Finding and Replacing Your Idols -- Tim Keller

This post is adapted from Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods. If you get the chance, I highly recommend you reading this short and helpful book. It is probably more eternally helpful than I will ever know.

Identifying Idols

1.) Look at our imagination.

Archbishop William Temple once said, "Your religion is what you do with your solitude." In other words, the true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. What do you enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about? Do you develop potential scenarios about career advancement? Or material goods such as a dream home? Or a relationship with a particular person? One or two daydreams are no indication of idolatry. Ask rather, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart.

2.) Look at how your spend your money.

Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there is your heart also" (Matthew 6:21). Your money flows most effortlessly toward your heart's greatest love. In fact, the mark of an idol is that you spend too much money on it, and you must try to exercise self-control constantly. As Paul has written, if God and his grace is the thing in the world you love most, you will give your money away to ministry, charity, and the poor in astonishing amounts (2 Corinthians 8:7-9). Most of us, however, tend to overspend on clothing, or on our children, or on status symbols such as homes and cars. Our patterns of spending reveal our idols.

3.) Look at how you respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes.

You may regularly go to church. You may have a full, devout set of doctrinal beliefs. you may be trying very hard to believe and obey God. However, what is your real daily functional salvation? What are you really living for, what is your real -- not your professed -- god? A good way to discern this is how your respond when life doesn't go your way. When you respond with sadness and disappointment, but then you go on and life isn't over then those things weren't idols. But when you pray and work for something and you don't get it and your respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god. 

4.) Look at your most uncontrollable emotions.

Look for your idols at the bottom of your most painful emotions, especially those that never seem to lift and that drive you to do things you know are wrong. If you are angry, ask, "Is there something here too important to me, something I must have at all costs?" Do the same thing with strong fear or despair and guilt. Ask yourself, "Am I so scared, because something in my life is being threatened that I think is a necessity when it is not? Am I so down on myself because I have lost or failed at something that I think is a necessity when it is not?" If you are overworking, driving yourself into the ground with frantic activity, ask yourself, "Do I feel that I must have this thing to be fulfilled and significant?" 

Replacing Idols

Idolatry is not just a failure to obey God, it is a setting of the whole heart on something besides God. This cannot be remedied only by repenting, or using willpower to try to live differently. Turning from idols is not less than those 2 things, but it is also far more. Paul says we must "set the mind and heart on things above" where "your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:1-3). This means appreciating, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you. Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace your counterfeit gods. If you uproot the idol and fail to "plant" the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back. 

Rejoicing in Christ is crucial because idols are almost always good things. If we have have made idols out of work and family, we do not want to stop loving our work and family. Rather, we want to love Christ so much more that we are not enslaved by these things. "Rejoicing" in the Bible is much deeper than simply being happy about something. Paul directed that we should "rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil. 4:4), but this cannot mean "always feel happy," since no one can command someone to always have a particular emotion. To rejoice is to treasure a thing, to assess its value to you, to reflect on its beauty and importance until your heart rests in it and tastes the sweetness of it. "Rejoicing" is a way of praising God until the heart is sweetened and rested, and until it relaxes its grip on anything else it thinks that it needs.  

The Gospel Gives Us Wings

After working outside with my Dad yesterday afternoon, we stumbled upon a fallen June Bug that was flipped upside down and was frantically doing everything it could to flip itself back over. It would move its tiny arms (or legs?) back and forth. It would shuffle its body around. Nothing would do. It was a hopeless scene, that my Dad pointed out was so true of us with the Gospel.

Unless someone came by and cared enough to flip that June bug over to relieve it of its suffering, it would spend the rest of its short life in a hopeless, miserable state trying to flip itself over, never being able to do it on its own. It would make noise, wiggle, and frantically move its arms to death. My Dad, out of compassion, picked the June Bug up in his hand, let it get its bearings, and then it was able to fly away.

Fallen and Can't Get Up

We are that June Bug. Because of our sin we have been flipped over on our backs and find ourselves in a hopeless situation. We are doomed to die. The clock is ticking and there is nothing we can do about it. But since we live in the Bible belt, we here a lot about being a "good" person and we get 10 steps to flipping ourselves back over. We start to wiggle by trying to read our Bibles more and cleaning up some parts of our lives. Then we move our arms really fast by going to church and serving more. We think we are making progress because we're moving, but even though we are moving around we're still not right side up and we're more hopeless than ever. Just like the June bug, no matter how many different "good" deeds or activities we add to our life, we just can't seem to fly. We are exhausted, hopeless, miserable, and at the end of our rope.

The Gospel Gives Us Wings

A famous poem by John Bunyan sums this feeling up perfectly:

"Run, John, Run the law commands

But gives us neither feet, nor hands"

The law or commands of the Bible tell us what to do, but they give us no power to do them. Much like the June Bug who keeps trying to do more things to save itself, but is left hopelessly on its back. The law of the Bible shows us that we are on our back, but can't save us and help us to fly. The good news of the Gospel isn't that if we do more good things, read our bibles, go to church, and pray then we will be able to fly. That's not good news. That's exhausting. Especially when you're on your back and dead in your sins (Eph. 2:1-3). No, the Gospel is far better news than some self-help, do it yourself salvation plan. The Gospel gives us wings. God, because of his great love for us, scoops us up, dusts us off, and gives us our wings (a new heart with new desires of the Spirit) through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son (Eph. 2:4-7). The law drove Mr. Bunyan into despair, but the gospel changed him forever:

"Far better news the gospel brings:

Its bids us fly, and gives us wings"

I pray Jesus helps you fly today. All the way to Glory.

(Special thanks to my Dad for the illustration of the June Bug. Nothing has better illustrated the beauty of the gospel to me than this)

Dear Mr. Christian

I'm a huge fan of Christian rap. Mostly because the lyrics contain real struggles, real brokeness, and constant mention of a real Savior that we so desperately need. This is one of the most convicting songs I've ever heard. The chorus is enough to stop your heart:

"Dear Mr. Christian, I know you're on a mission. I know you say the answer to my problem is religion. I know I'm supposed to change the way I live and stop sinning. But I'd appreciate it if you'd take some time to listen. 

Written from the perspective of non-christians, I think it is a message we all need to hear and take in. I pray it helps us become more like Christ, who had compassion and cared for the broken and marginalized. He didn't just give them a quick buck or advice, but he gave them what they needed most: himself.

Jesus Loves Whores & Hypocrites -- Video Testimony

Pastor Leonce Crump of Renovation Church shares his testimony of how "God shows his love in this that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). I pray his testimony helps us remember how Jesus saved us by his grace and love and gives us the confidence and boldness that he will save & continue to save others as the Gospel goes forth.


Jesus Loves Whores & Hypocrites - Pastor Leonce Crump II from Renovation Church on Vimeo.

99 Problems, but I'm Not One

Everyone has a book coming out on problems. The problem with your marriage. The problem with the economy. The problem your anger. Everyone seems to have an answer in a problem filled world, but nothing seems to be giving any long-term help or satisfaction. Yes, some problems allow for a quick fix every now and then, but we no nothing of long-term joy, contentment, and hope. In the category of self-help we have aimed for too practical and haven't thought enough about the big picture. We haven't rooted our problems back to the underlying cause behind everything. In short, we need a Savior. Someone outside of ourselves to save us from ourselves. All our problems can be boiled down to 2 realities. Only 2, really? Think about it.

