Following Christ Pt 3 (Conclusion)

Following Christ Pt. 3
For the One Who Has Ears to Hear


When I initially started writing this 3 part treatise back in 2016 I was in a very different place than I am now. Little did I know that in the providence of God I would have the opportunity to fail in the worst ways and see myself for who I really and truly am. But here I am, broken and simple, listening and open for the first time to really hear what the Spirit of God has to say. And the one resounding word that I hear, the one overwhelming reality that I have been confronted with time and time again is this. I do not really trust God if I do not do what He says. I can sing all of the worship songs from the most sincere heart that I want to. I can proclaim the gospel until I am blue in the face. I can work hard to study theology even to the point of teaching it. I can read my bible every day and pray every day. I can work hard to love others. But If i do not do what He says I do not really trust Him.

Jesus went even further. He said if I do not do what He says, I do not really love Him. Ouch. Let that sink in for a minute. I am. And it hurts. but in a good way though. I am not condemning myself, here. I am seeing things as they are. Jesus said the one who has ears to hear, let them hear. I am choosing to reckon with what He said. He said listen and do what I say. And if I am honest I have not done that...for over 20 years. I have done half of what He said, most of what He said and at times some of what He said but never what He said. I have studied theology, led worship, proclaimed the gospel and all in disobedience to His word, to His voice. He said, "My sheep hear my voice" and I did. He said, "and they follow me". I did not. Not really. Not exactly where He told me to. Not when He told me to or how He told me to. And I got hurt. And my family got hurt. Because I chose to step out of the will of God. Now don't misunderstand me. I did not step out of His authority or sovereignty. I did not go where His will is powerless. I did not in anyway jeopardize or thwart His purposes. To believe such a thing would reveal a need to know Him more intimately. No.

The Creator of the universe very sovereignly and very expertly stepped aside so I could strike out on my own in my newfound theological superiority and make decisions like a grown up. And by doing so He let me bump and crash and bruise myself and everyone around me as I thrashed violently like a mad man against His will for my life (not unlike Paul I might add). He let me waste countless hours on worthless entertainment. He let me fail miserably to follow through on my marital vows. He watched quietly as I moved further and further into Sodom and Gomorrah (Like Lot) and farther and farther away from the ones who loved me and invested in me as a young believer. He never took His eye off of my wandering heart. Every betrayal every angry word on full display in His view. He did nothing to stop me. He only nudged me ever so slightly and only when I absolutely needed it. Even now I marvel at His fatherly prowess. He certainly knew what He was doing.

The years piled on and with them my betrayals, my wanderings and my disobedience, until at long last I came to my inevitable end. It was on that fateful day in that crucial moment that I was finally forced to stop and look in the mirror. It was not a mirror of glass that I stared back into that day but a heart of love. A Father's love. His Love. And it broke me. The reflection that I saw in that moment looking into that holy mirror shattered my ego and set me in a completely different direction than I ever intended to go. The love I felt in that moment changed me. And I have never been the same since. It might be an exaggeration to say that I felt like I got saved all over again. But that is really how I felt. I felt like a new person. And when the dust settled and the tears stopped flowing and I was left standing in front of that mirror, the one thought that echoed through the chambers of my mind was "How did I get so far away? How did I end up so lost in my own shadow? What led me to this point of despair and exasperation?"

I did not receive an answer right away. But slowly and surely through the many difficulties and trials I was experiencing I began to hear the answer to my question loudly and clearly. And just like that I finally understood. I finally understand. I can honestly say with full assurance that I started drifting away from Jesus the moment that I stopped following the leading of the Holy Spirit. I stopped listening to the still small voice of God. Worse, I stopped believing that He does speak. I relegated His voice to the account of His works and speech in the Bible. Little compromise by little compromise I began to trade His supernatural leading in my inner man for the intellect I had sharpened with study. And without realizing it I became the very type of religious person that Jesus once stood against and defied. I became a tight fisted hard hearted pharisee that wholeheartedly believed He not only walked with God, but that also that no one could possibly know God or walk with Him in the way that I did, because I knew something they did not. And just like that I became something I came to despise. And all because I chose to stop listening to His voice.

Now let me stop before we go any farther and say this. The Holy Spirit does not speak to the people of God in the same way all of the time. Nor does He speak to me in the same way that He speaks to you. He chooses to speak to His children as He wills when He wills according to His wisdom and grace. For some the Holy Spirit speaks through the remembrance of specific scriptures. For many it is a still small voice. For others it is a gentle but definitive leading. Whatever the method that He chooses to use or has created us to receive, He does speak. And He speaks today. He does not fail to speak nor does He fail to lead. We do. We fail to listen. We fail to obey, to follow, to surrender to His leading. But this is the essence of prayer. It is to speak and be heard. It is to hear and to pour out our heart. It is communication. And it is vital to any healthy relationship. Our relationship with God is certainly no exception.

And this brings me back full circle to the purpose of this final meditation on following Christ and what God by the Holy Spirit has essentially revealed to me over the past 5 months in this season of repentance. We cannot follow Jesus if we do not have ears to hear. And we will not hear Him with those ears if we do not have any intention of following His instructions. I did not. For years I did not have any intention of obeying His commands. I convinced myself that I did though. And I thought I convinced other believers that I did as well. But I am pretty sure now that they saw right through me. How could they not? Either way it was not pretty I am sure. A man who thinks he knows the Living God but who only lives for himself is a sight to behold let me tell you. I know.

So why am I writing this? Im going to tell you. Or rather I will let Jesus say tell you and then  James and just for kicks maybe we will look at what Paul wrote as well. First, Jesus because He is the  Master after all. Jesus said,

"But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell. And great was its fall."

Ouch. Boy have I been there. Knowledge without action is a fancy mansion on the shoreline to be sure. But lets see what James has to say.

"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was." Man I hear that.

And finally just for good measure, the apostle Paul, concluding his epic treatise in Romans 1-11 on the work of God in redemption writes,"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

I don't know if it is plain to you at this point or not so I will spell it out. We cannot walk with God and not hear His voice. And we cannot hear His voice or follow His leading or even obey Him if we have not resolved to do what He says. You see the words of God are always a call to action. In fact the great mystery of the universe is the fact that He works His will out in the actions of men. The truly pious man might think that he must sit and wait for God to speak and work. But the reality is proven in scripture and our day to day lives that we must live what we believe. We must do what He says. We must go when He says go and where He says go. We must follow His leading at all times. If we do not we are only deceiving ourselves and setting ourselves up for failure. I did that. And Lord willing, I am done doing that.

I agreed with the reality of the gospel, but I did not proclaim it to the lost. I sang songs to Jesus about His faithfulness but failed to let Him provide for my family when He said He would. I studied the scriptures but denied Jesus with my lifestyle. I agreed with the scriptures that state mankind was made in His image and then allowed my covetous heart to exploit them for my gain. I said that I loved His word but refused to do what it teaches. In my wisdom I became a fool. In my worldliness I became a wanderer. Now you might be saying to yourself come on Chris aren't we saved by grace? Jesus promised to keep me in His fold no matter what. Everyone else is doing it. It''s only.... or I only.... once and while. Really? Well, it was the same for me too. But the world is not content for long with distracting us. It wants to own us body and soul. It cannot help itself. It is driven with the same drive of its master. And little by little the little disobediences will always draw our heart away from the One who made us and saved us for Himself.

We were not created to live for ourselves. Our life is about more than us. We were not created merely to be comfortable. We were created to be in fellowship with the Creator. We were created to enjoy Him above all else, to derive our sense of purpose our identity and our pleasure from Him. Everything else is in the service of that truth. When we choose to ignore the leading of His Spirit, or disobey His commands, we are actually giving our heart to another. There is no middle ground on this planet in this space and time. We are either cultivating our relationship with God, moving into closer and closer fellowship with Him or we are moving away from Him. We may think that we do not need Him as much as others. But that is not really the point. It is not about what we think or what we feel. It is about what He wants. It is about what He says. Where He leads. We were created for Him.

So we must all reckon with this reality. Do we really hear the voice of God? Are we familiar with His leading? Do we know Him intimately as a person? Or is He just a religious figure? Do we believe that He is knowable or do we feel safer just reading about Him? Are we convinced that the bible is only a redemptive account or a catalog of useful philosophical and religious information? Or do we believe that the God witnessed in those pages is really alive today? Are you content to go about as you have or do you feel in your soul as I did, that something is not right, that something is missing? You know you are His but you feel a million miles from Him. I want to encourage you that you are not alone. And if He can speak and break through the fortress of my heart, yours is just as accessible.

