Long Live the King

I used to work in sports television. One of my favorite parts of this old job was getting to go to Seahawks football practices. Seeing professional athletes train, compete, and prepare for games up close was truly thrilling. I remember watching linebackers smash into pads and quarterbacks throw the same pass a hundred times in a row. I have one memory that sticks out above them all. It was the last offense vs. defense drill of the day. Practices were structured around stations and timers. You would be in your station until a loud horn went off and then you would sprint to the next station or drill. At the end of practice everyone would be at the same station for an offense vs. defense drill. Close to a hundred football players, plus coaches, trainers, medical teams and the media all at one station. When the final horn sounded, everyone would jog off to the locker rooms and practice was over.

One day the team was at its last station and the horn went off. As usual, hundreds of people set in motion towards the locker room when all of the sudden the Head Coach Mike Holmgren yelled, “stop!” With absolute authority a hundred giants in full gear stopped. Coach Holmgren then said, “let’s do a few more.” Without question everyone returned to their places and kept on going. I went to tons of practices and I only saw this happen once. What I and everyone there knew was that Coach Holmgren was in charge. He was the King of that football team. Total authority.

In the Bible, Jesus is called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the one with absolute authority. He even has authority over those who have political and religious authority. There is no second guessing and will be no second guessing when he returns. When he speaks, even the wind and the waves obey. He is the king.

Good King vs. Bad King

I grew up playing a lot of sports and so I had a lot of coaches. Some were cool and some were jerks. One thing I learned was that when you have a bad coach it doesn’t really matter how much you love the sport the coach can ruin it for you. The same could be true with a good coach. Good coaches could take lame sports and make them fun and make you play and practice harder. The good coaches knew your name. They took interest in you outside of just the sport. They were coaches you had relationship with. They let you know what was expected of you and they let you know they were there for you on and off the playing field/court.

I believe the same can be said about kings. We all have things that rule our lives. Things that we serve and that have absolute authority over us. It can be bosses, money, work, education, sports, sex, anxiety or anything really. The problem is that nothing in creation was created for us to serve and obey completely. Nothing in creation was created to be our lord and king. Lots of things were created for us to enjoy, but just like a bad coach, they make bad kings and destroy what enjoyment we once gained from them.

Take money for instance. When was the last time money cared for your heart? Sacrificed for you? Loved you? Money is a greedy king that demands you take time from family, steal from friends and hoard everything for yourself only to leave you as unsatisfied as you were before you had the last dollar. Money is helpful to serve Jesus the King with but terrible to worship as King and be enslaved to.

Jesus on the other hand is a different kind of king. He is a good and perfect king. A king that loves his people and listens to his people. He is the good shepherd who knows his sheep. He is such a good king that obeying him, even when it leads to suffering, ultimately leads to joy. He is not a distant king but, in fact, is a high priest who listens to our struggles and sympathizes with our weaknesses. He is not a controlling or demanding king but a king who came to serve us. He is a king who washes feet. He leads in love, tenderness, service, and care. He is not a greedy king but a generous king. He loves us.

The Loving King

How do we know that he loves us? Look at the cross. At the cross, Jesus took our guilt, our shame, all of our ugliness, and sin upon himself. We committed treason against him and he takes the death penalty for our treason. Not only does he take what is bad, but he gives what is good. He gives us forgiveness, righteousness, grace, mercy and hope. This is not just a good king, this is a great king. A glorious and generous king! And he loves us!

The truth of the Bible is that the one with absolute authority knows who you are and he deeply loves you. He knows every hair on your head and he died to save and rescue you. Our king is not just a king but a savior and a shepherd. He doesn’t treat us like slaves but calls us friends. This is good news. This changes how we serve our king and how we live. Theology is important. Knowing who our God is and who we worship affects every area of our life and every area of the church.

At the Service of the King

Many of our problems in the American church are due to us thinking King Jesus is really a distant and demanding coach or boss. Instead of us seeing ourselves as blessed to serve a good and gracious king we run, hide or complain when given the opportunity to serve because we are worried that we will once again fail to please another person in authority over us. This life of hesitant or disgruntled service is really a life of poor theology.

Good theology frees us to run to King Jesus as one that we get to serve. If Jesus is always king, then we must always be his servants. We are not in some higher or lower class where some people should serve us and we should serve others. That is not who we are. All of creation is here for the sole purpose of serving the king. That means that we are servants in our home even if we are the head of the house. It means we are servants in the workplace even if we are the CEO. It means that the homeless, ditch digger is at the same status as the Oscar award winning actor--a servant. We no longer have to fight to prove the lie that we are king; we get to rest in our rightful place as servant to the king. This is who we are.

Service goes from a chore to a joy as it is us being who we were created to be and us doing what we were created to do. We will find ourselves at home serving all kinds of people at all sorts of times as we are ultimately serving Jesus. A life as a servant enables humility as we grow in realizing that we are never the one with absolute authority and this frees us from being enslaved to people or things that also are not in absolute authority.

I want to encourage you to get to know King Jesus. Learn to listen to him and to obey him. He truly is the only one worthy of our complete obedience.

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Jake Chambers is a member of Jesus’ bride - the church, husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to his boy Ezra. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring. You can read more of his writing at reddoorlife.tv. Follow him on twitter: @JakeJayChambers 

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Read more free articles: The Implications of Obeying God by Jennie Allen and Gospel Centered Religion by Jason Seville.

The Gospel Gives Us a Secure View of Self

The church in the West is sleepwalking. Why? We don't lack for dynamic preachers, innovative church models, entrepreneurial spirit, wealthy benefactors, high technology, or widespread media and cultural saturation. Yet while the biggest churches get bigger, the number of Christians in America is shrinking, and even in those big churches, leaders are discovering a discipleship deficit of emergency proportions. I am not an expert in missiology or ecclesiology or sociology, but I can read what the Bible says. In its pages I read that the source of the church’s power is the Holy Spirit working through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. No other source is credited with transforming power, not even intelligence or good works, much less creativity and good marketing. Uneducated men with stuttering tongues and unclever speech set the world on fire because they were content to simply arrange the wood and trust the torch of the gospel to do its thing. What we are left to deduce is that either we are faithful to gospel-centered ministry but God doesn’t work that way anymore—in which case the Bible’s claim that the gospel is power needs a retroactive expiration date—or else our half-hearted, defeated, apathetic Christianity is a result of our gospel-deficient Christianity. What can wake us up? A better vision. The gospel does not merely give us a ticket to heaven, a lifeline to stuff in our pocket for safekeeping—it gives us a new worldview. It gives us eyes to see and ears to hear; it expands our vision to behold the vistas of eternity and deepens our vision to see the world through redemption colored glasses.

Isaiah was undone by the vision of God’s glory in the temple. Paul was hijacked by a blinding light. Peter was shaken by the descending linen. The disciples fell on their faces during Christ’s transfiguration.

None of them was unchanged by what they saw, and while none of them followed God perfectly after their vision, they certainly saw God, themselves, and the world differently even after the vision had faded.

When John the Baptist began preparing the way for Jesus’s entry into public ministry, he cried out in the words of Isaiah 40:3–5:

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

What a beautiful cataclysm this foretells! When the king comes, his arrival is earth-shaking. The gospel changes the landscape.

When we behold the gospel’s bigness, we behold the true bigness of everything else. There are three primary things the gospel expands our vision of, and I see them embedded in these words of Peter:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pet. 2:9)

Peter is admonishing the church to abstain from fleshly talk and actions, to obey diligently in order to commend the gospel and reflect the holiness of God. It is as if he’s saying in 1 Peter 2:9, “Besides, don’t you know who you are?” And his declaration of who they/we are evinces the gospel’s threefold vision.

The Gospel Gives Us a Secure View of Self

Many Christians’ problems of fear, doubt, and complacency stem from forgetting who they are, which is to say, who they are in Christ . Paul is quite clear: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). It is true that we are simultaneously sinners and saints, but when we are not operating according to the gospel’s resurrection power, it is because we believe that greater is the world than he that is within us.

Even the Christian with his nose to the obedience grindstone can miss out on this transforming positional view. I may outwardly look very diligent in the faith and dutiful in good works, good words, and good manners, but if inwardly that is all the result of an insecurity about my standing with God, the hardest work I can muster will be both worry-inducing and worthless. The performance treadmill simply leads to exhaustion.

But the gospel says I am free from the curse of the law, which means I am free from the burden of the law’s demands. Christ has met them for me. Christ’s righteousness is credited to my account. Christ hides me within himself. If all this is true, I am as secure as Christ is. God’s affection does not have to be earned; in fact, it can’t  be earned (by us, anyway). God’s affection is freely given. When we really grasp that the gospel is saying this about God and about ourselves, our sense of identity will blossom, swell, and strengthen.

Look again at how 1 Peter 2:9 describes our position, thanks to the gospel of Jesus.

A Chosen Race

This means that God picked  us. In the days of my youth in Houston, Texas, I played pick-up basketball or football with my buddies nearly every weekend at our favorite park. When it came time to form teams, I enjoyed very often being the first or second pick. I had serious game, I assure you. Then my wife and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee. I stopped playing sports every weekend.

Several years later on a visit back home, the old gang decided to get together to throw the pigskin around. We began to form teams, and even though I had given no more demonstration of my current fitness level than simply walking from the car to the field, I was picked second to last. Oh, how the mighty had fallen! I was humiliated. All these guys had done was look at me; I guess several years had taken the sheen off their memories of my athletic prowess. I suddenly looked less Tom Brady and more Tom Bosley.

I felt very keenly in that moment how good it feels to be picked. Everybody wants to be picked. The gospel tells an interesting story about being picked. If I had to relate it to my weekend football humiliation, I would put it this way: God looks at the available selection, sees that I have no evident talent or ability and that in fact I give all indications of being a liability to the team, not an asset, and says, “I’ll take him first.”

He does this for all of us. He picks us. Not because we’re great players, but because Jesus is. We can contribute nothing to God; he is not needful of us. There’s nothing that he can’t get done without us. But there he goes, picking us. And he purposefully picks the scrubs, the benchwarmers, the C team. In God’s economy, he chooses the last to be first, blesses the poor in spirit with riches aplenty, and exalts the humble.

You thought this whole deal was your idea? Nope. “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). You think you were picked based on your ability? Nope. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). You think you were picked when you entered the draft? Nope. “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).

A Royal Priesthood

God doesn’t just take the scrubs; he takes the scrubs and turns them into frontline warriors. He makes the C team the A team. He raises our estate. He makes us not serfs in the kingdom, but brothers and sisters of the King, princes and princesses under his lordship. He has seated us with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6); the gospel gives us the royal treatment, and one day we will have the crowns to show for it (James 1:12; 1 Pet. 5:4).

But we aren’t just any kind of royalty; we are royal priests. We’re made ambassadors for Christ, go-betweens charged by God to bring the ministry of reconciliation to the lost, commissioned to make disciples of the nations. We pour out our lives as Christ did his own, in order that we might testify to the saving sacrifice of him who makes our sacrificial witness a glory to God. In the days of old, we needed priests to make atonement for us. Now that the High Priest has made atonement once for all, we have become priests ourselves, given full access to the throne of grace inside the holy of holies. Indeed, our bodies are now the temples of the Spirit.

Are you catching yet just how much God makes of us? There is more.

A Holy Nation

When God tells us “You shall be holy, for I am holy,” it is a command, but it’s also a promise. And because we can’t make ourselves perfectly holy, he does it for us. The blood of his Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Christ’s goodness is set to our account, and we are set apart from the condemnation hanging over the world. We are set apart for special use, consecrated by our saving God whose plans for us include demonstrating the expansiveness of his perfect holiness throughout the world.

A People for His Own Possession

Put simply, God owns us. Of course, God really owns everybody, but he treats those trusting in his Son as his own children. He treats them differently, specially. He marks them out, covers them, secures their future, and gives them a hope. He sends his Spirit to indwell, convict, teach, and comfort them.

And here’s the deal: nobody steals God’s stuff. If he owns you, he owns  you. Those whom Christ has purchased for the Father will not get lost or be forfeited (John 6:39; 10:28).

Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness. How are we not staggered by this minute by minute? Look how saved  we are!

While I do not agree with all of what Neil Anderson has written, I greatly appreciate the following list of gospel affirmations he includes in his book Victory Over the Darkness, and have used it personally and in counseling:

Since I am in Christ, by the grace of God . . .

• I have been justified—completely forgiven and made righteous (Rom. 5:1).
• I died with Christ and died to the power of sin’s rule over my life (Rom. 6:1–6).
• I am free forever from condemnation (Rom. 8:1).
• I have been placed into Christ by God’s doing (1 Cor. 1:30).
• I have received the Spirit of God into my life that I might know the things freely given to me by God (1 Cor. 2:12).
• I have been given the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).
• I have been bought with a price; I am not my own; I belong to God (1 Cor. 6:19, 20).
• I have been established, anointed and sealed by God in Christ, and
• I have been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge guaranteeing my inheritance to come (2 Cor. 1:21; Eph. 1:13, 14).
• Since I have died, I no longer live for myself, but for Christ (2 Cor. 5:14, 15).
• I have been made righteous (2 Cor. 5:21).
• I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I am now living is Christ’s life (Gal. 2:20).
• I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:3).
• I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and am without blame before Him (Eph. 1:4).
• I was predestined—determined by God—to be adopted as God’s son (Eph. 1:5).
• I have been redeemed and forgiven, and I am a recipient of His lavish grace.
• I have been made alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:5).
• I have been raised up and seated with Christ in heaven (Eph. 2:6).
• I have direct access to God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:18).
• I may approach God with boldness, freedom and confidence (Eph. 3:12).
• I have been rescued from the domain of Satan’s rule and transferred to the kingdom of Christ (Col. 1:13).
• I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins. The debt against me has been canceled (Col. 1:14).
• Christ Himself is in me (Col. 1:27).
• I am firmly rooted in Christ and am now being built in Him (Col. 2:7).
• I have been spiritually circumcised . . . (Col. 2:11).
• I have been made complete in Christ (Col. 2:10).
• I have been buried, raised and made alive with Christ (Col. 2:12, 13).
• I died with Christ and I have been raised up with Christ. My life is now hidden with Christ in God. Christ is now my life (Col. 3:1–4).
• I have been given a spirit of power, love and self-discipline (2 Tim. 1:7).
• I have been saved and set apart according to God’s doing (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5).
• Because I am sanctified and am one with the Sanctifier, He is not ashamed to call me brother (Heb. 2:11).
• I have the right to come boldly before the throne of God to find mercy and grace in time of need (Heb. 4:16).
• I have been given exceedingly great and precious promises by God by which I am a partaker of God’s divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). 

Isn’t this cause for confidence? This is not self-help. This is God-help. This is not self-esteem, because none of these affirmations can come from self, none can be accomplished through pulling up of  bootstraps or the turning over of new leaves. These statements—and many more found in the Scriptures—are God-esteem, because they are what God does for us and what God says about us.

Jesus says something remarkable about us by virtue of something remarkable he says about himself: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). There is no more secure position than this. If you are in Christ, you cannot be stopped even if you are killed.

Because of Christ, I am free to confess that I am a sinner deserving the wrath of God, but I am also free from both sin and wrath. Why do some Christians think that to seek our identity in Christ, the way the Scriptures say we ought to, is thinking too much of ourselves? Why are they afraid to trust what God says about them? When God says to his people, “Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye” (Zech. 2:8), am I to think he doesn’t mean it? In fact, to live in insecurity (or to insist upon it doctrinally) is to side with the accusations of the Devil, whose chief end is to convince us that our sin is greater than our God’s promise to forgive it.

In Martin Luther’s “Letters of Spiritual Counsel,” we find this word of encouragement written to a young correspondent:

When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus: “I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there shall I be also.” 

When you see who you are through the lens of the gospel, it changes everything.

