Blessed Assurance

By John MacArthur

God is holy and we are sinful. Those two inescapable truths should frame our entire worldview. They also explain the terror God’s saints always felt during the divine encounters recorded in Scripture. It shouldn’t surprise us that even the apostle John collapsed “like a dead man” at the Lord’s feet when he came face-to-face with the glorified Christ (Revelation 1:17).

Throughout Scripture, that kind of intense, overwhelming fear was the consistent reaction of those who experienced a heavenly vision or encounter. When the Angel of the Lord appeared and announced the birth of Samson, “Manoah said to his wife, ‘We will surely die, for we have seen God’” (Judges 13:22). Overwhelmed at his vision of God in the temple, Isaiah cried, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). After an angel appeared to him, Daniel writes, “My natural color turned to a deathly pallor, and I retained no strength” (Daniel 10:8). At the sight of a bright light from heaven on the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus and his traveling companions collapsed to the ground (Acts 26:13–14). John, along with Peter and James, fell to the ground at the sound of God’s voice during Christ’s transfiguration (Matthew 17:6). And one day, the unrepentant world will realize the terror of God’s judgment and call out “to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” (Revelation 6:16–17).

Scripture is clear: Unlike the frivolous, boastful accounts of men and women today who falsely claim to have seen God, the immediate response from everyone who genuinely saw the Lord unveiled was fear. Sinners—even redeemed sinners—are right to be terrified in the presence of a Holy God. There is always fear in a true vision of Christ, because we see His glory and He sees our sin.

John crumbled at the trauma of his vision. In the presence of the Lord, staring at His bronze feet of judgment (Revelation 1:15) and the double-edged sword of His Word (Revelation 1:16), we would likewise collapse in a lifeless heap.

But that terror turned to comfort and assurance as the vision continued: “He placed His right hand on me, saying ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades’” (Revelation 1:17–18).

Those simple words delivered a powerful message of tremendous encouragement for John, and for all believers: the Lord is not our executioner. Although Christ administers chastening and judgment against the church, the debt for our sins has already been paid. He “was dead” and is “alive forevermore.” That simple truth should perpetually buoy our hearts in grateful assurance of our salvation. John proclaimed this great assurance in his opening salutation: Christ “loves us and released us from our sins by His blood” (Revelation 1:5). Christ alone holds “the keys of death and of Hades.” The redeemed have nothing to fear. Jesus proclaims, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (John 11:25–26). This was the assurance and comfort He brought to John in the midst of his fear: Your debt has already been paid. You belong to me, and nothing—not even your sin—can change that.

John had not misinterpreted his vision; Christ was moving in judgment against His church. But the righteous Judge was not coming for John. He had work for His beloved apostle to accomplish. He said, “Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things” (Revelation 1:19). John’s commission was not yet complete. He had a duty to record what he had already seen, what the Lord still had to say to the churches of Asia Minor, and the prophetic visions that unfold throughout the remainder of the book. In other words, “Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. And get to work.”

That same assurance and encouragement extends to every believer. The initial terror of seeing God move in judgment against His church turns to comfort when we reflect on what He has done for us. We don’t have anything to fear because Christ has died and risen again for us. He has redeemed us, and He is always interceding for us, protecting our purity, and providing faithful shepherds to guard His flock. Amazingly, in spite of our unworthiness, He has work for us to accomplish. We’re not going to write another book of the Bible. But we have been called to proclaim the glory of His gospel to the ends of the earth. It’s time to get to work.

  Posted at: https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B190213

What Does Jesus Mean by "I Never Knew You"?

Article by John Piper

Ten Virgins and a Bridegroom

Do these verses and the words “I don’t know you” imply anything about salvation? The answer is yes. Yes they do. They imply exclusion from salvation.

“If you treat the Lord like he’s unimportant, you won’t enter the feast. You won’t enter salvation.”

Now, let me step back and give a little reminder. This is a parable, okay? There are ten virgins in this story that Jesus made up. Ten virgins are assigned to welcome the bridegroom when he comes to the feast, to go in and enjoy the bride. So they were to welcome him when he comes.

Five virgins take this seriously and stay ready. Five are careless and don’t have what they need to be ready. At the last minute, they run away to try to do a last-ditch effort to be ready. And it fails. It’s too late.