I want to leave you with this final thought. If you take nothing from what I have written please hear this. Our God is not moved by our unbelief. He will wait until we are on our death bed, until the moment that we have chosen to reach out to Him. He loves us with a love that is confident and bold. A love that is patient and wise. He loves us with a never ending never deterred settled conviction that we cannot alter with our choices. We cannot change the mind of God. We cannot sin ourselves out of his grace once it has been lavished on us. We cannot run so far that He will not chase us back home. Once He has set His glorious tender heart upon a person it is only a matter of time before they crumble in His gentle arms. Be encouraged to know that this everlasting Father, this Prince of Peace will get His heart's desire one way or another. And friend the mystery of all mysteries, the unfathomable reality, the breathtaking truth is that the desire of this infinite sovereign God is the person who believes in Him no matter how far they have wandered from Him. That person is His child. And like a great and gracious dad that child is always welcome in His arms. Even if that child is like me and has squandered the majority of his or her life wandering in the wasteland away from Him, that child is always welcome in His arms.
Hallelujah.

Following Christ Part 2

Following Christ Part 2:

Forgiveness & The Cross of Christ

As I continue to grapple with the relentless grace of God in Christ, I am constantly confronted with this one fact: I do not fully understand the necessity of resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ like I think I do. And I would argue that much of the mainstream contemporary American Christian Church is in the same place. Oh sure we preach the gospel and we try to serve because of it. We even strive our best to love one another in the way that God in Christ has loved us through it. The problem is more times than not, we try to do it in our own strength. We strive. We fight. We argue. We labor intensely. But we usually do most of it out of guilt or a sense of obligation, in the power of our own strength & ability. And when we are tired or worn out from the strain of it all, we stand on our soapbox and exhort others to do the same. But is that really what Jesus meant when He said "Deny yourself pick up your cross and follow me"?

And if that's the case, why did He say His "Yoke is easy and [His] burden light", because that is anything but. Personally I don't think that's what what He meant at all. And I don't think the problem is as much in what Jesus said or even what He meant by it as much as how we interpret it and choose to act upon it. It has more to do with the way we understand it than it does with what He has actually declared through it and requires of us because of it. And I think much of our time is spent thinking about how we can better communicate it or live it out when it should be spent saturating ourselves with it, so we can actually understand it first & walk it out in our own lives. And I would argue that it is for that reason that Paul often repeatedly & exhaustively revisited the gospel in most of his letters before he even began the work of exhorting his readers to "do" something about it. 

I would even go so far as to say that he did not exhort his readers to "do" as much as how to respond to it. Or you might say it this way. Paul encouraged his readers to live in a manner that was consistent with the profession of their faith. Instead of simply telling them what to do or how to act (as a Pharisee might do) he often encouraged his readers to remember what had already been done for them on their behalf in the gospel first (Eph. 1:3-14 for example). And then, having established that fact he would continue by reminding them what a response to such a glorious work of redemption actually looks like in reality (for example Eph. 4-6). 

Let me explain, because there is a huge difference between the two: the exhortation to do & the encouragement to respond. For Paul the distinction is clear and I imagine he wrestled with it constantly himself, as a former Pharisee. Doing vs being. Grateful service vs sacrificial obligation. RECEIVING redemption in the gospel vs GIVING to God out of fear or responsibility. The distinction was no doubt very important to Paul and he seemed to make it a point to say so. Paul seemed to understand that even circumcision was a gift, unearned and indicative of a deeper revelation (Rom. 2:28-29). He understood that the temple was only instituted as a temporary means to God and not the end in and of itself (I.e. Eph. 2:19-22/1 Cor. 3:16-17). He understood that the glorious revelation of the scriptures is NOT what we must do to satisfy the demands of the Holy God, but rather what that Holy God has already done to satisfy His own Holy demand and affect & cultivate a lasting redemption on behalf of every person who puts their trust in Him, for their eternal benefit to the praise and glory of His name. 

And this brings me to part two of this little series on following Christ. What does it actually mean to "pick up our cross" in the light of this revelation? What does it mean to live out the reality of the gospel before others? I believe the answer is actually quite simple, but oh so difficult to put into practice. It means in short to lay down our own life for the benefit of others at the cost of our selves, both as individuals & as a corporate body of believers as we are led by the Holy Spirit. But how do we do that in practice? How do we sacrifice our own life for the benefit of others in a way that is consistent with the teachings of Christ? Isn't that doing? Isn't that works righteousness? How can we live under the burden of such a difficult task without losing our way? How in the world is that restful or "easy" like Jesus said? All valid questions, I assure you. 

But the answer to us again in scripture is not what we might expect it to be. Scripture tells us that we don't, not actually, at least not in our own strength. We do it by FAITH in the power of the Holy Spirit and HIS ability to work in and through us (often in spite of us). But what does that actually look like? To start, faith is always practical. It requires ACTION. As we extend our will in the direction of tangible sacrifice, in our ordinary mundane lives, for the benefit of others (even those who frustrate us at times), we find that we are actually walking by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the way that the Bible instructs us to. The problem is more often than not we don't see it this way. We romanticize it and imagine a more mystical experience. So we miss out on the very practical ordinary leading of the Holy Spirit in our every day lives. 

But carrying our cross in Christ is essential to our development as believers, essential to the proclamation of the gospel in the world around us. And it is for that reason that we should neither take it lightly nor try to do it on our own, in the power of our own strength or ability. Carrying our cross requires an ongoing rugged faith in God for His work on our behalf. It requires an intentional, determined dependence on the Holy Spirit in ACTION. In order to do it in the right way or even at all, we must first be moved by the One who did it for us, who works in us even now by His Holy Spirit. 

And this brings us back again to our own need for the gospel. We can only carry our own cross for others as we are reminded again of the cross our Savior carried for us. As we saturate our hearts and minds in the reality of HIS sacrifice for us in the gospel, our prayer, (if we are in Christ) will become, "Lord do this in me. Give me the opportunity to share the love I have so freely received in You to the praise and glory of Your name." And our response will be to act in accordance with the opportunity He has provided for us to walk in according to His will. And this again is what it means to WALK by faith according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is the practical moment by moment response that Paul has prescribed for us in his epistles. This is the faith our fathers walked in before us. It is always radical; always counterintuitive to our old Adamic nature; always counterintuitive to the culture around us and always worth it in the end. 

So, I submit to you again that the first work of every believer is not to labor in our own strength to the glory of God but to reacquaint ourselves with the grace we have received in Christ first, then believe on it, rest in it and finally live out the reality of it in the power of the One who did it for us as we depend upon it in practice in our every day life. The gracious person is the person who has received grace. The one who loves much has been loved much. They understand the need for that love because they have received it their self. Only when we have genuinely accepted the reality of God's grace to us in Christ can we extend it to others and so spread the love of God around us in the way we are called to. Only when we have refreshed our own hearts with the gospel first and relied upon it again ourselves will we be willing to follow God's leading in it by reflecting it to others through our own natural sacrificial love for them. 

The problem with much of the American church today is that we have forgotten what we have received in Christ and so do not give what we do not have. It's not that we have lost it per say or don't actually have it to begin with. It's just that we have forgotten that we do and other people need it as well. It is our earthly bend to do so. So doing for God becomes more important to us than what He's already done. Serving others in ministry becomes more important than our own need to be served in Christ first. Having our feet washed in the gospel, being ministered to by the Holy Spirit in our own inner being takes a back seat. And we grow cold and bitter, hardened, self centered and calloused to the outside world. We lose sight of heaven and earth becomes more appealing. And the Gospel the church was built upon becomes a common thing. But this is not what it means to walk by faith. It is the opposite of walking by faith. It is the opposite of being led by the Holy Spirit. 

And this is no one's fault but ours. It is NOT because of God. It is not because of the irrelevance of His word or the absence of His Spirit. 

It is because we have forgotten our identity in Christ, forgotten who we really are and what we really need. We have forgotten where we came from; we have forgotten where we are going. And if we are honest we will admit it is far easier to rely upon ourselves or what we think we know of scripture than it is to follow the One we cannot see with our own two eyes, in practice. 