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Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Jared Wilson's book, Gospel Deeps, posted here with the authors permission. 

Jared C. Wilson (@jaredcwilson) is Becky’s husband and Macy and Grace’s daddy, and also the pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont and the author of the books Gospel Wakefulness, Your Jesus is Too Safe, Abide, Seven Daily Sins, and Gospel Deeps. He blogs almost daily at The Gospel-Driven Church.

The Question of Discipleship

The path of discipleship is not short or easy. But it is a road well worn by the many faithful saints that have gone before us. As disciples, and as disciple-makers, there is no other better guide than looking at the first disciples of Jesus. The Bible gives us precious peeks into both the way Jesus made disciples and the way the disciples responded and grew as they followed him. Their journey of seeking to know and obey Jesus was filled with success in understanding the gospel at times and forgetting it later. Their time with Jesus was marked by faithfulness to the good news and failure to apply it. They forgot the good news of Jesus and they struggled to understand what Jesus was doing. And yet, Jesus walked with them patiently and didn’t give up on them. We have everything to learn from Jesus, and we have every right to place ourselves in the story as his disciples. In the Gospel of Matthew we find a powerful moment that we all must enter, a conversation we must all have. This moment is the turning point in Matthew’s story. It isn't the call to discipleship, though that is fundamental. In this case it is not a command but a question. A question we must answer for ourselves. A question we must continually ask as we make disciples of Jesus.

Within the Rhythm of Life

Before we get to the question and the key moment, we must understand the context. Because discipleship happens life-on-life and not in a vacuum, we can’t become over zealous and just skip to the short moment.  What was going on in their lives? What had the disciples seen in Jesus? Leading up to this question, Jesus began his ministry. He called 12 men into his inner circle and they spent their days with him. They saw Jesus perform miracles and run into opposition from the religious rule keepers.

They saw Jesus teach with authority. They saw his compassion for people. A compassion not based on dire circumstances but based on the condition of the people's hearts. He grieved because he saw how exhausted they were, trying to earn God’s love by keeping an overwhelming set of added-religious rules. Jesus' message was different from rules, he said, “Come! Come to me if you are worn out from trying to be good enough for God. Come connect with me and you will enter into a new life where we walk together in a way that gives freedom and life and peace - because my way of life isn’t heavy, it’s free." (personal paraphrase of Matthew 11:28). Jesus poured his heart out in teaching about what life was meant to be like. He told parables, made claims about the Kingdom of God and did miraculous things.

Jesus' words and ministry were drawing huge crowds. Matthew tells us many in the audience wondered out loud the greatest question that has ever been or ever will be: “Could it be that Jesus is really the savior that God has promised to us?” The more people witnessed Jesus, the more this question about his identity grew. I know for me, the more I saw Jesus in the lives of others, the more I saw his handiwork, the more I asked, "Is this Jesus, the thing I've been looking for?"

The Question in a Place of Fear and Lust

This was daily life for the first disciples’ when Jesus asks his discipleship question in the town of Caesarea Phillipi, a pagan town outside jewish territory. A place famous for the worship of the greek god Pan, the god of fertility and the god of fear. Though it was a pagan place, it was a beautiful city nestled at the foot of a huge rock. And from this place of fear and false life Jesus stood up and asked his closest friends and followers the question, the most important question in history, the dominate question facing humanity: “Who is Jesus?”

Jesus began the conversation, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples collaborated and answered with things they had heard, “Well most people think you are a prophet like Elijah or John the Baptist or one of the other guys.” How often do we speak more to what others say about Jesus than to what we know and believe to be true about Jesus ourselves?

And this is where we stop and place ourselves in the story--as we have every right to do and in fact should. Because in this story, you are just like the disciples--you are a follower of Jesus. You aren’t fully aware of it, but the reality is you have left everything to follow Jesus, you’ve seen him perform miracles, you’ve heard his words and your heart still leaps every time he speaks. However, the reality is on most days you struggle to get it. You don’t understand who he really is and what that means for you and for the whole world.

Like the disciples, you are probably in both a beautiful and sinful context. You stand in a place that is full of false hope for life--fertility through lust, lust for things and lust for people and lust for some fake version of real life, i.e. the American dream. You stand in a place of fear--fear that controls, fear that paralyzes, fear of what people will think, fear that you can’t really cut it, fear that you’ll be found out for who you really are, fear that at the end of your life there will be nothing to hope for.

Who Do You Say I Am?

Then Jesus looks at you specifically and asks the question: “Who do you say I am?”

And for all the times you’ve screwed it up, this time you get it right and you don’t even know where it came from. You’ve never thought it before, but as you say it you know it’s the most true thing you’ve ever said and you believe it: “You are the Messiah - the anointed savior and deliverer - you are the Son of the Living God.”  And Jesus says, “Bless you, because you didn’t get that from any book or any teacher or any friend, but God himself, my Father, has revealed that to you.” (Matthew 16:15-17).

We have to know who Jesus is. Everything rests on who he is and who you believe he is. When the glamour fades, the pain kicks in, and you really don't have anything left, the disciple will have an answer for that question: "Who is Jesus?"

Who Jesus is and what he has done has everything to do with who you are and how you live:

• If Jesus is the savior, you are saved and can rest in his work.
• If Jesus is king, he is ruling and you are not. His reign is coming and yours is ceasing.
• If Jesus is the Lamb of God, then your sin, fear, insecurity and iniquity has all been dealt with. You are delivered.
• If Jesus is the Son, then his life, death, and resurrection is sufficient.  Nothing else can be added! So you can stop trying to be good enough for others and God.
• If Jesus is Lord, he is bringing everything under his authority, we can trust him with unwavering hope. All of our lives are submitted to him.

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Lance Humphreys is an entrepreneur, executive coach and a mentor to young leaders. He is an encouragement and friend to many church planters throughout North America and beyond. He lives and makes disciples in Oklahoma City along with his wife and their two teenage kids. Follow Lance on twitter: @LanceHumphreys.

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For more free articles on discipleship process of Jesus read: How Jesus Made Disciples by Winfield Bevins and The Gospel and the Great Commandment by Abe Mysenburg.

Generosity & Contentment

Editor's Note: This is a repost of How the Gospel Makes Us Generous and Content with Our Money. It appears here with the author's permission. ---

The danger of wealth has been a prominent theme in the teaching of several pastors in recent years. John Piper's chapter on money in Desiring God has shaped me and many others to a great degree. More recently, authors David Platt and Francis Chan have championed a similar message with their books Radical and Crazy Love.

Their message has met considerable resistance with counter warnings against embracing a “poverty theology.” Should we not rejoice in what God has given? Shouldn’t we want to take care of our families and provide for them? Shouldn’t pastors be paid well so their wives don’t have to work and they are not continually stressed out with financial pressure?

I'm afraid the framing of this discussion leads us to ask the wrong questions. Like the junior high boy who wonders "how far is too far" with his girlfriend, we are quickly caught up in questions about how rich is too rich, how poor is too poor, and the like. Where is the line? Do I feel guilty for having too much? Do the kids have enough? What does “enough” even mean? Should I feel guilty about not giving as much as so-and-so? If I give more, does that mean I am more spiritual? The hamster wheel of comparison, propelled by our spring-loaded legalism, keeps spinning unto exhaustion. We are all tempted to be prideful about what we give or feel guilty about what we don’t. Neither response befits the gospel, which crushes pride and erases guilt.

Financial Peace

Still, the question remains: how should we handle money? I've learned a lot from Dave Ramsey, an extremely popular radio host, author of The Total Money Makeover, and speaker who teaches people how to manage money so they can attain “financial peace.” He is also a Christian who loves to motivate people to cease being a “slave to the lender” Prov. 22:7 and manage their money so that their money doesn’t manage them.

Ramsey markets his successful 13-week program, Financial Peace University, to churches, schools, military institutions, and others all over the world. My wife and I used his program a few years ago to pay off all her graduate school debt and our minivan (total: about $50,000) in roughly four years. We have lived in the past with big debt. Now we are living with zero debt, as we rent a house. The debt-free lifestyle has given us freedom and removed the stress of money from our our marriage, even when times are tight.

When counseling young couples, we plead with them to obtain a plan for their money. If we would have heard about Ramsey when we were 22 instead of 30 years of age, our financial outlook would be much better today. But there is a point of grave danger that I always communicate when we talk about Ramsey. If you follow his principles, most likely you will have more money. You will perhaps get really rich. In fact, Dave emphasizes this every day on his radio show when he regularly says, “Debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has replaced the BMW as  the status symbol of choice.” Is it wrong to be rich? No, but it IS dangerous.

When I read the Bible I don’t see the pursuit of riches as a worthy goal to pursue as an end in itself. I don’t think Ramsey believes this, either, but I wish he would state this clearer and more often.

Think of all the warnings from Jesus about money:

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. - Matt. 6:24

And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” - Luke 12:15

As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. - Matt. 13:22

Even so, we shouldn't respond to these warnings by resolving to be dumb with our money to make sure we remain poor. Rather, pursuing a biblical perspective involves three things: 1) financial wisdom, 2) contentment, and 3) generosity.

Seek Financial Wisdom

Said plainly, I would get Ramsey’s book and do what he says to get out of debt and manage your money. You might not agree with everything he says, but most of us need a much better financial plan.

Pursue Contentment

Contentment is a more biblical goal than getting rich. Paul writes about this 1 Timothy 6:6-10:

Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

This is where I have a problem with Ramsey’s emphasis on getting rich. It doesn’t seem to square with what the Bible teaches. Is it wrong to be rich? No, and “rich” is a very relative term. No one thinks he is rich, because everyone knows someone who is WAY wealthier. Ramsey is a millionaire many times over, but his wealth doesn’t hold a candle to Bill Gates or Michael Jordan. So what is “rich” anyway? Who knows, but however you slice it, the Bible tells us to be content with what we have and pursue simplicity (Heb. 13:5). The goal needs to be freedom with contentedness, not a yearning for more stuff.

Be Generous

To Ramsey’s credit, he frequently emphasizes the joy of extravagant giving. Look at how Paul exhorts the rich in 1 Timothy 6:17-19:

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

If you have the ability to make lots of money, maybe you should. But as you do, be sure to constantly check your heart along the way. Jesus’ words cannot be trifled with. Be constantly on the lookout for how you can be a blessing and how the kingdom of God can be furthered in our day through your resources.

Gospel Emphasis

Rather than debating between "radical" living for God and the dangers of "poverty theology," we learn from 1 Timothy 6 that contentment and generosity should be our emphasis in light of the gospel.

God has already provided all that we will ever need (Rom. 8:32). He cares for grass (Matt. 6:28-30) and birds (Matt. 10:29), so we can be content with or without stuff. God has been infinitely generous with us in Christ so, rich or poor, we can be joyfully generous in a way that makes our neighbors scratch their heads and say, “Who are these people?"

Generosity is not a poverty theology. Contentment with thankfulness is not a prosperity theology. The gospel motivates us to be generous and gives us ultimate contentment.

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Zach Nielsen is one of the pastors at The Vine Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves in the areas of preaching, leadership development, and music. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and Covenant Theological Seminary and blogs at Take Your Vitamin Z. Twitter: @znielsen

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For more resources on thinking through the implications of the gospel in our everyday lives, check out Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson. It is now also available in print.

For more free articles on the gospel and money, read: Against Transactional Sanctification by Bill Streger and 8 Ways to Fight Consumerism by Hugh Halter.

On Gospel Amnesia & Building a Sister Up

Editor's Note: This is a repost of On Gospel Amnesia and Standing Before Your Own Master by Luma Simms, which appeared originally at Domestic Kingdom. It appears here with the author's permission and is adapted from a section of her forthcoming book to be published by GCD Press. ---

A few weeks ago a few friends and I were bantering back and forth about what our children watch on TV. It was a playful exchange. At one point I realized how two years ago it would not have been friendly or playful at all. My mind would have been full of criticisms, and my heart would have stood over that conversation with judgment.

You see, my heart used to be very sick. I was a Christian, but I had set aside the gospel as something just to get me into the kingdom. I set my heart on other things at the expense of cherishing Christ: becoming a “godly” wife and woman, being content in domesticity and doing it well, offering unparalleled hospitality, keeping my children as far away from worldliness as possible, homeschooling because it was the only truly “godly” way of educating children, healthy whole-food eating because that meant I was in line with a more “biblical” agrarian type of living, and on and on … you get the picture.

I had “gospel amnesia,” big time.

From Gospel Amnesia to Grace

You don’t need to have full-blown gospel amnesia like I did to despise other women, tear them down, and pass judgment on their choices. When we forget the gospel and turn away from the charity and grace we are called to have for one another we can turn into women who look sideways at each other.

Grace. I’ve learned so much about grace from Romans 14:1-4:

“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

On its face, Romans 14:1 says there are Christians with stronger and weaker faith, and that the one with stronger faith should welcome the one with weaker faith and not quarrel over things that are a matter of opinion. Paul assumes here that there are indeed things in the Christian life that are a matter of opinion and not of primary salvific importance.

So, from the first verse we know that we need to welcome each other; we should not snub each other, or refuse or avoid fellowship with each other; and we should not quarrel over matters of opinion. If we apply the principle here to any type of secondary matter (e.g. children’s entertainment choices, education choices, diet choices, diapering/clothing choices, birth choices, etc.), we see that the Christian with stronger faith has a broader acceptable spectrum, whereas the Christian with weaker faith has a narrow understanding of what is acceptable or right.

From Condemnation to Charity

When it comes to secondary (non-sin) issues we are tempted to strain gnats and swallow camels (Matt 23:24). But Jesus said:

“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ ...” (Matt 9:13)

“And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” (Matt 12:7)

I grieve in my spirit when I remember how I have condemned the guiltless.

One of the most important manifestations of gospel living is treating each other with grace and charity. Scripture says that a gracious woman gains honor (Prov 11:16). Nitpicking at each other and judging each other's choices will not make us women of honor. In the end, we will make a mockery of the grace of Christ when the world sees our lack of graciousness.

May we who love Jesus and cherish his gospel look on each other with a tender grace that seeks to build each other up with sisterly affection rather than tear each other down by rendering our personal standards as the watermark of sanctification.

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8).

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Luma Simms (@lumasimms) is a wife and mother of five delightful children between the ages of 1 and 18. She studied physics and law before Christ led her to become a writer, blogger, and Bible study teacher. Her book Gospel Amnesia is forthcoming on GCD Press. She blogs regularly at Gospel Grace.

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To go deeper into the gospel, read Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson.

For more free articles on gospel identity, check out Justification & Hope in the Gospel by Jason Garwood and Rethinking Devotion by Matt Manry.

Justification & Hope in the Gospel

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.Romans 8:1

I grew up with this understanding that discipleship happened in a classroom in front of a flannelgraph and that the only way to grow as a follower of Jesus was to sign up for Bible studies, attend Sunday school, get your kids to VBS, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t have sex and be good. Rules, rules and more rules. It was a cyclical pattern of condemnation. I could never be good enough.

When Jesus commissioned us to make disciples he certainly desired for us to engage the world. We are to go to the nations, teach them to observe what Jesus said, baptize them, and then do it again—all with the gospel Story as the center. But what I was missing was real life-on-life, Spirit empowered, Story-formed community.

It’s not, “Come to Jesus, join our church and then get discipled.” It’s, “Here is the gospel. Here’s what Jesus has done for you. Repent and believe, and live a life on mission with the Church through the power of the Spirit as you learn to make disciples who make disciples. Your life, which is not your life now, is to be gospel-saturated and set on fire for the mission. Now go.” The gospel Story tells of freedom from condemnation. If freedom to live a life on mission comes with the gospel driving your life, what holds us back? Let's take a look at a couple of all too familiar scenarios.