1.) Too Much of Man
This is the beginning of all of our problems (noticed I said all). Every single one of us sits on our own throne and thinks the world revolves around us. Pride is at the root of all sins (Proverbs 16:18). It is what made Lucifer fall and what made Adam and Eve forsake God's perfect rule for an apple. Pride got us into this mess in the first place and it still ruins us to this day. Why do you get mad when someone cuts you off in traffic? Why do you get worried about the future? Why do you get angry at a friend? It all goes back to the fact that we want our way. We love our way. This is the essence of sin. Sin isn't a behavior problem, but rather a treasuring problem. We treasure ourselves more often than God and this in turn leads us into trouble. What are you treasuring? I think we'd all be lying if we didn't say us. We love us. We have made the finite (man) seem infinite and in there lies all of our troubles.

2.) Too Little of God
If you take a honest look at the world today, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with me here. We have made much of us, and in turn made little of God. It always works like that. You can't have a high view of man and God. John the baptist agrees: "I must decrease. He must increase" (John 3:30). Paul Tripp, a biblical counselor, claims that "only the worship of God can destroy the worship of yourself." God is not worshipped because we don't see him how he really is. We see watered down versions of Him in our culture, entertainment, and, God help us, in our churches. When God becomes small, man becomes a big and problem on top of problem begins to multiply. So what do we need? We need to discover the Godness of God. We need to see God not just for what he can do for us, but for who He is. Who God is goes a lot farther than what He does. We need a bigger God.

What about Jesus?
But isn't the Bible about Jesus? How does Jesus fit into this theory of "bigger God and smaller you" fixing all of the world's problems? Check out this chart.

As we get a greater awareness of who God is and what's He's done (aka Bigger God), we will get an awareness of our sinfulness (aka smaller man). This is what happened to Isaiah:

"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 2 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 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!" (Isaiah 6:1-3, 5)

Don't miss this. If we think we are something great and worthy to be praised, we are missing who God really is. A greater, grandeur view of God will always make us feel small. Really small. Too often we hold ourselves into comparison with other people that we've handpicked because we know that we are better than them. But when we bring ourselves into comparison with a Holy, perfect God we always come up way short. Now enter Jesus into Isaiah's vision:

"Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." (Isaiah 6: 6-7)

As God becomes bigger in our lives, we become smaller and the cross becomes greater and more precious to us. The cross always puts us in right standing before God, despite of our sin because Jesus took our sin and gave us his perfect righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). A sign if we are growing in our faith is if we need Jesus more and more each day, because we are seeing God as bigger and seeing ourselves as smaller. Day by day of this (less of me, more of Him, treasuring Jesus) will change the world. We need to see a bigger God. We need to see a smaller of us. We need to see how great Jesus truly is.

Christ is All

I have talked a little recently about the Godness of God and how we need to see all of who Christ is. This video is 18 minutes. These 18 minutes might change our lives forever if we would let them. Watch in awe of your God the one who paid it all for us.

"All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16-17)

Knowing God

I have had a lot of people in the past ask me if they can have assurance if they truly know God. I can resonate with this question because throughout the Christian walk we all have doubts and the dark nights of the soul. Can we know if we have a relationship with God? If so how? How can we know if we truly know God?

The following is adapted from J.I. Packer's classic Knowing God.

"Knowing God is crucially important for the living of our lives. We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know God. Disregard who God is and you end up wasting your life and losing your soul."

Evidence of Knowing God

1.) Those who know God have great energy for God
This energy for God is not just about public gestures. In fact, it doesn't even start there. People who know their God before anything else are people who pray, and the first point where their zeal and energy for God's glory come to expression is in their prayers. We might be old, or ill, or otherwise limited by our physical situation. But we can all pray about the lack of God in everyday life all around us. If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer, and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know our God.

2.) Those who know God have great thoughts of God
In the Old Testament, Daniel is facing the might and splendor of the Babylonian empire which had swallowed up Palestine and the prospect of further great world empires to follow. It dominates the people of God by every standard of human calculation, but the book of Daniel as a whole forms a dramatic remind that the God of Israel is King of kings and Lord of lords, "that Heaven rules" (Dan. 4:26), that God's hand is on history at every point, that history, indeed, is no more than "his story," the unfolding of his eternal plan, and that the kingdom which will triumph in the end is God's
What do you think about when you think about God? Does his tremendous sense of Holy majesty, moral perfection, and gracious faithfulness keep us humble and dependent, awed and obedient, as it did Daniel? By this test, too, we may measure how much, or how little, we know God.

3.) Those who know God show great boldness for God
Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. This was not foolhardiness. They knew what they were doing. They had counted the cost. They had measured the risk. This risk got Daniel thrown in the lion's den and got all of them thrown in the fiery furnace. They were well aware what the outcome of their actions would be unless God miraculously intervened, as in fact he did. It does not worry them that others of God's people see the matter differently and do not stand with them. By this test we may also measure our own knowledge of God.

4.) Those who know God have great contentment in God.
There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God's favor to them in life, through death and on forever. This is the peace which Paul speaks in Romans 5:1 -- "since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ -- and whose substance he analyzes in full in Romans 8:1.

Do we desire such knowledge of God? Then 2 things follow.

First, we must recognize how much we lack knowledge of God. We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts.

Second, we must seek Jesus. When he was on earth, he invited ordinary people to company with him; thus they came to know him, and in knowing him to know his Father.

Don't Confuse the Two

The following is adapted from C.J. Mahaney's wonderful little book The Cross Centered Life.

"One of the greatest hindrances to keeping the gospel central in our lives is our creeping tendency toward legalism. Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God. Legalism is works based righteousness or simply believing that salvation rests on your works and not on grace alone, through faith alone in Christs finished work on the Cross. 

Nearly every man and woman I've met who has struggled with legalism has had a faulty understanding of how justification and sanctification work together. These are big theological works that are in the Bible, so I encourage you to understand these theological terms, not so you can impress your friends, but because understand the differences between justification and sanctification is vital to defeating legalism. 

• Justification is being declared righteous. Sanctification is being made righteous -- being conformed to the image of Christ.
• Justification is our position before God. Sanctification is our practice. You don't practice justification. It happens once for all, upon conversion. 
• Justification is objective -- Christ's work for us. Sanctification is subjective -- Christ's work within us.
• Justification is immediate and complete upon conversion. You will never be more justified than you are the first moment you trust in the Person and finished work of Christ. Sanctification is a process. You will be more sanctified as you continue in grace-motivated obedience. 

So do you see the distinction? Now ... here's the mistake the legalist makes. He confuses his own ongoing participation in the process of sanctification with God's finished work in justification. In other words, he thinks that godly behavior and practices and good works somehow contribute to his justification. 

The Bible is clear that "no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law..." (Romans 3:20). None of us earn God's approval and love by our good works. None of us can add to the finished, complete work of Jesus on the cross. He paid the price of our sins. He satisfied God's wrath.