And the world sees this and wants nothing to do with it because they are also cold & self serving. They also look to earthly things to fulfill them and try to labor for good causes. They also want to have a purpose for their existence and try in vain to make one for their self. They see very little difference between those who profess to know the God of the bible and those who don't so it matters very little to them whether they change or not. But this is not Christianity. This is not what Christ came to give. And if we are honest that is exactly what so many of us have given to them: a contradictory profession of faith. And the line between the world & Christ is blurred, excuses abound for why the church won't live according to its profession of faith, for why they won't love in the way they have been loved. And the world just watches in disbelief, disgusted by the hypocrisy of what they see, conviced it is acceptable to live the way they do, which brings me to my final point. 

The most apparent evidence of the grace of God in our lives, the most mundane and unexpected, healthy human response to the gospel of Jesus Christ in in practice, is an ongoing unconditional forgiveness towards others in spite of their faults & their wrongdoings against us. Living in a state of perpetual willingness to release others of their personal emotional psychological & physical debts toward us is the best way to live out our profession of faith, the most obvious and difficult way to follow God's leading in our own lives. It is the most tangible expression of our faith in a world focused only on itself. They may not listen at first to the proclamation of the gospel but they can hardly deny the willingness to suffer on their behalf. They may not show up to our church at first, but the practice of laying down our life for them will eventually nag at them. Suffering accusation without slander, not responding in anger to the mistreatment, not reacting to the thoughtlessness of other drivers will stand out. Loving when we have been mistreated will be remembered. 

And it is for that reason that we must saturate our hearts & minds with and rely upon the gospel of Jesus Christ ourselves. Remembering the debt that God in Christ has paid for us is the best way to release others of their debts toward us. As we remember & accept again our own need for forgiveness in Christ we will become the agents of forgiveness toward others and so reflect Him in the way we were created to. The people who wronged us will become the means of growing in grace and the places we hurt the most will become the means of our own deep inner healing by the Holy Spirit. The love of God will be spread to others in the most mundane & practical way and the world will be brought into confrontation with its own need for God. 

And this doesn't happen overnight. It is always a process, a long and painful process of sanctification. But it is glorious to behold as God works it in us, as He shines the light of His forgiveness again & extends it to others through us. But it must begin with us. We must choose to return again to the cross of Christ afresh and remember who we are in Him, how badly we need Him first and the fact that we are not alone in our need. Everybody needs Him. Every single person needs the gospel of Jesus Christ, saved and unsaved alike. There is no exception. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified FREELY by His grace (Rom. 3:23). All of us crave freedom (Gal. 5:1). And this is where it begins. This is where the healing of broken homes begins. This is where faith is renewed in the God who saves. This is where the church grows & flourishes. This is where relationships are restored, where a nation of narcissists begin to see what real love actually looks like. This is where real change begins. 

So it is not in vain that Christ says "Pick up your cross and follow Me." For it is in His work on our behalf that our response can be "Lord help me to lay down my own life for those around me." It is in His work on our behalf that our own for others can take its root and grow. It is in the gospel of Jesus Christ that real change can become a reality. This is what I have learned and continue to grow in over the past few months in my own sanctification. And oh how I fail repeatedly! But I am learning I must daily, moment by moment, return again & cleave to the cross of Christ if I am ever to move forward. If I am ever to heal, if I am ever to be the reflection of God's grace to my family that I long to be I must persevere in my own dependence upon the gospel. I must remember & RECEIVE His work on my behalf, first, if I am to REST in the redemption HE has provided for me and reflect it to others. I must be served by Him if I am ever to stoop down and serve His people. I must be restored if I am ever to offer real & lasting restoration to a dying world. The work of reconciliation begins with my own heart. The proclamation of the gospel starts with my own dependence upon it. 

So the question now, is, will I do? Will we do it? Will we walk in the calling He has prepared for us as His body? Will we follow in our Master's footsteps (Jn 12:24-26) as He leads us or succumb to the mindset of our culture and the bend of our earthly heart? Will we let Him wash our feet and send us out as the recipients & instruments of His un surpassing grace or work in our own strength. Wisdom cries out. Let us heed her voice. 

Following Christ Part 1

Part 1:

The Cancer of Self and The Chemo of Christ

"And he said to ALL, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23

It has taken 18 years of walking with God, my parents' divorce, the near death of my wife & temporary homelessness to drill into my head this simple fact: I am my own worst enemy. It is not my mother's fault or my father's fault that I am what I am. It is not because of any external circumstance or decision others have made or anything else that has made me what I am, but me. I am the product of a broken world, the son of two broken people, living on borrowed time in an age of despair and hopelessness. And yet in spite of this, I am still responsible for the decisions that I make and the people that I hurt along the way because it is my brokenness not theirs which shapes the way I think and live and must be redeemed. If I am to ever to move forward in this life or grow in the grace that God has provided me I must learn to see this and face the repercussions of it in faith that God alone will redeem what I cannot do and work through what I cannot change.

Still, I cannot treat the Grace of God as a cheap or common thing just because I need it. I cannot assume the cross of Christ is an excuse to live for myself or put off sanctification because I can. I must reckon with my own sinfulness and brokenness if I am to grow up. I must reckon with my own selfishness and pride if I am to be a man. It must not be allowed to thrive in any capacity if I am to live in freedom. It must not be excused or ignored just because I am forgiven. I cannot blame another person for its reality. I cannot hide behind the fig leaf of my own making because it scares me to know what I am. I cannot hide my soul from the human race forever because I crave comfort. I cannot wallow in sin because it is easy. After all that is what is killing me. 

Now what is sin but anything that is contrary to the original design of our Good Creator for His creation? What is sinfulness but the unfolding manifestation of death as it works its way in our hearts and minds to bring us closer to the grave, to prepare us for the untimely inevitable demise of our physical bodies? What is selfishness but the unhealthy preoccupation with our own vanity and self worth? And what can any of us possibly do about it? Is this not the great dilemma of the human race? is this not the drama of our time? Has it not been the demise of many a great nation? Is it not the cancer of our age? So it is not surprising to me then that the Great Physician Himself standing on the soil of His now cursed creation looked upon the human race in its un-reparable brokenness and answered the question: "If you would come after Me, you MUST deny yourself."

How else could a person infected with the disease of self ever hope to lay down their own life of their own volition for another human being unless they had first denied the greedy selfish impulses of their own corrupt heart? How else could they truly be free from the slave master of their own covetous heart unless they had first learned to not heed it? And this is the problem I am faced with right now in the great state of Washington sitting alone in my truck before work. How can I ever hope to walk in freedom or reflect the Son of Liberty if I refuse to stop living for myself? How can I ever hope to love my wife or my children, my co workers or my neighbors the way they need to be loved if I only think of myself? How can I ever hope to truly be free of myself when I love myself so much more than anything else? And here in lies the problem I am faced with this morning. 

I love myself more than I love anything else in this world. I love me more than I love my peers more than I love my wife my children or my God. And that's the uncomfortable truth I must reckon with if I believe the gospel. If I say that I believe in the God of the Bible, the Father who willingly gave up His Son, the Son who joyfully laid down His life for the brethren or the Spirit that freely works in those who believe in His name then I must submit my whole life to the teaching of His word and be willing to be conformed in every area of my life to the One who loved me and gave Himself for me, the One who is called Love. But what does that even mean? Where do I even begin?

In our transition from California to Washington my wife and I got much more than we bargained for. We had to live in a hotel, rely on the kindness of those we barely know and confront deep rooted hurts we were both unprepared to deal with which her cancer both exposed and created. One of the most uncomfortable truths I personally had to deal with is the way I medicate myself with various escapes, for example entertainment and movies. A movie for me is an escape, pure and simple. It is like having a great novel explained to you in pictures. I delight in the detail the artistry and the entertainment of it. I won't lie. I think I first started using movies in this way to escape the brokenness of my parents' turbulent marriage when I was a child. But be that as it may I have carried that pattern into every relationship including our marriage. Now a movie is not destructive in itself (another topic for another time). It can be used in constructive ways to be sure. But for me I chose to use it in a destructive way and it had a very destructive effect on our marriage to say the least. 

You see in trying to escape from the increasing pressures of my life I unintentionally distanced myself from my wife and kids. The harder life became the more frequently I sought to escape. And Netflix became my drug of choice. When I wasn't looking for a movie to watch (generally a 30 min activity) I was watching movies back to back (often late into the night). But here is my point. In order to deny your self you must be confronted with yourself. You must be willing to see yourself for who you really are. What you really do. How you really live, the standard of how you really love, listen to and interact with others. In a word you must be confronted with reality. And the only way to do that is to live in community. And this is counter intuitive to our culture. For how can we ever hope to be real with ourselves if we only ever distance ourselves from each other and avoid community? 