Condemnation Scenario One

We sat in my office, and I listened to her story for nearly an hour. She was in tears as anger, bitterness, frustration, anxiety, depression, and uncertainty all plagued her. She had moved out of the house away from her husband, and things were not going well. I had a couple of meetings with the two of them, but we never seemed to be able to get anywhere with the situation. They had both been married before and now this marriage was about to crumble. Again. She couldn’t live with herself if another marriage fell apart. Not this time.

She talked a lot about the problems in their marriage, but the common, underlying theme in all of her analysis was condemnation. How could God still love me? Why would God allow this to happen? I still feel ashamed of my past. I still feel distant from God. There is no way I can live like this and still have a relationship with Jesus.

Condemnation Scenario Two

Steven (not his real name) is not a Christian. He had been coming to our worship gatherings for quite a while now, and sat in the back curiously looking around. If he as a not-yet-believer was likened to anything, it would be that of a window shopper. He enjoyed browsing the flurry of activity that was a Sunday morning. He was here each week and was engaged with everything, especially the sermon. He was here each week and was engaged with everything, especially the sermon, though he didn’t necessarily care for our music. Almost every week, I would stand in the back of the auditorium and greet him, and he thanked me for my message each time.

Steven and I got to know each other as he took the initiative to come meet with me. I had previously given him a Bible and he had been reading it every single day. As far as I could tell he’d read the New Testament a couple of times over. Steven was searching.

One day he sat on the couch in my office and told me his story. His background didn’t shock me, for I had worked in the social work field in inner-city Philadelphia during seminary, but I was blown away by the fact that he was still alive. Steven interrupted me that day (which was highly unusual because he was normally quiet and reserved) and said, “Pastor Jason, I understand why Jesus died. I understand my sin. I’m not ready to become a Christian yet.”

What in the world do I do with this, I thought. The man had heard the gospel over and over again, was reading his Bible, talking with me, praying with me, and had a better attendance at our Sunday gatherings than most everyone else. What gives? Then he told me, “I don’t understand how God could accept me.”

Justification in the Gospel

Both scenarios I laid out above are about shame; both have guilt. Both are desiring to be accepted by God. One is a believer struggling with identity; the other is not yet a believer struggling with identity. But both require the same approach to discipleship: the gospel. This gospel says that you are accepted, not because of anything you have done or will do, but because of what Jesus has done. You are accepted now!

The Apostle Paul was intoxicated with the gospel. He was stunned by Jesus and penned the greatest theological treatise ever written. In the Letter to the Romans, Paul’s entire premise hinges on this all-important doctrine of justification. He says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

This word, “therefore,” is the crescendo of all things gospel-centered. It is a powerful word especially because of where it is in chapter eight. Paul has just laid out in the previous chapters the doctrine of sin and justification and in Romans 7:23-25 says that we have an impressive victory won “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Backing up even further, Paul says in Romans 7:6, “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

Don’t miss this statement. Paul is giving us a new grid to work with, and it is that of the Spirit’s working in our life because we died with Jesus. This is a significant part of Paul’s robust doctrine of justification. We are free from the law of sin and death! (Romans 8:2). And “now” we have this status—this right-standing-before-God status that was inaugurated by Jesus, and because of what he has done we have been united with him. Justification is always connected to our union with Christ.

Paul says that the condemnation is gone. It’s finished. Obliterated. Never-to-return. The fruit of sin is death and because we have peace with God, because of what Jesus has done, we are acquitted. Sin and death were condemned on the cross. Their verdict was rendered “finished” by Jesus’ substitutionary death. The Spirit in our life points us back to that reality over and over again, to drink deeply from the gospel well. The future verdict of “not guilty” has been given to us now. We’ve been adopted (Romans 8:15). We’ve been changed. We’ve experienced the gospel.

Gospel Identity through the Trinity

At the center of all things discipleship is an identity crisis. Finding hope with the doctrine of justification requires that we look deeply at our identities. At our church I use something I call “The Trinitarian Story” with our people. The Father, Son, and Spirit are all at work in the mission of God. Each Person plays a role during the life of the believer. The Father is our heavenly father and we are a family. The Son is Lord and came to serve us, so we worship him as servants. The Spirit was sent by Jesus to shape us as a community on mission, and therefore we are missionaries. Each of these identities are connected to the gospel. Each of these give us a profound sense of worth, dignity, and value. Notice that we don’t give ourselves this worth; it comes from God.

Taking it a bit further, I’ve heard fellow Soma Communities pastor Jeff Vanderstelt and others talk about four key gospel-fluent questions for whatever you find yourself dealing with in life (be it success, problems, sin, or trial). I have framed them this way:

1. Who is God?
2. What has God done in Christ?
3. Who does that now make me?
4. What’s next, Holy Spirit?

The key to growing in holiness by the power of the Spirit is to learn to appropriate the gospel and do so by connecting it to our identities. We must learn to allow the Spirit the opportunity to help us revisit this, over and over again.

Hope in the Gospel

My counsel to these two? No matter the circumstance, trial, or tribulation, you can find hope. Paul says that nothing can separate us from Jesus (Romans 8:35-39). Nothing. Do you believe it? Now let's try the gospel-fluent questions:

Questions 1: Who is God? He is Righteous, therefore he is Judge.

Question 2: What has God done in Christ? He has offered his Son Jesus as a substitution for our sin. Jesus bore the wrath of God on himself in our place, and in doing so was crucified and raised on the third day. Scripture says that this Christ event is what gave us justification.

Question 3: Who does that now make me? A justified sinner, saved by God’s grace, who’s condemnation is null and void. My guilt has been destroyed, my shame put to death. I can now be a joyful person because Jesus has taken my punishment.

Question 4: What’s next, Holy Spirit? Rest in my justification, praising God for the gospel. I can find hope because Jesus stepped in my place to get me.

Counseling and discipling in these situations is incredibly difficult. It takes time. It takes us remembering the gospel and learning to listen while making fresh applications of what Jesus has done. By God’s grace, there is hope. May we spur on our efforts of disciple-making by the power of the Spirit for the glory of God, resting in what Jesus has done to justify us.

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Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Biblical Theological Seminary) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI. Jason and his wife, Mary, have two children, Elijah and Avery. He enjoys theological banter, good pizza, tinkering around on the iPad and fighting for joy. He blogs at the Storied Jesus. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood

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To go deeper into the gospel, check out Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson. 

For more free articles about realizing your gospel identity, read The Love of Our Father by Jake Chambers and Rethinking Devotion by Matt Manry.

Satan in the Suburbs

Satan. Lucifer. Beelzebub. The devil. Whatever you want to call him, most of us treat the adversary as though he is a biblical fairy tale. Historically, it seems as though Satan gets too much play or none at all. We either blame everything (including burnt toast) on him, or nothing. Rarely have we dealt with him in the middle, knowing he's against us, but understanding our Father is greater. For my life, I've mainly dealt with the devil as an afterthought. I have believed in Satan because as the song goes … the Bible tells me so, but I have never believed that he influences my everyday life.  He’s there, but don’t mention him.

Here is what I have found out, practically, about the devil as I have tried to live out the mission of making disciples in my suburban neighborhood:

1. Satan attacks disciple making.
2. Don’t be surprised when he attacks.
3. God is glorious, so we don’t have to fear others, including the devil.

Satan attacks disciple making

What I have found out is that Satan is present among disciple makers who are actually doing the enemy's will masked in God's favor. What do I mean by this?

For years, I never made disciples of Jesus. Did I make disciples? Yes. Everyone makes disciples, it’s either of yourself or of Jesus. This is one way Satan attacks discipleship. Although I believed I was making good little moralist people whom God would be so glad to have on his team, I was actually drafting soldiers that were fighting well against the gospel--making the gospel seem unnecessary. I was doing Satan’s work for him.

A little over three years ago, the tides changed. Stripped of my moralism, the good news was finally … good news.  Although I grew up in the church my whole life, not until the law was shown to be subject to the Savior instead of the savior itself, did I see how beautiful the news truly was. When this happened, everything changed.

I stopped making disciples of  myself (or at least did my best to stop that kind of self glorifying work). I started to do whatever I could to show others Jesus and what he was like. Instead of expecting sinners to come to me, I started to go to them. Instead of expecting sinners to clean themselves up so they could come to the church, I realized I was as filthy as anyone, and that I am the church only because of grace. And because of that grace, I could go to people where they were and show them and tell them the good news in a way that would really be good news to them. To bring the gospel in a way that made an impact on them where they were in that moment.

As my family started to live this out, everything seemed to be going well. Very well. Neighborhood events, dinners, people seeing and hearing the good news in many different ways. Within this picture of gospel community, Satan made a vicious attack on us--spiritually. He attacked us with the very people we were reaching out to.

We have lived in the same neighborhood for eight years. For the first five years, we never did anything to make disciples of Jesus. For the past three, we have done everything we could to self-sacrifice for the sake of making disciples of Jesus.  Have we done this perfectly? By no means. It’s interesting that we were left alone for the first five years, but now during the last three, Satan has been on the prowl like a roaring lion.

Instead of attacking us by physical illness, something Job-like, it came as a knock at the door. It was a neighbor we had been tirelessly reaching out to, trying to show Jesus to his whole family. He came on a Friday, when he knew I wouldn't be home. For twenty minutes, he cussed at my wife, saying he had put up with her for eight years, but in reality had hated her the entire time. He then listed off ways in which he found her to be disgusting. These things he listed--these charges that weren't grounded in reality--though they hadn't really happened, they were the four things my wife had been trying deeply to rid herself of since leaving our previous church where we were once the good little moralists. The only people who knew the depth of these four struggles were myself and my wife. Our MC (missional community) knew most of them, but not the depth of the hurt these four things had caused our souls. God knew everything, and we came to find out, so did Satan.

Shortly after, my wife called to let me know what happened. As a husband, I was furious. I had to decide if I’d go to jail, or respond to my enemy in love. Would I disciple my family and the neighborhood to Jesus, or to myself?

I gave him a call, we spoke, and I called out his lies where they needed to be called out. In the end, I told him we’d respect his wishes for our families not to interact further. I did my best to show him love, all the while wanting to take him to the wood shed. We live literally ten feet apart.

Don’t Be Surprised When Satan Attacks

We are told many times that we’ll be hated, attacked, and despised for living a life of hope and peace. We need to be ready to be attacked. Peter even says don’t be surprised by the fiery ordeal amongst you. Jesus says to know that we’ll be hated because they first hated him.

When my wife was attacked by our neighbor, our first thought was, “Why?”  If I listed all the ways we’d loved this family, you’d think I was making it up. Again, a reminder that we should never be loving others for what we’ll get from them, but only because of how much our Father has loved us.

On the question of why Satan attacks, he attacked us because of what was happening in the neighborhood. We have had so many people see Jesus and hear about Jesus in the last three years in our neighborhood that Satan could not take us being on his turf any more. If he is like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, who is a lion going to attack? A lion attacks for food or for protection of the herd. I believe he was attacking here because he was trying to protect his herd against his enemy: Jesus.

When you are on the mission field, doing the work of Jesus, Satan will attack to keep the eyes of his herd closed to the glories of Jesus. Instead of merely attacking the work, he attacks those that are doing the work to nip the work in the bud.  If he can rid the neighborhood of us, then he can rid the light from the darkness. Not because we are special, but because we are the workmen of Jesus being used by the Spirit to show off who he is.

Why my wife? Peter tells us to love our wives like a weaker vessel, put in our vernacular, like a prized vase that you take great care of and keep from breaking. Satan figured that if he could take out my wife, she’d crumble and our disciple making would be over. Satan has not only attacked my wife through our neighbor, but he has also shown up in visions and dreams of demons surrounding her, trying to show her his strength against her. I’ll add something to this a little further down.

So, why did this neighbor attack my wife, or really us as a family? This neighbor knows us pretty well, as our family is very open and honest about our struggles and our lives in general. He knows who we trust and the hope and peace we have in Jesus. When you live in such a way where you have an honest hope and trust in something greater than yourself, and there is no explaining it away, you end up showing others that they actually don’t live in true peace and hope. We believe in the end, this neighbor started to see that his life was being threatened by us. He had a view of what Christians were, namely hypocrites that don’t look like Jesus in any way. Now he had people living ten feet away from him, loving him without restrictions, without any strings attached, and I believe it crushed his view of not only Jesus, but of his whole life, which he thought was peaceful and hopeful. When that crashed around him, he attacked because he didn’t know what else to do.

This isn’t some “look how great we’ve been to our neighbor” act, but it is the reality of the Scriptures. Think through this.  Why was Jesus hated? Because he showed the people that their deeds were evil (John 7:7; John 15:18-23). Why will we be persecuted? Because we live godly in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 3:12). When we do these things, we are discipling people to Jesus, and this kicks against not only the individualistic American Dream but against Satan himself.

So, as you prepare to live a life on mission to show off Jesus … be ready. Satan is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. That someone is you.

God is glorious, so I don't have to fear others, including Satan

The beautiful thing about all this is that God is glorious; he is greater than all things and beings and is in complete control. Therefore, we fear nothing or no one, including the devil.

After this happened to my wife, I told her that it was time for us to rest and allow God to defend himself in this matter, and that we didn’t need to defend ourselves. We told no one, besides our MC, as we didn’t desire to spread rumors or slander against our neighbor. During this time, many emotions bubbled up. This was not a time where we were perfect, nor handled it like stoics. There were times of fierce anger, lots of screaming about the situation and asking God why he was allowing this to happen. After the incident on the porch, another time the family attacked my nine-year-old’s character. They were persistent. We didn’t know if we’d ever reach out to our community again because the hurt to our family ran so deep.

We didn’t hide these emotions from each other, God, or our missional community. One beautiful thing about this was the wisdom and insight we received from God through our people. Two women had visions and dreams about our neighborhood and the attack that was happening. One described it as demon possession and that much prayer needed to happen for the family. Not only that, but this woman and her husband offered us up a place to stay if we desired to flee from the devil and his schemes. It was a beautiful time for our MC family. Another woman said that God gave her a vision of not only the army of darkness that surrounded our house, but that God confirmed for her and us that the army of God was protecting us and would one day send us to proclaim the good news again.

One of my elders spoke to us telling us that Jesus had many people that hated him, and he still partied in their midst. Jesus literally was at parties where his enemies were and they would scorn him in front of others. This elder reminded us of the good news of who God is and our calling to love others for the sake of the glory of God.

As we prayed, my wife was given a vision. It was in the middle of the night and she woke in terror. She saw demonic beings up and down our walls seeking to attack her. I was leaving to speak at a conference, and Satan was telling her that when I left, he was going to attack her. That was when another beautiful thing happened: my wife felt comfort. Terror left her. Fear was gone. Peace and joy filled her as she told Satan:

"My husband is not my protector. He is not my savior. He is not the one who ensures my safety. The only one who can protect me, save me, and ensure my safety is the God of the universe. And I call him Daddy.

Through all of this attack, although our emotions were up and down, Satan failed. Jesus won. Our Jesus allowed this to happen to bring us closer to him and to understand why we are on the mission field. It is not about ourselves or what we’ll get from it. It’s not so we can grab attention or get anything from those we serve. There is only one reason we are on the mission field--to show off who Jesus is.

As we show off who Jesus is, the God who is all glorious brings us along in his power and protection so that we’ll press more into him and the understanding of his glory and might and not our own. Satan thought that by trying to break my wife, he’d win. What he did instead was to press my wife even further into the loving arms of her true Savior, her true Protector, her true Salvation. And by doing this, he strengthened my understanding of what it means to love my wife and trust that my Heavenly Dad loves her far more than I do.

When we begin to understand this, we can press even further into the mission of making disciples who make disciples, knowing that Satan is ready to attack, but that our Protector is there and ready at our defense for the sake of his glory.

It’s his mission. It’s his power. It’s for his glory.

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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade Seth is an Investment Portfolio Manager, serving as president of McBee Advisors, Inc as well as a missional community leader, preaching elder with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington, and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Twitter @sdmcbee

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To go more in depth into the gospel centered life, read Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson.

