God Calls You to Suffer

Rick Thomas

Though a “call to suffer” does not bode well in your evangelistic endeavors, there are two (not one) gifts that God gives each person at the point of their regeneration. The first is salvation, of course, and the second one is the “gift of suffering.” Paul said,

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake. – Philippians 1:29

This “second gift” can be such a problem in the believer’s life that it can hinder his growth in Christ. The purpose of suffering is not to make your life miserable but to teach you how to trust the Lord rather than rely on yourself. Self-reliance–a form of unbelief–is your biggest nemesis.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. – Hebrews 5:8

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. – 2 Corinthians 1:8-9

This anti-American message that teaches you to die to yourself (Luke 9:23; Galatians 2:20) is one of the primary means of grace the Lord offers to create an other-worldly reliance on the one and only Superpower. Though the message of death is unnerving at first glance, there are many biblical precedents, including God’s intentional crushing of His Son.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief. – Isaiah 53:10

Your Call to Suffer

Occasionally, someone will ask me to help them understand God’s call on their life. While I do not know all that the Lord has in mind for them, I do know He has called every Christian to suffer.

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?

But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this, you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

The Steps of Jesus

1. He committed no sin.

2. There was no deceit in his mouth.

3. When individuals reviled Him, He did not revile in return.

4. When he suffered, He did not threaten.

5. He always entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. – 1 Peter 2:18-25

Granted, you will not be saving anyone as Jesus does, but you are called to walk in His steps, which is a path of suffering. The good news is that as you fail to suffer as perfectly as He did, you can confess those failures while continuing on with His death march (1 John 1:9).

Joining Suffering to Your Relationships

It is interesting to me that Peter put his “suffering passage” just before his “marriage passage” and joined the two sections with the conjunction “likewise” so you would know they are connected. How cool is that?

His point is clear: if you don’t have a right view of suffering, you will not be able to live well with your spouse–or anyone else. Without a sound theology of suffering, you will more than likely sin against your spouse the first time he/she does not meet your expectations.

A sinful response to a failing spouse is the exact opposite of how Christ’s responds to you when you fail (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; Matthew 18:35). You cannot overstate the need for sound theology and application of suffering in your life.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. – 1 Peter 3:1-7

Purpose of Paul’s Suffering

Could it be, like Paul, that the good Lord brings certain individuals or things into your life so you can learn the obedience that the Hebrew writer talked about? (Hebrews 5:8–he learned obedience through what he suffered.) Learning obedience was without question the purpose of Paul’s suffering.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Paul’s last sentence in v. 10 is the key to your best life now: “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Call to Action

1. How would you describe your practical understanding of suffering?

2. How do you need to change your view of suffering so you can learn obedience through your relational or situational suffering?

3. Have you found strength in your weakness like Paul or do you resist the weakness that suffering is supposed to bring into your life?

7 Lies Christians in College Tell Themselves

Moses Lee

I don’t know when or how it happened, but I picked up many lies about the Christian faith as a college student, lies that took years to recognize and repent of. Though it’s been almost a decade since I graduated, I’ve noticed many Christians in college today tend to believe these same lies.

Though certainly not unique to students, these seven lies seem especially present in this life stage and should be called out.

1. “I have to do what I feel is right or genuine.”

God created us, in his image, to be both rational and emotional. But when either becomes ultimate, we are not conforming to his image. This is why the ultimate authority of feelings, emotion, and “authenticity” for young people today is problematic. Emotions have a place, but they can be fickle liars. What “feels right” in our heart can actually be deception (Jer. 17:9). What seems “authentic” or “genuine” is not necessarily a reliable source of wisdom. The sooner we learn to critically evaluate our feelings, rather than follow them indiscriminately, the better.

The sooner we learn to critically evaluate our feelings, rather than follow them indiscriminately, the better.

2. “I must do something extraordinary with my life.”

If we’re honest, what many of us really mean by this is “I want to be famous,” “I want to go viral,” or “I want to become an influencer.” But this attitude tends to downplay the everyday, “ordinary” forms of faithfulness—the single mom trying to raise kids while working three jobs, the full-time college student working late shifts to pay bills, the persevering small-town pastor who never gets a book deal. Are they not extraordinary too? Rather than burdening themselves with the expectation of fame, fortune, and influence, Christian college students should focus on seeing how ordinary faithfulness can be the most extraordinary calling of all.

3. “I’ll stop feeling lonely if I get married.”

Single people don’t have a monopoly on loneliness. Most spouses also feel lonely in their marriage at one point or another. In fact, if feeling lonely as a single person is difficult, feeling lonely as a married person can be even more challenging. The ultimate answer to loneliness isn’t marriage or companionship; it’s finding our complete satisfaction in Christ and our union with him (Ps. 17:15).

4. “My porn addiction will stop if I get married.”

Many young believers think their struggle with pornography will dissipate once they get married. But porn addictions don’t merely stem from pent-up sexual desires; they stem from deeper desires—to be loved, accepted, affirmed—all of which find their ultimate fulfillment in our Father’s love for us in Christ (Matt. 11:28; Col. 3:1–4). If we don’t find freedom from porn in the gospel prior to getting married, this sin will doubtless wreak havoc on our marriages.

5. “I’m too busy for church this week.”

Life doesn’t get any less stressful or less busy after college. I know investment bankers who work more than 90 hours a week and rarely, if ever, miss church on Sundays. The reality for busy college students is they can almost always study ahead, reschedule meetings, or go to sleep a little earlier to make time for church. Most of us were college students once. We all know from experience that if we really wanted to make time for church, we would (Heb. 10:25).

Life doesn’t get any less stressful or less busy after college.

6. “I’ll tithe when I get a real job or after I pay off my debt.”

Here’s the reality: If I don’t give sacrificially when I have little, I won’t give sacrificially when I have a lot. For most of us, there will rarely be a time in our lives when we are debt-free—whether it’s student loans, credit-card debt, or home mortgages. If we only give out of abundance, we’ll never give, since we’ll always be in debt. Generous giving must be a matter of discipline and principle (Mark 12:41–44), whether we have a little or a lot. If we don’t learn this early on, we will struggle to prioritize giving later on.

