How to Glorify

Kevin DeYoung post:  How Can I Glorify God?

I imagine most readers of this blog want to glorify God. The chief end of man, after all, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But have you ever thought about how to glorify God—I mean practically in every day life?

Here are twenty biblical ways you can.
1. Give God verbal declarations of praise (Rev. 4:8-9).
2. Live a life of noticeable piety (Matt. 5:16; James 1:27; 1 Peter 2:12).
3. Ask God for things in Jesus’ name (John 14:13).
4. Bear fruit and show yourself to be a disciple of Jesus (John 15:8).
5. Declare the truth about Jesus (John 16:14).
6. Love your life less than God (John 21:19; 1 Peter 1:7; 4:16).
7. Worship God as God (Rom. 1:21).
8. Live a life of sexual purity (1 Cor. 6:20).
9. Live a life of generosity (2 Cor. 9:13).
10. Rejoice in God’s glory displayed in creation (Psalm 19:1).
11. Do the works of faith (2 Thess. 1:12).
12. Use your gifts in God’s strength (1 Peter 4:11).
13. Make sure everyone knows you’re not God (Acts 12:23).
14. Live a life of gratitude (Psalm 50:23; 2 Cor. 4:15).
15. In matters of liberty, seek the good of others (1 Cor 10:31).
16. Extend grace to sinners (2 Cor. 8:19).
17. Be a part of a local church (2 Cor. 8:23; Eph. 3:20-21).
18. Tell God you are wrong and he is right (Josh. 7:19; Jer. 13:16; Rev. 16:9).
19. Obey God (Lev. 10:3; Mal. 2:2).
20. Go from a Christ-despiser to a Christ-worshiper (Gal. 1:24).

Reminding Yourself

Excerpts from September 24, 2010 PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly interview with Joni Eareckson Tada:

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Joni Eareckson Tada is a woman of many talents. She’s a bestselling author, an acclaimed artist, and an internationally known advocate for people with disabilities. Paralyzed for more than 40 years, Tada is one of the longest living quadriplegics on record. She endures chronic pain, and just a few months ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Tada says it’s her faith that keeps her going.

JONI EARECKSON TADA: Boy, when Jesus said in this world you will have trouble, he wasn’t kidding. In this world there will be trouble. Perhaps the gift of this cancer and pain and quadriplegia is that it forces me to recognize my desperate, desperate need of God, and that is a good thing.

...

LAWTON: Tada talks often about the reality of suffering—a difficult message in what she calls America’s culture of comfort.


EARECKSON TADA: We want to erase suffering out of the dictionary. We want to eradicate it, avoid it, give it ibuprofen, institutionalize is, divorce it, surgically exorcise it, do anything but live with it.

LAWTON: Even after all these years in the wheelchair, she says some fellow evangelicals still tell her if she had more faith God would heal her.

EARECKSON TADA: But sometimes healing doesn’t come, and you’ve got to live with it, and when you do you really do learn who you are. God uses suffering. He lobs it like a hand grenade and blows to smithereens these notions we have about our self and who we think we are. Blows it to smithereens until we are left raw, naked, and we have to let suffering do its work.

...

LAWTON: Her motivation for persevering, she says, is all the people she’s able to help.


EARECKSON TADA: I need a reason to get up in the morning, and my big reason is to help other families like mine, other people with disabilities, other special needs moms and dads, to encourage them and strengthen them, to help them want to face life head on.

LAWTON: She says she won’t allow herself to spiral into doubt and despair.

EARECKSON TADA: I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to go there. I went down that dark, grim path when I was a teenager and first broke my neck and wanted my girlfriends to bring in razors to slit my wrists or their mother’s sleeping pills or whatever. I’m not going to go down that path again. It’s too horrible.

...


TADA: Yeah, we’re depressed. If we didn’t have God to turn to, I don’t know. I mean, I certainly understand some of the other alternatives, but boy, I tell you, you know, you just kind of grab on with both hands and just hold on as tight as you can, because that’s the only hope.

