Living in Love (2 of 3)

My whole “theology” of “live in Love, find your true reward,” finds its root in 1 John 4:15-17. It reads, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in Him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; for we are as He is in this world.” Again, I will explain my plan for the next few (many) entries to this blog at the end of part 3. It is important first to spell out what liL fytr entails.

Before moving to part 3, which will lay out the most externally visible application of this line of thought, it is important to make another observation first. Last time, we explored the phrase “God is love” in verse 16 to try to understand something of God, to try to grasp the source of love, to try to grasp the only hope we have to ever live out this high calling. Next time, we will focus on the end of verse 17 which is the goal of the Christian life: “we are as He is in this world.” If God is love, then the call for a Christian is to reflect His love well to a watching world.

But this time, the focus is a step that must come in between. Because, it’s all fine and dandy to know that God loves you, but try taking that and immediately translating it into loving others, and you quickly realize two things. First, you’re being idolatrous. Second, it’s idolatrous because you skipped a step. You can’t properly love another human being if you don’t properly love God first (aside: Thank You, Lord, for letting her break up with me so I could finally realize this).

The Gospel of Mark describes the focus for the life of a follower of the Way as follows: “‘This is the most important [commandment],’ Jesus answered: ‘Listen Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4-5). The second is: Love your  neighbor as yourself (cf. Leviticus 19:18). There is no other commandment greater than these’” (Mark 12:29-31). Jesus sees the greatest focuses of the believer’s life first as actively loving God (what we are looking at this time), and second as actively loving neighbors (which we will look at next time).

It’s definitely not the best way (inspired, authorial intent) to understand the book of Song of Songs, but the closing line can definitely help us understand somewhat what it means to love God. Song of Songs 8:14 has the bride saying, “Hurry to me, my love, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.” If we ignore the very likely present connotation of gazelles and stags, and if we focus on the first line, we see that true love actively desires another. And before anyone accuses me of making this weird, look at the next to last verse in the Bible—Revelation 22:20. “He who testifies about these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’ Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” This should be every believer’s cry. This is how much we should love God. We should desire His coming more than anything else.

I was convicted in the last few years when writing a song about my future wife, that maybe I was potentially being idolatrous; maybe my focus was misplaced, so the following verse came into being:

While I'm waiting for her, that ain't all

cuz maybe before then the trumpet will call

the heavens might fall--sinners appalled

please oh please LORD do not stall

I'm looking forward to meeting my future wife

but this line of thinking leads to strife

Matthew 22:30-- I should desire Christ

wives and marriage absent in next life

Christ be my all-- someday You'll come

blazing resplendent in glory to gather the sum

of those You died to redeem--sinners fear numbed

as all the saints shout, “Jesus please come”

so Christ be my focus-- Hebrews 12:2

Matthew 6:33-- I'm seeking only You

if you bring her to me, glory to You

Your timing’s the best, and this all is true

The things we long for the most are the things we love the most. The things we think about most are the things we love the most. The things we spend the most money on are the things we love the most. Song of Songs helps us understand the longing that should be there, but then the verse Jesus quotes about loving God helps us narrow it down and see specifically how we should be loving God.

Jesus says that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. John MacArthur says, “The use of the various terms does not distinguish among human faculties but underscores the completeness of the kind of love commanded” (John Macarthur Study Bible, note on Matthew 22:37). This is correct, but a few words still need to be said.

Love God with all your heart. Your desires must be for God. All your desires should be for God. No part of you should desire anything less than God. How far short of this do we all fall? It’s a point at which we must all repent and ask forgiveness.

Love God with all your soul. The Greek word for soul is the same as the Greek word for “life.” Our whole life should love God. Basically our motto should be that of Paul: “living is Christ and dying is gain” (Philippians 1:21). We should love Christ more than we love life. However, we are much too quick to cling to our lives, to cling to our comforts, to cling to our plans for ourselves than to love God with all our life. (My recent life situation change proves this one greatly for myself.) Christians in ISIS occupied lands are doing a much better job at loving Christ with all their lives than we are. We should praise God for our relative security from persecution in America, but lack of physical persecution can be yet another form of persecution that distracts us greatly from loving God with all our life. Again, it’s a point at which we must all repent and ask forgiveness.

Love God with all your mind. Christianity is a thinking religion. It’s not a matter of blind faith. We have been given 66 books from God that have been translated from the original Hebrew and Greek into many different languages that are still powerful to speak life into our lives. We aren’t Muslims where only the Arabic text of our holy book is from God. No! Our translations of the Hebrew and Greek are God’s Word too, “inspired by God and . . . profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). For this reason, we must love God with our minds and get His words in our heads. We must read books by authors throughout the ages that have honored and revered God and the Scriptures, and gain wisdom and insight and love for God from them. This is my favorite aspect of loving God, but I need to repent of making it my only aspect. Some may be in the same boat, but there’s plenty of others who don’t love God at all with their minds. If we’re to live out our Christian calling, we must repent of apathy and love God with our minds!

