of City Life Church in Austin, TX which he started with his wife, Robie, and a small group of people. They have three children. He is also the founder of GCDiscipleship.com and author of a number of books including Gospel-Centered Discipleship, and Here in Spirit: Knowing the Spirit who Creates, Sustains, and Transforms All Things (IVP, 2018).

Christy Britton 3/25/18 Christy Britton 3/25/18

Mad for Basketball, Foolish for Christ

March Madness is upon us. My husband spends hours teaching our boys the art of bracketology. My boys' work ethic displayed through perfecting their brackets is inspiring. Why can’t they apply this passion to their geometry homework? As a mother of four sons, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that any plans I had to engage in a non-basketball-related conversation have been rescheduled for April. During this time of year, my house is overrun with cheering, shouting, and surprises. Whoever decided to call the NCAA Tournament season March Madness rightly understood its effect on basketball fans.

With my free time this March, I’m wondering about madness as it relates to faith. Madness can be defined as, “extremely foolish behavior.” Usually, that’s not a good thing, but March turns that expectation on its head. (And sometimes that madness turns the bowl of Doritos on the floor after a buzzer-beater—but that’s another matter.)

We accept the cultural norm of going a little crazy over basketball, or any sport really, but forget to be enthusiastic about the kingdom of God. Imagine the kingdom-impact of millions of zealous people united in Christ to advance the gospel.

The end of March presents an opportunity for sports enthusiasts to go a little mad. Every day presents an opportunity for the church to be known for our madness for the Lord.

MISSIONS MADNESS

According to Joshua Project, of the almost 7.5 billion people in the world, only about ten percent claim to be evangelical Christians. Three billion live among unreached people groups. Ninety percent of the world is lost, and many of them live in countries hostile to the gospel. What does this mean for the church? It means we need more madness for evangelism.

We have been entrusted with the most significant mission of all time. We are commissioned to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19). We are gospel-advancers; the gospel doesn’t advance when we retreat. We must go.

We must reject the assumption that someone else will go. Why not us? We need to embrace the unfamiliar for the sake of the gospel. We may need to abandon the comforts of our current zip code so others may know an eternal home in heaven.

We can’t be casual about advancing the gospel. We must passionately combat the darkness with the light. We must get a little crazy about evangelism.

DISCIPLE-MAKING MADNESS

Making disciples starts with making converts, but it doesn’t end there. It continues with the work of discipleship—teaching followers of Christ how to obey his Word (Matt. 28:20).

Particularly in America, we’ve bought into an individualistic theology. I stay out of your business and you stay out of mine. We have compartmentalized our faith to the point that it serves as mere window-dressing to our lives. However, obedience to God’s command to make disciples requires us to be fully invested in one another. We must come alongside each other, helping one another understand what it means to follow Christ.

We depend on one another to point out blind spots, to hold us accountable, to instruct us in the Word, to champion us in our pilgrimage. We must reject the temptation to isolate ourselves from the Christian community. We must seek out spiritual siblings to walk with, discipling one another as we go. We harm each other when we let sin go unchecked in our lives. As believers, we are our brother’s keeper.

Our younger siblings in the faith are counting on us to teach them how to be mad for Christ. In the same way a junior on the team can help a rookie get up to speed with how things work on and off the court, how we lead those younger in the faith than us matters. We need passionate teachers. We need to get a little crazy about discipleship.

WORSHIP MADNESS

We advance the gospel and make disciples because our God is worthy of the worship of the nations. “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord” (Ps. 150:6).

One of my favorite things about my local church is our celebration of the gospel through baptism. New believers share their story of deliverance from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of Christ (Col. 1:13). One of our elders immerses them in water. They rise from the water to thundering applause.

I'm not talking about a polite clap. We shout. We hoot and holler. We whistle. We cry. We celebrate the expansion of the kingdom of Christ and the destruction of our enemy. It gets a little crazy.

Scripture offers a great example of a man whose celebration of the Lord looked a little mad. As the ark of the covenant was brought to Jerusalem, David “danced before the Lord with all his might” (2 Sam. 6:14). When he was confronted by his wife about his embarrassing behavior, his response was, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this” (2 Sam. 6:21-22).

“Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3). Our God is awesome and worthy of praise. Let’s go a little crazy in our worship.

GOSPEL-CENTERED MADNESS

Imagine a world where every follower of Christ displayed signs of madness for our King. What if we, like Paul, could describe ourselves as, “fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Cor. 4:10)?

If you think a sixteen-seed beating a one-seed team is wild, imagine telling your friends and extended family that you’re moving to Bangladesh to plant a church.

Imagine a small group inviting local refugees into their weekly gatherings to help them transition into our culture and expose them to kingdom-culture. Imagine a people whose free time wasn’t spent on Netflix but in prayer.

Imagine teenagers more concerned with their friends knowing the Lord than knowing the latest app. Imagine college graduates taking their skills to the 10/40 window to live as missionaries. Imagine older saints who understood that retirement doesn’t apply to kingdom work.

Imagine local churches concerned with building God’s kingdom and not their own buildings. Imagine small groups that heard words of confession and petition instead of gossip.

Imagine families that invite new neighbors over to share more than just lasagna—to share the life-giving bread of the gospel. Imagine parents that train their children to be faithful witnesses, not just committed soccer players.

Imagine being the people who forego the feast of our day to fast for the nations to know the gospel.

ARE YOU MAD FOR THE LORD?

The world watches us get excited over many things—sports, politics, food, entertainment. How often do they see us get excited about the kingdom of God?

When was the last time you were foolish for Christ? How long has it been since you engaged in disciple-making? Let’s not fool ourselves. Disciples make disciples. God is glorified when we are foolish for his sake, not when we are just fools.

I’ll probably get caught up in the excitement of upsets and buzzer-beating three-pointers as my guys enjoy watching basketball over the next few days. But my prayer is that my life will display madness for the gospel, zeal for the church, and foolishness for the name of Christ.

Our zeal for the kingdom should be evident to all. We don’t need to hide our excitement; we need to embrace it, flaunt it. March proves we have a capacity for craziness. Let’s redirect that capacity and apply it to advancing the kingdom of God.

Christy Britton is a wife, homeschool mom of four biological sons, and soon-to-be mom of an adopted Ugandan daughter. 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.

Jen Oshman 3/11/18 Jen Oshman 3/11/18

Is Hospitality Your Mentality?

Our house was always open. People were always in and out. Chunks of concrete from our tropical storm-ravaged roof were always falling. We were young. We had children and were adopting another. It was hot. Large bugs and even larger lizards lived right alongside us. Among those insects and reptiles, we were learning how to make disciples.

It was chaos. It was sacred.

MILITARY MISSION

When I was twenty-five, my husband and I packed up our six-month-old baby girl and two 50-pound suitcases and moved to Okinawa, Japan. We went as missionaries to the American military stationed there.

Our job was to live in a large home right outside the base and welcome in-service members and their families for meals, holidays, game nights, and Bible studies.

Every Friday, a handful of military wives and I cooked dinner for a hundred and my husband preached. The Holy Spirit moved. People got saved. Marriages were mended. Men and women walked with Jesus like they never had before.

BIG, EMPTY HOMES

We moved back to the States two years ago. People in our neighborhood come home at night and pull into their garage, close the door, and disappear inside. Many of us see our homes as our refuge; our oasis; our fortress of solitude.

Rather than opening and sharing our homes, the current American Dream is that each family member has his or her own room, their own screen, and their own bathroom. The typical American home built in the 1950s was 1,700 square feet, while in 2017 it was 2,600 square feet. Our homes are larger and nicer—but there is less life within.

We know this solitary way of living isn’t good for us. Research^[1] shows that my own hometown of Denver is among the loneliest places to live. People are moving here in droves—by the hundreds of thousands every year. Transplants want the outdoor lifestyle, the great weather, the young and active population, the hip places to eat, work, and play.

But they get here, move into their homes, and find not a place of belonging, but of loneliness. My trendy city is one of the loneliest places in America; Denver residents report feeling relationally empty and lacking purpose.

MADE FOR COMMUNITY, CALLED TO HOSPITALITY

This is not the way it's supposed to be. God created us for community. His grand plan since the first days of creation was that we humans would commune with him and with one another. The Lord made a home in the Garden of Eden—a place of hospitality, where his people could gather and be satisfied. When Adam was alone, God said it wasn’t good (Gen. 2:18). He made Eve and told the new couple to multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28).

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we see the Lord calling his people to welcome in the foreigner, the stranger, the neighbor, the brother and sister in Christ (Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:19; Matt. 25:34-36; Mark 12:31; Heb. 13:2). Our God is a welcomer. Loneliness is not his will—it’s not his nature. Christ-followers have been commanded to gather in their homes to share meals and conversation. When we welcome others into our homes for a meal, we are modeling what life was like when our God welcomed us into his dwelling and we ate and were satisfied, communing together with one another.

Paul says, “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Rom. 12:13). Peter says to do so without grumbling (1 Pet. 4:9). The church models its welcoming Lord by being hospitable. Hospitality is of such importance that church elders “must be hospitable” (Titus 1:8). God lays upon church leaders the need to live open-handedly with their homes and resources.

We’re all called to do it, so why don’t we?

We think our house isn’t big enough, our kids are too crazy, we don’t know how to cook, people don’t do that anymore; it’s weird, they’ll think we’re selling something. Or maybe we think it sounds too simple. We’re looking for a professional way of doing hospitality; for the latest three-point strategy to love our neighbors and get them saved.

But all of this misses the point.