LAWTON: I asked her a question she’s been asked over and over again: How can you just keep believing in a God that would let all that happen?

EARECKSON TADA: I pray a lot, and I sing a lot. I sing because I have to sing. There’s something good about talking to yourself, reminding yourself of things you believed in the light but you’re so quick to doubt in the darkness. And I’ve seen too much of the light to not choose the Lord

Go to link to see video of interview

Watching

Mark Batterson post:  The Lord Is Rejoicing Over You

I think we often feel like God is watching over us waiting for us to do something wrong. Why? Because, too often, that is often how we function as earthly parents. But God is watching over us waiting for us to do something right. And He rejoices over the things we do right. Even the small things. Especially the small things.

We quote Zechariah 4:10 a lot. "Don't despite the day of small beginnings." But I think we miss the middle of the verse: "For the Lord rejoices to see the word begin." All they've done is measure at this point. They haven't even broken ground. In a sense, they haven't really done anything yet, but God is already rejoicing. I honestly believe that God is looking any any and every excuse to rejoice over us. Our Heavenly Father is a proud parent. And I promise you this: He is rejoicing over you!

Spiritual Community

Excerpt from Ian Morgan Cron post:  Believers in Exile. A New Christian Diaspora?

...


“One Sunday I walked out of church and never went back,” he said. “I want spiritual community, I just don’t think the church as it is right now is where I’m going to find it.”

Most of the people I meet who are leaving church aren’t young. They’re in their forties and fifties. After years of reading off the same theological script they began yearning for deeper, more open conversations about faith that included considering diverse perspectives and conversations that widened rather than narrowed their souls. Their churches were either threatened by these folks or unprepared for their emergence.

My friend shared other reasons why people are leaving. They were edgier.

“Some of us began meeting gay people in committed relationships, and we couldn’t square what we were taught about human sexuality at church, with who we knew our gay friends were in real life. Others had neighbors who were raised in other religious traditions who lived out the values of the kingdom more consistently than we did.

One day I asked myself, “Isn’t it strange to tell these people that Jesus wants us to love our enemies and forgive seventy times seventy, but then he sends people to hell for not receiving him as their Lord? I kept asking friends and pastors at church what they thought about this stuff because it troubled me, but no one really wanted to talk deeply. They just went right to the scripted answers.”

“So you left church because you had too many questions?” I asked.

“I left my church because it didn’t honor my questions. I got pegged as having gone rogue,” he said, swallowing the last of his coffee and glancing at his watch.

...

Putting Self Aside

Ray Ortlund post:  Coordinated effort

In 1836 Judge William Gould led a movement at First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia, to buy their first organ.   It was a break with tradition.  In a congregational meeting, one member rose and demanded chapter and verse where the Bible authorizes “the worship of God with machinery.”  But the members voted for the organ, and Judge Gould was appointed to raise the money.

Soon after the Judge ran into Robert Campbell, a member who had opposed the organ.  Mr. Campbell asked the Judge why he had not asked him for a donation.  Gould replied, “I knew you did not wish to have the organ.”   “That makes no difference,” said Campbell.  “When the majority of the members of the church have decided the matter, it is my duty to put aside personal feeling and assist as well as I may.”

Narrated in David B. Calhoun, Cloud of Witnesses (Greenville, 2004), pages 40-41.

Putting self aside, submitting to the Body, serving a higher cause . . . .

Brand Reliance and Religiosity

Excerpt from FastCompany Apple Logo Is an Agnostic's Crucifix, Star of David:  Study

Researchers at Duke ran several experiments to determine this disconnection between brand importance and religiosity. In one, the team analyzed geographic areas for the number of Apple, Macy's, and Gap stores per million people. These statistics were compared with brand-discount stores. "Then they compared these rough measures of brand reliance against the number of congregations per thousand and self-reported attendance in church or synagogue, controlling for income, education and urbanization differences," the report says. "In every analysis, they found a negative relationship between brand reliance and religiosity."