Spiritually Awake

Here’s what we read:

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he answered, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.” Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:10–13)

The point is, watch. The point is not to stay awake at night looking up into the sky, because all ten slept. They all slept — the wise ones and the foolish ones. So that’s not the point. But stay awake to your Lord and to your calling: Be spiritually alert, awake to your calling, and awake to Jesus, to the way of life in Christ. Stay awake to it. Stay spiritually alert and alive. Because if you treat the Lord like he’s unimportant, you won’t enter the feast. You won’t enter salvation.

Excluding Judas

Here’s the closest analogy to that language:

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven [this is why I talk about exclusion], but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them [here are the words], “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21–23)

“‘I never knew you’ means ‘I don’t recognize you as my disciple, as my follower. You are a spiritual stranger to me.’”

“I never knew you” means “I don’t recognize you as my disciple. I don’t acknowledge you as my follower. You are a spiritual stranger to me.” Judas would be the best example here from Jesus’s life. For three years, he cast out demons and did many mighty works with Jesus. In the end, he was driven by money, not by love for Jesus. We know that from John 12:6. He’s called a thief. He was excluded at the end of all that time with Jesus.

Chosen and Known

So what’s with this odd use of the word know? “I do not know you.” “I never knew you.” Now, there’s a backstory to this. For example, in the Old Testament, it was used almost interchangeably with choose. “I didn’t choose you.”

You see this, for example, in Amos 3:2, when God says to Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” That didn’t mean that Jesus wasn’t aware of the other nations. It meant he hadn’t chosen them. They weren’t acknowledged as his. They weren’t recognized as his. He hadn’t chosen them.

Here’s Genesis 18:18–19: “Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in [him.] For I have known him, that he may command his children.” Known here is usually translated chosen. But it’s just the plain old word know. “I have known him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.”

Called to Love God

When we come to the New Testament, we read things like this: “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God” (Galatians 4:9). So being known by God is expressing the initiative that God has taken to enable you to know him: “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?” (Galatians 4:9).

“Being known by God is the precondition and enabling of how you come to love God.”

Here is the same idea again in 1 Corinthians 8:3: “If anyone loves God, he is known by God.” Wow, that means being known by God is the precondition and enabling of how you come to love God. So loving God is evidence that you’re known by God — that is, chosen by God.

Keep Watch

Now, back to our parable. The foolish virgins came too late to the feast of the bridegroom and his bride. They cry out, “Lord, lord, open to us.” And he says, “Truly I say to you, I don’t know you.” That is, “I don’t see in you the marks of faithfulness to me. There’s always a correlation between my choosing people and their belonging to me and the marks of obedient faithfulness.”

We see this is 2 Timothy 2:19: “God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’” Those are the two marks of the seal. “I know them — I chose them — and they depart from iniquity.”

Jesus is saying to the five foolish virgins, “I don’t see in you the life, the evidence, of loving my name and departing from evil. You’re not mine. I don’t know you.” And Jesus concludes, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Meaning, “Stay alert spiritually. Keep my greatness, my beauty, my worth always before you. Don’t slip into a greater love for the world. If you do, I won’t know you.”

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Why I Love the Apostle Paul: 30 Reasons.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-does-jesus-mean-by-i-never-knew-you?fbclid=IwAR1o2ZObNw543SEHhe_Fca7EdDcHWEygNBTEkx3WQBGgVK_evOSJk6fs2os

Elisabeth Elliot: "Your Suffering Is Never For Nothing"

Editors’ note:  This is an adapted excerpt from Suffering Is Never for Nothing(B&H Books, 2019).

It’s only in the cross that we can begin to harmonize the seeming contradiction between suffering and love. And we will never understand suffering unless we understand the love of God.

We’re talking about two different levels on which things are to be understood. And again and again in the Scriptures we have what seem to be complete paradoxes because we’re talking about two different kingdoms. We’re talking about this visible world and an invisible kingdom through which the facts of this world are interpreted.

Suffering in Scripture

Take for example the Beatitudes, those wonderful statements of paradox that Jesus gave to the multitudes when he was preaching to them on the mountain (Matt. 5:3–12). He said strange things like this:

How happy are those who know what sorrow means. Happy are those who claim nothing. Happy are those who have suffered persecution. What happiness will be yours when people blame you and ill treat you and say all kinds of slanderous things against you. Be glad then, yes, be tremendously glad.

