Learn to Love All That's Good

Article by Hannah Anderson

Ask ten different Christians to define discernment and you’ll likely get ten different answers.

For some, discernment is the ability to uncover scandal or spot doctrinal error, the stuff of church members who stand ready with a critique of the pastor’s sermon. For others, discernment is a kind of sixth sense, a gut instinct that kicks in when you need to make an important decision. If you are a discerning person, you’ll “just know” what to do. Still others see discernment as the ability to decode the hidden agenda and secret meaning behind seemingly innocent things — things like the design of a coffee cup or a holiday colloquialism.

Outside the Christian subculture, however, discernment carries a much simpler, and more positive, meaning. We say that a museum curator has a discerning eye or that an award-winning chef has a discerning palate. What we mean is that a person has skill in a certain field or has developed a refined taste through education and experience. A discerning person is someone who has an appreciation for goodness.

Interestingly enough, Scripture affirms a similar understanding of discernment in Philippians 1:9–10, where Paul prays that the believers’ love “may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent.” While a discerning person will be able to identify what is not good, he can do so only if he has developed a taste for what is good. He can spot a fake Renoir because he knows what a real one looks like.

How to Become Discerning

So how can we grow in our understanding of goodness? How can we become discerning people?

If you ask a museum curator how he developed his eye for quality, he’ll likely tell you about his formal education. He’ll also tell you about how experience and contact with masterworks cultivated his sensibility. A chef might tell you about attending culinary school or working under an award-winning mentor. But she’ll also tell you about her years working in the kitchen and the countless dishes she’s tasted. While discernment may eventually come to feel like a sixth sense, discernment develops through education, experience, and quite simply, exposure to goodness.

When we consider how we develop spiritual discernment — the kind that Paul talks about in Philippians 1 — the process is similar. In order to grow in our appreciation for goodness, we must be transformed “by the renewal of [our] mind[s], that by testing [we] may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Just as a chef’s palate grows through both schooling and experience, we grow in discernment both by educating ourselves in goodness and by encountering it firsthand.

This need for firsthand experience is something of what Paul is getting at in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Having opened his letter to the Philippians with a prayer for discernment, Paul now closes it with practical advice. Do you want to be able to approve what’s excellent? Seek whatever is true. Do you want to be able to navigate the world with wisdom? Seek whatever is honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. Do you want to become a discerning person? Seek whatever is good.

Good Gifts from a Good God

But even as we begin to understand discernment as a thirst for goodness, even as we begin to desire discernment for ourselves, we might remain wary of Paul’s instruction. For some of us, it might feel dangerous to give ourselves to actively seeking good things. After all, even good things have the potential to distract us from what really matters. If we give ourselves to whatever is good, won’t our eyes become focused on this life and miss heaven’s priorities?

While it’s true that our hearts quickly go astray, the problem is not with God’s good gifts, but our own lack of goodness. And while it may seem counterintuitive, God actually intends for his good gifts to be a means of changing our hearts to love him as we should.

After praying that believers would learn to approve what is excellent, Paul continues by explaining that this process will lead to our being made “pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:10–11). In other words, something about seeking whatever is true, honorable, just, lovely, pure, and commendable leads to our good and God’s glory.

To understand Paul’s logic, we must remember that God himself defines what is good. Goodness is not an abstract or culturally defined category. It is not simply what we like or what we deem to be valuable. Instead, something is good if it aligns with God’s character. So when we seek whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable, we are not seeking whatever we want. We’re seeking things, people, and experiences that reflect his glory and show us what he is like. And in seeking him, we will be transformed.

Settling for Something Less

The genius of Paul’s instruction in Philippians 4:8 is that focusing our hearts and minds on goodness focuses our hearts and minds on God. Just as encountering a masterpiece shapes and cultivates a curator’s eye, encountering God’s nature can shape and cultivate our own taste for goodness. But seeking virtue does something else: it confronts our own lack of goodness.

We commonly read Philippians 4:8 as a filter for choosing what to take into our lives. Learning to seek whatever is true means evaluating messages to determine whether they are both factually and ethically accurate. If an article comes across my social-media feed, for example, seeking whatever is true forces me to test it before I accept it. Is it accurate? Does it portray the facts honestly, or does it bend the truth to fit a certain bias or narrative?

But seeking whatever is true also means testing my own honesty as a reader. Am I reading this article with integrity? How are my presuppositions or group loyalties blinding me to what the author says? Suddenly my own motives, biases, and emotional responses are laid bare, measured against the standard of God’s own truthfulness. And in that moment, I have the opportunity to align my heart with God’s character or to settle for something less than truth.

The problem, of course, is that too often we settle. We convince ourselves that we are seeking truth when we really just want to use facts as weapons against our ideological opponents.

Instead of seeking truth, we settle for winning arguments.
Instead of seeking honor, we settle for fame.
Instead of seeking justice, we settle for being right.
Instead of seeking purity, we settle for legalistic boundaries.
Instead of seeking beauty, we settle for sentimentality.
Instead of seeking what is commendable, we settle for hot takes.

Like C.S. Lewis noted in “The Weight of Glory,” we are half-hearted creatures whose desire for goodness is not too strong but too weak. Instead of becoming discerning, we remain ignorant children, content to “go on making mud pies in a slum because [we] cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (26). And in missing the sea, we miss the God who made it.

The God Who Makes Us Good

But even here, a good God has made a way. The good news of the gospel is that even poor, ignorant children can be made wise. The good news of the gospel is that a good God sent his good Son to make us good once again.

When the Scripture invites us to seek whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable, it is inviting us to discover a God who himself is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. And when we encounter this God, we will be changed. Like a refiner’s fire burning away the dross, he will purify us to make us like himself. And out of his abundant goodness, he will teach us to love all that’s good.

Hannah Anderson (@sometimesalight) lives in the haunting Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She spends her days working beside her husband in rural ministry, caring for their three children, and scratching out odd moments to write at her blog Sometimes a Light. She is the author of All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/learn-to-love-all-thats-good?fbclid=IwAR09XPSOc5wEOgtSghp_3UmAGz1sAH-FrlAMa6zvt7GIt9_3S61keiEf9vg

Do You Want to Be Happy?

Article by Rick Thomas

Show me a happy person. Are they generous? Probably. Show me a discontented person? Are they selfish? Probably. There is a circular Bible logic that goes like this: God loves happy givers, and if God loves on a giver, the giver is happy.