Love God with all your strength. This is simple. We should love God in our actions. We strive to honor those we love. If we love God with all our strength, we will strive to honor Him in all we do. We will live out Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men.” This is the clearest area in which people fail to love God rightly. I’m sure guilty here. Thankfully, there is grace, because this isn’t a works based religion, but since God loves us so much, we should strive with all our effort to love Him back the best we can. When we sin with our strength, we should repent and keep going.

When we sin with our minds, we should repent and keep going.

When we sin with our lives, we should repent and keep going.

When we sin with our desires, we should repent and keep going.

God’s grace is so much greater than our failures. God’s love is so much more perfect than our love. But the call is large and weighty. Let’s love God with all our beings. He loved us enough to become one of us. We should love Him so much more than we do. I call it “living in love” because it’s all about a relationship with God.

So the question I leave you with is, “How much do you love Him? How much more—specifically in what areas—can you love Him?” Let’s walk this thing together, striving to love God as God! He’s returning soon.

Soli Deo Gloria

Living from Love (1 of 3)

My whole “theology” of “live in Love, find your true reward,” finds its root in 1 John 4:15-17. It reads, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in Him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; for we are as He is in this world.” The Greek word for “remain” in verses 15 and 16 is menō. It is translated by the NASB and ESV as “abide.” Thus we see that the one who abides (lives) in love abides (lives) in God.

However, I will explain my plan for the next few (many) entries to this blog at the end of part 3. It is important first to spell out what liL fytr entails. Living in love with the result of finding your true reward can come across like works-based salvation if we’re not careful. A quote from Martin Luther that David Platt shared on Friday during Secret Church 2016 helps to provide a check to this possibility:

“The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it will not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do, but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessarily it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

If we focus on the fact that the one who lives in God is to live in love, but miss the point that comes prior: “God is love,” then we are doing a great deal of damage.

The Bible starts with the word “God.” His love is shown clearly in the first verse of the Bible. He wanted fellowship with someone other than the other members of the trinity (note “wanted” and not “needed”), so He created the world. In this world, the one thing that made it very good was when man and woman were created (Genesis 1:31), and this is because they were the ones He could love. (Now you might object: “animals were created on the sixth day too. I love animals! Don’t they have a part to play in the ‘very good’ thing?” I “love” lots of things: baseball, pizza, cats. But I can’t have a relationship with any of them. Not even a cat. When I say I love cats, it basically means I pity them for their misperceived sense of entitlement and think they’re cute. They can’t talk to me; I can’t really talk to them.)  God created Adam and Eve and had a relationship with them (cf. Genesis 3:8-10, and think about the same situation only pre-fall).

God wants a relationship with people. His very character is love (1 John 4:8, 16). The problem of course is that humanity is now (post-Genesis 3)—at our very core—unlovable. This is why relationships between people have friction and often fail. Selfishness—my wants and “needs”—is innate in our beings. (Proof: watch a child steal a toy from another child; you didn’t have to teach them that; it comes naturally.) But because of the three words in the phrase we are dissecting in this post (“God is love”), it doesn’t have to be a problem. God’s very essence is love. And that essence of love is from God. God means “Ultimate being; holy, holy, holy; on a completely different plane from the rest of everything.” So God’s love makes our love look like hate in comparison. God’s love can overcome the fact that we are unlovable. God’s love is described in Ephesians 2:3-5, “We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also. But God, who is abundant in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah (Christ) even though we were dead in trespasses.” We are alive because of God’s love. I call it “living from love.”

Paul continued in the book of Ephesians in chapter 3 to describe our response to the radical love of God. Verses 17-19 say, “I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” This is a charge that should occupy much more of our time than it does. God loves us as far as the east is from the west, farther than the north is from the south, beyond the moon, and deeper than the Mariana Trench. It should blow our minds all the time because He loves us so much. This is what it means to say that God is love. He loves you and He loves me.

“But how do I know that?” you ask. Both Paul and John answer that question. The beginning of 1 John 3:16 says, “This is how we have come to know love: He laid down His life for us.” Romans 5:8 and 8:32 make very clear the extent to which God loves us: “But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us! . . . He did not even spare His own Son, but offered Him up for us all; how will He not also with Him grant us everything?” We will look more in depth in the upcoming posts at what this means for our lives, but for now the Bible is clear that God loves you.

If you want to know how to know that He loves you, I would point you back to 1 John 4:15. God is love, so He sent His Son to die on the cross as the sacrifice to cover all of our lack of love (SIN). However, it’s not a free for all. There is a condition on this love. Faith is required. This faith leads to a confession. That confession is laid out clearly in 1 John 4:15: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God.” Or, put slightly differently, “Whoever confesses, ‘Jesus is the Son of God’—God remains in him and he in God.” The confession is that Jesus is the Son of God. The confession is that Jesus is who He claimed to be. The confession is that Jesus is the most worthy being in the universe of our love and affection, and all else is a cheap imitation.

So the question I leave you with is, “Is this your confession? Do you know the love of God?” If not, make that your confession! I plead with you.