Does it make any sense at all?

Not unless you see there are two kingdoms: the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of an invisible world. And the apostle Paul understood the difference when he made this stunning declaration. He said, it is now my happiness to suffer for you, my happiness to suffer (Col. 1:24). It sounds like nonsense, doesn’t it? And yet this is God’s Word. Janet Erskine Stuart said, “Joy is not the absence of suffering but the presence of God.”

It’s what the psalmist found in the valley of the shadow of death: “I will fear no evil” (Ps. 23:4). Now the psalmist was not naïve enough to say, “I will fear no evil because there isn’t any.” There is. We live in an evil, broken, twisted, fallen, distorted world. What did he say? “I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

My Suffering

When I stood by my shortwave radio in the jungle of Ecuador in 1956 and heard that my husband, Jim Elliot, was missing, God brought to my mind the words of the prophet Isaiah: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee” (Isa. 43:2). You can imagine that my response was not terribly spiritual. I was saying, “But Lord, you’re with me all the time. What I want is Jim. I want my husband.” We had been married 27 months after waiting five-and-a-half years.

Five days later I knew that Jim was dead. And God’s presence with me was not Jim’s presence. That was a terrible fact. God’s presence didn’t change the terrible fact that I was a widow, and I expected to be a widow until I died because I thought it was a miracle I got married the first time. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever get married a second time, let alone a third. God’s presence didn’t change the fact of my widowhood. Jim’s absence thrust me, forced me, hurried me to God, my hope and my only refuge.

Suffering is an irreplaceable medium through which I learned an indispensable truth: God is God.

And I learned in that experience who God is in a way I could never have known otherwise. And so I can say to you that suffering is an irreplaceable medium through which I learned an indispensable truth: God is God. Well, I still want to go back and say, “But Lord, what about that little child with spina bifida? What about those babies born terribly handicapped, with terrible suffering because their mothers were on cocaine or heroin or alcohol? What about my little Scottie dog, McDuff, who died of cancer at the age of six? What about the Lindbergh baby and the Stams who were beheaded? What about all of that?”

Mystery of Suffering

And I can’t answer your questions, or even my own, except in the words of Scripture, these words from the apostle Paul who knew the power of the cross of Jesus. And this is what he wrote:

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:18–19).

The creation was made the victim of frustration—all those animals, all those babies who have no guilt whatsoever—not by its own choice, but because of him who made it so; yet always there was hope. And this is the part that brings me immeasurable comfort: The universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and enter upon the liberty and splendor of the children of God.

Where does this idea of a loving God come from? It is not a deduction. It is not man so desperately wanting a god that he manufactures him in his mind. It’s he who was the Word before the foundation of the world, suffering as a lamb slain. And he has a lot up his sleeve that you and I haven’t the slightest idea about now. He’s told us enough so we can know that suffering is never for nothing.

Elisabeth Elliot was a Christian author and speaker. Her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca of eastern Ecuador.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/elisabeth-elliot-suffering-never-nothing/

GOOD

Article by Paul David Tripp

The word rolls off our tongue so easily.

Good.

“Wow, this cereal is so good!”
“We had a good time at the park.”
“Let me tell you where to get a good cup of coffee.”
“Sam is a really good husband.”

It’s become such a familiar and mundane word in our vocabulary that our mind doesn’t take the time to consider the content. So when we read that God is good, what’s meant to happen inside our soul doesn’t always happen.

“Truly God is good to Israel” - Psalm 73:1. When you read the words, “God is good,” your heart should be filled with many things: wonder, amazement, gratitude, and humility, to name a few.

But I am convinced that many of us live day after day with no wonderment whatsoever. We exist for weeks, maybe even months, without being amazed. We walk through life without an overwhelming sense of gratitude. We handle our situations, locations, and relationships with an attitude of entitlement.

This is the opposite of the way we were created to live. We were meant to live with eyes gazing upward and outward. We were designed to live with hearts that are searching and hungry (and being satisfied in God).

Every word we speak, every action we take, every decision we make, and every desire we entertain was meant to be influenced by our awe of God’s goodness.