7. “Church membership is optional for college students.”

The concept of church membership is foreign to many college students. To complicate the matter, some students may wonder why they should pursue membership at a church they can only attend for half of the year anyway (let alone attend after graduation). But the biblical case for membership has been well established, and college students are no exception to the rule. Whether it means maintaining a single membership, a seasonal membership, an auxiliary membership, or a dual membership (all of which can often be worked out by your college church and your home church, if they’re two separate entities), we should never overlook our constant need for accountability from church elders.

Moses Y. Lee (MDiv, ThM) is a church planting resident in the Korean Capital Presbytery (PCA). He lives and serves in the D.C. metro area. You can follow him on Twitter at @MosesYLee.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/7-lies-christians-college/

Three Ways to Pray for Your Adult Children

Michele Morin

Roots and wings are the gifts Christian parents pass on to our children. We establish rules, give them responsibilities that build confidence and skill, and water those deep roots with lots of love and prayer, knowing that strengthening wings will soon carry our children away from home, out of reach of our influence and our protection. In my family, there is now one more full-fledged adult as my third son has graduated from college.

In my prayers for the four young men who are so close to my heart, I’m taking my cues from the book of Philippians. Writing from a Roman prison, Paul the missionary church planter tips his hand and opens his heart to reveal Paul the spiritual father. His prayers for new believers and leaders in faraway fledgling churches have fueled my own prayer life as, one by one, my sons leave the nest to make independent lives and decisions in a world very different from the one I encountered at their age.

Prayers for strong marriages, safety on the job, or wisdom in college selection are all good requests from the heart of a Christian mum, but Paul’s three-verse, single-sentence outpouring to God challenges me to lift my sights to motivation and to pray about the drive behind my adult children’s following lives — and to take a careful look at my own.

1. God, please guide their loves.

It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment . . . (Philippians 1:9)

When Paul prayed for knowledge and discernment for the church in Philippi, he may have been concerned about false teachers (Philippians 3:2) or even about the pull of civic pride that could have influenced these Roman citizens to settle for the glory of Rome over the glory of God. He desired that their growing love would be anchored in truth and focused Godward.

While he was in their presence, Paul would have filled them up with knowledge about the nature of God as revealed in Jesus Christ; he would have put on display Christ’s humble obedience (Philippians 2:8). Paul had been a model citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:17–21; 4:9), but now they were on their own. It was time to trust that the knowledge he had shared with them would be transformed into discernment in the hearts and minds of newly minted Christ-followers.

Likewise, twenty-first-century distractions from holy living abound, and our adult children need knowledge and discernment to guide their hearts. Agape, the unique love of God, is wild and deep, but it is not vague or sentimental. Discerning love submits to the mind’s critical faculties and the Spirit’s guidance, for, as Stuart Briscoe quipped, “Love may be blind, but agape has twenty-twenty vision.”

As we pray for our children’s love to grow, we must also pray that God would guide them toward worthy objects of love so they will, for example, persevere in loving their wives more than they love their hobbies, and value time with their children more than time with their colleagues. We trust God to give our adult children eyes to see the truth about their own hearts’ affections.

2. God, please guard their integrity.

. . . so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ . . . (Philippians 1:10)

Since the word approve in Greek culture was associated with the purification of precious metals or the verification of currency, Paul’s idea of approval would likely have been shaped by thoughts of authenticity. He yearned for believers who were pure, unmixed, and without alloy — whose lives were exactly as they appeared to be. This integrity of inward motive and outward manner echoes David’s ponderings about holiness in Psalm 24:3–4:

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
     And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
     who does not lift up his soul to what is false
     and does not swear deceitfully.

Lifting our souls in worship to what is false includes a pervasive idolatry of image that was not even possible in previous generations. In a culture shaped by social media, perhaps we should pray that our adult children will find grace to live in such a way that their real stories and their Instagram stories might be one and the same.

As a parent to adult children, my own integrity is also a concern — and therefore a matter of prayer. Sadly, I am a member of a parental generation that will change its politics, ethics, and even biblical worldview to “stay friends” with our children, demonstrating that we are more concerned about our relationship with our kids than our kids’ relationship with God. When our adult children make bad choices, it will be tempting to strike out onto “the gentle slope, soft underfoot” that C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape recommended as the “safest road to Hell” (The Screwtape Letters, 61). “Well, I think the Bible’s pretty harsh on that one,” we might think. “We really can’t be dogmatic.”

Instead, it is our job to hold fast to our own integrity of belief, no matter how much we long for family harmony. We must leave room for God to work, and pray he will awaken our son’s or daughter’s conscience, trusting that he has not suddenly taken a position on the sidelines of their lives. If we undercut his voice, we get in the Spirit’s way — and sabotage our own pure and blameless walk in the process.

3. God, please grant them fruitful lives for your glory.

. . . filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:11)

The fruit that righteousness produces may be quite visible. In Paul’s case, fruitfulness looked like a long list of new converts, churches sprouting all along his path throughout Europe and Asia Minor, and mentoring relationships that spawned leaders and teachers sufficient for the task of carrying the gospel forward for another generation.

While our own sons and daughters may not be called to lead churches or movements, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are responsible and well able to produce the fruit of spiritual attitudes and righteous actions. Holding fast to what is good and refusing to sell themselves to what is false, our adult children will “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15), putting on display the humility and moral excellence Christ himself demonstrated. As parents, our rubric for measuring success in our children’s lives must also be subject to this same filter of Christlikeness, as we trust for grace to resist the temptation to adopt cultural definitions of success based on income or influence.

Paul prayed that the lives of his spiritual children would be characterized by right choices and pure motives fueled by an abounding love for God and steeped in sincerity that looks nothing like sentimentality. As my prayers are shaped by the apostle’s, I also want to be one with him in motivation, for while our adult children have great potential to bring joy to a parent’s heart and great fulfillment to our days, the ultimate goal of their lives, as with our own, is “the glory and praise of God.”

