Loving God at Christmas

Christmas is just a day away. It's hard to believe that! Yet it's impossible to ignore the bright lights and familiar melodies of Christmas that are everywhere. For me this time of year generates mixed feelings.

I love the days leading up to Christmas, the anticipation of fun & tasty family traditions and restful moments of being home with family. I love the numerous ways we celebrate the great promises we have in Christ. From the carol services to the incredible smells you experience as you walk through a Christmas market. And what make these celebratory moments great are the people we get to share them with!

But these very same moments and people can be the source of Christmas pain. When we share Christmas with friends and family it can't help but make us feel nostalgic of the joys we've had before and with whom we shared those joys. Inevitably thoughts of those missing this year will come to mind. For me, it's talking with grandma in her kitchen as she makes all kinds of pies for after Christmas dinner. I wasn't much help in the kitchen, I just watched and drooled over the pies already made, while she cooked and told stories of yesteryear. I miss her pies, and I miss her even more!

The friends and family members who are no longer with us aren't necessarily the only source of pain and sorrow at Christmas. The holidays can be a great source of stress and tension because of the very people we love being with. Especially when members of your family don't see eye to eye on things like religion and politics. These differences aren't just abstract concepts but through time shape the texture of our individual lives when we are apart. When these different textures are in the same room, friction can occur.

But let's face it, we can agree with people about the most fundamental things in life and still have conflict. Especially at this time of year where stress to make Christmas special and/or personality differences create tension. Familiarity and history with those we are celebrating the holidays may even cause us to come to conflict sooner.

So what do we do about the mixed feelings of Christmas, especially those feelings that may lead to conflict? Please don't think I want you to avoid people in order to avoid tension in the holidays. Relationships are what make us who are; they are the joy of life.

These moments, like all moments in life, are an opportunity to love others as God has loved us.

I've heard and learned some great tactics to have love grow for people around us. One is to pray for God to give eyes to see others they way he sees them. They are clearly special to him; so special in fact that the Father sent his Son to save the world. Everyone around us are wonderfully made and are special, we just need God to help to see this. This is a powerful way to engage God and others. You're asking God because you can't do this on your own and you're asking to have your heart align with his, prayers I'm confident he wants us to pray! Prayers I'm certain will change your life.

Recently I came across another perspective on loving others in relationship, which I think will be beneficial for Christmas and in everyday moments. Augustine's (354-430 AD) ultimate goal in his preaching was to have his congregation make God their greatest affection. He understood that the battle in this life lies in the heart, that in our fallen nature our priorities are all wrong and we must find joy in Jesus above all else.

Even in our relationships Augustine taught that our love for God was the source of love for others. When speaking of friendship Augustine said, "For you truly love that friend, by loving God in your friend. Either because he is in him, or that he might be in him" (Confessions, 4.7 in Sanlon, Augustine's Theology of Preaching, 163).

Did you catch that? Augustine believed that God resided or could reside in those around him. He knew this from Romans 5:5, the Holy Spirit is the gift of grace who unites us to Christ. Therefore, to love others in our lives is to love God that's in them. God must be so prior to any other affection that he is even the motivation to love those we love. Even those we are to cherish we do so because God is in them or possibly in them. And the same Spirit who unites us to Christ is the Spirit and love that we are united to one another.

Even in moments of conflict, if we have this perspective the Spirit may produce his fruit because we'll have the mind of the Spirit. Our Christmases will have the Spirit of giving, patience, and humility, things that can often be missing even thought we're surrounded by other gifts.

In many ways it's an abstract thought, but here's the important bit. As we spend time with those we love over Christmas, the celebration of our God's humility and love, ask God to show us himself in those we love. Could you imagine what Christmas would be like for us if we loved God like this? We may still feel the pain of those missing this Christmas but we'll enjoy those God has given us this Christmas far more than we could imagine.

Longing for Home

Have you ever felt homesick? You know that feeling that something is missing, as if a part of you is no longer there. With these feelings you may become easily distracted, little things remind of you what or who is missing in your life, you start to think about the next time you'll get be whole again, and or figure out ways to get back there sooner than planned.

Homesickness crept into my life for the first time in awhile. Two weeks ago, I with my family, returned to our "home" in the UK after spending a few weeks in the US, our "home" country.   Our time there was rich with ministry, reconnections with friends and family, and mixed emotions when saying goodbye.

Don't get me wrong, we loved every minute we spent with people who are precious to us, but after a couple weeks of being "home" we were desperate to get "home" to our beds, to our house, to our ministry and normal routine.   But everyone in our family hated having to say good-bye again to people we love. It was hard to repeatedly to stay as someone's home, get use to be living there with them, and then just when you started to feel at "home" it was time to leave. A situation especially hard for our youngest son who, for him, it was the first time he got to know much of his family.

So we are homesick, but excited to be home. Confused? Don't worry we are a little too!

As my wife and I have processed our conflicting affections, we've started to realize how few Christians live in this tension enough. I'm not saying you need to drop everything and move to another country in order feel the tension of being "home" but not being "home." But shouldn't homesickness be the reality for all of us who love Jesus?

It's common christianese to say that this place is not our home, but our true home is a place we've never been--heaven. As a biblical truth I'd wholeheartedly affirm this yet there's a rub. How many of us on a regular basis feel homesick for heaven? How many of us get distracted with wondering thoughts of being with Christ in heaven? Have that gut ache from missing home so much? Daydreaming about whether Jesus returns to be with us that day and what the reunion would be like? Or wondering when the Lord will take us to be with him?

That last question may have drawn a cringed objection in your heart, "I don't want to die, I may love Jesus but I don't want to die now."   It's strange to think that part of missing Jesus could be looking forward to a time where he'd take us to be with him. Yet maybe we should a whole lot more.