In another experiment, a group of students were asked to write an essay on "what your religion means to you personally." A second set of students wrote essays on an unrelated topic. Both groups then underwent an imaginary shopping trip, where they were asked to choose between a series of products. A similar online experiment was conducted with hundreds of participants, divided between those who reported being religious and those who did not. In both cases, "those that were highly religious [or primed to think about religion] cared less about national brands ... religion reduces brand reliance by apparently satisfying the need to express self-worth."

While this perhaps finally solves the mystery of why Christopher Hitchens and Nietzsche were such label whores, it also provides insight into how certain brands--namely Apple--develop cult-like followings. Similar to Duke's report, brand expert Martin Lindstrom conducted a 3 year, 7 million dollar study comparing brain scans of the religious to those with high brand loyalty. Lindstrom discovered that the scans of people loyal to Apple matched the scans of devoted Christians.

Too Short?

Steven Furtick post:  You're not the first

But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short?
Numbers 11:21-23

The Israelites wanted meat. God said he would provide it. But Moses doubted it because he didn’t see how it was possible. 600,000 men. Not enough corresponding animals.

It seems simple enough, but that’s because Moses’ conclusion is based upon an estimation made from logic. And logic, while God-given is not a reliable companion when it comes to calculating God’s infinitely great power.

In fact, it can be offensive. When we calculate God’s capabilities and limit God according to our logic, it insults His ability. It confines an unlimited God to the realm of possibility that has been constructed by our limited imaginations. It allows His ability to only stretch as far as our minds and our faith allow it to. And that’s infinitesimally small compared to an infinitely great God.

Unfortunately a lot of people still feel that their situation is the first to finally break the limits of God’s abilities. It seems like there’s a natural tendency in us to feel that our present predicament is the one just beyond the reach of God’s arm.

Your financial situation is such that even God can’t provide for it.
Your illness is too strong even for even God’s power to heal it.
Your marriage is too irreparably damaged for even God to restore it.
Your addiction is so overwhelming that even God can’t break it.
Your friends and family are so far from God that even His arm can’t reach them.

But each of these estimations is just like Moses’. Limited by our own conception of what’s logically possible. We have to get used to the fact that God and His abilities don’t make sense. And that’s a good thing.

Because then He can pour out provision that doesn’t make sense.
He can heal in ways that don’t make sense.
He can restore marriages in ways that don’t make sense.
He can break the power of a sin in your life in a way that doesn’t make sense.
He can save the lives of the people who seem the furthest away from Him in ways that don’t make sense.

Whatever situation you’re facing right now, you’re not out of the reach of God’s arm. You are not and never will be the first to break the limits of God’s abilities. It might not seem logically possible to you. But never forget that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God. 

Proactive

Matt Perman post at DG:  Christians Are to Be Proactive

As I prepare for my seminar Friday at our National Conference on “Rethinking Productivity in Light of Justification by Faith Alone,” I'm realizing that a lot of things in my preparation probably won't make it into the actual seminar. Here's one such segment which, although it might not make it in to the seminar, is absolutely critical to the way we should be as Christians and why things like learning to be more productive matter:

Christians are to be eager and enthusiastic in dreaming up ways to do good for others. We are to not just to do good when the opportunity comes to us—although we are to do it then, also—but we are to think hard about ways we can be proactive in serving people. And we are to do this because we are excited about it and because we love to, rather than begrudgingly.

Jonathan Edwards makes this case very well in his book Charity and Its Fruits and his sermon “The Duty of Christian Charity to the Poor.” Charity and Its Fruits, in fact, is just as comprehensive in pulling together the Scripture’s teaching on love and good works as Edward’s other works are on God’s sovereignty and glory and other such doctrines. Edwards is a model for keeping teaching on both theology and practical deeds of love together, rather than focusing on one at the expense of the other.