As parents who are continually being shaped and stretched by our prayer life, may we join with Paul, with our much-loved children, and with other believers throughout the ages in bringing glory to God through a fruitful life that flows from a heart of love.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/three-ways-to-pray-for-adult-children?fbclid=IwAR1sNNmagYuDM05i4GZNrViwIkyPL_jxQdpsFuWRgvRyuR1Km6IHRNa0woI

God Knows What You Do Not Have

Abigail Dodds

“God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don’t have now, we don’t need now.”

When Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) says it, I perk up. I nod in agreement. I remember her life, her murdered missionary husband, her devotion to the gospel, her absolute earnestness about Jesus, and the congruity of her words and practice, and I say, “Amen.”

The circumstances of her life were the stuff of legend for me as a growing girl. It was undeniably evident that God was orchestrating all the hardships and massive disappointments she experienced, at the very least, to help all the rest of us. I wanted to be like her, because I wanted to know her God as deeply as she did — the kind of God who made every trial worth it.

But I hadn’t fully reckoned with the means of her unflappable faith in God. I thought, or at least hoped, that the intimacy and trust she had in Jesus could come through a life of ease. I found out that in order to be like her, and to know God in such a way, I would need to learn the glad surrender of discipline. I would have to walk a path through suffering, and I would need to discover the beauty in my own strange ashes.

What Are Our Needs?

I stood in the doorway of the biggest ER room at our state-of-the-art Children’s Hospital. There was barely room for me as thirteen medical staff moved with urgency, bumping into each other, with forceful words coming from the doctor in charge. And in the middle of it all, our 13-month-old son, looking still, pale, and lifeless. I wanted to cry loudly, or yell my son’s name, or make someone tell me how this was going to turn out.

I did none of that. I stood quietly, not moving, clenching my hands, while my heart did not pound, but seemed to dissolve. I thought that if I was quiet and composed, they would allow me to stay near my son. I watched them put an IV directly into his bone to get the meds into his marrow as quickly as possible. And I followed behind the gurney with a dry face as the nurse rhythmically pumped the manual ventilator, breathing for our son, until we arrived in our room in the PICU and he could be hooked up to the machine.

I had learned years before (perhaps not as well as I should have) that God doesn’t owe us children. And that sometimes he takes them away after he’s given them. My naïve twenty-something self was shocked by this reality. Subconsciously believing myself to be immune to miscarriage, I was surprised when it happened. The simple words of Job comforted and frightened me: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away” (see Job 1:21).

And now, with five living children — the youngest with serious medical problems — I was faced with another plan that didn’t match mine. Which, to be fair, is a daily occurrence. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day go according to my plan. But the differences between my plan and God’s have, with some notable exceptions, generally been of a small scale. Watching my son’s life hang in the balance was not a small-scale difference between God’s plan and mine.

What It Means to Thrive

That night in the hospital, alone with my unconscious son and the sound of the ventilator making a terrifying sort of silence, God was reworking my understanding of neediness and flourishing. Over the coming years, I would be faced with lots of questions about what I needed and what our family needed in order to thrive as his people.

Did I need my son to be healthy? How healthy was healthy enough? Did our older kids need a childhood untarnished by suffering? Did they need a family with fewer “needs”? Did they need me to homeschool them full-time to develop into decent Christian people? Did I need sleep? How much? Did I need less vomit in my life? How coherent did I need to be in order to be a kind human?

You likely have your own questions. Do you need a healthy marriage? Do you need your child to be saved? Do you need to move to a different city, a different house, a different neighborhood? Do you need to be rid of your chronic pain? Do you need God to give you a “yes” to the request that you’ve been bringing him for the last twenty years? Do you need to be rid of your aloneness? Do you need stability or change?

What exactly does Paul mean when he promises, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19)?

The Calm After the Storm

My son made it through that traumatic hospital stay. So did I. Although it wouldn’t be the last time we were there.

I felt like declaring victory. We survived. My faith was intact — even strengthened. But one discovery of the last decade of my life has been that the big trials aren’t always the test we think they are. Somehow, we get through those Big Scary Trials. By grace and prayers and the help of God’s people, we hold on to hope in God’s promises and endure. But often, it’s the little trials that follow the big ones that threaten to unravel us.

A couple years after that ominous hospital stay, when I should have been thrilled at my son’s progress and how well things were going, I found myself telling God at two o’clock in the morning, “I can’t. I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t do the things I’m supposed to be doing each day with so little sleep each night. I need you to give me relief. I need you to relent of this nightly disaster.” You see, our son has disrupted sleep because of his neurological problems. It’s improved in fits and starts, but by and large, the five years of his life have been challenging in the sleep department. And it was this small trial that was threatening to undo me.

Beware of Small Trials

I had the idea that in order for me to disciple my children, I needed to be coherent and less desperate. I had the idea that in order for God to use me to point them to him, I needed to shed this raw, at-the-end-of-my-rope status. I was okay with being brought low — I’d been there many times — but just how low did I have to go? I mean, I’d read Christian articles that declared, Sleep is an act of humility. So, why would God deny me that humility? I wanted to trust him with my eyes closed.

But God wouldn’t let me set my heart on lesser needs. We have bigger needs than sleep. We have bigger needs than our health or the health of our kids. We have bigger needs than a spouse or relief from chronic pain. We have bigger needs than coherency. We have bigger needs than that job, or career, or home. We have bigger needs than serving God the way we hoped.

What I really needed was to read more closely in Philippians 4 in order to discover that Paul himself had gone without his basic needs met. He says it like this: “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” (Philippians 4:12). Paul faced unmet needs, and he had learned how to abound in them.

In Every Circumstance

God’s ideas about our flourishing are different than ours. We think flourishing means eight hours of shut-eye, a good job, being surrounded by people who treat us with respect, being given the opportunity to succeed at something, good medical care, a loving marriage, and happy children. Those are good things, but they are not the things God is most concerned about supplying us in this life for our flourishing.

In God’s economy, we flourish when our need for him is met in him. Dear brothers and sisters, there is no circumstance under heaven that God isn’t using to grow us into oaks of righteousness. There is no need that he won’t fill with himself. The promise is really true: God really will supply all our needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). There is nothing we truly need that is not found in Christ.

