Craving Control in the Wilderness

Linda Contino

After many years of diverse career experience, I was excitedly counting down the days until my retirement. I eagerly anticipated being in control of my schedule and time while enjoying a slower pace of life. I envisioned more days devoted to serving in ministry at my church and deepening relationships with family and friends, and I prayed for the Lord to prepare me for these opportune times. And while he did answer that prayer, the opportunities he provided were not the ones for which I had hoped. Instead, the Lord thrust me into a very painful and difficult “wilderness” season during which I sometimes wondered how I would survive.

Though not a physical place, this wilderness was a period of time that felt wild, dark, and scary due to the uncomfortable trials that God allowed in my life. It was not the peaceful “promised land” of retirement that I had imagined. I identified with the Israelites, who entered unfamiliar territory after being miraculously delivered by God from the Egyptians. They were not immediately brought to the Promised Land but spent forty years in the wilderness.

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle (Ex. 13:17-18).

God used a wilderness detour to teach his people, and the same was true for me. In my wandering through the wilderness, God taught me four truths about control.

The Role of Control

 
1. God is in control of our circumstances, even when we don’t understand what he is doing.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deut. 29:29).

Before God took me on a wilderness detour, I didn’t realize the depth of my desire to control my life. This desire was like tangled weeds, choking the growth of my faith. When things were going well, I found it easy to deceive myself into thinking my faith was strong. But when trials continued to multiply, I was not able to fully “trust in the Lord with all [my] heart and lean not on [my] own understanding” (Prov. 3:5). My faith needed to develop deeper roots. God used his Word to help me understand that he is often working in secret ways that I cannot see or understand (Deut. 29:29). And God is not obligated to explain his ways to me! As I believed his Word, my illusion of control weakened and my trust in God’s sovereignty deepened.

2. We can control our responses to the circumstances that God allows.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28).

I couldn’t choose the circumstances of this wilderness season, but I could choose my response. Charles Spurgeon said, “The same sun which melts wax hardens clay.”1 I faced a choice: would I be like wax, softened by the heat of trial, or would I harden like clay under the fire? Choosing a godly response to suffering was challenging. I was tempted to harden my heart, focusing on the perceived prominence of others’ sin instead of asking the Lord to reveal mine. By God’s grace, he “melted” my resistance, teaching me to forgive instead. The Holy Spirit enabled me to entrust my painful situations to the Lord’s care, knowing that God was working for my good. I used to think that this meant everything would work out the way I wanted, as in “happily ever after.” But the “good” referred to in Romans 8:28 is that of becoming more like Christ—which is truly the best “happily ever after” of all.

3. The Gospel acts as a compass to control our navigation through trials.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence (2 Pet. 1:3).

The truths of the gospel had directed me to saving faith in Christ in the past. But the gospel was also necessary for enduring the present suffering to which God had called me in this wilderness experience. As I wrestled with putting one foot in front of the other, the Lord graciously revealed that I was pointing my gaze in the wrong direction. Instead of looking to Christ and relying on his power, I was focused on myself and my seemingly insurmountable circumstances. But clinging to 2 Peter 1:3 helped me get my bearings and remember an important gospel promise: Christ’s divine power had already provided everything I needed to navigate this path. And Christ’s presence ensured that I would never walk alone.

4. God calls us to surrender to his control by holding our plans loosely.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps (Prov. 16:9).

After a year of struggle, I thought I was finally leaving the wilderness behind. And then a tiny nodule appeared on my thyroid. My uneasiness grew as I left the doctor’s office, considering what the biopsy might reveal. I picked up a book I had ordered, He Will Hold Me Fast 2, surprised to see the subtitle – A Journey with Grace Through Cancer – and to learn that this book detailed a woman’s experience with thyroid cancer. Two days later, fear gave way to panic with the official diagnosis of my own thyroid cancer. I wrestled with the Lord, asking why he would allow this now. This was not my plan following the difficult wilderness I had just endured!

In God’s mercy, I began to realize that I had never surrendered my retirement desires to the Lord. I had merely prayed that he would provide for what I had planned. The Lord helped me discover a different way to pray: “Lord, cancer is not what I wanted or planned for my retirement years. But if this is what you are now calling me to experience, I submit to your plan. I don’t know how to do this, so please help me.” Interestingly, the title of that book later came to hold a different meaning; rather than striking fear, it became a wonderful reminder of the Lord’s ability to “hold me fast.” Just as the Israelites entered the wilderness “equipped for battle” (Ex. 13:18), God equipped me to handle treatments and surgery, and he encouraged me through the prayer and support of friends and family.