SHARING THE GOSPEL—AND OUR LIVES

Back in Okinawa, the missionary who lived in the “Hospitality House“ before us hand-painted a sign that hung in the main gathering space. The sign read, “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thess. 2:8, NIV).

Sharing the gospel results in sharing life. The gospel compels us to love our Lord so much that we can’t help but see others the way he does. And if we love others, we’ll share not only our faith with them—but our lives as well.

May it not be said of us who live in big, empty homes that we don’t love enough! May it not be said of us who dwell in solitary apartments that we don’t actually believe God when he says hospitality is important! May it not be said of any of us that we don’t resemble Jesus in the way we use our home.

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” (Phil. 2:6-7)—is the ultimate welcomer, the preeminent host who left heaven, walked with us, and invited us to sit at the table with his Father. It was Jesus the Thessalonians were emulating when they shared the gospel and their lives. It was Jesus who loved us so much that he was delighted to share with us not only the gospel of God, but also his life and death and resurrection!

As Christ followers, may we be like Jesus. May we be like the Thessalonians. May we love those around us so much that we share not only the gospel of God, but our lives—including our homes—as well. May we lay down our lives, lay down our personal space, lay down our homes, lay down our kids‘ playroom, lay down our quiet nights on the couch, and invite others inside.

HOSPITALITY WORKS

There is power in hospitality. It works. My heart fills with joy when I think of the many young men who ate dinner with us, who were drawn to Christ through us, who couldn’t resist the powerful grace of him who sent us. My inbox is filled daily with updates from women who once were lost, but now are found because of time spent around our dinner table; women whose marriages were ravaged but are now whole; women who pondered abortion but then chose life; women who had walked without Jesus for years but are now raising their kids in him!

If hospitality works on a far-off island in a crumbling concrete home, amongst lizards and young adults who don’t really know how to cook yet, I assure you God will work through hospitality right where you live.

Who lives on your street or in your building or in your dorm that would be blessed by an invitation for coffee-and-donuts at your table this Saturday morning? Who could you share lunch with at work? Is there a family your kid plays soccer with that might enjoy hot dogs on your grill after practice? How about asking that new single at church to lunch this Sunday?

Hospitality isn’t flashy. People can be loved well in the ordinary chaos of life. It simply requires laying down your life and inviting others in. It’s what Jesus did, and it’s what he’s asking—and empowering—us to do, right where we live.

^[1] https://www.denverite.com/denver-metro-ranked-last-colorado-well-way-behind-boulder-31344/

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.

Elaine Storkey 3/8/18 Elaine Storkey 3/8/18

How the Gospel Confronts Violence Against Women

There's a gap between who we were created to be and how most of us live. Theology identifies that gap.

The consequences of that gap hang over much of history and international relations: institutionalized in structures of exploitation and greed, entombed in militarism and war. They are also manifest in atrocities against women.

A theology of personhood identifies our failure as the product of ‘sin’ – a word that has little to do with sex, and everything to do with human responsibility. Sin is described in biblical language as "transgression," or "rebellion against God." In more simple terms, it is a violation of our calling to live within the moral contours of love, which emanates from God.

SIN CORRODES LIFE AND LOVE

Sin breaks the integrity of our human identity as persons in relationship. Its complexity affects so much of our lives. Sin is alienating—it cuts us off from others, ourselves, and God. It is destructive—it tears down and devastates, never builds up. It is distortive—it changes truth into half-truth, untruth and complete lies, so we don’t know what to believe.

Sin is delusory; we live with denial, fool ourselves, and learn self-justification. It is addictive, gripping our lives, creating destructive habits which we cannot do without. It is generational, passing down the lines to third and fourth generation. It is societal, embedding itself in political, economic and social structures which hold sway over others.

When sin corrupts those who have power, the effects on the powerless can be overwhelming, leaving them dehumanized and objectified. The Congolese woman whose sexual organs were mutilated by her gun-touting rapist described the attack as one of "hatred." She was right. The Bangladeshi woman, hit by the police for not going back to the husband who threw acid on her, said it was "evil." She was right too.

Sin eliminates love and fuels loathing. Unless we recognize its power, we cannot repel it. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed in The Gulag Archipelago, the line "dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." Sin’s unleashed power destroys those who wield it, as well as those who are its victims. Like Bhasin’s comment about rape, there are no winners. But the losses are incalculable.

At a far deeper level than "biology" or "culture", then, "sin" helps us explain the ubiquity of violence against women. We are responsible. Patriarchal structures are a product of human choice and attitudes; oppression and brutality are rooted in the power sin exercises in human communities.

A Christian theology of sin places accountability for attitudes, culture, and actions firmly on human shoulders; we have to own what we create.

THEOLOGY THAT MOVES BEYOND SIN

Thankfully, this doesn’t leave us with the hopelessness of a doomed humanity. The Christian faith is built on the solid conviction that sin does not have the last word. We are not stuck forever in a defeating spiral of abuse and violence. A theology of human personhood moves beyond sin to a theology of salvation.

Feminist theologians rightly caution against metaphors of salvation that concentrate solely on violence. In fact, in biblical terms, many metaphors are offered with different nuances, yet all focus on Christ. "Penal substitution" is a legal metaphor—Christ taking the punishment we deserve; "redemption" is an economic one, drawing on the notion of Christ’s ransom, or price paid to redeem slaves. "Sacrifice" reaches back to religious practices of death for sin in the Hebrew Scriptures; "healing" is a medical metaphor, focusing on Jesus as the physician who heals the sickness of our sin. "Reconciliation" is a relational concept, describing Jesus restoring our relationship with God, and "Christ as Victor" is a military metaphor, celebrating Christ’s triumph over evil. In his comprehensive study, the theologian Benno van den Toren lists more and shows how these many metaphors help us to grasp the richness of a biblical understanding of salvation and forgiveness.

The biblical narrative is both succinct and inexhaustible. Redemption is brought by Christ’s defeat of evil through God’s love: Christ faces the injustice of the world, the brokenness of our relationships, the brutality of the human race, and dies for sin. To human minds it is unfathomable. Its reality comes home in our own experiences of forgiveness and resurrection.

A THEOLOGY OF HOPE

This means there is always hope for those struggling with oppression and violation. Lives can be restored, pain healed, bondage broken, the past left behind. Repentance and change can transform even repressive structures.

Redemptive living affects gender relations as it affects everything else. This was true even in the earliest times. The Gospels give us a glimpse of how Jesus cuts open cultural norms, hierarchies, stereotypes, and the low status of women, and injects the reality of equal significance before God.

A woman is about to be stoned for having illicit sex (not her partner, although the Torah rule includes them both), Jesus challenges her prosecutors about their own sins, and she is freed (John 8).
He heals a woman struggling with menstrual problems, who touches his clothing, in direct defiance of the laws of menstrual hygiene. She makes him ritually "unclean," yet he ignores that and commends her faith (Luke 8).
Jesus asks a despised and much-divorced Samaritan woman at the well for a drink and discloses to her his identity as Messiah (John 4).
He accepts tears and kisses from a former prostitute who perfumes his feet and dries them with her hair in gratitude for her own new freedom, and rebukes the poor hospitality of his hosts (Luke 7).
He banters with a Canaanite woman about the primacy of the Jews, and heals her daughter (Mark 7).
He brings life to a widow’s only son, recognizing her social vulnerability as well as her devastation at his loss (Luke 7).
He notices a struggling spondylitis victim and heals her, defying legalist authorities (Luke 13).

GOSPEL INSPIRATION FOR WOMEN

Women are included among Jesus’ closest friends and followers: Joanna, the wife of Herod’s household manager, Susanna, Mary Magdalene, whom he releases from a life of emotional turmoil, Mary and Martha whose home he visits regularly. His stories often relate to women’s domestic lives—sweeping rooms, baking bread, looking for lost coins, being pregnant, facing authorities and seeking justice. He points out the generosity of a poor widow and affirms mothers who bring their children to be blessed, despite his impatient disciples. When dying in great pain, he commits the care of his mother to John, his disciple. His women disciples come to anoint his body and are heralded as the first witnesses of his resurrection.

It is not surprising that, through the centuries, women have found their own identity and significance in following Christ. As both victims and advocates, they draw inspiration from the Gospels to fight injustice and bring transformation.

Known for her work as a scholar, author, speaker, and journalist, Elaine Storkey has been a tireless advocate for the marginalized, both as the president of Tearfund, and then as cofounder of Restored, an international organization seeking to end violence against women. She is the author of numerous books, including Created or Constructed and What’s Right with Feminism.

Zach Barnhart 2/18/18 Zach Barnhart 2/18/18

The FOMO You Should Really Fear

These days, it seems like there are fewer things that unite us than divide us. But there is one thing we share in common: we all hate the thought of missing out. We hate the thought so much that we had to come up with an acronym to identify the feeling—FOMO. An acronym for Fear of Missing Out, FOMO is a shorthand way of expressing our fear of being forgotten or ignored. For example, for pastor-nerds like me, FOMO is the anxiety I get when I miss a big parachurch conference everyone’s posting and tweeting about. FOMO affects the places we go, the people we engage, the things we purchase, the media we consume—everything.

But what if I told you that FOMO is simply fear misplaced? And that missing out is actually a good thing for your spiritual life?

HOW MISSING OUT IS GOOD FOR YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE

To understand how missing out is actually a good thing for your spiritual life, we first have to know what the aim of spiritual life is. When someone places their faith in Christ, they are saved and called “to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:9; cf. 1 Thess. 4:7). For the Christian, their “new self” in Christ is to be characterized by holiness (Eph. 4:24). Remarkably, we have been graciously invited to “share in his holiness” (Heb. 12:10).

