High Voltage!

Last Sunday Nate McGlinchy gave a sermon full of wonderful points and gave quick reference to the various scriptural consequences of sin…and just touched on how they are in so many ways faced by Jesus on the cross. I pondered this during the week when moments allowed; the cross is always worthy of meditation. The odd thing was, I knew the things he mentioned, individually. Never, though, had I put them together as a group of things that Jesus faced that were reflected in the Scripture as a package of so many various things every sinner would himself face as the price for his sin (payment for which is entirely beyond mere human capability). The grouping of these awesome and crushing problems that Jesus took upon Himself and fully dealt with at the cross seemed like a bunch of power cords all bundled together to make one super-power cord! I thought I’d list some verses re: what the sinner has looming, and what Jesus removes from the repentant believer. I expect there are more than I was able to find!

Adam and Eve, and all the human race, is under the curse of sin until turning to Christ:

Genesis 3:14-19:

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all livestock
    and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”

¹⁷ And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

Jesus became a curse for us on the cross:

Galatians 3:13-14:

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— ¹⁴ so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Because we are born sinners, we are born under God’s wrath and destined for eternal punishment:

John 3:36:

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Jesus took God’s punishment for our sin upon Himself at the cross:

Isaiah 53:5-6:

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

    we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

    the iniquity of us all.

Sin brings separation between us and God:

Isaiah 59:2:

2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,

And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

Jesus was separated from God on the cross:

Matthew 27:46:

⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Death is the payment for our sins:

Romans 6:23:

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins:

Luke 23:46:

46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

Philippians 2:8:

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we are reconciled to God:

2 Corinthians 5:17-19:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Mark 15:37-38:

37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

One difference between Jesus going through these things and us going through them was that though He was tempted, He never sinned; He didn't deserve the punishment that He willingly took on for our sake:

Hebrews 4:15:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We deserve these things. He did not. He gave His life willingly for us, in obedience to God the Father. So though I knew of these things individually, and each one is packed with power, combined it was like taking some huge high-power electrical wires and binding them all together. High voltage! Of course they do nothing, they lay powerless, until you apply them and realize all that He did for you, and turn your life over to Him. Then they employ that power to give life to your spirit and transfer your citizenship right out of recorded time and clear into eternity. 

The Log in Your Own Eye

Tonight in our book study we were discussing The Cross of Christ, and the subject came up of dealing with a person who's down on himself. Some agreed that the person who's down on himself is sometimes more difficult to deal with (or at least tolerate) than a person who is high on himself. We discussed what you need in order to be ready to "deal with" him...to lift him out or get him to stop; that a person focusing on himself does not have his focus where it belongs: On Christ and others. The more I pondered it the more complicated this subject became, because there are a number of ways to be down on yourself, though all of them do take your focus off of Christ and onto yourself, which is fraught with problems. 

A person might just be self-centered and focusing on their own inadequacies, the things that make him less "up to snuff" in the social arena...in which case there's really nothing better than to just snap out of it and realize that we all as humans share in that to some degree. A person might be dealing with an actual clinical depression that needs medical intervention. Or a person might be overwhelmed with personal problems and be dealing with a heavy load and perhaps depression on top of it. The solutions to any of these might be completely different: The first is a simple self-centeredness, and might be categorized as sin just for the focus being unnecessarily inward. The second is a complex focus on self that needs medical help and perhaps later a call to accountability if the medical help is not fully effective to lift the person back to functionality. The third might justifiably need someone to help shoulder the burdens of life that have become too heavy. It can be unclear to the outsider just which thing is going on without asking questions and seeking the root cause.

So in the discussion, I was pondering these things (being sensitive to it because I have been guilty of dwelling on my many inadequacies; I have dealt with depression, though never received medical help for it; and I have borne a load of difficulties that simultaneously limited my ability to function, also affecting my physical health, compounding the primary problems). I think of Job, whose friends are silent for a week, an admirable length of time in waiting to respond to Job in his pain. Their problem started, though, when they didn't know what to say. Like most of us, their solution to this was to start talking, and rather than lift Job out of his sorrow and grief, they add pain, false guilt, and the need to defend himself. 