Our participation in the process of sanctification comes only after we've been totally accepted and made right before God through faith in Jesus. So yes, we work hard at obeying God's word. We read our Bibles. We pray. We meditate on Scripture. We memorize Scripture. We share the gospel. We serve in our church. We fast. God commands us in His Word to do many things, and our obedience is both pleasing to Him and brings His blessing to our lives. But none of these good spiritual activities adds to our justification. We're never "more saved" or "more loved" by God. Our work is motivated by the grace God has poured out in our lives. 

God's Lavish Language

"God doesn't seem capable of moderation or of understanding the basic concepts behind supply & demand. He constantly devalues his own products by giving us too much." (N.D. Wilson)

Paul would agree with Wilson's quote when he writes in Ephesians that God "lavishes" us with everything we have. Lavish. Don't you love that word? Paul is almost saying it's too much or its over the top. Why don't we see it like that? We spend most of lives grumbling and complaining all the way up into eternity. We don't enjoy our lives, let alone think that we have been given too much. God has done too much for us and maybe that's the problem. God has given us too much wonder. He didn't just give us one one little plant in nature to marvel at, but billions of them. He doesn't just give us one human life, but 7 billion of them all over the world. We are minimalists. We have the gospel too shallow. We don't realize what we have.

In his book Insourcing, Randy Pope describes our problem & the distorted or shallow gospel like this:

1. We lost a lot.
2. He did a lot.
3. We get a lot.

We lost a lot. We lost our perfection, because everyone sins, but we're not sinners right? We still have our goodness left which means that Christ did a lot. He came to earth. He lived a perfect life and he died for sinners. But he didn't do everything. Why? Because we did something. We took the goodness we had left in us after our sin and created some faith and repentance and belief. This may not seem like a big deal into you get the 3rd statement: if he only did a lot, we only get a lot. This makes the good news not quite so good, and the language of the Bible confusing. Every time the Bible talks about the gospel of who Jesus is and what he has done it talks about it in epic proportions and uses "lavish" language. For example:

• For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." (John 1:16)
• In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. (Ephesians 1:7-8)
• But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ." (Ephesians 2:4-5)
• "so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7)
• "He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our savior." (Titus 3:5-6)
• "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." (Romans 10:12)
• To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8)
• "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33)

Here is the true gospel, the one the scriptures so richly talks about:

1. We lost it all. (Romans 3:12)
2. He did it all. (Ephesians 2:4-5)
3. We get it all. (John 1:16)

Everything Christ is and everything he did we get. Fully known. Fully accepted. Fully loved. All  on the merit of Jesus alone. All because of him. Want to believe you got it all? Then you must begin to embrace the reality from scriptures that you have lost it all and he has done it all. Until we see the gospel as getting it all Jesus will not be everything. He might be important and a significant part of your life, but he won't be your absolute treasure that the Bible describes him as. Jesus can't be everything, until you realize you are nothing. You won't receive it all, until you realize you have lost it all, and Jesus did it all out of his great love for you.

The Difference Between Want & Have

"In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' For a while he refused but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'" And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on this earth?" (Luke 18: 2-10)

What's the difference between wanting to do something and having to do something? Have you ever thought about it? The difference is eternal. The difference is heart and that's what Jesus is always after. That's why he told this story in the first place (Luke 18:1). There's a huge difference between loving your wife because you  exchanged vows 15 years ago and wanting to love your wife every day. One is begrudging obedience and the other is genuine love. Unconditional love. The widow in the story got justice from the unrighteous judge, but how did she get it? The judge was tired of her bothering him and was scared that she would eventually beat him down by her continual coming (Luke 18:5). Why does the means matter if you still get the end in which you came for? The means are what really matter. Please see this.

Jesus & the Judge

Some of you are very much like the unrighteous judge. Your relationship with Jesus consists of the same 2 things that the judge's relationship with the widow consisted of

1. Annoyance
2. Fear

Now I know you would never say I follow Jesus Christ because I'm annoyed with him and scared of him, but just because you wouldn't say it doesn't mean we don't live like it. We go to church and hear all these commands about do this and don't do that. We don't like Jesus stepping into our lives, but everyone else is doing it and we want to be good, upstanding, moral citizens. And this annoyance is boosted even more by fear because everyone is scared to death of death. We know that Jesus can get us to heaven so we have no love for Jesus, but we're very scared of hell. There is an eternal difference between people who love Jesus for more of Him and people who love Jesus to escape hell. Just like there's an eternal difference between the unrighteous judge and our heavenly Father. 

What's the Difference?

The difference lies between wanting to do something and having to do something. The unrighteous earthly judge feels backed into a corner. He feels obligated and has to do this for the widow. At the end of the story, Jesus brings in the magnificent heavenly Father who isn't obligated toward anyone (Acts. 17:24-25). God doesn't owe anyone anything, but eternal damnation for their constant sin and rebellion against Him.  He doesn't even owe us the little things such as delicious bites of food or fits of laughter, let alone the big things like eternal life in His son. We can't give God anything because he owns it all. Every bit of the universe and all you see are already His. He created it all. At the end of the day, the widow gets justice both from the unrighteous judge and God, but the how changes everything. How'd she get it? One she had to beg and knock on the door and keep coming back. The other came to her, knocked over her door of sin and unbelief by sending His son who wanted to give up his life for us. He wasn't forced to the cross (John 10:18). God didn't have to save you, but he wanted to. Jesus didn't have to die for you, but he wanted to you. That's love folks. That difference between want and have is everything. Don't lose heart. Jesus wanted to save you and that means he loves you.

Pray for Cordova, Peru

A team from Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, KY are currently traveling to Cordova, Peru in hopes of continuing to fulfill the great commission of making disciples throughout all the earth. Ashland has been trying to plant a gospel centered, bible believing church there for the last 7 years and they have sent a man named Eric Turner there for 2 years in order to establish roots and put this mission into high gear. This summer, a group of 6 will be joining Eric for 10 weeks as he begins his last year there.

You can keep up with Cordova through Eric's blog here or find out more about the mission at Ashland Avenue.

Here are some things that you can be praying for over the summer that were given to me by Celeste Hurst, one of the girls going down there. Please pray every day.

1. That the Lord would ease the communication barrier between our team and the Cordovans; that through our speech they would hear Jesus speaking into their hearts.
2. That we will rely solely on the strength of God while we are in Peru. We have no power to change their hearts or to grow in our faith, but Jesus is infinitely strong and "His power is made perfect in weaknesses." Pray he helps us grow in our understanding of what it means to completely trust in his perfect and holy will.
3. Please pray that God will protect our team in safe traveling and from sickness, that he may keep our bodies strong to help us proclaim His glorious message of salvation.

"The history of missions is the history of answered prayer…it is the key to the whole missionary problem. All human means are secondary.” (Samuel M. Zwemer)

Questions for the Heart

I have been reading through the gospels for one of my classes and one of the things that immediately jumps off the page is the number of questions Jesus asked to the people around. One could even make the assumption that this was his number one teaching technique.

So here are some great questions that I have gathered over the years that I ask myself and ask some guys in bible studies and discipleship. I pray that they dig at your heart and grow you closer in your relationship with Jesus and the people around you.