Even more, the circumstances of being denied an earthly need or desire are often his tailored means of accelerating our holiness and happiness in him. When we want, we are given more of Christ. When we suffer, our solidarity with him grows.

As usual, Elisabeth was right, “God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don’t have now, we don’t need now.” And what we do need now, we do have now: God the Father’s loving, sovereign hand working all things for our good (Romans 8:28); Christ the Son as our advocate, Savior, and righteousness (1 John 2:1; Philippians 3:20; 1 Corinthians 1:30); and the Holy Spirit’s intercession, help, and comfort surrounding us day by day (Romans 8:26–27).

So, at the end of our lives, we truly will be able to say, “I never wanted for anything. I never had a ‘no’ from my Father that wasn’t a ‘yes’ to better and deeper things.”

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-knows-what-you-dont-have?fbclid=IwAR31N1mJ1rsut1ELmO3EmcBnEBgbbLAKZw4iEmMMTqsY3fb7xLxywcKNWyA

Book Review of "Affirming God's Image"

Review by Tim Challies

It’s sometimes amazing to consider how quickly societal mores change, how quickly an idea can go from unthinkable to acceptable, from having great social stigma attached to its acceptance to having even greater social stigma attached to its rejection. There may be no better example of this than transgenderism. Less than a generation ago, few would have dared suggest that there is no necessary link between biological sex and gender identity. Today, though, it is commonly believed that a person with a female body may actually be a man or a person with a male body may actually be a woman. In fact, those who believe otherwise are considered bigoted and hateful. And in this context, Christians rightly ask, What does the Bible say about this? What should Christians believe about it?

This is the subject of a short but powerful new book by J. Alan Branch titled Affirming God’s Image. The purpose of his book is made clear in the subtitle: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture. He makes it equally clear what audience he had in mind as he carried out his research and wrote his words. “My intended audience is sincere Christians seeking to understand the modern phenomenon of transgenderism.” Therefore, this is not a book meant primarily to hand to a skeptical friend or, even more, to someone who is transgendered. Though it may bring some benefits in such uses, they do not quite meet its purpose. Rather, it is meant to inform Christians about the growing transgender debate and to show Christians how the Bible speaks to the issue.

The transgender discussion involves several key themes that Branch needs to address:

1) Embracing transgender identity should be celebrated; 2) God is actually behind one’s transgender identity; 3) People claim to have a female soul trapped in a male body, or a male soul trapped in a female body; 4) If you love children, you will agree with the avant-grade stand regarding transgenderism; 5) It is a noble and brave thing voluntarily to go through extensive surgery to transform one’s gender appearance; 6) Such an experience is liberating.

His basic argument is that transgenderism is not a trait like hair or skin color, but instead an identity that is rooted in a number of causes and completely inconsistent with Christian ethics. This isn’t to say, of course, that Christians should be anything less than loving toward those who disagree or compassionate to those who claim to be transgendered. Yet Christians must also know what the Bible says and be willing to affirm it, no matter the cost.

Branch begins with a brief history of transgenderism, showing that while there may have been some transgender-like behavior in the past, this modern-day phenomenon is, well, distinctly modern. In the form we know it know, it grew out of the early twentieth century, joined with the sexual revolution, and now marks the ultimate rejection of Judeo-Christian sexual ethics. He concludes that, according to the Christian worldview, “there is no such thing as a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body: These concepts originate in misleading language games fostered by wrongheaded ideas rooted in deconstruction.”

Next he introduces the vocabulary of transgenderism, carefully defining the common terms—something that matters to those who want to accurately understand the issue and know how to engage it. Here you’ll find your introduction to terms like “cisgender” and “genderqueer” and “gender identity.” Having laid this groundwork, he turns to the Bible to critique transgenderism, then discusses arguments people use to claim that people are born transgender. He spends some time discussing the actual process through which people attempt to transition from one gender to another—puberty blockers, hormone therapies, gender reassignment surgery, and so on. And then, as the book draws near to its end, he addresses practical issues related to the family and the local church.

As he does all this, he takes a clear stand. “Transgenderism is not consistent with a life of Christian discipleship. A robust understanding of Scripture insists we embrace our natal sex and live in accordance with that sex: In other words, to use the secular distinction, we strive to embrace the gender consistent with our sex. Imitating the opposite sex is strictly forbidden. Likewise, participation in homosexual behavior is sin.”

Branch says in his introduction that he means to “join conviction with compassion” and he does this well. He is fair, he is respectful, he is understanding, but he never waves from his biblically-informed convictions. He combines all that into a book that serves as a strong and trustworthy guide to one of the most pressing issues of our day. Affirming God’s Image will serve individual Christians well and it will serve churches well. I am glad to recommend it.

The Suffering and Glory of Psalm 22

W. Robert Godfrey

Psalm 22 begins with the most anguished cry in human history: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are the words that Jesus took on His lips at the depth of His suffering on the cross. His suffering was unique at that point as He offered Himself up for the sins of His people. And so, we have tended to see this cry as unique to Jesus. But such an approach to these words is clearly wrong. Jesus was not inventing unique words to interpret His suffering. Rather, He was quoting Psalm 22:1. These words were first uttered by David, and David was speaking for all of God’s people. We need to reflect on these words and the whole psalm as they relate to Christ and to all His people in order to understand them fully.

The psalm begins with a section dominated by the agonized prayer of David (vv. 1–21). David is expressing in the first place his own experience of feeling abandoned by God. Here is the most intense suffering God’s servant can know—not just that enemies surround him (vv. 7, 12–13) and that his body is in dreadful pain (vv. 14–16), but that he feels that God does not hear him and does not care about his suffering. And this is not just the experience of David. It is the experience of all God’s people in the face of terrible trouble. We wonder how our loving heavenly Father can stand idly by when we are in such distress.

