My Wedding Was Supposed to Be Today

Article by Calley Sivils

I made a life plan when I was ten years old (yeah, I know, crazy). It included all the normal things: graduate high school, go to college, travel the world. With regard to romance, though, I always assumed I would get married at 23, because “Why not?” and “Surely I’ll have met somebody by then.”

So, in my late teens, I arbitrarily picked a date (today, April 22, 2017) as my likely wedding day because (a) it’s a few months before my 24th birthday and (b) I’ve always wanted a spring wedding. I added details about kids and jobs and travel along the way, but my plan has remained mostly unchanged.

Pretty straightforward, right?

Except the God I serve isn’t always a straightforward God.

He is straightforward in what he wants from me: to act justly, love kindness, and to walk humbly with him (Micah 6:8), and to set nothing above him in my heart, mind, or soul (Deuteronomy 6:5). But what about beyond that? What about my wedding day?

“I have had to learn to battle the temptations that creep into unwanted waiting and unwanted singleness.”

Much to the woe of my control-desiring heart, he leaves much of it a surprise and mystery. To those who do not know him or trust him, the way he makes us wait may seem like stinginess or even evil. But in truth, he wants something better for us: for our trust and joy in him to flourish.

As a planner, I must learn to live day-by-day by faith, not by sight, knowing that whatever he gives me is truly, deeply good for me (Romans 8:28). No matter how much his plans diverge from mine, no matter how much heartbreak those plans bring, no matter how far out of my comfort zone he pushes or pulls me, he is not only ultimately good, but his plans for me are also always better.

Three Ways to Wait

So, here on my “wedding day,” I’ve been single for several years now, including all of my five years as a Christian. I wasn’t asked out on a single date during college (and haven’t been since), so I have had to learn to battle the temptations that creep into unwanted waiting and unwanted singleness. Here are three lessons I have picked up in the fight.

1. Trust God to give you every good gift at the perfect time.

While we wait, we will be tempted to doubt God’s love and ability. We are talking about the Lord who has built and leveled the nations throughout generations. He is the Lord who flooded the whole earth and held back the Red Sea long enough for his people to walk through on dry ground. Surely this great Lord of history can handle a small thing like the date of my wedding. And that’s what a wedding is: one day of millions of days. Not to say it isn’t important, but it also isn’t anywhere near ultimate.

“My purity is not for me. My wedding is not for me. Marriage will not be for me. It is all for God.”

Marriage is a gift. A gift isn’t earned or bargained for, and neither is a spouse. Pursuing maturity in Christ should be a consistent theme in any believer’s life, but never as currency to spend on something else. We pursue Christ not to “earn” a spouse, but in order to know Christ (Philippians 3:10). The gift isn’t given because the gift-receiver is fit enough, or tall enough, or smart enough. It is freely given because the gift-Giver is good. You cannot “earn” your way or “behave” your way to a spouse. God must give him or her to you in his own way, and at his time.

2. Make God the treasure and anchor of your life.

While we wait, we will be tempted to envy others. There are many people getting married today that are not following the Lord and have (sometimes flagrantly) disobeyed him in the process. Regardless, if Jesus is our greatest treasure, we do not obey in order to gain a husband or a wife, and we do not groan under the perceived unfairness of unrepentant people getting married.

My purity is not for me. My wedding is not for me. Marriage (if it happens for me) will not be for me. All these things are for the Lord and for his glory, not for me so that my life turns out “fairly.” Instead of praying for fairness in this life, we pray with Jesus, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

I pray that all couples getting married today would know my Lord and Savior, but many won’t. They will not have my anchor and firm foundation when life and marriage are hard (and they will be). What is there to envy? If single people lived so assured of God’s love that we were secure and satisfied in the absence of a spouse, perhaps the Lord would use us to witness to married men and women whose marriages have disappointed them or fallen apart.

3. Refuse to settle for someone who does not love Jesus.

While we wait, we will be tempted to settle. We should not draw comfort from the assurance that God has someone for each of us to marry. He may not. Even if he doesn’t, or even if that person comes into our lives ten years late (by our schedule), that does not give us the right to rebel, disobey, or run away. None of us is entitled to marriage. I am not entitled to marriage.

“Our romantic lives should look strange to the world, and so should our joy in singleness.”

Our only constraint in seeking a spouse is to marry someone within the body of believers (2 Corinthians 6:14). It’s a simple guideline, and yet so easy to compromise. But if we’re to have marriages that glorify the eternal God at all, we cannot fall into the trap of setting aside faith, and basing our crushes and choices on temporal qualities like physical appearance or material wealth.

I say “trap” because that’s what a spouse not centered on Christ will undoubtedly become. Recall what happened to Solomon, touted the wisest man in history:

For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. (1 Kings 11:4–6)

Heartbreakingly, this lust-following idol-worshiper is the same man who, in his youth, “loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father” (1 Kings 3:3).

The difference a few decades and poor choices in romance can make, right? A man to whom God gave wisdom, and whose future in loving and serving the Lord started out as promising as his father David’s, ends up unabashedly worshiping abominations — gods that cannot see or hear, let alone give wisdom or deserve worship. Many of those wives were probably pretty physically attractive (he was a king, after all), but they helped turn his heart into something ugly and steer his path away from the Lord.

Rather than chafe at our only restriction in romance, followers of Christ should rejoice in the blessing of not being enslaved in the search for financial security or good looks or athletic ability. Our romantic lives should look strange to the world, and so should our joy in singleness. The Spirit empowers us to be countercultural lights pointing forward to our one true Bridegroom and our one true wedding day (Revelation 19:7).