Here's what I mean. As a kid who's parent's divorced and who moved more than I can count, I think I become conditioned to homesickness. Not until I fell in love with my wife did I start to feel homesickness again. In the beginning our relationship we spent 9 months out of the year 3,000 miles apart. We hated those days (no mobile phones with unlimited minutes, or Skype, etc.) and we went days, sometimes months without hearing each other’s voices. Yet we functioned, we were able to live our lives without the other. Today we can barely function just a few days away from one another. A few months would be disastrous! When we are forced to be away from one another, we plan, dream, and get ready to see each other again.

Why aren't we homesick for Jesus? Why is it we can be like this with people around us, but the one we are to love above everyone else we can function without? Some may easily go a whole day, a week, maybe even months without talking to him?

There's lot's of reasons for this. It's hard to miss someone we've never seen, touched, or heard his voice. Eschatology can be a heated and confusing discussion, so we just avoid talking about Jesus' return. It could also be that we just love being "home" and don't really miss our home.   I don't think anything could get in the way of me wanting to be or see my wife after days of being apart. Shouldn't we look forward to and prepare for our Bridegroom to return to get his bride?

The tension of being "home" but not being home should be a feeling Christian's walk with all the time. But it's also not feelings you can force yourself to have either. I can't imagine forcing myself to miss my wife. It's nonsensical. But as my love for her has grown over the years my need to be with her has increased. What we need is a greater heart for Christ, and as our love for him increases we'll desire to be with him even more.

Thankfully we can't do this on our own. We need God, who's more than happy to give us love for him if we want it, so ask! I warn you though, you may become homesick for Jesus, our home.

The Legacy of Everyday Moments

Jesus is impressive. I know this is obvious to many of us and maybe you're thinking (with a hint of sarcasm), "Of course he is, Jesus is God!"   I could use the space of this blog to list all the ways he elicits the response "Awesome!" However, there's one particular aspect of his character that has drawn much of my attention lately: his leadership. Particularly, how by the mere use of his authority he draws people to trust him with their greatest treasures: their hearts.

Now, I suspect for most of us, when we hear the word "authority" it’s not a heart inspiring experience. History is littered with examples of the misuse, I should say, abuse of authority. From the most powerful position in the world to the authority of an everyday father, leadership has caused pain, suffering, and death.

But when you see Jesus' leadership in the little things, you see someone trustworthy to have authority over the greatest treasures of our lives.

Let me step back and give one reason why I'm interested in Jesus' leadership in the everyday small things. As a father, I want to lead in such a way that my family happily places themselves under my care, my love, and my authority. Even in the most difficult times, even when my children are being disciplined, I desire that they would have a trust that I'm leading on account of my love for them. That somehow I'm meeting their needs in that particular situation because I've established in everyday moments a clear pattern that I'm all about meeting their needs because I love them.

That's where there's a rub. It's in the everyday moments where I seem to fail, even sin, the most. Just for an example, after a long hard day or a week of travel and teaching, when I get home all I want to do is cease. Stop. Rest. For me that means not being available.   But what do my kids need the most? A dad who's available for them any time they need me even if I'm exhausted.  What builds that kind of trust? That I look to meet their needs above my own.  Yet I could use my authority as a father to create a distance between them and me. Or use irritability so that they wouldn't want to be around me. And the fruit of this isn’t a desire to be led but a mistrust of their father.

It was Jesus in two seemingly insignificant verses in Mark 2:1-2 that struck me square in the heart. Here Jesus comes to his home base in Capernaum after he traveled from town to town throughout Galilee teaching. He had to be exhausted after all that walking and teaching. I imagine when he got home he was ready for a break and a good meal. That's when, just as Jesus was about to take a bite of a well-deserved meal, there's a knocking at the door.

If it were any of us, we'd be thinking "Now what?" And as the door was opened to a mass of people wanting to hear from you and see you perform, you'd say "Not now, I'll teach the word and heal the sick tomorrow, right now I need ‘me time.’"

But that's not what Jesus does. Instead he puts aside whatever rest he was getting and invited them in and began preaching the word. In the midst of resting he's available for fellowship and meeting the needs of those around him. We find Jesus even before this getting away from everyone, but he spends time with the Father. In Genesis our Lord ceases but in his resting he walks in the garden with his creation. Our God leads by meeting the needs of those around him and always being available for fellowship.

Could you imagine what kind of legacy one could leave if as a parent, a spouse, a friend, or a pastor, that no matter how tired you might be that you were available for fellowship and to serve? I imagine unity and health as the major characteristics of a family, marriage, or congregation if led with this heart.

And then there's the context of this passage that caused me to want to give him my life again. In Mark 1:33, the whole city of Capernaum gathered to see and follow Jesus. But Jesus didn't come to create a cult of personality. He didn't come to have a group of people to praise him and serve him. Rather he came to reveal his Father and serve the world.   So, unlike so many leaders in the world and the church, Jesus leaves the crowd behind and goes to teach in other places.

Jesus isn't just a pattern to replicate or imitate. I hope, like me, that you are drawn to trust Jesus with all your heart, with all your time, with all your relationships because he's trustworthy to have leadership over them. As I happily place myself under his authority, in the places where I find myself in authority, my character should be like his. I want to love because I've been loved. And I want to lead selflessly because I've been led selflessly. I want to act like him, I want from the inside out to love and lead as he's loved and led me.

It's amazing how we'll never exhaust the beauty and the loveliness of Christ, even in the everyday moments!

A Time When No Mirror Was Needed

Have you ever stopped to think about the underlying motivations for looking in the mirror everyday?