Yet, even in this extreme distress, David never loses faith or falls into complete hopelessness. His anguish leads him to prayer, and the first words of the prayer are “My God.” Even in his suffering and wondering about the ways of God, he does not let go of his knowledge that God is his God. In the midst of his anguish, he articulates that faith. He remembers God’s past faithfulness in Israel’s history: “In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame” (vv. 4–5). Then, David remembers God’s past care in his own personal life: “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God” (vv. 9–10). A recurring spiritual remedy in the Psalms is to fill the mind with memories of God’s past faithfulness to assure us of His present faithfulness.

We see David’s hope also in the earnestness of his prayer for present relief. He knows that God can help, and he turns to God as the only one who will help: “But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!” (v. 19). We must never stop praying, even in our deepest distress.

John Calvin in his commentary concluded that a sense of being forsaken by God, far from being unique to Christ or rare for the believer, is a regular and frequent struggle for believers. He wrote, “There is not one of the godly who does not daily experience in himself the same thing. According to the judgment of the flesh, he thinks he is cast off and forsaken by God, while yet he apprehends by faith the grace of God, which is hidden from the eye of sense and reason.” We must not think that living the Christian life is easy or that we will not daily have to bear the cross.

This psalm is not only the experience of every believer, but it is also a very remarkable and specific prophecy of the sufferings of Jesus. We see the scene of the crucifixion especially clearly in the words, “A company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (vv. 16–18). Here we see that indeed this psalm comes to its fullest realization in Jesus.

Jesus knew this psalm and quoted its first words to identify with us in our suffering, since He bore on the cross our agony and suffering. “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death” (Heb. 2:14). Jesus does deliver us by becoming our substitute and the sacrifice for our sins.

In the second part of this psalm, the mood and tone change dramatically. Agonized prayer turns to ardent praise. The psalmist comes to be filled with praise: “In the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (v. 22). He calls on his brothers to join him in praise: “You who fear the LORD, praise him!” (v. 23).

This ardent praise is for the success of the cause of God. The failure that at the beginning of the psalm seemed certain is now swallowed up in victory. This success will not just be personal or individual but will be worldwide. The praise rests on the abundant promise: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you… . All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust” (vv. 27, 29). After suffering comes the glory of a worldwide kingdom.

God’s success will not only affect the whole world, but will also span the generations: “Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the LORD to the coming generation” (v. 30). The picture here is not of a brief time of success for the cause of the Lord, but the assurance that the time of suffering will lead to a time of great spreading of the knowledge of God throughout the earth. And surely, since the time of Pentecost, we have seen the fulfillment of this promise. All around the world today, Jesus is known and worshiped. Even while suffering continues in this world, we have seen Christ’s promise realized: “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

This success is the Lord’s doing, “for kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations” (v. 28). He is the active One who ultimately gives victory to His cause. The Lord achieves His triumph through the instruments He uses. And David sees himself as an instrument especially in his proclaiming the goodness and mercy of his God: “I will tell of your name to my brothers” (v. 22). Jesus also is the speaker in verse 22, as we are told in Hebrews 2:12 (this citation shows again how fully the New Testament sees Jesus speaking in the Psalter).

The psalmist, indeed, proclaims the name of God, particularly in terms of His saving mercy: “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (v. 24). Such proclamation is vital to the mission of God in the world. As Calvin wrote, “God begets and multiplies his Church only by means of the word.” Those who have experienced God’s mercy must tell others about it.

While God uses instruments to accomplish His purposes, the glory is His alone, for it is He who acts through them and ensures their success. For that reason, this psalm ends with this firm certainty: “He has done it” (v. 31). Our God hears our prayers, fulfills His promises, and fills us with praise. “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).

As we seek to understand Psalm 22 so that we can appropriate it and use it, we need to see in it the direction of the history of the church: first suffering and then glory. We also need to see something of a pattern of piety for the church and for the individual Christian. The pattern is this: The real and inescapable problems of life in this fallen world should lead us to prayer. Prayer should lead us to remembering and meditation on the promises of God, both those fulfilled in the past and those that we trust will be fulfilled in the future. Remembering the promises of God will help us to praise Him as we ought. As we praise Him, we can continue to face with grace and faith the problems that come daily into our lives.

Posted at: https://www.ligonier.org/blog/suffering-and-glory-psalm-22/?utm_content=bufferd46d8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR2_nkzL9f6VNn2eDtPYUOa2T15cg_x-mavTc5QDHjLHKLojgtJyjTt7LPw

5 Loopholes We Use to Excuse Sin

Will Anderson

When it comes to owning sin, humans can be fiercely stubborn. We come up with all sorts of excuses to downplay sin and avoid true repentance.

It’s easy to mouth the words of an apology, to others or God, while feeling out possible loopholes that leave room for future indulgence. We’re spiritual Houdinis, contorting and twisting our way out of true repentance. We’re actors who specialize in scenes of contrition, whose apologetic masquerades are little more than roles we play to get off the hook.

The Puritan Richard Sibbes, in The Bruised Reed, summarizes our resistance well: “It is a very hard thing to bring a dull and evasive heart to cry with feeling for mercy. Our hearts, like criminals, until they be beaten from all evasions, never cry for the mercy of the judge.”

For some of us, our cry for God’s mercy is long overdue, but our evasions keep us from real repentance. Here are five common loopholes we use to excuse sin.

1. Momentary Mourning

When it comes to repentance, the ups and downs of emotions fail us. Now, emotions are God-ordained and can be a genuine symptom of deep, lasting repentance. As we come to the cross in confession and find grace there, tears are often inescapable.

But emotions don’t always tell the truth. They can become another loophole, a way of looking sorry on the surface while we internally avoid the painful purging of idols God desires. As Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

The craftiness of the human heart creates a dangerous concoction of half-hearted remorse, using external repentance to mask inward apathy. It’s a strategy of self-deception: If we convince ourselves we’re repentant, the guilt we feel loses its sting.

It’s not that we’re totally without remorse—our hearts may be heavy in the moment. But when the sun of temptation rises again, our sorrow quickly evaporates in the blaze of indulgence.