Calley Sivils is currently pursuing her MDiv in Advanced Biblical Studies at SEBTS in Wake Forest, North Carolina. She writes on her blog, Washedwanderer, and you can reach her on Facebook.

Article posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/my-wedding-was-supposed-to-be-today

Grace Math: Divine Calculations

Article by Bob Kellemen

A Word from Bob: In a recent post, we shared about grace narratives and weaving truth into life. You can learn about that at Hoping When All Hope Seems Lost.

Grace Math… 

Healing wounds requires grace narratives and grace math. Grace math teaches us that:

Present suffering +

God’s character

=

Future glory.

The equation we use is the Divine perspective.

Martin Luther’s Spiritual Mathematics  

From a Divine faith perspective on life, we erect a platform to respond to suffering. How we view life makes all the difference in how we respond to life’s losses. Martin Luther understood this:

“The Holy Spirit knows that a thing only has such value and meaning to a man as he assigns it in his thoughts.”

We must reshape our interpretation of life by contemplating suffering from a new, grace perspective. Through God’s Word we nurture alternative ways to view life’s losses.

The spiritual consolation offered by Scripture is a new vision, the power of faith to see suffering and death from the viewpoint of our crucified and risen Lord. It renews our sight and turns our common human view of matters upside down. This does not eradicate the pain or the fear of misery; it robs it of its hopelessness.

Our earth-bound, non-faith human story of suffering must yield to God’s narrative of life and suffering—to God’s grace narrative and grace math. Luther beautifully portrays the God-perspective that prompts healing.    

If only a man could see his God in such a light of love . . . how happy, how calm, how safe he would be! He would then truly have a God from whom he would know with certainty that all his fortunes—whatever they might be—had come to him and were still coming to him under the guidance of God’s most gracious will.

Look to the Cross 

As you respond to your loss, are you struggling to believe that God has a good heart? Look to the Cross. The Cross forever settles all questions about God’s heart for us. According to Luther, without faith in God’s grace through Christ’s death, we are tone-deaf to God-reality.

He who does not believe that he is forgiven by the inexhaustible riches of Christ’s righteousness is like a deaf man hearing a story. If we consider it properly and with an attentive heart, this one image—even if there were no other—would suffice to fill us with such comfort that we should not only not grieve over our evils, but should also glory in our tribulations, scarcely feeling them for the joy that we have in Christ.

The Christ of the Cross is the only One who makes sense of life when suffering bombards us.

Join the Conversation 

How can spiritual mathematics and a cross-perspective impact how you respond to suffering?

Article posted at: https://www.rpmministries.org/2016/08/grace-math-divine-calculations/

Hoping When All Hope Seems Lost

Article by Bob Kellemen

When life crushes the dreams we dream, is it possible to hope again?

Yes, but let’s be honest. Hope is hard. As I often say, “when life stinks, our perspective shrinks.”

That’s why biblical hope focuses on an eternal perspective. We can learn to hope again by weaving in another way of looking at life—a way that expands our shrunken perspective.

Biblical hope is entrusting myself to God’s larger purposes, good plans, and eternal perspective. I see life with spiritual eyes instead of eyeballs only. I look at suffering, not with rose colored glasses, but with faith eyes, with Cross-eyes, with 20/20 spiritual vision. 

Joseph’s Story: “Life Is Bad, But God Is Good”

Recall Joseph’s words to his fearful family in Genesis 50:19-20.

Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Joseph uses “intended” both for his brothers’ plans and God’s purposes. The Hebrew word has a very tangible sense of to weave, to plait, to interpenetrate as in the weaving together of fabric to fashion a robe, perhaps even Joseph’s coat of many colors.

The Old Testament also uses the word in a negative, metaphorical sense to suggest a malicious plot, the devising of a cruel scheme. Other times the Jews used “intended” to picture symbolically the creation of some new and beautiful purpose or result through the weaving together of seemingly haphazard, miscellaneous, or malicious events.     

“Life is bad,” Joseph admits. “You plotted against me for evil. You intended to spoil or ruin something wonderful.”

“God is good,” Joseph insists. “God wove good out of evil,” choosing a word for “good” that is the superlative of pleasant, beautiful. That is, God intended to create amazing beauty from seemingly worthless ashes for those who grieve (Isaiah 61:3).

Grace Narratives: Weaving Truth into Life

Joseph discovers healing through God’s grace narrative. Further, he offers his brothers tastes of grace.

And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been a famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt (Genesis 45:5-8).

Amazing! I hope you caught the words. “To save lives,” “to preserve,” “by a great deliverance.” That’s a grace narrative, a salvation narrative. Had God not preserved a remnant of Abraham’s descendants, then Jesus would never have been born.

Joseph uses his spiritual eyes to see God’s great grace purposes in saving not only Israel and Egypt, but also the entire world.

I hope you also caught Joseph’s repetition. “God sent me.” “God sent me ahead of you.” “It was not you who sent me here, but God.” Joseph sees the smaller story of human scheming for ruin. However, he also perceives that God trumps that smaller scheme with His larger purpose by weaving beauty out of ugly.

Life hurts. Wounds penetrate. Without grace narratives, hopelessness and bitterness flourish. With a grace narrative, hope and forgiveness flow and perspective grows.    

Instead of our perspective shrinking, suffering is the exact time when we must listen most closely, when we must lean over to hear the whisper of God.

True, God shouts to us in our pain, but His answers, as with Elijah, often come to us in whispered still small voices amid the thunders of the world.