Now three years later, I am mercifully cancer-free and able to enjoy many of the relationship and ministry opportunities I had longed for in retirement. But there is something sweeter than these blessings. Although the wilderness season was a detour I never would have chosen, the Lord knew it was what I needed. Learning to trust his control and surrender my own has transformed my relationship with the Lord, which is now richer and more deeply-rooted than I ever thought possible. I don’t know what difficulties and opportunities every future day will hold, but I know who holds control of my future.

—

1. Charles Spurgeon. “The Lesson of the Almond Tree.” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume XLVI. (Passmore and Alabaster, 1900).
2. Connie Dever. He Will Hold Me Fast: A Journey with Grace Through Cancer. (Ross-shire: Christian Focus Publications, Ltd., 2017).

Linda Contino

Linda is an active member of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church, where she has the privilege of serving on the Welcome Team and Women’s Ministry Team, as well as leading a women’s LIFE group. She is married and blessed with two daughters, two sons-in-law, and two grandsons. She loves spending time with family and connecting with friends.

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2020/06/craving-control-wilderness/

Engaging our emotions, engaging with God

Written By: Alasdair Groves

Emotions are tricky. Everyone has them. Everyone struggles with them. Many struggle with how they feel more than anything else in their lives. Then there is the sea of other people’s emotions in which all of us swim. I suspect most of us consider emotions to be more of a liability than an asset.

What does the Bible have to say about emotions? The Bible doesn’t talk about emotions quite the way we do. We’d like Romans to lay out a theology of emotions, or Proverbs to include a section beginning “Here are six ways to manage your feelings, seven to feel as you should…,” but they’re not there. However, Scripture frequently does exhort us to feel certain things and not to feel others. We are to consider our trials joy (James 1:2). We are to put off rage and bitterness (Eph. 4:31). We are to have compassion for each other (1 Peter 3:8). We are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength (Deut. 6:5).

I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on God’s call to us to have a whole array of emotional responses to his world, from awe-filled delight (e.g., Ps. 8) to vehement hatred (e.g., Ps. 139:21–23). How can we live up to this? Does God expect us to have perfect, instantaneous control over our emotions? No. God does not stand at a distance and command emotions we can never fully attain. Instead, he meets us with countless mercies, transforming our hearts and character, which always influences our emotions.

Throughout the Bible God continually encourages, comforts, convicts and reorients us. Instead of handing us a manual on emotional self-transformation, he patiently and tenderly invites us to simply come to him with all our feelings. This makes our emotions one of the premier opportunities to deepen our relationship with him!

Understand your emotions

If you are surprised to hear that God actually wants you to draw near to him when you feel like you are an emotional mess, remember this: the Bible views emotions as fundamentally good. How do I know this? Because we are image bearers of God and he has emotions. His joy, hate, wrath, compassion, jealousy and love are the model for ours.

We are more than computers cataloging facts. He made us both to “taste and see that the Lord is good” and to “hate what is evil.” He commands us to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn” because he is a God who is moved by his children (eg., Hosea 11:8), a God who commands feasts and celebrations in Israel’s law (e.g., Lev. 23), a God who weeps at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11).

God doesn’t call us to avoid or squash our emotions (as Christians often suppose). Neither does he call us to embrace them unconditionally (as our culture often urges). Rather, he calls us to engage them by bringing our emotions to him and to his people. I like the word engage because it doesn’t make a premature assumption about whether the emotion is right or wrong, or how it might need to change. Instead it highlights what the Bible highlights: our emotions (good and bad) are meant to reveal the countless ways we need God.

Our emotions invite us to see the world as God sees it—both broken and beautiful—rejoicing where he is redeeming it and yearning for the full redemption that is yet to come. Only in the safety of his strength and patience can we face our visceral reactions, name them honestly, and talk about them with God and others.

Bring your emotions to God

At this point, you might be wondering, “But what does it actually look like to bring our emotions to God?” Let me give you an example from a passage that has been especially powerful for me.

Look at Psalm 22:1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? Here is a man in deep distress. He is in trouble and groaning. Worse, he is also alone and abandoned. Stop for a moment and consider the nature and intensity of emotions he’d have to be experiencing to write something like that. Panicky fear. Deeply confusing disappointment. A shocking sense of betrayal. Tangible grief.

Now look at what this man does with these painful emotional experiences: he takes them to God. He is apparently free to engage God—with loud cries no less—even about being abandoned by God. He calls this God, from whom he feels so distant, “My God,” and speaks directly to him, not about him in the abstract. “Why have you forsaken… Why are you so far?”