For more free articles about spiritual warfare, read Spiritual Warfare Prayer by Winfield Bevins.

Rethinking Devotion

For the longest time I believed Christianity was all about becoming a better person. I thought the only way to gain acceptance before God was by doing more and trying harder. Boy was I wrong. These thoughts led to a lot of internal focus on my struggles, flaws, and weaknesses. It was all about me. My thoughts were consumed with whether or not I was becoming a “better Christian.” Because that is what Christianity is all about, right? That’s what I thought.

Many of us grew up in the church feeling this burden of performance. I thought that devotion to God looked like rigorous effort and righteous improvement, but we don’t have the ability within ourselves to be fully devoted to God.

Say what?

For performance freaks like myself, we love to convince ourselves that we have the ability do it! We can be devoted to God if we just try harder! But the truth is that the more I try, the more it becomes about me and the less it is about Jesus Christ.

Backward Devotion

We can try all we want, but we will never be fully devoted to God until we are in his presence spending eternity with him. Don’t get confused - we must strive to be devoted to God in our lives; however, we must strive to do so by looking at Jesus Christ and not by focusing on our own personal progress.

Where I fail in being devoted to God every day, Christ succeeded in being devoted every single moment of his life. We are justified by faith in the substitutionary death and perfect life of Christ Jesus. Jesus was completely devoted to his Father. He followed his will perfectly. Jesus Christ loved fully and was always loyal. He was, and always will be, the only man to ever walk on planet Earth who was completely devoted to God. We cannot get it backward.

Outward Devotion

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believe in vain. - 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

Reading through 1 Corinthians one night, I recognized the gospel of Jesus was something that we as Christians had received (past tense), something that we stand on (present tense), and something by which we're being saved. This verse revolutionized my thinking. I felt like my eyes had been open to the now-power of the gospel.

But what did this mean for me? I had already been a Christian for a few years, and I thought my Christian walk was about becoming more devoted to Christ. Well that’s true of course, but the way to become more devoted and sanctified in Christ is the tricky part. The gospel of Jesus Christ hit me like a ton of bricks that night and I realized that true spiritual growth was about focusing less on myself and more on Christ. This meant that the gospel essentially turned me outward away from myself and toward Christ and others.

At church, my focus was able to be on God and others because I was covered by the righteousness of Christ. In my family life, I was able to focus on their needs because I knew that all of my needs had been provided for by Christ. Within my community, I was able to love others freely because of the unmerited love I had received on the cross of Christ. The gospel changed everything.

Over time the view of myself diminished and my dependence upon Christ increased. My daily walk with Christ changed dramatically because I spent more of my time focusing on his finished work for me and less on my performance for him. I was able to be more devoted to Christ because my focus was solely on him. This is what gospel-driven devotion looks like!

Rethinking Devotion

The truth is that we are often more concerned with becoming “devoted Christians” then with becoming devoted to Christ, himself. Philippians 3:14 says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Our eyes must be focused solely on the work of Jesus and the eternal fellowship that we have gained with God through his death and resurrection our behalf.

The gospel must be our motivation to become devoted to Christ. The gospel is all about the work of God done through Christ! To progress as a Christian is to be grounded in the gospel. The message is completely about Jesus!

This truth freed me from thinking about myself constantly and opened my eyes to the need to look to my sufficient Savior as I progressed in sanctification. I developed an outward outlook and was able to forget about my insufficiencies, my failures, and my flaws. My daily walk with the Lord could now be centered upon loving God and loving others. My eyes were on Jesus and not on myself.  As Tim Keller writes, “Blessed self-forgetfulness!”

After his conversion, the Apostle Paul became one of the most devoted men to Christ throughout Scripture. However, it is interesting to notice that Paul referred to himself over the course of his Christian life as the least of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:9), the very least of all saints (Eph. 3:8), and the foremost sinner (1 Tim. 1:15). Because Paul kept his eyes solely focused on Jesus he was able to admit his lack of devotion to Christ and rest upon the saving grace of Christ Jesus. Paul understood that devotion to Christ was less about him becoming better and more about placing his faith on an unchanging Savior.

Gospel Focused Devotion

If we focus on the gospel and realize that we have already been transferred into the Kingdom of God (Col. 1:13) because of our faith in Christ Jesus, we are able to pursue becoming and strive to become more devoted believers. This is what the process of becoming more like Jesus is all about. Your identity is sealed, so you are able live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel. When gospel truth intervenes in your life, difficult circumstances can be looked at in the light of Christ.

For example, when Christ’s work becomes the center of what you focus on during the day, that horrible job you complain about all the time becomes work you gratefully do for God. Christ has blessed you with it. It means that stay-at-home moms who despise being cooped up in the house all day with three infant kids who are just craving some attention can persevere through their circumstances and rest in the arms of a Savior who whispers, “In you I am well pleased.” It means that students who are being bullied and struggling with depression can find immeasurable peace and hope in knowing they have nothing to prove. Christ has proven everything.

This is what keeping keeping Jesus Christ at the center of our devotion does. We are set free. We become more devoted to God by focusing on the glorious good news. With your identity in Christ sealed, you are able to overcome life’s hardships and suffering because he has overcome! The only truly Christian way to freely pursue devotion to God is with your eyes focused on Jesus.

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Matt Manry is the Director of Students at Life Bible Church in Canton, Georgia and a student at Reformed Theological Seminary. He blogs regularly at gospelglory.net Twitter @matt_manry

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For more resources on devotion, work through Winfield Bevin's primer on the Holy Spirit.

For more free articles on all the particulars of devotion, check out this amazing series about Meditating on God's Word by Tony Merida.

Grief and the Gospel - Part Two

How do I grieve? Evidently, it matters how we grieve. Paul mentions a godly grief and worldly grief (2 Corinthians 7:10). Believers are not to grieve “as those who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Grief and the Gospel - Part One was on open invitation to align our hearts with the heart of God through the grieving of sin. The gospel tells us that sin grieves God, so it should grieve us, too (sin committed by us, sin committed against us, and the various effects of sin). It also tells us that because Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, we are not alone in our grief.

But how should we grieve? And more importantly, what should be the outcome of our grief? While social scientists continue to debate the merits of various approaches to grief, the gospel shows itself to be a more than sufficient guide through the process of grief.

Agree with the Father's Grief

The gospel begins with God, therefore grief (along with everything else in life) must begin with God. Remember that sin grieves God, so it should grieve us, too (Ephesians 4:30). Whether you are grieving sin committed by you today, sin committed against you twenty years ago, or the effects of sin committed by Adam at the fall, I believe it’s important to hear the Spirit affirm what we know to be true according to the scriptures.

Ask the Father to speak through the Spirit concerning the particular situation. There’s not adequate space here to do a full treatment on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but note that the Spirit is sent by the Father in Jesus’ name (John 14:26). The Spirit proceeds from the Father (John 15:26); and the Spirit leads us to the truth about our adoption as God's children, by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” All of this adds up to the fact that the Spirit reveals the heart of the Father to us. When we ask the Father how he feels about sin, his response will always include, “This grieves me.” After hearing this (or at least being reminded of Ephesians 4:30), we can freely grieve along with him. The Greek word that translates as “confess” in 1 John 1:9 means “to say the same thing as another; to agree with.”

Burying our emotions under a pile of self-protection is a common way of dealing with pain. But the gospel invites a much more honest approach. Simply agreeing with God about the grievous nature of sin will be freeing for many. Saying: “That sin committed by me, that sin committed against me, grieves me. It breaks my heart. It’s not the way God designed the world to work.” This is the beginning of confessing our sins. Then we must move on by “agreeing with” the Father’s next thoughts concerning sin, that it is not in line with his holiness, and that it must be dealt with. This is the path to the forgiveness promised in 1 John 1:9.

After simply agreeing with God about the grievous nature of sin, I believe the gospel leads us to pour out our hearts to him. Again, our grief must be about God, or it will become an opportunity for self-obsessed navel gazing and pity parties. 1 Peter 5:5-7 says, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Fixating merely on the hard circumstances of life -- past or present -- is driven by pride. Effectively, we are casting our cares on ourselves. Casting them on God requires humility, an acknowledgment that life is not ultimately about us, but is about him and his glory. The trials of life can cause us to tell our stories with our eyes pointed downward into our cupped hands, looking at our circumstances as if they were an unintelligible pile of garbage. It’s a line with two fixed points --us and our pile of stuff.

The challenge is to humbly bring your pile to the Father, to hold your cupped hands out and lift up your head, gazing not on your circumstances but on the one who is sovereign over them and present in the midst of them. The line becomes a triangle with three points -- us, our pile of stuff, and our perfect Father.

Learn from the Grief Psalms

Many of David’s Psalms are a gripping example of someone pouring out their heart to God, of acknowledging the grievous nature of their circumstances, but doing it in a way that keeps God in the center.

Listen to the words of Psalm 22, which paint a vivid picture of a man who is enduring extreme suffering:

• “I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.”
• “All who see me mock me…”
• “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me.”
• “For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They look and stare at me.”

David has been oppressed, victimized, abused, and mistreated. We don’t know the exact details behind some of David’s references, but it’s clear that he’s been sinned against in tremendous ways.

But how does he frame his lament? Where are his cupped hands?

The Psalm 22 begins this way:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel."

And he says this near the end:

“I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!”

In all of David's lament psalms (which we could also call grief psalms), he follows this same pattern:

1. he fixes his gaze on God, affirming his sovereignty and presence;
2. he pours out his heart to God without holding back (“This is terrible! This grieves me!”);
3. then he reaffirms his great faith in God and his determination to worship him no matter what.

Your prayer may sound something like this:

“God, I know you are here! I know you are powerful and present. I know you’ve always been present. You know what I did yesterday, and you know what happened to me years ago. And it grieves me! I know it grieves you, too! When I was mistreated and abused, when people made fun of me and hurt me, when I sinned sexually and spoke hurtful words to others, you were there and you were grieved. And it was terrible. I hated it. It made me want to die. But I know you were there, and I know you are in control, and I know you actually do care. I am in pain, and I still choose to worship you. Heal my broken heart.”

Embrace Gospel Grief

If this all reminds us of Jesus (except for the part about confessing sin), it should.  Matthew makes at least four references to Psalm 22 (27:35, 27:39, 27:43, 27:46), providing us with another clear example of how we should grieve even the most unjust suffering we may endure.

According to the gospel, grief is not about morbid introspection. Gospel grief is about accepting the invitation to pour out your heart to your perfect Father in heaven.

One of the most misquoted verses in the Bible is Romans 8:28:

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Often, this verse is quoted when people are experiencing great difficulty. The idea is that God is up to something, that he’s in control, and that he’s going to bring something good out of this mess. While that’s certainly true, it’s not helpful to send a hurting person out on a wild goose chase for some random “good” that may come of their broken circumstances. We must have verse 29 in order to make sense of verse 28:

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

Now we know what the "good" is that God is always working toward in the lives of his adopted children. He is always, through good circumstances and bad circumstances, through blessing and through trial, conforming us into the image of his Son. That’s the plan he determined to accomplish in our lives before time began. And in his amazing power and sovereignty, he does in fact bring something good out of the mess. Somehow, he uses sin to accomplish this conforming work. I will never grasp the manner in which he carries this out, but I have experienced his transforming work most powerfully in the midst of sin and trial.

So what’s this got to do with grief? Grief informed by the gospel comes full circle when we can say, like Joseph, “You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.” Sin is never God’s first choice. Sin is evil, pure and simple. When people sin against us, in some ways there is a plan for our destruction being carried out. But God’s plan trumps that plan, and actually uses sin -- committed by us and against us -- to accomplish a greater, life-giving plan. Your abuser intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.

Embracing this reality, acknowledging the good, Christ-forming work that has been accomplished in your life as a direct result of sinful choices made by yourself and others, is an essential part of grief. Only then do we see that our pain can actually be redeemed -- “bought back” to accomplish God’s purposes.

Jesus has taken the grievous moments of our lives, paid the penalty for the sin that caused them, and redeemed those moments for his purposes. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4).

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Abe Meysenburg and his wife, Jennifer, live in Tacoma, WA, where he serves as a pastor and elder with Soma Communities. In 2001, Abe helped start The Sound Community Church, which then became a part of Soma Communities in May 2007. Twitter: @abemeysenburg

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To read about how the Holy Spirit reveals the heart of the Father to us, check out The Holy Spirit by Winfield Bevins.

Also, read the first free article in this series by Abe Meysenburg, Grief and the Gospel - Part One.

The Implications of Obeying God

Editor's Note: This is a repost of The Implications of God. It appears at GCD with the author's permission. ---

Face in my hands. Elbows on the table. My husband is sitting across from me at our lovely unsuspecting Italian restaurant. He pushes in close, but I don't have words to define the tears hitting the table. He knows. More than two years ago we prayed a prayer  -- God, we will do anything -- and its repercussions are everywhere.

Our anythings seem to be costing us everything. Nothing about our previously sane lives are the same. In the last year we have given up all control, and God has taken us up on those simple and naive little words.

Anything Means Anything

Since we prayed that prayer, God has led us to adopt a three-and-half-year-old little boy from Rwanda, making us a family of six. We sold our house, merged our church with another local church, turned over leadership and our previous roles to others, and for the past year, we have been writing and living three book publication projects -- but that isn't everything. So, we are tired and empty.

My husband moves in even closer to me at the table. Ironically, I'm leaving the next day to be interviewed about the book that is honestly the cause of all of it … all the anythings. Yet, I can't remember why we are doing any of it. I'm so tired and unsure of myself and worst of all, God feels far, far away.

My husband whispers, “It’s been a hard year.” And strangely, it is comforting to admit that following God is hard. I ask myself, "Would I take it back?"

Because of The Gospel

God’s very existence demands these words from us -- I will do anything. If we find ourselves at the feet of a God who made us and set us in our time and space on this planet, which He spoke into being, what other life are we to lead than the one He wrote for us? And if it costs us everything (for the little while we live on this planet) -- comfort and approval and control and ease -- how will we answer?

Jesus did this. He lived all-in, with one foot in heaven and one on this earth. With eternity clear in His mind He said, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me." (John 6:38)

The implications of knowing His Father was simply to obey Him.

What Obeying Looks Like

The implications of obeying God for us are the same: keep our heads down and listen and do what He says, even if it leads to crying over our pasta sometimes.

And He will probably say things like:

• “Give the lunch you just got from the Chick-fil-A drive-thru to the woman with the cardboard sign outside your car window.”
• “Ease up on your kids -- I am not this hard on you, and I am God.”
• “Get rid of what you don’t need and don’t keep chasing stuff because you won’t be here long.”
• “Encourage and remind each other that I am real, and that I’m worth it. I promise.”
• “Come back to me everyday. I’m really here. I really see you.”

My husband and I aren't going to take it back. I would rather have nights that hurt than disobey. And underneath all the hard is a life that I wouldn't trade anyway. I love my anythings -- even the hardest ones.

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Jennie Allen’s passion is to communicate a bigger God through writing and teaching. She serves in ministry alongside her husband, Zac. They have four children and live in Austin, Texas. Jennie’s blog can be found at www.JennieAllen.com.

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To go deeper into the Gospel, read Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson.

For more free articles about Gospel identity, check out The Love of Our Father by Jake Chambers and Spiritual Strength Training Parts One and Two by David Murray.

The Love of Our Father

I love the mornings when my boy Ezra wakes up and he just wants to snuggle. He is a year and a half old, twenty some pounds of dynamite and energy. He seldom wants to snuggle. But some mornings he does. I love getting to hold my son and telling him I love him.

