The Struggle against Gratitude

Colossians 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

The hardest work in my life is fostering true gratitude in my kids. My wife and I may be partly to blame for that as we have given them a little too much. Maybe some of you can relate. There is nothing more embarrasing as a parent than for someone to give your kid a gift and watch them accept the gift, yet not acknowledge gratitude or even ignore the giver all together. When I examine my own heart, I feel this same struggle in my relation to Christ. There seems to be this born in self centeredness that sin has embedded in us that falsely tells us that we "deserve" everything good we get, and we don't deserve all the bad things that come our way.

I have a question for you. When is the last time you stopped and in a heartfelt way spent passionate time thanking God for the privilege of knowing and communing with Him and with no other thought? That is what Paul is driving at here. God is the gift of the Gospel. Our restoration to him is the effect of the Gospel, and our tendency is to under appreciate it greatly.

In our distracted, complex world we can easily think that we need to kind of put that basic stuff like appreciating God in the rear view mirror, and move on to seemingly more important "stuff" like who are the two witnesses in Revelation, or the timing of the rapture of God's church. That train of thoughts can miss experiencing God altogether. So let's strive to enjoy God today in a new and fresh way. Let's not be like the four year old at Christmas who takes a gift given by grace and at an expense, and toddle off in a different direction to hoard the gift. Let's run to our savior in prayer with nothing but thanksgiving in our hearts. It will honor God and deeply satisfy our souls.

Please don't read this and not take time to enjoy the father's embrace.

Confidence

Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh

About three years ago, I was looking at an article that highlighted the success of an NFL running back. One of the pictures showed the man with his biceps flexed in the classic look at my muscles beach pose. The man arrogantly was looking and smiling at one of his huge arms as if to say "Look at how awesome I am." There was a tattoo on his left bicep that said it all. It read, "Self made". The story revealed the ups and downs of his troubled past, and his ability to over come all the odds. He was at a high point when the article was written, so everything was all smiles and positive. Since then, the "self made man" has slipped quite a bit and it is only a matter of time before he fades in to obscurity.

Paul is describing the confidence point of men and women and faith when he says we worship by the spirit and glory in Christ. He says in effect that Christians have confidence and hope in the Triune God, not themselves or anything man made. This verse cuts across virtually everything that our culture teaches. Even in some Christian circles "self confidence" is fed and nurtured. We are to be fed and nurtured certainly, but the bible isn't attempting to simply retrain our broken and bad habits. Its telling us that our habits, actions and even ourselves must be put to death and born a new by the power of the Holy Spirit. When this happens we actually lose "self confidence" and gain "Christ in us confidence" as we see our frailty and his strength.

This is quite honestly very difficult for us as Americans today. Our culture is steeped with vanity, pride and self advancement which promote and fulfill "fulfill and validate yourself by your actions". As Christians we must guard against this at all cost. We must realize that no matter what we say people around us can observe where our confidence originates and our deepest desires.

So where does your confidence lie? If faith is in full bloom in your life you will be like Paul as he states that all his positions and actions of honor in the flesh he now counts as rubbish (Philippians 3:4-8). He wants to leave confidence in anything other than Christ behind as he wants that one thing worth gaining: Christ!

So as you start the day analyze the power source of your schedule, abilities and strength. Is it Christ?

The Constrictor Nearby

James 1:14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.15Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

A couple of months back, I read a bizarre article of a man and his pet boa constrictor. This guy had purchased the snake when it was smaller, and raised and nurtured it to nearly ten feet in length. One afternoon at a party, he was showing a friend how cool it was to have the snake wrap around his shoulders and how harmless the snake was. The snake had other ideas though and decided that the man's neck was a better target. The large constrictor unexpectedly wrapped around the guys neck quickly and shut down his ability to breathe. Soon thereafter the man was dead. What started as a "look at me" fun show and tell, ended in death.

It is awful the way this guy died. I do believe there is a major learning point in this for all of us though. You see all of us have a tendency to want to keep something dangerous close by and within reach. It might not be as obvious as a 10 foot snake, but our sin nature fights to keep itself alive, and to do that it needs nourishment. When our wrong and sinful desires lead us to obtain, look, think or taste things we absolutely know are unhealthy for us, it is as dangerous as the man growing the pet snake that would later kill him. Think about it. The snake seemed innocent and cool. It was an attraction that got the man attention from other people. Day by day, the snake got bigger and stronger and then killed the guy. James tells us that sin follows this same pattern. Desire leads to sin. If we feed the desire and sin it grows bigger and stronger until it eventually chokes and kills us.

When you stop and look around, our society is nurturing sin like few others before it. Most of the desires seem innocent and passive like greed, vanity, lust, power and relief. The choices we make and habits we form to feed those desires raise up full blown sin patterns in our life like addiction to pornography, alcohol, work, self-looks, money, drugs, sex and a host of other temporary dangers. These, like the snake, choke the life from our lungs and will eventually kill you. Just as God said to able "Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is to kill you".