This subject made me see Jesus' illustration of getting the log out of your own eye in a new light. I've always seen the meaning of this as being that the one person who intended to get the splinter out of the second person's eye was trying to solve the perceived sin of the second person, and that the problem was that the log in his own eye was a greater sin that blinded him to the problem. Well, I no longer think that the log or the splinter in all cases represent sin. I think the log represents anything that obstructs your ability to help another person with an issue. If you don't know the details of the difficulty, you might, like Job's friends, assume the problem is their sin when in reality it might not be. If you work on their problem without clarifying your vision regarding the nature of what needs to be solved, you can't help them solve it, and you might cause further damage. The splinter can represent any personal difficulty that provokes others to want to help solve it. It might be sin; it might be depression or grief; and it might be any variety or bundle of personal problems.

So then there is the matter of how to get the log out of your eye. I think the baseline equipping that we have to do so is first Bible study and prayer. Not that we always have time to go to the Bible when we see a person in need, but our lives need to be equipped; we need to be faithful in these disciplines, so that, abiding in Christ, we are given the necessary discernment, wisdom, compassion, boldness, mercy, and fitting words that can bring healing and if necessary, repentance to the person in need of help. Unarmed with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing of spiritual value in our own strength. With Him, we can have the wisdom to ask questions, the discernment to realize the nature of the problem, and the attitude and words that can heal rather than add to the primary problem. 

Oh to Have the Boldness of Luther!

I am reading The Bondage of the Will, by Martin Luther. It isn't the first book I would have picked up to read; I probably would have passed over it until I was at least 120. But a friend, one of the elders in our church, gave it to me, not because he had read it; it was new and he hadn't. I'm not sure why he wanted me to read it. But I'm almost halfway through it and one thing I can say: It is easy to see Luther's God-given passion for that which he believes and of which he is convinced. He is assured, unflinching, adamant, passionate. Erasmus has written a book on behalf of the Catholic Church (who Luther so thoroughly offended with his 92 theses), urging Luther to make peace with the head honchos there, and essentially saying that these issues are not worth the division that they bring. The weird thing about this book is that Luther's passionately argumentative style does not remind me of any Christian I know; it reminds me of my sister, who went on and on for pages in a letter once because she thought that from a passing remark I made that I don't like animals. (I don't mind animals; I just am glad not to have any.) She could be so passionate and attack me for pages over such a trivial issue; we as Christians on the other hand are entrusted with the mystery of the Gospel and the responsibility to care for one another. We have all the more reason to be passionate, and yet the Church today is pitiful in its weak and cowering attitude toward any opposition the Gospel brings.

Luther's writings show me how much that passion has gone from our Christianity. We know the truth (thanks in great part to Luther and his passionate stand for Bible truth: "Here I stand; I can do no other"), but most of us at best would give a flimsy sentence or two to anyone who opposed an issue that was central to our faith. Those of us who say more can expect to be called intolerant troublemakers, and divisive. This is one harm in our American Christian culture that definitely needs to turn completely around: the indignant opposition to biblical correction, admonishment, or exhortation of believers; it will cause us to miss out on a huge potential for growth and strength in our walk. The Church as a result can only expect to be poorly equipped when times of real persecution actually come. We seem to think that it is only God who should have the privilege of correction and admonishment, but this view only confirms our biblical illiteracy. The Scriptures are replete with passages that clearly exhibit God's desire for us to correct and be corrected in matters of the faith.

Christianity that is lived out elsewhere or which is historically evident and biblically prescribed differs so much from our American version. The differences are striking: Christians in other countries and throughout history have endured much more persecution and difficulty than we generally do; they face a very real possibility of dying for this faith that requires a clear and unflinching witness; because of these things, their Christianity is more surely authentic and their growth in faith and faithfulness is probably a far less gradual thing than here as a rule. I expect that people in other places and times grasp the harder lessons of the faith and have the passion to live a life of pleasing God and denying self. Part of this comes from the Scriptures, where people sold their property and gave the money and other belongings to the church so that no one had any lack (Acts 4:32-37), or sang when imprisoned (Acts 16:25), or shared the Gospel as soon as they were free (Acts 4:19-20, 5:42); where the witness of Christians results in thousands turning to Christ in one event (Acts 2:41). I know that wherever a believer lives, the struggle with sin and self-protection continues regardless of nationality. But persecution sifts the wheat from the chaff. Who is going to live casually or inauthentically for Christ in a hostile culture if living for Christ quite possibly means dying for Him?