J.I. Packer has said, “The nature of holiness is transformation through consecration.” Two things happen when Christ makes us holy: we are transformed and consecrated. But transformed into what, exactly? And consecrated from what?

One of the undeniable implications of pursuing authentic, Christian holiness is doing without certain things—missing out on some of what we used to enjoy as we set aside ourselves for honorable use in the Kingdom (consecration), so that we can be transformed into the image of Christ (transformation). The apostle Peter explains that holiness is not only a personal transformation to a new self (1 Pet. 1:14-15) but also a communal consecration to a new people (1 Pet. 2:9).

FOMO is one of the most urgent holiness problems facing us today. It causes many of us to participate in things that belong to our old self or our old environment. We’re tempted to chalk it up to “sin nature.” We explain away our being “of the world” as really an attempt to be “in the world” for Christ. When we cave to the fear, it interrupts the process of our transformation.

The Christian’s life simply cannot look the same as it once did, but missing out on the things that caused us to sin before Christ is good. Missing out on the destructive things the world tells us we need is good.

THE FOMO YOU SHOULD REALLY FEAR

There is a FOMO that's far more haunting and serious. The worst FOMO of all is thinking that we’ve been living the Christian life when we haven’t. It can be startling, horrifying even, to read Jesus’ final words of warning in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:21-23).

What greater horror is there than realizing you've bought the lie that new life in Christ means your life doesn’t have to look that much different? That salvation in Christ is only theoretical and not practical?

We’re all afraid to miss out on the next big thing or that cool experience everyone else is having. But these are simply misplaced fears. Instead, we should fear missing out on the Kingdom of God.

HOW TO KILL FOMO AND ENJOY MISSING OUT

How do we move past the temporal fears of missing out and start to enjoy the process of transformation Jesus is doing in us? Here are some ways we can kill FOMO.

Realize that being out of “the know” isn’t always a bad thing

None of us likes to feel uninformed. But I’m afraid we (myself included) are so immersed in the world’s happenings that we are hopelessly entangled in the “craving for controversy and for quarrels about words” (1 Tim. 6:4) that defines our daily news. This is one of the reasons social media and FOMO are so dangerous. We lament the hot-takes on Twitter yet we choose to throw ourselves into it every opportunity we get, doing the very thing we hate (Rom 7:15)! Start a routine of taking extended time away from social media or whatever puts FOMO in front of you. Doing so will refresh your soul and put out any growing fires of “envy, dissension, slander, and evil suspicions” in us (1 Tim. 6:4).

Fill the empty space

Just like removing fatty foods and sugary sodas from our diet and replacing them with healthy alternatives leads to physical health, choosing to miss out on what’s spiritually “unhealthy” and replacing it with what’s nourishing and strengthening will be to our long-term benefit. Imagine being more enraptured by the narrative of Scripture than, say, the latest episode of Game of Thrones. And imagine what it could do for your soul to make the switch.

Remember that your spiritual heroes did without

Do you admire the example of your lead pastor, an elder, your mentor, Charles Spurgeon, or another hero of the faith? Look closely and you’ll find that they have chosen to miss out on some things for the sake of Christian holiness. If they’re alive, ask them what steps they took to be in the world and not of it. Learn from their example. Ask for accountability. And ask what they gained in return.

IS IT WORTH IT?

When you do without, people notice. As mentioned above, we should not pursue holiness for the sake of people noticing us. But a natural byproduct of being set apart is being a city on a hill. This is most effective when in close proximity to people who get to experience our habits up close and personal, who get to see a transformation right before their eyes. And oftentimes, they want what you have.

In the end, missing out for the sake of Christ isn’t missing out at all. That’s because Jesus is satisfying and in his Kingdom, there is no missing out because there is no better place to be. Each of us will one day face the holy God of the universe and be called to account.

Until that day comes, I pray I won’t miss out on the riches of knowing him, following him, and sharing in his holiness in these days—even if that means I may miss out on something else.

Joy Beth Smith 2/15/18 Joy Beth Smith 2/15/18

Marriage Is Different—Not Better Than Singleness

The idol of marriage weighs most heavily in my heart when I am overwhelmed with life,stressed with work, or feeling lonely in my community, because in those moments it’s easy for me to believe that a husband would fix so many of my problems, that he would lighten the load I’m struggling to carry. And while there’s some sprinkling of truth in this belief because there’s a line between believing things would be different and believing it would be better. And this distinction, of marriage being a better option than singleness, harms the health of the church. “People who are married might feel like they have to view marriage as superior to singleness, not just different from singleness, because they feel like they have to justify their marriages,” my friend Morgan says. “But what if they rushed into their marriages? What if there were impure motives or they were responding to family pressure and now regret it? Or they have doubts regarding their own marriage?”

If I’m doubting I made the right choice, it’s easier for me to make peace with myself if I can find the weaknesses in the other options I didn’t take. When I was at Liberty University my first year, I wondered if I chose the wrong college (because when you shove three eighteen-year-olds into a small dorm room and make them share a sink, one is forced to cling to the cross). There was a smaller school in my home state that I was constantly drawn back to when things at LU weren’t going well. In order to soothe my discontent, I would look up the other school online and criticize it in my mind: Look how small that gymnasium is. Can you imagine showering in there? I bet that girl is being paid to smile.

But here’s the thing—we don’t have to keep playing these roles. You don’t have to break down singleness in order to feel good about marriage. I don’t have to diminish the value of marriage in order to accept my single state. My happiness does not mitigate, or lessen, your happiness. And your identity is not a threat to my identity.

We don’t have to keep parading around marriages as the ultimate good in order to justify our undue emphasis on them. And for all of our efforts here, marriages are still falling apart. Abuse is still occurring within Christian homes, and divorces are still taking place. It seems that our idolization of marriages has done little to actually help them.

I want to share an e-mail with you from a male friend of mine who is married. He wrote it to provide a glimpse into the struggles of married life, to cut out the marriage PR. I hope that by reading it you’ll see what I see: that marriage comes with its own struggles. That marriage, like singleness, is different. It’s not better or worse; it’s a choice that can be made, a path that can be chosen, that has its own bumps and knocks along the way. And once all the flash is stripped away, it can be filled with suffering too.

The simple fact is, many, many Christians are unhappy and frustrated and even despairing in their marriages. But because of hang-ups or fear of how they’ll be viewed or financial reasons or just plain lying to themselves, they feel unable to do anything about it or get help for it. This makes it very difficult for them to create deeper relationships with single people, because it’s hard for a single person to understand that specific type of despair.

Marriage can be very ugly because it can make you feel like it takes some of the best parts of yourself and stomps all over them. It can turn perfectly good days into terrible ones because of stresses that have nothing to do with you and make no sense to you. It swallows your time and energy and effort. It can block you from things you’d like to pursue, ideas you’d like to try, risks you’d like to take.

I share this with you because it’s easy for singles to feel that they are on the outside looking in . . . lonely creatures peeking through the window into the warm, cozy lives of families. And that feeling is perfectly legitimate, because being intimately loved is certainly a wonderful thing, and it kills me that wonderful people like you aren’t having that experience.

But I think the other side is that sometimes (often!) married people feel as if they are the ones inside looking out: at freedom, and at opportunities for a loving relationship, and at a much more actualized life. They feel trapped in constant arguments, incredibly boring routines, financial inflexibility, constant judgment, and little to no hope that things will change. When they meet an attractive member of the opposite sex, they can’t spend time getting to know that person. When the opportunity for an adventure with friends comes up, it’s very difficult to make it happen because of the needs of the family. When the church needs money or help or volunteers, often one spouse is willing but the other is not.

I share these things because too many singles I know are hung up on the idea that marriage will somehow be better. And for some people, it is. But for some it is not. For me it is significantly harder. I wish I had known more.

Not all marriages are rosy bright, and I so appreciated my friend’s honesty in sharing this insight. As C. S. Lewis says, idols always break the hearts of their worshipers.[i] I’m not implying my friend is in this position because he worshiped his wife, but I am saying that marriage is hard enough already—why put even more pressure on that situation by setting it up for failure?

Perhaps the greatest rebuke to the idol of marriage is found in Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” We all appreciate the support of family, and those who are married love theirs very much, but we must comparatively hate them. We must love them less than we love Christ. Our joy in these relationships must pale in comparison to, must be completely consumed in, our love of God. That’s what we’re called to here.

When dedication to one’s family is being praised from the pulpit as the highest virtue, we’ve missed something. And if we continue to emphasize saving and restoring marriages at the cost of ignoring or diminishing singleness, there will be very few marriages left to save.

[i] C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” Verber, http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf.

Excerpt from Party of One: Truth, Longing, and the Subtle Art of Singleness. Used with permission.

Joy Beth Smith is the author of Party of One: Truth, Longing, and the Subtle Art of Singleness (Thomas Nelson). Find her on Twitter @JBsTwoCents

Christy Britton 1/22/18 Christy Britton 1/22/18

The Bored Believer

It always amazes me when I get bored. After all, there is a great, big world out there and ninety-five percent of it remains unexplored by me. There are at least a hundred books waiting to be read on my bookshelf. My to-do list is never-ending. There are movies I haven’t seen, songs I haven’t listened to, people I haven’t visited, foods I haven’t tasted, and on and on. And yet, I get bored. With unlimited possibilities of ways to fill my time, how can I be bored? When I am bored, I do things that I don’t really want to do. I overeat, binge-watch TV, aimlessly scroll through social media, devour fiction on my kindle, and sleep too much. I get lazy and unmotivated. As a believer, I should make wise choices with the time I have. My time on earth is short, and I was created for a purpose (Jer. 29:11). God doesn’t intend for me to get bored.