It does not matter where you jump into that circular sentence, all of the words connect to each other: God-Love-Happy-Giver. There is a reason for this: when we give generously we are living out who we are in Christ–we are emulating the Lord.

Because God is a generous giver, as the gospel implies, it only makes sense that Christians want to be generous too. Being generous is more than giving your money away. It is giving your life away, which is the gospel. Jesus Christ gave His life away. Happiness comes when we model the self-sacrifice of the Savior by giving our lives away.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. – 2 Corinthians 8:9

How generous are you? How do you proactively think about and plan to give your life away? Here is a short list of things generous people give away.

• They give away their money.

• They give their love away.

• They give their encouragement away.

• They give their Christian example away.

• They give their joy away.

• They give their kind words away.

• They give their time away.

• They give their homes away (hospitality).

The Point Is – “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” – 2 Corinthians 9:6-7

Flow-Through

In our organization, we use the term “flow-through” to describe the process of being a middleman or distributor of what others give to us. For example, each Friday evening we go to our local Panera Bread (sandwich shop) and pick up all of their leftover bread.

Each year we receive more than $30,000 (retail value) of bread products. We bring the bread home, separate it, and distribute it to various people or organizations. We’ve been doing this since 2010. The reason for our bread distribution is multi-faceted. For example,

• We do it because we can.

• We do it to model the generosity of our Savior.

• We do it to put the gospel on display in as many places as possible.

• We do it to emulate for our children the giving of time, effort, and bread.

• We do it to feed those who need God’s kindness through the provision of food.

The bread is an example of what “flow-through” means. Someone gives to us and we, in turn, give to others. We’re merely the coupler or the connector that joins the giver (Panera) with the receiver (those in need).

We trust that Panera Bread will give us bread each Friday evening. Panera Bread believes that we will do what we said we would do–give it to others. This concept is analogous to the Christian life.

• You trust God that He will provide for you (Matthew 6:33).

• God believes that you will give away what He gives to you (Luke 6:38).

This worldview is not a romantic Hollywood pay-it-forward notion. This idea is about incarnating the Savior before a dying world who need examples of the practical gospel in action. It is about receiving to give so the name of God can be made famous.

God Loves Generous Givers

The Father is asking you to trust Him by giving your life away. If you believe Him this way, He will bless you–not so you can have more for yourself, but so you will have more to give away. Will you trust Him by sharing what He has given to you?

These promises are not about the prosperity gospel, but about God blessing us so we can bless others. You give a lot. He provides a lot. It’s not about personal gain. You are the coupler, the “flow-through principle.” What are you giving away?

• Your time, money, wisdom, care, joy?

• What are you exporting to others, to your spouse, to your children, to your church, to your neighborhood, to your world?

God gives to generous givers so they will have more to export to others. Christians are in the import/export business. We receive it so we can give it to others. This worldview has always been the case in God’s mind.

Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you. – Deuteronomy 16:17

Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. – Proverbs 3:9-10

One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. – Proverbs 11:24

Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor. – Proverbs 22:9

Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse. – Proverbs 28:27

Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. – Malachi 3:10

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. – Luke 6:38

He blesses generosity by personally enriching you so you can meet the needs of others so they will glorify Him. Test yourself on this matter.

• Do you give generously?

• Do you give willingly?

• Do you give cheerfully?

• Do you give carefully?

• Do you give in a premeditative way?

Do Not Be Anxious: It’s the Gospel

Did you know that God cares more about you than about birds (Matthew 6:26)? No, really, did you know this? If so, let me ask you this question:

• Do you become anxious about giving?

• Is there a low-level fear-factor going on in your heart when it comes to giving?

If so, you may be aware that God cares more about you than birds, but you don’t believe it at the functional level of your thinking. It is one thing to know something, but another thing to practice it. Bible knowledge only has value when it becomes a practice in our lives primarily.

Will you trust God in the matter of giving yourself and your things away for the glory of His name? Don’t be anxious about your life. God cares more for you than the birds that fly over your head. Live like sons and daughters of your heavenly Father. Trust Him. It is through your giving that God is glorified. Let me ask you this: What is your first thought when it comes to giving?

• What will it cost me?

• How will it help others?

If you’re thinking like a gospelized-individual, your eye is on what your giving will do, not what it will cost. As far as God is concerned, giving is not about the thing offered, but about helping people in need. Giving is the most explicit way we can model the gospel in our lives, and when we do this, you are putting God on display.

And You Benefit, Too

In Philippians, we learn about a man who gave His all for the good of others, and in the end, He was highly exalted because of His generous giving.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2:9-11

Quite simply, this is how the gospel works. I’ve already shared Luke 6:38:  “For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” But you say, “I don’t give to get.”

That’s fine, but that does not stop God from blessing you for your generosity toward others. You might not jump into the air just so you can come back down to the ground, but that does not matter. If you jump into the air, you will return to earth. It’s a law. If you give, you will receive. It is a promise from God.

I’m glad that you’re trying to be humble about your generosity, but the fact remains that God loves a generous giver and if you are liberal in your giving, expect the love of God to shower you.

This response from the Lord is how it works. One of the sadder commentaries about selfish people is that they spend their entire lives trying to satisfy themselves and never come to understand this Bible truth: if you give, you will get.

I tell selfish husbands this regularly. I try to explain to them that if they would give kindness, communication, love, affection, repentance, confession, forgiveness, or the other cheek to their wives, that they will get what they want. (And the same applies for wives.)

What do they want? They want a loving wife who respects them. It’s as easy as pie: you give, and it will return to you. (And if she does not give, the Lord will bless you because you’re honoring Him regardless of how she responds.) It’s not complicated folks. Trust God. Give your life away and watch God bless you in ways that you could have never imagined, even if the “return” is different from what you expected.

Plan to Receive from God

If your motive is to give your life away, you will be a happy person. If your motivation is to get, you will never be satisfied. The gospel is not unidirectional, as though all you do is give. The generous giver is lavished upon by the Lord–the giver becomes a receiver by default. But you must remember the order: you give first and then you receive.

Christ gave and then He received. Two people were blessed–Christ and others, but the divine order was to provide something before you benefit from the Lord’s favor. I like the way Paul said it in Philippians. Other than Christ, he was one of the most outrageous and generous givers in the Bible.