Maybe you haven't, it's just a pragmatic moment in the morning to make sure your hair looks right and you don't have anything stuck in your teeth so you look appropriate for work or whatever. But even as I wrote that with the intention to walk a fine line around the motivational conundrum of a mirror, I couldn't escape the real ambition for looking in a mirror. Me.

It doesn't necessarily have to be narcissistic. But to look appropriate for a particular occasion isn't solely for other people either, really it's about being accepted in a particular occasion. Maybe at my wedding I wanted to look great for my wife-to-be as she did for me, but I can't help but think I wanted to look good for me too. That is, having other people tell me I look smart or handsome. I'm confident that this isn't just my problem; we are motivated by performance of some kind. Whether it is looks, success, job, or whatever concoction you prefer, we are all tainted by the me-motivation.

For those of my friends who might be worried where this blog might be going, I'm not going to go stop looking in the mirror in order to get ready for the day. I wouldn't want people to be tortured by the smell or the disheveled look that this would cause. I can't imagine many people wanting to learn from me or listen to what I have to say in such a state. It would be a mountainous distraction to say the least. But maybe instead of reflecting about what others may think of me, I could use that time to reflect on and look forward to the bigger picture. A time when there was or will be no need for a mirror.

Just imagine what life was like for Adam and Eve in the Garden. They were naked and unashamed. They had no reason to look at self; they were completely satisfied with the other. They had the Life of God in them. They enjoyed walking with their God together, the One who generously gave them everything they could possibly ever need or want. They were content.

At this moment, a mirror wouldn't make any sense. There was no need to look to self for anything with a me-motivation. Adam had the eyes of his heart fixed on God and Eve, and in return Eve had the eyes of her heart captured by Adam and God. As Augustine would say, this reality was the "substance of God" in them. The unifying presence of the Spirit directed their hearts to the other. Therefore they didn't want to look at self and were happy with that! They were naked and unashamed!

So what went wrong?

A simple skeptical look!

In Genesis 3, just after the climatic conclusion to the creation account we find the "crafty" serpent approached Eve with a skeptical question about God and his provision. "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" Now for Eve this was a no brainer kind of a question. She knew that God hadn't been holding back, she had been given everything she would ever need or want. Not even for a nanosecond had she thought that something was missing. God had given her and Adam the fruit of every tree to eat from . . . except one.

I think this was the point the serpent was getting at. He needed Eve to quickly fix the blatant mistake of the serpent's question while hiding the subtle one. Eve responded by correcting him, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden . . ." and then looking to the one tree Adam had told Eve God didn't want them to eat from, she followed up, "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' " Prior to this, Adam and Eve had no desire to focus on the one tree they couldn't eat from. They were satisfied in everything else God had given them and they had no reason or desire to distrust God. No to mention, the word "death" was merely a word with no meaning for them. They were happily naked and unashamed.

When the serpent got Eve to look at the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he returned to his skepticism of God's character.   The serpent enticed Eve with the idea that God was holding out, there was something that she needed that God hadn't provided. God didn't want her to be like God (even though she with Adam was the "image of God"). I think when she ignored the prompting of the Holy Spirit, saw the fruit of the tree as good for food and a delight to the eyes, the Spirit was grieved and left her. The fall took place with a simple skeptical look! And Adam gladly joined in.

Here the age of the mirror began. As the substance of God left them, their vacuous hearts curved in on themselves. The Spirit of God was replaced with concupiscence; the lustful desire for self and to violate any prohibition.

Now living in the age of the mirror we can't fully get away from wanting to make sure our fig leaf is covering our physical and spiritual nakedness. Even with the Spirit living in our hearts, we still live in the time of a broken world and the flesh of Adam.

And there's the battle, even at the mirror in the morning brushing your teeth. Are you looking forward to the time where a mirror will no longer be needed or do you still want to cover your nakedness?

I can't wait to live for Christ and others without the gravity of flesh fighting against the Spirit of God who resides in my heart and unites me to Christ.   Where everything is new, where there are no tears, and Christ is there walking with us. Except this time our naiveté will be gone. We will know what death is. What it's like not to trust God. What it's like living in the age of a mirror. Praise God, we'll never want to go back!

A Burden-less Holiness

When I have the opportunity to talk about holiness I find myself using the language of delight, love, joy, and freedom.  Inevitably this will rub someone the wrong way and they will ask a good question, "How can you say we have freedom to live how we want when we are given clear imperatives that are not suggestions but obligations that we must meet?"

There are lots of ways to go about answering this question.  Let me offer an answer by going back to the fifth century.  In the streets of Rome and Milan a man named Caelestius sounded the clarion call to live righteously.  As a devoted ascetic, he and his colleagues found the affluent Christian society offensive.  In their minds, there was a gap between God's demands for holiness and the people's dutiful fulfillment of those demands--the whole point of life and the Christian faith.

What was even more offensive, however, was that the teaching of prominent Christian leaders only perpetuated this lack of “holy living”.  They were hearing bishops teaching, "Love God and do what you want," or praying, "Grant what you command, and command what you will."  Actually, this last one nearly led to a physical altercation.

But why would a prayer seeking God's involvement in keeping his commands enrage this group of ascetics?

This very prayer for them undermined the whole Christian endeavor and the created order.   To clean up the streets of the capital they were calling people to keep the commands of God and to stop sinning, "by the help of the grace of God."  Now to many evangelical ears, this sounds great!  Don't we want people to take up the task of living holy lives? By which we mean that they must stop sinning and start to obey the commandments. Don't we want people to pursue righteousness?

Before I answer these questions, let me say one other thing.  Their message was popular.  Many people wanted to live holy lives, and were happy to hear exactly what they had to do to be holy. We have documents that tell the story of successful people leaving their vocations to serve God on account of Caelestius' preaching. Even Pope Zosimus, for a time, supported his efforts and doctrine.