Boredom is the state of being weary or restless due to lack of interest. As I think about what occupies my time, I wonder, Could it be that the things I’m interested in were not meant to hold my attention? Is this why I tire of them so easily? If I were interested in better things, would I find that I don’t get weary or restless?

BOREDOM LEADS TO WEARINESS

One result of boredom is that we get very tired. In seasons of prolonged work or long waiting, it’s easy to grow bored. The longer something takes to come to pass, the more susceptible we are to becoming disengaged.

Before his crucifixion, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells his disciples, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me” (Matt. 26:38). He separated himself from them to pray for a while, and found them sleeping when he returned. He admonished them for falling asleep and asked them to pray again. He left to pray alone and returned to find them sleeping again.

Despite the desperation of Christ’s words, “I’m sorrowful, even to death,” his followers were too tired to watch and pray with him. Perhaps they grew bored while waiting on Jesus to return and became sleepy.

God tells us to take courage when we wait for him (see Ps. 27:14). Why would he tell us we need courage to persevere as we wait? Because he knows, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). He knows we get bored when we wait and that boredom leads to weariness.

BOREDOM LEADS TO RESTLESSNESS

Another result of boredom is that we can get antsy. In the wait for a situation to be resolved, our boredom gives way to restlessness. We don’t know how to rest in Christ and wait for him. Instead, we pursue things to entertain or distract us to fill the time. We chase temporal pleasures.

When Moses went up the mountain to talk to the Lord, the people down below grew restless. “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him’ ” (Ex. 32:1).

Moses took too long to come down from the mountain, so the Israelites decided to find other gods to worship. They grew bored and needed something to occupy their time. So, in their restlessness, they made a golden calf to worship.

Our agitation can also lead to us pursuing quick fixes. Consider the childless Abraham and Sarah. God told Abraham (Gen. 15:4) that his very own son would be his heir. But as the years pass with no heir, they grew restless and took matters into their own hands. Sarah convinced Abraham to conceive a child with her servant, Hagar, and they would raise that child as their heir (Gen. 16:1-4).

We grow bored when God’s timeline differs from ours. We don’t like the feeling of helplessness as we wait for God. The more restless we become, the greater the temptation to try and fix the situation ourselves. Quick fixes are easy; they feed our self-sufficiency. It’s harder to trust and wait on God’s provision.

INTERESTS THAT WILL NEVER BORE US

We are fickle people with short attention spans. What we find interesting or exciting today may not even cross our minds tomorrow. We need better interests. A golden calf or an Ishmael will not hold our attention or our affections for long. On the contrary, Colossians 3:2 tells us, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

In The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis says,

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

God invites us into his family and there is nothing boring about being a child of the King! We are heirs of the kingdom (Rom. 8:17). As image bearers (Gen. 1:27), what interests our Father interests us. Russell Moore says in Onward, “If we are united with Christ, then his priorities become ours.”

This leads us to ask: What are our Father’s interests? What are his priorities? Believer, we must engage in the mission of making disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19). We must care for orphans and widows (James 1:27). We must welcome refugees (Lev. 19:34). After all, we are kingdom ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20).

Remember who you belong to and your eternal purpose. We were created for more. Resist the temptation to grow bored by taking courage. God doesn’t want us to be weary and restless. We can endure as we look to Jesus. He gives us the energy to do our work and helps us to rest in the work he’s already done.

RUN AN INTERESTING RACE

The next time you get bored, take an inventory of your emotions. Are you restless or antsy? Pray for the Lord to direct your interests to the things that are meant to fulfill you for all eternity. Be engaged in those things with passion and intentionality. Look to Jesus for support and as an example.

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…” (Heb. 12:1-2). Let’s run an interesting race.

Christy Britton is a wife, homeschool mom of four biological sons, and soon-to-be mom of an adopted Ugandan daughter. She is an orphan advocate for 127 Worldwide. Her family is covenant members at Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, N.C. She loves reading, discipleship, spending time in Africa, hospitality, and LSU football. She writes for various blogs including her own, www.beneedywell.com.

Chelsea Vaughn 1/2/18 Chelsea Vaughn 1/2/18

Don't Let the Fire Go Out

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Editor’s note: This month at GCD you will be seeing articles from our team of Staff Writers and other contributors on a handful of topics that Jonathan Edwards introduced in his own Resolutions. The aim of this series is to help you see how a gospel-formed resolution can help you flourish in your love for Christ and for others next year. Click here to see all articles in this series.

I could feel my eyes glazing over as she talked about how sick her dog was.

She was devastated, and I was really tired. I could feel my mind pulsing with each and every heartbeat. I was empty and dry, and at this point, any expectations of conversation would be like wringing out a dry towel. I knew my weariness was getting in the way of my attention at this benefit dinner.

I was still standing in this fancy dress and uncomfortable shoes only because I knew it was expected of me. On the inside, I was calculating every single moment in a process until I could leave and be in the comfort of my own home. I had nothing left.

When my car finally pulled into the driveway, I escaped to the haven of my room and turned on my floor fan, letting the cool air kiss my face. I turned on music to fill the empty space in my head. The air and lyrics filled my dry lungs with breath. Over the past few months, my eyes had become tired, drifting from the secure place of Jesus, and refocusing on my responsibilities. I was not dried out by momentary exhaustion, but exhaustion of the heart.

Can you identify with this kind of exhaustion? It’s when your own health and well-being becomes secondary to everything else. It’s the feeling that we have to sprint to even keep up, and breathing itself becomes a task.

The words “spirit” and “breath” are known to be interchangeable in Scripture. That’s fitting, because when we’re spending ourselves beyond our limit, typically we are not depending on the work of the Spirit. We’re short of breath and feel the need to anxiously count each one we take. We are limited when we’re not relying on the endless supply of the Spirit.

GIVE ME OIL

Throughout Exodus, God intricately instructs his people on how the tabernacle should be built. Every word has meaning, and every meaning has great purpose in pointing to Jesus.

One piece of furniture you’re probably familiar with is the golden lampstand (Ex. 25:31). I have heard about the lampstand, read about it, and seen photos of it. However, I was completely unaware of how much spiritual significance went into it.

When God talks about the creation of this beautiful source of light, he makes it clear that candles aren’t sufficient. Candles are wax, and wax burns itself. At the end of the day, a candle will burn its wax down until there is nothing left. The flame will go out.

In instructions found later in the Old Testament, God says “do not let the fire go out” countless times (Lev. 6:9-13). The symbolic flame found in this intimate meeting place was never to lose its light. It had to burn continuously.

Therefore, God asks for an oil-burning lampstand. An oil-burning flame doesn’t burn itself, but burns from an external source. An endless supply of anointed oil.

Similar to our source found in the Holy Spirit, God’s Word through this lamp echoes his everlasting sustenance given by the Spirit. His supply is our supply, and it is sustained only by intimate connection to his original source.

FUEL FOR YOUR STORY

God’s work in you is extraordinarily important. He created you with intention and detail. The working together of your history, your gifting, and his purpose becomes a beautiful thing called your story. It’s one of the most powerful tools used for salvation (Rev. 12:11) because it draws people in to listen to the sound of God’s marvelous grace.

However, we have to know how to steward these things. Our history typically holds some degree of brokenness and requires our willingness to stop, search, and be restored from past hurt or anger. Our gifting requires discipleship as we walk into situations and relationships where we’re asked to use these gifts to help someone else. Last, God’s fulfilled purpose requires both our patience and our trust. We have to walk willingly on a journey that is uncomfortable and unpredictable.

If you don’t lean into the strength and power of God for each of these things, you will burn out. Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, you are susceptible to resent your past, neglect your gifting, and ultimately miss God’s true purpose for you. You’ll lean into your own self-sufficient energy and burn yourself down. You’ll lose the brightness of your light, perhaps causing you and those around you to stumble.

3 WAYS TO CONNECT TO THE SOURCE

We don’t have to run ourselves into the ground, though. We can remember the source of our light through prayer, through biblical accountability, and the psalms.

We have to press into prayer, constantly checking our hearts. Is the gospel informing the way you live? Are you worried about things beyond your control? Does your life have margin for rest? Praying these questions and listening for God’s guidance can lead us towards deeper dependence on God, and less dependence on ourselves.

Biblical accountability is simply living along with people who can lovingly speak the truth when we need to hear it. If we’re walking in sin, it’s usually seen and felt by the people closest to us. Sin is easy enough to notice, whether it is rebellion, codependency, or self-sufficiency. But we need people around us who are willing to tell us they see it.

The Psalms have a way of speaking gentle conviction to our hearts, often saying the very things only our hearts know. The poetic crying out for rescue reminds us of our own need. I recognize what’s happening inside of me most when I read the Psalms.

We are called to have a light that burns in the darkest place, and that flame should continuously burn. If we are the fuel to the light we give off, we will burn down like candles and our light will go out. This makes us helpless to others and all ministry opportunities.

However, our flames will not lose their light if we are burning the inner fuel of the Spirit of God. This oil doesn’t run dry, and it radiates the most magnificent light.

Chelsea Vaughn (@chelsea725) is currently living in Nashville but has spent time in Texas, Thailand, and Australia. Obviously, travel is a passion, along with hours in the kitchen or across the table from good friends. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.

Jeremy Writebol 12/31/17 Jeremy Writebol 12/31/17

The Power of Gospel-Formed Resolutions

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Editor's note: This next month at GCD you will be seeing articles from our team of Staff Writers and other contributors on a handful of topics that Jonathan Edwards introduced in his own Resolutions. The aim of this series is to help you see how a gospel-formed resolution can help you flourish in your love for Christ and for others next year. Click here to see all articles in this series.