Of course we know from other passages that God will never leave or forsake his people— the psalmist’s feelings in this moment are not the whole story. The psalmist knows that, too, because the psalm ends with an affirmation of God’s faithfulness. Yet this psalm and many like it come to us without a swarm of footnotes about how God hasn’t really abandoned us. And, importantly, this psalm doesn’t direct this person (or us) to ignore his feelings because they don’t reflect the truth about God. Instead, we are shown a path that forges endlessly toward God, even through the center of emotional storms.

God hears and cares

Like the psalmist, you can come to God with a raw heart and lay your burdens before him (Matt 11:28–30). He will receive you in your pain and walk with you. When your emotions feel overwhelming, turn toward God and put those feelings into words. You will be heard by the God who hears. And when you don’t have words, read Psalm 22 and ask God for help. Know that when you do, you will find your father in heaven feels great joy for the opportunity to embrace a child he loves.

Posted at: https://www.ccef.org/engaging-our-emotions-engaging-god/

3 Ways Jesus Revealed the Worth of Women

BY KARESSE WARREN 

The New Testament shows us that Jesus treated women as friends. He demonstrated the worth of women in the way he treated them—particularly in a culture and time that did not hold women in high regard.

So, why does that matter? It matters because as believers we are called to look like Jesus. For women, this means having a right understanding of our worth and value, based upon Jesus’s treatment of women. For men, whether single or married, this means looking to Jesus as the example of how to treat women.

Elyse Fitzpatrick and Eric Schumacher recently released a book called Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women, which examines how Jesus treated and valued women. I found the book incredibly helpful to my own understanding and want to share a few highlights:

1. Jesus Noticed Women

In an era when women were often treated as lower than animals and servants, especially by men in power, Jesus revolutionized the world by entering into the lives of women and treating them as they were—image-bearers created with great value and worth. Jesus not only noticed women, but he also praised them and used them as examples of what it meant to love and serve him. In Luke 21 Jesus not only noticed the poor widow but, in front of everyone, including men, he praised the widow’s obedience and trust. He spoke life into her and exposed her value, something no other men around him would dare to think of doing. Jesus noticed women, and he loved them.

2. Jesus Enjoyed the Company of Women

The Bible specifically mentions women being present at both the cross and the tomb. These ladies, who knew and cared for Jesus, had gathered to be near their Savior and friend. They enjoyed his company and knew they had no reason to fear how they would be treated by him. They never worried if he would belittle them, never worried if he would treat as objects or as seductresses.

Jesus enjoyed the company of women, and he demonstrated that in the way he befriended them. We see this displayed in his relationship with Mary and Martha. When Jesus came to them after their brother had died, Mary ran to Jesus and boldly asked him where he was and why he hadn’t come sooner! This level of trust and display of honest grief and despair shows the depth of friendship Mary had with Jesus. How did Jesus respond to their grief? He wept. Jesus entered into Mary and Martha’s pain.

3. Jesus Taught & Discipled Women 

During biblical times, most women were not given the opportunity to be educated. In fact, many leaders—especially religious ones—viewed educating women as scandalous. Yet, Jesus quickly debunked this ideology. In Luke 10, we read that Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, but that’s not all that Luke describes. He goes out of his way to say that Mary was sitting and listening. In other words: Jesus was teaching and educating Mary.

The authors go on to say that “Jesus’ willingness to allow women to listen to his teaching and to become part of his ministry went against the rabbinic practices of his day. Our Lord, from the beginning, loves and includes women among his disciples and his fellowship.”

From the beginning, Jesus has included women in his plan of redemption. And as Worthy shares, he continued to utilize women throughout his ministry. The first European convert to Christianity was a woman, as was the first European to receive the sign of the covenant. And the first European church? It met in the home of a successful businesswoman named Lydia.

The kingdom Jesus came to establish was for both men and women, and Jesus, from the very beginning, showed he would use both to further his kingdom.

Women, You are Valuable & Worthy

As women, we can easily search for our value in many different places—our marital status, professional success, appearance, or intelligence (just to name a few!). But Jesus showed us that our value comes from being created in the image of God.

The way that Jesus interacted with women was not simply for their own comfort or to make them feel good about themselves. Indeed, Jesus values women equally with men. But rather than stopping there, his example shows us that he believes women play a role in advancing his kingdom. And not only a role, but a voice. As women, Jesus desires for us to be a part of the local church, to have a place to speak into ministry, and to see our greatest task as making disciples—whether that is within the church or in our own home.

Karesse Warren

Karesse serves as the Assistant Director of Student Ministry. She is passionate about getting to be a part of people's stories and getting to see God work in others' lives. Karesse enjoys spending time with her husband, her family, and her closest friends.