Are our tears a vain attempt to mediate our own atonement, or do we embrace the cross of Christ in all its sin-crushing, affection-stirring wonder? May our tears flow from God’s endless fountain of grace, not from the streams of our fickle emotion and fleeting repentance.

2. The Percentage Plea

Sometimes we pit our righteous deeds against our sinful deeds. We draw up a spiritual pie chart to prove how our obedience far outweighs the tiny sliver of sin in our lives. We crunch the numbers, convinced they’re in our favor. If we get most things right, God will surely excuse the few things we get wrong.

The deception is twofold.

First, it overestimates human righteousness, anchoring it in what we do rather than in what Christ has done. In Romans 3:9–20, Paul makes clear the impossibility of building any case of innocence based on our works. Elsewhere he says our salvation is not something to earn but to receive (Eph. 2:8–9).

Second, it underestimates the corrosive nature of sin. It’s hazardous to assume the sliver of darkness in our lives can exist cozily alongside the light (in reality it’s probably more than a sliver anyway).

In Scripture, sin is never portrayed in neutral terms, as if it can be fenced in. Instead it’s pictured as yeast that grows steadily through dough (Gal. 5:9; 1 Cor. 5:6–7). Its appetite is insatiable. When we downplay its presence, sin’s growth is guaranteed.

Sin’s appetite is insatiable. When we downplay its presence, sin’s growth is guaranteed.

3. Institutional Cynicism

Ours is an age of institutional suspicion. No one wants to be told how to live. Autonomy is king and authority is foe. Any mandate to holiness is dismissed as yet another instance of the institutional church’s legalism.

The hypocrisy of “holier than thou” religious authorities—who are often exposed in the same sins they decry—thus becomes an excuse for individuals to treat their own sin lightly, allowing the church’s flaws to become a loophole for excusing their own.

Does our disdain for evangelical “holiness” jargon cripple our commitment to growing in Christlikeness? Is our eye-rolling at self-righteous believers a self-justifying strategy for holding on to sin?

As always, Jesus shows the way. He verbally skewered the legalists of his day (Matt. 23)—while taking holiness seriously. He refused to be manipulated by the judgmental and superficial Pharisaicalism of his day—while also proclaiming: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). He rescued the law from the abusive hands wielding it—while calling his disciples to follow its intent according to his Father’s heart (Matt. 5:17–20).

We must do the same.

4. Hiding in the Herd

Human community can be both a gift for our growth and an inhibition to it. Like Adam and Eve as they ate from the tree, there’s a herd mentality in all of us—a tendency to be influenced, led, and shaped by each other in destructive ways.

Community can be insular and bias-confirming, when we defend everything in our camp and judge those in other camps. Whatever is common becomes comfortable, normalized, justifiable. Evangelicals are not immune to this problem. We can easily fall into categories of “us versus them,” or Christians vs. the culture, blinded to how we’ve simply Christianized the same secular practices we claim to detest.

As we benefit from the beauty and life of Christian community, let’s also check the motives, habits, and presuppositions of our tribe. This is hard and courageous work, but in the end the status quo of evangelicalism is not always the way of Jesus.

Is community our crutch, a way to excuse sin because we’re “not the only ones”? Are we afraid to stand out and content to blend in, even when we sense we’re being disobedient?

As we benefit from the beauty and life of Christian community, let’s also check the motives, habits, and presuppositions of our tribe.

5. The Giftedness Game

A mentor once shared that his greatest moments of temptation come on the heels of success. As a gifted pastor and communicator, he recognizes in the aftermath of a great sermon, with the affirmation of his people ringing in his ears, he sometimes feels entitled to reward himself in sinful ways.

My mentor’s honesty is instructive for us all. Are we quietly convinced God cares more about giftedness than character? Do we imagine our “indispensability” in God’s kingdom affords us special privileges to dabble in rebellion?

Our friends and colleagues may applaud our gifts. The world may admire our success. But God’s eyes are fixed on our hearts. What does he see?

We must not let our accomplishments outpace our character. Our résumés do not excuse our rebellion. By God’s grace, may our public obedience accurately reflect our private habits.  

We must not let our accomplishments outpace our character. Our résumés do not excuse our rebellion.

Look Back as You Move Forward

How do we stop the evasive maneuvers? What can we do to stop the cycle of seeking loopholes that excuse sin rather than truly owning it and turning from it?

We must daily rehearse the gospel to ourselves. We must saturate in the simple, profound truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And we must not limit the gospel to something Jesus did in the past, but as something Jesus is also doing in our present. It’s not just Christ alone for salvation, but also Christ alone for transformation.

In his book Center Church, Tim Keller writes:

The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is inaccurate to think the gospel is what saves non-Christians, and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts, and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on.

The more we absorb the gospel, the less necessary each loophole becomes. In Christ, we don’t have to manufacture remorse for sin. Instead, Jesus’s sacrifice floods our hearts with affection for him. As we gaze at Calvary, it becomes impossible to trivialize our sin. Our good works are exposed as insufficient. Our cynicism is melted away. We’re freed from conformity to others. We come to see success not as license to sin, but as grace to undeserving rebels.

Our rebellion is indeed stubborn, but the love of Christ is more stubborn still. As we yield to the excavating work of the Spirit, saturated in the truth of the gospel, our loopholes will fall away.

Will Anderson (MA, Talbot School of Theology) is a pastor and writer who lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Emily.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-loopholes-excuse-sin/

How Much Authority Does Satan Have?

John Piper

Audio Transcript

What legitimate authority does Satan have over this world? It’s a very important question, and it arrives today from a listener named Aaron in Texas. “Hello, Pastor John! In Matthew 4:9 and in Luke 4:6, what authority is Satan talking about? Is he lying that he has authority to give? Or does he truly have authority over the earth? If so, what is it, and how does this relate to God’s complete sovereignty over all things?”

Who Owns the World?

Here’s what the devil actually said to Jesus at the temptation in the wilderness that creates the question we were just asked: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’” (Matthew 4:8–9).

“God considered it wise, as part of his curse on the world after the fall, to give Satan a huge power in this world.”