Questions for Discipleship (via Celeste Hurst and Campus Outreach)

1. What sin have you been taking before the lord lately?
2. What have you learned about yourself recently?
3. What have you learned about the Lord recently?
4. What have you been celebrating?
5. What burden have you been carrying?
6. What have you been struggling to trust God for?
7. What truth about God’s word has been encouraging to you lately?
8. How do you feel towards God lately? Distant, near, or I don’t know? Why?
9. What do you want God to do in you this week?
10. What are you trusting God for?
11. What has been consuming your thoughts lately?
12. How have you seen God’s grace in your life lately?
13. What false promises of sin are you believing this week?
14. What promises of God are you holding on to?

Questions for Identity & Idolatry Detecting (via JD Greear)

1. What one thing do you most hope is in your future? 
2. What is the one thing you most worry about losing?
3. If you could change one thing about yourself right now, what would it be?
4. What have you sacrificed most for this week?
5. Who is there in your life that you feel like you can't forgive, and why?
6. When do you feel the most significant?
7. What triggers depression in you?
8. Where do you turn for comfort when things are not going well? 

John Wesley's Small Group Questions

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I am? In other words, am I a hypocrite? 
2. Did the Bible live in me today?
3. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
4. Am I enjoying prayer?
5. When did I last speak to someone about my faith?
6. Do I pray about the money I spend?
7. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
8. Do I disobey God in anything?
9. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
10. How do I spend my spare time?
11. Is Christ real to me?
12. What is the condition of your soul? 
13. What sin do you need to confess?
14. What have you held back from God that you need to surrender?
15. Is there anything that has dampened your zeal for Christ?

 

What is the Gospel?

The Advance Conference recently took place in Raleigh, NC to help train Christians all around the world to have both a "faithful & fruitful" ministry in their daily lives. You can listen or watch all the sessions from the conference here.

D.A. Horton's session was on sharing the gospel in the most effective way possible. Here is his basic layout of what the gospel is. Check out his 20 minute session below. It is well worth those 20 minutes. They might change how you do evangelism for the rest of your life.



G. (God's Image)

What does it mean to be made in God's image and not be God himself in our lives? This is where the Bible starts and this is helpful to begin a gospel conversation. 

O. (Open Fellowship)

After God made all of creation and made us in His image, we had perfect, unbroken fellowship with God. There were no such things as skeletons in the closet. No hidden lifestyles and fears of being exposed or known. Nothing was hidden. It was all good.

S. (Sin Introduced)

What is sin? It is helpful to talk to people what this word means because often times it is a church word that gets thrown around a lot but never clearly defined or explained. If we don't see sin, we won't need a savior and Jesus becomes irrelevant.

P. (Penalty & Price)

Because of sin, there is now a penalty (death) and a price (blood). This is the direction we are heading for because of our sin. Sin has a penalty and a price (Romans 6:23). 

E. (Enter Jesus)

Jesus, equally and essentially God, came and took the penalty and the price for you, in your place. He took the eternal sentence that we rightfully deserve. What it would take a eternity for you to serve in hell, Jesus finished on the Cross, once and for all. Nothing can be added to it or taken away. He did this freely for you because of the great love, with which he loved you.

L. (Life Everlasting)

When we repent and treasure Jesus because of who he is and what he has done for us in conquering our sin and death, we can now celebrate life everlasting with Him right now. It's not just joy when we go to heaven, but everlasting joy today because of what Jesus has done.

That is such a clear and simple way to share the whole gospel with people in our lives that desperately need to hear it. I pray that this acronym would help you go out and share both the gospel and your life with others for the glory of God.

Last Words: Rescue is Coming

I just finished my last college class ever. A Rakestraw graduating college. Can you believe it? It was very fitting that in my last class here at WKU, where I have been completely transformed by the person and work of Jesus, that I would sit in my last class (Rel. 300 - Life of Jesus) that has nothing to do with my finance major and hear the teacher say, "Things will never be the same because of who Jesus was and what He did." 

I came into college a scrawny young kid who was very religious, put together, and ready to conquer the world that was set in from of me. Four years later, I'm still scrawny, but in a week I'll leave this beautiful campus in Bowling Green, Kentucky completely broken, captured by love, and ready to lose my life for the sake of the One who gave it all for me. I came to WKU looking for something, and I was found by the sweet grace and mercy of the Lord of all.

I was asked to write a blog and give a senior talk for the campus ministry I've been involved with for four years called CRU here at WKU. They wanted me to talk about what I've learned in my four years and what I want to pass on or leave behind. This is really hard for me because not only have I really, really loved and enjoyed my time here, but I also learn about 10,000 new things every single day. If I had 15 minutes to tell my freshmen self anything in the world, what would it be? Out of all the things I've learned and all the people I've been impacted by what would I say to the that freshman four years ago?

I can try to sum it up with one word: rescue. Rescue is not a past tense word. It's an all encompassing word that means past, present, and future. I would tell the younger Luke that rescue is here and it is coming. And it is coming in ways that you would never believe. In fact, it is coming most spectacularly in 3 ways.

1.) Rescue is coming for your greatness

Jesus, first, graciously rescued me from me. My view of greatness coming into college was defined by me: who I was and what I did. Greatness looked a lot like the American dream: a beautiful wife, great upstanding children, a two-story house, two-cars, a dog, and a healthy salary. Greatness was that people would remember my name. Greatness was straight A's and popularity and worldly success. And then I met King Jesus and saw what real greatness looked like (Isaiah 6:1-5). I learned who the true hero of the story was and it wasn't me. We all pursue what we think greatness is until we meet something greater. My pursuit was over when I ran smack into the Great I Am. My good works didn't look so good measured up against God's holiness. My mightiness didn't look so mighty against the power of God Almighty. I felt like David in the Psalms:

 "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8: 3-4)

Who am I? I'm not that impressive. In fact, I'm very, very sinful. But God cares for me. How? I'll get to that in the second rescue, but the greatest truth in this universe, is the fact that the One that created this universe cares for me, not because of how great I am, but because of how great He is. There's nothing in me that screams out great, but God sent his son to rescue me from myself so I might get a shot at real greatness: being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29). 

This started me on my very present journey of seeing that God is supreme in all things (Col. 1:15-23). No amount of money or prestige, or leisure, or sports, or family, or job, or health, or toys, or friends -- nothing brings satisfaction to my sinful, guilty, aching heart beside God. This makes me want to go hard for the One that is truly great: my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 2.) Rescue is coming for your love and affections

After rescuing my greatness, Jesus was far from done with me. At the same time, he was ferociously going after my idea of love. Coming into college I saw love like the world sees love: with conditions. You scratch my back I'll scratch yours. The world says very clearly that if you do these certain things then we will love you. If you fit this mold then you will be taken care and loved immensely. So if you make good grades, tell the funniest jokes, work really hard, be devoted, and loyal then you will have a shot at our love. We see this in our relationships, families, and work environments. You perform, you will be loved and rewarded and Jesus said we ain't doing it like that.