January 1 is a great day for introspection if you allow for it. Regardless of how you spent your final evening of last year, the clock has moved and today is a new start, a new year, a fresh beginning. In some South American contexts, the celebration of New Year’s gives a startling depiction of this transition. Life-sized models are stuffed with hay, newspaper, and an assortment of fireworks and other combustibles to be burned in effigy at the stroke of midnight. Often, masks representing particular political or cultural celebrities are placed on the doll to personify the year left behind. It’s a way of cleansing—burning away the previous year with its trials and difficulties and making room for a new, more hopeful year.

As the New Year comes into reality, there can be a sense of concern about the year ahead. What will the next 365 days hold for us? Will they be profitable? Will they be well spent? Will they hold joy and happiness, or despair and difficulty? Add to that concern a layer of shame that takes form in our hearts when we consider the missed opportunities, lack of progress, or downright failures we experienced in the year prior. I didn’t lose the weight I said I would, nor did I complete reading the Bible in its entirety. I didn’t pray. I didn’t give as much as wanted to. I didn’t defeat that habitual sin that has plagued my character.

Expressions like these squirm their way into my heart and mind every year. Usually, somewhere around mid-to-late December, I begin strategizing to tackle the year ahead differently. I develop a battle plan for things like personal Bible engagement and prayer. I stand on the scales and consider my overall hearth, and make a few dedications to drop the weight this year and exercise. I’ll even clean out my smartphone from all the excess applications and distractions so that I can be more focused and productive. I am willing to guess that many of us do similar activities. It has been a cultural phenomenon for years to make “New Year’s Resolutions.”

THE LAW OF THE RESOLUTION

I’ve wavered back and forth on the helpfulness of things like New Year’s Resolutions in my life. In some ways, we know they can be helpful and even formational for us as they give some definition and boundary to our lives. On the other hand, our resolutions can be disastrous when we fail to keep them. Those lingering feelings of guilt and shame are leftovers from last year’s failed resolutions. An even greater danger lurks in the heart of someone who has kept and accomplished their resolution—prideful self-righteousness.

Resolutions, some would argue, are essentially another form of legalism. They compile a list of “dos” and “don’ts” that limit the life of a follower of Jesus. Resolutions can become boundaries that limit the freedom of life in Christ with all its delights. The person who resolves to lose weight becomes a slave to food choices, exercise, and culinary asceticism. Those who resolve to undertake a spiritual discipline immediately become subject to the rituals of that discipline and sacrifice their freedom to appease the demands of the spiritual. Within the culture of any community, even the church, a group of practitioners or non-practitioners of any given resolution can quickly devolve into tribal gangs opposed to one another over such things as who does eat something, and who does not.

If this were the case, it would seem inherent to the freedom of human responsibility that resolutions should be left alone because they create an unnecessary legalism and separation. Even the danger of a legalistic following of a resolution can, within the church, destroy the bonds of unity and peace that the Spirit of God gives to his people. Resolutions, seen in this way, can be disastrous and therefore should be dismissed altogether.

JONATHAN EDWARDS’ RESOLUTIONS

But what if these types of resolutions were shaped and informed by the gospel? Could they then become some sort of meaningful and formative enterprise into which the Christian can find true growth and freedom? Could they be a means of development and joy, even grace, among a people of God? I believe so—as long as one understands and approaches resolutions from a posture of humility informed by the gospel.

Jonathan Edwards is a classic example of this sort of humble, gospel-centered resolving. Before he hit the age of twenty, Edwards found it important to create a set of governing principles to shape his character, practice, and piety. While one could imagine that Edwards’ resolutions were the product of a young and ambitious mind that never saw the light of practical day, it seems that these resolutions were foundational anchors to Edwards’ everyday life. His life exhibited growth in grace, temperance, and passion for the Lord.

But how did Edwards walk with these resolutions throughout his life? Was his resolve a product of mere white-knuckled willpower and obedience to a law he created? The evidence seems to point as far away from this perspective as possible. Edwards own introduction to his resolutions demonstrated the posture of his heart in achieving these resolutions:

“Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake”.^[1]

Edwards’ ability to live out his resolutions was not a result of an extraordinary capacity towards regimented and obedient life. They were birthed by a greater ambition that had come to him through the gospel. For Edwards, his life was all about living to the glory of God in all things. The very first resolution he makes states, “Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God.”^[2] Or, to say it another way, Edwards’ life was to be lived for “Christ’s sake.”

And yet, living for the sake of Christ and the glory of God fully required something deeper of Edwards: a clear understanding of his incapability of living that life apart from the supernatural enablement of the Spirit of God through the grace of God in Christ Jesus. He declared, “I am unable to do anything without God’s help.” It was clear in Edwards’ head that these resolutions were unattainable as goals for life apart from the power of God. Living to the glory of God, as desirable an end as that is, is unreachable because of our sin apart from God’s kindness towards sinners, which he displayed in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

GOSPEL-FORMED RESOLUTIONS

This is where our own resolutions can be informed. I want to better glorify God in my own life this year. I know there are areas of my heart, mind, and body that need to come under the transforming power of the gospel. I know I am accepted by God because of the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that I am gifted with the Holy Spirit as both a guarantee and down payment of my redemption. He indwells me in order to craft and cultivate character within my life that glorifies Christ. Therefore, I can resolve to practice—or not practice—certain things, not in an effort to earn my right standing before God, but so that I can be more in tune with and shaped by the holiness of God to be more like Christ.

I can say with Edwards, “Resolved, Never to do any thing out of revenge^[3]” and know that, if I do well in that regard this year, I am growing in Christ-likeness because I’ve tasted the goodness of God. I can also rest assured that if I fail (more like, when I fail) in this, I am still loved and accepted by the Father, and can confess and repent and resolve again with the power of God enabling me to get up and keep going.

In light of the gospel, these resolutions become tools by which we “make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness…” (2 Pet. 1:5). These resolutions are the vehicles that aim the trajectory of our lives to “strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). They give tangible, personal particulars to the call to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12).

Gospel-formed resolutions can be a helpful means putting to death the old person so that we can put on the new person of Christ-likeness and grow into godliness. Perhaps the first resolution we should adopt is to make a stuffed mannequin of ourselves, burn them at the stroke of midnight, and resolve to embrace the gospel and all its hope and security for the year ahead. We could resolve with great ambition to live for the sake of Christ under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit all our days. How the world would change.

^[1] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), lxii.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid., lxiii.

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.

Justin Huffman 12/10/17 Justin Huffman 12/10/17

Practice What He Preached: Imitating the Goodness of Jesus

Have you ever wondered what made Jesus so effective in reaching out and helping others? Granted, he knew the Scriptures backwards and forwards and applied God’s Word perfectly to each person’s situation. But what made people willing to listen to him in the first place? How did they know they could trust him, that he had their best interests at heart?

The people Jesus encountered had countless religious teachers and counselors available to them, yet you don’t see the multitudes swarming to them for advice or help. There was something about Jesus that, even as he maintained an uncompromising standard, drew people to him in droves. Publicans, prostitutes, even some of the Pharisees—sinners of every description flocked to Jesus for help and spiritual healing.

It was the goodness of Jesus, as much as anything else, that made his ministry so effective.

GOOD MINISTRY

Jesus’ popularity was clearly due in part to the wisdom with which he spoke. The multitudes were constantly marveling at the authority and understanding so clearly displayed in his teaching. Yet even this does not explain what made untouchable, despicable sinners huddle up with Jesus at the dinner table and converse so eagerly with him.

The goodness of Jesus was at least as much of a draw for people as the content of his message. They could see—anyone could see—that Jesus lived a very different life than the pompous Pharisees and Sadducees. This man practiced what he preached.

It was also clear, from his actions as well as his words, that Jesus had a genuine, consistent, and intense compassion for the pain of those around him. This man wept with those who were weeping, went to those who were lame, waited for those who were blind, and sought out those who were overlooked.

Scripture makes it plain that goodness is one of the absolute essentials for real ministry. Whether in private or in public, whether declaring the gospel from the pulpit or sharing it in the break room—any ministry must flow out of good living, good motives, and good counsel in order to be Christ-honoring and personally useful.

This is the unmistakable implication of Paul’s words to the Romans: “I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another” (Rom. 15:14, emphasis added).

The confidence Paul expressed in the church’s ability to instruct and edify one another was grounded, first of all, in the goodness that was displayed in their lives.

GOOD LIVING

We cannot help others draw closer to God if we are not ourselves maintaining a close walk with God. As elementary as this may sound, it is widely ignored in many modern approaches to church organization and growth. People who have experienced little, or no, sanctification themselves are put in positions of leadership in Sunday School classes, small groups, or even public preaching.

Several years ago, I actually had a preacher sit across from me and tell me he was unrepentant for some well-known sexual sins in his life because he felt he could not possibly minister effectively if he did not understand the sinners among whom he labored. He said if he was living in sin himself he would be able to reach out to and help other sinners.

Apparently, this man did not consider the best example of ministry in the whole Bible—Jesus Christ himself. According to this man’s criteria, Jesus could not have had a useful ministry because he rubbed shoulders with sinners his whole life without ever sinning.

Of course, this is ridiculous, because Jesus’ life is to be our model. Any other philosophy of ministry results in one drowning man or woman trying to save another. Neither will be helped.

The Bible makes it clear that personal virtue, or goodness, is necessary for even Scriptural knowledge to be useful. Peter exhorts us that the first thing we need to add to our God-given faith is personal virtue—and then, to that virtue, we are to add knowledge (2 Pet. 1:5).

