An Unexpected Gospel Analogy

As a pastor-/preacher-in-training, I really enjoy taking random things and turning them into a way to proclaim the gospel. Whether it’s an eraser of a pencil: we write our sins, God flips it and erases them; or a cup of coffee: when it’s internalized, it awakes you to your situation; or a napkin: they’re typically white (Jesus is pure) and they clean up our messes (Jesus sure does for us). Regardless of the item, there is usually some way to tie it to Christ and the gospel. They will all ultimately fall short, but since Christ wants to be found, He doesn’t make it hard to find Him. I would like to demonstrate this in some depth through the song “How to Love” by lil Wayne, off his album Tha Carter IV . The lyrics have been copied below, and bold type represents the hook (chorus, refrain, whatever) to differentiate it from the other sections. Also, any profanity has been replaced with a weaker word within [brackets].

You had a lot of crooks try'na steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn't never figure out

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

Mm you had a lot of moments that didn't last forever

Now you in the corner try'na put it together

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

Mm for a second you were here, now you over there

It's hard not to stare, the way you moving your body

Like you never had a love (had a love)

Never had love (had a love)

When you was just a youngin', your looks were so precious

But now your grown up, so fly it's like a blessing

But you, can't have a man look at you for five seconds

Without you being insecure

You never credit yourself so when you got older

It's seems like you came back ten times over

Now you're sitting here in this [dang] corner

Looking through all your thoughts and looking over your shoulder

Hook

Mm for a second you were here, now you over there

It's hard not to stare, the way you moving your body

Like you never had a love (had a love)

How to love (how to love)

Ooh, you had a lot of dreams that transform to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions

But it wasn't your fault, wasn't in your intentions

To be the one here talking to me, be the one listening

But I admire your poppin' bottles and dippin'

Just as much as you admire bartending and strippin'

Baby, so don't be mad, nobody else trippin'

You see a lot of crooks and the crooks still crook

Hook

Ooh, see I just want you to know (You to know)

That you deserve the best

You're beautiful, you're beautiful

Yeah, and I want you to know

You're far from the usual, far from the usual

Hook 2x

In order to properly dissect this song to see the gospel beneath it, we need to look at three different portions: first, the hook; second, the verses; and third, the bridge.

The hook reads as follows:

You had a lot of crooks try'na steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn't never figure out

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

Mm you had a lot of moments that didn't last forever

Now you in the corner try'na put it together

How to love (how to love)

How to love (how to love)

The first thing to recognize, is that to get the most out of this song, we have to get past our fears and concede that for the allegory being shared Wayne is speaking as if he played a character who is God (I know it’s a hard bridge to cross, but it makes this song mean a whole lot more if we can do this). With this understanding, the meaning is relatively clear in the hook.

We are seduced by everything in this world. Nothing is not trying to earn our time and affections. However, none of those things satisfy in the end. We think they contain love, fulfillment, happiness, but we are sadly disappointed every time. The things we think will satisfy us for eternity are fleeting, and leave us with more questions and hurts than we really want to admit. It seems our whole lives are a search for love.

This leads to the verses. The first verse reads as follows:

When you was just a youngin', your looks were so precious

But now your grown up, so fly it's like a blessing

But you, can't have a man look at you for five seconds

Without you being insecure

You never credit yourself so when you got older

It's seems like you came back ten times over

Now you're sitting here in this [dang] corner

Looking through all your thoughts and looking over your shoulder

The first line could easily be—especially if it was a Christian writing—a reference to Ezekiel 16:6-14 which is itself a parable of Israel’s apostasy from God toward lesser things. This is what we are too prone to do. We take the gifts that God has given us and turn them into ways to spurn His glory and grace. The girl in the song that Wayne is talking about has flirted around with many different men—using her looks for whatever she can—and now she only finds worth around another man; they’ve made her insecure, because she finds her worth in them. She knows the cycle, but she doesn’t know how to escape. She questions her thoughts and she questions those around her.

