On Being Lifted Up

I've only ever had one brush with true greatness. I'm talking about me, myself, being great. Wait, let me explain. See, this moment of greatness came when I was in seventh grade, the grade where you are confused and finding out about life and yourself and everything and are confused about pretty much all of it. And there is no more intimidating place for a confused seventh grader than the middle school locker room. Why does everyone else, all the big kids (eighth graders) seem to know what's going on, while I feel so weird and uncomfortable just changing into a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt? Why does that big, intimidating gym teacher have to shout at us all the time? And what in the world is this weird indoor gym-class game, with all these weird rules?

My middle school was big enough that there were multiple gym classes going on at the same time, with different intimidating shouting gym teachers. The intimidating gym staff must have had a meeting to try to come up with new ways to intimidate skinny seventh grade boys who don't like changing their clothes in front of others quite yet. So they decided upon a tournament of this gym-class game, the one with all the weird rules. Each class would compete against the others, until one at last

Running

I had a good talk with my sister Carol today. One of the things that came up was the ease with which we can get gloomy about heavy stuff and our tendency to stay in the gloom...and how counter-productive that can be for ourselves and the people around us. She suggested I write a post about it and lo! I already had one! I searched my drafts and there it was...the very first post I ever wrote, written back in July of 2009 - for some reason, I've never actually posted it. Just waiting for the 'right' time, I guess...hope that means now...


Anyway, here it is:


I was running nice and early one morning back in April. I'd had to drag myself out of bed to make it happen. Not the usual for me - I'm an early riser (note: that's 'early riser,' not 'morning person,' There is a difference....). But today I

Chagall's Abraham

Marc Chagall's Sacrifice of Isaac is a very affecting painting to me. The composition, the movement, the expression, the colors (including what each color might represent) and the symbolism are all artistically pleasing. Together they are all quite moving.

Abraham, following the direct order of God (Genesis 22:2), is about to kill (and burn!) his own son on an altar of sacrifice, though he was fully expecting his son to be raised somehow from the dead (Genesis 22:5, Hebrews 11:17-19). We see over to the left the ram, miraculously - providentially - provided by God,  to take the place of the one that was about to die. The pure, spotless ram was provided to turn God's wrath away from the guilty. Freedom at another's expense!

But now wait - who is that in the brown, shadowy area in the back? It's the Son of God, carrying his own cross - walking the horror-road up the hill of death. He's there to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. There are people around him, but make no mistake, he is alone. There is no one to take his place...no ram will be provided. In actuality, Jesus himself will be the spotless, innocent lamb to be slain in the place of the guilty. And by laying down his life as a substitutionary atonement, he will gloriously fulfill Abraham and Isaac's early foreshadow.

It is a sober thing, and appropriate to think about on Holy Saturday, the day we remember that Jesus' body lay in the tomb, dead. I feel so humbled and overwhelmed at the thought of Jesus' deep, deep, cross-pursuing love! Freedom at Another's Expense!

Good Forsaken Friday

I remember when I was a kid laying awake in the quiet of the night and letting myself get really scared, believing that everyone else on earth *might have...could have...probably...definitely* had disappeared and that I was all alone here on earth. It's a terrifying thought, especially for a little 10 year old.

Alone. Completely alone. Not another soul...anywhere.

I once taught a group of 8th graders, and the lessons included a bit on Hell. And it bugged me that the kids didn't seem too bothered by the thought of Hell, since the bible -  most notably Jesus - spoke about Hell as a place of utter despair, where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Now, I'd been around 8th graders enough to know that it's best not to get too far into describing what "gnashing of teeth" might actually look like, because of the inevitable silliness that will result. Goofy "gnashing" facial expressions, etc. So I tried to sober the room up by giving my own imagined view of what Hell might be like. I carefully gave the disclaimer that this isn't what the bible says Hell is like...this is my own imagining of what the despair of Hell might feel like.

And I took them back to my childhood night terror:

Hematohidrosis

This is from ChristianAnswers.net, and it describes hematohidrosis, the sweating of blood that Jesus experienced in Gethsemane. Here at Easter time, we want to be especially sensitive to Jesus' suffering, and as described here, not all of it was physical. Praise Jesus for "setting his face toward Jerusalem," "sweating great drops of blood" and going to the Cross, "scorning it's shame" in his

Mysterium Tremendum

Which is weirder for the Christian? That Christ is in you (Colossians 1:27), or that you are in Christ (Colossians 1:28)?