But because of sin, few things impress us anymore. Or, at least, the wrong things are the ones that make the biggest impression.

When sin takes your amazement away, you’ll look for ways to fill the void. And if you’re not getting your sense of wonder vertically from the Creator, you will look for it somewhere in the creation.

Has it happened to you? Are you shopping for the buzz of wonder where it simply won’t be found?

That new restaurant will blow your taste buds away, but it won’t introduce you to the soul-satisfying wonder of God. That new car will transport you in luxury for a while, but it has no capacity whatsoever to transport your soul to a place of peace. Your new job title might impress your friends and family at first, but it cannot supply you with the glory that you’re seeking.

Asaph, the Psalmist, uncovers what we’re all looking for in a single word:

“Good”

We’re looking for pure, unadulterated, imperishable, unending, and unfailing good. Good that only God can provide. Good that we want and need.

Truly, God is good in every possible way. Good in:

Righteousness
Power
Grace
Faithfulness
Provision
Mercy
Holiness
Justice
Anger
Sovereignty

All his words are good. All his actions are good. When he gives, he is good. When he takes, he is good.

Nothing in creation is like him. Everything around us is flawed in some way. Even before the Fall, no glory in creation compared to the beauty of the Creator.

No, it’s not too good to be true: God is good all the time and in every way.

That should amaze you every single day!

God bless

Reflection Questions

1. What have you described as good this week?

2. Why did you believe it to be good?

3. In what ways does the goodness of this thing fail to measure up to the goodness of God?

4. At the same time, how does the goodness of that thing reveal the goodness of God?

5. How can you live with more wonder, amazement, gratitude, and humility this week, at the thought of the goodness of God?

Posted at: pauldavidtripp.com

Spurgeon's Top 4 New Year's Resolutions

Article by Brandon Freeman

Charles Spurgeon preached at least 14 sermons about the New Year in his 38 years at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Though many themes arise in his comments, belief is as pervasive as any.

“Oh, to believe from January to December!”

Spurgeon prayed and called for belief in every New Year's sermon—for Christians and non-Christians. He hoped that the New Year would bring forth the new mercy of the new birth.

“I pray God that a new year may not be begun by you in sin, but may God begin with you at the fall of the year, and bring you now to know his power to save.”

“Ere yet the midnight bell proclaims the birth of a new year, may you be born to God: at any rate once more shall the truth by which men are regenerated be lovingly brought under your attention.”  

“If this New Year shall be full of unbelief, it will be sure to be dark and dreary. If it be baptized into faith, it will be saturated with benediction. If we will believe our God as he deserves to be believed, our way will run along the still waters, and our rest will be in green pastures. Trusting in the Lord, we shall be prepared for trials, and shall even welcome them as black ships laden with bright treasures.”

Spurgeon's New Year's Resolutions

On the last evening of 1891 and first morning of 1892, Spurgeon gave two brief addresses. He hadn’t preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in several months because of sickness. He was a month away from death. In reflecting on 1891, he spoke about the God-intended lessons of the year, such as the “instability of earthly joys.” As friends came together again in the morning, he gazed upon the new year journey of 1892.

Spurgeon's New Year's resolutions involved seeing more than being.

“Let me tell you, in a few words, what I see as I look into the new year.”

So what did Spurgeon resolve himself to see? Here are the preacher's top four resolutions:

1. God’s Sovereignty

“I see a highway cast up by the foreknowledge and predestination of God. Nothing of the future is left to chance; nay, not the falling of a sparrow, nor the losing of a hair is left to haphazard; but all the events of life are arranged and appointed. Not only is every turn in the road marked in the divine map, but every stone on the road, and every drop of morning dew or evening mist that falls upon the grass which grows at the roadside. We are not to cross a trackless desert; the Lord has ordained our path in his infallible wisdom and infinite love.”

2. God’s Guidance

“I see, next, a Guide provided, as our companion along the way. To him we gladly say, ‘Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.’ He is waiting to go with us through every portion of the road. ‘The Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee.’ We are not left to pass through life as though it were a lone wilderness, a place of dragons and owls; for Jesus says, ‘I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.’”