Why did Jesus save me? Why did he lavish his grace upon me and adopt me into his family? Coming into school I thought it was because of my church attendance, prayer life, bible study time, and moral works. But Paul said something different in Ephesians 2: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" (Eph. 2:4-5). God saved us from our sins because of his great love and affection, not ours. I didn't love God. I loved myself, but he saved me. And he didn't wait for me to clean myself up or get back on the right track. No, Paul says that "while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me" (Romans 5:8). That mega, other worldly love blew me out of the water. God's love for me, despite of me eternally wrecked me and I haven't been able to get over it since. That he would look on me foreknowing all the times I would sin against him, and go my own way, and fall over and over and over again, and still say I'm sending my son to die for that man to get him in my family. What do you with something like that? You worship. Jesus didn't have to go to the cross, but he wanted to out of his great love and joy for the Father and for us, as sons and daughters.

Jonathan Edwards, a famous pastor in the early 1700's, said "that the meaning of life is found in intense loves, including earthly loves." Not moderate loves.  Not play-it-safe loves.  Not this-won’t-cost-you-anything loves.  Not let’s-dabble-in-the-shallows loves.  But intense loves.  Brightly burning loves.  All-consuming loves (John 2:17). I loved timid-loves because I could control it. I was able to set the terms and limit risk. God wasn't having any of that and sent his son to fully embody the most intense love anyone will ever see. A love that consumed him. A love that meant the death of him, and thankfully the death of me.

3.) Rescue is coming for your joy

All throughout highschool and coming into college, I never understood why so many people in the Bible would act the way they did. I didn't understand why David would stay up all night thinking about God, or why a prostitute falls weeping with joy at Jesus's feet, or why the man when he finds a treasure in the field immediately goes and sells all he has, with joy, in order to buy it. I most certainly didn't understand why Paul says "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21). I understood to live is Christ. I was taught that in sunday school, but to die is gain? Are you for real Paul? Because here is the thing about death that we all know: you lose everything when you die. You lose your wife, your kids, your house, your money, your friends, your accomplishments, your reputation. All of it gone when you die. And Paul is looking at all of that in his life and says being with Jesus is gain far beyond all that. I was missing something about Jesus. Jesus gave Paul more joy than everything else in his life combined, where he could look at death and weigh the costs and say gain.

I always thought, in the back of my mind, being a Christian was the opposite of joy. Kind of like sitting in a jail cell watching all your friends have fun for 70-80 years, but one day you'd be in heaven so it was all worth it. And then I read Psalm 16:11:

"in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore"

Pleasures and God don't only co-exist but true pleasure is found in God? That somehow, in God, there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore? So if this was true God wasn't the opposite of joy, actually he was the beginning and end of all true joy. If this was true everything was changing. If this was true I had been settling for unhappiness by looking to the world to provide it. Like sucking on sand, when I have a fountain of water right beside me saying "that one day this sand will satisfy me."

Not only was God the beginning and end of joy, but I saw in the scriptures that he commanded us to be joyful. I thought it was a sin, but really to be happy in God was what God wanted all along because when I'm most happy in God he looks the greatest. God looks big and I get to be happy in him for the rest of my days. You tell me where I can find joy fuller than full and longer than forever and I'll cease to be a Christian. But you won't find joy fuller than full or longer than forever. God is true joy. Thomas Brooks said:

"To be in a state of grace, is to be miserable no more. It is to be happy forever. A soul in this state is a soul near and dear to God. It is a soul much beloved and very highly valued by God. It is a soul safe in God's everlasting arms. It is a soul fully interested in all the highest and greatest privileges."

C.S. Lewis said it like this in his essay from The Weight of Glory:

"if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Jesus has rescued me every day of my life and no more than in the last 4 years on the hill at Western Kentucky University. I want to thank all of you who have been a part of it and all the many hand prints on my life that have pointed me more and more to his delightful rescue. 

Why Religious Change Doesn't Work

I like posting sections from books, sermons, or anything else on here because there are so many wise people out there that can say things so much better than I could.

Here is JD. Greear's very wise words on why religious change doesn't work in his wonderful book Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary.

Why Religious Change Doesn't Work

1.) Religious activities fail to address the "root" idolatries that drive our sin.

 At its root, our sins are driven by the fact that we desire something more than we desire God. Religious change targets the acts of sin without addressing the idolatry that prompted the sin in the first place.

 Let me give you an example: Tim Keller tells of a notoriously sexually promiscuous kid he knew in college. The young man's sexual prowess was about more than lust, however. Gaining "notches on his bed post" was a source of identity to him -- it proved he was a man and gave him a sense of power over women. During his junior year this guy got involved with a campus ministry and "got saved." He quickly got "on fire for Jesus" and gave an inspiring, bold testimony of his new commitment. However, Keller says, he was not a very enjoyable person. He had to win every conversation and he wanted you to recognize his opinions were insightful. The guy had all the external signs of love for Jesus, but he had simply traded sex for religion as the outer manifestation of his true desire. What he really wanted -- his "root idol" -- was power over others.  

True worship is obedience to God for no other reason than that you delight in God. There is an eternal difference in serving God to get something from Him and serving Him to get more of Him. Getting religiously active in a church does not necessarily mean you have become a true worshiper of God. You may have simply discovered religion to be a more convenient means to other cherished idols like respect, pride, success, a good family, or prosperity. 

 2.) When our acceptance is based on our performance, we show 2 root sins in our heart: pride and fear.

Everyone on this planet senses that we are not acceptable as we are (which is true), so we all feel driven to do something to make ourselves more acceptable to God. But whatever we think makes us better than others, we feel proud about, and that leads us to more sin with pride. Pride gives rise to violence, impatience, intolerance, judgmentalism, and many other vices. Of course, on the other hand, when we don't feel like we measure up to others, we despair and our fear of rejection grows.  Our despair creates a void that we often turn toward drugs, alcohol, relationships, and work to fill. 

While performance-based acceptance thrusts us into a cycle of pride and despair, acceptance by God's grace produces exactly the opposite. We are complete in Him. We are even free to let others see our faults, because we know we we already have the absolute approval of the only One whose opinion really matters anyway. We are not afraid to lose all we have, because in Him we have all that we need.

 3.) The insecurity of always wondering if we've done enough to be accepted causes resentment of God, not love for Him.

When I first became a believer, I constantly felt guilty about things I needed to do better to become a good Christian. Despite my fervency, my love for God was not growing. True love for God cannot grow when we are unsure about His feelings for us. 

When our salvation depends upon our righteous behavior, our righteousness will be driven by a desire to elevate ourselves. This is not love for God; its love for ourselves and self protection. The gospel turns religion upside down. The gospel assures us of God's love and acceptance, given to us as a gift earned by Christ's worthiness, not ours. The gospel reawakens us to the beauty of God and overwhelms us with mercy. Our behavior changes because we change. Until that happens, all religious changes will be superficial and about us.

The Kind of Men We Need

The Advance Conference recently took place in Raleigh, NC to help train Christians all around the world to have both a "faithful & fruitful" ministry in their daily lives. You can listen or watch all the sessions from the conference here.

John Bryson's session was on the kind of men we need today. I have had the pleasure of listening to a lot of talks on biblical manhood, but this was honestly the best I have ever heard. John Bryson is so good at getting to the heart of men by both convicting and encouraging with the grace of God.

Below are some brief notes I took from his session on men. Please check out his 30 minute session below. It is well worth those 30 minutes. Men, those 30 minutes might change the rest of your life. Invest eternally.