Even though the American Christian doesn't generally have to fear much persecution, we are immersed in a narcissistic, private, self-protective, individualistic culture. So we don't readily welcome any inquiry or correction about ourselves, our sin nature (even though we all have it; that's one universal trait we have in common) and how we live our lives. Suggest to an American Christian that there's something amiss in their lives and their indignation and pushback is almost guaranteed. This isn't how the Scriptures paint the right response to correction. We are urged to address sin in others who claim Christ as their own; we are urged to welcome correction--both because speaking the truth can save a person from greater error and from wandering from the faith. I wish this were taught and encouraged more in the church. I wish it were expected and embraced among believers. It isn't, from my experience, and that will be to our harm and if it were possible, to diminish the glory that we are equipped to bring to Jesus Christ.

It appears in Ephesians that God put vocal people in the church to build it up, to raise new believers to maturity, to help put aside deception. We are to speak the truth to one another in love in order that the Church may grow into a functional whole:

Ephesians 4:11-15 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

It isn't just the pastor's job, or the Holy Spirit's job, to speak into the lives of the believers around us:

Hebrews 3:12-14 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

If we say something to someone that might turn him around in repentance, or correct a misconception about the faith, the results can be huge. This is definitely prescribed in the Scriptures:

James 5:19-20 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, ²⁰ let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

It takes courage to speak up, especially in this culture. Courage and boldness are basic requirements for effective ministry. We need to pray that like Luther, we all are courageous and bold; pray for your friends and have them pray for you, so that the truth might be addressed in your times of fellowship, so that the Church as a whole might grow strong and true, as God intended. 

We Live in a World of Supernatural Wonder!

I watched a video of an interview between Doug Wilson, a cessationist, and Mark Driscoll, a more charismatic preacher. It was a charming discussion regarding how they differ on how and whether the Holy Spirit is active today. By the end, my impression was that they agreed far more than they would have originally thought, and I loved how they remained friendly and funny all the way through, not becoming tense. That easy, friendly attitude comes more readily and you can allow for differences if you know that the basics of faith in who Christ is, and what He has done, are firmly in place in all parties of your discussion. Then you know that you still converse with a brother or sister in the faith, and the differences are just grounds for iron sharpening iron, a good and productive practice of fellowship in Christ.


Our family used to go to a cessationist church. Soon after we started there, the pastor started on a sermon series that ran about 20 or 30 sermons long on how the gifts of the Holy Spirit had ceased. At the time I believed him entirely and thought I had received a thorough and scholarly rendering of the subject. Later we started at another church, where our pastor lent me a couple of books by Jack Deere that came at it from the opposite point of view. I don't remember whether I thoroughly agreed with him by the time I finished reading his works, but I do remember re-reading 1 Corinthians 12-14 and realizing the Love chapter was nestled in like the pull-out corsage that was nestled in the midst of my bridal bouquet...the only problem being that most people pull it out and forget the bouquet surrounding it, all about the spiritual gifts. Why would God have so much in the New Testament about His supernatural works and what to do with them, if they were not going to be present for His church after the canon was closed? 


I know that my kneejerk response to these books would have been to never even read them if I had received them in the wrong timing. By the time I got them, though, I had come to realize how stifling the power of the Holy Spirit in the first church had brought about the series of events that had caused us to eventually leave: We had found that the pastor was plagiarizing sermons because he said emphatically that he was "not capable of writing a decent sermon." He had been working as a pastor for years, and had not been writing any of his own sermons in the process. Where is the power of the Holy Spirit? Could he not access His inspiration to come alongside and equip him for this vital work of service? No--he'd already established that the Holy Spirit is not very active in the present day, and he would not have even considered that possibility. 