Our pastor, Eric May, made a wonderful point today. (I'm afraid this is going to sound like a, "stop me if you've heard this one..." kind of thing, but, well, since this is a blog, and you can't very well stop me...) He said, regarding these verses, "are we in air, or is air in us?" *Dramatic silence* Then he said, "is a fish in water, or is water in a fish?" The answer is, of course, "Yes." Both are true.

I like this not just because it's clever and presents a bit of a mind-bender. I like it because it points out that, though they may at first sound like opposites, both statements can be true: we can be "in Christ" and Christ can be "in us."

I also like it because

God Redeems Idolaters

Beautiful Evidence

I nabbed this from the blog of a pastor in the mid west, bloggername, "The Blainemonster" which is cool. His blog is called, "The vertiCALL." Anyway, he just posted this today and it really resonates with me and I wanted to share it here, especially in light of my last post...the two seem akin to me somehow.....

I've always thought that beauty was great evidence for a Creator. What we see throughout history, unfortunately, is humanity worshiping beautiful things, and not the Creator. The sun, moon, stars, animals, weather phenomena - all these things are beautiful (which is an anemic word to describe the majesty of some of these objects) and have been revered as divine by mankind.

Well, we can't blame this idolatry on the beautiful things, nor can we

The Bruised Reed

This is a cancer update from Texas pastor Matt Chandler who I have mentioned here and here.

I post it here because at about 2 minutes, he reads from a book by Richard Sibbes called, The Bruised Reed. In essence Sibbes says that God won't break the bruised reed (Matthew 12:20), but that He will still allow the reed to be bruised...for the good of the reed! Chandler has gotten a lot of comfort out of this, so I want to understand and learn from this.

I've been thinking about this kind of thing a lot lately, especially what could be meant by that word, 'good' in Romans 8:28, but I think I'll comment more on that in another post.  Of huge help has been Jerry Bridges' book, Trusting God - Even When Life Hurts (especially chapter 8 if you have the book). This really deserves the strenuous thought that it sounds like it takes....so don't be alarmed at the smoke coming out of my ears....

Choosing To Trust God

Jerry Bridges, in his excellent book, Trusting God, says this about choosing to trust:

"The same David who said in Psalm 56:4, 'In God I trust; I will not be afraid' said in Psalm 34:4, 'I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.' There is no conflict between saying, 'I will not be afraid' and asking God to deliver us from our fears. David recognized it was his responsibility to choose to trust God but also that he was dependent upon the Lord for the ability to do it."

He goes on:

Switchfoot 'Spirit'

I don't know what album this came off of...must have been a bonus track somewhere. A.W. Tozer says when Jesus is glorified, the Spirit comes. What were the disciples doing when the Spirit came at Pentecost (Act 2)? Glorifying Jesus. We should probably pay more attention to this.....

Holy, Holy, Holy

"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;the whole earth is full of his glory! And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

Have you ever been caught in a thunder storm? Not your average, every day thunderstorm with a few rumbles, but I mean the big, terrifying, no-delay-between-flash-and-BOOM! variety? The put-your-hands-over-your-ears-and-cower variety. I have. On a mountain, in a tent, at night. Terrifying.

That passage above is from Isaiah 6. It seems to me that the "Holy, holy, holy" would be a terrifying thing for humans and should not be read in a light-hearted or blase' or bored way. The seraphs that say it are fearsome creatures and their "Holy, holy, holy" should be thought of as the cower-in-your-tent-big-thunderclap-on-the-mountain-at-night-BOOM! Deafening to the human ear. Like a sonic boom in terms of sheer volume.

Holy! *BOOM!* Holy! *BOOM!* Holy! *BOOM!*

And to think: all of this is to put on display the greatness and awesomeness and fearsomeness and power and Holiness of the God who, for instance, could speak into the pre-creation nothing and, Wham! things begin to be!

If this is even a little bit close to what it was like in Isaiah's vision, then his reaction of "woe is me, I am undone!" makes perfect sense...you and I would feel the same way.

The Gospel in 3 Minutes

As concise a description of the Gospel message (3 minutes) as you'll ever hear...this is Pastor Mark Driscoll from Seattle.

"I Thought It Would Make Me Happy."