And I do love him. I adore him. I am crazy about him and love being his daddy. And he adores me. He loves to wrestle, play, and tell me about the “capuchin” monkeys at the zoo. And he loves to cheer on his daddy. One day I was beating my friend Dustin at backyard soccer, and Ezra was on the trampoline jumping and watching. After I scored an epic goal, Ezra ran to the edge of the trampoline and put out his arms. I ran over to him thinking he wanted down. Instead he just wanted to give me a hug and yell, “Go Daddy!” It was awesome.

I remember the first night I brought Ezra home and it felt like my heart had exploded. I wept with joy and love. Lindsey and I both felt like Will Ferrell in Elf after his first date with Zoey Deschanel. All we could say was, “I am in love, I am in love, and I don’t care who knows it.”

ABBA FATHER – DADDY GOD

Ezra and I have a real relationship. I am his daddy, and he is my boy. That means something. It is a gift, and it is a blessing. Some will read this and be sad they don’t have kids, and some might read this and be sad they had a crappy dad or no dad at all. That is sad and is part of the curse of the fall. We were created to love and be loved. Sin has come into the world and separated us from God and one another. Sin is a relationship destroyer. But God is love. Christ proves his love for us through his death on the cross, and brings us back into perfect relationship back with our heavenly Father.

Our God is a Daddy. He reveals himself as Abba Father. One whose arms we can rest in. One whom we can watch, adore and, cheer on. And he loves us too. We are his beloved children. His kids. His girl. His boy.

GOD’S COVENANTAL LOVE

One of the things I told Ezra when he was born was that he never has to work for my love. That I love him with a covenantal love. I choose to love him forever. It is a love that is not based on his performance. This is the love our Father loves us with. It is an everlasting covenant.

He chooses us, adopts us, creates the way for us to be in his family forever, and loves us in spite of our performance and rebellion. This is a love we do not deserve, and it is a powerful and perfect love. He is not ashamed to love us as he loves us and doesn’t care who knows it!

It can be so easy to forget this covenantal love when you feel the weight of trying to perform — trying to prove yourself to the world and to others and ultimately to God. I remember feeling this way not to long ago. I can often slip into this feeling, and it is heavy and exhausting. One day, I was feeling this weight and some friends prayed over me. One of them had a vision of God looking at me and saying – “I love you. You are my boy. Rest, Jake. The Father loves you. You don’t have to perform, as I am already here with you.” I wept under the freedom of these powerful and loving words. My God is a relational God. He is a Daddy that loves me. And I get to run to him, hug him, and cheer him on – “Go Daddy!”

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?

Knowing our Father helps us know who we are. As Christians we are sons and daughters of a holy and perfect Father. We are not alone. We belong to a heavenly family and will live together for eternity. We don’t have to take on life’s pain and struggles like a cowboy in a Clint Eastwood movie, but instead we get to share our  triumphs and trials as a church praying together to “our Father who art in heaven.”

If you are feeling the weight of loneliness or the pressure to prove yourself, I want to encourage you to confess it to God and to your church family. I want to encourage you to run to your Father’s arms and let him embrace you and tell you the truth of his love for you. Praise and thank him that you are not alone and that you don’t have to perform for his love. Tell some of your church friends to remind you of these truths — that you have a perfect daddy. Rest in this beautiful truth and when the world asks you why you have such peace and rest in a chaotic world, point them to your loving Father!

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Jake Chambers is a member of Jesus’ bride - the church, husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to his boy Ezra. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring. You can read more of his writing at reddoorlife.tv.

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For more in-depth reading about family discipleship, see Family Worship, by Winfield Bevins. 

For more free articles about loving our children with the love of the Father, check out Ways to Love Your Children, by Patrick Morley, and Kids in the Family of God – Part One and Kids in the Family of God – Part Two, by Ben Connelly. 

Gospel Centered Religion

These days, it's not polite to speak of the gospel and religion in the same sentence without a "versus" in between. This trend of thinking is unfortunate. In the final tally, we lose more than we gain. Religion is not antithetical to the gospel. Let's unpack this truth.

The Problem

Pitting the gospel against religion stems from two very real and very dangerous problems: self-righteousness and an attempt to please God by good works or good merit. These problems are certainly anti-biblical and need to be called out wherever we notice them.

The False Solution

One popular solution offered in recent books and viral YouTube videos is to castigate religion itself. To show how the gospel of Jesus Christ is actually the antithesis of religion. For the uninitiated, this is what's at play when you hear things like:

"I love Jesus but hate religion." "Jesus hates religion." "Christianity is a relationship, not a religion."

And so on. Note: Being "spiritual but not religious" is related to this discussion as well, though this mantra suggests a rejection of both religion and the gospel.

The Problem with the Solution

The problem with "Gospel vs. Religion" is that it misses the point. This is a case of rightly seeing the problem, but coming up with the wrong steps to eradicate it. Moreover, it is not the perspective of the biblical writers. The Bible never speaks of religion as being bad, in and of itself.

If the problem is self-righteousness, we should couch the discussion using more biblically faithful polarities, such as:

• Gospel vs. False Religion
• Gospel vs. Self-Righteousness
• True Religion vs. False Religion

If this is really how the Bible speaks of the situation, we need to adopt biblical language in our own discussions.

Gospel vs. False Religion

The five chapters of the book of James is replete with favorable statements on the "doing" that is consonant with a gospel-saturated lifestyle:

• "faith without works is dead" (James 2:14-17)
• "be doers of the word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22)
•  a doer who acts "will be blessed in his doing" (James 1:25)
• "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:26-27)

This final passage is most relevant to our discussion: James 1:26-27 contains over half of the NT uses of the Greek word for "religion" (threskeia), and the connotation is certainly not negative.

Even in James' day, there were abuses of religion. There was worthless religion, impure religion, and defiled religion. So, did he punt the word? Did he conclude that "religion" was therefore the opposite of the gospel? No, he took the time to explain what true religion looked like.

The other two instances the word threskeia occur in Acts 26:5 and Colossians 2:18. The word in Col 2 is typically translated as "worship." Most agree that worship is good,  though there can be true worship and false worship. For instance, worship of angels (Col 2) is certainly wrong.

Likewise, in Acts 26, Paul used threskeia as a defense for what a good Jew he was. He certainly wasn't saying his strict observance of religion was bad. It was simply incomplete.

Gospel vs. Self-Righteousness

Passages like Matthew 6:1-24, Romans 9:30-33, and Matthew 23:23 teach on practicing righteousness. In my blog post on Matthew 6, I explain that the problem against which Jesus is warning his followers is not practicing righteousness itself, but one's motive behind practicing righteousness. Don't be afraid to practice righteousness; just be sure to check your heart for the impetus therein.

Similarly, Paul explains why Israel did not arrive at the righteousness they pursued: "Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone ..." (Rom 9:30-33). If our works is the path to righteousness, we will stumble over ourselves. Jesus is the only true way to righteousness.

True Religion vs. False Religion

The word "religion" has been hijacked in 21st century western culture. When people hear it, they think of rules and dos and don'ts. I get it. I don't agree, but I get it. What I don't get, however, is the current trend for believers to attack the biblical term!

Perhaps it is for the sake of cultural relevance. Instead of fighting for a biblical definition, many believers have acquiesced and allowed the word to be redefined wholesale. In my experience, it's a short leap from rejecting "religion" to becoming anti-church. I've seen it happen.

Why revive "religion"? Another way to put it: "Isn't it just semantics?" First, "just semantics" is a pretty big deal. Councils have been called, martyrs have been slaughtered, and wars have been fought - "holy" and otherwise - over the definition of words. More importantly, no, this isn't just semantics. Words do have meaning in context. If our cultural context is moving toward unanimously defining "religion" as evil, we need to take note. (Thankfully, we're not there yet.)

This perspective can easily morph into the before mentioned "spiritual but not religious" trend, which takes serious issue with rules. After all, Christianity is a relationship not a religion, right? We must acknowledge that being against rules is often code for bristling at the mention of obedience, accountability, and discipline.

Obedience is important. I once heard Chuck Swindoll say that there were more rules for riding a bus in Dallas than there were for joining a church. You can get kicked off a bus, but don't try to institute church discipline!

There are plenty of places in the NT where believers are admonished towards obedience. It's an obedience that flows out of the gospel and not to the gospel. Some of Jesus' last words were for his disciples to teach their disciples to obey everything he had commanded (Matt 28:20). This implies both that Jesus had commanded some things that needed to be obeyed and that this obedience was an important part of the Christian life.

There are directives within Christianity for which we need not apologize. These don't save you, but they're essential for a gospel-centered lifestyle within the Christian religion.

To conclude:

• We believers should concede no more ground and fight for a return to a biblical understanding of religion. Can religion and gospel be at odds? Sure. But it doesn't have to be; the two aren't necessarily opposed.

• Some words are worth intentionally and unequivocally defining so that people know what we truly mean by them. This is what I've tried to do in my ministry and I have not noticed a surge in people giving in to legalism and self-righteousness as a result. If we are too quick to discard "religion", the net result might be discarding obedience and a healthy ecclesiology along with it.

• We should draw a distinction between true and false religion (cf. James 1). The contrast is between believing and doing things that God desires of us (submission and obedience to Christ) and what is not required of us (e.g., don't dance or drink or watch rated-R movies). This is the distinction all believers should strive to make. It is another thing when the contrast is "faith vs. obedience," which are two things the Bible never pits against each other.

• The gospel is the beginning and foundation of one's journey in discipleship. It is the first step toward true obedience. I'm in full agreement that practicing empty rights and rituals in order to please God is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, most young believers, new believers, or even non-believers I know don't easily separate empty rights and rituals from all rights and rituals.

As a friend recently told me: "We shouldn't conceptualize faith as opposed to 'doing'; rather, we should more carefully define what 'doing' God expects of us."

Final Disclaimers

I agree with the importance of attacking the enemy that the Gospel vs. Religion proponents are attacking. I'm for the gospel! I'm for obedience that flows from faith in Christ, not obedience that somehow leads to a relationship with Christ. I am also fully convinced that the Gospel vs. Religion camp agrees with the importance of obedience in the Christian life; they're not antinomians. We are on the same team. I just think they've given the wrong label to the enemy they're fighting, and there might be some unfortunate unintended consequences.

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Jason Seville (Th.M) lives in Memphis, TN with his wife, Kim, and daughters, Sydney & Sophie. They are members at First Evangelical Church, and Jason is on staff with Downline Ministries, where he writes curriculum, teaches, and heads up Downline Builder. You can follow him on Twitter @jasonCseville. 

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For more thoughts on gospel centered religion, check out Tony Merida’s Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles on this topic, read: How to Respond to Religious Pluralism, by Jonathan Dodson; and What Is Gospel Centered Ministry, by Winfield Bevins.

How to Cultivate Fresh Faith in the Gospel

Editor's Note: Adapted from Jonathan Dodson's newly revised Gospel Centered Discipleship. There are also discussion questions for the book now available as a free download from Crossway.

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There are times old, memorized Bible promises just don’t help me trust Jesus. I recite them in the face of temptation, but nothing. No power, no belief, no victory. Is this because Jesus isn’t trustworthy? After all, “All the promises of God are ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’ in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1:20). Why aren’t they “amen-ed” in my heart in the face of temptation of dispair? Is there something wrong with my Bible? Or maybe Jesus only occasionally makes good on his promises? That, of course, contradicts God’s Word, and we must always interpret the Bible in light of the rest of the Bible. No, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is always trustworthy and his promises are always true. The problem is with my faith. I am like the centurion who cried: “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). In those moments, my faith is temporarily stuck in something other than Jesus. When the truth of God’s promises is set before me, for some reason, my faith doesn’t seize upon it. In those moments, we need fresh faith in the gospel.

How can we cultivate fresh faith in the gospel?

Spirit-led Bible Reading

In order to cultivate fresh faith in the gospel, Puritan pastor and theologian John Owen recommends we return to prayer… but perhaps not as you usually pray. Owen suggests if we consider the Spirit’s working in our hearts by prayer, we may understand much of his working upon our hearts by grace. He is saying that prayerful communion with the Spirit can lead to grace-based transformation of our hearts. How, then should we pray? Owen recommends we pray to the Spirit for three things:

1. Insight into God’s promises
2. Experience of our need
3. Creation of desire

When reading God’s word, all too often we assume we can gain insight by ourselves, neglect to experience our need, and are too proud to ask for God to create desire for him. What if, whenever we read the Bible, we began to talk to the Holy Spirit? What if we asked from help from the divine Helper given to guide us into truth (John 14:16)? The Spirit wants to help us in our reading, experiencing, and desiring before the face of God. He hovers over the deep, ready to disclose the will and presence of God to us (1 Cor 2). He loves to rivet our affection upon the risen Christ. So how should we pray to him?

Whenever you are reading the Bible and feel like you aren’t getting anything out of it, pause to ask the Spirit for insight into God’s promises. What if you paused and asked him: “Lord, you have been given to us so that we can understand all the things freely given to us by God. Will you give me insight into God’s Word right now?” Now, insight isn’t enough. Unregenerate scholars have lots of insight into God’s Word. I’m willing to bet that you have gained an insight in Scripture but not known how to respond? What if, instead of trying to “figure out application” on our own, we asked the Spirit to give us an experience of our need? What if you paused to ask him: “Lord, who knows the heart of man like the Spirit of God, will you help me to experience my specific need for right now?” Perhaps the Spirit will lead you to respond by rejoicing, repenting, interceding, or obeying.

Finally, have you ever read with insight, known your need, but felt no desire to respond to God? You know what to do but you’re flat. Hollow. Cold. Don’t move on or assume you will have the proper response. Pause and plead with the Spirit: “Lord, forgive me for my lack of desire, and create fresh, new desire in me to respond to you.” Then, wait and respond. In order to cultivate fresh faith in the gospel, I first recommend Spirit-led Bible reading. Make a habit of asking the Spirit to give you: Insight into his promises, an experience of your need, and to create desire to respond to God. Approach God’s Word with God’s Spirit. Plead for the lightening of the Spirit while carrying the rod of his Word. Ask the Spirit for these three things to revive an indifferent heart.

Do Gospel Homework!

As you read God’s Word, take confidence that the Spirit longs to give you fresh faith in God’s promises. Now, take that faith in a particular promise and consider how the gospel promises something better than whatever the temptation is promising. Prepare for moments of temptation by doing gospel homework. Gospel homework is a lot more fun that it sounds! When reading the Bible, look for promises of grace to rebuff the promises of sin you find so enticing. Look for the Lord’s instruction regarding a particular temptation. Develop a practice of identifying the promises of sin and line them up against the promises of Christ. Here are few examples:

Sexual Lust: the fight for true intimacy

Instead of trusting sexual lust for intimacy, trust God for true intimacy: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). When you are tempted to lust, turn to God’s promise for true intimacy, to see God and be ravished with him in Jesus.

• Lust says: “Long for what you cannot have and you will be happy.”

• The Gospel says: “Rejoice in what you do have, in Jesus, and you will be truly happy.”

Vanity: the fight for true worth

Instead of relying on vanity for worth, consider the beauty of God: “What we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3). When you are tempted to find your worth in your appearance, turn to God’s beauty and rest in the beauty you have in him.

• Vanity says: “Perform beautifully and you will have worth.”

• The Gospel says: “Jesus performed beautifully for you; therefore, you have never-ending worth.”

Pride: the fight for true confidence

Instead of trusting in compliments for confidence, believe that your sufficiency comes from God: “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, butour sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent” (2 Cor. 3:4-6).

• Pride says: “Find and cherish compliments and then you will be confident.”

• The Gospel says: “Your confidence comes, not from your sufficiency, but from God who has made you sufficient in Jesus.”

Get in the habit of comparing the promises of sin to the promises of the gospel. I have found it incredibly helpful to write down a sin promise next to a gospel promise in order to see the staggering difference between the two. When you identify the sin promise, it forces you to search the Scriptures for how the gospel offers a better promise. There’s something about seeing the futility of sin next to the beauty of Christ. Make a habit of doing gospel homework and looking for grace in God’s promises. Memorize the answers. Quote them to temptation. Write them on your heart. Most importantly, plead with the Spirit for fresh faith in gospel promises.