Preaching and teaching similar to this is popular today because many people are not well informed on the differing options when it comes to words like grace, holiness, righteousness, sin, etc.  You see, Caelestius and his mentor, Pelagius, believed that grace is the human nature to freely choose good and not choose evil.  For them righteousness was keeping the law by the self-sufficiency given by the creator.

The threefold definition of grace, for them, was the nature of free will, the scriptures, and the pardon of our sins.  Sin was considered an action of breaking the law that has no effect on our nature.  We're born like Adam without sin because sin isn't a substance, but just an action.  They would affirm that everyone sins and will need the grace of pardon and the Law, yet we all have the capacity by nature to not sin.

Now I hope that this paragraph has made your skin crawl a little because definitions like this leave no room for the cross.  When Augustine (354-430 AD) came across the teachings of Pelagius and Caelestius it was through two of their disciples Timasius and James.  They gave Augustine Pelagius' Nature to read, which then inspired him to write Nature and Grace.

In Nature and Grace, Augustine, empowered with his talent for rhetoric and an intimate knowledge of the Scriptures, picks apart Pelagius' doctrine point by point.  In this enriching and fun read, Augustine logically and biblically undermines their definitions of grace because it does away with the grace of Christ.

The grace of Christ for Augustine is "the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5)." This is the solution to he problem because Adam's rejection of God in the garden meant that the very "substance of God" in Adam was lost and therefore damages the nature of Adam's posterity.  Augustine gives this the label "death."  And this is the "heart of the matter" for we are justified by “the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord (Rom 7:25), and him crucified (1 Cor 2:3).  That faith of course, healed the righteous people of old, and it now heals us, that is, faith in the mediator between God and human beings, the man Jesus Christ, faith in his blood, faith in his cross, faith in his death and resurrection."

By the cross we were given the Holy Spirit, who we depend on to love and live for Christ, who first loved us.  This love we have for God "is, after all, the truest, most complete, most perfect righteousness." Therefore keeping commands isn't a heavy burden but only the overflow of our love for God, commands are only heavy and difficult when love is wanting.

It seems that in the story of the church we keep trying to place the responsibility of our holiness on our backs. But the good news is that Christ's burden is not a burden at all and "righteousness is the love poured out in our hearts, not by the choice of the will, but by the Holy Spirit."

Augustine finishes his Nature and Grace concerning the biblical definition of grace and righteousness, "the beginning of love is the beginning of righteousness; progress in love is progress in righteousness; great love is great righteousness; perfect love is perfect righteousness . . . For this love is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:25) who with the Father and the Holy Spirit has eternity and goodness forever and ever. Amen."

A History of Assumptions

In the last week or so I've been revisiting the primary sources of the often so-called New England Antinomian Controversy of 1636-1638. I'm repeatedly struck by the differences that were discovered among a group of people that assumed they were all on the same theological page. Yes, they knew that differing opinions were held with regards to church governance, but concerning primary doctrine, agreement was a given.   Yet, in the late 1630s a division the size of the San Andreas Fault was unwittingly unearthed.

These kinds of sleeper fault lines are repeatedly found in churches today. Naively, many assume that if people agree on the five solae, on the nature of Jesus, and affirm the inerrancy of the Bible then they're fundamentally on the same page. I would like to propose that this isn't necessarily the case.

When disagreements do come up in the church many are shocked that they're over "non-essentials." I'm not talking about worship style or church polity but more significant "non-essentials" like the proper use of the Law or the nature of faith in relationship to assurance of salvation. These doctrinal divisions stem from a more foundational disagreement about God, man, sin, and grace.

That's why at Cor Deo we repeatedly return to the most fundamental questions for ... well ... everything:

1. Which God?

2. What does it mean to be human?

3. What's gone wrong?

4. And how is the problem solved?

a. How does this affect my daily life?

Our intentions are to emphasize these foundational issues so that we build our lives and theology on them, or face the danger of building our lives and churches on sand.

Since the answer to the first question affects the answer of the second, and the second shapes the third, and so on, it is most likely that secondary disagreements are actually based upon un-communicated foundational clashes. A brief look at the initial days of the Antinomian Controversy over the nature of faith will, I hope, demonstrate this point.

In the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony there was a hope to create a perfect theocracy in the new world. Gone were the tyrannical days of Archbishop Laud's censorship. Now the Puritans could freely immerse themselves in and apply their ideas from the Bible.  They certainly indulged in this new opportunity. Each preacher spent 12 hours a day in study and the people gathered to listen to them, sometimes they would preach five days a week to meet the demand. With nothing else to do outside of work, listening to sermons became the pastime of the colony. One could easily fill the week going from town to town listening to various preachers. As things developed, the listeners began to choose their favorites and accentuate differences among the minsters of the colony. This was especially true for those who attended John Cotton's church in new Boston, who began to challenge the errors of Cotton’s colleagues during the Q&A sessions after their sermons.

The Bostonians accused other ministers of preaching a "Covenant of Works." They believed that teaching someone to look at their sanctification for assurance was a works-based righteousness. Therefore, the Bostonians thought that works, rather than the person of Christ, became the object of assurance. This was the very opposite of what Cotton had been teaching in Boston.

As the tensions escalated in the new colony, the ministers began to write to one another in order to ascertain whether or not the Bostonians were actually representing Cotton correctly. Much of their initial discussions centered on the nature of faith and the timing of union with Christ.

The elders of the colony argued that faith was a divinely enabled choice to believe in Christ. By meeting this one condition, "God's free grace would be revealed and received by the believer" and the benefits were union with Christ and justification. Cotton, like Calvin, taught that faith is assurance of having been united to Christ just as cup receives oil. Faith is a response and a direct work of the Spirit who testifies to our spirit that God has loved us first.