Soli Deo Gloria

The "Union" in Communion

So this blog is found at lilfytr.blogspot.com. As such it is to be a blog focused on "living in love" with the result that you would "find your true reward." For some reason though, throughout the years of keeping up (mostly not well) with this blog, I have lost sight of that purpose to the error of "let me fill you in on what's new in my life and maybe tack a verse or two on the end." Not saying there's anything wrong with that once in a while, but when I'm only posting once in a while, it can be problematic.

I'll fill you in on a greater breakdown of Live In Love Find Your True Reward next time, but today, I need to close out a chapter, and transition into the future point of this blog.

So I talked last time about how God had started convicting me in many ways about my bitterness towards Sarah (the fictional name of my most recent girlfriend [to protect her privacy and avoid the term 'ex']). At church yesterday morning I was urged in my gut to apologize to her. I didn't really want to, so I didn't take the first opportunity that came my way. After the sermon and during closing worship I felt led to take communion (since its available for individuals/groups who want it every week), but then was convicted by a passage in 1 Corinthians that is normally taken very dangerously out of context.

First Corinthians 11:27-29 comes in the midst of a section on church unity. Chapter 11, verses 17-19 explain the lack of unity that was going on. It involved the Lord's Supper. It involved people promoting themselves and devaluing others at the Lord's table. Paul concludes the problem by stating the goal: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" (11:26). The Lord's death was the most selfless act of love to ever occur. That is Paul's point. 

So when verses 27-29 roll around, what is to be expected? Well, let me copy it here: "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. So a man should examine himself; in this way he should eat the bread and drink from the cup. For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself."

Is Paul now saying, "Make yourself right with God before partaking of communion"? Is he saying, "You'll be judged if you take communion without confessing your private sin last night to God first"? Not at all. It doesn't fit the context. He's speaking of the body of Christ, the church. He's saying, "If you have a problem with someone in the church, let go of that bitterness, make amends with him/her, and then come take communion." The fact that the phrase "without recognizing the body" in verse 29 has a textual variant that reads, "Not discerning the Lord's body," helps prove the point, since most variants entered into the text as a way of explaining the original meaning. So Paul wants communion to be a visible picture of the church's unity. If there's hostility between members it would be a feigned image of unity. This is why Paul wants them to make things right before taking communion.

So I refrained from the communion table yesterday. As soon as service ended, I approached Sarah and asked for her forgiveness for the bitterness and anger that had built up inside of me over the previous few weeks. She forgave me, because her motto is Victorious Grace, and she exemplifies it better than anyone I know. I'm glad to know that hole is patched up in my local church's unity.

Soli Deo Gloria

Drama Queen or Drawn to the KING?

“I’m out here exposing all my private matters publicly,” raps Christian hip-hop artist Tedashii on the opening track of his album Below Paradise. And sometimes I feel like I’m a drama king. I say king, because as a male I’m not a queen. Recently, I’ve been guilty of the exact same thing that Tedashii speaks of: I’ve been confessing secret sins and struggles in very public arenas.

And I can almost convince myself that there’s nothing wrong with it. One complaint against Christians is that we act like everything’s great all the time. Plastered on smiles and holiness that turns those who aren’t happy or holy away. So, for me to say, “I’m struggling; I’m not happy; I’m not doing well in the holiness category,” is my way of showing a watching world that the reality is not a false front.

But then I talk to my dad on the phone, and he confronts me with Mark 10:42 where Jesus says, “Whoever causes the downfall of one of these little ones who believe in Me—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” My dad tops it off by getting extremely personal in the application of that verse to my life, and I almost started crying on the phone. That was never my goal, but it’s what I was accomplishing with my blog posts and facebook statuses. Earlier the same day, my pastor had convinced me of the same thing.

And the day before, my best friend in Missouri was preaching and convinced me that I was in sin regarding my attitude towards my now ex-girlfriend (even though that term “ex” leaves a bad taste in my mouth). He wasn’t preaching on it, but I had preached on it a month and a half ago; 1 Peter 3:8-9 talks about how to practically relate to those in the church (and outside) who hurt you, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and it was the first thing I thought of the moment she broke up with me: “All of you should be like minded and sympathetic, should love believers, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this.” At some point, though, I’d lost track of it, and it led to belittling and accusing on facebook and this blog.