Have This Mindset

By Wendy Wood

God, in His Word, tells us to pay attention to our thoughts and even commands us about what our thoughts should be (Hebrews 4:12, Philippians 4:8, Proverbs 4:23).  God tells us this because what we are thinking about will greatly determine the words and actions that come out of us.  Jesus said that what comes out of the mouth originates in the heart (Matthew 15:18).  So, as I was reading Philippians 2 in the past few weeks, I was again struck by the command to ‘Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).  Paul has just told us to do nothing for selfish gain but to humble ourselves and consider others worthy of serving and loving.  It is easy to agree with Scripture, after all, it is God’s breathed out Word.  But it is much harder to stop and think about how to live this out.  Thankfully, God provides what we need to be able to live this way!

This “mind… is yours in Christ Jesus”.  Paul shows us how Jesus first lived this out as an example for us.  Jesus was in the form of God but did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.  Jesus was equal with God.  He is the exact imprint of the nature of God (Hebrews 1:3)  But, he didn’t “grasp” it.  He didn’t have a tight grip on his status that he refused to let go of.  He didn’t cling to being God so tightly that he refused to serve and descend to meet people where they were.  No!  Jesus willingly let go of his status so that he could serve.  Jesus humbled himself and took the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man.  Paul repeats the same words he has just commanded us to do with “count” and “humble”.  Paul is linking what we are called to do with what Jesus did.  Jesus had to be both the true Son of God and human to be the perfect sacrifice and atonement for our sins.  Jesus humbled himself.  He willingly lowered himself to human and servant status and demonstrated the highest form of counting others more significant by being obedient to death on the cross.  This is an example for us to follow.  When we are commanded to count others more significant than ourselves, we are not to find people who we think are “below” us in status or importance or the roles we have.  We are to willingly choose to humble and lower ourselves and serve others at great cost to ourselves, just like Jesus did.

But, Jesus was much more than an example.  He is the grace that enables us to live this way.  We cannot will-power our way into loving others this way.  If you try to do this on our own, we will be exhausted, frustrated and bitter.  This “mind… is yours in Christ Jesus”.  Jesus didn’t stay dead when he was obedient to death on the cross.  “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9).  Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation is the power that his Spirit gives us when we are in relationship with Him by grace through faith.  When we are content in Christ we can serve others well.  Paul showed us this in Philippians 4:12-13 when he said, “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.”  Doing “all things” refers to being content in Christ.  Only when we are content with God’s love and grace in our lives can we willingly give up status to humble ourselves.  We also have the promise that God exalts the humble.  1 Peter 5:6 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”  God encourages us to look forward to the reward he offers!  God notices and repays those who choose to humble themselves to love and serve others.

So, what is your mindset?   Do you look at those around you and consider their needs ahead of your own?  Where do you need to count others more significant than yourself and humble yourself to serve?  Are you a boss at work but like to keep your hands clean and not help out wherever is needed?  Do you like to lead at home by giving commands rather than being a servant and doing the work yourself?  Do you like to keep track of how much your spouse does to serve you and make sure it feels equal?  Take some time and ask God to reveal where you need to grow in willingly humbling yourself and counting others worthy of your service.

Love One Another

Pastor Larry

John 13:12-15, 34-35

“When He had finished washing their feet, He put on His clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” He asked them. “You call Me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you…

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

Even in that small group of disciples there were men that normally would not associate with one another. They were from different backgrounds- education, vocations, politics- they were just different from one another. But He was asking them to set the pace, be the examples- to learn it, put it into practice and teach it to others. To really love one another. And it would be a sign to the world that something very different was happening here!

Today, in my reading plan we looked at Acts 6.  This is an interesting episode in the early days of the church. Starting a church with new believers of Jewish background (but from so many different countries and cultures) was going to be a challenge! The ones from Greek backgrounds thought they were being overlooked in the daily provision, or was it perhaps that the traditional Jews were getting preference!

“Looks like y’all have been taking care of yer older folks pretty well and somehow, our widows are hard for y’all to see. That ain’t right!”

And tensions probably began to rise. It didn’t seem fair. They were assuming motives, like it was happening on purpose. Something had to be done to fix this if these believers from so many different backgrounds were going to be able to stay together as one church.

On that day of Pentecost, when Jews from all over the known world gathered together in Jerusalem for one common celebration, they came from different cultures and languages and traditions. Sure, they were all Jews but they were all so different! Then something happened! They got saved and the Spirit of God began to work in them! They became one very large, diverse, and potentially very dysfunctional extended family! (Just wait until God begins to draw in Gentiles from all kinds of VERY different backgrounds!) How were they going to live and function together? Whose culture and traditions would reign supreme?