The two sides were divided as either seeing faith as passively received or actively enabled.

You might think these differences are merely semantic and pedantic. But if you peel back the onion you discover two dramatically different theological traditions. These traditions would answer the four big questions differently. For illustration purposes let's just consider third question: what is sin?

Cotton believed that sinners would never produce good works. Anyone who was bound to sin only wanted to do evil. Nothing prior to a nature-change could ever be considered good.

"Is the condition (of works or faith) found in the soul before union with Christ or after? All conditions before union with Christ are corrupt and unsavory, as the corrupt fruits of a corrupt tree; and to such no promises are made all. And all conditions after union with Christ are effects and fruits of that union . . . Indeed faith itself and our adherence to Christ by it, is a fruit of that union; or else we might be believers, i.e. good trees, and bring fourth good fruit before union with Christ which the Gospel accounts impossible." (Cotton, "Mr. Cotton's Rejoynder" in The Antinomian Controversy, ed. David Hall, pg. 92).

Cotton's reading of Matthew 7 wouldn't allow him to agree with his colleagues’ understanding of faith. Their view was essentially that sin is more of a disease than death, which was much nearer Erasmus’ view than Luther’s.

Cotton didn’t miss this when he suggested his colleagues’ theological arguments reflected the papists more than the reformers.

"Hence it is, that when Catharinus (a learned Papist) went to prove that a believer in Christ might be assured of his salvation by his good works, out of 2 Peter 1.5-10 . . . Whereto Pareus [a Protestant] replies, We acknowledge our former assurance to be before works, from the testimony of the Spirit bearing witness to our spirits that we are sound. (pg. 93)"

By insinuating they were papists, I'm not sure Cotton could draw the line in the sand any thicker or deeper. And the dividing line wasn't without basis; on the fundamental questions they were miles apart.

So what does conflict between Puritans 375 years ago have anything to do with us? A situation like this should remind us to focus on the essential questions of life. Not to assume that everyone is in agreement on how to answer them. I'd say like any good coach, practice the fundamentals and keep going back to them. Get your nose in God's story and see what he has to say about these four questions.

Looking Forward to Death

The last few days I've been reminded that death could happen for any one of us at any moment. Even a random, unthinkable event could take life in a blink of an eye. For those of us who live in the industrialized world, a near death experience or even a loss of a loved one is far from a common experience. But for much of human history the death of others was a daily reminder that life wasn't assured. Today, if you make it to birth, you are expected to live until your late 70s.

So what am I getting at?

I love history, and am an American living in England, so I often catch myself thinking how idealistic it would have been to live several hundred years ago. But when one of my children gets sick and I rush them to the hospital in my car, I quickly drop all sense that living in the 17th century would be something I would enjoy.   I have no idea how many times my children's lives have been saved because the quality of life I take for granted.

The great blessings of modern medicine and living standards have created the strange reality that we are rarely reminded of our mortality. We waste time with our amusement, live with no sense of urgency (at least for eternal things), and forget that every moment matters because we think we'll live forever. Maybe, at the very least, we assume we'll make it to our 80s, therefore we have time to waste.

This, I believe, has great consequences for those of us who call ourselves Christians. Unlike Paul in Philippians 1:23-24, we don't have the desire to leave this life and be with Christ.   We don't actually look forward to death. Yes, we don't look forward to death.

Now, it may seem strange to say this, but let's try to look at it from a different angle. My wife and I have come to find out that 10 days or so is about as long as we can handle being apart from each other. Just a couple days away and we are looking forward to seeing each other and begin to prepare for our reunion as a family. It's not a duty or an obligation to prepare, we just delight in one another, and it’s natural to miss the other.

Shouldn't we be like this with Christ, our Bridegroom? Do we delight in Christ so much that we can't wait for his return, so we get ready for him? Or, because we know to be with Christ is best, we desire to go be with him? We all know it would be strange for a "devoted spouse" not to yearn for their other-half to return or to go be with them. Yet, so often we live as though either Christ isn't going to return, or we don't look forward to the passage that brings us to Christ--death.

Please hear me, I'm not advocating that we don't live healthy lives or somehow force death upon ourselves. Rather, I want us to see that we can look forward to heaven because Christ is heaven. We can look forward to the next life and live for the next life because Christ is the next life.   Looking forward to death is like looking forward to the end of a long business trip and returning home to reunite with your spouse.

For our brothers and sisters who lived 400 years ago, they needed to hear this as well but for other reasons. Facing death, plague, and famine on a regular basis could only make one to think of the time where there would be health, happiness, and no tears. The hope of health and happiness could very well become an idol. That heaven could only be the escape of difficulty. Richard Sibbes said it beautifully in a sermon called Christ is Best:

"Why does [Paul] not say I desire to be in heaven? Because heaven is not heaven without Christ. It is better to be in any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself without him.   All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet. Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnness. What is all without Christ? I say the joys of heaven are not the joys of heaven with out Christ; he is the very heaven of heaven."

We don't look forward to heaven because maybe our comfort, security, and amusement has lulled us into believing we can have "heaven" now. We don't look forward to death, or we hold tightly to this life, because we don't delight in the "very heaven of heaven."

Maybe it would be best to leave you with the same thoughts that the heavenly Dr. Richard Sibbes left with his listeners:

"Therefore, if we desire to end our days in joy and comfort, let us lay the foundation of a comfortable death now speedily. To die well is not a thing of that light moment as some imagine; it is no easy matter. But to die well is a matter of every day . . . To die well is the action of the whole life. He never dies well for the most part that dies not daily, as Paul said of himself, 'I die daily,' I Cor. 15:31; he labored to loose his heart from the world and die daily, how easy will it be to die at last! He that thinks of the vanity of the world, and of death, and of being with Christ forever, and is dying daily, it will be easy for him to end his days with comfort. "

May we desire for God to set our hearts on having the best here and now, the very heaven of heaven, Jesus our Husband.