 

8 Realities of Men Today

1.) Men are confused

There is no pathway from boyhood to manhood. When do you become a man? We don't know and thus manhood is reduced in our culture to boyish behavior (when you turn 18, can drink, can drive, have sex for the first time, etc.), instead of an authentic call and vision for life from God.

2.) Men are experiencing a general disappointment with life

Men, generally, thought life was going to give them more opportunities and be more fulfilling as they got older. Men aren't sure what to do with this disappointment. Purpose is drained out and adventure and vision is all but gone.

3.) Men are in pain

This is a pain that's not resolved. Men don't talk about this pain and their hurts. "What is your deepest hurt?" is rarely asked and men are thus wounded and unsure where to take this pain that seems to never go away.

4.) Men are lonely

This one is a little strange with all the communication and technological advances in the world today. However, as technology has increased, intimacy has decreased. The typical American male "knows" everyone, but is not known by anyone.

5.) Men are drifting

Men because of the confusion, pain, disappointment, and loneliness have no internal vision for their life. Men continue to react to life as it comes. They are at best playing defense, while no offense is occurring.

 6.) Men will turn to escapes to numb these realities.

Men go after things to numb their confusion, pain, disappointment, and loneliness in order to stay away from these realities. That's why men are workaholics, sports fanatics, indulge in excessive alcohol, angry, and easily drawn to pornography over and over again.

7.) Confused men cause problems

There is nothing more dangerous than an insecure, ungrounded man set adrift in this world. Gender, alone, is the single greatest predictor of crime in this country. All of societies problems can be rooted back to what's gone wrong with men.

8.) Without a Gospel centered vision of manhood, men will settle for less and less in life.

God has wired men to make a difference. To take initiative for the benefit of others. Men are wired to be givers, not takers. Everywhere Jesus went in the gospels, things got better, as it should be with men today. So many men are aggressive and ambitious in all the things that don't matter, and completely flat lined in all the things that do .

The standard in our culture for men has been set at: give your family a roof over their head and food on the table. Even Possums do that. We need better men.

The world needs men who:

a.) reject passivity

b.) accept responsibility

c.) lead courageously

d.) Invest eternally

The only way we can do this is not just looking at the example of Jesus, who did all of this for us when we couldn't, but also allowing Jesus to work in and through us. Jesus isn't just a good example of manhood, he is manhood. Without him, we will be boys, no matter what our age, accomplishments, or successes. 

Boys take. Men give. Boys create problems, Men solve them. Boys complain.Men figure it out. Boys pout. Men endure. Boys blame. Men own. Boys wish. Men do. Boys start. Men finish. Boys stiffen their neck. Men bend their knee to their savior.

Holocaust, Abortion, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ

If you haven't seen this movie yet, please check it out. It will absolutely take your breath away.

How to Preach the Gospel to Yourself Every Day

"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?" (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

"No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to yourself more than you do." (Paul David Tripp)

"Every day, we are faced with 2 simple choices: we can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He's accomplished for us at the cross. The cross centered life starts with cross-centered days." (CJ Mahaney)

 So how in the world do I preach the gospel to myself?

The following is adapted from Joe Thorn's book Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself

When we preach the gospel to ourselves we are essentially denying self and resting in the grace of Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. But this means we have to know how the gospel addresses our current spiritual state, whether happy, sad, afraid, broken, proud, weak, or self-righteous. 

Jesus is Your Righteous (His Life)

The life of Jesus offers hope to the broken, to those who recognize their inability to keep God's law, and to those who are frustrated with their fallings and failings. The gospel is the life of Jesus for sinners. His righteousness is our righteousness, and this give us hope and confidence before God (2 Cor. 5:21)

Jesus is Your Forgiveness (His Death)

The death of Jesus offers hope to those who are overcome with guilt by offering cleansing and acceptance. Though we are sinners, God will not count our sins against us (Rom. 8:1) because of Christ's substitutionary death on the cross for us.

Jesus is Your Victory (His Resurrection)

The resurrection of Jesus offers courage and strength to persevere because his victory over sin and death is ours both in this life and the one to come. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, sanctifies us, and empowers us to follow Christ and serve the mission of the church. 

Preaching to yourself demands asking a lot of questions, both of God's Word and especially of yourself. You will have to ask and be honest about you motives, struggles, and needs. You will need to clarify to yourself what God's law means, but also what it requires specifically of you. You will need to ask how the gospel meets your needs and heals your brokenness. To preach to yourself is to challenge yourself, push yourself, and point yourself to the truth. It is not so much uncovering new truth as much as it is reminding yourself of the truth you so often forget. 

 

Jesus Doesn't Regret Saving You

Enjoy this sermon jam from Matt Chandler and remember His grace that is lavished on you, even now in your darkest of sins.

4 Mistakes I Hope You Don't Make

As I approach graduation in May, there are a lot of things that I wish I would have known throughout my college days. These 4 common mistakes in our culture would have been extremely helpful to know in my journey. I hope they help you in whatever journey you are on.

The following post is adapted from John Piper's message from a college graduation delivered May 13, 2007.



"I don't feel excited when I hear a question like: "You want to be a firefighter? Why are you in college?" "You want to be a homemaker? Why are you in college?"

So I'm here to try to share a little wisdom and and I could care less -- as long as it's not sin -- what vocation you use this wisdom in.

Mistake #1 : Big is better than small

God uses little David-like people to accomplish huge Goliath-like things because he is jealous to get the credit.

Mistake #2 : New is better than old.

Read old books. You need the wisdom of the ages to combat the folly of the present.
In school, it doesn't matter what you major in. Just find the wisest teachers and take everything from them. When great changes happen, its not from new ideas. the reformation was a great leap forward precisely by going backward.

Mistake #3: Having is better than being.

There's no correlation between the fullness of life and the muchness of having.

Don't reduce you life to acquring things. Study, make decisions, and live to become and behold, not to be rich.

Mistake #4 : Visible is better than invisible.

The most important things are not visible. God is invisible and he is the greatest reality of all. If you structure your life around sight, it will be out of touch with reality.

Be not be much interested in outward appearance. Be interested in inner realities.

If God is God -- and he is --small with him is better than big with anybody. His old things are bettter than anybody's new things. Being his child is better than having the world. And better to be blind with the invisible God than to see everything without Him.

Cause I Gotta Have Faith

Faith is a word that is used constantly in the Bible and in our daily lives, but rarely explained and hard to define. The Bible defines it as "the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1), but that is also hard to understand and think about. We know we need faith in Jesus for salvation, so this is a word we not only need to know about, but also be able to build our life on it.

This is the best definition of faith I've ever heard and it comes from my boy J.C. Ryle and his insight from the theme of faith all throughout scripture:

'Saving faith is the hand of the soul. The sinner is like a drowning man at the point of sinking. He sees the Lord Jesus Christ holding out to help to him. He grasps it and is saved. This is faith (Hebrews 6:18).'

'Saving faith is the eye of the soul. The sinner is like the Israelite bitten by the fiery serpent in the wilderness, and at the point of death. The Lord Jesus Christ is offered to him as the brazen serpent set up for his cure. He looks and is healed. This is faith (John 3:14).'