Then I started reading 1 John on Sunday the 17th. I’ve been reading in the NIV this year, and it helps convict me, since it translates “brothers” as “brothers and sisters.” So everytime (which is a lot of times) John says, “The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother is in the darkness until now,” I read, “hates his brother or sister,” and am convicted of bitterness, anger, and spite for a girl that never did anything to hurt me. The post that I have now removed was clear proof that it was me that was the problem in the relationship; I was the one doing the hurting. 1 John 4:20 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother (or sister), he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother (or sister) whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

In God’s sovereignty, which has been running full steam ahead for the last year, I started reading Uprooting Anger by Robert Jones a few weeks ago. God used it along with everything else in this post to show me I was in error. He defines anger on page 15 as “our whole-personed active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil.” He took the rug out from under my feet in chapter 2 by telling me (and any other reader) that our anger is most likely not righteous. He then convinced from chapter 3 to chapter 6 that it doesn’t matter if my anger is manifested in punching walls, cussing, or just clamming up and plotting imagined revenge, I need to repent of it and put it to death. (I usually fall into the category of the last two initially, until my simmering anger pot boils over.) Then he pointed out in his next two chapters that part of my problem is that I’m secretly angry at God (at least in a small part), and not so secretly angry at myself in a large part. Finally, he gave three reasons for dealing with my anger, “Dealing with anger God’s way will enhance your physical and spiritual health. . . . We must deal with it to love others and promote godly relationships. By doing so, we bring grace, healing, and hope to those around us. . . . Anger, as God-playing, is of the worst moral evil. To repent of anger is to acknowledge God’s rightful and sole place as King over your entire world” (157-164).

Throughout the book, Jones really enjoyed talking through the book of James. I was in James last week, and the same day I met with my pastor and talked to my dad, I was struck by 1:2, where James says, “Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials.” I wanted to throw my Bible, simply because I realized I had not even come close to doing that over the previous month. Paul is clear in Philippians 4:13 that it is possible, and the reason I opened this post with Tedashii’s lyrics are important. He has another song on the same album called, “Nothing I Can’t Do,” where he basically applies Philippians 4:13 to the situation he was facing. His situation was that of losing his infant son, and God gave him the strength to “go chasing You, trusting You, hope in You, forever,” which are the closing words of the album. The chorus to the closing song is the prescription to preventing anger at God in the midst of trials, and it was a very good reminder this past week: “You give and You take / Through it all I will chase / after Your heart, not Your hand / when my heart don’t understand.” I’m much too often guilty of chasing after God’s gifts (hand) instead of His self (heart). If there’s no other lesson He’s trying to teach me right now, it’s this: I need Him and nothing else.

So, please keep praying for me. But know that my goal is to make Jesus look good, not to push people away. It’s not about being real, so much as it’s about the reality of Jesus. Instead of posting about my drama, I’m going to post about being drawn to the King, and I hope that my posts will draw you closer to Him too.

As a song off my upcoming album states:

“Jesus, I love You; that’s what You see

Every single  time You look at me

You see a broken wreck who knows he needs You

You see a messy life, but Your love is still true

And we’re working through stuff—You and me

And on the last day I know I’ll come out holy

But for now You see me—weak and small

But You loved me enough to give me Your all”

If you belong to Him, He loved you enough to give you His all. If you haven’t already, trust Him today. It won’t solve life’s problems, but it will give you a looking-glass to view it through.

Soli Deo Gloria

What's Your Reputation?

So a coworker made a comment a few weeks back that has stuck with me to this moment. I've finally decided it's worth it to write down. Here's the comment: "He's got a reputation." Here's the background: it was said about a guy who I'd consider to be a relatively good friend. Now, I emphasize "relatively" because he isn't a super close friend, but it still got me thinking. I've always gotten along better with people who don't have everything together.

Several examples will suffice. My best friend growing up was always getting into trouble. I was always getting into trouble with him. At church, at school, at our houses, wherever he went we got into some sort of trouble. Then, he really ended up with a reputation when he went to juvenile hall halfway through sophomore year of high school. When released a month later, he let jail run his life and the reputation became, "I'm bad. I do drugs. I am a criminal. I'm not at all a good kid." I was still drawn to him, though I didn't want to end up where he'd ended up, and even though I never see him anymore, and rarely speak 5 words to him in a month, I have a 19 year long sense of commitment to my friend.

My current best friend is different. He has the same name as the prior, but those that know him best know that he doesn't have it all put together. He's got stuff he deals with and fights, and those that know him could judge him for it. But he's also given his life over entirely to Christ (unlike the previous), so he's confident in his standing there because Christ became sin for him.

And then there's me. I deal with everything it seems like. From anger and depression to lust and pride, it's all there. But the good news is this, and it's the point of this post: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Jesus in Mark 2:17, NIV). I get along best with people like me, who are jacked up and know they need help, and even those who don't know they need help. My knowledge of my need for help enables me to reach out in compassion to people like my childhood best friend who are lost and wandering in this world apart from Christ.

And then we come to the topic of girls. Before knowing Christ I was greatly drawn to those who had a reputation. I may have never acted on that knowledge or dated any who had a reputation, but I really didn't want anyone's input on my girlfriend choices. I was free to choose who I wanted. Even post-salvation I was in this same place. Finally, I decided I was sick of failed relationships and sick of hiding who I was talking to from my parents, so I decided to pursue a girl I knew they would approve of, who had a really squeaky clean reputation. She ultimately decided she wanted nothing to do with me (after about 2 years). Then I moved to Bolivar, Missouri for school, and pursued several girls who didn't pan out at all. Then, I decided to attempt another one with a really really good reputation known to everyone. I thought to myself, "There's no way this could go wrong."