Anyway, one of Edward’s arguments on how we should be eager in doing good comes from Paul’s discussion of giving in 2 Corinthians 8-9. In his discussion on giving, Paul speaks of how good it is that the Corinthians not only started to be engaged in the work of giving, but that they desired to do it (8:10). He encourages them to excel in the grace of giving (8:7). He speaks approvingly of how Titus was very earnest in his care for the Corinthians (8:16-17). Paul exhorts them to sow bountifully (9:6) and to give not reluctantly but cheerfully (9:7).

What Edwards brings to light is that what Paul is saying here about giving applies to good works in general. That is, we are to be earnest and eager and cheerful and bountiful and thoughtful and sacrificial in regard to all of our good works, not just giving.

In other words, Christians are to be thoughtful people who are eager to do good and proactive in it. 

And, as an aside: if you can make it to the seminar, it's at 1:00 and also 3:00. It would be great to see you there!

A Few Themes

Mark Batterson post:  What are your themes?

C.S. Lewis said, "Every life is comprised of a few themes." I always quote that when I talk to writers and preachers. You need to know your themes! I think this is a huge part of self-discovery. And it's a big part of finding your voice.

For me, my themes find expression in my writing. I think In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day captures a big part of my personality and theology. We're called play offense for the kingdom. One of our values says it this way: playing it safe is risky. Or to put it in metaphorical terms: chase the lion.

I think Primal captures another theme: we've got to be great at the Great Commandment. Let's not be great at unimportant things! Let's be great at what matters most. And that is a drum I'll beat till the day I die.

Not only will identifying themes help you find your voice as a preacher or writer. It'll also help you identity imbalances in your preaching! Vision may be one of your themes, but you can't teach on it every week. You've got to preach the whole counsel of God. It will also help you identify the battlefields you're called to fight on. There are some battlefields you aren't called to die on. And that's ok. But your God-ordained themes are things you'll throw down the gauntlet for.

What are you themes?

I'm Sticking With God

I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
   the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
   the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
   and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
   his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
   How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
   He's all I've got left.
God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
   to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
   quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
   to stick it out through the hard times.
When life is heavy and hard to take,
   go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
   Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
   The "worst" is never the worst. 

Lamentations 3:19-30 [Message]

Nothing

I never get tired of hearing these lyrics from "Fail Us Not" by 1000 GENERATIONS

There is nothing above you.
There is nothing beyond you.
There is nothing that you can't do.
There is no one beside you.
There is no one that's like you.
There is nothing that you can't do.
Whatever will come, we'll rise above.
You fail us not, You fail us not.
No matter the war, our hope is secure.
You fail us not, You fail us not.
You fail us not.

Way of Wisdom

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

THE FOUNDATION OF A FOOL

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Romans 1:21

            A fool, in scripture, is described as one who denies the existence of God.  "A fool hath said in his heart there is no God."  Void of the ability to know and speak truth, he sets out to become a philosopher; one who reasons things out in a way that makes sense to him.  But according to Truth, defined by an all-knowing God, it makes no sense at all.  According to James Boice, he has simply 'rearranged error.'  Now, that is futility.
            I can so easily act like a fool when I take the matters of my life into my own hands and figure out solutions by myself.  Even though I may have pretty good common sense and average problem solving skills, my strategies are foolish.  Given enough time, I will discover that I have traveled in circles or taken a wrong path, even though the path seemed so right at the time I made the choices.  Only God knows everything.  Like Adam and Eve, I am to live by revelation in relationship, not assuming I can eat of the tree of good and evil and figure things out on my own.
            Honoring God means that I seek His wisdom about every single issue in my life.  I start with the scriptures and see if they address, in specifics, the scenario I'm facing.  Sometimes it will, other times it won't.  At that point, I seek God in prayer, wait for Him to lead me to the answers.  It may be scriptural principles that I can apply to my situation.  I may never before have considered them in that context but the Spirit of God, ever my teacher, customized them for me to fashion a strategy.
            My point is this.  I don't have to be an unbeliever to dishonor God and have darkened thinking.  Going off lone-ranger on any issue facing me is to disrespect and dishonor God.  I should live asking, "What should I do about this?  What is your plan for me?"  Then, I dig in to find the answers in meditation and prayer.  This is the way of wisdom; the way of the prosperous man and woman.  Believe me, I've learned this the hard way.