So the leaders of the church had to do something, they couldn’t ignore this distribution problem, hoping it would fade away. They couldn’t just say ‘you’re being too sensitive, get over it, that’s not what they meant.’ It had to be addressed so that they could keep Jesus’ command to serve one another and love each other- the world was watching!

They decide to give these distribution responsibilities to godly men in the group and then the apostles would be able to focus on ‘the ministry of the word of God!’ They didn’t treat these deacon responsibilities lightly. The ‘deacons’ they chose were full of the Spirit, with power and grace! They got to work, distributed what was needed to take care of the body and it appears that the problem was solved! Everyone was recognized, needs were met and relationships were repaired.

Everyone could get on with the main purpose of their mission as a church. “So the word of God spread, more and more believers were added to their number and even many priests believed!’ But in order for the world to listen to their message, they had to be living as His disciples, loving one another as He loved them!

At the same time, there was also a divisive attack coming from outside the church, from the world. The Jews who didn’t believe continued to complain as well, with false charges brought against Stephen and eventually to many, many others. As the church stood united in love for one another, focused on Jesus and full of God’s Spirit, the world hated them the same way they hated Jesus. It’s always been that way. Jesus told us in advance. But that division can’t come from inside the church against one another.

Today, in our country we see division and preference among people from so many different backgrounds and we, as a country and as a community, must work to insure justice and equality for all.

But the challenge is the same in the church. Believers are coming from so many nations, cultures, traditions, ways of life; groups that typically would not be playing well together are now taking communion together. Instead of starting lots of different fellowships based on our unique differences of education, color, country of origin, politics, God calls us around His throne to be one people from every nation, tribe, language and people group. He calls us to love and accept and respect and care for one another in a very unique ‘unity’ that the world doesn’t often see!

The way He loves us, extravagantly and unconditionally, is the way He calls us to love one another! This unity, that overcomes our differences and loves one another completely, is the one way, the main way, the big thing, the way that the world will know that we are His disciples! We, as believers, must lead the way, be the examples, be the proof that He is truly the answer for the condition of the world.

This unity is first taught and lived out in our homes, then instructed and put into practice in our church and ultimately demonstrated and declared to the world.

“Love one another as I have loved you!”

 Pastor Larry

Canyon Hills Community Church

The Vicious Cycle of Idolatry in our Loneliness

Lydia Brownback

Our conscience is the first tip-off. Do we have freedom in our conscience to indulge in whatever we’re doing? Do we have regret after indulging in it? Most people can sense when they’ve crossed a line. Sometimes we blur those lines due to repetitive use of something as an escape—we can grow callous to what we’re doing. And what started as a coping mechanism becomes so much a part of life that it works itself into our identity. Then we don’t even see anymore that it is an escape, and we’re trapped.

God is so kind, however—He doesn’t leave us trapped. He’ll send the Holy Spirit to nudge our conscience. He’ll let consequences come as a result of illicit escapes. Everybody has those, whether other people know about them or not. Everybody’s got some way of coping with their bad feelings—television, internet, food, drugs, drinking, sex—and then we try to manage and minimize these coping mechanisms so they don’t take over our lives. We use them to ease us through a difficult hour or two, but it doesn’t work for very long, and it definitely doesn’t solve anything. It may make us feel better for a little while, but it’s no solution.

We will only find a solution if we (1) acknowledge that we’re escaping, and (2) are willing to look away from those means of escape to examine ourselves and ask, “What is it I’m running from and what am I afraid of?” Then you take it to the Lord (and perhaps to another person) and listen to His response.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-vicious-cycle-of-idolatry-and-loneliness/

The Remedy for Our Idolatry

Nick Batzig

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1st John 5:21). If the heart of man is, as John Calvin described it, “an idol-making factory”, then the way in which those idols are destroyed should be of utmost importance to us. The Bible is replete with references to idolatry because it was written with the purpose of confronting it and providing the remedy for it. The idolatry of Israel is evident throughout the Old Testament—no less than the idolatry of the Gentile nations. No sooner did God deliver His people from the bondage of the idolatrous Egyptians, than they made an idol at the foot of the mountain to which He had brought them to worship. The New Testament writers also bear witness to the pervasive sin of idolatry. In his letter to the church in Rome, the Apostle Paul taught that men, by nature, “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” He reminded the church in Thessalonica that they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven”, and he exhorted the Colossians to put off “covetousness, which is idolatry”. In similar fashion, the Apostle John closed his first epistle with the admonition: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Throughout Israel’s history, a recurring act symbolized the means by which God would remove the idolatry of His people. When Moses found the people worshiping the golden calf at the foot of the mountain, he “took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder.” He then “scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it” (Exodus 32:20). When Moses recounted the act, he explained that he threw the dust of the idol “into a nearby brook” (Deuteronomy 9:21). The burning, crushing, and grinding of the idol represented the judgment of God against sin. The act of throwing the dust of the idol into the brook almost certainly represented the removal of it from the people, as well as from the presence of God. Like the scapegoat being sent into the wilderness, this act prefigured God’s promise to put the sins of His people away from His presence.