Wrong. And don't get me wrong, she's still great. Whoever marries her one day is going to be very lucky (though not as lucky as I will be when I marry the woman who's out there for me). Let's just say that I had too many problems for her. It reminds me of my situation with my "near perfect" roommate this past summer. When you're a struggling, sinful wretch fighting to stay afloat, and those closest to you can't seem to figure out why it's so hard because they've "got everything together," it becomes too easy for them to blame you for the problems with the friendship.

My point is this. Jesus came for those who are sick. He came for me. I am more relatable to those who admit their sinfulness than I am to those who act like they're almost perfect. I wrote a song several years ago that contains the following lyrics:

"I'm praying for you, what I mean is this

I pray for people that I miss and right now that's you

You and only you though I doubt we've even met

Though one day we will, God already has the date set

I'm praying for you that you save yourself for me

Though if you once made a mistake don't worry about it--you see

God loved you first and forgave all your crimes

So since I truly love you too, I'll do the same and call you mine."

I'll just be honest. I'd rather marry a girl who's made many mistakes in her life, and who still feels the weight of them, but knows in her best moments that she's been forgiven and made new by Christ, then a girl who acts like all is well and pretends to be more spiritually mature than she actually is. Being real is very important to me. I try to be real with everyone I come in contact with. I don't try to put on a show to make others like me. And now that I'm coming out of a relationship, I have zero reason to put on a show for others. I have no one to impress but Jesus.

Jesus showed grace to people. Jesus forgave rapists, child molesters, thieves, homosexuals, heterosexuals, porn addicts, drug addicts, murderers, liars, parent-dishonorers, and much more. If I truly love the girl I'm going to marry one day, I say, "Bring on a negative reputation. Jesus loved you enough to forgive you. Who am I to not?" There is nothing she could have done before or after meeting Christ that is too bad for me to forgive. Jesus said in Luke 7:47, "Her many sins have been forgiven--as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little."

My prayer is that I would daily love everyone I come in contact with with the type of love that says, "I've been forgiven much!"

Judgmental Jerk Judged Not!

So a lot has changed in the last month and a half, but one thing remains the same. I'm an extremely judgmental person. Now when I say that, you might be shocked. "Josh Wingerd, judgmental? Yeah right." Or maybe you aren't shocked. I don't know. The point is, Jesus said something in Matthew 7 that has stuck with me this week: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Most people take this verse directly at face value, which is totally fine. It says, "Don't judge," and we add "others" in our minds. Unfortunately for me, I'm my worst critic. I can't look at someone else and say, "You don't deserve Jesus." Murderers, thieves, rapists, homosexuals--all are perfectly able to receive the grace of Christ; but I see myself and know my junk and say, "You don't deserve God. There's no way He loves you. There's no way anyone else will ever love you either."

So I judge myself as unworthy, but tell others they can be saved. This complicated the rest of verse 1. "So that you will not be judged." If I'm judging myself, then I'm very confused. It goes to show that our face value understanding is correct. "Do not judge [others] so that you will not be judged." And then the next verse punches me in the gut.

"For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." The way I judge others is the way I will be judged. If I judge them as able to receive God's grace, then I am too. This gives me hope. I don't have to say, "Wretched man that I am!" I can say, "There is no condemnation for me!"

I'm going to continue through life praising God for His grace over me, even if no one else wants to show me grace. Even if others want me to change every little detail about myself, I can look at the Bible and know that God is pleased with me right now.

Valentine's Day and Hindsight and Foresight and Grace

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. And that fact takes me back to one of the first blog posts I ever wrote—almost exactly 4 years ago. The link is here: Valentine's Day 2012 (click those words J), and it would add to this post’s meaning if you perused it before continuing. It proves the statement by KJ-52 in his song, “Can I Be Honest” where he says, “Hindsight is 20/20 so I'm like whatever,” except that in my case I would change the “whatever” to “what’s next?”.

You see, yesterday was a very good day, despite it being the first Sunday in more than three years that I’ve had to work during church. It was the first Valentine's Day in which I have actually spent time with my valentine. The closest I’ve come prior to yesterday was a long-distance “relationship” that maybe included a phone call on Valentine's Day, or the year prior when I might have talked to a girl through text or phone call on Valentine's Day. But yesterday—because past years don’t matter; the question is: what will my future look like?—was so different on so many levels. I’ve been very quick in the past to throw out the phrase, “I love you,” to girls I’m interested in (none of which have lasted more than 3 months from meeting to breaking up) and yesterday marked more than six months when I finally verbalized it. (Maybe the crazy spicy Indian food I ate at dinner made me crazy, but I doubt it.) The thing is, my past translated “I love you” into “I love what I can get from you,” but Jesus defines love on the cross and John explains in 1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us; in the same way we also ought to love one another.” If I’m going to love anyone rightly (and I tried to explain this to her, but might have done a bad job in the moment) I need to remove myself from the picture. (Which I almost literally did while driving after saying those words; thank You Jesus for warning bumps on roads!)