The second verse continues the story. It says:

Ooh, you had a lot of dreams that transform to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions

But it wasn't your fault, wasn't in your intentions

To be the one here talking to me, be the one listening

But I admire your poppin' bottles and dippin'

Just as much as you admire bartending and strippin'

Baby, so don't be mad, nobody else trippin'

You see a lot of crooks and the crooks still crook

This girl haad big plans for her life. We all do. Childhood is where we dream big. “I want to be an astronaut,” “I want to be a baseball player,” “I want to be a movie star;” all of these are typical dreams that children have for their life. It was never part of our original plan to be in the places we end up. (Example: tell me even three years ago that I’d move to Missouri in two and a half years and I would have laughed in your face.) So when Wayne says that she never planned on talking to him, it is analogous to Romans 3:11 in that no one seeks for God.

Maybe this is a stretch, but I’m interpreting the next two lines, “But I admire your poppin' bottles and dippin' / Just as much as you admire bartending and strippin'” to mean that he doesn’t admire it and neither does she in reality. He tells her not to be mad about that statement, because crooks will stay crooks, but he is different.

The bridge is where I got the idea for this post. It states:

Ooh, see I just want you to know (You to know)

That you deserve the best

You're beautiful, you're beautiful

Yeah, and I want you to know

You're far from the usual, far from the usual

To me, this sounds an awful lot like Song of Songs 2:2, where the man says to the woman, “Like a lily among thorns, so is my darling among the young women” (HCSB). Wayne is letting her know that she deserves a lot better, and he is claiming to be able to offer it. He says that she is far from a typical girl. He says that she makes other girls look like thorns in comparison.

Jesus says the same to each one of us. We have pursued other things. We are trapped in a cycle of looking for love in all the wrong ways. The sinful things we do (cf. “the way you moving your body”) prove that we are not finding love in the right place. Jesus ultimately wants us to know that He is the best and if we heed His offer He will give it to us. For those of us that are His, we deserve the best, and He will give it to us. We need not ever go back to poppin’ bottles and strippin’ (drunkenness and sexual sin) or any habitual sin for that matter. Jesus doesn't admire it!

So, hopefully I’ve made a good case that the gospel can be preached even from something as out there as a lil Wayne song. What will you use today to share Christ with those you know?

Soli Deo Gloria

Perseverance in Interceding

In my daily Bible reading this year I already stumbled across something I’ve read many times before, but never really thought much about. Genesis 18-19 tells of God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the carrying out of that plan. However, before anyone starts pointing fingers at their assumptions about what I’m going to be writing about, I would like to say that I think we might have missed the point of the story. Genesis 18:17-33 begins the story; the cities aren’t destroyed until 19:24. That’s 40 verses between God revealing His plan and actually carrying it out.

What Abraham does in 18:22-33 is part of the main point of the story; a part that is normally missed for the sake of overemphasis on 19:5 leading to 19:24. And while it is true that God refers to 19:5 as the cause for 19:24 all the way back in 18:20-21, Abraham’s actions following this revelation are mandatory to grasp.

God tells him that He is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah in 18:20-21. Abraham immediately starts pleading for the city with God in 18:22 and following. He asks that if God can find 50 righteous people there, that He would then relent from the promised destruction. God says He will. Abraham then requests 45, perhaps because he doubts there are 50 righteous people. God again promises to relent. Abraham drops it to 40; God promises to relent. This goes all the way down to 10; God says, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” (Genesis 18:32, NIV).

If there was ever a passage that screams, “Love those who struggle with disgusting sins like homosexuality,” this is one! Abraham did not want to see all those people destroyed, so he pleaded for their lives. Sure, he knew his nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom, but as the next chapter shows, Lot was the only righteous person in the city: his wife turned back (19:26), his sons-in-law laughed at him (19:14), and his daughters later used him to produce offspring for themselves (19:30-38). Lot was the only redeeming quality in the city. Perhaps if Abraham had gone down to “one righteous person,” God would have spared the whole city for Lot’s sake.

However, in 18:32, Abraham does what we too often do while praying: we think God doesn’t want to hear our prayers go on too long. He said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” (NIV).