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

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For more information on cultivating fresh faith in the gospel, check out Jonathan Dodson’s Unbelievable Gospel.

For more free articles on missional living read: Invite & Invest to Make Disciples by Greg Gibson, Theology is for Everyone by David Fairchild, and The Gospel & Our Neighbors by Alvin Reid.

Date Your Wife - Excerpt

(Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from Justin Buzzard's Date Your Wife.) Men are always measuring themselves. You can’t hang out with a group of three or more men for more than three minutes without hearing them take measurement of themselves. Listen to what men talk about—their accomplishments, successes, and unique experiences that separate them from others. It doesn’t matter if the man is a banker, a plumber, a pastor, a CEO, an artist, an athlete, or unemployed—all men craft a standard of accomplishment by which they measure themselves and measure other men.

Men get this from Genesis 2:15. This behavior stems from a misunderstanding of the mandate God gave men back in the garden of Eden. God gave Adam and God gave us a mission to accomplish. But God never told Adam and never told us to measure ourselves by the mission. God gave us a different standard of measurement. The measure of a man is not how successful or unsuccessful a man is at carrying out his mission.

The measure of a man is not what he says about himself or what other people say about him. The true measure of a man comes from what God says about him.

Adam didn’t believe this. And we don’t believe it either.

Adam failed at his mission. He didn’t keep Genesis 2:15. He didn’t guard his garden and his marriage. That’s why Adam hid from God and hid from his wife behind the cover of fig leaves and excuses. Adam found his identity in his ability to perform Genesis 2:15, to successfully cultivate and guard. Having royally failed in his performance, Adam’s whole identity was at stake. The measurement didn’t look good, so Adam hid, excused, and blamed.

Sound familiar?

Before God gave Adam a wife, he gave him a job—to cultivate and guard the garden. But here’s the really good news: before God gave Adam a job, he gave him an identity. Before God gave Adam a job to do or a mission to accomplish, he gave Adam an identity to embrace. Before God told Adam to do anything, he told Adam who he was—he gave Adam the true way to measure and define himself.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. - Genesis 1:31

Very good! After creating Adam, God looks down upon Adam and declares him very good. This is the living God speaking. This is God declaring what he thinks about Adam. This is Adam’s identity. What God says goes. If God says Adam is very good, then this is the voice that defines Adam.

Adam = A man created in the image of God and declared “very good” by God.

Adam’s Genesis 2:15 calling was meant to flow out of Adam’s Genesis 1:31 identity. God told Adam what he thought about him; he gave Adam his approval—before Adam lifted a finger in the garden. Adam received his God-approved identity before he had a chance to do anything to prove himself. This is what we call grace, or the gospel—the good news of receiving favor from God that we don’t deserve or earn. But Adam gets it backward. He didn’t listen. Instead of believing, accepting, and living consistently with this God-given identity based on grace, Adam settled for an identity based on works. Adam hid, excused, and blamed in the attempt to reestablish his identity, in the attempt to prove that he was not as guilty and unsuccessful as he looked. Adam settled for a life powered by religion instead of a life powered by the gospel.

This has been the biggest problem of my life. I base my identity on my performance. When I perform well at marriage, fatherhood, my job, cultivating and guarding the garden God has given me, and meeting my goals, I feel good about myself.

I’m happy with my measurements. But when I perform poorly in these spheres, I don’t feel good about myself. I don’t like what the measurements say about me, so I hide, make excuses, and play the blame game.

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Justin Buzzard is the lead pastor of Garden City Church, a new church plant in Silicon Valley. His preaching is featured on Preaching Today. You can also buy his books, Date Your Wife, Why Cities Matter, and Consider Jesus. Click here to view a list of favorite posts from JustinBuzzard.net. Twitter @JustinBuzzard or Facebook

To the Anxious Parent

Do you ever feel anxious as a parent? I do. I’ll be the first to raise my hand. I’ll raise both hands!

All kinds of things contribute to this anxiety. Our culture encourages us to work ourselves to death and work our children to death so we can be successful. But this drive to succeed and consume more and more stuff can make us spiritually sick inside. Some have called it “affluenza”.

We’re so focused on earning money and spending money, meeting deadlines and reaching goals, that we drive ourselves crazy.

Anxious Toil

God has a word for us anxious parents. Psalm 127:3 says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”

Have you ever wondered why God made us in such a way that we have to sleep away a third of our lives? Isn’t that crazy? Think of how many hours we could be doing other things. Why did he make us that way? Why do we need sleep? Sleep is a gift from God. It reminds us that we are not God. God wants us to rest in him.

Rest in God

We are dependent little children. Isn’t that humbling? Our most important identity as parents is that we are children. We are children first and parents second. Let that sink in.

You are the Father's beloved child. And he is your gracious parent. He loves you, and because he loves you, he has given you the gift of sleep. He has given you rest. We need rest as parents, don’t we?

A couple weeks ago, my oldest daughter was having trouble sleeping. She was hot and needed to change into something cooler. Then she needed a drink of water. Then she needed to go to the bathroom. Then she needed me to tuck her in—again! I wanted to sit down and talk with my wife. I was done parenting for the day! But she kept whining and saying, “My blanket doesn’t feel right, and there’s birds chirping outside.” I finally yelled up at her, “It’s not going to be perfect until heaven! Get to sleep for crying out loud!” I reacted in anger because I wanted to rest. I deserved that, right?!

God knows what we need. He knows that we need sleep and rest to remind us that in the day-to-day struggles of parenting. He’s God, and we’re not. And he’s at work even as we sleep to parent us as we parent our kids. So, in times of anger, in times of anxiety, he’s helping us to depend on him as broken and beloved children.

Depend on God

We are dependent children. That’s our identity. Seems humbling, I know. But we’re just following after Jesus. Paul Miller, in his book, A Praying Life, says, “Jesus is without question the most dependent human being who ever lived” (p. 45).

We know that because he said things like, “I can do nothing on my own” (John 5:30). He depended on his Father and the Holy Spirit for everything. And he prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed - even going away to desolate places to be alone with his Father in prayer.

As parents, Jesus calls us to follow his example and pray and come to him for rest. I love his invitation in Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Remember the Son

Jesus offers a different kind of rest. Rest in the finished work of Christ on our behalf. On the cross, Jesus, the perfect King, took our unrighteousness and gave us his perfect righteousness so that by faith we are his beloved children (2 Cor. 5:21).

That truth changes how we parent. When Christian parents build their lives on who they are in Christ – it changes everything. Instead of “eating the bread of anxious toil,” we can rest.

• We rest because we are declared to be right with God on the basis of Christ’s righteousness, not ours
• We rest because he has called us his holy and beloved children
• We rest because we are forgiven and he has covered our many failures and will remember our sins no more
• And we rest because He has accepted us and looks on us as perfect parents because of our bond with His perfect Son

Feel that. Rest in that. Stop eating the bread of anxious toil. You’re a child first and a parent second. Depend on him, meditate on Christ's work, and find real rest.

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Doug Wolter served for eight years as family pastor at LaGrange Baptist Church in Kentucky. He is now senior pastor at Oak Hill Baptist Church in Humboldt, Iowa. He has an amazing wife and three incredible kids who continue to humble him and fill him with joy.  He enjoys drinking coffee, reading, exercising, and blogging at life2getherblog.com.

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For more resources on gospel-centered family life, check out Winfield Bevin's A Beginner's Guide to Family Worship.

For more free articles on parenting, read: A Child's Gospel by Ben Connelly, Finding Christ in the Family Room by Luma Simms, and Becoming a Parent and Discipling Children by Jonathan Dodson.

Encouraging Leadership

When it comes to leadership, I can be intimidating. At least, that's what people tell me. My engine runs at high RPMs, and I tend to be on the type A side of the personality spectrum. I approach most issues in a black-and-white fashion and pursue excellence. Most leaders exhibit similar characteristics. That's why we're drawn to leadership. People want to follow because you are confident, strong, and know what you want and how to get it. But these characteristics can ruin your people (and you) if you're not careful.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. - Prov. 16:24

Leaders can give you a list of ways you can improve. They know the areas that need adjustment, correction, or improvement. This is a necessary ability in leading anything well. They will not long tolerate the status quo, or the organization becomes stagnant, and we all know what happens to water when it remains stagnant. It starts to stink.

However, if this is true, how can we lead well without constantly harping on our people? Herein lies the power of encouragement.

The concept of withdrawals and deposits has been helpful for me when it comes to excellence in leadership. You will inevitably have tough conversations with those under your direction - you know, those conversations that start, "Hey Mike, can we chat about something?" You both know that you are about to take a relational withdrawal from him in the form of a suggestion for how Mike needs to grow, change, repent, or whatever. But, following the bank analogy, is there money in the bank from which to draw? Or is your relational/leadership check going to bounce?

Money is deposited into the leadership bank via encouragement. If there is no consistent deposit into the bank of Mike's life, he is going to burn out quickly, grow to hate you, or simply leave the relationship without warning.

Encouraging Leadership

There are three areas in my life that need my continual focus on encouragement: my wife, my kids, and the people under my care at The Vine. Recently, my wife and I have been talking about our oldest child and his need for constant correction. He is having a bit of a bad attitude about school, and it seems to be a persistent thorn in my wife's side as she homeschools. She feels like she has to be "on him" all the time.

We chatted about this concept of deposits and withdrawals and renewed our focus on making deposits of encouragement in our children. If all they hear is correction with no words of encouragement we run the danger of provoking them to anger (Eph. 6:4).

Think of people who have led you in the past. Who are those leaders you loved following? I would be willing to bet that for most of you, the leaders you most loved were those who excelled at encouraging you even as they challenged you to grow.

Now think of those people who have lead you in the past who you didn't exactly enjoy following. I would be willing to bet that those leaders were probably not strong in the encouragement department.

Growing as an Encourager

Obviously, this is a simple concept but quite difficult to master. To grow as an encourager, consider three actions points to implement in your rhythms of life and leadership:

• When you walk into a room with your spouse, your kids, or those under your care at church - really, any leadership setting - try and make a discipline out of speaking words of encouragement in short bursts of improvised blessing. Just make a habit out of it. Make the first thing that comes out of your mouth a simple word of encouragement.

• Many years ago at a conference, I remember Bill Hybels saying that every day when he came into the office he would start the day by writing out five hand-written notes of encouragement to five of the hundreds of people who were under his pastoral authority. This stuck with me for a reason. It's powerful.

• Have parties with your people. And when you do, make a habit of publicly blessing those under your care with words of life in the presence of all those gathered. This will set an amazing tone for the whole group and the person being recognized will be immensely blessed.

What other ways could you think of?

As a leader, withdrawals are going to be necessary. Are you making sure there is money in the bank? In what ways could you be a much more effective leader by pursing continual encouragement of the people under your care?

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up. - 1 Thess. 5:11

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Zach Nielsen is one of the pastors at The Vine Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves in the areas of preaching, leadership development and music. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and Covenant Theological Seminary and blogs at Take Your Vitamin Z. Twitter: @znielsen

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For more resources on leadership, check out Tony Merida's eBook Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles on leadership, read: Spiritual Strength Training by David Murray, The Gospel Grid by Jeff Medders, and 5 Ways to Keep Church Discipline from Seeming Weird by Jared Wilson.

Spiritual Strength Training - Part Two

(Editor's note: Here's Spiritual Strength Training - Part One.)

The 7 R’s of Soul Care & Maintenance

Having set the practice of Soul Care and Spiritual Strength Training in the context of the Creator/Creature relationship, I now want to take you to seven “Service Bays” in the “Soul Care Garage.” As with your car, if you regularly service your soul, you’re far less likely to experience burnout, breakdown, or a crash.

But what if you’ve failed to service your soul? What if you’ve hit the wall, crashed, and burned? Well you need to visit the same seven Service Bays. You just need to spend longer in each of them.

Service Bay 1: Routine

Regular routine is one of the first things to fall by the wayside when we become too busy. We respond to increasing ministry demands by increasing our accessibility and availability. Our regular daily routine is squeezed, then disrupted, and then displaced.

We end up feeling like passive victims waiting for things to happen – emails to arrive, phones to ring, and requests for help to knock on the door. We are knocked from pillar to post, running from one crisis to another.

Even when we get some quiet, uninterrupted time, we are so tired and wrung-out that we lack the will and discipline to use that time wisely and well. We end up doing only what we feel like doing – which is not very much – as our wills and decisiveness are so weakened.

The first question I ask burned-out pastors is: “Tell me your daily routine.” Usually the answer is “I don’t have one… Every day is different.” I press further, “Is there nothing constant from one day to another?” Again, usually the answer is “No.”

The first thing I do is to get them to draw up a basic routine of sleeping, worshipping, eating, studying, etc. that they then commit to. God is a God of order, not of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33), and as his created image-bearers we glorify him when we live regular, orderly lives. He has made our bodies so that they flourish when they have a rhythm and regularity.

Now, of course, there are elements of ministry that we cannot predict or regulate, but we can usually do a lot more than we presently are regulating. Start with regular bed times and rise times. Read and pray in the same place at the same time each day, preferably in privacy, and before you see or speak to anyone else. Set family meal times and stick to them. The more regularity you can build into your day and your week, the more your body, mind, and soul will flourish.

Service Bay 2: Relaxation

We need to incorporate times of relaxation into our lives. This may involve finding a quiet spot at regular times throughout the day to simply pause for 5-10 minutes, calm down, and seek the peace of God in our lives. Unstretch the band, let the tension go, breathe deeply, pray, and remember God.

Jesus recognized his disciples need for relaxation when he took them “apart into a desert place, and rested a while” (Mark 6:31).

You’ll find lots of websites and books that outline many varied relaxation techniques. These are usually effective and easy to learn. Once you try some of these you’ll soon learn how tense you actually are. Many of us are living like a flexed muscle, coiled tight from tip-to-toe. Is it any wonder that we’re exhausted and feel aches and pains all over?

Many of us actually need to learn how to breathe properly again. When we are stressed, anxious, and tense, our breathing becomes shallow, starving our body and brain of oxygen, increasing the difficulty of physical and intellectual work. Again, websites abound with exercises that will help you to become conscious of your breathing habits and re-train them if you’ve learned bad habits.

As I mentioned before, creative breakthroughs are often made in quiet downtimes. I believe many preachers could do with working less on their sermons. What I mean by that is getting away from the commentaries and the computer and communing with God in quiet reflective walks. There are computer sermons, and there are communion sermons! There are sermons that collate others thoughts, and there are sermons that flow out of communion with God in his Word.

Service Bay 3: Recreation

Bodily exercise is profitable. Moderate physical exercise helps to expel unhealthy chemicals from our system and stimulates the production of helpful chemicals. Outdoor exercise has the added benefit of the sun’s healing rays. Spurgeon said: “The next best thing to the grace of God for a preacher is oxygen.”

John Wesley attributed his great age and remarkable usefulness even in his eighties to God’s power, prayer, and his regular exercise in the fresh air! William Blaikie said: “It is very certain that due attention to physical exercise is an essential condition of sustained vigorous preaching. The command to be “strong in the Lord” includes strength of body as well of strength of soul.”

Is God glorified in our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20) when we rob them of what they need to function properly? Do we glorify our Creator when we remain willingly ignorant of or reject the knowledge he has kindly provided in his created order, information that we need to keep our bodies healthy?

Service Bay 4: Rest

A Christian psychologist recently said to me that he starts most depressed people on three pills: “Good exercise, good diet, and good sleep!” That’s great advice, and I would encourage you to make use of the plentiful resources available today on these subjects.

As regular sleep patterns enable the body and mind to repair and re-charge, set fixed times for going to bed and getting up, and try to get a minimum of seven (and an ideal of eight hours) of sleep per night.