'Saving faith is the mouth of the soul. The sinner is starving for want of food, and sick of a sore disease. The Lord Jesus Christ is set before him as the bread of life, and the universal medicine. He receives it, and is made well and strong. This is faith (John 6:35).'

'Saving Faith is the foot of the soul. The sinner is pursued by a deadly enemy, and is in fear of being overtaken. The Lord Jesus Christ is put before him as a strong tower, a hiding place, and a refuge. He runs into it and is safe. This is faith (Proverbs 18:10).'

"It is not the strength of your faith, but the object of your faith that actually saves you." (Tim Keller)

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful -- for he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13)

The Fullness of Life

"For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace." (John 1:16)

"In our lives and churches today we don't have the gospel wrong, really. We just have it shallow. We see the gospel as the ABCs of salvation, but not the A to Z for all of life. We like that the gospel gets our sins forgiven and gives us a ticket to heaven, but we're not sure of its functionality in our lives every day. We're content to keep the gospel at an elementary level, assuming that we graduate from it, and the sad result is we thereby deny the 'grace upon grace.'The further into the gospel we go the bigger it gets. We can not wear it out. When Jesus came we got all of him. Not a bit of him was held back from us." -- Jared Wilson

We love the idea of living a full life, eating a full meal, or experiencing a full day. We're scared of one bit of our lives being empty so what do we do? We fill it with finite things that can never fill the infinite gap of eternity in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11). The gospel of Jesus Christ is so much bigger and so much more filling that we are seeing it as right now in our churches, in our bible studies, and in our day to day lives. We need a bigger, grandeur view of the Gospel.

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." (Isaiah 55:1)

In this passage, Isaiah compares the gospel of Jesus Christ to three different drinks that we use for all of life. In doing so he's announcing to the people, "the Gospel is everything we ever need and more." 

1.) Water (quenching your thirst)
When you are most thirsty, most desperate, and most dehydrated, its water that you want and nothing else.

2.) Milk (quenching your weakness)
When someone is grasping for life, you give them water. But when you want a little baby to grow day after day, you give it milk again and again. God is not just for emergencies and mountain peaks. He is for health, strength, and substantiation in the long haul. He invited you not only to come alive with water, but also to be stable and strong with milk.

3.) Wine (quenching your boredom)
Everyone wants to live and not die. No matter how serious, unemotional, and laid-back we may seem to others, there is a child inside everyone of us that God made for joy -- shouting, dancing, singing, playing, skipping, jumping, and laughing. God is not after your begrudging submission, but rather your joy in all of life.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2)

Why are we not full of the Gospel? We choose to spend our time trying to find fullness in the fleeting pleasures of this world that leave us far more emptier than we could ever imagine. We don't see God's "steadfast love as better than life" (Psalm 63:3) because the newest reality TV show is on, or UK plays at 9, or twitter is demanding all my attention right now. Listen to C.S. Lewis and the Word of God and come home to the fullness of life and the fountain of pleasures in God forevermore.


"Indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. " (C.S. Lewis "The Weight of Glory)

What is Love?

During Holy Week, when the world stops to celebrate Jesus's sacrifice and what that means, I thought it would be appropriate to summarize John Piper's recent devotional on what love really is. Go get the rest of his holy week devotional for free: Love to the Uttermost by John Piper.

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person -- though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die -- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5: 6-8)

There are 4 ways we can know the depth of someone's love for us:

1.) We know the depth of someone's love for us by what it costs him.

If someone sacrifices their life for you, it assures you of deeper love than if he only sacrificed a few bruises. So we know the depth of Christ's love by the greatness of what it cost him.

2.) We know the depth of someone's love for us by how little we deserve it.

The more undeserving we are, the more amazing and deep is his love for us. So we will see the depth of Christ's love in relation to how undeserving are the objects of his love (Romans 5:5-8).

3.) We know the depth of someone's love for us by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved.

If we are helped to pass an exam, we will feel loved in one way. If we are helped to get a job, we will feel loved another way. If we are helped to get escape from an oppressive captivity and given freedom for the rest of our life, we will feel loved another way. And if we are rescued from eternal torment and given a place in the presence of God with fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, we will know a depth of love that surpasses all others (1 John 3:1-3). So we will see the depth of Christ's love by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved by him.

4.) We know the depth of someone's love for us by the freedom with which they love us.

If a person does good things for us because someone is making him, when he doesn't really want to, then we don't think the love is very deep. Love is deep in proportion to its liberty. If an insurance company pays you $40,000 because you lose your spouse, you don't usually marvel at how this company loves you. There were legal constraints. But if your sunday school class makes you all your meals for a month after your spouse dies, and someone calls you every day, and visits you every week, then you call it love, because they don't have to do this. So we will see the depth of Christ's love for us in his freedom: "No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18). 

If you know nothing else in this life, please know this: that Jesus really really loves us, because he really really wanted to save us. Feel loved today. 

You Have a Friend in Me

"So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us." (1 Thess. 2:8)

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17)

Paul had Timothy & Luke. David had Nathan. Jesus had his disciples, not to mention the inner 3 with Peter, James, and John. Close friendships are on display all throughout the Bible and we see that great men had great friendships. The quality of our friendships gives us a glimpse into the quality of ourselves.

What a gift we have in close, deep, and loyal friendships. What a gift it is that God doesn't just save us into a personal relationship with him, but also a relationship with people who we can watch a ball game with, talk to about anything and everything, and fight through life with. What a joy it is to have good friends and good community. Oswald Sanders says in his popular book Spiritual Leadership that "Nothing takes the place of affection, not intellect or even biblical knowledge." As Christians, we have the affection of God on us in Jesus Christ and we also have the affection of deep friendships all around us. Thank God for you friends today and listen to John Piper's counsel on how to best serve your friends:

"The greatest ministry you can have to me is for you to enjoy Christ. And so I think when we turn that around and say, “Now how can I be the greatest blessing to the people around me?” The answer is: Get up in the morning. Go to the Word of God and, like George Mueller said, “Get your heart happy in God before you meet other people.”

Isaiah Says Think Differently

I don't know where I got these points from. It might have been J.I. Packer or it could have been someone in my life just speaking truth. All I know is that these 3 points didn't come from me.

(1) Your Thoughts of God are too human

"To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? Says the Holy One." (Isaiah 40:25)

(2) Your Thoughts of God are too negative (He has not disregarded you)

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God'?" (Isaiah 40:26)

(3) Your Thoughts of God are too small

"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength." (Isaiah 40:27-28)

If you do one thing this week think, pray, and dream bigger about who God is and what he has done and is doing in your life and in the lives of people around you. The world dwarfs us, but God dwarfs the world. Stand in awe and behold your great God.

"It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in." (Isaiah 40:22)

Humpty Dumpty & The Wholeness of the Gospel

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Who would've thought Mother Goose would turn out to be a theologian? Humpty Dumpty is a classic poem that will be told to generation after generation as a nursery rhyme right before bed. It is endearing and takes us back to a simpler time, where apparently egg-like creatures sat on top of large brick walls, but that's not the only reason we love to hear the story of old Humpty's fall. We love Humpty Dumpty because he is us.