While Abraham may be excused for not persevering in intercession, as believers in Christ, we have the hope of Christ at God’s right hand, hearing us and interceding for us to His Father. “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV, emphasis added). Because of Christ, we can know that God will never be angry with us; sure, He will be disappointed when we sin, but He will never be angry. We need never pray like Abraham, “Don’t be angry,” because Christ bore His wrath for us. We should petition for ourselves to God, and intercede for others to God with complete confidence, and when we think we’ve covered the need, we should keep praying more.

This helps explain why 19:27-28 are in the story. “Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (NIV). Abraham realized his prayer wasn’t answered the way he expected. It is also interesting that Genesis 19 is the last time we hear about Lot. As far as Abraham knew, Lot perished when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. So, a lesson to learn is also that God answers our prayers the way we need them answered, even if not in the way we expect. Abraham wanted the whole city spared; God saved the righteous one and some non-righteous ones.

So, the ultimate lesson in this section of Scripture is: pray! Never stop! Pray until you’re tired, and then keep praying! Plead for the souls of sinful people! Apart from Christ, you’re no different than any other sinner. Pray for your city; you never know when it could be destroyed, and prayer has power! Trust that God will answer your prayer, because He always will. Even if He doesn’t answer it in the way you expect, trust that He knows what is best, but also reflect on whether or not you could have prayed more seriously about that situation—whatever it was.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Am I Really Supposed to Praise HER?

Paul wrote the following in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35:

I want you to be without concerns. An unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the things of the world—how he may please his wife— and ⌊his interests⌋ are divided. . . . Now I am saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but because of what is proper and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction.[1]

Okay, Paul. You were totally devoted to the Lord. You worshiped Him alone. You served Him wholeheartedly. You wanted others to be just as equally dedicated to Him so that the world could be evangelized quickly and usher in the second coming of Christ.

I get it. And believe me, I long for those things too. But I am a foolish young man who wants wisdom. I want to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord and that elevates Him above all things. But in the above passage, the phrase “not to put a restraint on you” looks very good, and I am extremely interested in a certain young lady. In fact, she knows I’m interested in her, and we have been in an “official” dating relationship for the past two months.

So here’s my conundrum: I want to keep God first, but too often I find myself extolling her too much in my mind. Paul was certainly right when he said I’ll have troubles in this life (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:28), and I’m not even married yet. So, in my search for wisdom regarding relationships I turned to the book of Proverbs. Chapter 31 describes the type of woman I pray that I will end up with, and the girl I’m dating definitely showcases many of the traits found in that awesome poem, but then the phrase at the end strikes me weirdly: “a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.”^[2]

This made me curious, so I check to see what Hebrew word is translated “praise,” hoping the writer differentiated this type of praise from the praise due to God alone (our English “hallelujah” is really a Hebrew compound word meaning “praise Yahweh”). And sure enough, my hopes are dashed. The Hebrew root describing the praise due to a Yahweh-fearing woman is הלל (halal).

This throws a monkey wrench into my thinking. I don’t want the word commanding me to praise God and praise a godly woman to be the same. I was hoping it would be a case of praise vs. respect or praise vs. honor or worship vs. praise. So, I decide to turn to the earliest translation of the Hebrew text: the Greek Septuagint (LXX). It does no better for me; αινεω (aineō) is also used throughout to refer to praising God.

God doesn’t want me to praise a godly woman the same way I praise Him, does He? I don’t at all want to be guilty of idolatry in a relationship. I don’t want my interests to be divided; I want to be completely dedicated to Jesus Christ. My heart is much too fickle as it is; I really wish that God would have helped me out a little here. How am I ever supposed to follow Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7 if after I get married I am to praise my wife the same way I praise Yahweh? There has to be a divinely inspired reason for making the words the same. One scholar describes the meaning of the word as follows: “This root connotes being sincerely and deeply thankful for and/or satisfied in lauding a superior quality(ies) or great, great act(s) of the object.”^[3]

So thankfulness and satisfaction are to be found because of a Yahweh-fearing woman? I thought thankfulness and satisfaction were ultimately to be found in Yahweh alone. And then it gets even stickier. One word study explains that the root for the Hebrew “praise” comes from the Arabic language and means “sing joyfully to someone.”[4] So the best way to show praise is to sing to the object. I guess that explains why “hallelujah” occurs so often in the book of Psalms—the hymnbook of Israel. It also explains why “love songs” are so popular these days.