But that’s all as far as that is concerned. Worrying about relationships four years ago this week and stressing about them for the three and a half years that followed, has been turned into a lesson in hindsight being 20/20. The girl God has graciously placed in my life is a gem of an individual in so many ways. I don’t know if she even has a clue how much she means to me. (And as she reminded me yesterday,) God would still be perfectly good if He took her out of my life, because God is infinitely worth more than any human being, even though it’s often hard to see it in that light. I do pray that yesterday was the first of many Valentine's Days that we will spend with each other.

But that’s not all. Four years ago today I was in the place of trying to figure out the rest of my life—not just who my future wife would be. And now, four years later, I have a much clearer picture of a lot of things in my future. Four years ago I was wondering what to do about school after junior college: I went to Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri and got a Bachelor’s of Arts in Biblical Studies. Then, because of the girl I speak so much about, I decided to move to Bolivar, MO and look for a job. Seminary is hopefully in the future, along with church planting, but I found a job—a really good job—much sooner than I ever expected at the Walgreens directly across from SBU. With this job, I have the potential to be transferred just about anywhere in the United States, which I can use to my benefit to plant a church somewhere that needs it and fulfill my ultimate desire to be a pastor someday.

I remember four years ago sitting in Starbucks and writing that post. I remember how unsure I was about the future. I remember how depressed I was at the lack of “romance” in my life. And I know where I am today: dating a fabulous, godly woman; working and making more money than I’ve ever made before; in the process of joining a church; serving guys that I know who are still at SBU; and worried about the future not looking like I want it to look. However, reflecting back on my post from four years ago reminds me that God has the whole world in His hands, which does not exclude my life, and if He can prove faithful over the past four years, even though I struggle daily with walking in His will and trusting that where I am walking actually is His will, then He will prove Himself faithful over the next 2, 4, 6, 8, 20, etc. years.

To go back to the KJ-52 song I mentioned earlier:

I'm not perfect I serve a God who is

I serve a God who lives who says that I'm His kid

When I shoot for the mark but I shoot and miss

I serve a God who gives a new start and He forgives

And takes every thing I ever did

Then He throws it in the sea of forgetfulness

See I'm just being honest I hope your getting this

Cuz He's my promise the reason that I live

The apostle Paul concludes Romans 11 well, and they are words that I must daily remember:

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of [Yahweh], or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

The Three Tiers of Temptation

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it.” This is an amazing comfort to us as humans, but it is also incredibly convicting, because normally—at least in my experience—we look back (post-fall) and say, “There was a way out there, and there, and there, but I still fell. I’m an idiot!” Jesus clearly shows us the way out in Matthew 4:1-11.

The setting is laid out clearly in 4:1-2. Here it says that Jesus had just been baptized by John, where a voice had come down from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him!” (3:17). The very next verse says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil” (4:1). If anybody had a reason to ever make the claim, “I’ve been rejected by God; sin won’t matter,” it was Jesus at this moment. The very same Spirit that had just comforted Him (3:16) was now driving Him into the wilderness for a period of temptation. And Matthew concludes in verse 2 by saying Jesus was fasting for forty days and forty nights. As if that itself wasn’t enough, the setting ends with the words, “He was hungry.”

The Devil comes in verse 3. His first tactic is to get Jesus to doubt His position before God. “If You are the Son of God,” he says, “tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus, of course, was the Son of God, but the point is that the Devil is hitting on a very basic need Jesus has at the time. He is hungry; the Devil says, “Eat!” Our temptations normally first arise because of some physical stimulus. There’s nothing wrong with desiring food; it’s clear Jesus did, but it is wrong to get it in a way that is not appropriate at the time. Jesus’ response sums this up perfectly. He quotes Scripture, saying, “Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (4:4; cf. Deuteronomy 8:3). Jesus knows that the true cure for hunger is God. Eating bread will leave anyone hungry again; feasting on God truly satisfies. When a physical temptation strikes, we must look to God as the superior pleasure and all-satisfying One.

But the Devil doesn’t stop there. Verse 5 has him standing in Jerusalem, atop the temple, and verse 6 has him repeating the question, “If You are the Son of God,” and then adding the conclusion,  “Throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will give His angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’.” The Devil knows Jesus is going to fight him with Scripture, so he tries to turn Scripture against Jesus. He basically claims, “The Bible says it’s okay. Even if You do, God will still save You.” Or, as it gets spoken to us normally, “The more you sin, the more grace there is. Just do it and ask forgiveness later.” And then Jesus, in verse 7, replies back again with Scripture, “It is also written: ‘Do not test the Lord your God’ ” (cf. Deuteronomy 6:16). The Devil had completely ripped the verse (cf. Psalm 91:11-12) out of its context and said, “Jump! He’ll save You.” Jesus knows that there is an element of human responsibility in our living and our choices, so He says, “I won’t. I can’t test God. I must persevere through this thing.” When a verse pops into our head in a moment of temptation that seems to ease the consequences of our intended actions, it’s the Devil tempting us to test God! We can’t give in to these!