The Rest of the Story 

I invite you to return for the second half of the story of hope when we move from Grace Narratives to Grace Math: Divine Calculations.  

Join the Conversation 

How could you look at your suffering not with rose-colored glasses, but with faith eyes, with Cross-eyes, with 20/20 spiritual vision?

Article posted at: http://www.rpmministries.org/2016/07/hoping-hope-seems-lost/

Your Morning Will Come Trusting God in the Darkest Nights

Article by  Jared Mellinger, Pastor, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania

We took our 2-year-old daughter to the hospital for what we thought would be an ordinary visit. I threw in my bag the two books I had been reading that day. One was by a Christian leader diagnosed at age 39 with a rare form of incurable cancer. The other was a book on Romans 8 by Ray Ortlund, who writes, “A strong confidence in God’s loving intentions and enveloping care fortifies us to face whatever life throws at us.”

That same day, life threw something big at me. While we were at the hospital my daughter was diagnosed with cancer, which has been the deepest sorrow I have known and the greatest threat to my hope. Currently, our daughter continues her treatment. More than ever before, my soul needs to know how to face the future without fear. Where can we turn when the cares of our hearts are many, and fears threaten to overwhelm us?

Whispers in the Dark

No one is better equipped to speak to our fears than Jesus Christ. On the night before he was crucified, he helped his disciples as they considered their future and were fearful, distressed, and lonely. He said to them, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). And Jesus not only gives the command; he speaks truths designed to lead them from fear to faith. He gives them good news about their future.

The answer is not to stop thinking about the future. Rather, we overcome fear of the future by remembering our future in Christ. That night, when confidence was waning, and the disciples were troubled by the days to come, Jesus reminded them that he was going to prepare a place for them (John 14:3). He said that he will give them a Helper, the presence of the Spirit for power and comfort and instruction, to be with them forever (John 14:16). Jesus gives his disciples the promise of eternal life with God: “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).

I naturally spend more time dwelling on what I don’t know about my future than what I do. But the word of God reveals glorious truths about our future in Christ. What we know about the future needs to shape the way we view what we don’t know.

More Grace Will Come

One morning, when my daughter was so weak from battling cancer that she could not walk, and our family was more exhausted than we have ever been, my wife read a Charles Spurgeon quote to me from the book Beside Still Waters. She read it through tears. They were tears of sorrow, tears of comfort, tears of hope.

We have great demands, but Christ has great supplies. Between here and heaven, we may have greater wants than we have yet known. But all along the journey, every resting place is ready; provisions are laid up, good cheer is stored, and nothing has been overlooked. The commissary of the eternal is absolutely perfect.

Military posts usually include a commissary, which is a store of food and supplies. Our needs are many, but Christ knows all of our needs and has already prepared to meet them. Nothing has been overlooked. God promises to provide for our future needs by giving us future grace. We are poor in ourselves, but we will find riches of grace in Christ.

Godly Optimism

Those who belong to Christ have every reason to be optimistic about the future. Hope dominates our outlook. We look at everything that could possibly come our way in life and consider ourselves more than conquerors. Randy Alcorn says, “Because of the certainty of Christ’s atoning sacrifice and his promises, biblical realism is optimism.”

The Bible promotes optimism, but it is a certain kind of optimism. It is not the secular optimism of positive thinking, or the natural optimism of a laid-back personality, but the godly optimism of Christian hope. True hope endures in the darkness. It is through tears of faith-led lament that we see the beauty of our hope most clearly. Godly optimism is marked by realism and mixed with grief. We know that in this world we will have trouble, but we take heart trusting the one who has overcome the world (John 16:33). Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Why Your Future Is Bright

What do we know about the days to come? We know that for every changing circumstance, there is new mercy from our faithful God (Lamentations 3:22–23). We know that whatever trials we face, God will be with us to guide and preserve us (Isaiah 43:2). We know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39).

You don’t know everything about your future, but you know the most important parts:

• God will be with you.
• Christ will intercede for you.
• The Holy Spirit will empower you.
• God will supply your needs.
• The risen Lord will protect you.
• The love of God will keep you.
• All things will work for your good.
• The defeat of sin and death is sure.
• You will see Christ face to face.
• You will worship the Lamb who was slain.
• Your body will be resurrected.
• Your sorrows will be no more.
• You will be with loved ones in Christ.
• You will be richly rewarded.
• Christ will make all things new.

We often fall short of the hope and courage we ought to have as Christians. But day by day, Christ is changing us and empowering us to face the future with confidence in him. Therefore, be strong in the Lord Jesus. Let your heart take courage. Look to the days ahead with joy-filled hope.

By the grace of God, we are learning to expect a bright tomorrow. If you trust him, your morning will come.

Jared Mellinger (@JMellinger) is senior pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. He’s married to Meghan, has six children, and is the author of Think Again: Relief from the Burden of Introspection and A Bright Tomorrow: Facing the Future without Fear.

Article posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/your-morning-will-come

Get Your Eternal Vision Checked

Article by Alex Tunnicliff

Humans are eternity-forgetters.

In the everyday throes of life, eternity can so easily fade into the background. Eternity shrinks, and we forget—or almost deny—our mortality.

If you are a church-planting pastor, beware this deadly reality. If we don’t intentionally bring eternity to the forefront of our minds, we may lose the weight of it altogether. When eternity is forgotten, we become enamored with what is temporary.