However, there is an important line to draw at this point. For the man or woman who fears Yahweh, Proverbs 31:30 describes the material that should be present in such “love songs.” That verse reads, “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD will be praised.” Worldly “love songs” are all about external beauty, sexuality, and the like; the Christian husband (of whom I am not yet one, but hopefully someday) should praise his wife for something more permanent, namely the fact that she fears God. One commentator explains, “A beautiful woman may enjoy admiration and compliments for the moment, but the one who will really be praised is she who fears the Lord.”[5] Not to say that the fear of the Lord in her is what is to be praised,[6] but rather that if a woman really fears Yahweh, there will be no end of things in her person, character, and appearance for which her husband can praise her.

The fear of Yahweh is key in the discussion, because in the book of Proverbs fear of Yahweh is the litmus test for everything. Proverbs 1:7 makes the fear of Yahweh the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 8:13 makes the fear of Yahweh the hatred of evil. Proverbs 19:23 makes the fear of Yahweh what grants a peaceful life (which can be understood in light of the Gospel of John’s eternal life theology). In Proverbs 8, wisdom speaks as if she was a woman, and explains that she is more valuable than precious metals (8:10-11) which is coincidentally parallel to the phrase in 31:10. I’ve joked (though I’m not sure how much of a joke it is) that the book of Proverbs is a “how to find a wife manual,” but at the very least it gives evidence to the fact that a godly wife is invaluable in life for the Christian man. If she fears Yahweh, she has at least a seed of wisdom (that can and should be nurtured and grown), she has a hatred of evil (at least minimal that can and should grow), and she is living her life in the light of the fact that she has eternal life through Christ. These are all reasons for a believing husband to praise his wife. “All that she does for her household affords her husband the financial stability and social status that a responsible husband desires for himself, his children—and his wife.”[7] This basically means that if she has the qualities resulting from the fear of Yahweh, her husband should possess them too, and together they can sharpen each other in them (cf. Proverbs 27:17).

But with all that information, I’m still officially single as far as Proverbs 31 is concerned. How much am I able to praise the godly woman that God has placed in my life during this chapter of our relationship? It is very interesting that the word in verse 10 translated “wife” is the same word in verse 30 translated “woman,” so I could try to make a case that verse 10 is translated wrong, and that any Yahweh-fearing woman deserves to be praised, which isn’t necessarily a bad view to hold (all Yahweh-fearing people need to be encouraged in their faith [cf. Hebrews 10:24-25]). However, by verse 30, the context has made it clear that it is speaking of a wife, and since the Hebrew there is identical to that in verse 10, it should be translated “a wife who fears the Lord will be praised.” So I can’t yet do this.

But then I look into how this passage has been understood historically and try to find a way out, a way to apply Proverbs 31:30 in a dating relationship (I mean, if all Scripture is useful for different things like Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16, then this passage should be no different). Fox explains that most “[c]ommentators agree that, at least on the surface, an actual human woman is being described,” (which doesn’t help my case right now, but he goes on). “Some, however, add a further, allegorical, level of meaning and consider that as conveying the poem’s most significant message.”[8] Maybe I can apply this passage to my relationship allegorically. I learn that Jewish scholars allegorized this text to be able to refer to men as well as women, which probably paved the way for Augustine to understand it in its most influential allegorical understanding: the church.[9] This is helpful for me. If she belongs to the church, just like I belong to the church, then I can praise her as my sister-in-Christ all the time. I can drive her crazy with my praise for her. But then the following two thoughts strike: 1) Are you going to praise all your sisters-in-Christ that way? and 2) if it’s allegorical, then God is the husband who is praising His church. Bang goes that theory!