Then the Devil takes Jesus to a mountain where he shows Him all the cities of the world (4:8). He tells Jesus, “I will give You all these things if You will fall down and worship me” (4:9). The Devil knew why Jesus had come. He knew He was the Son of God. His goal had simply been to get Jesus to question it and to test it, thus sinning and ruining His standing before God. When all that failed, He told Jesus to worship Him in order to get what He came to earth to get: the nations. Jesus again responds with Scripture, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him’ ” (4:10; cf. Deuteronomy 6:13). Jesus recognized this temptation for what all temptations ultimately are when given into: Devil worship. In one sense it was the easiest temptation to avoid because the Devil told Jesus to worship him, and all good Jews know to only worship God. But in another sense it was the hardest temptation to abstain from: the Devil promised Jesus His life’s mission-goal apart from the cross.

If our temptations came to us with the label, “Do this and worship me, signed: Satan,” of course we’d stay miles away from them. However, this is why even if we make it through both of the first two rounds, we still end up failing in the third. The Devil promises that which we think we most need at the time we think we most need it, however, the hook is always hiding.

Let’s say Jesus gave in to this temptation; and let’s also say the Devil gave Him what he promised. Jesus would have all the nations, but sinning and worshipping the Devil ruins His claim to perfection as a perfect sacrifice, so He can’t die for the sins of the world or rise again. He would “possess” all the nations of the world, but they would really still be in Satan’s power and under God’s wrath.

Praise God that Jesus stood strong in temptation. And let’s pray that we can stand strong as well. The first test is often a physical stimulus; the second is a twisted promise from Scripture; and the third is a promise to get exactly what we want, even though the deadly hook is hidden. Trust God, know God, and love God. Pray to Him in time of need! There’s always a way out!

Soli Deo Gloria

Fulfilled Completely

Have you ever read something a lot of times, never seen something awesome about it until much later, and then kicked yourself for repeatedly missing it for so long? I’m there right now, but it’s slightly different, because I’m kicking myself out of joy. Allow me to explain...

The book of Leviticus often gets a bad rap for being the thru-the-Bible-in-a-year killer. Genesis—great stories. Exodus—God is powerful. Leviticus—chop this this way, this smells good, blood poured out here and there, cleansing, laws, laws, laws. It’s no wonder most people stop reading their Bibles straight through in the midst of this book.

However, there is something that is greatly missed when we do this, because Leviticus is just as much from God as Genesis and Psalms and John and Romans. And the point of the book is the same as all of the other 65 books in our canon: the supremacy, beauty, and worth of Jesus Christ. Jesus said Himself in Luke 24:44, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Leviticus speaks about Christ. For this reason we are burdened to spend time in it. The fact that it begins with the phrase, “Then the LORD summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting,” tells us that it is God’s words that are meant to be listened to.

I’ve been in Leviticus for the last month, and I’ve been seeking and praying that I would learn about Jesus through it. I’ve also been reading Allan Moseley’s commentary in the Christ Centered Exposition series on the book as I go through Leviticus. You can find it by clicking here: Leviticus; and I highly recommend it. A whole lot of things finally clicked for me today as I read and reflected on the section 5:14-6:7, speaking of guilt offerings.

I read Moseley after I finish the section he takes for a chapter, so since his first chapter is on 1:1-17, I read chapter one after I had moved on to 2:1. Since I haven’t yet finished reflecting on portions of 5:14-6:7, I haven’t read his comments yet, but he has been very good at pointing out different aspects of the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7 and showing how they are fulfilled in Christ. He posits that the burnt offering of chapter 1 is representative of Jesus’ atonement for our sin (which is the conclusion I’m least sure of given Leviticus 16’s point). He posits that the grain offering of chapter 2 is representative of our response to Jesus’ sacrifice; we thankfully sacrifice our firstfruits back to Jesus.  He posits that the fellowship offering of chapter 3 is representative of Jesus’ death for our renewed fellowship with Jesus and other believers. He posits that the sin offering in chapter 4 is for purification from daily sinning, also fully realized in Jesus.

And I haven’t read it yet, but I’m going to make the claim that the sacrifice in Leviticus 5 is also fully realized in Jesus, because He takes away our guilt. All of these sacrifices that had to be offered repeatedly all the time, for all different reasons—atonement, thanksgiving, fellowship, sin, guilt—are all fully realized in Jesus in His one sacrifice on the cross. His offering tells me that I’ve been atoned for. His offering should lead to my grateful response. His offering gives me unhindered fellowship with God and should lead to improve my fellowship with other people. His offering covers my daily sin, purifying me for continued standing as being “atoned for” and continued fellowship with God and others. And His offering takes away my guilt. Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified.”

This is the crazy part, and where I’m about to start a preachy ramble, so bear with me. Jesus’ one offering has perfected already those who are being sanctified. Because of all the offerings in Leviticus, I know what Jesus’ sacrifice covers. It doesn’t just cover my initial standing as depraved, wretched, and deserving of wrath. It also doesn’t just cover a limited number of failures into sin. It also doesn’t just cover the first 490 times I feel guilty about a certain sin.