Mark Dreier, a disgraced financier currently serving 20 years in prison for fraud, on why he hatched a $380 million Ponzi scheme that ran for four years beginning in 2004.

I picked up my Time magazine this week and these words just jumped off the 'Verbatim' page at me.

Happy. Happiness. It's kind of weird if you think about it. What is Happiness anyway? Merely a neurological reaction...merely and chemical wash over our brains when we see or feel stuff we like?

Carly has a report due Wednesday on a part of the Revolutionary War. I thought, "If I'm going to help her with this thing, I'd better read up on my history." So I've been reading middle school level Revolutionary War books lately. The Declaration of Independence looms over this whole period of American history. You will of course remember that it states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The pursuit of Happiness. An "unalienable right." The founding fathers said, in essence, "as humans, we have a right, just by being alive, to go after Happiness. Capital "H." A mega-theme of life.

Webster's says happiness is "having, showing or causing great pleasure or joy." Well, I'm most interested here in the "having" part of that definition here. What is it to have happiness? To have great pleasure or joy. I think sometimes we Christians stink at being Christians because some of us make going after pleasure an antithesis to obeying God. We get especially confused when we mis-read verses like 2 Timothy 3:4 where Paul warned that in the last days men would be "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." Pleasure -or- God...like we have to choose. If we choose pleasure, if we "pursue Happiness," are we forsaking God? Does God hate pleasure? Or is it possible to go after pleasure and still go after God?

Well, I guess that would depend on the pleasure we are going after.

What if, rather than going after all the cheap counterfeit pleasures that the world has to offer, - counterfeits of cars, counterfeits of houses, counterfeits of iphone apps, counterfeits of plasma tv's.... counterfeits of $380 million - the list could be endless - what if we found a pleasure that could truly satisfy us with a lasting satisfaction AND at the same time find a pleasure, a Happiness, that pleases God too? Godly pleasure. Godly contentment. Godly happiness. Is there such a thing? Could there be such a thing?

Well, if you are still reading this, I'm guessing that maybe you are hoping that there really could be such a Happiness. I'm happy to say that there is. There really is.

I know people hate reading stuff written by dead guys from a long time ago, but just indulge me this one time. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the very first question is, "What is the chief end of man?" The answer that the student is supposed to give is, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

There you go! What if the greatest pleasure in your life could be to glorify God? And how about this: what if the best way to glorify God could be to enjoy Him forever? (Actually, joy-in-God verses are all throughout scripture. Check these out: Psalm 16:5-11; Psalm 144:15; Luke 2:10; Philippians 4:4 and Revelation 21:3-4.) Are you starting to get an inkling of what this could mean for you? "Enjoy God?" Could that be fun? Or is that an oxymoron.....

John Piper gives this helpful illustration, which I have tweaked here:

Imagine it's Janie's & my anniversary and to surprise Janie, I get a dozen roses and, being the clever guy that I am, go to my own front door and ring the doorbell. She answers the door and with a surprised look sees me and sees the roses and says, "oh, Chris, why did you?" And I reply flatly, "It's my duty." You laugh, knowing that I'm a dead man. Not the response that the beloved wife wants to hear.

So next anniversary I try again: Roses, check. Doorbell, check. The surprised look. "Oh, Chris, why did you?" "Janie, I just had to get you flowers! I love you so much...so go get some fancy clothes on, baby, cuz' I'm takin' you out! Nothing would make me happier tonight than to be with YOU!"

Ca-ching! Yes! High five! Nice job, Chris!

Why the difference in reaction? Why is that a slam dunk when I said that "nothing would make ME happier" than being with her? Doesn't that make me a selfish jerk, to go after my own happiness?

Here's the answer: my being satisfied by Janie ('nothing would make me happier')...glorifies Janie! It makes her look good when I find my happiness in her, right?

And so much more with God. "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Perhaps we could tweak what the writers of the Catechism wrote and say "Man's chief end is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever." Don't you see that if we can experience this shift in our point of view (kind of like Copernicus, who discovered back in the day that the Sun, not the Earth is the center of the Solar System), our concept of how to get happy could change as well. Imagine what life could look like if we could loose our white knuckle grasp of all the junk that the world tells us should mean so much, and stop shoving God to the periphery of our affections and get Him to the Center where He belongs....well, if that God really wants us to be Happy....by giving us Himself...well, that's life-changing, paradigm-shifting stuff right there.