Moses’ symbolic act became a paradigm for the subsequent acts of the righteous kings of Israel. Each of these kings removed idols from the land in a manner similar to that of Moses. King Asa cut down the idol that his grandmother set up and burned it by the Kidron (1st Kings 15:11-13). King Josiah “brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord, to the brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the brook Kidron and ground it to ashes.” He “broke them down and pulverized them, and threw their dust into the brook Kidron” (2nd Kings 23:6, 12).

Under the reign of King Hezekiah, “the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the Lord…and carried it to the brook Kidron…and they took away all the incense altars and cast them into the brook Kidron” (2nd Chronicles 29:16; 30:14). While these kings are remembered for destroying idols from the land of Israel, none of them could purge the hearts of the people. The righteous kings of Israel may have temporarily purged the land of idols, but King Jesus removes them from our hearts forever. As He made His way to Calvary, Jesus crossed over the brook Kidron (John 18:1) to symbolize everything He had come to do. He was burnt, crushed, and ground by the wrath of God on the cross.

Jesus is the cure for our idolatry. God the Son took to Himself flesh and blood, so that He might bear the penalty for our idolatry in His own body on the tree. Then He rose bodily from the dead. The Father now commands us to worship a Man— the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

France’s foremost preacher of the nineteenth century, Adolphe Monod, explained the mystery of this truth in a most profound way:

“I strive to live in the communion of Jesus Christ—praying to Him, waiting for Him, speaking to Him, hearing Him, and, in a word, constantly bearing witness to Him day and night; all which would be idolatry if He were not God, and God in the highest sense of the word, the highest that the human mind is capable of giving to that sublime name.”

What idols are you harboring in your heart? Are you giving affections and labors to created things? How are we to keep ourselves from idols? The remedy is only to be found in the person and finished work of Christ. He has destroyed the idols of His people, once and for all, by His death on the cross. Our sins have been washed away in His blood. He has “cast them into the depths of the sea”, even as the righteous kings cast the crushed idols into the brook Kidron. Praise God for His righteous King and His righteous rule in our hearts!

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-remedy-for-our-idolatry/

How To Embrace Your Emotions Without Being Ruled by Them.

Winston Smith

Growing up on a large lake, I developed a great appreciation for the power of the wind. I enjoyed many summer days sailing with friends on the family sailboat. When the weather was fair and there was a steady wind, it made for a delightful day. The wind carried you wherever you liked and you could just enjoy the ride. But on some hot summer afternoons a thunderstorm could blow up quickly. If you were too far out on the lake, it meant real trouble. Chaotic winds would stir up the waves, swing the boom wildly, and even threaten to capsize the boat.

Emotions can seem as unpredictable as the wind—sometimes gentle and comforting, sometimes stormy and threatening, and apparently beyond your control. But we don’t have to live at the mercy of our emotions. Understanding why God gave them to us, and how they work, can help us engage them without being ruled by them. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. ACCEPT YOUR EMOTIONS AS A GIFT FROM GOD.

First, accept your emotions as part of your makeup as an image bearer of God. One of the things that Scripture teaches us about our emotions is how deeply they are rooted in what we value. When we encounter things we consider “good”, we experience emotions that feel good. For example, the blessings of life engender in us feelings like happiness, joy, and contentment. When we encounter things that we consider “bad”, we experience emotions that feel bad—like sadness, grief, and anger. Jesus himself exemplified this. When He encountered the hard hearts and oppression, He became angry (Mark 3:5). When He encountered death and loss, He grieved (John 11:35). When He faced torture and death, He agonized (Luke 22:44).

In a sense then, the more our hearts and values are aligned with God’s, the more we will experience emotions that reflect God’s perspective on what’s happening in and around us. The more we mature into the image of Christ, the more our encounters with the truly good will engender positive emotions. Likewise, our encounters with the truly bad will engender even more negative emotions.