And for all our efforts, we’ll be left with temporary churches filled with temporary preaching of a temporary word that will, at best, push people to temporary change. In the meantime, we’re left to build temporary kingdoms that quickly crumble, all the while accumulating for ourselves a temporary following who will celebrate us only to eventually turn to the next Twitter feed once ours grows cold.

Ministry is hard, and church planting can feel impossible. Motivation and adrenaline rooted in the temporal will only get us so far.

Ministry is hard, and church planting can feel impossible. Motivation and adrenaline rooted in the temporal will only get us so far.

If we want to make it in church planting, we must have eyes to see beyond the temporary to the horizon of eternity.

Eternity Changed

More than 2,000 years ago, a cosmic battle was waged and won. Eternal destinies were changed. Christ’s death and resurrection paved the way to eternity. God’s people will one day joyfully celebrate his glory for all eternity. This is why we plant churches.

This may seem like a strange reminder, but it’s a necessary one. The everyday stuff of church planting can be overwhelming: raising money, training up elders, counseling the hurting, looking for a location, shaping vision, and forecasting financial viability.

These temporal realities can blur our vision, making us lose sight of the fact that planting churches is an eternal endeavor. Ten thousand years from now, your church—Christ’s bride—will only have begun to magnify his glory. For now we see the shadows, but the fullness is coming.

If we want to make it in church planting, we must have eyes to see beyond the temporary to the horizon of eternity.

In light of this reality, there is a certain glory that shines even in the mundane. Monday morning has eternal implications. And when the weight of eternity meets with the mundane of Monday, it will transform all that is menial in church planting.

After all, we’re heading toward a wedding where we’ll enjoy a feast with our King. No more dimly-lit mirrors, no more broken shadows, no more sin. We will look across the table and see him as he is.

Therefore, what you do today actually matters, and it will still matter a few million years from now. The church you are planting is headed toward eternity.

But eternity will not only shape your motivations, it will anchor your soul.

Eternity Gained

It was Easter Sunday, and I’d just preached on the resurrection. I got a text message from my brother-in-law waiting for me after the second service.

We’d just hired him and his wife to plant a church. They’d moved to the Upper Peninsula to plant in one of the area’s most difficult places. It took months of planning, praying, and searching to find someone willing to embark on this mission.

But I noticed that he and my sister were not at either service that morning, and his text provided the explanation: Anne was in the emergency room, and it was cancer.

Eight short days later, the Good Shepherd ushered her home. He led her through the valley of shadows and death. That valley is not foreign to him; he’s been there before. And because Jesus lives, so does she.

Anne was a faith-filled lover of the gospel who’d come to the middle of nowhere to help plant a church in a place few know about.

And now she’s gone.

In these moments, how fast our church is or isn’t growing, how many people like my sermons, or how strategic my five-year plan appears fall to the periphery. In these moments, eternity takes center stage; it magnifies what’s important and reveals what’s not.

Eternal Anchor

So while eternity will shape your motivation, it will also anchor your soul when the billows roll.

Eternity reminds us what’s at stake. We’re planting eternal churches made of eternal image bearers; we proclaim an eternal gospel; Jesus Christ will usher in an eternal kingdom; we will worship full of eternal joy; and our eternally worthy King will be praised forever.

Ten thousand years from now, your church—Christ’s bride—will only have begun to magnify his glory.

We, as church-planting pastors, are privileged to play a role in this work of wonder God is doing. We’re wrapped up in the greatest story in all the world. And it’s a story that doesn’t end.

So look to the horizon. The King is there. Eternity is with him. Crushed enemies lie strewn at his feet. There’s a smile on his face as he comes for his bride.

Alex Tunnicliff is the lead pastor for preaching and teaching at Redemption Hill in Kingsford, Michigan. He and his wife, Melissa, have two children and another due in early July. They live in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

Article posted at:  https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/get-eternal-vision-checked/

3 Tear-Wrought Lessons on Suffering

 Justin Huffman   

If you haven’t experienced pain or sorrow or loss, you’re either young or dead.

We’re all faced at some point with the fallenness of our world and brokenness of our own hearts. A parent buries a child, a family is ripped apart by divorce, a spouse is shattered by a diagnosis. It seems we might break under the weight of such pain.

When the pain gets so heavy we don’t think we can bear it, we ask the inevitable question, “Is this worth it?”

Paul has a startling answer to that question in Romans 8:18: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Is this some kind of Christian pep talk? No, Paul is not sharing a limp-wristed inducement, but tear-wrought lessons from his considerable suffering (see 2 Cor. 11:23-28). He shares three lessons we can all learn from as we face a world that’s not as it ought to be.

LESSON 1: SUFFERING HURTS

Paul first acknowledges suffering by calling it suffering. He doesn’t diminish the reality of sorrow and loss and sin. He calls it what it is—suffering. And sometimes considerable suffering, at that.

We often run from or ignore sorrow and disappointment. Or we try to somehow minimize it, numbing our pain. These coping methods won’t really help us cope at all, not in the long run, because we’re running to ourselves to fix our problems instead of running to God. But when we run to God and his Word with our pain, we discover a Father who acknowledges our pain and a Son who experienced it.

God knows our pain. He is not lounging in a La-Z-Boy in heaven while we’re struggling to keep our heads above water. Hebrews 4:15 reminds us “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.”

When we lose a loved one, when we cry until we can’t cry anymore, when we suffer abuse at the hands of others, when we endure chronic pain, we can run to a Savior who in every way knows what we’re experiencing and sympathizes with us.

Suffering hurts. And Jesus knows it. Run to him and listen as he validates your pain and acknowledges your suffering.