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. – Philippians 4:11-13

The secret to happiness is to give your life away. The secret to misery is to hoard what was given to you, while seeking more ways to gain more, for self-serving and self-promoting purposes.

You will be more blessed if you choose to give as the first call to action, rather than wanting to receive (Acts 20:35). The reason for this is because God loves a generous giver. In what ways do you need to be more generous in your giving?

• Do you need to give more money away?

• Do you need to give more time away?

• Do you need to give more repentance away?

• Do you need to give more forgiveness away?

• Do you need to give more wisdom away?

• Do you need to give more (fill in the blank)?

What is it that you are holding onto because you’re afraid to let it go? Whatever that is, I appeal to you to become a cheerful giver. Lay it down for the glory of God and the benefit of others. Do you want to be happy? There is only one way: you must give up your life in the specific way in which God is speaking to you right now.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. – Mark 10:45

Why are you living? What is your purpose in life? Do you wanna be happy? The gospelized individual is here to serve others. Blessed is the man who chooses to give his life away generously.

Posted at: https://rickthomas.net/do-you-wanna-be-happy/

Four Decisions That Will Make Change Possible

Article by Kevin Carson

What is your goal for change this new year? Ten of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions are: lose weight, exercise more, read more, get organized, save more money or spend less money, learn a new skill or hobby, live life to the fullest, spend more time with family and friends, travel more, and quit smoking. Possibly you have one or more of those, or your goals for 2019 may be much different. For sure, you need at least one or two goals for your walk with God. (For setting goals spiritually, check out thislinkto help you think through it.)

Many people desire change but then do a poor job ever changing. This may be for any number of reasons. In a previous blog where I was helping you think through spiritual goals, I listed four decisions you can make that will make change more possible. In this blog, I will better explain those four decisions to help make change possible for you.

Choose One Thing at a Time

First, choose one thing at a time upon which primarily to work. I’m sure your list may include several key items this year that you would like to change. However, you have limited time and energy. If for instance, things are connected, then that may be fine to choose more than one (i.e., diet plan and exercise). Generally speaking though, you will want to focus on a limited number of things.

Regarding limited time and energy, consider two different kinds of shotgun shells. If you shoot birdshot (i.e., used for clay pigeons), there can be up to 848 lead pellets per ounce. However, if you shoot a slug, there is only one piece of lead. For both, the shell will have the same amount of gun powder. Therefore, you take the same amount of force and spread it over 800 ways or 1 way and which one will do the most damage to the target? Of course it is the one way.

In a similar way, this works for everyday change as well. You only have a limited amount of energy. If you limit your goals to one or a couple at a time, this will help you focus and not become overwhelmed. Therefore, you will need to determine where to start and why. What makes one thing more important than another? Begin with what is most important. As you see change, then begin to focus on the next most important thing.

Get Help

Second, get help. Ask one or two godly friends to help you. These are the people who will help keep your feet to the fire. When you are discouraged, you will need someone to help you keep going. When you have questions, you will need someone to ask. When you hit a slow spot, you will need someone who has been there before or who is willing to go with you there now. As you choose this person(s), recognize how important it is to pick someone who will be faithful to help you and who is wise. In some instances, one such person could be someone who you hire like a trainer.

Determine to meet or at least talk regularly to keep you accountable to your goal. At least once a week is recommended. Although, there may be times when you need someone to help you walk through an issue much more than once per week. You may need daily calls plus a meeting. Any combination of communication options work (i.e., phone, text, face-to-face, social media, etc.).

Make a Plan

Third, make a plan. Often the best intentions go undone because no plan is ever made. Instead, make a plan and begin. What are the logical steps to doing what you want to do? Begin to think through these. Make a list to help you sort out the options. Ask a friend to help you think through this. Without a plan, it is just a good intention. With a plan, it can result in change.

You begin with the first step. The first step to life change is key. Then the next. It takes over step at a time. Without taking the first step, then you are standing. Standing is a sign of intention but not of walking. The goal is to help you walk through life with this new habit that helps you change.

Remember the Gospel

Four, remember – do not forget – the Gospel. God provides you the hope and real possibility to change through Christ. You both have the possibility to change and the power to change in Christ (Phil 3-4). There are two key issues regarding the Gospel that you need to keep in mind as you seek to grow.

You are righteous in Christ: “…not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ” (Phil 3:9). You are righteous in Christ. What you do does not make you righteous. Rule keeping and rule following does not make you righteous. You are righteous in Christ. Therefore, God accepts you and is with you as you seek to change.

You have resurrection power in Christ: “My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection…” (Phil 3:10). God gives you power in the Spirit to do those things that bring His honor. Regarding contentment, Paul writes, “I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). What is true for contentment is also true for every other good thing that you try. God gives you strength to do it in your heart. Of course this does not reference the ability to physically do things that you can’t – such as go win a basketball game or run a marathon. What it does mean is that God grants you the internal strength to accomplish those things that please and honor Him.

Change Is Possible

Change is possible! This is great news. In a matter of time, you will rejoice that you chose the thing most needing changed, asked a partner to walk with you along your journey, made and implemented a plan, and that the Gospel helped you as you preached it to yourself.

Posted at: https://kevincarson.com/2019/01/02/four-decisions-that-will-make-change-possible/

I Do Not Aspire to Be a ‘Regular Guy’

Article by John Piper: Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org

When my soul is hungry for deep help from God; when I am blank before the word of God, and ache for someone to show me the greatness and glory of Christ; when I feel a longing for heaven, and desire a soul-brother who shares this passion; when I am full of fresh fruit from God’s word, and yearn for a fellow lover of Scripture, I do not look for a “regular guy.”

And since that’s not what my soul longs for, it’s not what I long to be.

What My Soul Needs

In my deepest need or deepest joy, I do not say, “What I need now is a regular guy.” At the best and worst moments of my life I do not say, “What my soul needs just now is a regular guy.”

I am far more likely to look for someone who eats grasshoppers, wears animal skins, and lives in the desert. I don’t care if he’s never seen a movie or driven a car or owned a cell phone.

What my soul needs is not the ordinary. I’ve got plenty of that inside of me already. I don’t need more “regular.” I need something irregular, unusual. Something unusually wise and deep and strong and pure and great. Something this world does not offer. I long for a person who has seen God and been forever put out of sync with this world. I long for a person who can tell me what God has shown him — something that is really there in the word of God, something that few see, something solid and glorious.