I honor You with my dependence. Lead me as Your little child; kindly, deliberately, and with concepts You help me understand.  Amen

Thinking About Thinking

Kevin DeYoung post:  Reasons for Reason

Christianity is no friend of rationalism, but it is rational. That is to say, although divine truth comes by revelation not by unaided reason, that revealed truth is nevertheless reasonable.

I was speaking recently about the emergent church (yes, some people are still interested) when someone asked me why I was so down on mystery. I tried to explain that if mystery means God’s essence is incomprehensible, then I’m all for mystery. But too often mystery is a cover for anti-propositional bias, a suspicion of truth claims, or just plain intellectual laziness. There are things we can’t know about God, but then there are some things we can know if we are simply willing to think (cf. Deut. 29:29).

But American culture does not encourage careful thinking. Cogito ergo sum has become emotio ergo credo. A couple weeks ago I was on a plane to California talking with a nice middle-aged woman. I wasn’t in my seat more than two seconds before she started talking to me–and talking to me a lot. This lady from SoCal was your classic “spiritual not religious” believer. She believed in God, wanted people to be compassionate, and tried to notice the many beautiful things in our world. She didn’t know the gospel from a granola bar. I admit I’m not the world’s best personal evangelist, but I tried my best to make the good news clear.

And yet my arguments bounced off her like Tigger on Red Bull, chiefly because she seemed completely disinterested in arguments. She talked about how much she loved the Bible, but later she said she also loved the Bhagavad Gita (she tried the Koran but found it too “intense”). When I explained that those two books are pretty different and irreconcilable in many parts, she was unconcerned. She called herself a Christian, but on takeoff claimed the sunset in front of us was God. I tried to explain how the Creator-creature distinction is essential to Christianity and how the entire the story of the Bible depends on it. She seemed mildly interested, but still preferred to think of God as everything. When we talked about the “lost” gospels, my historical reasons for rejecting those books meant little to her. It’s quite possible I was inept, or maybe she just didn’t know what to say in response. But I think in large part this amiable woman just didn’t want to be bothered with facts.

At one point she told me about how she used to attend the Church of Higher Consciousness (or some such thing). Being bothered by God’s wrath she asked her pastor how to make sense of Lot’s wife turning to a pillar of salt. He told her this was a lesson in not getting stuck in your past. You know, you got to keep looking forward and not look back. She really liked this interpretation and then asked me what I thought. “Well,” I said, “that’s not really the point. The story is really about God’s judgment. Even Jesus used Lot’s wife as warning that we must be ready for the coming judgment” (see Luke 17:32). She told me she liked the first interpretation better.

How do you give a reason for the hope that you have when the people asking you aren’t interested in reason? It seems to me one of the first tasks of evangelism today is to reintroduce the law of non-contradiction. More and more we can’t just drop the bridge diagram on people, we need to go back and tell the larger story of creation, curse, covenant, Christ, commitment, and consummation. And even before that we may have to help people simply think; help people not just find the truth, but believe that it exists, that it is inconsistent with error, and that it does not automatically correspond to what we wish it to be.

Want to think more about thinking? Check out the Desiring God National Conference this weekend. I’m sure John Piper’s new book Think: the Life of the Mind and the Love of God will be worth reading as well.