LESSON 2: GLORY HEALS

Paul’s second lesson is that our suffering—considerable as it is—is hardly worth comparing to the weightiness of the glory that is to be. Elsewhere he says that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Light affliction?! Is Paul invalidating his first lesson that our suffering is truly terrible? No. He’s saying that relative to eternal glory with Christ, our afflictions, no matter how unbearable, will seem momentary.

Paul says our glory will not only be eternal, but it will be weighty. This seems like a strange combination of words. We know suffering can be weighty, but glory?

Though it sounds foreign, when we think about the joys of a lifetime of marriage, of raising children from infancy to adulthood, or of deep and long-lasting friendships, the word weighty seems fitting. Or consider even a moment of happiness—when your new spouse says “I do,” or you hold your newborn or newly adopted child for the first time or enjoy a meaningful conversation with a close friend. Certainly words like fluffy, light, insignificant, or faint don’t describe these pleasures.

No, the joy we experience in such blessings is real, substantial, significant, and large. Real joy is weighty. And it is precisely the weightiness of such joys that make our grief so weighty. Yet it seems like the weight of pain always outweighs joy, doesn’t it? Can the weight of joy or glory really outweigh the heaviness of our trials, like Paul says?

If a glory this heavy seems impossible, consider this. The same God who provided the joy you’ve experienced with your spouse or parent or child or friendship is the same God who knows what eternal glory awaits you—and he says they can’t be compared! The glory that God has prepared for every one of his children is that heavy.

Eternal joy is greater than our suffering in length of time and in quality. Christian, catch God’s perspective. See that eternal joy is weightier than even our greatest sufferings here and now.

LESSON 3: FAITH HELPS

What is it that makes this eternal, heavenly glory so transcendently, seriously glorious? That it is centered on Christ (Col. 3:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 John 3:2). Admittedly, to the skeptic, this may sound more anticlimactic than floating around on clouds and playing harps. But for anyone who has seriously considered the character of Jesus Christ, and especially for those who have found in Christ the only perfection that will satisfy a truly good God, this resonates. The joy of a consummated relationship with Christ is weightier than any suffering on earth will ever be.

The joy of heaven is not just that there will be “no more death or pain or tears.” The joy of heaven is that there is no more sin to keep us from living with and being like Jesus Christ completely and forever. Unhindered and uninterrupted fellowship with Jesus is the greatest joy heaven has to offer.

Suffering will exist, for now, no matter what your worldview. But if you don’t believe in God, then you will just be looking for another solution to the suffering, another way through the suffering.

The eternal glory Paul speaks of will also happen no matter what we think about God. One day this world and our suffering will come to an end, and one day believers in Christ will be enabled to live with him forever. No one can keep this from happening.

Faith in Jesus Christ is not only the means of salvation; it is also the means by which we enjoy salvation’s promises and assurances even now. Faith is the umbilical cord that connects our infant-like perspective on suffering to the nourishment available from a God who knows what it’s like to suffer as we do.

Recognizing the bigness of God, and of his grace through Jesus Christ, will feed our souls in the midst of this momentary suffering by granting us assurance of a glory infinitely weightier than even the most crushing pain.

IS YOUR SUFFERING WORTH IT?

Is your pain and suffering worth it? Is your crippling anxiety and grief worth it?

Yes. Your suffering is truly suffering. Your pain is truly heavy. But if you’re in Christ, you have a Savior who has experienced everything you have and more. He knows exactly how you feel and precisely what you need. He knows your suffocating at the hands of suffering, and he wants you to set your eyes on the eternal weight of glory he’s preparing for you.

May the weighty joy of the Christian faith be yours, now and for all eternity.

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

Article Posted at: http://gcdiscipleship.com/2018/06/12/3-tear-wrought-lessons-on-suffering/

Every Hard Day Will Be Beautiful Someday

Article by  Christine Hoover

I hadn’t opened the old shoebox in a decade, but lifting the frayed lid, I laughed in delight at the faces of dear friends and family staring back at me. For hours afterward, I sat on my closet floor, poring over stacks of these pictures that held constant vigil for happy college years, newlywed days, long-ago ministry events, and first days home with babies.

My heart filled with wonder at being able to see so clearly in the present as I peered into the past. A friendship that began in college through a chance meeting has, in time, grown into one of deep joy and importance. The man who’d become my husband, pictured still very much as a boy, whom I’ve seen grow more and more into who God’s made him to be. The little baby, the object of several lifetimes of my worry, who’s now matured and overcome.

Looking at time past, I marveled at how the pictures gave me the gift of sight, and how this sight affirmed the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Even in what I could never have imagined becoming beautiful, God had proven himself good.

You Don’t See the Whole Picture Now

But then I turned back to my present moment, the very day I was going through old pictures, and I tried to wrap my mind around that day’s gifts: the already teenager and the almost teenagers, taking up more space in my home and heart, eating their way through life. I tried to squeeze every ounce of thankfulness from my heart regarding my husband and the state of our union, and I ticked through the church we planted, friends, extended family, our health, the opportunities and influence God’s given.

“Even in what I could never have imagined becoming beautiful, God had proven himself good.”

I couldn’t enjoy today’s moments like I could the past, because the present was so difficult to see without fear creeping in. What if my beloved is taken from me? What if this boy of mine never learns from his mistakes? What if God asks us to say a gospel goodbye to the church we love? It’s as if my heart wanted to protect itself, belying the deeper question at the core of my fear: What if God isn’t actually at work, bringing all things to the beautiful end he’s promised?