And here’s Luke 4:5–7: “And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’”

My first answer is that if Jesus had worshiped Satan, of course Jesus would have abdicated his divine authority. He would have ceased to be God. If he were worshiping the devil, he wouldn’t be God. The devil would be God. Satan would then give him the whole world and still control the world because Jesus would not be God. He’d be Satan’s lackey. All of this, of course, did not and could not happen. Satan, as usual, was a fool to suggest it. He’s an idiot. He’s always saying stupid, half-true things.

All Power by Permission

But notice the words of Luke 4:6. Satan is not the ultimate authority in the world because, in Luke 4:6, he admits this: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me.” By whom? God. In his sovereignty, God considered it wise, as part of his curse on the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, to give Satan a huge power in this world.

But he doesn’t have ultimate power. We’re not dualists. We don’t think there’s God and Satan duking it out for power in the universe. God is God, not Satan. Satan’s not God. All Satan’s power is by permission. He has no autonomy to do anything God does not permit for infinitely wise purposes.

We see Satan given permission to afflict Job, right? This is the same kind of paradigm. The Lord said to Satan in Job 1:12, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.” All his acts of opposition to God and God’s people are part of God’s plan as he gives Satan permission to exercise tremendous power in this world.

Real but Defeated

Nevertheless, Satan’s sway in this world is terrible and vast. Here’s what we read.

“All Satan’s power is by permission. He has no autonomy to do anything God does not permit for infinitely wise purposes.”

The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:1–2)

The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Jesus says in his last night,

I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. (John 14:30)

The note that is struck in the New Testament is that in Christ’s death and resurrection, the decisive blow against Satan has been struck. As Satan comes against Jesus in his final hours, Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). In John 16:11, he says, “The ruler of this world is judged.”

Here’s Luke 22:53. Jesus says — I love this phrase; he’s just so sovereign — “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” Jesus basically says, “You know, you get an hour. You get one hour. I know when it starts. I know what it ends. That’s your hour. It’s all by sovereign permission that you can do your dastardly deed in Judas and in me tomorrow morning.”

Power of the Cross

The most important passage on Satan’s defeat in the cross of Christ is Colossians 2:13–15. It goes like this: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.” That’s a sweet sentence. The entire record of your life that you regret — canceled. Here comes the decisive second verse: “This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

“Satan’s one damning weapon against God’s elect is taken out of his hand. There is no unforgiven sin anymore.”

So, in dying for your sins, in nailing your record of debt to the cross, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. He disarmed them by nailing our record of debt to the cross, because Satan’s power is that he’s a great accuser.

If he has nothing in his court folder as he stands before the bar to accuse us, what’s he going to do? He becomes powerless in this courtroom because our record of debts has been canceled. His one damning weapon against God’s elect is taken out of his hand. There is no unforgiven sin anymore. We’re forgiven. So what’s he going to condemn? Nothing.

God Is Greater

Now in every battle with the devil, we can have total confidence of final victory. This is why Romans 8:38–89 says what it says: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers [satanic power included], nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” He has been decisively defeated.

A friend told me once about the time when he was converted in college, along with several other athletes. He’s a big, hulking, football-player type. He was converted by an old, elderly woman — a little petite woman. She hosted discipleship groups at her house for these football players twice the size of her. She insisted as her discipleship method that every one of them after their conversion say one hundred times a week, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). I thought, “Wow, that’s a wise way to start a Christian life because that’s really true.”

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-much-authority-does-satan-have-in-the-world

3 Basic Tools Your Teenage Church Kid Needs

Lindsey Carlson

My teenager’s second home is the church. She’s a pastor’s kid. She knows Sunday school answers, Bible trivia, and what it means to be a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N. Hymn lyrics were the lullabies of her childhood, she had more story Bibles than Dr. Seuss books on her bookshelves, and the girl can sing 14 years’ worth of VBS soundtracks in her sleep. She is a full-blown church kid.

Thankfully, my daughter isn’t just a church kid. I see evidence of her faith in more than fluency in Christianese or proficiency in church culture. She has professed saving faith, been baptized, and is blossoming with the fruit of the Spirit. She loves others, is quick to serve, demonstrates repentance when she sins, and desires to please God, because she’s actually a follower of Christ.

As such, she’s called to grow.

Whether we are 10 or 110, Christians are called to grow in godliness, being continually conformed to the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:29). If your teenage church kid has been born again, she will increasingly demonstrate growth and maturity in Christ. More than churchiness, she will strive for godliness as she grows in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18).

More than churchiness, [a born-again teen] will strive for godliness.

As she grows, help her cultivate the soil with a few tools. These tools may seem basic. They are. But even your church kid needs to be reminded, by you, that centuries worth of Christians have looked to these necessary means for growth in godliness.

1. Search Scripture

In a 2016 survey, 86 percent of teens agreed the Bible is a sacred text, but less than half saw it as a source of hope, and only 35 percent believed it holds everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life. Most teens don’t actually believe the Bible offers help for their daily lives.

How will your son or daughter grow in godliness if he or she doesn’t look to God as their primary source of wisdom? Don’t assume your church kid falls into the 35 percent. Ask your teenager if the Bible is his or her primary source of hope and help. If it isn’t, start here.

Scripture is the primary way God teaches your teen about himself. Inside its pages she will learn to discern right from wrong and to find wisdom and knowledge. The Bible isn’t irrelevant or boring for teens—it’s gloriously imperative and your child’s greatest source of hope. Show her the countless examples that have ministered hope to you. Then, give your teen the tools she needs to discover the riches of Scripture for herself. Don’t just tell her to read the Bible, teach her how to both approach and study the Bible, and help her establish healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

2. Love the Church

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph. 5:25). And yet many teens today don’t even like the church. Statistically speaking, more than half of teens see involvement in the church as unimportant, and only 20 percent regard it as “very important.” Does your teen realize that the church isn’t a building or another weekly commitment? The body of Christ (Rom. 12:5) and her blessings (1 Cor. 10:16) extend past the youth-group doors!

Teach your teen to love the church by expressing your own love for who and what’s inside.