So I’m back to square one. I think the world of a certain girl, but how do I show that to her in an appropriate way at this stage of our relationship? From all that I can see right now, I can’t do this. And then I see this: “The Woman of Strength [literal translation of ‘capable wife’ in 31:10] has her negative counterpart in the Strange Woman, also a type figure.”[10] And elsewhere, I find this:

The young man has no choice but to follow one woman or the other. He will either pursue Woman Wisdom or Woman Folly, and with them he will take their counterparts, the good wife or the prostitute/quarrelsome wife. He cannot attain wisdom without the good wife because she creates the environment in which he can flourish. If he chooses an evil woman, he has little hope of transcending the context she will make for him.[11]

It’s the italicized section that gave me my application. The greatest way I can praise a godly woman who I’m dating is by not being lured away by another. If I get lured away by the Strange Woman in a dating relationship, what’s to assure me either 1) that I won’t be lured away in a married relationship? or 2) that I will even end up married to a wise woman? The answer for both of these is NOTHING. As such, I can praise the woman God has given me right now by building her up in Christ as I remind her of His promises, by pointing out qualities in her that I admire, by telling her she is beautiful on occasion (because every girl needs to hear it sometimes), and by fighting all sin patterns in me that would lead her to conclude that I am not worthy of a Proverbs 31 woman (which if she was still with me would necessarily lead her to doubt her own status as a Proverbs 31 woman).

But then I feel like it’s too late. I feel like I’ve done too much wrong to ever deserve the virtuous wife described in Proverbs 31. I feel like I deserve more of the type of woman described in Proverbs 7 and warned against throughout the book. And then God reminds me, “Look at the girl I’ve placed in your life right now. She’s nowhere near the Proverbs 7 type; she’s well on her way to emulating the Proverbs 31 type. Be grateful. Stand up and be a man for her. Stop moping! Christ died for you! I’ve forgiven you. You’re loved.” I know it’s true, and if you ever feel the same way that I find myself feeling on occasion, it can be true for you too (and maybe already is). As soon as you turn to Christ in faith, He will turn your life around, and the statements there will be true of you too. Forgiven. Loved. Until you know the love of Christ, you can never love another human properly.

I conclude with a quote aimed at married men, but the additional understanding I add in [brackets] are to explain it and apply to us dating guys as well.

[H]ere is a basic principle for us men: If we don't get radical, nothing will ever change. Christ got radical for you at the cross, and it changed everything forever. And he put you with your wife [girlfriend] because he loves her. He put you with her as a mighty blessing to her. So get radical, start changing, begin a new tradition in your home [relationship][12], starting today. If you step out in new obedience, the Lord will help you. And your family [future family] will rejoice over you.[13]

How will you get radical for your wife / future wife? Christ has the grace to help you. All you have to do is ask Him to help you accomplish whatever it is He is calling you to do. For your wife—for your future wife—: praise her! I certainly plan on doing it by reminding her of the Gospel, by pointing out her good traits, by telling her she is beautiful, and by fighting sin in myself. How will you praise the one God has placed in your life?

---

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, © 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

[2] Emphasis added.

[3] R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Bruce K. Waltke, ed., “500: ‏הָלַל‎,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 217.

[4] H. Cazelles, “llh,” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 3, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck & Helmer Ringgren (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 404.

[5] Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Bible Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 898. Emphasis in original.

[6] Contra Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 244.

[7] Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Bible Commentary, 917

[8] Ibid., 905

[9] Ibid., 906-907.

[10] Ibid., 911.

[11] Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1993), 252. Emphasis mine.

[12] This can be done according to the bolded statements two paragraphs prior.

[13] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Preaching the Word – Proverbs: Wisdom that Works, ed. R. Kent Hughes, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2012), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 152.

Years Go; Years Come

So, 2015 is about to be over. Eight hours from now, it will be over. And looking back, I must say that it has been one of the best years, if not the best year, of my entire life. I finished undergraduate college at Southwest Baptist University (SBU) in Bolivar, Missouri with a Bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies. I moved into my first apartment (complete with three other roommates). I worked full time in Bolivar, Missouri for the SBU grounds crew all summer, before beginning my final semester there. I preached expositionally through the book of Jude at a church this past fall (sure, it’s a short book, and it took three weeks, but you’ve got to start somewhere). These were all new things. And then, I began pursuing the heart of a wonderful Christian woman whose heart for others is enviable (and we’re coming up on two months officially in about a week); this was also kind of new.