Too Heavenly Minded?

Yes, I know. It is possible to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use. My problem is: I’ve never met one of those people. And I suspect, if I met one, the problem would not be that his mind is full of the glories of heaven, but that his mind is empty and his mouth is full of platitudes.

I suspect that for every professing believer who is useless in this world because of other-worldliness, there are a hundred who are useless because of this-worldliness.

And yes, I know that our aim is not to be weird. We don’t need more weird people in our lives. We are supposed to let our light shine before others that they may give glory to our Father. But in my experience, shining with supernatural, divine light from another world is the very essence of non-regular.

And yes, not aspiring to be a regular guy comes close to the vanity of needing to be somebody. Abstaining from the ordinary is no proof of being spiritual, and very likely a sign of egotism. “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me” (Psalm 131:1).

To Be Sculpted

Yes. Yes. Yes. All that. God help us. But still my perplexed and longing soul needs something more than a “regular guy.” It needs one

• who loves God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength (Matthew 22:37),

• who loves Jesus more than mother or father or son or daughter (Matthew 10:37),

• who knows he has died and is seated with Christ in heaven (Colossians 3:3),

• who sets his mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2),

• who is not conformed to this world (Romans 12:2),

• who does not love this world (1 John 2:15),

• who flees youthful passions and pursues righteousness, faith, love, and peace (2 Timothy 2:22),

• who seeks understanding like silver and searches for it as for hidden treasures (Proverbs 2:4),

• who does not account his life of any value nor as precious to himself (Acts 20:24),

• who is filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18),

• who rejoices when others revile him and persecute him (Matthew 5:11–12),

• who prays without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17),

• who dies every day (1 Corinthians 15:31), and

• who boils in spirit (Romans 12:11).

O Lord, have mercy on us! Stun us. Sculpt us with your hammer and chisel till we look and live like holy, helpful, happy aliens. Guard us from the aspiration of regular worldly cool. Put us out of sync with every secular and religious sin. Get us ready to meet you without fear, without shame, without surprise.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/i-do-not-aspire-to-be-a-regular-guy?fbclid=IwAR31mkqEV4J9RBsn3LMt98tN7cg_Au6_PMH9Z4KaNMyyiRoID6K__5i8tpA

Exalting God by Humbling Ourselves

Article by Al Mohler

God’s Abundant Physical Provisions 

In his magisterial work The Institutes of the Christian Religion, the sixteenth-century reformer John Calvin remarked that we can never truly know ourselves without first coming to know the character of God. As Calvin famously stated, “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” God is our starting point in every theological and spiritual endeavor. God’s character and glory are our first frame of reference.

Up to this point, the Lord’s Prayer has revealed a great deal about the character of God. We have seen that for those who are in Christ, God is a caring Father. Jesus emphasized God’s transcendence and omnipotence by observing that he is “in heaven.” He established the worth of God and the value of his glory by teaching that God’s name should be hallowed. Finally, Jesus emphasizes that God is king–the sovereign Lord who will bring his kingdom to every corner of the earth.

Indeed, the first lines of the Lord’s Prayer paint an awesome portrait of God. In light of these truths, Jesus’ subsequent turn to consider our own needs–“Give us this day our daily bread”–serves as a clear and unmistakable reminder that we are merely creatures; God is the creator. We are needy; God is the provider.

God has designed humans to be dependent. From the moment of birth, we rely on the kindness of others to meet our needs. We need our parents to feed us, dress us, and even train us to sleep. Even as we grow older, we remain tremendously needy. We depend on others for relationships. We need communities in which to live and work. We depend on the government for safety and security. In other words, there is no such thing as the “self-made man.” We have no sufficiency in and of ourselves, and we delude ourselves by believing we can be truly independent of others. Luther once reminisced that our physical needs remind us that we are but creatures composed of dirt. Our lives are frail, fragile, and wholly dependent on the goodness of God.

The petition “give us this day our daily bread” reminds us of our dependence on God for even the most fundamental needs of life. The contrast with the depiction of God given earlier in the prayer is striking. He is glorious, hallowed, in heaven, and omnipotent. We, on the other hand, are incapable of even getting basic sustenance without his help. In these words, then, Jesus teaches us to exalt God while humbling ourselves. The radical God-centeredness of the prayer continues. Man’s pride has no place before the throne of God.

Physical Needs in Biblical Perspective 

We are dependent on God. Even prior to the fall, humans needed God to provide for them. Adam needed God to provide Eve to fulfill his need for a relationship. Adam and Eve could tend the garden, but only God could make it grow. Sin did not create our dependence; we are dependent simply because we are creatures.

Even though Adam and Eve were dependent before the fall, their only experience was one of surplus and abundance. They never knew a day of scarcity. After the fall, however, their experience was quite different, as is ours today. Our default experience is no longer abundance but scarcity. Food must be produced by the sweat of our brow, and its existence is never certain. Thus, after the fall we became even more dependent on God for our daily sustenance. We are no longer merely creatures in need of provision; we are sinners in need of the Creator’s mercy…

Bread of Earth, Bread From Heaven: Echoes of Eternity in Jesus’ Petition for Bread

This request also reminds us of our daily need for the Lord Jesus. Moses reminded the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8:3 that the reason God let the Israelites go hungry for a time before providing them with manna was so that they might learn that “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” This passage teaches us that God designed physical needs to point to our deeper spiritual needs. Our need for daily physical sustenance is a faint echo of our daily need of spiritual sustenance and satisfaction from God. This was true for ancient Israel and is true for Christians today. The only way that we will taste the goodness of God’s provision is by living according to what comes from the mouth of God.

This is why Jesus regularly referred to himself as the “bread of life,” the true manna sent from heaven (John 6:35). He is God’s ultimate provision for our spiritual lives. Each day, as we pray for our daily bread, we should be reminded of our daily need for Christ to forgive our sins and empower us for obedience. Each time we pray for daily bread, we should recognize our deeper need for the bread of life–the only one who can truly satisfy.

To read more, purchase your copy of The Prayer that Turns the World Upside Down at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or ChristianBook.com.