3. God’s Strength

“Beside the way and the Guide, I perceive very clearly, by the eye of faith, strength for the journey provided. Throughout the whole distance of the year, we shall find halting-places, where we may rest and take refreshment, and then go on our way singing, “He restoreth my soul.” We shall have strength enough, but none to spare; and that strength will come when it is needed, and not before…God all-sufficient will not fail those who trust him. When we come to the place for shouldering the burden, we shall reach the place for receiving the strength. If it pleases the Lord to multiply our troubles from one to ten, he will increase our strength in the same proportion….Our lamps shall be trimmed as long as they shall need to burn. Let not our present weakness tempt us to limit the Holy One of Israel. There is a hospice on every pass over the Alps of life, and a bridge across every river of trial which crosses our way to the Celestial City. Holy angels are as numerous to guard us as fallen ones to tempt us. We shall never have a need for which our gracious Father has furnished no supply.”

4. God Glorified

“One thing more, and this is brightness itself: this year we trust we shall see God glorified by us and in us. If we realize our chief end, we reach our highest enjoyment. It is the delight of the renewed heart to think that God can get glory out of such poor creatures as we are….We hope that God has been in some measure glorified in some of us during the past year, but we trust he will be glorified by us far more in the year which now begins….We wish our whole life to be a sacrifice; an altar of incense continually smoking with sweet perfume unto the Most High. Oh, to be borne through the year on the wings of praise to God.”

Only God Knows the Future

On the morning of January 1, 1892, Spurgeon confessed, “We know nothing of the events which lie before us: of life or death to ourselves or to our friends, or of changes of position, or of sickness or health.”

Though Spurgeon didn't see much of 1892, he put his trust in the fact that God knows the future. This truth blessed him and made him dependent on God in all things.

Whatever is before us in 2018, let's rest in God’s sovereignty, lean fully on God’s guidance, rely on God’s strength, and live for God’s glory. As Spurgeon said:

“Throughout this year may the Lord be with you! Amen.”

Originally published at The Spurgeon Center Blog

Brandon Freeman

Brandon Freeman is a member of Liberty Baptist and a Master of Divinity student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies from Ouachita Baptist University. He is married to Kaylee Freeman. You can follow Brandon on Twitter at @brandon_free_. 

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/spurgeons-top-4-new-years-resolutions

10 Resolutions for Mental Health

Article by John Piper

Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org

On October 22, 1976, Clyde Kilby, who is now with Christ in heaven, gave an unforgettable lecture. I went to hear him that night because I loved him. He had been one of my professors in English Literature at Wheaton College. He opened my eyes to more of life than I knew could be seen. Oh, what eyes he had!

He was like his hero, C.S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with Clyde Kilby, Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

“Stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, and start drinking in the remedies of God in nature.”

That night Dr. Kilby, who had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye, pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naïve. He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ. But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things. He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer them for your joy.

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

8. I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.

Are We Really in Danger of Making an Idol of the Family?

Article by Kevin DeYoung

“One of the acceptable idolatries among evangelical Christians is the idolatry of the family.”

That’s what I tweeted last week. To be honest, I didn’t think much about it. I’ve said similar things in sermons for the past decade, and I’ve tweeted similar things before. But this time—I was later told by friends who track with Twitter more closely than I do—the statement took on a life of its own as this one sentence was liked 1,600 times and bandied about on social media for the next few days. Unknown to me, I was (depending on who you ask) suddenly saying something wonderfully courageous or terribly misguided.

So let me clarify.

As far as I can tell, I first uttered this statement (or something close to it) in a 2010 sermon on Mark 3:31-35 entitled Jesus’s Real Family. The tweet itself comes from a more recent sermon on the miracle at Cana in Galilee. My point in both cases was that a commitment to family must not come before a commitment to God.

I began the Mark 3 sermon by noting two competing notions of the family in our culture: family as straight jacket (as in the 1998 film Pleasantville) or family as center (as in the 2000 film The Family Man). In one view, the family keeps you from everything you really want. In the other view, the family promises to give you everything you really want. Jesus promoted neither of these views. There’s no doubt the second view is much more common among Christians, and it does overlap with some Christian virtues. But it too gets some crucial things wrong when it comes to the family. I argued back in 2010 (and would argue the same today) that, according to the Bible, the family is good, necessary, and foundational, but not ultimate.