Gifts of God's Grace

Miscellanies post:  Theological Reflections On Sigur Ros

From James Davidson Hunter, To Change the World, pages 231–232:

Even in the context of late modernity, suffused as it is by failed ideologies, false idolatries, and distorted ideas of community, joy, and love, one can still find much good. Life still has significance and worth. What is more, people of every creed and no creed have talents and abilities, possess knowledge, wisdom, and inventiveness, and hold standards of goodness, truth, justice, morality, and beauty that are, in relative degree, in harmony with God’s will and purposes. These are all gifts of grace that are lavished on people whether Christian or not. To be sure, there is a paradox here that perplexes many Christians. On the one hand, nonbelievers oftentimes possess more of these gifts than believers. On the other hand, because of the universality of the fall, believers often prove to be unwise, unloving, ungracious, ignorant, foolish, and craven. Indeed, more than any Christian would like to admit, believers themselves are often found indifferent to and even derisive of expressions of truth, demonstrations of justice, acts of nobility, and manifestations of beauty outside of the church. Thus, even where wisdom and morality, justice and beauty exist in fragments or in corrupted form, the believer should recognize these as qualities that, in Christ, find their complete and perfect expression. The qualities nonbelievers possess as well as the accomplishments they achieve may not be righteous in an eschatological sense, but they should be celebrated all the same because they are gifts of God’s grace.

Missionary Mentality

Excerpts from Ed Stetzer - Monday Is for Missiology: The Missionary Mentality of the Local Church

The New Testament teaches us that all churches exist, at least ostensibly, to participate in fulfilling the Great Commission. However, churches that desire to be effectively involved in God's kingdom work should regularly ask themselves, "Why do we exist?" We will find that only churches with a missionary mentality will be able to rightfully answer that all important question.

The missionary pioneer of the early church, the Apostle Paul, viewed his responsibility to those outside God's kingdom in this way, "To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some. Now I do all this because of the gospel, that I may become a partners in its benefits" (1 Cor. 9:22-23; HCSB). Paul understood that to be inwardly focused was to be outwardly blind. To be a missionary means meeting, learning and embracing those outside the family of God. Paul even likens it to becoming them; this was not a dry interpretation of an even dustier research project. This was a living, personal change based on wanting to see people become followers of Christ.

Churches that have developed a mindset of being outwardly focused, what we call a "missionary mentality," live out the essence of disciple-making in their activities through worship, community, and mission. This they do in the context of their own local culture with an understanding of that context. This is one part of what we mean when we refer to "Transformational Churches." A common factor in these churches is that their values are expressed in the light of their own locale. Ministry values are not imported across town or through a conference DVD pack. Their leaders demonstrate a heart for the culture, the churches build relationships intentionally and everyone prays for the community. To put it simply, Transformational Churches know, understand, and are deeply in love with their cities, communities, and people.

LifeWay Research results found that Transformational Churches have specific attitudes toward those outside the family of faith. They responded with "strongly agree" or "moderately agree" to the following statements: "Our pastor(s) often refers to aspects of the local city or community in messages" (67%); "Our church believes that God has strategically place us in our cultural context (in our location to serve those around us" (81%); "Our church believes that as the cultural context around us changes, new opportunities to engage people outside must be considered" (71%). Rather than being taken for granted or blitzkrieged as the enemy, those outside of Christ are viewed as victims of the enemy who need to be rescued and redeemed.

 ...

There are three important ideas churches can learn from the life of Paul relating to where he went and to whom he ministered. First, Paul considered the available time. Much is made of the "Macedonian call" when pastors talk about following God. What is sometimes overlooked is saying "yes" to Macedonia meant saying "no" to Phrygia. Yet, it was the Holy Spirit who halted Paul's travel plans while giving him another assignment. Transformational Churches learn to say "no" to the places and times where God says "no." Every good thing is not the right thing for a church to pursue at a given time.

Second, Transformational Churches remember that God is already at work where He is sending His people to minister. The vision Paul experienced of the pleading man from Macedonia was significant in that God was at work preparing the people of Philippi for a new church. He was at work in a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. He was even working in the life of the jailor where Paul and Silas were imprisoned. In Cincinnati, the burden that God placed on Chris Beard drew the pastor and the church into the flow of God's work in the city. The result was a significant impact on the community, with many coming to know Christ in a church that now reflects the racial makeup of its host culture.