Paul expressed his desire that the church at Colossae be filled with knowledge so that they might “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:9-10). Knowledge and goodness go hand in hand.

Paul’s language of “goodness”—especially being filled with goodness—might sound strange to those who feel they are great sinners and unworthy of the least of God’s mercy. But God’s mercy is exactly where this goodness comes from.

Paul tells us in Galatians that goodness is a fruit of the Spirit ( Gal. 5:22), and, again in Ephesians, that the fruit of the Spirit is “is found in all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:9).

Sanctification and growth in godliness is not something we can aspire to on our own, yet it is clearly expected of us and should be displayed in us. Paul shared his prayer request with the church at Philippi, that they would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11).

The fruits of godliness, including good living, can only come by Jesus Christ, but they are expected from us in order that God might receive praise and glory through us.

GOOD MOTIVES

However, the idea of goodness carries with it more than just right living. Even the Pharisees could put on a show of “good works.” Goodness also carries with it the idea of right motives. In other words, the person who is trying to encourage, admonish, or advise another must be clearly doing so out of a desire for that person’s good.

This seemingly obvious criterion is broken daily in households all over the world. Husbands hurl instructions or expectations at their wives or children and wonder why they are not well-received in the midst of their tirade. Wives criticize and belittle their husbands, then are surprised when they do not see any change in behavior.

The problem is that knowledge without genuine love—without good motives—is utterly unprofitable (1 Cor. 8:1). We cannot realistically expect to help anyone if our advice and counsel are not flowing from a deep, Christ-centered love and desire for the other’s good.

One of the pastors under whom I grew up used to remind us as up-and-coming leaders in the church that people will listen to you only if they already know that you love them. However, if they do know you love them, they will follow you almost anywhere and receive almost any criticism. How many young ministers need to remember this maxim!

Our goal, then, with any counsel we give, should be the good of the person to whom we are speaking and, ultimately, the glory of God. Our goal for each other, in other words, should be the same goal God has for us. As Paul prayed in 2 Thessalonians 1:11, our hope for each other should be that God will “fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power,” in each of us.

GOOD COUNSEL

Despite living a godly life and desiring the good of someone, many saints have failed to actually share helpful counsel when it was needed. This is because good counsel does not always feel or sound good to the listener. Since every one of us struggles with a people-pleasing nature to some extent, we sometimes hesitate to share what we know needs to be said simply because we know it will not be easy or pleasant to hear.

Goodness sometimes requires that we be stern, share unwelcome advice, or even “wound” a loved one for their own good. The writer of Proverbs, however, reminds us that “faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Prov. 27:6).

As much as we may be tempted at times just to say, “Everything is going to be alright,” or “things will get better soon,” this is simply not always the case. Sometimes drastic, personal change is needed before things can turn around for the better.

If a person doesn’t stop spending more than he or she makes, they will not get out of debt; if a couple continues to fight and wrangle over every little thing, their marriage will not improve; if parents do not correct their child, their relationship with the child will only get worse.

Goodness, then, does not always look like a warm and fuzzy hug or an encouraging slap on the back (though it might include these). Goodness is a personal investment in the glory of God, which overflows in a desire to help others draw closer to God, no matter what challenges we may have to face to achieve this end.

Personal goodness, coupled with an intimate knowledge of God’s good word, equips us to help the many hurting people that need the goodness of God so desperately in their lives.

Truly good ministry must flow out of good living, good motives, and good counsel in order to be Christ-honoring and personally useful.

Justin Huffman has pastored in the States for over 15 years, authored the “Daily Devotion” app (iTunes/Android) which now has over half a million downloads, and recently published a book with Day One: Grow: the Command to Ever-Expanding Joy. He has also written articles for For the Church, Servants of Grace, and Fathom Magazine. He blogs at justinhuffman.org.

Zach Barnhart 12/5/17 Zach Barnhart 12/5/17

Just Say 'Thanks'

In this season we call “the holidays,” sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas, many Americans find themselves see-sawing with gratitude. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, there are subtle exhortations calling us to be thankful, while others call us to be thankless. We watch ourselves rock back and forth between gratefulness and criticism, contentedness and dissatisfaction. The holiday season seems to be broken because such a season has virtually no bearing on how our society lives the other eleven months of the year. Social media is filled, not with gratefulness, but with animosity, hostility, divisiveness, impatience, and critique. Save a few days of the year where we sprinkle in heartfelt posts, most of our social media feeds are saturated with thanklessness.

Some of us have lost all of the thanksgiving in our Thanksgiving (and the days that follow), despite what the Instagram posts might say. But the Christian need not lose heart. Holidays, despite whatever they represent culturally, are powerful opportunities for us to remember, reflect, and, most of all, to recover Christian thankfulness, propelling us into the year to come.

The same God who can make dry bones live can revive even a dead consumerist back to his glory and praise.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO GIVE THANKS?

Most of us, Christian or not, know we ought to be thankful. As Andrew Peterson poetically puts it, “Don’t you want to thank someone?” The question then becomes, How do we begin to work that thankfulness out in our lives to the praise of God’s glory and grace?

Perhaps we should go a little deeper: What does it mean to give thanks at all?

I turned to the Bible for wisdom in answering this question, and I was amazed at what I found. A quick search through the ESV Bible shows that there are well over 100 instances in which the words “give thanks,” “grateful,” “thankfulness,” or “thanksgiving” occur. But that’s not the amazing part.

What’s amazing is how these verses describe what it means to express gratitude and thankfulness. Time and time again, the biblical authors make the act of thanksgiving primarily something we say. There are too many examples to list them all, but consider this brief list:

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! Say also: “Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather and deliver us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.” (1 16:34-35).
When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gavethanks to the LORD, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (2 Chr. 7:3)
And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanksto the LORD (Ezra 3:11)
Then I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. (Neh. 12:31)
The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. (Ps. 28:7)
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. (Matt. 11:25)
And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Lk. 2:38)
If you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? (1 Cor. 14:16)
And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. (Rev. 11:16-17)

Of course, Scripture tells us of other ways humans can give thanks to God. There are thank offerings, which were ritual sacrifices performed in the Old Testament (2 Chr. 29:31). The act of bowing reverently before Christ’s feet was considered an act of thanksgiving (Lk. 17:16). We can give thanks in our hearts (Col. 3:16). Even eating and honoring God in our eating is an act of thanksgiving (Rom. 14:6), so bring on the Christmas cookies!

The point, however, is that most often the way to express the gratitude and thanksgiving we feel in our hearts is by voicing it. Perhaps it’s through song, praying aloud, or simply making it public knowledge with our mouths that we are grateful. Voiced gratitude was a common expression of one’s devotion and love for God in biblical times, and it has become a bit lost on us.

HOW CAN I EXPRESS GRATITUDE TO GOD?

I know in my own life how often I reflect a spirit of taking God’s blessings, whether spiritual or tangible, totally for granted. I know his love for me and am reminded of it often, but do I thank him for it? Does the world know that I am grateful for what he has done for me?

We don’t have the same kind of privilege the biblical authors did, able to display for the world to see that they were indeed grateful to God through written letters and books. But we can voice our gratitude in a myriad of ways. A gratefulness to God for who he is, for who he has made us to be, and what he has given us will lead to a holiday season loaded with so much more than food and football and family interaction—namely meaning and significance.

How do we practically express our gratefulness to God the way David did? Not many of us have his poetic talent, and even less of us can play the harp as he did. What hope is there for us to voice our thanks? Here are four ways, in this season and beyond, for us to practice the discipline of spoken gratitude.

FOUR WAYS TO PRACTICE THE DISCIPLINE OF SPOKEN GRATITUDE

Pray as a family, and don’t forget to praise. Too often, prayer time in our lives morphs into a laundry list of things we need help with. We should make our requests known to God, yes, but prayer is more than this. Chiefly, it is an opportunity to praise. There is a reason Jesus began the Lord’s Prayer with, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). Praise took pride of place in his prayer, as it should in ours. And, not to mention, modeling this pattern of prayer for our children is an easy way to disciple them.

Share your testimony, and don’t forget the present. Stories are a profound way we communicate the goodness of God, and when we tell stories to one another we help others feel thankful to God. Importantly, we should not just tell others about our past story, highlighting just what God did for us at sixteen at Bible camp. We should show others how God is leading and teaching us today, and what we are learning. Becoming aware of one another’s stories makes us grateful to God for his work in us and in others.

Get creative, and don’t forget who gifted you. Write a poem, lyrics to a song, a journal entry, or create something that communicates gratitude. You never know how your creative influence could invite someone into their own vocal gratitude to God. God has given you gifts to use to proclaim his excellencies, so use them! Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to “perform,” either. God loves when his children color for him, even when it's a scribbled mess. He takes pride in their art and displays it on his heavenly fridge.

Remember that everything is God’s gift, and don’t forget the greatest of them. Matt Chandler once remarked that under common grace, every man can enjoy a steak (or a turkey, to keep it relevant), but only the Christian can turn that simple human enjoyment into deep, lasting gratitude. With every bite of a wonderful meal, every intricacy of creation, and every hug from a family member, one truth abides for the Christian: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jas. 1:17). And the greatest of these perfect gifts is the salvation of our souls, the gospel that is such good news that we ought to burst with gratitude.

Be thankful this holiday season. And if you're not sure where to start, just say "thanks."

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.