But then on a more important note, my relationship with the Lord has grown by leaps and bounds this year. I have come to understand on a much more personal level—through the books of Mark and Hebrews specifically—exactly who Jesus is and what He did and what He does now. When that reflective study ended in late May, I continued my hunt for a more intimate knowledge of Jesus by reading through each of the gospels several more times throughout the rest of the year. In reading a book on Christian meditation—puritan style—I was heavily convicted of my lack of a reflective prayer life based out of Scripture and I was pushed to improve in this area. Wouldn’t you know it, but right after my prayer life started improving, I was faced with a crisis of belief: am I a believer? does God want me to serve Him? should I be interested in a certain girl? will I ever really be out of certain sin patterns? and the list goes on. With my new found tool of praying through Scripture passages, I was able to confront those questions head on and answer them, which God used to lead me to move to a different church than the one I had been attending the previous year I had spent in Bolivar, Missouri. And as far as old sin struggles go, by the grace of God this year has been the best I’ve ever had in victory, and by the grace of Christ that victory will continue indefinitely into the future. God is good.

But despite all that, I know, and am reminded daily, that I can still continue to improve my relationship with the Lord. My prayer life can still get better. My trust in God’s provision for me can increase. My reliance on the Holy Spirit’s power as opposed to my willpower can increase. My selfishness—which comes out in all new ways, I’ve seen, when in a dating relationship—needs to die. Frustrations and anger, aimed primarily at my parents ever since high school, are unfortunately not as dead as I hoped, so I must continue murdering that sin. I also need to officially join the church I’m at in Missouri.

So the bolded phrases above are spiritual areas in which I’m called to work this next year. But on a less spiritual level, I have several other personal goals for 2016:

·         Move to Missouri officially (happening January 16)

·         Find a good job in the Bolivar-Springfield area

·         Work out regularly (focusing on upper body)

·         Keep up on this blog J

·         Write a short story every month (to keep creative juices flowing; they’ll be posted on the blog)

·         Put out a new CD before mid-March (preferably before February 29)

·         Finish at least 2 drafts (preferably 3 so it can be “done”) of my novel Stranded

·         Make headway on a huge paper (likely a book) about Romans 7:7-8:17

·         And more important than everything after finding a job: pour into the wonderful relationship God has been gracious enough to give to me at this point in my life, never forgetting to thank Him for her.

Now, lest anyone think that the last one is more important than a job, I can’t survive without a job, and I can’t ever hope to move away from being just in a dating relationship if I don’t have a job. But that’s not on my radar for 2016; I’m just going to strive to grow the friendship, seek to put selfishness in my heart to death, and by God’s grace enjoy every moment with her to the fullest capacity possible.

Well, I’ve been rambling long enough. The following lyrics inspire my prayer for 2016 (because they were playing as I tied this thing up here):

It falls, apart,

from the very start,

it falls apart,

seems like everything i touch, falls apart,

everything around me, falls apart,

when i walk away from You.

That’s Thousand Foot Krutch’s “Falls Apart,” and I’ve found it very true in my own life. More so in the last six months than ever before. If I cling to Jesus like the woman with the flow of blood in Luke 8, my faith will be strong, but if I walk away, even unintentionally, my life feels like it’s in shambles. My ultimate goal for 2016, and my prayer, is that I would go where God wants me to go, do what He asks me to do, say what He tells me to say, and love how He’s loved me.

Happy 2016!

Soli Deo Gloria

Ready to Answer

First Peter 3:15 says, “But honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” It is imperative that we as Christians live out this verse in our daily lives. There is no time to mope about our position/situation in life, because that centers our eyes directly on ourselves. There is no time to waste in sins, as appealing as they might be in the moment, because indulging in them brings guilt that throws our confidence and assurance out the window. There is no time to let our attitudes grow heated toward anyone, because we don’t know who’s watching.