We’re told by our culture, seemingly on repeat, to live in the moment, to be present. And I know there is good in this charge, but living in the present and especially grasping what God is doing in the current moment is like looking through a glass darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12). We cannot fully see nor can we comprehend the shape of what God is making and the tools he’s using to bring all things to the beautiful end of redemption. We “cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and on a smaller scale, we can’t grab hold of a present moment with joy unadulterated by sin and darkness. We must not chide ourselves over missing the moments if we can’t grab hold of their fullness as they pass.

There is a better way to live in the present. The box of old pictures helps us understand how.

What We See in Old Pictures

Why are we often more moved by old pictures than new? One reason is that when we look back, those memories are informed by a longer and wider perspective. We’re able to view them through the filter of God’s goodness, without the fear or uncertainty we might have experienced in the moment.

We see this same phenomenon in Scripture. In the Old Testament, God repetitiously required his people to build altars, recall stories of his acts to their children, and celebrate feasts that marked the miracles he’d done on their behalf. Over and over, he said to them, “Remember.” They were to remember how God made freedom from slavery and provision from lack so they’d trust him in their present darkness.

And then, through the prophets, God’s refrain became, “Look forward.” They were to look forward to a perfect deliverer and forever rescue, when God would make beauty from their ashes — so that they might trust him with those ashes in their present state.

The Goal for Our Present

We also see this in the New Testament. In the moment of Christ’s crucifixion, everything appeared horribly bleak. Now we’re able to look back on his death and resurrection and see unparalleled beauty, the kind that fills us with joy. This perspective fuels our hope as we look forward to seeing the promise of his second coming.

“One day we will see the scope and beauty of our redemption in full.”

Looking back at the past and forward to the future helps us walk by faith in a promise-keeping God in this present darkness. For many of us, both the past and the present are pockmarked with pain. Our hope in this life is set on God’s ever-present help, and on the reality awaiting us when Jesus sets all things right and all our pain is transformed into glory. Beauty awaits everyone in Christ.

The goal for our present, then, is not grasping the moment as it passes or trying to see clearly now what God is doing at every turn. The goal for our present moment, though seen dimly for what it is, is faith — believing that the God who was and will be is also the God who is with us, helping us, working in us, and hurtling us toward a beautiful end.

What You Can’t See Today

God has designed us to comprehend and value the true beauty of his work most significantly over time. As an artist pulls the cover off a portrait in dramatic reveal, as the hiker’s perspective of where she’s traveled comes into view as she steps onto the mountain peak, one day we will see the scope and beauty of our redemption in full.

More importantly, we’ll see God, and in our first awestruck glimpse we’ll see beauty that John, in his Revelation vision, struggled to compare with anything we currently call beautiful. As we take him in, and as we take in a broader horizon of time and God’s work in time, our understanding of his beauty will come into far greater focus.

Perhaps then too we will follow the pattern Scripture gives: looking back with eternal eyes, seeing God’s goodness in every point of history. A heavenly shoebox of joy waiting for our unending discovery. And what will we look forward to in the future? In heaven, the future is one of joy’s eternal increase, every discovery of God’s handiwork a new facet of his beauty.

We do not need to see or understand all that God is doing on our hardest days. We just need to know that God is behind this, and in this, and that he will make it beautiful in time.

Christine Hoover (@ChristineHoover) is the author of Searching for Spring: How God Makes All Things Beautiful in Time, Messy Beautiful Friendship, From Good to Grace, and The Church Planting Wife. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband Kyle and their three boys. Find her at her website.

God’s Surprising Plans for Your Good

Article by Ben Stuart:  Pastor, Washington, D.C.

Why does God allow trouble to plague his people? How can it be considered loving for him to permit trials to run wild in our lives?

I gained fresh insight into these questions while watching a spellbinding four-minute video called “How Wolves Change Rivers.”

A slightly too exuberant, yet delightfully British narrator recounts the changes that resulted from the entrance of a pack of wolves into the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park. It turns out that deer overpopulation had left massive portions of the park barren. Constant grazing had turned valleys into wastelands. The lack of vegetation had caused soil erosion, which destabilized the banks of the river, slowing the flow of water. The lack of sufficient water and vegetation, in turn, forced wildlife to move on. In short, life was fading from the park.

Then a pack of wolves moved in.

Do you think it would be life-enhancing for a pack of predators to be released into a national park? I imagine your initial response would be, like mine, “No, that sounds terrible.”

But it turns out that it was the best thing that could have happened.

Wolves and a World of Good

The wolves predictably killed a few deer, thinning out the population. However, that was not the most significant change. The remaining deer were forced to move to higher terrain and abandon the grasslands of the valleys.

“Difficulty brings blessing. Hardship brings joy. Wolves change rivers.”

These areas that had been mown down for so long then began to regrow at an accelerated rate. Aspen trees quintupled in size in less than six years. This growth brought back birds to nest in the branches and beavers to eat the wood. The return of the beavers meant the return of beaver dams, which created pools that allowed for the repopulation of fish, otters, ducks, muskrats, reptiles, and amphibians. The wolves also cleared out some of the coyotes, which caused rabbits and mice to return. This change led to the return of hawks, weasels, foxes, and badgers.

Yet the most amazing impact occurred in the river itself. Because grasses were allowed to regrow, the soil collapsed less, allowing for firmer riverbanks. Which gave the river flow greater direction, which reinforced the animal habitats.

In short, the entrance of a few wolves created a whole world of good in Yellowstone National Park, transforming wastelands into lush valleys teeming with life.