God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5), so God as the perfect embodiment of love doesn’t count up my sins and say, “Nope, that makes 491 times. That’s one more than 70 times 7. We’re done!” This is good news. Christ’s sacrifice is still sufficient for me. Christ’s sacrifice puts the Levitical sacrifices to shame. Too often I put myself in a place where I say, “I need to do something to make amends for this sin. I need to do penance, offer a sacrifice, assuage my guilt.” I know in my heart that Jesus has purified and atoned for my sin, but I feel like I need to do something about the guilt.

This is why Leviticus 5:14-6:7 hit me so hard today. I finally realized after some foolish decisions in the last week or so that Jesus still loved me regardless, but I was having a hard time getting past the guilt that I was feeling. God’s holy Word, in Leviticus, smacked me up the face and said, “Hey Mr. Mopey, rejoice! When I died on the cross, my sacrifice covered your guilt too. You don’t need to be bogged down under that anymore. Walk in freedom from sin, but also in freedom from guilt! They go together! You can’t do one without the other, which is why My sacrifice is so much greater than the things in this book that you’re studying.”

So my exhortation to you today, is rejoice! Look to the cross. Know that Jesus covered your sin and your guilt when He died on the cross and walk in that truth. Don’t listen to the lies that Satan whispers about past guilt, present guilt, or even potential future guilt. If you know Jesus, you are forgiven and covered. Seek Him!

Soli Deo Gloria

P. S. I would also encourage you to read Leviticus, but as you do, look for ways in which it points to Jesus and screams, "He is better!"

“Meeting” – Some thoughts for you

So, I’ve decided to start writing a short story each month. I was really struggling with trusting God and trusting others on December 27^th and 28^th, so I wrote the following sentences down, intending it to be me: “The snow fell around him, causing him to shiver in the early evening as he trudged through the powder. Every now and then he slipped, the ice on the sidewalk making his journey treacherous.”

Thus began my story “Meeting,” which quickly took a much different route than I had originally planned. The link to it is http://lilwritr.blogspot.com/2016/01/meeting.html. I wrote a good portion of it at Starbucks on the 29^th, the day I ran into the Jehovah’s Witness, so after chatting with him, I was totally decided on the route the story would take. A guy who doesn’t know the Lord, who’s really down on his luck, runs into a believer. What would his response look like? What should the believer’s response look like?

So, what resulted was an eight page character sketch, a thirteen page conversation, and a two page conclusion. My focus was trying to invent a character out of my brain, someone I’d never met before, whose situation is very opposite of mine. I kept our genders the same, but otherwise he is very different from me: Bobby Jones. I made the believer character, Jay, modeled on how I would like to see myself interacting with a non-believer, something that I would love to make more of a regular part of my own life.

I fall far short of the “Jay” I invented, but his progression is currently being worked out in my novel Stranded, and the two sequels that follow in the Awakening series. If this story was to become part of that series, it would end up in book three. The story takes place approximately a year from today.

Before moving on, the fact that Jay orders a beer is not promoting that industry. Everyone makes mistakes, and Jay is not perfect; in a moment of weakness he made a decision that could have cost a potential convert.

So what are we to learn from this story? I think there are at least two lessons.

First, we need to meet unbelievers where they are. Jay didn’t start in on biblical themes. He got to know Bobby. He also shared his own life with Bobby. There’s no better way to find common ground with an unbeliever than to just be honest with them. If we act holier-than-thou we will never impact them, but if we tell them about ourselves, and if we seek to understand them, then our attempts could very well be rewarded with a good response. However, at the same time, another place the Bobby character really was, was suspended over hell. We have to meet unbelievers even here and beg them to trust Christ, warning them of their plight. And given all the direct thoughts of Bobby, given in italics, I tried to show that the Spirit is at work on his mind, impressing things on him that Jay didn’t even explicitly say. Our job is to meet them where they are and be totally honest with them, both about our lives and their plight, and trust the Holy Spirit to do His convicting and regenerating work. God is very good at being God.

Finally, a reason this story took the route it did was because I’ve long wanted to explore the phrase, “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.” This story gives some insight into my thoughts on that topic. Allow me to preach briefly on it here. That phrase is normally used, I feel at least, to get people off the hook about their apathy towards spiritual disciplines and other such things. This is not at all the case. Religion is dead ritual. Relationship is vibrant, changing, struggle to maintain, desire to maintain, mutual give-and-take that produces all sorts of emotion. If a relationship is set aside, it dies. To say that Christianity is a relationship and not a religion, is to raise the bar for how we act in Christianity.

John 13:34-35 says, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.  By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (HCSB). This is further defined in Matthew 22:37-39: “He said to him, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and most important command.  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (HCSB). We are to love Jesus with everything we are, and we do this by loving other humans, both the saved and the non-saved.

Let’s seek to meet people where they are, tell them the truth, and thus prove that we love God with everything that we are!

Soli Deo Gloria.