Posted at: https://albertmohler.com/2018/11/07/give-us-day-exalting-god-humbling/

A Destructive Daily Habit

Article by Rush Witt

Living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things. - St. Augustine (354–430)

There is a giant problem in East Africa: snails. Lissachatina fulica, giant African land snails, originated in Kenya and have traversed as far as Asia and the Caribbean. They can wreak major havoc. In fact, in the United States, it’s illegal to possess one of these little critters. Illegal!!

Though they seem weak compared to other wildlife (at their adult height, they are slightly taller than a tennis ball),[1] these African snails live long, reproduce quickly, and perpetrate their evil work under the cover of darkness. Creeping in unnoticed, they devastate crops, forests, coastal areas, and cities. They also carry an insidious disease that is deadly to humans. In vain, hunters have levied against them all manner of quarantine, chemical warfare, and predatory creatures. Even flamethrowers were no use.

Diehard snails! How can such a small creature cause such a widespread problem? It takes only a little time and a little neglect.

Diehard Sins

This post is about sins. Not the ugly, notorious sins we have come to know and hate. But the little, daily sins. The snail-sized sin habits that slither undetected in the shadows, beneath a fire-resistant shell, and eat up our lives from the inside out. This book is about the sins that nag us, resist our spiritual treatments, and persist beyond all our measures to contain them. The subtle sins. The respectable and acceptable sins. The resilient and relentless sins. The diehard sins.

In spy novels, the silent assassin learns to live incognito, waiting and plotting his deadly deeds. Our sins can be very much like that. We hustle through life while they escape our notice and fester just beneath our noses. Either we don’t recognize them as sins because they’re commonplace in our lives or cultures, or we know that they’re sinful but have given up on changing them. With the passage of time, we accept them as a disappointing, natural part of life. These sins are hard to fight because they are concealed from us.

Puritan pastor John Owen provides this ominous warning: “Be killing sin or it will be killing you."[2] For many Christians, the sins that “will be killing” us are not the million-dollar sins like murder or rape. We often have sufficient reason to avoid them. Rather, the hidden faults that fly under the radar—at the lower altitudes of our hearts—are the sins that cause us the most trouble. If we are not alert, we practice them day by day and they burrow into our lives like lice. And once they are settled in, extermination becomes all the more difficult.

I have known people with a deadly peanut allergy. Even a whiff of peanut butter constricts their airways and immediately endangers their lives. The most serious allergies don’t even allow the sufferer enough time to reach a doctor for help, meaning that the person must remain ever ready to jab himself with a shot of medicine in order to reverse the violent reaction. The fight against sin carries a similar quality. We depend on pastors, counselors, and other Christian friends to give us wise counsel. But we also need a growing ability to minister the Word of God to our own souls. Immeasurable hope and help await you as you learn to kill the diehard sins that plague you, because, no matter how deep your sin struggle runs, there is hope through Christ and His Word.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Newspapers of the 1920s offered readers “the gift that keeps on giving”: the Victor Micro-synchronous Radio Console with Electrola. Happy families tuned in to the Victor- Radio every night, and their delight continued on and on. Although I was not aware of it at the time, the Lord gave my wife and me a gift much like this. (No, it wasn’t a radio.) Two years into our marriage, during an exceptionally hard time, He called us to biblical counseling through the care of a faithful pastor.

Despite growing up in a faithful Christian family, my wife had walked a dark path. Amid life-dominating despair and recurring panic attacks, she had twice attempted suicide. She had been hospitalized in prominent psychiatric wards and had received nearly every psychiatric treatment available, including electroconvulsive therapy (an option of last resort). Soon after our marriage, we moved seven hundred miles from home in order to go to seminary—two broken people who were intimately acquainted, yet disappointed, with the full gamut of psychiatric help—and there we heard for the first time about the grace of Christ and the sufficiency of His Word for the care and cure of sinful, suffering souls like ours.

We were confused, amazed, and panicked all at once. This was very new to us. The next few weeks of class were especially eye-opening and challenging. We faced new truths about the nature of our persistent problems. These truths were hard to hear, and we didn’t immediately respond well. But by God’s grace, we scraped together what little courage we had and reached out to the professor of the class for help: “We’ve never heard any of this before, and we really need to talk to you.” He abounded with generosity and understanding. The next Friday we entered a simple yet life-changing season of gospel-centered, grace-driven biblical counseling.

There were good days and bad days. Sometimes the truth was a sweet salve for our souls; other times we spewed our medicine and stomped off in disgust. In small, hesitant steps, we found hope, help, and lasting biblical change. The colors of our world became brighter as God’s truth renewed our minds. The fingers of depression and anxiety that had relentlessly gripped my dear wife (and me too at times) were pried away. The process of change was sometimes unpleasant and often slow—but, looking back, we wouldn’t wish it any other way. Through it, we received lasting benefits.

The transformation God worked in my wife and me through biblical counseling compelled me to discover ways to instill Christ-centered hope in the lives of others. With each step toward becoming more competent in the care of others, I became a more competent counselor of myself. The Scriptures rang true: all the trials and temptations addressed in my counseling were common to man—common even to me (see 1 Cor. 10:13). In every case, I gave the people who I counseled the same comprehensive counsel of God’s Word that I myself needed. And I counseled myself in the same ways. The gift of biblical counseling that I received many years ago has kept on giving to me, helping me in my own walk with Christ.

The Three-Part Plan

My method of caring for others through counseling and discipleship is simple. When ministering to another person, I use a three-fold plan: enter his world, understand his need, and then bring Christ and His answers to the person.[3] It is by no means simplistic, but it is simple. As you will see in this post, I have adapted this method of ministry to others and presented it as a tool for fighting sin and caring for our own souls day by day. With practice, it has become second nature to me, and I hope it will become second nature to you too.

1. Enter with joy into your struggle against destructive daily habits,

2. understand your real needs in the fight, and then

3. bring Christ and His provisions to bear on your beliefs and desires.

The three steps of the plan are specifically drawn from Matthew 9:35–36, but they more broadly represent Jesus’s entire ministry. In an unassuming passage of his gospel, Matthew gives a glimpse of Jesus’s normal mode of ministry.

Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. (Matt. 9:35–36)

On a mission of love, Jesus entered our world by His incarnation and even walked our streets. He would actively traverse the cities and villages. Jesus routinely spent time with people and entered into the dark and difficult experiences of life. The Lord of glory did not remain in His regal, heavenly home; rather, He condescended into our fallen world—born in a manger, living in poverty, and working with His hands. Though sinless, He was tempted as we are and suffered a cruel atoning death. Many people may love me, but none would stoop down in such a magnificent way for me. Jesus entered my world and yours.