Rachael Starke 10/17/17 Rachael Starke 10/17/17

God’s Sovereignty Prepares Us to Proclaim Hope

Matthew 28:19 and 1 Peter 3:15 are two verses that have launched a thousand personal evangelism programs. I’ve participated in enough of them to learn I’m terrible at almost all of them. But a recent encounter on an airplane reminded me that when we take an overly prescriptive approach to disciple-making conversations, we fall prey to the mistaken belief that they’re more complicated or difficult than what God actually has in mind. I was flying home after attending a business planning conference related to my consulting work. I had arrived at the conference full of ideas and optimism about all I was going to accomplish. But I was leaving it demoralized and full of doubt. I stood in line waiting to board my flight home, wondering what God had intended the four days away from my family to be for.

THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN YOU TELL YOUR SEAT-MATE YOU’RE A CHRISTIAN

I exchanged the usual pleasantries with my seat neighbor as you do when you’re trying to deftly maneuver your person and your stuff into your allotted space without violating theirs. We continued our small talk as the plane took off.

Fred and I had many things in common. We were both married and raising kids. We were both self-employed, navigating circumstances where hopes and expectations were exceeding actual outcomes. Almost without thinking, I steered the conversation towards the spiritual roots of our collective frustration, describing myself as a Christian who was wrestling deeply with Silicon Valley’s determination to define humanity in merely technological terms when we were created to be so much more.

Fred’s posture shifted at my statement. “I’m a Christian too!” he said, with hushed excitement. “ I go to the evening service at this little Episcopal church where there are, like, twelve other people. I’ve been reading my Bible every day for the past fifteen months. I just finished the book of Colossians (he pronounced it “Colloh-see-ans”), and now I’m reading the Old Testament. But I’m having a hard time sorting all the names and events out—it’s complicated!”

MORE THAN A “CHANCE” ENCOUNTER

For the next ninety minutes, until we were on the ground and getting ready to deplane, Fred and I talked nonstop about God, the Bible, and the gospel. Our conversation weaved its way through topics like:

Luke 24:26 and how the most helpful way to read through the Old Testament is to find how people and events point to Jesus.
Boaz as a case study, not just as a practical story about how to be a better businessperson in a broken world, but how the stories of where he’d come from, what he did, and who his descendants became were an integral part of, and pointer to the story of, his greatest descendant, Jesus Christ.
The differences between Genesis one and two and how humans are unique in all of God’s creative work because of the manner in which humans were made, and that Adam was the real person who ushered in creation’s greatest problem, just as Jesus is a real person who came to redeem and restore it.
The thief on the cross, who died knowing the most important thing (that we’re all—to quote Fred, “dirty wretches who need forgiveness”), and the blessing we have in pursuing the implications of what that means for us (otherwise known as regeneration, justification, and sanctification—for a lot of reasons, I chose not to use those words).
Bible translations and study Bibles, including how many there are, and how to discern what’s inspired (the text) and what’s not (the notes).
What Bible reading actually is; not just intellectual study, but active listening to the voice of God speaking to us, and giving us the power to understand and respond to it. How Fred could help his wife, who was slightly behind him in his journey, to hear God’s voice as he shared with her all that the Bible was helping him to understand.

Engrossed in our conversation, the jolt of the plane’s wheels bouncing down on the tarmac startled us both. “You’re like a library of knowledge!” Fred exclaimed as we started to gather our things. “It’s like God sent you to me just to answer all these questions!”

I demurred with a laugh at the first half of his statement, but wholeheartedly agreed about the second. I hadn’t shared too many details about the immediate circumstances that had brought me to the seat next to his on the airplane.

After we said our goodbye’s and God-bless-you’s, I walked through the terminal to catch my connecting flight home. My thoughts turned to the broader circumstances of my own journey of faith, and how so much of my personal study from the last several years, and even months, found its way into our conversation, and how God brought all of it together for that single conversation.

PREPARING TO PROCLAIM MY FAITH

As a fifth generation Reformed Baptist pastor’s kid and Bible college graduate, I’d been steeped in the vocabulary and grammar of theology and doctrine practically from birth. But God had used marriage and the challenges of motherhood to first upend everything I thought I knew about the gospel, then lay it all back down so it finally moved from my mind to my heart, and then to the rest of me. I read book after book to make sense of what God was doing in me, and I wrote to work it into my heart and out into my everyday life.

I read John Piper’s Finally Alive and David Needham’s book Birthright , which together helped me understand the glorious “on-the-ground” implications of what had formerly been dusty ideas. Then The Ongoing Feast by Arthur A. Just, Jr. left me with a particular and permanent love for Luke twenty-four as a launch point for a Christocentric Old Testament hermeneutic.

As my daughters grew out of their toddler years and into girlhood, I became interested in the idea of biblical womanhood. Hannah Anderson’s Made for More coached me in the topic, and her writing, along with Wendy Alsup’s, helped me navigate the twists and turns of the biblical womanhood conversation (along with a lot of processing through my own writing about the imago dei, gender, and Genesis one through three).

This summer, my pastor lead a group of women, including myself, through a ten-week class on principles of Biblical hermeneutics using the book of Ruth and Paul Miller’s layperson-level commentary as our texts. So I studied more, and I wrote more.

Many Christians I respect would have invested the time spent shuffling my way onto the plane that day in a more sanctified way than I had, perhaps praying for who they were going meet and for opportunities to share the gospel. I was in a far less holy frame of mind. I’d been turning over some things I learned through my study of Ruth, and indulging my mind in a kind of holy pity-party over some perceived slights I’d experienced by way of several male colleagues during my meetings. I was far from the frame of mind that would be preparing for a “Philip and the Ethiopian”-style conversation with a stranger.

And yet God had been preparing me for it. For years.

THE CONTEXT OF GODLY PREPARATION

We often forget that the context in which Peter expects us to be asked about our hope in Christ isn’t a shopping mall or a front porch, but suffering. I wasn’t walking onto that plane having experienced anything like real suffering—just some slights that may not even have been intentional. Yet hope was the last thing I was feeling.

But in the process of shoring up a brother’s growing faith, God gave me renewed hope for my own. Not because I had any evidence that my circumstances were going to change, but by reminding me that the work he was doing in Fred, and thew work he was doing in and through me as we talked, was of far greater and lasting significance than any earthly work I thought I had been traveling to accomplish.

Fred wasn’t the kind of conversation partner I’d been taught to think of in Matthew 28:19 seminars. He was already committed to being a disciple of Jesus. But his commitment was generating some questions—really important ones—and he needed help to uncover the answers from God’s Word for himself. And in God’s sovereignty and timing, that’s what God helped me to offer him.

We often spend our daily time in God’s Word focused on how it will work in us, or in the families and friends closest to us. But in our study and in our prayers, we can also ask God to work through his Word in us, so that, whenever and however the time comes, we’ll be ready to take what he’s taught us in the past to bring the hope of Christ to someone in the here and now.

Rachael Starke has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for over 18 years. She writes about the intersection of the gospel with technology, gender, food, and other cultural artifacts. You can connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn or her blog.

Chelsea Vaughn 10/15/17 Chelsea Vaughn 10/15/17

How Thrill Seeking Relates to Disciple-Making

Imagine this: a gorgeous, snow-capped mountain overlooking a range of other peaks covered with pine trees, carrying a magical sense of awe and wonder. Perhaps a bird soars effortlessly in the background, and a girl sits at the peak, snuggled under an Aztec blanket holding a coffee mug. Have you seen this photo? I have too. Probably fifteen different times. The baffling thing is how it continues to evoke a sense of longing within my soul every time I see it. I’m drawn to nature in a way that makes my heart beat faster, my soul sing louder, and my flesh desire deeper.

I’m not alone in this. My generation is enthralled with traveling the world, fighting for meaningful causes, and seeking fulfillment in adventure.

ETERNITY IS WRITTEN ON OUR HEARTS

This desire has been intentionally and beautifully stirred inside of us.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 sings in my soul as I reflect on our unattainable longing for more.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Instead of letting the Lord gloriously reveal himself to us, though, we’ve grabbed onto our ideas of eternity and created realities out of them. We do it in church, at universities, even in business.

And quite honestly, I’m overwhelmed with how many movements, upgrades, and “once in a lifetime” experiences exist. The need for everything to be a necessity, a guarantee for life-changing transformation, is exhausting and unrealistic.

Have we left behind patience for God’s movement and instead created our own?

REACHING BEYOND OUR GRASP

Our longing for more may be leading us to build up experiences so high and mighty that we're trying to reach God's height.

I’m not setting myself against this persona. I can very much be classified with the majority in this. But the difference I hope to make is not to kill dreams, but to purify and purpose them.

Our churches and ministries are either full or void of young people, and the ones that are there are probably consumed with this zeal for adventure. What do we do with them? As disciple-makers, we should learn to come alongside this culture (inside and outside the church) and witness for Jesus.

More specifically, we must find ways to challenge the spirit of worshiping creation over Creator. The photo of the girl on the mountain stirs a desire to go see the mountains, but also to feel that wonder and awe. We’re not just idolizing the physical mountain; we’re idolizing experience and the emotional thrill that comes with it.

A recognition of the object of our worship would actually refocus how we seek fulfillment. In this we are led to redefine what fulfillment is, and discover the omnipresence of God.

I remember hearing the term “mountain top experience” in youth group, and at summer camp we would come home with “camp high." The term was used to describe the heightened awareness of God at work within us. Every time I heard it, though, I was a little frightened that I may lose track of his presence. We all tried to doubt and dismiss the idea until a few weeks later we were left slightly disappointed with the normalcy of life.

It’s natural to elevate a time or experience that’s especially impactful to our spiritual well-being. It’s not good to expect that every day.