Now the problem as I see it is twofold. First we love ourselves more than anything else. And second we live in a culture obsessed with the love of self. Not only is it obsessed with the love of self but it has built for itself a comfortable little niche where it can appear to be thoughtful of others and interact with others while preserving the narcissistic delight of focusing on numero uno. 

Enter social media. Now social media is not evil in itself. It can be a wonderful tool to connect with long lost friends peers and even relatives. But that's not how the majority of us use it. Is it? We post endless selfies of unnecessary moments, catalog the life of our children in public to project a particular persona. We lust after and compete with the accomplishments and possessions of others. We substitute real fellowship with digital post it notes that are more often than not misunderstood by those we send them to. We debate like professors without degrees, ridicule like philosophers who haven't studied. We stand on electronic soap boxes and condemn the latest political social or economic ills with the gusto of a prophet. We do everything (most the time) except connect with the ones we love in a way that is tangible and beneficial and uncomfortable and necessary (the way it's supposed to be). And that my friend is a real problem. Because it is counterintuitive to the gospel, counterintuitive to real friendship or real life for that matter. And it is in my own estimation the number one reason we do not deny ourselves. 

There are just too many ways in this day and age to love ourselves, promote ourselves, dwell on ourselves or dissect ourselves, in a word glorify ourselves. Why bother doing anything else? But that is why the words of Christ strike at me this morning, break my heart and bring me into the dust. I am guilty of all of this and so much more. I have played the harlot. I love my self too much to let me go or any other activity which feeds my ego. And that is a problem. No. It is a cancer, a disease of the soul. And I wonder, can I endure the spiritual chemo? Because the only way anything is ever going to change in my life is if I choose to endure it. 

But what is the spiritual chemo for such a devastating disease as this cancer? What hope do I have to deny myself in a culture obsessed with itself? I know the answer. And You wouldn't believe me if I told you because it has been so misrepresented, so abused by the masses and neglected by the ones who were charged to preserve it. And it is right in front of our faces. You see the only cure on the planet for the tyrannical disease of self, the only hope we have to deny ourselves is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't mean the watered down version either. I mean the person and works of Jesus Christ in human history as they have been applied and are continually applied to us daily by the Holy Spirit according to the word of God. 

Without that sacred work of Jesus Christ on our behalf there is no gospel. There is no church. Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ there is no deliverance from sin and self. And the church that fails to see this, understand and walk in it will not reflect the One who redeemed them, even though they identify with Him. The church that professes to represent Christ but fails to reflect Him in their every day life will only ever appear to the world as a light bulb that does not glow: in other words a walking contradiction. And that is exactly why our culture is the way it is today. Too many of us who profess to know the living God reflect too little of the reality of His Spirit. Too many of us who spend their time evangelizing on street corners, teaching bible studies, leading worship or traveling to other countries to proclaim the gospel reflect too little of its saving work in our own lives. In the most mundane professions of employment, at the local coffee shop or in traffic where it is most apparent to the watching world, we reflect too little of the sacrificial loving character of our God. He is a stranger to them because He is a stranger to us. What the world sees instead is only a self serving & hypocritical people who refuse to be transparent who know very little of honesty and humility.

And that is a tragedy, which brings me to the crux of this little treatise. That is, in order to truly deal with the cancer of our own self centeredness, to deny our self in the way it has been prescribed, we must first make someone other than our self the preoccupation of our heart and mind. If denying our self becomes the preoccupation of our mind we are still only thinking of ourselves. If we spend our time serving other people in order to be selfless we have still missed the mark because we are still only serving our own interests albeit in a more deceptive way. We are still only serving our self. And in this way we are like the disciple Peter. In order to deny ourself in the way that Jesus implies, we must first fix our eyes on our Maker and receive again from HIM the good works that He has done on our behalf. We must receive the reality afresh that we can do nothing apart from Him to sanctify ourselves. We can do nothing to make up for what's been done on our behalf. We cannot make up for the cross. We cannot become selfless on our own. We must receive and be washed by the selflessness of God in Christ and be convicted and set free from the demands of our flesh to be and to do in our own strength. 

Only when we have received the gospel of Jesus Christ again and all that He has done for us in it in practice can we genuinely respond to Him with loving gratitude for His amazing grace and rest in its perfection. That gratitude we feel for his goodness toward us always translates into kindness toward others when it is sincere. And it is for that reason that the apostle Paul typically began his letters with the indicative (what God has done) before he moved into the imperative (what we should do). He knew the indicative would always confront his reader with their own inadequacy and bring them back to the saving knowledge of the excellency of Christ in which he personally rested. But the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ is foreign to our broken sinful sensibilities. Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit I submit to you we would only resist Him at will. In fact we do. That is why so many today reject the cross of Christ. the death of self is poison to the mind of the flesh. And it is for that reason that I liken it to chemo therapy.

You see anyone who's ever gone through cancer (my precious wife for example) knows that chemo therapy is the absolute worst experience. It is foreign to the human body, this pure and unadulterated poison which is injected into the human body by force which is why the most common reaction to it is to throw up. A person must take mind altering drugs in order to trick the mind into not rejecting it so vehemently. And I submit to you that the same is true of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the human heart. That is why so many reject it out of the gate. The cross of Christ is poison to the flesh. it is death to the death in all of us. That is why it works so hard to reject it, to alter it if necessary even ignore it, change the nature or purpose of it anything but ever accept it. Once a person has accepted the radical poison of the gospel it can only do one thing: burn away the death inside of all of us that is killing us and restore us to our originally intended spiritual health as the redeemed of God. 

And this brings me back to our family and the inevitable conclusion. I did not know two years ago that the cancer inside my wife's body would serve to bring me into confrontation with my own inner sickness. I had no idea that the cancer in her would reveal the cancer in me, that her recovery would initiate a much needed chemo therapy in my soul. I did not know how devastating my selfishness was to my family or my friends until I was backed into a corner with nowhere to go. I had no idea how desperately I needed the Gospel until I came face to face with my own internal nakedness. I had no idea how deeply God loves me until I was confronted with my own inability to love. I had no idea how broken I am until I was called upon to lay down my life and found I couldn't. I had no idea how valuable that truth was until I started discussing it with others.  

So here I am convinced there is no one who cannot profit from this truth because we are all alike sold under sin from birth, addicted to our self even as believers, so easily enslaved to the tyranny of our own corrupted hearts as human beings. Believer or not we all need to hear this truth because it is vital to our soul. That is why the call to deny our selves rings true even today. Because the human race is nothing else if not consistent. We were in need of Christ then. We are in need of Him now. It is for this reason that He was given, for this reason He laid down His own life. The question is will we heed the voice of His wisdom? Will we answer the call to accept His freedom? Will we embrace the life He has provided for us in Christ or live like slaves without chains? What is the point of identifying with the Son of God if we refuse to rely upon His work or reflect His love? 

How can the world be expected to believe in a Savior they see no evidence of in those who are called by His name? How can they be expected to accept the reality of a love His people do not reflect? How long before we heed the call to "come out and be separate" from a culture obsessed with itself? How long before we walk in the liberty the Son of God spilled His blood to secure for His people?
Food for thought.

Naked Dependence in the Face of the Most Difficult Realities

As I write from the living room of another person's home, in a very different state (Washington), under very different circumstances, I am struck by these two very conflicting but reoccurring realities: 1. It is not the will of my Creator that I be comfortable purely for my own comfort's sake and 2. It is in my nature as a finite human being to be comfortable and seek out comfort at any cost. This always becomes evident the moment I am called upon by the Holy Spirit to step out in faith. In that moment any number of idolatrous practices I have replaced the pursuit of my Creator with is brought to light and with it, the inevitable consequences I must walk through, in order to properly let them go, which brings me to today.

Today I am confronted with the many varied ways I have chosen over the past six years to insulate my heart & my mind from the pain of reality & relationship.  For example, I have filled more Saturday evenings than I care to admit with the pursuit of a good film to watch which I have not yet seen. Yes, you heard me correctly. I said the pursuit of a good film not a good film itself. In this day and age it is increasingly difficult to find a good quality film to watch which does not compromise the values of a heart fixed on eternity. But that's beside the point.  The point is that I wasted time in a fruitless pursuit. And I think on some level I knew it would be a fruitless pursuit. And that's exactly why I did it. 