As one of us, Jesus understands our true needs. Every thoughtful person has some sense of our common spiritual problem. Every person knows that there is a God “with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13; see also Rom. 1:21). But the blinding influence of sin hides the true nature of our need from view. In the light of a doctor’s knowledge, a patient’s crude self-diagnosis falls flat. Our Great Physician understands our need. When Jesus went through the villages, He understood the people He encountered. He saw their sinful, distressed, and broken spirits. He saw sheep in need of a shepherd.

What is so impressive about a shepherd? A shepherd understands his sheep. As in Psalm 23, the divine Shepherd knows the whereabouts of His sheep, the dangers they face, the nourishment they lack, and the restoring care they need. The Lord understands the people into whose world He enters.

Not only that, Jesus brings His provisions and resources. By His perfect knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, He not only cared for people’s broken, diseased bodies but also brought help for their souls. Jesus counseled the people who He met in the cities and villages. He taught them biblical truth in their synagogues, and He ministered the good news of His kingdom to their souls.

Ultimately, He brought the people Himself. In the synagogue or on the street corner or house-to-house, Jesus and His disciples didn’t present a program or tool for changing lives. Jesus didn’t create an app for fixing life problems. He brought Himself—His perfect person, His unstoppable power, His eternal promises and purposes. Jesus entered our world, understood our need, and brought to us His power and grace.

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from Witt's book, Diehard Sins.

Notes

1. ^ “Giant African Snail,” USDA APHIS, last modified June 4, 2018, https:// www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/plant-pest-and-disease-programs /pests-and-diseases/giant-african-snail/ct_giant_african_snail_home.

2. ^ John Owen, The Mortification of Sin (1656; repr., London: Banner of Truth, 2004), 5.

3. ^ I learned this approach to ministry from my mentor, Robert Jones. He applies it to counseling others; I am adapting it for personal growth. If you skipped over the foreword that he wrote for this book, please read it. 

Rush Witt

Rush Witt is lead pastor of Paramount Church in Bexley, Ohio, and author of A Strategy for Incorporating Biblical Counseling in North American Church Plants. Along with his pastoral responsibilities, he works as Acquisitions Editor for P&R Publishing and as Chaplain for the Bexley Police Department. Rush is a certified biblical counselor with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. Rush has an MDiv and DMin from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Rush and his wife Kathryn have five children. 

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/a-destructive-daily-problem

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.

God Delights to Forgive

Article by Scott Hubbard

All Christians believe that God forgives sins. But how many of us feel, deep down in our bones, that God delights to forgive?

When we consider God’s forgiveness, few of us imagine a bridegroom adorning his bride with jewels and rejoicing over her newfound beauty (Isaiah 62:5), a shepherd singing as he carries his lost sheep home (Luke 15:3–7), or a father running to us, robing us, and dancing till daybreak (Luke 15:20–24).

Images like these stretch the imaginations of sinners like us. They sit on the surface of our souls, while deep down, where roots sink into soil, we wonder if God is really that happy forgiving us. Our suspicions easily replace the Bridegroom’s pleasure with pursed lips, the Shepherd’s song with a lecture, and the Father’s robe with the elder brother’s hand-me-downs.

If we are going to feel and not just confess that God delights to forgive those who come to him through Jesus, we will need to grasp why he forgives.

1. Forgiveness reveals God’s heart.

For many of us, the god of our unredeemed imagination has a small and shriveled heart. If we asked this god to show us his glory, he might pass by and say, “The Lord, the Lord, a God stingy and tightfisted, quick to anger, and abounding in steadfast vengeance.” If this god forgives at all, he does so as a sovereign Scrooge, ever dangling our debts over our heads.

But this is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose heart is broad as the heavens, deep as the seas, kind as the morning sun. If we travel into the inner chambers of God’s heart, we will find the home of everything pleasant: mercy, grace, and enough forgiveness to cover the world twice over. He is “good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon him” (Psalm 86:5).

To be sure, God also feels righteous wrath toward those who refuse to repent. But love and wrath, forgiveness and vengeance, do not own equal acreage in God’s heart. When God proclaims his name, he leads with mercy and grace, not anger (Exodus 34:6). When he sends calamity on his stiff-necked people, he calls his judgment “strange” and “alien” (Isaiah 28:21). Even when he lands a fatal blow, he reminds us that “he does not afflict from his heart” (Lamentations 3:33). In the end, the wrath of God will stand as the black backdrop accenting the diamonds of his forgiving love (Romans 9:22–23).

The God we meet in Scripture does not hoard his forgiveness like a miser with his money. The storehouses of his heart are always open and stocked with all the grace a sinner will ever need. With God, there is forgiveness (Psalm 130:4) — and not out of reluctance or necessity, but out of the overflow of his broad heart.

2. Forgiveness fulfills God’s mission.

From the moment Adam and Eve left Eden, God has not been content to leave his people in exile, corrupt and condemned. He promised, again and again, that a day would come when the Son of God would leave his Father’s side, travel to rebel lands, and trade the praise of angels for the scorn of men.

And why? For forgiveness. Jesus “will save his people from their sins,” the angel tells Joseph (Matthew 1:21), and then Zechariah tells us how: “in the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:77). When Jesus began his public ministry, he set his face toward sinners (Mark 2:17), forgiving even the worst (Luke 7:47–48). He taught us to pray for forgiveness (Matthew 6:12), and, in his moment of greatest agony, he himself prayed for us: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

As the hour of his death approached, Jesus told his disciples the meaning of his broken body and spilled blood: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). He took on a back to bear our griefs, shoulders to carry our sorrows, hands to be pierced for our transgressions, and a body to be bruised for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:4–5). Then he hung there on the cross, pouring out the kindness of his forgiving heart from the wounds that we created.

Through forgiveness, Jesus fulfills God’s ancient mission. He plunders the domain of darkness while Satan watches, bound (Matthew 12:29), and fills his Father’s house with many sons and daughters (John 14:2; Hebrews 2:10).

You do not need to persuade this Savior to forgive you. Forgiveness is why he came.