COMING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP EXPERIENCE

In my younger years, I think the crashing reality of this mountain top experience was helpful in encouraging me to build healthy spiritual disciplines. I was drawn to pray for God to not leave me, I was inspired to remind myself of his character through his Word, and I was provoked to ask older and wiser friends how they would deal with this disappointment. The cultivation of these very necessary Christian principles showed me how my faith could be sustainable in normal life.

As much as I wanted to live at summer camp forever, I knew that was not a possibility. The daily search for Jesus was attainable, however, and that sense of awe and hunger for more helped train me to look for Jesus in my local surroundings. This has been so vital to my faith that I don’t know if I’d still be walking with him had I not learned.

However, it still cost me disappointment when I saw people growing faster or deeper than I was. It also cost me a lot of time that was seemingly worthless at the moment. But the most costly was the deep grief I felt when others didn’t understand what God was doing inside me. I haven’t grown out of these costs, and I still have to endure their price as I walk forward in faith.

I’ve learned, though, that daily and weekly practices like Bible reading, prayer, and living in community with the church are some of the most influential tools in carving out intimacy with Jesus. The costs revealed that no community, mentor, or experience compares to knowing Jesus. And I know him better because of my daily practice of acknowledging his presence.

MY SPIRITUAL HIGH IN THE LAND DOWN UNDER

I spent a short time of my life living in Australia. My season there was marked by the deepest union I’ve ever felt with God. I could physically see mountains, but I also felt that spiritual high I referred to earlier.

I remember one night I was praying and reading Scripture on my bed, and I noticed a warm glow outside my window. I walked over to the window and peered out into the darkness. Flickering stars covered the sky with dazzling light while the moon was a perfect crescent shape framing the sky, producing a remarkable glow. My breath was literally knocked out of me, and warm tears blurred the scene in my eyes.

My physical response was weak compared to the way this moment impacted me spiritually and emotionally, however. One of my greatest friends always quotes Psalm 19:1 which reads, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” I couldn’t ignore the powerful declaration of God’s glory because my eyes were witnessing it in the skies. This verse came to life.

God is the most magnificent artist, and his earth manifests the work of his hands. When we witness this, our hearts are moved to worship with an incomparable fullness. It’s a heavenly fullness, one spoken of in Ecclesiastes 3:11.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM ELIJAH’S MOUNTAIN TOP HIGH

This same heavenly fullness was experienced by Elijah when he was on a mountain.

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. —1 Kings 19:11-12

Elijah experienced the mountain top high, am I right? This movement of God is not to be downplayed or ignored. When the world around us is quiet enough for us to listen, we become divinely aware of God. It’s in these moments that we hear the Spirit gently speak to our hearts, and remind us that we have been created for eternity.

The peak of the mountain doesn’t compare to the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s a sliver of a glimpse, but it can’t be manufactured by mankind. We can’t stir the Holy Spirit with our overdone methods and strategies; we have to trust and remember that the Spirit is who stirs us.

HOW THRILL SEEKING RELATES TO DISCIPLE-MAKING

This wave of thrill seeking, adventure, and passion to change the world is moving people to do more than they ever have. It’s challenging people to venture outside their comfort zones and to think beyond their normal capacity. It’s a trend inside and outside the church, and it has the potential to be incredibly helpful to both.

However, if we aren’t producing healthy, loving, disciple-makers then these sentiments and actions will only fall flat. Our first and foremost pursuit must be loving God. Things will begin to crumble if we aren’t intentional about this first pursuit. It can’t be the spiritual high, new experiences, or even service. The fruit of our labor is only a result of loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind. That’s where fulfillment is found, and that’s where transformation begins.

Ask those you disciple, your community, and yourself questions like these:

If I was called to invest in one community for a decade, would that be enough?
What do you spend most of your time praying for/ about?
How do you define fulfillment? Do the ways you find fulfillment point you to God, or do they simply leave you wanting to chase another experience?

We are created to seek fulfillment in God, not this world or the experiences it has to offer. When we become vulnerable to the incompleteness of us, we become aware of the very complete presence of God.

Chelsea Vaughn (@chelsea725) is currently living in Nashville but has spent time in Texas, Thailand, and Australia. Obviously travel is a passion, along with hours in the kitchen or across the table from good friends. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus. You can read all of Chelsea’s article here.

Courtney Yantes 9/12/17 Courtney Yantes 9/12/17

Why Plan B Must No Longer Be An Option

We are a nation and culture of “Plan B” kind of people. We live as though there is always a backup plan. In fact, we love backup plans so much, we often create a backup plan to the backup plan. We like to reserve a few extra options in the back of our minds that if Plan A doesn’t work out, well, there’s always Plan B. Every smart bride who has an outdoor wedding as Plan A also selects an indoor location for Plan B, in the event of rain or some other unwelcome weather. Football teams keep second and third string quarterbacks on the sidelines so that if their Plan A quarterback gets walloped, well, there’s always the Plan B quarterback. Some people keep a “rainy day” savings account; you know, that extra stash of money that gets set aside so that if life should throw a curve ball, you’re prepared. “Rainy day” savings account is still code for Plan B.

For so long in my own life, I made one excuse after another to not physically exercise or be active. Lazy. Indifferent. Uninterested. Didn’t like sweating. Didn’t want to pay for a gym membership. Didn’t care. Didn’t have time for it. Plan A would have simply been to make working out a priority so that I could be healthy, but instead I came up with one Plan B after another. Other options simply took precedent. There were also Plans C, D, and E. It was easy for me to shrug my shoulders and say, “I just don’t like working out so I’m not going to.”

For some people, though, we walk through life with more significant Plan B's, which carry far more weight. Don’t like your marriage? There’s always divorce. Hate your job? You can always quit. Don’t like what the pastor preached this week at church? You can always find somewhere else to go. Tired of riding the bench while everyone else gets plenty of playing time? You can always throw in the towel. Don’t have the cash to buy something but you really, really want it? You can always swipe that little piece of plastic called a credit card.

Can there be legitimate causes for the above Plan B decisions? Yes. There are some jobs we need to leave and some relationships we need to exit. I’m not addressing those kinds of scenarios. I’m talking about the scenarios when we simply take the easy way out because it just got too hard. I’m talking about the scenarios when we decided that Plan A was no longer worth fighting for because Plan B simply looked that much more appealing and seemed that much easier, and because, quite frankly, we just didn’t want to do the hard work to see it that Plan A stayed Plan A.

We’ve got to stop living as though there is always a Plan B. You know all that physical exercise I didn’t like to do? That decision and that lack of discipline resulted in experiencing months of the most excruciating physical pain I have experienced in my life to date. After those health problems, I did a one-eighty, and you better believe my backside has been working out regularly at least a couple times a week, because I realized with stunning clarity that if I never wanted to experience that kind of pain again, I was going to have to do things differently. I couldn’t just keep doing what I had always done. I had to stop living as though there was an alternative option or Plan B.

And here’s why we all have to stop living as though there is a Plan B—God is a God of Plan A.

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit in the Garden of Eden, God was not suddenly wringing his hands out wondering what on earth he was going to do now that those two had just waved bye-bye to Plan A. He wasn’t racking his brain, scrambling to figure out how to patch up the mess he was now in, and he certainly wasn’t losing sleep at night (not that he would anyway since he doesn’t sleep) trying to sort out how he would redeem what was now broken. He didn’t spend the moments immediately after humans ate what was forbidden, with his palm to his forehead, in a state of distress, thinking, “Well, this is not at all how I planned on this working out. Now what I am going to do?”

From the beginning of time and till the end of time the cross will forever and always stand as Plan A in response to our sin.

Let that settle in for a moment.

The cross was not some cosmic afterthought.

The death of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, was Plan A before sin entered the world, and his death was still Plan A after sin entered the world. John writes in Revelation 13:8,

“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (NIV).

The apostle Peter echoes this idea in 1 Peter 1:18-21,

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”

Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world—long before Adam was created, long before Eve ate of the apple, and long before sin entered the picture and ushered in death and destruction. The cross stood as Plan A since before there was time.

And it has been Plan A ever since. The plan of the cross never faltered, never wavered, and was never negotiated in the hope of a better plan. God was not functioning out of the idea he was going to keep the crucifixion and death of his Son in his back pocket just in case things went haywire. They went haywire. He knew they would. And the death and crucifixion were Plan A all along. Sin did not come along and suddenly catch God by surprise or catch him off guard.

But what is to be our response to the weight of this truth?

Our response must be that we need to spend our days making Jesus Plan A in all that we do because he made his atonement for our sins his Plan A. Just as he was chosen before the creation of the world to die for our sins, he chose us to be holy and blameless. Paul declares in Ephesians 1:3-4,

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

He chose us to be holy and blameless, which means we’ve got to decide that knowing and studying and memorizing the Word of God is Plan A, and not Plan B for whenever we feel like. We’ve got to decide that loving, serving and pursuing those around us is Plan A, and not Plan B for when we have the time and energy. We’ve got to decide that time in God’s presence must trump all else as Plan A, and not Plan B for when we happen to find some blank time in our days and in our calendar. We’re not always going to feel like it, we’re not always going to have the energy, and we’re not always going to find blank time.

But Plan A must become non-negotiable and our excuses must fall by the wayside. When it comes to spiritual disciplines, we must rid our vocabulary of phrases like “Plan B,” “someday,” and “eventually.” These words can have no place in our lives if we are to follow hard after Jesus.

When we realize and truly believe that Jesus’s death on the cross was Plan A before the creation of the world, then we have no choice but to make him our Plan A in all that we do.

In the spiritual disciplines of a Christ-follower, Plan B can no longer be an option.

Because Plan B was never an option for God.

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.

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