So, it turns out that the best thing to do to promote life was to release a few wolves into the valley.

Difficulty Brings Blessing

Why mention all of these phenomena? Try for a moment to imagine a board meeting where, after hearing desperate pleas for help to save the aspen trees of Yellowstone, a park ranger responded by saying, “I’ll tell you what will ensure reforestation: a few more wolves around here!” Would anyone have taken him seriously?

In the same way, I think we would accuse God of being insane if, in response to our cries for greater intimacy with our spouse, greater fruit in our ministries, or greater closeness to him, we heard him say, “You want more life? I’ll tell you what will give it: a medical emergency. Or losing your job. Or a car accident.” We would think he was out of his mind.

But search your past and tell me if it isn’t true: Often the introduction of something difficult, and even dangerous, into our lives by the hand of God results in unanticipated, yet undeniable growth. Difficulty brings blessing. Hardship brings joy. Wolves change rivers.

This reality does not mean we should court danger. What it does mean, however, is that we should pause before we accuse God of injustice or indifference when he allows hardship to enter our lives. It just might be the best thing for us. In fact, for those who love him, and are called according to his purposes, it will be his working to produce his best for us.

Count It All Joy

James certainly thought so. In James 1:2–4 he went so far as to say, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

“Often, God sees that something unpleasant will lead to a thousand good consequences.”

James was so certain that the introduction of difficulty into our lives carries the potential to bring blessing that he called us to rejoice, not only after the trial has ended, but even while we are still in it.

Which does not mean we need to pretend that difficulties are pleasant. They are not. Nor does it mean we should not pray to be delivered from, or seek to remove, hardships from our lives. Both are permissible.

However, we gain much hope from this realization: Often our loving God sees that bringing something unpleasant into our lives will lead to a thousand good consequences. Therefore, as a good caretaker of our souls, he will allow wolves to enter for a season.

So, when hardships come, we can cease shaking our fist and yelling at God, and instead lean into him and listen. He is good. He does care. He works all things together for the good of his children — even the arrival of wolves.

Ben Stuart (@Ben_Stuart_) is in the process of planting Passion City Church in Washington, D.C.

God Will Give You More than You Can Handle

Article by Mitch Chase

Christians can make the strangest claims when comforting those who are suffering. What do you say to someone whose life is falling apart? If you have but few precious minutes with a person who’s lost a job, home, spouse, child, or all sense of purpose, what comfort do you give?

We might turn to conventional wisdom instead of Scripture and end up saying something like, “Don’t worry, this wouldn’t happen in your life if God didn’t think you could bear it.” The sufferer may object, head shaking and hands up. But you insist, “Look, seriously, the Bible promises God won’t ever give you more in life than you can handle.” There it is—conventional wisdom masquerading as biblical truth. You’ve promised what the Bible never does.

Temptations Versus Trials

In 1 Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul writes, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” His discussion is specific: he’s writing about “temptation,” a snare that breaks a sweat trying to drag us into sin. Using a predator metaphor, God warned Cain that “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Gen. 4:7). Sin stalks us, but God is faithful. Sin desires to overcome us, but there is a merciful way of escape. Sin sets the bait, but for the believer—praise God!—sin is not irresistible.

Now if people apply Paul’s words about temptation to general sufferings, you can see where the line “God will never give you more than you can handle” comes from. I don’t doubt the sincerity and good intentions of those who use this phrase, but sincerity isn’t enough. Even Job’s friends meant well.

The Twin Errors

There are at least two errors in the unbiblical notion of “God will never give you more than you can handle.” First, it plays on the cultural virtue of fairness. Second, it points the sufferer inward instead of Godward.

1. Trials that Are . . . Fair?

If you give your children boxes to load into the car, you make visual and weight assessments that factor in their ages and strength. You don’t overload their arms and watch them crash to the ground with stuff splayed everywhere. That would be unfair. The saying “God will never give you more than you can handle” strikes a tone of fairness we instinctually like. There’s something pleasing about the idea that the scales are in balance, that God has assessed what we can handle and permits trials accordingly.

But there is a glaring problem with the “fairness” that undergirds this conventional wisdom: God has been unfair already, because he has not dealt with us as our sins deserve. He has been longsuffering, forbearing, gracious, and abounding in love. The sun shines and rain falls even on the unjust (Matt. 5:45). God transcends the categories of fair and unfair to such a degree that we have no position to evaluate his actions or weigh his will. His ways aren’t subject to our culture’s standard of fairness.

2. The Power . . . Within?

Suffering doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It may come slowly or with a vengeance, but it doesn’t ask permission, and it doesn’t care about convenience. There’s never a good time for your life to be wrecked. But the saying “God will never give you more than you can handle” tells me I have what it takes. It tells me I can bear whatever comes my way. It tells me God permits trials according to my ability to endure. Think about what this conventional wisdom does: it points people inward.

Yet the Bible points us Godward. As the psalmist says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling” (Ps. 46:1–3). When our strength is failing under crushing burdens, the answer is not within. God gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak (Isa. 40:29). The power comes from him to those who wait on him.

Where Trials Direct Us

Trials come in all shapes and sizes, but they don’t come to show how much we can take or how we have it all together. Overwhelming suffering will come our way because we live in a broken world with broken people. And when it comes, let’s be clear ahead of time that we don’t have what it takes. God will give us more than we can handle—but not more than he can

The psalmist asks, “Where does my help come from?” (Ps. 121:1), and we must be able to answer like he did. We must know and believe, deep in our bones, that “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (121:2). When trials come, trust that the Lord’s help will come. This news is helpful to sufferers since we’re saying something true about God instead of something false about ourselves.