The Mark 3 sermon focused on those two words—“not ultimate”—because that was Jesus’s emphasis in verses 31-35. In Jesus’s view of the family: family ties don’t get you in, family doesn’t come first, and God’s family is open to all (that is, open to everyone who does the will of God and takes Jesus on his own terms).

There are certainly ways in which speaking of “the idolatry of the family” would be a step in the wrong direction. I’m happily married with (soon) eight children. I am most definitely a family man (and have a 15-passenger van to prove it). I would never suggest that the real problem in the world today is that parents love their kids too much or that churches are doing too much to support the family or that what really ails our culture are too many high-functioning families. In a world hellbent on redefining marriage and undermining the fundamental importance of the family, Christians would do well to honor and support all those trying to nurture healthy families.

And yet, virtually every pastor in America can tell you stories of churchgoers who have functionally displaced God in favor of the family.

• Parents who go missing from church for entire seasons because of Billy’s youth soccer league or Sally’s burgeoning volleyball career.

• Committed Christians who would never dare invite a college student or international over for Thanksgiving or Christmas because “the holidays are for family.”

• Longtime members who can’t be bothered to serve on Sundays or reach out to visitors because the whole family always gathers at grandma’s for lunch.

• Kids and grandkids who think they should be accepted into membership or be in line for baptism because their parents and grandparents have been pillars of the church.

• Churches that implicitly (or explicitly) communicate that marriage is a necessary step of spiritual maturity.

• Christians of all kinds who will jettison their theology of marriage or their convictions about church discipline once their children come out of the closet or embrace other kinds of (unrepentant) sin.

The idolatry of the family can be a real problem, either from the church that ignores singles and gears everything toward married couples with children, or from the individual whose practical commitments underscore the unfortunate reality that blood is usually thicker than theology.

God has given us many gifts in this life. Money is a gift. Sex is a gift. Work is a gift. Athletic ability and musical skill are gifts; so are intelligence and beauty. No one doubts that all of these good things can be idols. Just like the family. The conjugal family—one man and one woman whose covenant union produces offspring—is profoundly good, a necessary and foundational element of God’s creational design. But it is not ultimate. At least not if we are defining family as the natural relationships we have by marriage and blood, rather than the supernatural relationships we have by the blood of Christ.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/really-danger-making-idol-family/

Living with Reverent Fear

Article by Kevin Carson

How do respond when you pass a police officer on the highway?
Does your personal awareness of your driving change when a police car pulls in behind you while driving?

If you are like me, I quickly check everything – after I take my foot off the gas pedal. If the police car is following me, I tend to turn blinkers on sooner, make sure I have a safe distance to the car in front of me, carefully stay between the lines, not get distracted by stuff going on inside the car, and watch my speed. The funny part is – all of this even when I know I am absolutely doing nothing wrong.

Why do I respond like this? Because I am aware of the presence of the police officer.

If this has ever happened to you, then you understand living with reverent fear. That is good because we are instructed to do so with God.

God deserves our greatest respect.

Think through my paraphrase of Peter’s words:

17 Since you call on Him as your heavenly Father, the impartial Judge who judges according to each one’s works (or conduct), live each day with reverent fear, that is, holy awe and reverence, throughout your time on earth. (1 Peter 1:17)

Here Peter instructs us to live every day with deep respect for God. As you go about your day, you should have a reverential awe for God. In the Bible this is known as the fear of God.

How can you maintain the fear of God?

This is where the illustration of the police officer comes in handy. Just as when you become aware of the police officer it changes your self-awareness, in a similar way, as you stay aware of God’s presence, it will change your spiritual self-awareness. Seek to keep God’s presence on your mind throughout the day. As you do, you will maintain better respect for God and enjoy His presence more.

 Posted at: https://kevincarson.com/2018/11/05/living-with-reverent-fear-1-minute-mondays/

When the Future Feels Impossible

Article by Vaneetha Rendall Risner

A dear friend of mine is walking through a heartbreaking illness.

When I heard the news, I was shaken. I, who write about suffering, had no words to offer. What could I say anyway? Words seemed inadequate. Trite. Even condescending. How do you encourage someone who is beginning a devastating journey into the unknown?

It takes me a few days to process what’s happening. Our friends are all struggling to process it too. As we pray, we try to remind ourselves of the truths we know. Bedrock truths that have carried us through our own grief. Truths that every Christian can hold onto. Truths that will bear the weight of our sorrow.