I’ll be totally honest. I moped around too much yesterday. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to do anything. It was not a good place to be, and I had to be on extra guard against lashing out at people or wandering into other old, familiar sin patterns. Other than the selfish moping, and a close call as far as lashing out goes, I stood strong. However, yesterday isn’t my point. It’s simply supposed to be a contrast with today.

I woke up this morning and spent time on my knees, asking the Lord, “Help me to honor You today in my thoughts, attitudes, and actions. Help me to think about You always. Don’t let Satan fill my head with nonsense; don’t let me listen to his nonsense. I need You. I need truth.” And with that I moved on with my day, which was great. At one point, the doorbell rang, my dad answered it, and he asked the Jehovah’s Witnesses standing there to leave; my internal response was, “I want the opportunity to talk to one about true salvation.” This afternoon I went to Starbucks (my escape for excessive coffee intake and less-distracted focus on writing projects) to get some writing done. After I got my coffee and had my computer open, I prayed for the opportunity to speak to someone about Jesus and the salvation He offers. I was there for a little under an hour, trying to make some progress on a brand new short story, when an older gentleman walked in carrying a very large Bible under his arm, seemingly showing it off to the world; my thought was, “Wow, this guy is really proud and wants people to see what he’s carrying (I prefer to conceal carry my sword).” I hoped that it was a real Bible, and not one of those New World (Jehovah’s Witness) Translations.

When he finally sat down with his drink, he noticed that I had a Bible on my table. He asked me what I was working on, and I tried to explain that it was nothing directly involving the Word. He proceeded to tell me about a website that could answer my questions about family, marriage, etc. Why those specific topics, I don’t know, but that’s what he said. Being the curious guy that I am, I wanted to ask for him to repeat the website for me, hoping against hope that it wasn’t jw.org (the only part of it I’d caught was the .org portion), so I walked over to his table.

When I reached his table, the words printed above “Bible” confirmed my fears: “New World Translation.” He asked me my name, so I gave it, and he gave me his as well: Chester (name changed to protect identity, but God knows who you’re talking about if you pray for him). I decided to ask anyways about the website, knowing the answer I’d get. But then it began. My almost two hour conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness.

I’ve read some about them, but initially I couldn’t remember much. My heart was thumping hard as the conversation began. I prayed silently that God would calm my nerves and give me the words to say, and He answered my request. Chester had the floor at first, and I pretended I was simply a seeker, wanting answers to what was in the Bible. We compared a lot of passages, and he began by “convincing” me that God the Father is Jehovah. I was fine with that, though I prefer to refer to the Father as Yahweh (it’s a better transliteration of the  Hebrew). Then he moved on to discuss Jesus, and this was where the red flags started flying, because I remembered that the Jehovah’s Witnesses hate the doctrine of the Trinity. They believe that Jesus is a separate God created by God the Father. This conversation went back and forth; I tried pointing out proof of the trinity; he tried pointing out proof that Jesus is subordinate to the Father; I tried telling him I agreed with him, and that I think there’s diversity between them though they are still the same being (the Trinity is hard; probably why they deny it). He tried to explain that Jesus was the first creation of God (Colossians 1:15 misunderstood), and that got us talking about how I believe that Jesus and Yahweh are actually the same and that both were really present at creation (see similarities between Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1), and he ignored John 1:1 (thank You, Jesus) and stuck with Genesis 1:2, about the Spirit being present. I was really happy about this move, because technically he checkmated himself. If Jesus is the first created thing, how come the Spirit is hovering before anything is created? That would mean Jesus is at least the second created thing. But when I posed that question, he quickly changed the subject.

After a while, I got tired of the back and forth—no one agreeing—so I asked Chester how to get saved, which made him really happy to talk about. I listened closely, trying to figure out his understanding so I didn’t misrepresent him in my response. It ultimately boiled down to praying, reading the Bible, and knowing that God is ultimately in charge of peoples’ destinies (interestingly, he put a higher premium on reading than praying, but God’s infallible will was the ultimate clincher). I told him I needed concrete proof to know that I can be saved in the end, because I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, and I could die before I got home tonight (I had ridden my bike in dark clothing to Starbucks, and it was dark by this point in our conversation), so I needed to know that I was fine before I left that building. He said something along the lines of: “Don’t doubt that Jehovah knows best and will place you where you need to go.” I told him I needed assurance, but he had none for me.