I was attempting to intentionally distract myself from the pain of living. Instead of pressing in to the One who saved my soul in faith that He could or even would fill the void left by the pain of my life, I chose instead to medicate myself with a medication of my own devising. And it wasn't just perusing for a film either. Other times it was flipping through news articles online, vain & important, or searching for new music or playing a video game or reading a comic book. Sometimes it was just sitting up late at night by myself doing nothing at all. And none of that is wrong in itself. But for me, a high feeling introvert, it became a way to excuse my self from human interaction at church the next day, or unintentionally (maybe even intentionally) put space between myself and my wife & kids so I didn't feel so overwhelmed at the time. It was a way to numb myself from many painful current and distant memories. But it became the central preoccupation of my mind. And like an addiction it slowly took over my life. Replacing human interaction with a technological one, I began to distance myself from my Creator & savior first and then my wife and children until finally I shut myself off from the outside world, one fruitless pursuit at a time. 

Now it would be easy to blame my behavior on having a son with special needs or my wife's cancer. But that simply isn't the truth. I never learned to deal with reality before I got married, as a single young man. And as a married man with many more new and difficult challenges I wasn't equipped to deal with the strain of ordinary life let alone the sort of life I have had to struggle through. 

But why am I sharing this with you? What possible benefit could you derive from my seemingly pathetic confession? It occurs to me, writing in the small space my family & I have been graciously allowed to share with another family, that not only were the fruitless pursuits of the past several years not in vain but serve to reveal yet another very valuable lesson about life love and the pursuit of liberty in Jesus Christ. Allow me to explain. 

Whether it is a fruitless pursuit like mine or a fruitful pursuit like church ministry for example  (I have done both) why we do what we do (or how we do it) can be just as detrimental as what we do. For example if I serve in the church to fill a hole, an emptiness or meaninglessness I feel, or if I do it to make myself feel better about myself, or elevate myself above others, then I am seeking to do exactly what many others do by avoiding the ministry. That's because ministry (like anything else) can become the means of serving myself and my own interests (or in my case) a way of distracting my self from my own inner pain. Anything can become the means of medicating anything we have experienced. And this is detrimental for two reasons. 1. We were not created to medicate emotional & psychological pain on our own. And 2. The proof of that is that we hardly ever medicate with the right means. 

Now you might not medicate with something as silly as me, or you might medicate with something much worse or even far better, but chances are you do medicate. It might be family that floats your boat or your job that sinks your ship (if you catch my drift), but whatever it is, if it is being used for something other than its intended purpose, chances are you are probably medicating your soul with it and it has already begun to hurt not only you but also the people you love. I know it did for me. But I digress. 

So here I am, a native southern Californian living in the PNW, clinging to my Creator for dear life (because it is all so foreign to me). And you know what? I'm beginning to think that was His design all along. He wanted me to feel the sting of new challenges, the uncertainty of our living situation, the challenges of a job search so I could grow in my dependence on Him as a newly liberated mending former self medicator. He knows that it is only in my difficulty that I cling to him, only in uncertainty that I rely upon Him, which brings me to my main point, and the crux of this little blog. We cannot self medicate and rely upon the Lord because they are in opposition to each other. And we were created to do the latter not the former. If we are medicating our own soul, seeking to fill a void or escape from pain, then we are not truly (in the most biblical & practical sense) relying upon the work of the Holy Spirit or the finished work of Jesus Christ, which I might add is far more beneficial than any fruitless or fruitful pursuit we might conjur up. 

That is because the work of God in the gospel was always meant to heal our hurts, ease & alleviate our pain, restore our souls and renew our lives. And the pursuit of whatever it is we are doing or seeking was not and cannot. And I would argue that it is many times the will of God for our lives that we see that reality by doing the very thing we should not. Now that's not to say that God condones sin in any form or any number of the fruitless or fruitful pursuits we use to fill a void, but rather that it is his gracious wisdom to interact with our human will by allowing us to engage in such destructive or detrimental behavior so we can know in a way that is most beneficial to us why it is far better to trust in Him than ourselves (which is what we are really doing when we self medicate). Now again I'm not going to argue for the supremacy, equality or autonomy of the human will compared to God. I believe that would be a fruitless discussion here at best. But I will say that scripture and reality repeatedly reveal both the folly & powerlessness of the human will and the subtle often miraculous way that God redeems the consequences of our choices. But again I digress. Back to the issue at hand. 

I have found the best way to deal with these medicating tendencies of ours (once they have been discovered to us) is to confront the reality we have been trying to avoid to begin with. For example, the reality I was medicating was the practical inadequacy & inability I felt as an inexperienced father dealing with a child that has autism tendencies. And that quickly revealed a deeply rooted resentment I didn't know I had for both the way I was raised & the people who raised me, namely my parents. This became evident in every friendship I had that even remotely resembled a father son relationship, with every perceived "failure" resulting in a deeper & deeper resentment of my upbringing & the human race in general. This of course resulted in a greater & greater excuse for me to escape from it. Thus the deep rooted long standing nature of my dependence on social media & film. 

So for me to truly be set free from what basically became an addiction to isolation and solitude, I had to begin by confronting the reality of my own feelings to begin with and work my way down to why I felt that way and what I could or could not do about it. And the only way for me to do THAT was to return afresh to the gospel of Jesus Christ and remember who I really am, what I really need and from whom I really need it. Only by seeing the extent of what God had ALREADY done for me in Christ, how accepted I ALREADY was in Him and what Liberty was ALREADY available to me in the gospel as a BELIEVER could I confront the bondage I had always perceived as Liberty and walk away from it. Only by returning to the cross was I able to see how far I had distanced myself from the One who hung upon it for my sake. Only by admitting my need and inability could I accept the life giving freedom and fulfillment I craved. 

Now a few things before I close this already very long discussion. First faith is always practical. And whether you realize it or not we are discussing faith. Because faith is predicated upon uncertainty and difficulty, the desire to medicate or the medication of our soul is always counterintuitive to it. To medicate by definition is to alleviate ourselves from pain or difficulty. But pain is instructive. And in the universe our God has created, far from being the mere consequence of sin or poor decision making, it serves to reveal to our hearts and minds both the reality of who we are and why as well as who God is and how come. Sit on that for a minute. 

Without sin there would be no curse. Without the curse there would be no need for a cross. Without the curse & the cross, I wonder would the mysteries of the gospel and redemptive nature of our God remain locked up and undisclosed for all eternity? It boggles the mind and the possibilities are endless. But as I was saying, pain is instructive even revelatory, especially emotional & psychological pain. To stifle it, ignore it or avoid it is to miss out on some of the most beautiful & wonderful revelations in the universe, namely who is this God at the back of it all and why has he allowed dare I say purposed it to exist? 

Until we are willing to confront our own hurt & disappointment we cannot really be confronted with the reality & personhood of our Creator and Savior. In other words in order to actually know God we must be willing to get outside of ourselves. And the only way to do that is to accept the reality of our hurt and see our need for him. And the only way to do THAT is to return to the gospel. 

So to review. We medicate because we are broken and we want to escape our brokenness. To stop medicating we have to admit we are broken. To admit THAT we have to be willing to accept the reality of why we are broken. And the only way to do that is to return to the gospel. Only in the power of the reality of God's unconditional love in Christ can we accept the way (for instance like me) we have not felt loved. And this willingness to confront such lovelessness is in essence a step toward depending on God in Christ to fulfill such a deeply felt need, which is walking by faith. 

So why have I shared this with you today? It's simple really. We are each called by God to walk by faith because we were created to walk by faith. It is for our benefit to walk by faith. But it is also counter intuitive to our American culture. The culture says rely on yourself. Be your best you in your own strength (or in the strength of God (which more times than not in practice is still you). It says you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Nothing is impossible for you. But consider the following. 

Addiction is not only excused in our culture it is encouraged. It doesn't matter what it is. Porn, drugs, alcohol, sex, employment, adultery, are all acceptable means of coping with life. But let's take it a step further. Ministry, service, missions and worship, even dare I say it, prayer meetings have become the means of breaking apart families, dividing churches & destroying relationships. Because these latter things look so much better than the former they can be far more and have been far more effective as a means to distance the creator from his redeemed creation. 

Francis Schaeffer once stated that if the church doesn't fight the spirit of the age in its own generation it has done nothing in reality to combat Satan and his forces. A startling thought if you consider the spirit of this age is self interest. So what do we do? What can we do? I would like to propose the following. 