He Controls the World

First and foremost, God is sovereign. Nothing that happens to us is a surprise to him. Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father’s will (Matthew 10:29). On the contrary, everything that we face has been put there with a purpose. We can trust that it is the best for us. And hard as it is to understand, the struggles that land on our doorstep are also for the good of our family, for our friends, for everyone we love, if they love God.

“Everything that we face has been put there with a purpose.”

Yet even as I write this, thinking that our suffering ultimately will be best for our loved ones sounds crazy. Guaranteeing it sounds impossible. But the God of the universe, who keeps the earth spinning on its axis, who tells the ocean to come this far and no farther (Job 38:11), who commands the wind and the waves (Mark 4:41), who clothes the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:28–30), and who has numbered the hairs on our head (Luke 12:7) can ensure that all things work together for good for those who love him (Romans 8:28).

God loves us. He watched his Son die a horrible death, separated from him in his last hours, so that we would never be separated from him. He wants to be with us, to take care of us, and to give us good gifts. How could he, who did not spare his own Son, not give us all things (Romans 8:32)?

He Walks with Us

God has numbered our days. All the days ordained for us were written in his book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16). Nothing can cut short our lives. No one will live one second less than God determined before the foundation of the world.

God walks with us every minute of our lives. Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). God says to Joshua, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). When we walk through the rivers, they will not overwhelm us, because the Lord walks through them with us (Isaiah 43:2).

We never drink the bitter cup or endure any pain without him.

He Will Come Through

“We never drink the bitter cup or endure any pain without him.”

Christ is with us and will give us the comfort and strength we need each day. As Deuteronomy 33:25 assures us, “As your days, so shall your strength be.”

Octavius Winslow, a preacher in England in the 1800’s, reminds us that God gives us more than we need in our hour of suffering. He says, “Has not the Lord always been better than all your troubling anticipations, quelling your fears, reassuring your doubting mind, and hearing you gently and safely through the hour of suffering which you dreaded? Then trust him now! Never, never will he forsake you!”

Yet despite God’s past faithfulness, one of our biggest concerns is whether the Lord will be with us in future trials. John Ross MacDuff, a Scottish contemporary of Winslow, understands this fear. He says,

God does not give grace till the hour of trial comes. But when it does come, the amount of grace and the nature of the special grace required is vouchsafed. My soul, do not dwell with painful apprehension on the future. Do not anticipate coming sorrows; perplexing thyself with the grace needed for future emergencies; tomorrow will bring its promised grace along with tomorrow’s trials . . . and the strength which the hour of trial brings often makes the Christian a wonder to himself!

No Matter What Happens

We don’t need to understand now how we will face the future. God will give us all we need every day we have breath. And when we breathe our last on earth, the Lord will bring us safely to heaven so that we can enjoy him forever.

“We don’t need to understand now how we will face the future.”

One day our eyes will close in death and open to the breathtaking reality that we are in the presence of our Savior. We will feel more alive, more vibrant, more energetic, and more joyful than we ever have on earth. The God whom we have known but never seen will be before us. We will behold his glory with our own eyes, with no distortion or filter. Our souls will be completely at rest and at peace, filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. It will be glorious. That is our hope. Our promise. Our anchor.

These are the truths we as Christians base our lives on. They are sure and unchanging promises, guaranteed by the One who holds the universe. No matter what happens, we will never walk alone.

Vaneetha Rendall Risner is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to Desiring God. She blogs at danceintherain.com, although she doesn’t like rain and has no sense of rhythm. Vaneetha is married to Joel and has two daughters, Katie and Kristi. She and Joel live in Raleigh, North Carolina. Vaneetha is the author of the book The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-the-future-feels-impossible

The God Who Is Generous

By Tim Keller

Excerpt from “The Prodigal Prophet”

God’s compassion is not something abstract but con­crete. It plays out not just in his attitude but in his actions toward human beings. It is intriguing that he speaks of these violent, sinful pagans as people “who do not know their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11). That is an exceedingly generous way to look at Nineveh! It’s a figure of speech that means they are spiritually blind, they have lost their way, and they haven’t the first clue as to the source of their prob­lems or what to do about them. Obviously, God’s threat to destroy Nineveh shows that this blindness and ignorance is ultimately no excuse for the evil they have done, but it shows remarkable sympathy and understanding.