3. Forgiveness glorifies God’s Son.

On this side of Calvary, all forgiveness comes through the crucified Christ, who fulfilled every letter of God’s law, paid every cent of our debt, and swallowed up every drop of God’s wrath. Every forgiven sinner stands safe behind the scars of Jesus Christ. And therefore, forgiveness glorifies the name of Christ — it is “for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12).

God’s forgiveness does not mainly emphasize our worth but Jesus’s. When God forgives, he writes the merits of Jesus on a banner across the sky. He leads us behind the Lamb of God in triumphal procession. He taps into the deepest passion of his heart, and fulfills the prayer of the psalmist: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” (Psalm 115:1).

Because forgiveness glorifies Christ’s name, he does not forgive half-heartedly. He forgives gladly, zealously — with all of his heart and soul. John Piper writes, “Whenever I am most thirsty and desperate for help, I can encourage my soul not only with the truth that there is a merciful impulse in the heart of God, but also with the truth that the source and power of that impulse is the zeal of God to act for the glory of his own name” (The Pleasures of God, 233–34).

What makes God glad to forgive you? Not your merits, not your vows, and not your future potential, but rather the worth of the Lamb who was slain.

Fields of Forgiveness

Of course, God does not delight to forgive everybody. Millions in our day echo the last words of Heinrich Heine — “Of course God will forgive me; that’s his job” — while feeling no sorrow for sin, no hunger for holiness, no love for Christ. God does not delight to forgive people who take forgiveness for granted.

But when we ask for forgiveness beneath the bright banner of Jesus, from a heart that hates sin, and with a longing to be holy as God is holy, we place ourselves on the path of God’s delight. We become a stage for God to showcase the glories of his heart. We join God in his passion to bring many sons to glory. We display to saints and sinners, angels and demons, that Jesus Christ is a strong Savior.

When you come before God today in the moments after committing some sin, you do not need to stumble through the forests of guilt and self-reproach. Confess your sin, turn to Jesus, and run in the fields of his forgiveness.

Scott Hubbard is a graduate of Bethlehem College & Seminary and an editor for desiringGod.org. He lives in Minneapolis.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/his-heart-is-broad-as-heaven

Know Who You Are Not

Article by Marshall Segal

Many of the problems that plague us as Christians begin with misplaced identity.

We forget who we are as chosen, purchased, and commissioned children of God, and think of ourselves primarily through the lens of something else — success at work, the well-being of our children, the fruitfulness of our ministry, our feelings of fulfillment, or our ability to achieve our goals and dreams. We may even see ourselves almost exclusively through our sin (we are defined by our greatest temptation or besetting struggle), or through our suffering (we are defined by the greatest distress we experience).

“Many of the problems that plague us as Christians begin with misplaced identity.”

When the apostle Peter wrote his first of two letters, he was writing to followers of Christ under siege — with relentless affliction, with persistent persecution, with tenacious temptation. Suffering screamed that they were forgotten or unloved. Their opponents shouted that they had abandoned their faith, their families, and their communities, and that they’d fallen for a horrible fraud. And Satan whispered that nothing had changed, that they were who they’d always been.

As the believers were assaulted with these messages, Peter intercepts their missiles with promises from heaven: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). You are not who you were. You are not what you feel. You are not where you’re tempted to fall. Now, you are his.

1. You are not who you were.

One of the easiest ways for Satan to lure you back into sin is to make you think you never left.

Peter says, “Once you were not a people. . . . Once you had not received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). He’s honest about how bleak things were before they found Christ, when they were dead and rotting in their trespasses and sins, when they let the passions of their flesh have their way, when they were sons and daughters of never-ending torment (Ephesians 2:1–3) — separated from Christ, cut off from his promises, “having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). That was you, Peter says.

But God (Ephesians 2:4). He did not leave you hopeless in your trespasses and sins. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Peter reminds us that we are no longer who we once were. “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). Whenever Satan says, “Look at who you were,” we say, “Yes, I was, but God.”

If you are in Christ, you are not who you were. You have been chosen by God into the family of God. Mercy has made you new. As John Newton, a slave trader turned pastor, once wrote, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

2. You are not what you feel.

If Satan cannot convince you that you’re who you’ve always been, he may try to make you question whether it’s even good news to be God’s. He may send all manner of suffering and adversity, if he’s allowed, against God’s loud and clear declaration in Christ, “I love you.”

We know Peter’s readers were suffering intensely and unjustly (1 Peter 1:6; 2:19). They were being tested by fire (1 Peter 1:7). And fire can make the love of God feel faint. Until it slowly produces a stronger, sweeter, more durable faith, a faith far more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:7).

“Whenever Satan says, ‘Look at who you were,’ we say, ‘Yes, I was, but God.’”

With the barrage of persecution and hostility coming against them, Peter blows away the smoke from all the spiritual gunfire, and he says of their enemies, “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do” (1 Peter 2:8). They may look fortunate and formidable for now, but as they abuse God’s children and mock his voice, they are walking into a destiny of damnation. They have no idea who they truly are.

“But you” — next verse — “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). You are chosen by God, from all the people he has ever made. You have been given access to his throne through his Son. God held himself back for hundreds of years, always speaking through a prophet or priest, and then he opened the holy of holies to you — to anyone who believes in Jesus. He has made you a holy nation — set apart, Christlike, filled with and empowered by his own Spirit. And you belong to him. He sent his Son to have you.

Therefore, in your own fiery trials of various kinds, “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13). You are not what you feel like in suffering and adversity. You are valued by the most valuable one. Nothing can separate you from his love (Romans 8:35).

3. You are not where you fall.

Every follower of Christ has repented from sin and yet continues to battle temptation. The apostle John says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). While we have to be honest and vigilant about any sin in us, remaining sin does not define us anymore. Paul says to sinners, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The sin patterns in your past are not who you are. Christ is teaching you, by his Spirit, to live as the new person God has made you.

Our new identity in Christ is not a license to lay down our arms against temptation. By no means! When sin crouches at our door, our new identity gives us the courage to charge through the door with the sword of the Spirit, the word of our God (Ephesians 6:17). Peter writes, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles” — this earth and all its brokenness and all its temptations is not your home anymore — “to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The same passions that left you for dead apart from Christ will still attack. But they used to ambush unarmed, defenseless children; now they find fully armed warriors guarded by God.

If you are one with Christ and at war with your remaining sin, you are not your greatest temptations or your besetting iniquities. Through Christ, you are without blemish in the eyes of God, and no one and no thing can snatch you from his heart and hands.