Remember God’s gift of weekly rest. Secure a weekly intellectual Sabbath to refresh your mind. The devotion of one day to rest will not lose you time but rather help you to gain it as the other days will be more decisive and vigorous.

My wife has forced me to take one day off a week throughout my ministry. Usually it was a Monday as we were home-schooling. Perhaps twice I managed to persuade her that I really needed to work on my day of rest. Both weeks were a disaster. Overall I accomplished less than I would have had I taken the day off and properly rested my body and mind.

It doesn’t say, “Six days you shall labor… unless you are a pastor who must work seven.” It’s a command. "Six days you shall labor, but the seventh is to be a Sabbath of rest.” It takes faith to obey this. Reason and society says, “If you work seven days, you’ll get more done!” But as you practice weekly Sabbath, you will begin to see how gracious, merciful, and wise God’s commands are.

Service Bay 5: Reprioritize

As our lives slowly yet inexorably grow more complicated and committed, especially in the ministry, we must regularly examine our life and see what we can do to reduce our commitments and obligations. We all do this to some extent – because we all realize that we cannot meet the needs of everyone – the question is more about how seriously and intentionally you do this.

Prevention is better than cure here. If you can learn to say “No” to certain ministry demands and opportunities, it’s a lot easier than having to pull out when you’ve already committed and raised expectations.

You will need to cut out many good things to do the best things. You will need to cut out some ministry to others in order to minister to yourself. The life of the minister is the life of his ministry (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 4:6). What’s your greatest priority? YOUR SOUL!

A pastor's duties to his wife and children are not reduced by his duty to his flock. Rather, they are increased (1 Sam. 15:22-23).

Service Bay 6: Re-think

The final two R’s are especially important for those who feel that they’ve crash and burned.

One of the most common signs of burnout or depression is unhelpful thought patterns, which tend to distort our view of reality in a false and negative way. As the writers of Mind over Mood put it, “Our perception of an event or experience powerfully affects our emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses to it.” Or, as the Bible puts it: “As [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).

In my book, Christians Get Depressed Too, I describe 10 false thought patterns that reflect, but also contribute to, the symptoms of depression. Here’s a summary of some of them:

False extremes: This is a tendency to evaluate personal qualities in extreme, black-and-white categories. Shades of gray do not exist. This is sometimes called all-or-nothing thinking.

• Life example: You make one mistake in preaching a sermon conclude you are a total disaster.
• Biblical example: Despite most of his life being characterized by God’s blessing and prosperity, when Job passed through a time of suffering, he decided he must be an enemy of God (Job 13:24; 33:10).

False generalization: This happens when, after experiencing one unpleasant event, we conclude that the same thing will happen to us again and again.

• Life example: When you try to witness to someone, you are mocked, and you conclude that this will always happen to you and that you will never win a soul for Christ.
• Biblical example: At a low point in his own life, Jacob deduced that because Joseph was dead and Simeon was captive in Egypt that Benjamin would also be taken from him: “All these things are against me,” he generalized.

False filter: When we are depressed, we tend to pick out the negative in every situation and think about it alone, to the exclusion of everything else. We filter out anything positive and decide everything is negative.

• Life example: You heard something in a sermon you did not like or agree with and went home thinking and talking only about that part of the service.
• Biblical example: Despite having just seen God’s mighty and miraculous intervention on Mount Carmel, Elijah filtered out all the positives and focused only on the continued opposition of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 19:10).

False transformation: We transform neutral or positive experiences into negative ones. The depressed person doesn’t ignore positive experiences. Rather, he or she disqualifies them or turns them into their opposite.

• Life example: If someone compliments you, you conclude that the person is just being hypocritical or that he or she is trying to get something from you.
• Biblical example: Jonah saw many Ninevites repent in response to his preaching. But in- stead of rejoicing in this positive experience, his mood slumped so low that he angrily asked God to take away his life (Jonah 4:3–4).

False mind reading: We may think that we can tell what someone is thinking about us, that the person hates us or views us as stupid. But such negative conclusions usually are not supported by the facts.

• Life example: Someone who used to talk to you at church now passes you with hardly a word, so you decide that you have fallen out of her favor. But, unknown to you, the person’s marriage is in deep trouble, and she is too embarrassed to risk talking to anyone.
• Biblical example: The psalmist one day concluded that all men were liars. On reflection, he admitted that this judgment was overly hasty (Ps. 116:11).

A couple more, quickly, in summary form:

False lens: This is when we view our fears, errors, or mistakes through a magnifying glass and deduce catastrophic consequences. Everything then is out of proportion. The other side of this is that while you maximize your faults with a magnifying glass, you also tend to look through the binoculars the wrong way when it comes to your assets—and minimize them.

False “shoulds”: Our lives may be dominated by “shoulds” or “oughts,” applied to ourselves or others. This heaps pressure on us and others to reach certain unattainable standards and causes frustration and resentment when we fail or when others fail us.

Step-by-Step Guide Out of False Thinking

These false thinking patterns are not only the symptoms of burnout and depression, they perpetuate and deepen them. They eventually cause physical symptoms, too. So, let me propose a biblical method that will help you to correct these false and damaging thought habits. And they are habits. We get into deep ruts in our thinking that are sometimes very difficult to get out of.

We must first identify false and unhelpful thought-patterns, then challenge them, and then change them. This isn’t optional: Christians are obliged to challenge falsehood and distortions of reality, especially when they find them in themselves.

Psalm 77 is a perfect example of Asaph’s investigating, challenging, and changing his thoughts, with God’s help, in order to raise his mood and spirits. There are also slightly more abbreviated versions of the same biblical strategy in Job 19, Psalm 42, 73, and Habakkuk 3. So, this is not “psychological mumbo-jumbo,” but true Bible-based Christian experience. In Christians Get Depressed Too, I go into this Biblical Re-thinking Training in much more detail.

Service Bay 7: Return

The aim of all these other service bays is a return to a Christ-centered life, a life lived in communion with the Lord Jesus. Yes, dare I say it, a personal relationship with Jesus. We want a life connected to him, obedient to him, imaging him, glorifying him, and worshipping him. Here are a few things I’ve found helpful in returning to the Lord:

• Guard personal Bible reading and prayer time as jealously as you guard your own children.
• Pray out loud. Find a place where you can pray out loud without embarrassment. Hearing your own prayers helps to improve the clarity and intensity of prayer.
• Make singing part of your personal and family devotions.
• Carve out uninterrupted study time in 2-3 hour blocks at least four days a week.
• Read Christ-centered books. Don’t let your love of missiology, ecclesiology, eschatology, apologetics, evangelism, etc. push out daily personal communion with Christ. Why not start with John Owen, Volume 1 on the Glory of Christ, or Volume 7 on Spiritual Mindedness; John Flavel, Volume 1 on Christ the Fountain of Life.
• Read for your own soul rather than for ministry to others. It makes a big difference to the personal edification you get from reading if, from time-to-time, you determine that you will not use anything in a certain book for ministry purposes.
• Listen to Christ-centered sermons from various pastors. We have a wealth of online resources at sites such as SermonAudio.com. I like to listen to preachers outside my own tradition as I often find their approach to texts quite refreshing and stimulating.
• Disconnect from Twitter, Facebook, email for several hours at a time. Discipline yourself to check the internet only a certain number of times a day.
• Seek accountability with another pastor or elder. Read through the 7 R’s, agree on parameters, and commit to regular accounting.

Please visit the Soul Care Garage regularly. The more frequently you visit it, the less time you will spend in each of the service bays. It will save you from the Pastor’s wrecker’s yard, and if you’re already there, get a tow over to this garage and start working your way through the bays until you’re fit for the road again!

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David Murray was a pastor in Scotland for 13 years before accepting a call in 2007 to be Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology in Puritan Reformed Seminary. He continues to preach most Sundays in Grand Rapids and the surrounding area. He is the author of Christians Get Depressed Too and How Sermons Work. He is also President of HeadHeartHand Media, a small Christian film company. David is married to Shona and they have four children ranging from 8 to 16. You can read his blog at HeadHeartHand.org/blog or follow him on Twitter @davidpmurray.

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For more in-depth resources for pastors, check out Tony Merida's Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles for pastors, read: Winfield Bevins' What is Gospel-Centered Ministry, JR Vassar's Domain of Influence, Jared Wilson's Five Ways to Keep Church Discipline from Seeming Weird.

Is Disciple a Verb

We were a young church plant, still struggling to map out our DNA, our essentials, the values upon which we wanted to build our arm of the body of Christ. We had our definitive statements on paper, but we were puzzled about how to make them live and breathe. We knew what we felt called to, but living out that calling in real time was proving to be another thing entirely. We felt called to discipleship. To bring together a group of people who intentionally lived life together, encouraging one another’s spiritual growth. We wanted to enjoy Christ together, love other people well, and engage the world around us in a meaningful, life-changing way. We envisioned this type of intentional discipleship happening in small groups of 3 or 4, little cells of people spurring one another on to live the life Jesus called us to live.

We thought it sounded simple enough, but problems arose which clouded this vision and made us all see a little blurry. How do we convince people to engage in this type of intimate discipleship when they have never seen it done? How do we ensure that what goes on within those relationships remains gospel-centered and Jesus-focused? How do we form the groups? How do we incorporate newcomers? How do we encourage these discipleship groups to reach the lost?

We certainly weren’t suffering from a lack of interest. “Disciple” had become a buzz-word in our little church family, especially among people in their 20s. We would often hear questions such as “Are you discipling anyone?” or “Do you know anyone who could disciple me?” floating around in conversations. We rejoiced in the interest in discipleship but continued to struggle with how to make it happen in reality.

Is "Disciple" a Verb?

One summer, we decided to utilize a sermon series to tackle these problems and wrestle them to the mat. After each message, one of our leaders would facilitate a discussion in which anyone could ask a question relating to the topic. We were hoping to provide clarity about our vision of discipleship and what that could look like in our church body. A lot of great questions were asked that summer and thoughtful answers given in response.

One morning, however, a question was asked that stumped the facilitator. The question-asker was actually a friend of ours visiting from out of town. He had been doing a lot of thinking about discipleship himself and was intrigued with our discussion. After listening to questions regarding “discipling” other people he raised his hand and asked the question, “Is ‘disciple’ a verb?”

Silence.

I don’t know whether our facilitator temporarily lost his grasp of English grammar or whether the question honestly didn’t make sense, but the question stumped him. “Is ‘disciple’ a verb?” It was a little cheeky of our friend to ask it that way, really. It might have been more helpful to our discussion if he went ahead and asked the questions behind the question. What he was really getting at was something more like, “How is the word 'disciple' used in the New Testament?  As a noun, indicating a person, or as a verb, indicating an action? Are we using the term correctly? Or are we perhaps misusing it?”

Though our friend’s question wasn’t answered well that morning, it prompted me to do a little thinking and research. I knew what he was getting at. The word “disciple” or mathetes in Greek is a noun and is used in the New Testament as such. It refers to a person. A New Testament disciple is a person who is committed to learning from and following Jesus. But in contemporary church circles, it is popular to use the word as a verb: “So and so is ‘discipling’ me.”

So which is it? A noun or a verb? The question can be answered with grammatical ease. In the New Testament, mathetes is used as a noun: disciple, student, learner, follower. A closely related word, matheteuo, is a verb used several times in the New Testament, such as when Jesus instructs his disciples to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:19).

The action of “making disciples” we have shortened to the term “discipling" - kind of a funny little word that spellcheck continually rejects, but it makes the point. Using “disciple” as a verb indicates the action Jesus commanded when he told us to “make disciples” of all nations. By “discipling” people, we are attempting to obey Jesus by “making disciples.”

The Real Question

But there is a deeper question underlying the issue of grammar. I’m not sure if our friend intended this question or not, but it’s a question I’ve been asking myself. Does the way we use the word “disciple” indicate something about our hearts? About our preferences? Do we prefer the noun of being a disciple or the verb of making disciples?

“Disciple” as a Noun

I can see dangers with an overemphasis either way. If people are more comfortable with “disciple” as a noun, then hopefully they are engaging their own discipleship well. They are seeking after Jesus in the Scriptures, determined to follow him and apply the gift of the gospel to their lives. But if there is no activity of discipleship directed toward others in their lives, I think they’re missing something. They may be taking responsibility for their own discipleship, but not the discipleship of others. They are not obeying Jesus’ command to “make disciples.”

I see evidence of this in our church body. We are a young congregation, both in the age of our church as a whole and in the age of the individuals. To be “old” in our church is to be over the age of 35! The people in this upper age bracket seem to engage their own discipleship well for the most part, but are often unaware that the droves of younger people around them need encouragement. They are more comfortable with being a disciple than making disciples.

“Disciple” as a Verb

But the danger can swing the other way as well.  When people shift the use of “disciple” from a noun to a verb, a new set of issues arises.  It is possible that this group of people is more comfortable with the activity of making disciples than with the state of being a disciple.  They spend their lives investing in their relationships with others, but neglect the most important relationship of all, the one with Jesus himself.

Jonathan Dodson illustrates this distinction well in his recent book Gospel-Centered Discipleship.  Dodson admits that at one point in his spiritual journey, “disciple became more of a verb than a noun, less of an identity and more of an activity.”[1]

He describes that when he was focused on “disciple” as an activity, it was as though he were standing at the top of the stairs of discipleship, looking down on the disciples in his living room. He was comfortable dispensing his knowledge to the eager disciples, but was not willing to come down the stairs and join them on eye-level. In other words, he was more comfortable making disciples than being a disciple.

I see this shift in our church family as well. We are all buzzing around talking about who is discipling who, focusing on the activity of discipleship. But are we as concerned with the importance of being disciples? Are we more interested in seeking a discipler than in seeking Jesus? Are we taking responsibility for our own spiritual growth? Have we forgotten that, regardless of who may or may not be discipling us, we are disciples of Jesus?

The Answer to the Question

So the answer our friend’s question is yes. “Disciple” is a verb. But “disciple” is also a noun. We must live out both senses of the word if we want to do discipleship well. We must take our personal discipleship seriously as well as the discipleship of the other people we’re connected to in the body of Christ. We need to be emphasizing the activity and the state of being of the word “disciple” if we’re to engage the process of discipleship the way Jesus intended.

We don’t have all our questions on discipleship answered in our church, but we’re growing. We’re encouraging the people in our church body both to “own their own spiritual growth” as well as engage in discipleship with other people.  We’re trying to consistently model both how to be a disciple and how to make disciples. That much of our vision, at least, is clear. As for the other blurry problems, well, I guess we need another raised hand after a sermon. Hopefully that next difficult question won’t involve grammar.

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[1] Jonathan Dodson, Gospel-Centered Discipleship (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 16.

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Lindsay Powell Fooshee is married to John, a pastor at Redeemer Community Church and church planter with Acts 29. They are raising 3 great kids in East Tennessee, soaking up the joys of toddlers and teenagers at the same time. Lindsay holds an M.A. in Christian Thought from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and enjoys teaching and writing about what’s she’s learning. She is passionate about discipleship and blogs regularly about it at Kitchen Stool.

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For more resources on being a disciple and disciple making, check out: Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.

Free articles on disciple-making: The Image Conscious Disciple by Jonathan Dodson, A Story of Gospel Community by Seth McBee, and Discipleship 101: How to Disciple a New Believer by Justin Buzzard.

Spiritual Strength Training - Part One

(Editor's note: Here's Spiritual Strength Training - Part Two.)

Most pastoral problems, such as burnout, backsliding, depression, begin with neglect of the body.

Let me say that again in a different way. From what I’ve seen and experienced, most pastoral soul-care problems begin with neglect of the body, a lack of strength training. Soul-care problems do not usually begin with channel-surfing or with a click of the mouse, nor with wandering eyes or hands, nor with shortening or missing private devotions. They begin by neglecting the body, by denying or ignoring its many varied needs. The other problems inevitably and inexorably follow.