At this point I came clean about my beliefs, and told him that only in Jesus is there forgiveness of sins. It was His sacrifice that made me right with God and His resurrection that gives me hope and life eternal after I am resurrected from the dead. I asked him to believe in Jesus as God and as his only hope.

He wanted to recap with me, so he asked me who the creator and ruler and greatest being in the universe was. I said, “Jesus Christ.” He winced. He asked me again. I repeated it again. He winced again. I told him bluntly that Jesus Christ is God, the God, the Creator, and in Him alone is forgiveness of sins. I asked Him to believe, and right before I left I took him back to a verse he had pointed out earlier in regards to praying: Isaiah 64:8. His prayer is that God would mold him into the vessel God wants him to be; I told him to keep praying that and to humbly ask God (Jehovah or Yahweh or Lord or κύριος or יהוה‎ or whatever you call Him in your language) if maybe the vessel he needs to be molded into is one that believes Christ is God and the only hope for salvation.

We shook hands, thanked each other for the others’ time, and parted ways.

My point in all this is: are you living a life that’s ready to give an answer to someone else? Yesterday I wasn’t. Today I was. Because of today, tomorrow I will strive to be ready again. The world will only come to know the Lord as His people speak the gospel: we are sin-full, God is love; Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose; the Holy Spirit empowers and He does God’s work through us, but never for us to pat ourselves on the back. The best way for us to do this is to live in His Word, develop a vibrant prayer life, and study other belief systems out there. My plan is to read the chapter on Jehovah’s Witnesses in Josh McDowell’s Handbook of Today’s Religions in the next 24 hours.

I don’t know if Chester was even listening to my points, but I know he was trying to ignore them and brush them aside, and brainwash me into his position. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would open his eyes so that he would come to know the Lord. Please pray for the same with me. Also pray that if I run into him again (possibly a week from today) that I would be empowered to speak the truth again.

Soli Deo Gloria.

"Welcome to da Faith" preview

So it’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything to my blog. I don’t really have a clue how many people actually read it, but I also don’t really care. I write everything I write—sermons, raps, blogposts, essays, letters—in order to organize my own thoughts better, and if they can help someone else, then good for them; I’m glad God can use me for that, but it’s not my primary goal, especially in writing a blogpost.

So tonight it’s 10 pm and I’m less than 3 months away from having my bachelor’s degree work completed, and honestly I have no clue what I’m going to do afterwards, except that I’m releasing a new rap album in February. While my previous album was about assurance of salvation from 1 John 4:15-17, my current project is focusing on living life in light of salvation. I’ve been walking this thing for 5 years and the most helpful verse in my life—from even day one—has been John 15:5, which reads, “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.”

Those are the very words of Jesus, and as such, they are extremely important. In preparing the album, which has been slowly coming together for 3+ years now, I asked myself the question, “What are the most important things that I would have liked to have been told the day I became a Christian (in hindsight)?” And they all ultimately play into John 15:5, because that verse is the center of Christianity. So when I had a list of thirty possible songs, the question posed above was the filter.

Tracks include some of the following themes: imputed righteousness, progressive sanctification, living by the Spirit, the importance of having gospel-centered role models, the deity and humanity of Christ, God’s amazing love for His children, the need for evangelism, the usefulness of Scripture, and more, all presented clearly for the average listener over beats and in rhymes. And included in each track is Jesus Christ, because every day of living the Christian life should make Christ look more beautiful than He did the previous day.

Prayers are much appreciated as I continue this journey called the Christian race and continue working on this project titled Welcome to da Faith. Facebook will have more information and updates over the next five months. Hopefully more blog posts will follow as well, but I am trying to get an education, so forgive me if I don't write again before next year. :)

Grace and Peace.

In Christ,

liL fytr (Josh Wingerd)