Maybe this resonates with you. Maybe you are feeling like something inside you is longing for something more...like you've tried the world's version of 'Happy' and have found it lacking.

May I suggest you have a look at John Piper's book, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist or at least read up on Christian Hedonism at the Desiring God website?

Maybe some day I'll blog about how I almost drove off the road as I listened to a sermon about this very thing. It rocked my world and changed my outlook about God, me, and God-and-me forever.

Maybe Marc Dreier will pursue true Happiness (his name is Jesus) as well. I just hope he won't be driving when he does...

Cardboard Testimonies

My friend Mickey Shortsleeves sent this along. I thought I'd share it here. Redemption really is beautiful.

Look here for more on how to be changed by God.

How Deep The Father's Love For Us

Who says no one writes good worship songs with anymore? These lyrics are as good as any hymn in your hymnbook....written by Stuart Townend and sung here by Fernando Ortega. My thanks to my friend Scott Hewitt for bringing this song to our church....


How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

A Dead Guy's Song

When I was growing up, people would sometimes say about those big, inexplicable things of life (sickness, pain, death, disaster, etc.), "well, God moves in mysterious ways..." And that was the end of it. I found that frustrating of course. I wanted someone, anyone, to plumb the depths of God's purposes and get to the bottom of it all. I wanted answers. But since so many seemed to answer, "well, it's a mystery," I decided to take the plunge myself. Over the years I have thought about it and revisited the subject from time to time and studied and prayed and by now you have guessed what my results were: God is actually as mysterious as everyone said (actually even more so) and He just doesn't lay it all out for us. Indeed, He actually intentionally keeps His some of (probably most of?) His purposes from us. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

But Christians hang their hats on the Sovereignty of God, trusting that He knows what is going on down here and beyond that, that he cares, and beyond that that He loves and beyond that, that He has planned all of this out from before He created anything...even planned using the results of our human sinfulness for His Great Purposes. (Browse the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50 -but be sure to land on 45:5 and 50:20 to stop and think. And there are many more examples throughout Scripture.)

God's Sovereignty has become to me immeasurably sweet. To know that God has all things well in hand, that He hasn't looked away and that my troubles do not go unnoticed by Him and that rather, He has great things in mind not just for my future but for my now - even in the midst of trouble - this is immeasurably sweet. Mysterious, sure, but sweet nonetheless.

So why do people say, "God moves in a mysterious way?" William Cowper (evidently pronounced Cooper), the great poet from way back in the 1700's, wrote those words as a hymn that was included in John Newton's (of Amazing Grace fame) Olney Hymns. I know its old, but can I just say that with only a few exceptions, I think that old dead guys still have the greatest song lyrics?

The original tune for this is rather boring, but you can try it to the tune of, "Oh God Our Help In Ages Past" if you know it.

I love the third verse so much, and the fourth...and the fifth...

God Moves in a Mysterious Way by William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

The Prodigal God

I'm looking forward to this one...the people who put the paragraph headings in your bible got it wrong: in Luke 15, its not so much the son who is 'prodigal' (radical), it's the Father! Evidently there is a film to go with the book and can be used for groups..........

Humble Pie

This video can help you shake off the feeling that you are really 'all that.' Sorry for the version with the cheesy Morpheus (The Matrix) voice and the trance music (turn it down if you want), but, well, actually, I kind of like it that Morpheus is saying, "you've felt it your entire life...there's something wrong...you don't know what it is, but you know it's there...like a splinter in your mind...." I take it to mean (in the movie and in real life) that if we, in our gut, have to ask the question, "is this all there is?" then maybe the fact that we are asking kind of proves that there has got to be something MORE. Maybe its just me, but it seems like the vastness and scale of the universe (glimpsed in the video which I'm sure when compared to the real thing looks completely ridiculous) should create in us a pang of wonder and a wrenching feeling inside that shouts, "I want more! More than tv and computers and cell phones and facebook and malls and cars and theme parks and picket fences and golden retrievers and on and on and on.......don't you feel it in your gut that there has to be more than the material, even if the material stuff out there in the universe makes us feel really tiny? In your heart of hearts, don't you know God is there?

Here's another one...and another one...beautiful, even (maybe especially because it is...) without sound....

...and of course there is the breathtaking beginning of the movie Contact...

...and lastly, make sure to hear what Louie Giglio has to say about it all...