Peak of Who We Are

Embedded in these verses about our identity is a commission which may be the highest peak of who we are in Christ: “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). You are set apart in Christ not just to enjoy God, but to showothers his worth. You belong to God not just to live forever, but to testifyforever. You are chosen by God not just to be, but to go.

“You are not who you were. You are not what you feel. You are not where you’re tempted to fall. Now, you are his.”

What we proclaim about Jesus Christ is not only one of the greatest evidences that we are someone new; it is also one of the greatest privileges of being who we are in him. For three years, he went from city to city reviving the lost and building his kingdom. And then, having died and risen, he handed his Spirit-filled keys to the church — not to the wise by worldly standards, or to the powerful and influential, or to those of noble birth (1 Corinthians 1:26), but to the new. What Christ does in the world today, he does through people like you, regardless of who you once were, how weak you may feel, and where you’re tempted to fall.

When you were brought from darkness into God’s magnificent light, you were given marvelous power for a great task: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). You are a witness of excellence to a watching and dying world.

Know who you are not, and live, in the power of the Spirit, in light of who you are in Christ — chosen, anointed, holy, loved, and sent.

Marshall Segal (@marshallsegal) is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org. He’s the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating. He graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Faye, have a son and live in Minneapolis.

posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/know-who-you-are-not?fbclid=IwAR33X97VOlRAd9vr_rtZRsfDgxPQlWVtq55xvFbEKvEDvpMRIs7AExjXUvE

What the Bible Says to the Jaded, Discouraged, and Worn Out

Article by Colin Smith

Christmas season is the season of joy, but it is also a time when the cumulative weight of all that has happened in the course of the year catches up with you. Moving into the last month of the year often causes a sense of being worn out, discouraged, or stretched thin. Someone described it to me as a “collective weariness.”  

What is the answer to collective weariness? Where would we look in the Bible for help when we feel jaded, discouraged, and generally worn out? 

My mind goes to Isaiah 40: “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). That speaks to me. That’s what I need, but how do I get there? How do I get to Isaiah 40:31? The first 30 verses of this chapter might have something to do with it! 

Isaiah 40 is full of anticipations of the birth of Christ, but I want to use this article to show the promise of renewed strength God gives to all those who are discouraged at the end of the chapter. 

Lean into The Truth You Know about God 

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28) 

God reminds his people of what they already know, what they have often heard, because faith is strengthened, not by learning something new, but by coming back to what we have heard and known. 

Faith is strengthened, not by learning something new, but by coming back to what we have heard and known: Christ crucified and risen for us. What is it that every believer knows and has heard about God that we need to lean into in these times of weariness? 

God is your Creator

The Lord is…the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:28)  

God formed you in your mother’s womb. He gave you life with the purpose of redeeming you. He purchased you at the cost of his own Son. And, he infused a new life into you, recreating you in Jesus Christ. 

God does not grow weary

He does not faint or grow weary. (Isaiah 40:28) 

God sustains all that he has made. He never runs out of resources. He never tires of you. There is never a time when God looks at you and says, “Where do we go from here?” 

God works on an everlasting timescale

The Lord is the everlasting God. (Isaiah 40:28) 

Time is at his disposal. None of us knows what God will do in the coming year, let alone in 10 years or in 50 years, or what God will do in the lives of our children or grandchildren. The granddaughter of your rebel son may turn out to have a ministry beyond anything you can imagine. 

No one can fathom his understanding

His understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28) 

None of us will ever fathom the mind of God, or gain a full picture of what he is doing. So why even try? His understanding is unsearchable! 

Lean into The Truth That You Know About Yourself 

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. (Isaiah 40:29-30) 

Notice the words that are used here: “faint,” “no might,” “weary,” “fall exhausted.” That’s us! And notice that this is us at our best: “even youths shall be faint and weary.” 

Then God says “Young men shall fall exhausted.” The phrase “young men” literally means “picked men.” This is like athletes who are in peak condition, the ones who catch the eye of the Olympic selection committee. 

At the end of the marathon, even athletes in peak condition are weary. Some fall exhausted. Others look faint. Why? Because their bodies have been through a test of endurance that has pushed them to the limits. 

There are limits to all human endurance. Paul describes our bodies as tents (2 Corinthians 5), not palaces made of stone and held up by marble pillars, but tents made of canvas and held up by ropes that stretch, sag, and fray. So, no Christian should be surprised at this experience of weariness. God has placed his treasure in jars of clay. We live in this earthly tent that one day will be torn down. 

Here’s what you know about yourself: You are not God. You’re a created being with limits to your own strength and endurance. You will become weary. You will know what it is to feel spent and exhausted. Feeling worn out should not take you by surprise. Lean into the truth that you know. But that’s only half the answer. 

Lay Hold of the Hope That You Have 

Laying hold of the hope that you have is the natural result of leaning into the truth that you know. When you lean into what you know about God (that God is the everlasting Creator and that he does not grow weary), you will look to him and, as you do, he will give you strength:  

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. (Isaiah 40:29)  

Notice the word “gives.” This is an action of God in relation to his own people at times when we feel our strength is depleted, and our faith is burning low. He “gives power” and he “increases strength!” 

How does God do this? God does not faint or grow weary (Isaiah 40:28). The way he gives strength to the weary is that he gives himself to you.  This is not some zapping with power that moves an exhausted Christian into bionic overdrive. The effect of this strength is that God’s people keep pressing on. They keep running. They keep walking. 

Christ gives his Spirit to those who hope in him so that something of his divine power may touch us in our human weakness. Strength comes as we ascend by faith into the presence of the Lord and commune with our living Savior. Here’s what will come from that: You will keep running. You will keep walking. You will keep pressing on. 

Go to Jesus this Christmas 

Some of you do not yet have a living faith in Jesus Christ. I ask you today: Do you not know your own Creator? Have you not heard that strength and hope can be yours through Jesus Christ? This Savior says to you who are worn out, and to all of us, today, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). 

THE AUTHOR

Colin Smith

Colin Smith is the senior pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He has authored a number of books, including Heaven, How I Got Here and Heaven, So Near - So Far. Colin is the president and teacher for Unlocking the Bible. Follow him on Twitter.

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2018/12/bible-jaded-discouraged-worn-out/