First we need to saturate ourselves with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The prevailing & successful mindset that the enemy has promoted & promotes today is that believers don't really need it once they are in Christ. That's a lie and not founded on reality at all. We need it as much if not more than unbelievers because we are more prone to convince ourselves that we don't need it once we have been initially effected by it, when the scriptures clearly teach the very opposite: that it is our life blood & the source of our testimony in this world. It is the source of of our sanctification & development and it is the foundation of our relationship with God. The less we are confronted with the gospel, the more shallow & self seeking we will become & revert back to our old self medicating tendencies. The less we return to the cross of Christ the more willingly & blindly we will begin to forget how badly we need it to our own hurt & detriment. 

Second, we need to be in community. A real Christ centered community of believers who think and act differently than we do. We need to resist the urge to be isolationists. And we need to resist the urge to be in control of everything all the time. And this begins by embracing the differences we each have or, as my new pastor would say, by pressing into the relationship instead of retreating from it. Only by having (decently) transparent relationships in a community of different people will we begin to see how alike we all really are and how we all alike need and rely upon the gospel. 

Third we need to be honest with ourselves about who we are, what we've experienced and what we need. We need to stop hiding, excusing or blaming others for our faults. We need to own our own emotions and walk through them with our maker and with those we feel are the most safe and trustworthy with such sensitive information. 

Finally we need to be okay with being weak and dependent. We need to embrace our frailty and see it as an opportunity for growth. Only when we have begun to actively do these things in the right way for the right reason will books on purity, or accountability groups or AA or any other form of treatment & self discipline be of any value to us and other people. In order to deal with the type of idolatry and self medicating tendencies I have just described and discussed in the right way we must first reckon with our own tendency to rely upon ourselves and be in control. 

It took me a decade to learn this. Everything I'm sharing with you has been the fruit of a life time of learning. And I'm still growing in it. The sort of quality resources we have available to us today (even godly ones) can only be of use to us if we use them for the right reason in the right way. Otherwise we are only acting like Adam who thought that he could keep the reality of his newfound nakedness from the eyes of the all seeing God by sowing some foliage together. I don't know about you but I have found that dealing with reality is a lot more fruitful and beneficial than avoiding it. 

In closing I hope that my transparency as a man has been a benefit to you, that you have profited or will profit from my many failures as a husband and a father, as a servant of the most high God. In my short life I have found that there is no shortcoming or failure, no tragedy or mistake, no devastation death or despair which God cannot or will not graciously redeem for our benefit, which in turn will serve as a blessing to others if they are willing to listen. 

God bless you and grant you the strength, Patient Pilgrim whoever you are to confront the realities you have avoided, or ignored, be them ever so awful. May He give you the power & humility to rest in the One who went before you and loves you with an everlasting love. May you ever find victory & Liberty (again) in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

 

Self Reliance & The Cross of Christ

To the average onlooker at the time, the crucifixion of Christ must've appeared to be an epic failure. That one so obviously & outwardly powerful not to mention driven by the Spirit of God should die in such a horrific & utterly humiliating way must have appeared to them to be the heighth of utter foolishness if not the confirmation that He was no more the Son of God in reality than they were. And yet the bible portrays a completely different story. The New Testament for example teaches that it was the triumph of God on behalf of sinners that Christ should die in this way. And yet, in spite of their master's teaching & continual warnings that these things must happen in order for the covenantal promise of God to be fulfilled, the disciples went away discouraged & dismayed, nearly convinced that the enemies of Christ had actually defeated him.

This begs the question: are we any different from them? When faced with tragedy & hardship, rejection & humiliation how do we respond? As we look at the world & observe the different Inhumanities & cruelties, oppression & violence of modern society what do we see? Do we see the hand of God at work inspite of human suffering or suppose that he is hiding somewhere in Heaven? Do we really believe there is a higher purpose in tragedy or do we just say that to console our own bitter wondering soul? Do we profess to believe that Christ has overcome the world and then harbor hidden unbelief? Do we make bold professions of faith and then warm ourselves by the enemie's fire? You bet we do!

So why do we condemn the actions of the disciples? Why do we think if we had been there instead of them that the situation would've turned out any better, that we would've acted any less afraid or dismayed by the circumstances? If we are honest with ourselves, if we take a good hard look in the mirror of truth and agree with what we see there, we will admit this fact. We are just like them because we share the very same nature. Although we have been blessed by God to be sealed with His Holy Spirit we are still very much human. We neither see like God nor act like God because the truth is even though we are filled with the Spirit of God we are still not Him. And yet in spite of this obvious glaring reality we still tend to act like we are.

We make decisions like we are God and we talk to others & treat them like we are God simply because we have His Spirit. We think that because we are one with Him or sealed by His Spirit that we are free from the deception or manipulation of our greedy covetous sinful little hearts. We actually think that we can perceive & act without the distortion of sin or self to prevent us from seeing clearly or acting rightly, which it turns out is the very manifestation of the problem. We are still blinded by pride deceived by selfish ambition and manipulated by worldly desires. And it is for that reason that Paul repeatedly admonished his readers to "put off the old man with his deeds". Because he is still very much there in all of us in all of his carnal glory.

Now that's not say we are not really saved or there is not a difference between the former way we lived outside of Christ and the way we do now in Him. There is! There most certainly is. BUT that is to say we should not fool ourselves into thinking we can think or act independently of the flesh with its bodily appetites & mindsets, as though to walk in the spirit was to be entirely free from the presence of sin and death. That is simply not the case. And again Paul makes that very clear. Now the primary way that my own "old man" rears it's ugly face is the natural & incessant way I decide to rely upon myself when I am faced with a conflict or a trial.

Instead of coming before God in prayer with the intention of relying on him, I come with my list of plans and ask that he co-sign them. Instead of opening the word to hear the voice of God speak to me I come to guird myself for the day by going through the "devotion motions". That is to say my devotional time becomes a means to an end instead of an end in itself. I use it to get through the day instead of letting it get through to me (if you'll pardon the bumper sticker cliche). And before I know it I've lost sight of the the Holy Spirit. I'm beginning to lose sight of Christ and have begun the slow march away from the Father.

I begin instead to rely on my own intellect my various experiences with God or simply grace in the abstract. And I proceed with the day not even realizing that I have distanced myself from the source of my life and my strength (so very cunning is the heart of man!). And before I know it along comes a trial unexpectedly, to destroy me...or so I thought. Because the truth is behind the scenes of that trial waiting very patiently, unbeknownst to me, is the very tender very practical merciful hand of God waiting to teach me a very valuable lesson about the reality of my deceptive heart: the need for me to rely upon His grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ instead of my own intellect or devices. It is a lesson I have learned many times before, one that I am sure I will have to learn for many years to come.

You see, the truth is really this: I do not actually understand the all encompassing life long value of the cross of Christ or my need for daily salvation through it like I should. And because of that I constantly fail to rely upon its power and it's benefit like I should in every single situation...especially the worst ones. So God in his wisdom allows me to do my own thing because he knows like a good father does...I am going to hurt myself and come running sometimes screaming back to Him. Now the question I have to ask is: does it have to be this way ALL the time? And the resounding answer from scripture and from life is...yes...and yet at the same time no.

Yes we are ALL going to fail in our walk as Christians and our lives as humans A LOT. But it doesn't have to be so painful every time that we do. The more that we rely upon ourselves and our own methods, the less we rely upon God's Spirit & ignore the teaching of God's word the more it is going to hurt. And that is a fact. But it doesn't have to be that way all the time. The more that we grow in our dependence upon God, His Spirit & His word the less we will want to rely upon ourselves and our own devices, the more quickly we will suspect the deceptions of our heart and flee to the source of our life and our strength. But again the question is: How do we do that? The answer if I may be so bold as to say is as always very simple in truth but very difficult in reality.

We need to return to the life of Christ and see it for what it actually is according to the word of God. We need to recognize the profound dependence he had upon the Spirit of God in every day practice. We need to see him as more than just the example we should all appropriate on our own. We need to see him as the final product of God's work in our hearts & lives by the Spirit of God in sanctification. You see by default we all perceive him as a glorious example of what we can become with practice. But the truth is Christ in his humanity is the revelation of what God created us to be to begin with, the revelation of what God is making us into day by day in our relationship with Him, situation by situation, moment by moment, decision by decision. Think about that for just a moment. How often do we come to the life of Christ to appropriate it as an example instead of coming in order to be changed by it from the inside out by the tender hand of God in the Spirit? Be honest. For me the answer is all too often and always to my own detriment and hurt.