There was one observation that Doug Wilson stated, that our world is a strange and magical place. I avoid the flippant use of the word "magic," but in this use it is well-stated. His stance is that the Holy Spirit is not so fully active as many Christians claim; but he knows that many supernatural things occur that no man can explain. Many of these are evil, and those fall into the category of magic, Satan's activity that is often a counterfeit of God's use of power; sometimes it is just sheer evil activity without so much reference to God as opposition to His work. Wilson acknowledged a few supernatural nudgings of the Holy Spirit that bring a Christian response, or that bring an unbeliever to salvation,  but other than that he didn't really have much to say about whether God works miracles in these days. 

I think that if a person would acknowledge that we live in a strange and magical place, but wouldn't acknowledge that God is doing anything supernatural, they would be saying that Satan is doing more to communicate with the people here than God is. I believe the opposite is true. Hopefully the Scriptures illustrate just how much the Holy Spirit is an essential worker in helping us to see God's divine hand. Our very understanding of the Scriptures is His doing, or it would come across as foolishness. Our initial response to God, our salvation, is His doing. Psalm 19:1 says that the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands. But without the Holy Spirit drawing us in that direction, our hearts would never see God in it. 


The Holy Spirit is more active than just that, too. Probably not so much in our United States as overseas, probably not in the ways that are practiced in far too many churches, that undisciplined, out-of-control, disorderly and self-glorifying way....no, but don't you hear story after story of how He works in the lands where Christianity is illegal, or persecuted, or otherwise stifled? Where the Word of God is hardly present, where people have no natural contact with His Church, there are stories of people hearing a voice, having a dream, being directed to a place where they hadn't intended to go, making some supernatural discovery that leads them to salvation in Christ. If you read the writings by or about missionaries, these stories are plentiful in their world. I am thankful that our world is not limited to the things we can sense as the natural world; I am thankful that God has left the supernatural impact present. There's a war going on in that realm, and sometimes we feel its presence. There's a spiritual realm that sometimes breaks through the natural world and makes itself known. I'm glad to know even that the evil is there, so I can appeal to my God to help me; I'm glad to know that our good and holy God is there, acting and speaking to me in the present day, coming alongside as my Paraklete, my Help, my Comforter. Where would I be without Him? I would be doomed, hopeless, blind and separated from my Creator. Hallelujah! He is an active, ever-present, supernatural help in all my life (John 14:16-17). 

My Mind Instructs me in the Night

I've been working on a project that has become something of an obsession. The general idea is to create an online store. But I don't know how to make a website (yet) and I don't want to rely on one of those ready-made ones that you can get for really an amazing low price. I have a feeling that eventually the price would rise and kill my idea...or that their limitations would hamper what I'm doing. Maybe not. But first I wanted to learn everything I could about websites. 


In the process I have learned an incredible amount about the amazing resources available online, and realize just how easy this whole thing will be. I've checked out some books. I didn't know that you can build a webpage on Microsoft Word! Wow. And I have, last I checked, 17 pages of links that have to do with starting a business, building a website, or finding work online. I think I could blog forever about this! But not today. 


The fantastic thing about this is that even though in this obsession, I've felt that I haven't been as deep into God's Word as I want to be, as I usually am (though I haven't neglected it, it just hasn't been as much at the forefront), I woke up this morning with some terrific ideas about this business idea. I know they're from God. I know that I can use them in setting up my business to His glory. 


One thing is that I can put a percentage of what it makes toward a cause my Katie woke me up to, the sex slave trade. Her church did a seminar about it, and she went to Nepal lately on a missions trip to see how her church could make a hole in it there. They worked through the organization, She is Safe. Katie learned a lot before and during her trip and inspired me, but I was thinking, "What can one (pretty broke) person do?" I felt helpless to do much for her cause, though I cared about it. But without my even thinking I was building this business idea for that purpose, God connected the dots for me. 


Then He also showed me, also in my sleep, the other ways this could glorify Him. I could have a blog connected with the business that could help others see the way to build their own online shop; therefore once I get my feet more or less on the ground with this, I could help others out of financial hopelessness. That's so exciting to me!


The icing on the cake? I even have a name for my business now, and I didn't strain my brain to find it; it was in my head when I woke up. I'm not telling what it is until the business is unveiled. But I'm excited. I tried finding a website with it online. There wasn't one; chances are it's available. Is God not amazing? Yes, we knew that!

Psalm 16:7 I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.