Thirdly, churches who say "yes" to God's leading can expect to find God working in ways previously unknown. It is in moving into these unknown areas that they uncover what God is already doing in advance of the onset of ministry. Transformational Churches see this working over and over, whereas churches that do not engage their communities with the gospel of Jesus miss these supernatural interactions and often mistake sameness for spirituality.

Did Nothing

Christine Wyrtzen Devotional:

FAITH PLUS NOTHING
 
The just shall live by faith.  Romans 1:17b

            I write today with fear and trembling.  Prayerfully, I seek God for the concepts and language to write about this critical and most important issue in all of Christianity.  This is the verse Martin Luther stood on and why his life was on the line.  Protestantism was born on the foundation of this theological truth.
             If ever someone had the moral credentials to earn his salvation, it was Paul.  He listed them elsewhere in Philippians.  The humbling discovery he made on the road to Damascus was that his 'credentials' had actually kept him from saving faith.  The very things he worked so hard to attain, that he thought were winning him eternal favor with God, were his own stumbling blocks.  He came to understand that his attempts to act righteous were like presenting an offering of filthy rags.
            The law was not given so that we could mimic it and please God.  There is no brown-nosing the Teacher.  Righteousness, through the Law, was revealed so that we would understand that we are completely incapable of attaining it, needing to reach out our arms to Christ for that divine exchange ~ He takes my sin, I take His righteousness.
            Without Christ's atonement, I am utterly lost and condemned.  There is no balance sheet keeping track of my good works and bad deeds.  That is not the basis by which God accepts or condemns me.  The question has always been, "What will Christine do with Jesus and His death on Calvary?" I can bring nothing to the table to contribute to my salvation.
            Some would argue.  "But I bring my faith to the table.  I choose to believe."  Even that isn't true.  If I have the faith to believe, it is only because God opens my eyes.  By His grace, He extends the faith to me so that I can see the treasure of Jesus and believe.    
            I offer some closing questions as we often wrestle with our insecurity as God's children.
If I did nothing to earn my salvation, then why do I work so hard to try to keep it?

• Do I believe that I must perform righteously to keep God happy with me?
• Do I really know how to rest in the finished work of the cross?
• Do I really believe that I received Christ's righteousness?  Where is my joy?

             Children of God are adopted by faith alone.  We come empty handed; orphaned, filthy, emaciated and deeply scarred.  God does not despise us for that.  His compassion reaches out in the person of Jesus to do what we can't do for ourselves.  We cry, "Abba, Father!" and are invited to embrace Him without any hint of reservation.  How?  By understanding that we are dressed in the robes of His Son, the One who took our sins, paid the debt we owed because of them, and then removed them from His sight forever.  In that we rest.  In that we heal.  In that we worship.

          You did it all. I did nothing. You loved me that much. Amen

Lead Me

God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer.
   When I'm far from anywhere,
      down to my last gasp,
   I call out, "Guide me
      up High Rock Mountain!" 

Psalm 61:1-2 [Message]

 
Lead me to the rock
   that is higher than I

Psalm 61:2 [ESV]

Deepest Need

Grace Has Called My Name (Kathryn Scott)

Peace as elusive as a shadow dancing on the wall
life swallowed by the pain of yesterday;
Left broken by the shame of things that I had done,
No freedom from the choices that I’d made;
But with one touch You made me clean;
You met me in my deepest need. 
Grace has called my name,
when all that I had left were just filthy stains;
Grace has called my name;
when hope had all but faded far away,
Grace called my name.
Wounded by words that left their mark upon my soul,
dreams overturned by empty promises;
Well intentioned things I’d heard a million times before
just left my heart to grieve alone again;
But with one touch You set me free;
You met me in my deepest need.

Conscious Experience

Ray Ortlund post: Every moment of every day

“Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies.  God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there.  This is to be known to us in conscious experience.  It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.”

A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (London, 1967), pages 36-37.

Faithful

He leads me in paths of righteousness
   for his name’s sake.  [ESV]

True to your word,
      you let me catch my breath
      and send me in the right direction.  [Message]

Psalm 23:3