But that's not why the record of God's work in Christ was given to us in the gospels. We are not supposed to come to them like Pharisees appropriating their content for our own devices. We were meant to come to the life of Christ as children in humility with the hope that His humiliation & dependence might be worked in us to the point where the reality of it becomes so apparent to every person we come in contact with that they begin to glorify God and be conformed to the image of Christ with us. The salvation we experience in the Gospel was always meant to be a God ordained & God directed work on behalf of the believer. And it is no different where the sanctification of the saint is concerned.

Our sanctification like our initial salvation is rooted in the work of God on our behalf and our dependence on it. And that is where we fail..every time. You see instead of coming to the word of God (and by extension God Himself) in humility with the intention to submit & be changed, we come to use & create methods to accomplish our own personal victories. Right out of the gate we are relying on ourselves and not the Spirit of God. We see our weakness and inadequacies as something to overcome not something to drive us to the cross of Christ. And we are overcome instead, repeatedly & brutally by our own hands because we failed to see with the eyes of faith what is really going on.

We came in salvation to the cross of Christ with nothing valuable or worthy to offer. But now we come with spiritual pride like prize winning stallions to win a race for him. Sadly we have forgotten what we really are. And if you haven't then I surely have... time and time again. And time and time again I have been led by the Spirit of God to the place of remembering this simple fact: I need him. He doesnt need me. He never needed me. He wanted me. He loves me, often in spite of me. He cares about me. I have nothing to offer him, not now not ever...only me, spiritually often morally bankrupt self centered, self important arrogant me. He is everything. On my own I am nothing.

He gave everything for me in Christ. I have given him very little if anything. I doubt very much that I ever will. He chose to save me and fill me and bless me and use me and always for my own benefit. I owe him everything. He owes me nothing. So why do I rely upon myself and forget the gospel? The answer again is very simple. I am human. And he knows it. He is not mad at me. I am. He does not condemn me. I do. He paid the penalty I deserve for my sin and absorbed all my just condemnation. He loves me now. He sees me in Christ as what I will become in spite of what I am in spite of what I repeatedly do. So where do I go from here? Where do we any of us in Christ go from here when we only choose to rely upon ourselves and not the Holy Spirit?

We return again to Christ. We repent of our unbelief and our pride. We ask for the humility to see ourselves for what we are, and return to the cross of Christ to be conformed to the image of its heavenly victim. We ask for the grace to rely upon the word of God, to obey its precepts as best we can. We trust that God will lead us as He wills to, according to His nature & His timing. We remember that at some point we will fail again and have to return again to the cross of Christ. We rest in the fact that it's okay to do so, that His power is made perfect in our weakness when we do, that it's for this very reason that Christ did more than just die in our place. He also lived in our place too. He was the perfect obedient child and servant we were created to be, that we can never be on our own. And He did it all in our place too so we can be free to fail when we do, so we can get back up again and try again in the freedom that we are loved either way because of Him.

If you are like me then you can never hear this enough. You are happy to be reminded, grateful that God is not offended when we need to hear it again and repent. Brother or sister if I can leave you with one thing it's this: we were created to depend on the Living God, not rely on ourselves. We were saved by His Son's finished work so we would rely on the leading of His Holy Spirit. There is no shame in being led, no shame in being small or weak or dependent on the power of God. It is an honor to rely upon the Holy Spirit, to be a fool in the eyes of the world or even our peers. It is to the glory of God that we experience adversity and trust Him in it. To be so & do so is to fellowship with the Son of God in His own earthly travail and human trials. It is in essence to begin to be conformed to the image of the One who loved us & saved us. And that is more valuable than anything we could offer, more valuable than anything we might bring to the table.
And we would do well to remember that as His precious patient pilgrims.

Redemptive Reality in Human Suffering

Over the course of my life I have come to accept that loneliness is a part of life. It is the inevitable consequence of living in a fallen world corrupted by sin that we are going to suffer bouts of loneliness from time to time. But it's one thing to feel the temporary pang of loneliness & another thing to feel the soul crushing weight of alienation that comes from real suffering. Where the one is usually just a matter of being alive the other is the product of an ongoing trial. Where the one can feel extremely painful in the moment but soon passes the other can be utterly devastating and only seems to stay. Where time seems to heal the one, it only worsens the other. And so it goes for the human heart where loneliness is concerned.

Now up until recently I had only ever experienced the first kind of loneliness. It is only in the last few months of watching my wife suffer from cancer & chemo that I've begun to feel the weight of that other soul crushing loneliness I described before. And while I haven't resigned myself to despair just yet, I have been tempted to do so at times, even as a believer in Christ. But that's not why I'm writing this. Neither is the point to boast or make some speech about how "I pulled myself up by the spiritual boot straps" nor is it to complain about how difficult our life is now that my wife has cancer. The world is filled with those sorts of statements. I don't think it would do any good to make another. No. I have written for a different purpose entirely, one I hope will be more of a benefit to you than that.

I want to share with you an unshakable reality that has literally sustained me through the worst trial of my life. It is a reality that defies the worst kinds of loneliness alienation & suffering any trial in this life can bring, a reality that will not be silenced by or falter in any prolonged season of hardship. It is a living truth that can only benefit the believer if they are willing to accept it & base their whole lives around it. It is a revelation for every son & daughter in Christ to hold on to if they will only learn to accept it.

Now I'd be lying if I said I fully comprehend this reality myself or even appropriate it as much as I need to. That just isn't the truth. And I know it. I even suspect I’m writing this to remind myself more than anything of what I already know and need to hear. (the Holy Spirit has a funny way of speaking to me through my own mouth at times...probably because He knows that's when I'm REALLY listening). Even so I hope you'll take the time to read this. You never know…you might just need to hear it yourself.

And this is what I know. This is what I've learned over the past few months watching my wife endure her physical suffering. The heart wasn't created to endure so much pain. It wasn't created to suffer anxiety & sadness, heartache & sorrow, any more than it was created to suffer the pangs of death. All of these are the natural consequences of the curse, the product of living in a fallen world corrupted by sin. We weren't created to suffer the slings and arrows of pain & death but to have life and that more abundantly.

Death (and everything else that goes with it) is the manifestation of the curse, unnatural now to the naturally created order. But that's not to say the All-knowing All-powerful All-Wise Creator of the universe did not create us with these realities in mind. That simply isn't true either & the Bible makes that plain. Our God knew full well what we would become when He made us and created us anyway. It's not that our pain is a surprise to Him or something He must overcome to work His purpose in us. It is something that while unnatural to us still exists to bring Him glory for our incomprehensible benefit. And it is important that we see that especially if we are suffering or watching someone else we love enduring suffering.

You see if we aren't careful and we do not remember what God has revealed to us in the scripture about our suffering we can easily slip into a never ending cycle of self pity, isolation & loneliness to our further detriment & pain. That’s because it's now the natural disposition of our heart (because of sin) to go inward when we are hurting instead of reaching out to the one who can help us. And the devil knows this. He knows that we were created with an outward focus in mind (to love our God & other people...for our benefit & for theirs).

He knows that it's our natural bend now to only think of our self when we are sad, to go hopelessly & helplessly inward when we are in pain, to withdraw from everyone we know & love (even the One who loved us & saved us) to our harm. That is why he presses so hard against us in our thoughts when we are hurting. That is why he's so relentless in our pain. He knows if he can draw our attention away from those who love us & the One who saved us, he can lead us away into a never ending cycle of self-imposed torment from which we cannot escape on our own even if we try. And it is his delight to hurt us.

And He does... all the time...at least that has been my personal experience as of late. But where does that leave us? What do we do having been sucked in? How do we escape the inescapable vortex our sadness creates (and the devil exploits) in our tragedy which only causes us more pain, pushing us further into ourselves? How do we escape the inevitable dilemma of this unending cycle? The answer I have found in my own situation is really quite simple. I must return to the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in scripture & the hope that is promised to me there in it.

More specifically I must revisit the person & work of Jesus Christ on my behalf in redemption. By saturating my heart & mind with the truth of the Gospel & more importantly what Jesus suffered on my behalf, I am confronted with the reality of the love of God in Christ, the truth that because He has conquered the grave in my place even my pain has a purpose. My suffering is not in vain because it is working on my behalf to perfect in me a lasting character, the character of the One who saved me beating the devil at his own game, redirecting my focus. Let me explain.

As I begin to turn my attention away from myself & the problems I face toward the Love of God in Christ I am inevitably overcome by the reality of everything He has done for me on my behalf. I am humbled by the way He lowered himself, laying down His life for my sake. I am awed by the pain he experienced for me dying in my place so I can be free. I am grateful for the living hope I now have in Him being reconciled to the Father in His name and filled with His Spirit. Before I know it, the gospel has already begun to refocus my heart & mind on the love of God in Christ.