As you live today do you sense the evil attacking you? Have you stopped and asked God to identify what "constrictors" you are raising in your life and house that will snuff you and your family's lives out?

We all have battles with wrong desires. The worst response is to deny that you do. The right respnse is to aks God to convict us of wrong desires and sin and to turn to Him. We need to ask Him to give us a greater desire to be filled with Him, not things that will kill us. We need to be pressed in to His identity, not death.

Busting loose

Psalms 2:1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of this earth set themselves and the rulers of this earth take counsel together, against the Lord and His Anointed, saying, 3 "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their chords from us."

Last night I was watching footage from Libya, where the people were firing guns in the air celebrating the end of the oppressive ruling regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Decades of tyrannic rule kept an entire nation under his heavy hand. Gaddafi viewed His people as a resource to bring him glory and so he elevated Himself by suppressing the people he ruled over. When you look at the celebration and hear the interviews, the vast majority of Libyans are filled with joy because His powerhold on their lives has been broken. His strong hand that oppressed them has been removed and now the new found hope they have is cause for celebration.

Have you noticed that in its most basic form sin deceives us to think that God is an oppressive ruler. The devil strives to get us to view God in the same way the Libyans view Gaddafi. The devil tries to see God like He is focused on making us miserable and looking out for His sake, while not caring for us. The devil wants us to view the teachings of God as oppressive. Starting in the garden of Eden and continuing to this very moment, and beyond, the devil aims to get you and me to question God's rule over us and His character. If Satan can delude us into thinking that God is harsh, detached and uncaring for our souls, then God's dominion over our lives will appear to be a weight. Clearly the Gospel of Christ demands submission, but it is a joyful submission to a loving God for His glory and our Good. Yes he is our King, but a King who served us with His life so that we can serve Him with ours. He doesn't ask us to do anything that He hasn't first done for us. His mercy and grace are obvious blessings, so being His servant should seem light as he bore the burdens for us already.

When you look at Psalms two above, you can see David's puzzling assessment of the unrighteous. David delighted to serve a holy God and so he can't understand why people would be so eager to vainly try to break His rule and yoke over their lives. David has learned the yoke of God is a balm of healing, not a burden of harm. His observation is that the kings and power brokers of this earth want to break free from God's rule. They don't want Him to rule over them. This is the fundamental war that we as Christ followers must keep our eye on. Why? People are creative in our means of trying to wiggle free of the grasp of God's rule on our lives. A couple of examples:

Benjamin Franklin: he simply made his own bible by cutting out the parts of the true bible he didn't like.
Religion: do these things and God will accept you.
False teachers: "Don't worry about the sin in your life God will accept you any way you are"
Men cynically persecuting Jesus: "you can save others, save yourself"
Other false teachers "the bible is just some opinions of other men that are up for debate."

How do you view Gods' sovereign reign over your life? Do you submit to it in joy because of Christ's work on the Cross?

If not then it will be a weight that you will want to shake loose from. Instead of the Father's freeing love, you will deceptively see God as a restrictive ruler. That is the Gospel - Loving the rule of a Loving Father, made possible through the work of the son and activated by the work of the Spirit.

Blinded by the Light

Acts 9:3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

The account of mega-phairsee, Christian persecutor Saul being transformed into the slave of Christ Paul, above is striking. The man who is on His way to persecute the bride of Christ is suddenly transformed into one of its biggest advocates. What happened? Simply put, the Holiness of Christ's righteousness blinded Paul while he was in a state of self righteousness. Paul was forced to see that His own righteous was weak and temporary while Christ's was dominating. In an instant Paul's center of existence and trust moved from Himself and in the manner of three days it was 100% built and centered on Christ. He learned that his AA powered mini light was not the light that would light up the world, it was Christ the Sun of righteous and the bright morning star who would be the savior of men.

As you read this, whose righteousness are you trusting in? If you profess Christ as Lord, simply trust and exalt Him as Lord and quit trying to be a light you can't be in your own strength. Any power from Christ comes from being pressed into Him. We are quick to try it on our own, without prayer and communion with Him. When we do this we find our saves flailing because we are "unplugged" from His power and light.

If we are "plugged in" to Him our path will be well lit and clear even as we face trials. If we aren't our little mini lites leave an unclear path that frustrates us at every angle. Get blinded by the Light and see!

Do you understand what you are reading?

Acts 8:30 So Phillip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, " Do you understand what you are reading?"

Phillip encounters a powerful Ethiopian eunuch on a desert road near Gaza and finds him reading Isaiah's prophecy that would have been about 750 years old at the time. The spirit has led him to intersect this particular man and this particular place, so a divine appointment occurs. As Phillip approaches, he asks a great question that needs to be asked to anyone who engages the scriptures: "Do you understand what you are reading?" Why is it important to understand? If the scriptures are God's word that reveal Himself, His plans, and His purpose then a correct understanding is critical. I believe that indeed the scripture is the breath of God on the page (2 Timothy 3:16) and is our primary guide to proper enlightenment and in turn worship of the triune God.