Help!

When I was growing up my grandparents had an in-ground pool in their backyard.  It was the place to be on a hot summer afternoon in Oregon.  Here the whole extended family would gather around good food and the coolness of the swimming pool. We all loved these days.

As the family enjoyed each other in conversation, you can easily imagine the adults’ full attention was drawn away from the youngest of kids.  One of these times, I, a young toddler, rode my tricycle around the pool until I rode it into the pool without anyone noticing.  As the story goes, when my grandmother saw me face down in the pool she jumped in to save me.  The only problem was that she couldn't swim either.  Her cry for help and the sound of the splash grabbed my father's attention and he jumped in to save both of us.

If we rewind the story just a couple moments back to the point when my father heard the splash and cry for help, at that moment in time he had two options. One option was that he could save his mother and his son by throwing some kind of flotation device to us.  The device would give my grandmother the ability to float and swim to the side of the pool on her own.  Or he could jump into the pool so that he himself could be the swimmer and save us from death.

Let me posit this episode as a possible picture to speak about the differing views on the nature of grace. That either grace is a flotation device given from afar that enables one who cannot swim to swim, or that grace is a person jumping in to save and be depended on for everything.  This contradistinction is the Rubicon between Christian traditions formed by systematic theology and biblical theology. Systematic or scholastic traditions start with certain philosophical presumptions and categories about God and humanity. These presuppositions are supported with proof texts from the Bible.  Whereas biblical theology attempts to let the story of God's pursuit of a people for himself shape the way we speak of God, man, sin, and grace.

In terms of grace, this distinction is best seen by beginning with Peter Lombard  (c.1096-1164). He, in his Sentences, asked, "Is the love by which we are saved a created habit of our soul, or is it the very person of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us?"(Lombard, Sentences 1.17; in Ozment, The Age of Reform, 31).   Lombard, in agreement with Augustine's use of Romans 5:5, states that the "Holy Spirit is the love by which we love God and our neighbor."  That grace isn't our nature to offer charity or a new habit given to us by the Spirit, which enables us to consistently live a life of love. Rather, the gift purchased by Christ according to Augustine is "plainly the Holy Spirit who is God and the third person of the Trinity..." (Sentences, 1.14.46).  In other words, the Spirit doesn't give us a lifesaver that enables us to swim when we can’t.  Instead Christ jumps in and unites himself to us by the Spirit, just as the Father is one with the Son by the Spirit (Sentences, 1.17.65).

Thomas Aquinas' commentary on Lombard's Sentences rejected the notion that the Spirit is the gift given because this would mean our love would not be in our control nor responsible for our good acts.   Also, if this were the case, according to Aquinas, it would mean that God would then have to jump into the pool of creation, which would be an absurdity when God and creation are incommensurate – that is, two natures that cannot correspond.  These conclusions aren’t based on Scripture, but are presuppositions based in Aristotle’s view of God as the unmoved mover and humanity as independent self-moved choosers. Therefore God, from a transcendent distance, throws a lifesaver, i.e. he gives the capacity to swim to people who don't have the ability to swim.

To put it in terms of sin and righteousness, Aquinas and Aristotle assumed that the practice of righteous deeds makes one become righteous.  But here's the problem, sin keeps me from practicing righteousness consistently long enough to form a habit of righteousness.  So God gives me the habit of righteousness by the Spirit. However, we find Jesus said that a bad tree only produces bad fruit. Not until a bad tree is made into a good tree can good fruit be produced.  Jesus assumed that being actually leads to doing, not the other way around.

Listening to Jesus’ words the Reformers rejected Aristotelian categories and sided with Lombard. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Cranmer all rejected the use of habitus as a way for God to give grace without jumping into the swimming pool.  From Luther's commentary on The Sentences to Cranmer's tenth article in the Forty-Two Articles of Religion, grace was the person of the Spirit pouring the love of God into our hearts, who truly unites us to Christ.

One of the countless ways this makes a difference is in our prayer life.  Often I hear and pray for God's help, but what is meant by "help" counts for everything in the extreme.  If help is just God giving me some kind of power or ability from a distance to face the difficulties of the day, I'm back to thinking of grace as a commodity or the life jacket.  But if I mean "help" in the sense "I need you Jesus today more than ever, please help walk through the day with you because I can do nothing apart from you," I'm relying on a person and not a flotation device.

Empty Glory

"Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" was the cry of the large crowd who heard that Jesus was coming to the feast in Jerusalem.   There was no doubt what they thought of him, he was representing Yahweh, the promised king who would save Israel.

But their mindset of what all this meant was turned on its head.  Jesus in John 12 said, "the hour has come that the Son of Man (who was given by the Ancient of Days glory and authority over all creation) to be glorified."  But this glory isn't the glory they were expecting, it was the time where he would lose his life and be lifted up on the cross, so that he might draw all people to himself.  That is, the glory of God was seen with the Son of Man dead, naked on the cross.

Now this didn't go well with their expectations, how could this possibly be?  The Son of Man was to have power, dominion; the Christ was to live forever.  The idea that glory could be connected to death was absolutely impossible. Death is weakness and defeat.  It didn't compute, and even the disciples didn't understand Jesus until he was glorified.

This doesn't usually sit well with us either.  How could glory be connected to the humiliating cross? How could this be the hour that God is most clearly revealed?

There are many reasons for this, but let me offer two.  First, we tend to make glory about power, strength, dominion, pageantry, and a majestic brightness. Second, we see humility as weak, low in status and condition, and modest in spirit.  Yet, God doesn't seem to define humility or glory exactly like that.  Don't get me wrong, there are elements of these ideas in the Bible, but at mountain peak moments in the Bible these two words are dramatically redefined.