Teach your teen to love the church by expressing your own love for who and what’s inside. Inside the walls of a healthy church is a community of worshipers of all ages, on unified mission to make disciples and bring glory to God. Here, faith is lived out in joy and trial, spiritual and physical needs are met, and the weak and wounded find help and hope. Inside the church, the fruits of the spirit are abundant in the lives of God’s people. Inside the church are shepherds and pastors who speak the Word of God, set a faithful example (Heb. 13:7), and joyfully keep watch over the souls of their people (Heb. 13:17).

Help your teen experience the church’s blessings by connecting her. Invite someone your teen doesn’t know to share a meal (and their story) with your family. Encourage your teen to volunteer at the church’s hospitality desk or offer to sit with an exhausted mom’s squirmy child during church. Or suggest a weekly lawn-mowing for a widow or single mom. Whether it’s an organized ministry opportunity or fulfilling an organic need within the body, teach your teen to look for needs, jump in, and invest in relationships.

3. Pray Continually

As a church kid, my teenager has grown up hearing her parents pray over meals, bedtimes, family worship times, and in-between times. We make efforts to tell her how prayer became a joy and privilege in our own lives. We also try to be honest about how sometimes it’s challenging and difficult. But even as a church kid who hears prayers all the time, our daughter still needs to be coaxed to practice uncomfortable spiritual disciplines: to be asked to pray when she doesn’t volunteer, encouraged when she’s embarrassed, and nudged to seek prayer as a first line of defense.

Encourage your teen that giving attention to her prayer life will help her to grow in godliness. Weakness is the Christian’s invitation to pray. Rather than always rescuing, teach your teen prayerful dependence on the Father’s rescue. Call her to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and find help in her time of need (Heb. 4:16). Assure her that embracing the awkwardness of a growing prayer life is part of the process. Prayerful maturity comes with time, determination, and lots of practice.

Keep Growing

As the parents of a teenage church kid who follows Christ, we must take up the task of watering, tending, and pruning their discipleship—while recognizing their growth is in the Lord’s hands. Helping our teen grow in godliness means giving her the tools to water and till the soil and then watching the Spirit produce fruit in all circumstances.

As parents of teenagers, may we never grow weary of doing good to the disciples living in our homes, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature [wo]manhood, and to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13).

Lindsey Carlson is a pastor’s wife and the mother of five children. She serves in ministry alongside her husband in Baltimore, Maryland, where they planted Imprint Community Church in 2017. She enjoys teaching and discipling women in her local church and through writing and public speaking. She is the author of Growing in Godliness: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Maturing in Christ (Crossway, 2019). You can find more of her writing at www.lindseycarlson.net.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/three-basic-tools-teenage-church-kid-needs/

God Invites You to Delight Yourself in Him

Randy Alcorn

Psalm 37:4 is a great but often misunderstood verse: “Delight yourselves in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Some people take this to mean that God will give us whatever we think we want. But the key part is “delight yourself in God.” When we delight in the Lord He often changes our heart’s desires to what most honors Him, then grants them to us. It’s not that we always get what we want, but that He teaches us to value and even want what He—in His sovereign and loving plan—gives us.

As we contemplate God, and ponder who He is, we will want what He wants. The desire of our hearts will be to hear Him say to us, “Well done.” And when that day comes, He will flood us with more joy than we can imagine. He will say, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, 23).

But we don’t have to wait until we die to know how He wants us to live! He commands us, for His glory and our good, to delight in Him not just in Heaven forever, but also on this present earth, here and now. 

To delight in God is to be happy with Him and in Him. To do that, we must cultivate our relationship with Him just as we do with other people by spending time with Him, bowing our knee before Him as our Lord, and also spending time with Him as our friend. That’s how we get to know Him, by learning and meditating daily on what’s true about Him. (I recommend these great books: Knowing God by J. I. Packer,  The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer, and Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.) 

In Bible study it’s always helpful to think about what the text says in contrast to what it does not say. It says, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” It doesn’t say, “Sit there and wait for the Lord to come and delight you.”

It’s active, not passive.  God doesn’t spoon-feed us His pleasures; we need to go to His banquet, reach out our hands, and select that delicious cuisine. As surely as it’s our responsibility to put good food in our mouths, it’s our responsibility to move our bodies to open His Word and move our minds toward God, and to seek to delight in Him!

While it’s true that God and His Word are nourishing, just knowing that won’t bring us to the table. We need to turn from our self-preoccupied thoughts and instead seek to cultivate our appetite for God: “Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!”(Psalm 34:8, HCSB).

When I contemplate Christ—when I meditate on His unfathomable love and grace—I lose myself in Him instead of in my hurts and disappointments and fears. When He’s the center of my thinking, before I know it, I’m happy.

Here’s the Good News Translation’s rendering of Psalm 37:4: “Seek your happiness in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire.” This corresponds to the words of Jesus: “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33, NLT).

Augustine said, “Love God and do as you please.” At first this sounds shocking, but it fits perfectly with “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will grant you the desires of your heart.” When we find our happiness in God, we will naturally want to do what pleases Him. But it’s up to us to go to Him and ask for His help and empowerment to delight in Him.

God placed just one restriction on Adam and Eve in Eden, and when they disregarded it, the universe unraveled. On the New Earth, that test will no longer be before us. God’s law, the expression of His attributes, will be written on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10). No rules will be needed, for our hearts will be given over to God. We will always delight ourselves in the Lord and He will always give us the desires of our hearts.

Whatever we want will be exactly what He wants for us. What we should do will at last be identical with what we want to do. On God’s New Earth there will never by any difference between duty and delight!

But we don’t have to wait, and we dare not, to discover this. Let’s delight ourselves in Him so that we can enter into His happiness now, not just after we die.

Browse more resources on the topic of happiness, and see Randy’s related books, including Happiness.

Posted at: https://www.epm.org/blog/2019/May/31/god-invites-you-delight-yourself-him?mc_cid=f3b0f4c0d6&mc_eid=3c0fdc7348&fbclid=IwAR0Zn0kNzr8mSLFJTXH7CebxrJ52nVfD0YKaKno48CZXnIVMA-MU5Q1aB3g