There are many people who have no idea what they should be living for, or the meaning of their lives, nor have they any guide to tell right from wrong. God looks down at people in that kind of spiritual fog, that spiritual stupidity, and he doesn’t say, “You idi­ots.” When we look at people who have brought trou­ble into their lives by their own foolishness, we say things like “Serves them right” or we mock them on social media: “What kind of imbecile says something like this?” When we see people of the other political party defeated, we just gloat. This is all a way of de­taching ourselves from them. We distance ourselves from them partly out of pride and partly because we don’t want their unhappiness to be ours. God doesn’t do that. Real compassion, the voluntary attachment of our heart to others, means the sadness of their con­dition makes us sad; it affects us. That is deeply un­comfortable, but it is the character of compassion.

There are many people who have no idea what they should be living for, or the meaning of their lives, nor have they any guide to tell right from wrong.

God’s evident generosity of spirit toward the city could not be a greater indictment of Jonah’s ungenerous narrowness, what John Calvin calls his greatest sin, namely that he was “very inhuman” in his attitude to­ward Nineveh.

“They Don’t Know What They Are Doing”

If you are acquainted at all with the New Testament, it is impossible to read about this generous God with­out remembering Jesus. God is saying to Jonah, “I am weeping and grieving over this city — why aren’t you? If you are my prophet, why don’t you have my compas­sion?” Jonah did not weep over the city, but Jesus, the true prophet, did.

Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on the last week of his life. He knew he would suffer at the hands of the leaders and the mob of this city, but instead of being full of wrath or absorbed with self-pity, like Jonah, when he “saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace — but now it is hidden from your eyes . . . because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you’” (Luke 19:41– 2:44). “Jerusa­lem, Jerusalem . . . how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).

On the cross, Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” (Luke 23:34). Jesus is saying, “Father, they are torturing and killing me. They are denying and betraying me. But none of them, not even the Pharisees, really completely understand what they are doing.” We can only look in wonder on such a heart. He does not say they are not guilty of wrongdoing. They are — that is why they need forgiveness. Yet Jesus is also remembering that they are confused, somewhat clueless, and not really able to recognize the horror of what they are doing. Here is a perfect heart — perfect in generous love — not excusing, not harshly condemning. He is the weeping God of Jonah 4 in human form.

Over a century ago the great Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield wrote a remarkable scholarly essay called “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” where he considered every recorded instance in the gospels that described the emotions of Christ. He concluded that by far the most typical statement of Jesus’s emotional life was the phrase “he was moved with compassion,” a Greek phrase that literally means he was moved from the depths of his being. The Bible records Jesus Christ weeping twenty times for every one time it notes that he laughs. He was a man of sorrows, and not because he was naturally depressive. No, he had enormous joy in the Holy Spirit and in his Father (cf. Luke 10:21), and yet he grieved far more than he laughed because his compassion connected him with us. Our sadness makes him sad; our pain brings him pain.

By far the most typical statement of Jesus’s emotional life was the phrase “he was moved with compassion.”

Jesus is the prophet Jonah should have been. Yet, of course, he is infinitely more than that. Jesus did not merely weep for us; he died for us. Jonah went outside the city, hoping to witness its condemnation, but Jesus Christ went outside the city to die on a cross to ac­complish its salvation.

Here God says he is grieving over Nineveh, which means he is letting the evil of the city weigh on him. In some mysterious sense, he is suffering because of its sin. When God came into the world in Jesus Christ and went to the cross, however, he didn’t experience only emotional pain but every kind of pain in un­imaginable dimensions. The agonizing physical pain of the crucifixion included torture, slow suffocation, and excruciating death. Even beyond that, when Jesus hung on the cross, he underwent the infinite and most unfathomable pain of all — separation from God and all love, eternal alienation, the wages of sin. He did it all for us, out of his unimaginable compassion.

Reprinted from THE PRODIGAL PROPHET: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy, by Timothy Keller. Published on October 2, 2018 by Viking, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © Timothy Keller, 2018.

Posted at: https://medium.com/redeemer-city-to-city/the-god-who-is-generous-7e83d26406f1