John 12 is one of these mountaintop moments, and Philippians 2 is another.  Paul defines humility as "counting others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." After his instruction he offers the greatest example of humility by describing God's humility.   Now we are all fairly comfortable with Jesus' humility, but it's the Triune God's humility on display.

You might object: how could it possibly be about God's humility when the hymn ends with all tongues confessing and knees bowing to Jesus because "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father"?

That's a great and perfect question to ask.   We see that God the Father exalts Jesus by giving him the name that is above all names.  That name is Yahweh, and all that goes with that name is synonymous with the name Jesus of Nazareth. Yes the God who said, "I am Yahweh and there is no other" and "every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance" (Isaiah 45:19, 23), has equated himself with Jesus of Nazareth, the poor, unnoticeable, suffering servant, who died as a criminal.  Yahweh's glory was displayed with death, even death on the cross.

Most importantly we see the ethos of the Father-Son-Spirit revealed by Christ on the cross. The glory they had before the creation of the world.  The Father delighting in and giving to his Son; the Son responding to his Father with the same other-centeredness; with the Spirit as the Uniter of the two.   The Triune God is humble, he isn't self-concerned but elevates the other above himself.

Therefore, elevating self isn't godly, nor is it glorious (Prov. 25:27). Jesus similarly states that "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing" in the context where the Father glorifies the Son and Son glorifies the Father (John 8).  There's no self-seeking in God's glory.

So what should our response be to Christ's gospel?

Paul invites the Philippians to live out the attitude of Christ, to humbly esteem others more than themselves, which will unite them as one body.   This isn't a pragmatic suggestion, but an ontological reality for any person who is one with Christ.  The heartbeat of the Trinity is the heartbeat we have in Christ, a selfless love for the other.

Therefore, Paul would say, do nothing out of competiveness or conceit, which contradicts the mindset of Christ.  I think we get that competiveness, seeking to be better than someone else, will lead to fissures in a community.  But maybe we miss the contrast between God's nature and a conceited community.   Conceited could be translated as "vainglory" or even "empty-glory."  In other words, if you are focused on what satisfies self, over and against someone's interests, you lack the character of godly glory.  God's love humbly looks to the other, anything else lacks glory.

Jonathan Edwards says this better than most in his Treatise on Grace, "God's love is primarily to himself, and his infinite delight is in himself, that is, in the Father and the Son loving and delighting in each other."  Without the last section Edwards would be describing a God who only thought of himself and would be empty of biblical glory.  Instead we see a God who has existed since before the creation of the world in a selfless and giving ethos that Edwards invites us to worship.

May we gaze upon and know God's glory that shines out by his humble character displayed for all to see on the cross.

History is Devotional

There are many motivations to read history.  It's fun, if not downright hysterical to read stories that wouldn't be believable if they were made up.  History is educational.  You discover where you've come from.  You learn how things came to be as there are now.  You can avoid the mistakes of the past. There are numerous other reasons to read history (can you hear the bias of a historian?), but one I want to suggest here might shock you.  Reading history can be devotional.

Now you might object, "History is about dates, timelines, and museums, all are boring!! Only strange, dare I say "geeky", people like history. There's no way it can food for my soul."

Now there's no doubt that a lot of history is presented as meaningless dates and dull facts.  But I can say that history is devotional because of the perspective that can come from other people's thoughts about the same life concerns and faith challenges we face, even though they lived in a different time, in a different culture, and with different social tensions. The distance of time allows us to engage things of life without the hang-ups of our modern biases.

Lately, a Puritan named John Preston (1587-1628) has been a source of comfort and delight for me.  Yes, a Puritan's sermons have warmed my heart!  Even though some could rightly describe the puritans as "a pinched and frost-bitten lot: sour, picky, and bluntly, so boring pigeons cold roost on them (The Good God, 29)," John Preston was not. His two sermon series "A Breast Plate of Faith and Love" invited people to the assurance of faith and a love for Christ.  These 400-year-old sermons have helped me to direct my gaze onto the beauty of the Lord.

Maybe a couple of examples will help you to see where I'm coming from. First is one of my favorite moments in his first sermon on Galatians 5:6. Here he invites people to see seven motives to love Christ, and he saves the best for last.

"And last of all consider that the Lord loves you.  For that is the greatest motive to win us to love him. Just as fire generates fire, so love generates love.  This is the reason that Paul loved the Lord, "He that loved me gave himself for me (Gal. 2:20)." I will not live any more to myself, but to him who has loved me and gave himself for me.  He has loved me, and there was his testimony of his love, he gave himself.  I say, consider this love of the Lord, and let this generate in you a reciprocal affection for him.  Put all this together, and consider, the Lord worthy to be beloved.  And he that is so great appeals to you for your love.  He that is God, who planted love in your hearts, and therefore he does but call for his own. He that has done you so many kindnesses, that you are so engaged to him, that you are now united to, are you not now to choose, at least come to this, to say he is worthy to be beloved, bring your hearts to this, to desire to love him."  (Of Love, 47-8)

Preston here calls us to be won by Christ's love.  Our love for Christ isn't a volitional choice determined by our self-moved will.  Rather it's a heartfelt response, "a holy disposition of the heart, rising from faith, whereby we cling to the Lord, with a purpose of the heart to serve him, and to please him in all things (14)."  As we respond to Christ in assurance that he has saved us, and cling to him with a new affection we'll naturally desire to please and serve him.

For the people Preston was serving these were winsome words to their soul. At a time when people were burdened with the duty to prove their salvation, Preston invited people to enjoy Christ and delightfully strive to please him as a loving wife desires to please her husband.  Not for any benefit for herself but for him.