This is important to understand because Christians sometimes have the faulty view that the more we know, trust, and love God, the less we experience negative emotions. While it is true that our faith can keep us from being ruled by our emotions, it doesn’t mean that we don’t feel negative things or live in a fixed state of emotional bliss. Christians who don’t understand this sometimes suffer anxiety, frustration, and shame about their emotions. Denying or hiding from negative emotions only complicates matters. When you don’t have the words to describe how you feel, turn to the Bible to find them.

2. LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONS AND NAME THEM.

Second, it’s important to develop emotional language and name your emotions. Have you ever noticed how sometimes you feel a little better after sharing frustrations or fears with a trusted friend? The actual circumstances that are bothering you may not have changed a bit. Your friend may not have done anything other than listen carefully and share their care and concern, and yet, your struggle is not as much of a burden as it was just a few minutes earlier. There are probably lots of reasons for that, but at a fundamental level, being able to name your emotions and experiences enabled you to entrust them to another who bore the burden with you. In other words, being able to name your emotions helped you to connect with another and be loved.

This can be very hard to do. Our emotions, especially the more painful ones, are often messy and complicated. We aren’t necessarily sure exactly what we are feeling, just that it feels awful. The Bible provides some help. It is full of songs, poems, and narratives that describe the full range of human experience in all of its complicated messiness. Take the Psalms for example. There you will find thankfulness and joy, “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14); frustration and anger, “Be not silent, O God of my praise! For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues” (Psalm 109:1-2); even utter despair, “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness” (Psalm 88:18).

When you don’t have the words to describe how you feel, turn to the Bible to find them. Allow words inspired by the Holy Spirit to become your words. As you do, you are beginning the process of entrusting them to another. First and foremost, you are beginning to entrust them to God by mouthing His words after Him, but learning the vocabulary of emotions can begin to help you share them wisely with trusted others as well.

3. DISCERN HOW EMOTIONS INVITE YOU TO GROW IN LOVE.

As God’s image bearers we were created to mature into Christ’s likeness, which is love itself (1st John 3:1-16), and our emotions can actually help us to grow in love. This can happen in many ways. For example, as we are more honest and engaged with our emotions we may notice a “gap” between how the Bible suggests we should feel and how we actually feel. For example, Paul writes that, as an expression of genuine love, Christians should, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). In other words, love requires us to enter into the emotional experience of those we love. When you experience a “gap”, say you are untouched by the other’s suffering or you experience their happiness as jealousy, then you know that your emotions are not being shaped by love, but something else.

Or perhaps you wrestle with particularly strong negative emotions. For example, say you have an anxiety problem. At times you seem to worry about everything. Or perhaps your fear is paralyzing and prevents you from living a full life. There are all kinds of techniques that you can learn to help you engage your fear and perhaps become desensitized to it, and that’s fine. But realize that your fear may also suggest a need to receive more deeply God’s care and love for you. The Bible records many examples of His people’s fear, to which He often reminds them that though they may suffer, He is with them and cares for them. Consider Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Again, knowing God’s love doesn’t totally remove negative emotions, but it can keep them from controlling you and keep you grounded and able to learn and grow.

Navigating our emotions can be tricky, but it’s easier if you continually review a few basics: First, remember—your emotions are part of how God made you to reflect His image and His values. You and emotions go together just like sailboats and wind are meant to go together. You don’t want your boat to be sunk by the wind, but without the wind you aren’t going anywhere. Second, learn the language of emotions. You might say that learning the vocabulary of emotions is like learning how to sail with a crew. To sail safely you need to be able to say, “Watch out for the boom!” or “We’re taking on water! Grab a bucket!” And it makes sailing much nicer when you can say, “Isn’t this a lovely day. I’m glad we’re here together.” Finally, knowing that emotions are meant to help us to grow in loving and knowing God’s love is like having a compass heading. Even when the winds make sailing hard, if you know where you are trying to go, you’ll know how to navigate them to get there.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/how-to-embrace-your-emotions-without-being-ruled-by-them/

Idolatry: The Desire to Be Lord of What One Worship

J.I. Packer

The consistent biblical testimony is that idolatry is inexcusable. Scripture never condones idolatry on the grounds that men knew no better, but condemns it on the assumption that they did, and that irrespective of whether they had encountered any part of God’s special revelation or not (Isaiah 44:10-20; Habakkuk 2:18-20).

Quite so, says Paul; for it is out of general, not special, revelation that idolatry has been manufactured. Idolatry is a lie grafted on to some of the intuitions of general revelation in order to smother the rest; it was invented to provide sinners with gods they can worship while remaining their own masters. One of the contradictions of fallen human nature is the desire to be lord of what one worships.