And the product of that change of focus is a change of heart. And I begin to see my own suffering in the light of His. I begin to feel the weight of what He did in my place instead of the weight of my pain. And I am humbled once again. So that now where all I could think about before was my own terrible circumstance now by the grace of God I begin to think of the One who saved me & the conditions he endured to redeem me. And now I'm thinking about my family & all of the people God has given me to reach out to me in our trial. And I am grateful for the love His body has lavished on us in His name.

But it doesn't just stop there. Because as soon as the revelation of the Gospel has taken root in my heart & manifested itself in my life, the Spirit of God takes me even deeper, further into the mysteries of God in Christ than I've ever been before. And now I'm thinking about our resurrected bodies, meditating on the promise of a newly restored earth, and what it will be like to worship God for all eternity in His very presence without sin or self to distract me. I realize I have nothing to give him for all of this and I am only speechless. I remember that to suffer is to fellowship with the suffering savior, to worship in suffering is an honor the angels don't get to have. And before I know it I'm humbled again by the privilege I get to share in the gospel.

Now a few things before I continue. FIRST: It is not a one-time thing, this sort of gospel redirection. It happens over a lifetime of walking with God and is no small matter of discipline & persistence. Since human pain is inevitable & constant, life hard & the heart cruel I must daily have my mind realigned to the reality of it. I must daily return and be confronted by it no matter how I feel or what I am going through at the moment.  And SECOND: There is nothing inherently wrong with feeling pain or being lonely in the midst of a trial. That is not the point of what I'm saying at all. It is no more spiritual to act like we have everything together in a trial than it is to quote bible verses like they were some kind of spiritual badge of accomplishment when we are suffering.

No the point that I am trying to make is that, where suffering is concerned, it is always best for believers in Christ to have a redemptive perspective of reality no matter what they are going through. And since we do not naturally have this perspective (because of sin & self) we must constantly seek to be confronted by it daily until it finally begins to sink in and change the way we think. And if anyone other than Christ understood that it was the Apostle Paul himself. And His writings only prove it.

Consider the fact that he always began his letters with the gospel indicative (what God has already done for us & still doing in Christ) before he moved on to the central imperative (what our lives should look like if we really believe it). Perhaps that's even why he chose to answer the carnal challenges of the Corinthian church by redirecting their attention to the eternal perspective. Instead of gloating over some superficial spiritual work he had accomplished on his own he chose to share the testimony of his own humiliation & suffering with them and the lesson God gave to him in it. What better way to silence the carnal accusations of the flesh than to repeat the words of Christ to Him by the Spirit?

What better way to pull US out of our selves, to ground us in the gospel & deliver us from Satan in our own trials than to hear the words of Christ to Paul in his own suffering? (I am humbled as I write this, because even now I am reminded why I started writing in the first place. I need to hear this. Oh how I need to hear this...every single day & in every single way as often as I can! I need to hear this).

"[God's] grace is sufficient (for me). [His] power is made perfect in [my] weakness." -2 Cor. 12:9

In my loneliness & tiredness when I am doubting & afraid, when the woman I love more than life itself begins to grow weak & lose her hair from the chemo, when my children begin to fuss because I cannot give them all of me every moment of the day, when I feel alone, like no one understands me or feel like a hollow empty shell, His grace is always sufficient for me. Always. Sufficient. For me.

Like the Corinthian church I need to hear this, to be confronted with the reality of it daily especially in my difficulty. I need to be confronted with the single truth that any suffering I might experience in this life cannot be compared with the suffering the Son of God endured in my place. I need to be reminded that there is no greater love than the love He poured out for me in His suffering. I need to remember that the love of God extends beyond my initial salvation & provides me a living hope that will pull me out of my sadness, if I am only willing to believe it.

I need to be saturated with Jesus, who He is and what He gave for me. And if you are anything like me then you must need that too. And I haven't just written for me today. And you haven't read this in vain.

Saints of God please listen to me. If we are willing to see it for what it is in the light of our Redemption, our suffering is really the blessing of God to break us, to remake us & renew us, to change us & to grow us, to ground us & to free us, to ultimately reveal to us the glorious inheritance God has given us, His patient pilgrims through the Gospel of our salvation in Christ Jesus which is only for our benefit. And that is a reality that will sustain us if we are only willing to believe it.

Rivers and Ravens in Desolate Places

I would be lying to you if I said that I was strong enough or wise enough all of the time to not be bitter when those I thought I could rely on to be there for my wife and I in this difficult situation fail to do so. I am admittedly an idealist and as such sinfully and quite irrationally expect from others what I more than likely could never or would never do for them, myself. I am not in anyway proud of that nor content to be so. It is just the reality of who I am at this moment. (You are welcome to pray for me if you feel so inclined).

BUT- God in His never-changing always faithful in-spite-of-us way continues to provide everything we need  in spite of the reality of who we are or those we are privileged to call our friends. In fact He continues to do one better. He continues to speak to both of us and bless us in our daily needs through other unexpected sources and saints. And that is actually the point of my writing this.

You see it turns out that far from being intentionally thoughtless or unconcerned (as it tends to feel for me at times) many of our friends are simply human and busy or just overwhelmed and unsure of what to do or how to help. And given that it is an incredible & unexpectedly difficult situation that I find myself in, they are really justified in being and doing so. And I need to give them that space to do and be so as they are led and trust that God Himself will supply all of our needs for meaningful spiritual & emotional connections not to mention the other very practical financial needs we have as a family.

There really is no reason in the long run why I should be so offended and hurt by the absence of certain friends or financial provisions. Would I respond any differently were I in their shoes? Have I in the past? Probably not. But more importantly is it really their fault anyways? And who am I to judge anyway? I am no one of any particular importance or prestige...just another dependent human being cleaving to the grace of God, waiting for His power and his love to see me through. 

But here is the other thing that I am beginning to see in all of this: there is a very important and meaningful even providential reason why those I wanted to rely upon are absent. They were never meant to be my help through all of this to begin with...at least not all of the time or in the way I expect. God did not lead my wife and I to this valley to deepen our dependence on ourselves or other people. But rather He led us here to deepen our dependence on Him, to deepen our dependence on His Spirit, His sacrifice His provision and His love. And it is only my selfish disposition, sense of entitlement and lying heart that prevents me from seeing that in the moment. 

The truth is like Elijah (thank you Lance), Cindy & I have been led here, to demonstrate for the watching world the ALL-sufficiency of Christ. God did not lead us here to rely upon methods and men, to give praise to them or show how great they are. He led us here to flex His own omnipotent muscle as our Provider and Healer as our guardian and Shepherd, to show the might in his little pinky (I mean metaphorically of course...you theologians who are reading this) both to those who know us and those who don't. 

He led us to this cancerous wilderness to feed us with unexpected ravens and natural rivers: to bless us with the love of people we've never met before, to provide through ministries we did not know existed before, to stretch our faith to the breaking point and expand our understanding of His unsearchable unquenchable love so we can know Him more completely and glorify Him more openly. 

And when I think of it that way I feel rather blessed for the silent moments late at night when Cindy has gone to bed or when my phone fails to ring or a friend chooses not to drop by. I feel privileged to cry in my truck to a worship song on my way to work when no is looking. I feel honored to have to wait and wonder how God will provide for our next meal or take care of the impending bills that don't seem to ever go away. 

Anyways who am I to think that this hardship is not a blessing from God when it so clearly is? Who am I to feel unloved by an absent friend, a silent phone or a lonely evening? Am I really so different were I to watch from the outside? Why should I give in to my emotions when The Lord is so obviously present and near? I am a child that's who, simple desperate and lonely, sure, but also a child none the less who can only ever benefit from trusting in his fathers providential tender loving care. Are we not all, who call upon His name?

I pray that as you read this you are touched by God's Holy Spirit, that you will pray with me to ask for the courage to wait for the ravens and be content with the rivers no matter how dirty they appear, because one thing is true whether we admit it or not. If God has led you to the wilderness (as he has my wife and I) then know for certain that they are there. We just have to have the courage to ask for the eyes to see them and a heart to receive them. Lord bless you as you as you read this or pray for our family in this season. We feel privileged to know you (if we do) and share with you(if we don't). I pray this word has touched your life or will touch your life in the future as God has chosen to use it to touch mine. 

Chris