We have all built a "brick wall" that we love to sit atop of in our life. We all think too highly of ourselves and our capacities. He who dies with the most toys, or in this case the highest wall, wins right? So we build our wall high. I mean really high. Higher than everyone elses. Our bricks consist of our salary, our spouse, our kids' accomplishments, our gpa, our degree, our high school sports achievements, and even our hobbies. And higher and higher we go up on our brick wall. Just high enough so we can feel important and look down and see that everyone else isn't as "high" as us. You know what one of of our favorite bricks is in the Bible belt? Religious performance. Our Christianity. We build our walls with how many bible studies we lead, how many verses we memorize, how many hours we pray, and even how many of our good deeds out number our bad. Remember though, we are still like Humpty and no matter how high our brick wall is, we are all doomed to fall eventually (Romans 3:23).

There are no big or little falls from a high brick wall. Just a fall. So sin overcomes us and pushes us off our big brick wall and we are left utterly and hopelessly broken. Shattered into a million pieces on the ground below. We try to fix it but we can't seem to put ourselves back together. So we try the self-help section, counseling, and the constant advice of our friends and families, but like the story goes the King's men couldn't even put Humpty back together again. 

So we ignore our problem and act like we aren't really that broken, but foolishly there we are laying on the ground in a million different pieces. We can fool the world, but we can't fool the soul and we know that we are internally messed up. When left to ourselves and the King's men and the King's horses we are broken people that are doomed to stay broken the rest of our lives. Not a happy ending for Humpty and not a happy ending for us. It seems...

But wait...what about the King? The King's horses and the King's men couldn't make Humpty whole again, but the story doesn't tell about the King. Another story does though. Not just a king, but the "King of Kings" (Rev. 19:16), who comes into the world not as a king, but as a baby. Who grows up and doesn't get the fame and fortune that Kings do, but rather gets the brokenness and emptiness of this world thrown on him. A King who lives the perfect life that we think we live and begins to restore the world of its brokenness with one miracle and teaching at a time. Can it be? Do we have a chance of being whole again? King Jesus then set his face like flint toward brokenness in Jerusalem, where he was going to cure brokenness forever by being broken himself. On the cross, Jesus took our brokenness of sin on himself, and gave us the wholeness of life in Him for eternity, to be with the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 1:8)

All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But take heart, we have the Holy King, who can wholly put us back together again, by making us wholly His. He takes our broken selves splattered on the ground, and scoops us up into His love, mercy, and grace and begins to piece us back together, and he hasn't let us go since (Phil. 1:6, Hebrews 12:2).

Pray Eternally Folks

"George Mueller, a missionary, was asked if he really believed that two men would be converted, men for whom Mueller had prayer for over fifty years. Mueller replied: 'Do you think God would have kept me praying all these years if He did not intend to save them?' In fact, both men were converted, one shortly after Mueller's death.                                                                                                                  (Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership)

Prayer moves the arm

That moves the world

To bring deliverance down

Pray big today folks. In fact, pray eternally. It is not our prayer that moves people, but the God to whom we pray.

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit." (James 5:16-18)

What is Jesus doing in Leviticus?

The book of Leviticus is equivalent to the "untouchables". All sorts of rules and regulations and all these crazy sacrifices and offerings. How are we supposed to understand what this means, let alone live it out in our daily life? Everyone would agree that Leviticus is one of the toughest books in the Bible to read, to understand, and to live out, but Leviticus is in the Bible for a reason. All scripture is breathed out and profitable (2 Tim. 3:16), not just the books in the NT that tell us what to do. Why is all scripture relevant to all of life? Because Jesus, who is life himself (John 10:10), is the point of every book in the Bible. All of the old testament points forward and foreshadows Jesus coming into the world for salvation (Luke 24:27), and all of the new testament points back to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

I don't know if you'll be reading Leviticus anytime soon, but I hope the next time you do this helps to show that Jesus Christ is not just the focal point of the gospels, or the new testament writings, but also the entire Bible. including the  book of Leviticus.

How Leviticus points to Jesus

The theme of Leviticus is God instructing his chosen people how to live (Leviticus 20:26). Michael Williams says that in Leviticus "God lays out procedures for the Israelites to follow that would remind them of His presence with them and of their dependence on him to accomplish the purposes  for which he had set them apart." These procedures are usually shown in the form of sacrifices or offerings to the Lord by the Israelites. There are 5 main offerings that speak into our lives today, and communicates how we are to live before the Lord to experience the fullness of joy that God promises to His people.

The 5 Offerings of Leviticus

1. The Burnt Offering (Leviticus 1) - this offering had to be 100% burned, showing the total surrender and cost of following Christ (Luke 14:25-35). 
2. The Grain Offering (Leviticus 2) - the use of fine flour and costly spices in this offering showed the sweet and gracious provision of the Lord in the life of the Israelites, a people who were enslaved to the Egyptians, before the Lord led them into freedom through the Red Sea. Much like the Israelites, we as Christians were enslaved to the sins of this world, and Jesus Christ came to set us free from sin and death (Gal. 5:1). We now offer our lives, not as a sacrifice for our sins, but as grateful acknowledgement of what He has done for us in Jesus (Romans 12:1-2).
3. The Fellowship Offering (Leviticus 3) - this offering expressed and communicated peace or fellowship between the Israelites and the Lord. It was a communion meal and in Old Testament times such meals were a way of signifying a deep relationship. This offering showed that God's people desire a deep relationship with their God. Because of sin our relationship with God is eternally broken, but because of Jesus' sacrifice he has reconciled our relationship with God. Jesus is the only way we can have a true relationship with the Father (John 14:6)
4. The Sin Offering (Leviticus 4:1-5:13) - this offering acknowledged the sinfulness of the Israelites and is their way of making amends for their broken relationship with God. To have a relationship with the God, we have to be Holy, because He is holy. We can never be holy, because of our sinful nature, but Christ is our holiness and he is our spotless offering for sin (Col. 1:21-23)
5. The Guilt Offering (Leviticus 5:14-6:7) - this offering is very similiar to the sin offering and again is the acknowledgement of God's people that they are sinful. This offering is used to repair the relationship between sinners and the Lord. 

In the book, How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens, Michael Williams explains that "These offerings emphasize acknowledging, celebrating, deepening, and restoring their relationship with the Lord." So why don't we do them anymore? Why aren't people lined up at the church today making offerings to the Lord through a priest? "God's demand for holiness in our relationship hasn't been removed or minimized (2 Peter 3:14). Not only do we need a perfect sacrifice, we need a perfect Priest to offer it for us. Jesus, because he is both the flawless sacrifice and the sinless priest fulfills both."

"Unlike the other high priests, Christ does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once and for all when he offered himself." (Hebrews 7:27)

The message of Leviticus, like every other book of the Bible, is that we need Jesus, not just for salvation, but for life. We need him more than the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. He is not a part of our life. He is our life. We might not be making burnt or grain offerings, but we might still be trying to work for our relationship with God. We might be basing our relationship with the Lord on what we do, and not on what Christ has done and is doing. As Moses writes in Leviticus, I also say get to Christ. Let the law drive you deeper into Christ, and let Christ change your heart so you can begin to follow the law. What a savior we have that closes the altar down forever and says I will be your sacrifice, your offering, your everything.