As a creature, man yearns for a god to serve; as a sinner, he is resolved to play God himself, and demands that everything else should serve him. This explains the absurd actions of the pagan who directs acts of worship to the image he made himself (Isaiah 44:10-20), while at the same time developing techniques of sacrifice, prayer, and sympathetic magic for getting his imaginary god to do what he wants (cf. 1st Kings 17:25-28; 36, 37; Matthew 6:7).

And Scripture recognizes more forms of idolatry than polytheism. It says that idolatry exists whenever man gives himself up, heart and soul, to mastering an adored object. Covetousness is thus idolatry (Colossians 3:5). So it by no means follows that sinners forsake idolatry when they abandon polytheism.

All that happens is that they change their gods. Some ‘idolize’ wealth; and Christ calls such the slaves of Mammon in just the same exclusive sense as the Christian is the servant of his God (Matthew 6:19, 24). Others ‘idolize’ and live for ideas, ideals, a cause, power, a wife, children, country, beauty, and many other things besides.

The self-contradictory lust of sinful man to have something he can worship and master at the same time takes countless forms, each exhibiting the same pathetic ambivalence.

Trying to rule what one serves—being enslaved by what one tries to rule—trying to play God to one’s gods, and ending up the captive of them all—that is idolatry, in all its forms. It is a satanic parody of man’s original relation to his Maker, and a source of endless misery to all its practioners.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/idolatry-the-desire-to-be-lord-of-what-one-worship/

The Idolatry of Spiritual Laziness

Jared Wilson

Let’s talk about laziness. Laziness is idolatry. It is closely related to its opposite—workaholism. Both the sins of laziness and workaholism are sins of self-worship. The behavior looks different, but the root idolatry is the same. And the problem we face is that the law cannot do for either of these sins what grace does. There is no saving power in law. Further—and this is the crucial point in this particular discussion—there is no sustainable keeping of the law apart from the compulsion of grace. We can (and should) command repentance from sin, but it is grace that enables repentance and belief that accompanies it. Repentance problems are always belief problems. When we are set free from the law’s curse, we are set free to the law’s blessings. The difference-maker is the gospel and the joyful worship it creates. Any other attempt at law-abiding is just behavior management.

So we cannot cure spiritual laziness by pouring law on it. God turns dry bones into living, breathing, worshiping, working bodies by pouring gospel proclamation into them. When we truly behold the gospel, we can’t help but grow in Christ and with the fruit of the Spirit. Paul captures the essence of this truth in 2nd Corinthians 3:15-18:

Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The law cannot lift the veil. It cannot supply what it demands. But when, by the power of the Spirit, we turn to behold the Lord—not just see Him, but behold Him—the veil is lifted and we are transformed bit by bit, so long as we are beholding. This is not self-generated. It comes, Paul says, “from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Vicky Beeching’s song “Captivated” captures this truth well with these lyrics:

Beholding is becoming, so as You fill my view
Transform me into the likeness of You.

According to 2nd Corinthians 3:15-18, beholding is becoming. See how Psalm 119:18 relates “beholding as becoming” to obedience: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

What must happen for a lazy person to be able to become diligent? He must behold the wondrous things in God’s law. Does he just decide to do that? No. Okay, well, yes…sort of. But he must be moved to decide to be diligent from a force outside of himself. His eyes must be opened by the Spirit. And in this opening, the law and his keeping of it become wondrous, not tedious. This is really what we’re aiming for with gospel centrality, and it’s what gospel wakefulness [super]naturally produces: obedience to God as worshipful response, not meritorious leverage. We are fixing our eyes on the finished work of Christ, so that we may be free, and therefore free to delight in the law, not buckle under it.

Religious people can’t delight in the law like the psalmists do. They have to be set free—and feel free—from its curse first. This is where accusing gospel centrality of facilitating antinomianism becomes nonsensical. Generally speaking, people aren’t lazy because they think they’re forgiven for trespassing the law; they’re lazy because they think the law doesn’t apply to them. The truth is that we worship our way into sin, and we have to worship our way out. When people are lazy (or restless), they do have a sin problem, but the sin problem is just a symptom of the deeper worship problem. Their affections are set somewhere else. And wherever our affections are set is where our behavior will go.

So gospel wakefulness does not mean or produce laziness. But what gospel wakefulness does to the work of obedience is something we cannot muster up of our own power. It is the difference between driving our car and pushing it. Or, better, it is the difference between seeing the Christian life as a rowboat and seeing it as a sailboat.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-idolatry-of-spiritual-laziness/