Theological Problem

This question of spiritual strength training is not merely a practical problem or a physical issue. This is also theological problem, a problem that’s associated with a wrong view of God. And it’s not just a slightly wrong view. Its error is fundamental and foundational because it concerns the fundamental and foundational truth that God is our Creator.

That’s the very first truth that’s revealed to us in Scripture. And it’s first for a reason. It’s because if we go wrong there, we run a great risk of going wrong everywhere else. Now some of you are thinking, “Don’t insult me, man. I believe in God as Creator. I defend God as Creator. I fight those who deny God as Creator. I can even prove God is Creator. How can you say that my soul-care problems arise from denying God as Creator?" Well, maybe we are not denying God as Creator with our lips, but some of us are with our lives.

Creationists living like Evolutionists

There are lots of people who call God “Lord” but don’t live as His servants. And there are lots of people – yes, even pastors - who call God Creator and preach God as Creator, but who live like evolutionists. Some pastors give the impression that the ministry is about the survival of the fittest! (OR THE FATTEST!)

God’s Creatorhood has massive implications for the way we live and the way we do ministry. Although we usually skim over that chapter in our Systematic Theologies and rush on to more “gospel-centered” material, I’ve become increasingly convinced that we cannot be gospel-centered unless we are also Creator-centered. We cannot live as zealous saints unless we first of all live as dependent creatures. The soul and body are so intertwined and inter-connected that we will make no progress in soul-care unless we start with, and go on with body-care.

Our Maker’s Instructions

How would you feel if you built a remote control model car for your children, only to come back home a few days later to hear that they had broken it by trying to use it as a plane? You’d say, “I gave you instructions, why didn’t you follow them?” Similarly, God has given us instructions about how to live as creatures. To some of us God may be saying, “Why are you trying to live as angels or as disembodied spirits? Why aren’t you following my instructions?”

God publishes his instruction in various places in His Word, but also, especially in this subject area, in his World. Increasingly he is allowing scientists and researchers to discover how the body functions best. For example, yesterday I saw research that was headlined, “The more you sit, the sooner you will die!” That made me sit up! In fact it made me stand up!! That’s my loving Creator’s instructions coming to me via reliable research, which I read through the spectacles of Scripture. We ignore such gracious instruction at our peril.

The body is a complicated mix of physical material and physical forces: electricity, chemistry, physics, biology, plumbing, gasses, pumps, siphons, lubrication, buttons, switches, receptors, etc. Then there’s the soul, way more complex than the body and completely inaccessible to empirical research methods. Although we have some Biblical data to mine and research, yielding us some basics about the soul’s capacities and abilities, so much about the soul remains a mystery. Then you put complex body and complex soul together and what do you get – multiple complexities!  How do they relate, how do they interact? How do problems in the body affect the soul and vice versa?

Biblical Link

The Bible confirms a link between distorted thoughts or emotions and many of our bodily ailments: “A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones” (Prov. 17:22).  Guilt also damages the body (Psalm 32:3–4).

And what about feelings and thoughts? Where do they originate? What do they influence and impact? What do they link with and overlap with? How come when our body is sick, even with a common cold or allergy, that our thoughts, feelings, and even our spiritual life are impacted? Does that go the other way as well? It seems to. When our spiritual life is damaged, it often seems to impact our bodies as well. When our emotions are depressed, so many things go wrong with our bodies as well.  Doctors call this psychosomatic (mind/body) illness.

Layers of Complexity

Then throw on top of all that the conscience and the will? Do they operate independently or are they simply part of the soul? Are they affected by the body and/or just the soul? Analysis of the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual contributions to each situation is so difficult. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

Christians don’t understand how physical, psychological, and spiritual realms interrelate because Satan muddies the boundaries. Many of our troubles are caused because we think a problem is spiritual when it is physical or we think a problem is physical when it is emotional or spiritual.

The complexity and interconnectivity of human nature, means that the health of the body effects the health of the soul and vice versa. And it also means that it’s not easy to figure out the contribution of each to our problems! One thing is for sure, we cannot neglect one realm and expect the other not to suffer the consequences.

Creatures, by definition, are less than their Creator. He is infinite; we are finite. He is unlimited; we are limited. Hopefully none of us really think that we are unlimited. However most of us think we are less limited than we actually are. We certainly vastly over-estimate our physical strength, emotional stamina, moral courage, spiritual maturity, volitional muscle, and conscience steel.

Crashing and Burning

Underestimating our limitations and over-estimating our abilities can only have one outcome – weakness, fraying, and eventually breaking. Try it with anything – your car engine, a towrope, your computer, etc. Underestimate the limitations and over-estimate the abilities and you will eventually blow the engine, break the rope, and crash the computer.

Why do we think it’s any different with ourselves? Some people may break after two weeks or two years. Others may take much longer. It’s these people who especially need to be careful because their habits have become so engrained that they no longer pay attention to any warning signs. It’s like the elastic band. Better it snap before you pull it too tight, because the stronger the band - the further you can stretch it - the more forceful and damaging the eventual snap.

Changing and Challenging Limits

Our limitations also change through the years and seasons of life. Hormones and brain chemistry change, our responsibilities increase as marriage and children come along, “events” come along, stressful and painful providences that stretch and strain us.

Some initially do very well under huge stress. I’ve seen people pass through multiple horrendous troubles, and everyone’s amazed at their fortitude and perseverance. Then, maybe something smaller comes along years later, and they fall apart. They break down. Everyone looks on in amazement, “How can they not cope with this?” But the stress on our bodies and minds is cumulative. The straw that broke the camels back came after years of beating with a very heavy club! Everyone has limits.

Isn’t it strange that we very rarely take health advice for ourselves until we lose our health!? Health advice is for others isn’t it? We must find out our limits – physical, spiritual, emotional, moral, etc. – and we may need someone objective to help us with this. And when we find them, we must accept and work within them.

Men and women with very high limits must not impose them on those with lower limits. And those with lower limits must not impose that on those with higher limits. Let not the lower limit people be jealous of the higher limit people. Let not the higher limit people despise the lower. Let those that think they stand, take heed lest they fall. God has his way of humbling us and showing us our limitations.

We are Dependent Creatures

Even before the Fall, Adam and Eve were dependent upon their Creator. That’s how they were made. They leaned upon him, sought help from him, and sought to live in a way that pleased him. Independence did not cross their minds…until they heard, “You shall be as gods…You won’t need God. You can do without God. You can be god yourself. You can depend on yourself, on your own wisdom and strength.” And what a disaster ensued!

Many of us are theologically dependent but experientially independent. We depend on God with our lips but not with our lives. We say we lean on him for everything, but he rarely feels our weight. And disaster is often the result.

Imagine you’re in New York City with your family. Your two-year-old is just learning to walk and decides to experiment when you get to Times Square. He hops out the pushchair and starts walking away from you. You call out, “Come back, stay with me!” No answer. You run after him and try to grab his hand. He pulls away and keeps going toward the crowds and the cars. And all the while he’s saying, “Daddy, I love you!”

Some of us are living like this. Our Creator’s name is on our lips, but we are not living in dependence upon him. We say we love him but we never lean on him. And that puts us in far greater danger – physical, moral, and spiritual danger – than the two-year-old in Times Square!

Two-way Protection

God has not just made our souls to protect our bodies, but our bodies to protect our souls. If we are sleeping well, resting well, exercising well, eating well, our minds are clearer, our wills are stronger, and our defenses are higher. It’s easier to pray, to discipline ourselves, to read the Bible, to serve. A good conscience is greatly helped by a sharp mind and strong will.

Remember: most pastoral problems - burnout, backsliding, depression - begin with a neglect of the body. The most basic Christian experience is dependence. If we don’t live as dependent creatures we are not worshipping our Creator. By our independence, we are worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator.

We are not just creatures, not just complex creatures, not just limited creatures, and not just dependent creatures, but we are also fallen creatures! As part of the curse upon us for our first parent’s first sin, death entered the creation and even the greatest creature – humanity. Death entered into our bodies, our souls, our minds, our wills, and our emotions. Death is at work in the youngest baby. As soon as conception occurs and life begins, so does dying and death. If you thought we were complex before, we are even more complex now.

A Complex Mess

Like all anglers, I’m fatally attracted by the latest “guaranteed” fish-catching reel. And of course, as we all know, the more complicated (and expensive) a reel is, the more likely it is to catch fish. Right?!  Now complicated reels are great when they are working well, but when they break down, they make a much bigger mess than standard reels.

That’s why humanity is in a much worse state than any other creature; the more complex the creature the more mess when they break. And that’s why nature films focus on animals rather than humanity. Who wants to look at ugly human creatures in all their brokenness when you can see much more residual beauty in the animal kingdom!

Welcome to humanity! What a mess – our bodies, our minds, our organs, our members, our chemistry, our physics, our plumbing, everything is in such a mess – each part of our humanity on its own and especially each part as it interacts with other parts.

Spiritual Strength Training

But the best news is that our gracious and powerful Creator is in the business of re-creating. Our Creator has come down into our fallen world and lived as a creature to save His creatures and begin the process of making all things new.

However, that renewing requires our cooperation. We will hinder the process of re-creation as creative creatures if we do not live within our creaturely limits and if we do not respect how God created us. And that includes regular rest – healthy daily sleep patterns and a weekly Sabbath – recreation, relaxation, routine.

Let me encourage you further along the road  to spiritual strength training with this fact: Creativity research has shown that the most creative people find most of their creativity insights and breakthroughs in down-time. Eureka moments - breakthroughs in thought, design, engineering - usually come when the mind and body are resting.

Creative Creatures (and Preachers)

To put it bluntly, tired pastors produce tired sermons. If we want fresh sermons we need to refresh and be fresh ourselves. If we don’t live as creatures, we will not be creative! As the 19^th century pastor, William Blaikie wrote:

But even where there is no positive disease, there may be a physical languor that reflects itself in feebleness of voice, dullness of tone, stiffness of manner, and a general want of lively and attractive power. It may be difficult to persuade some preachers that physical causes have to do with this, but the connection is beyond all reasonable doubt. And the fact that such symptoms are the effect of some transgression of the laws of health makes it incumbent upon the student to attend to the condition of his outer man.

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David Murray was a pastor in Scotland for 13 years before accepting a call in 2007 to be Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology in Puritan Reformed Seminary. He continues to preach most Sundays in Grand Rapids and the surrounding area. He is the author of Christians Get Depressed Too and How Sermons Work. He is also President of HeadHeartHand Media, a small Christian film company. David is married to Shona and they have four children ranging from 8 to 16. You can read his blog at HeadHeartHand.org/blog or follow him on Twitter @davidpmurray.

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For more in-depth resources for pastors, check out Tony Merida's Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles for pastors, read: Winfield Bevins' What is Gospel-Centered Ministry, JR Vassar's Domain of Influence, Jared Wilson's Five Ways to Keep Church Discipline from Seeming Weird.

The Unqualified Disciple

When I ask women in our church if they would be willing to invest in a discipleship relationship with a younger woman, I am usually met with hesitation. “Me?” their eyes seem to ask. “Me? Disciple someone else? You must not really know me.  I don’t think I’m qualified.”

The conversations take different forms, but the responses are often the same. Again and again, I hear women voice a sincere doubt that they have anything worthwhile to give. Even if they are willing to give a discipleship relationship a try, deep down they are thinking with something akin to panic, “I’ve got nothing!”

I know how they feel. I feel the same way every Sunday afternoon. I have three young women who come to my house to engage in a small discipleship group. We often discuss what we’re learning from Scripture or a book we’re reading together and how it relates to the gospel and our lives. But every Sunday afternoon, in the couple of hours before they arrive, I hear the same refrain in my head… “Who am I to disciple these girls? I haven’t spent good time with the Lord at all this week. I snapped at my husband this morning and am irritated with one of my children for not sweeping the floor. I’ve got these girls showing up in 30 minutes to a dirty kitchen, and I haven’t even read my chapter yet! Lord… I’ve got nothing!”

The Unqualified Disciple

How do I answer the women in my church, when I know exactly how they feel? When they express doubt about their qualifications, I’m tempted to say, “That’s not true! You’ve got a great marriage and are raising some stellar kids. You’re hospitable and easy to talk to. You’ll be fine!”

Though my praise might convince them, that response won’t do. It certainly doesn’t help me on Sunday afternoons when I feel neither great nor hospitable. I’ve had to go to the Scriptures to search out the truth. What does God’s Word have to say about how we feel?

To some degree, what we are feeling is true. We don’t have anything, in ourselves, to give. We see in the Scriptures that our hearts are deceitful and desperately sick and even beyond our ability to understand them (Jer. 17:9). We also see that anything we call righteousness basically amounts to a bunch of dirty rags that are only fit for the fire (Isaiah 64:6). In fact, there is not one of us who can claim righteousness on our own (Psalm 14:3). Jesus tells us unequivocally, “apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). So if we’re trying to dredge up righteousness and truth from inside ourselves in order to give that away to others, it’s true. We’ve got nothing.

God's Qualifications

I think Moses felt the same way. When God approached him in the wilderness and instructed him to go and speak to the most powerful man in the land, Moses must have lifted his eyebrow just as I’ve seen the women in my church do. He said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11) Moses was wanted for murder and had been tending sheep for most of his adult life. I’m sure inside he was screaming, “Me?!?  I’ve got nothing!”

But God doesn’t assure Moses of his qualifications as I’m tempted to do with the women I talk to. No, on the contrary. God assures Moses of God’s qualifications. God answers Moses’ question of “Who am I?” with a resounding “I AM.” This is the response we need to hear.

When women raise their eyebrows and express doubt about discipleship, my job is not to convince them that they are equal to the task. My job is to convince them that God is equal to the task. “You’re right,” I need to reply, “You’ve got nothing.  Neither do I.  But God has everything.”

We can’t forget that we’re branches. By ourselves, we will bear no fruit. Worse than that, we will die. But attached to the vine, we feed off the life of Jesus and become healthy, bushy branches, laden with fruit to nourish others. Attached to the vine, we have a lot to give.

Jesus says it this way, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). And as we bear fruit, we share that fruit and make more disciples, all the while bringing glory to the Father. You’ve got nothing, you say? Oh, no. If you’re attached to the vine, you’ve got everything.

Gospel Opportunities

The hesitancy that we feel when it comes to engaging in a discipleship relationship is real. We know ourselves better than anyone. We know our past mistakes and our current failings. We think that these disqualify us from leading anyone in discipleship, but actually the reverse is true. Our very hesitations are gospel opportunities.

When we remember that we’re branches, we remember that what is flowing through the branch is the life of Jesus, the gospel itself. The gospel! The good news! The gospel reminds us that we don’t have to live a perfect life in order to engage in discipleship. Jesus lived the perfect life in our place. He died to take the punishment for all our mistakes and failings. Then, praise God, he rose from the dead, canceling our debt and disarming the power of sin in our lives. This is what we give to others in discipleship: the good news of the gospel!

So next Sunday afternoon, things are going to look different at my house. When I look around at my dirty floor and my unread chapters, I am going to remind myself of something. I am not giving these girls myself, I am giving them Jesus. I am not attempting to present to them a perfect life, but Jesus’ perfect life. My goal is not to show them how to do everything right, but to apply the gospel when we do everything wrong.

When I hear the familiar refrain, “I’ve got nothing!”  I will reply with certainty, “If you’ve got the gospel, you’ve got everything.”

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Lindsay Powell Fooshee is married to John, a pastor and church planter with Acts 29.  They are raising 3 great kids in East Tennessee, soaking up the joys of toddlers and teenagers at the same time.  Lindsay holds an M.A. in Christian Thought from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and enjoys teaching and writing about what’s she’s learning.  She is passionate about discipleship and blogs regularly about it here.