Much more could be said but I want to share one other gem.  Often issues of security, pleasure, acceptance of others, are affections competing with our affection for Christ.  Preston, looking to 1 John 2:15, shockingly calls these affections "a love for the world."

Now question with your own hearts about this [1 John 2:15], whether you love the world and the things of this world.  For if you do, the words are clear, "The Father is not in you."

"You will say, how shall I know this? You shall know it by these three things. [I'll offer one] First, by your delight in the things of the world, and your grief and sorrow and the loss of them after you have enjoyed them.  For if you find that you are overly affected about them, it is certain that you    love the world, and the things of the world..."

Ok, I get you might be thinking that this sounds more like the prickly-sort-of-puritan.  But Preston proclaimed we have so many things that get in the way of our love of Christ, who should be the greatest reason for our happiness.  If despair should set in from the loss of stuff it's most likely we love ourselves and love the things that please us more than Christ.  It's not that we shouldn't grieve or "we deny that man may grieve" at losses of jobs, money, our home, or social rejection. Instead, the assurance that we are Christ's and Christ is ours should be the main source of our happiness and joy.

Maybe I haven't convinced you, but I hope I have invited you to listen to the voices of the past.  Dr. Lloyd-Jones often went to Richard Sibbes and Jonathan Edwards when he needed to combat despair.  I would agree with him and add a couple of men chronologically between these two: John Preston and John Cotton.  Let me also recommend that you read Luther and Calvin, not what others have said about them, but what these men actually wrote or proclaimed. I trust these men will invite you to love Christ and have joy in him!

Superhero?

A couple of nights ago my three-year-old son came downstairs and in his best superhero voice said (just imagine his fists on his hips and chest pushed out), "I'm the strongman, I can do nothing!" With big smiles on our faces, we tried to correct him, "Don't you mean anything?" He replied, "No, I can do nothing!" We've been laughing about it for days.  The irony and the dissonance of it all is just plain funny and cute.

But, as I enjoyed the innocence of my son, I started to ponder the reality that I don't think much differently.  Instead my thoughts aren’t communicated out loud so directly, they're a whole lot sadder, no less ironic, and far more deadly. They go something like this, "I'm the weakman, and I can do anything!"  While, I might not consciously include the "weakman" part of the sentence, it's there nevertheless.

Why do I say this? Well, when fear, false-humility, etc. begin to bear fruit in my life, I know my thoughts have been abiding in the silly notion that I can do anything on my own.  That I, as an individual, can direct my own steps and I have no need of anyone else. Yet the fear that comes from this pride is rooted in something false.

One of the warning signs that anyone is living in the lie of Satan (that God can't be trusted, and I'm my own god) is their internal conversation.  If you find that your self-talk is a single voice, odds are its self-concerned and self-protective. Your thoughts are rooted in the lie "I can do anything" while protecting yourself from your inability to do so.  This often manifests itself in constantly comparing yourself to others, "I'm better than..." or "I'm not as good as... " These comparisons can lead to perfectionism, panic-induced paralysis, or prodigal licentiousness. The differing behaviors are only symptoms of the same disease, someone's habitual value that they are God.

Let's return to my son's insightful declaration. It’s essential to abide in the reality that we can do nothing on our own - that God is God, and we are not.  Now our flesh will immediately make this statement primarily about power.  I don't think it is, however.  It's a love issue. It's a trust issue. These are intimate companions, but for the sake of clarity let's talk about each one separately.

When living in the lie we believe that we're not loveable, and that God doesn't really love us. The truth, however, is that God does loves us and therefore we, the unloveable, are made lovely.  This love is not some cheap, fluffy, marshmallow love given to us from a transcendent distance.  No, its the God who stoops down to give us life in his Son, and to give us his Spirit who testifies to this by pouring God's love into our hearts.   When we respond to him with love, he abides in us and we in him.  And as our triune God is an other-centered communion with an eternal conversation between the Father and Son by their Spirit, it should be no surprise we should start to converse with him by his Spirit.  Our internal conversation becomes a true conversation with our Father and our Bridegroom.   It is a conversation based upon the delight that God is God and I'm not, and my God loves me unfailingly.

We, however, don't trust this enough.  I find that in 1 John 4:16 we miss the full-stop after "the love that God has for us."  We tend to do the Step Toe On the Pedal and roll by that God loves us onto what we need to do next, i.e. prove that we are lovers of God.  When we do this, we tend to read in 1 John that it's our responsibility to love our brother and to love God.  Now I wouldn't want to give the impression that these aren't important, they're vital to John's epistle.  Yet, John doesn't see these as a responsibility we have to force ourselves to do, rather he emphatically states we respond in love because God first loved us.  If we don't abide and dwell in the goodness of our God who is love, we can't help but make love a responsibility because we trust the statement "I can do anything on my own" rather than "I'm deeply loved, and I can do nothing on my own."

When we wholeheartedly trust that God is for us we'll begin to hear another voice in our internal conversation.  The voice will direct our gaze onto God's beauty. The Spirit will bear his fruit.  And we'll discover a desire to give ourselves away to others in the way God gave himself to us.

Here the internal conversation changes from being self-concerned, self-protective, or even self-determined.  Rather we'll depend on God for all things we do. We'll constantly ask God to join us in our daily activities. We'll ask God for help in every circumstance, difficult or easy.  We'll confidently take risks knowing that our identity isn't wrapped up in our performance or others’ opinions, but upon God's testimony of us, the God who's walking with us.   The possibilities are endless when our focus is upon the glorious love of the Trinity, which is manifested in Jesus depending on the Father for everything while fearlessly giving himself away.

I'm thankful my son was right, with one major addition, in Christ I am the strongman, and I can do nothing without him.  Let us confidently depend on Him, even in our internal conversation.