Paul recalled a time when God gave him more than he could bear. In a letter to the Corinthians, he wrote, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1:8). Paul and his associates had been in circumstances that transcended their strength to endure: “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death” (1:9).

Then he provides a crucial insight into his despair. Why were he and his companions given more than they could handle? To “make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9). God will give you more than you can handle so that his great power might be displayed in your life. Indeed, a greater weight of glory is still to come: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

You might not consider overwhelming sufferings to be “light” and “momentary,” but think of your trials in terms of a trillion years from now. In the middle of affliction, sometimes the most difficult thing to hold onto is an eternal vision. Paul isn’t trying to minimize your affliction; he’s trying to maximize your perspective.

Suffering doesn’t get the last line in the script. In this life, God will give you more than you can handle, but the coming weight of glory will be greater than you can imagine.

Mitch Chase (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the pastor at Kosmosdale Baptist Church and an adjunct professor at Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s the author of Behold Our Sovereign God and The Gospel Is for Christians. He is married to Stacie, and they have four boys. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article originally posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/god-will-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/

You are Dust, Not Divine

Article by Tim Challies

We Christians put on a good face, don’t we? Each of us shows up on Sunday morning looking like we are doing just fine, like our lives are on cruise control, like we have had the best week ever. But ask a couple of leading questions, and probe just beneath the surface, and it soon falls apart. Each of us comes to church feeling the weight and the difficulty of this life. God has something he wants us to do in these situations. There is something he calls us to—something beautifully surprising and uncomfortable. Track with me for a couple of minutes here, and I’ll show you what it is.

The Reality: You are Dust

One of my favorite passages in the whole Bible is Psalm 103. I pray it often, and focus on these words: “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” These words tell us that even while we pray to the all-knowing and all-powerful God, we do so as created beings who were formed out of the dust of the ground. If we learn anything from our dusty origins, we learn that God did not intend for us to be superhuman and he did not intend for us to be God-like. He made us dust, not divine, and this was his good will. He made us weak.

The Difficulty: You Are Burdened

Meanwhile, the Bible tells us that this life is full of trials and tribulations. Experience backs this up. This world is so sinful, we are so sinful, and the people around us are so sinful, that trials are inevitable. Each of us has burdens we carry through life. Sometimes these are burdens of our own making, sometimes these are burdens that come through sickness, sometimes these are burdens that come through other forms of suffering. But whatever the case, we dusty humans inevitably face burdens that seem crushingly and insurmountably heavy. Jesus speaks to the reality of life in this world when he says, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We are weak and we are burdened.

The Promise: Help

God knows that we are weak. God knows each one of the trials we face, and he makes the sure promise that he can and will sustain us through each of them. In Psalm 55:22 he says, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you.” In times of temptation toward sin he promises, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). There are many more promises we could turn to, but the theme would be the same: God acknowledges our weakness and promises to meet them with his strength. We are weak and we are burdened, but God promises to help.

The Temptation: Self-Reliance

We dusty, sinful human beings face a ridiculous temptation: self-reliance.

We dusty, sinful human beings face a ridiculous temptation: self-reliance.Despite our weaknesses and despite our track-record of sin, we find ourselves constantly tempted to look to ourselves for help. Listen to what John Piper says: “Pride, or self-exaltation, or self-reliance is the one virus that causes all the moral diseases of the world. This has been the case ever since Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to be God instead of trust God. And it will be true until the final outburst of human pride is crushed at the battle of Armageddon. There is only one basic moral issue: how to overcome the relentless urge of the human heart to assert itself against the authority and grace of God.” We may see this self-reliance manifest itself in our lives in at least two ways: When we will not bring our burdens to the Lord in prayer, and when we will not bring those burdens to other Christians. In both cases we like to convince ourselves that we can bear this weight on our own, that we are strong enough to carry it.

The Solution: Community

God’s solutions always come from outside ourselves.

When we are ready to let go of our self-sufficiency, we find that God offers an amazing solution. He offers a way that we can be relieved of the burdens we carry. Very often, the way God fulfills his promises and answers our prayers is through other Christians right there in our local churches. God expects that we will tell others about our burdens and that we will respond to them together, in community. This is why Paul told the church in Galatia to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Our church communities are to be marked by the sharing and bearing of burdens. If this is to happen, our churches need to be marked by humility, as each of us admits that we cannot make it through life on our own; they need to be marked by vulnerability, as we open up to others and seek their counsel and their help; they need to be marked by awareness, as we pursue the people around us, asking them how we can assist in life’s trials. God’s solutions always come from outside ourselves.

The Vocation: Burden-Bearing

All of this leads us to the joyful vocation of burden-bearing. Piper says, “Here is a vocation that will bring you more satisfaction than if you became a millionaire ten times over: Develop the extraordinary skill for detecting the burdens of others and devote yourself daily to making them lighter.” Make them lighter through prayer, make them lighter by skillfully bringing and applying the Word of God, and make them lighter by the comfort of your presence. In every case, make it your sacred calling to seek out and to share the burdens of your brothers and sisters. There is no higher calling than this. (For more on burden-bearing read An Extraordinary Skill for Ordinary Christians.) But there is more: You also owe it to yourself and to your church community to share your burdens with them, to humble yourself by asking for their help.

Originally posted here:  https://www.challies.com/christian-living/you-are-dust-not-divine/