"So what is the big deal?" you might ask. Most of us have heard the stories of Daniel, Noah and Father Abraham since we could walk and talk and can even sings songs about these biblical stories. The big deal is this: Everything in the bible points to an exaltation of Christ. The old testament points towards and longs for Christ as we see pictures of Him in festivals, sacrifices and in the offices of prophet , Priest and King. The Gospels reveal Him as the fulfillment of all of these. Our Lord says in Luke 24:44," these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and of the Prophets and of the Psalms must be fulfilled". Short version: everything that God had revealed to humans pointed towards the need for Christ and I've fulfilled my ministry.

This "Christocentric" view of scripture is essential if we are going to be trained appropriately by the scriptures. There is a tendency to simply approach scripture in an effort to learn precepts and to try to apply them to our lives. When we do this, we are simply trying to train our flesh to be spiritual. It is frustrating and hopeless. We might do some things better for a while, but our flesh needs to be crucified, not trained. This is exactly what Jesus shocks Nicodemus with in John 3:3 ,"truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God". Nicodemus who is a mega trained pharisee who knows all of the delineated principles and precepts, and the best man made methods to apply them, is shocked and phased. He is trying to retrain his flesh to please God, and Jesus says that can't work.Jesus continues the dialogue (paraphrased) You must be reborn in the Spirit. The scriptures aren't there to help you try harder and smarter to please God, they are there to reveal your need for me to be your suffering servant for salvation and your conquering king as you bow to me."

If we look to any scripture without an eye on Christ, we are doing something distinctly non-christian. A practical example would be David and Goliath. I have heard that story many times taught where the only precept to be learned was to "train yourself to have a faith like David". While that is certainly a apart of the picture, David is not the hero gunning for more glory. David is the servant of Christ who is confident that His God will glorify himself through his faithful actions. Goliath is taunting Israel, God's chosen people. David's faith is not in Himself, even though he has been trained and prepared for what He is about to do. His faith is firmly planted in God's desire for God's Glory to be known, and his kingdom enlarged, so he trots out there and allows God to win and be celebrated. We see a picture of Christ in David as a warrior king for God's glory that hates sin and attacks the evil that tries to silence the witness of the triune God. We have to see the victory in David's faith that he kept his eyes on the right "Giant", that being the triune God, not Goliath. If we simply delineate a precept of work hard and go and face your giants because David did, we miss the work of Christ building David's faith as David enjoyed exalting God. We will also miss the Glory of God being the central part of the account and the picture of Christ in David Himself. The point of the story is that Christ initiates everything, including the faith that David had and he does it for His Glory and our Good simultaneously. Reducing it to a simple have more faith without the right cause, purpose, mode, ability can be down right dangerous.

Indeed, until we see that our flesh must be crucified by the cross we carry, not retrained, we are misunderstanding scripture. It is when we die to the flesh, and through God's grace become alive and grow in the Spirit, that he works in an through us, and the spirit shapes and trains us to do battle for his glory.

So, do you understand what you are reading when you read the bible? Is it distinctly Christ exalting? Run from the tendency to simply apply a learning devoid of empowerment by the spirit and causality other than an exaltation of Christ.

Jesus loves me: The Second Verse

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who might live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so,
Little ones to Him belong , they are weak but he is strong.
Yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me,
Yes Jesus Lives me, the Bible tells me so.

I feel like I have known this song since birth. Your probably humming along in your heads at this point. Luke, our three year old, likes me to sing this one to him as we rock before bed time. The words to this song express the tender love of God, made possible by the son and applied to His elect through the work of the Holy Spirit. It expresses the blessed truths of a wondrous salvation made possible through the Cross of Christ and there is something simply wonderful about a child of God thanking the Father for his love. I have probably sang this song a couple of hundred times to Luke so I have had a lot of time to think through the heart of the message and what it says. I also took the time to think through what it leaves out and how I wish I had known more of God's truths as a child.

So over the course of time, I added a second verse. The reason is simple: I thought that the work of Jesus was only about me and for my sake alone until much later in life. Certainly we are to rejoice in the Gift of Grace found in Jesus. To be fruitful in the kingdom though, we need to know our purpose as the redeemed of God. The reasons for our salvation extend farther than ourselves. So here is the second verse:

Now I know the whole story,
It's for His fame and His Glory;
Since he made me all His own,
Its my joy to make Him known,
Yes Jesus loves me!

So what happens? God gets glory, others lives are transformed by His power in us, the world is shown the power and glory of our God as His Church overcomes the world and evil. As the Kingdom expands, Christ is exalted more as he is worshipped by the people he has saved. This is exactly what Paul is saying in the verses above. He is saying that we are controlled by Christ because He is simply captivating. His work is so awesome that we are drawn to him like some huge black hole pulling at every ounce of our being. We are dead to the flesh's desire to advance ourselves and we live for one purpose: to exalt Christ alone and enjoy the opportunity to do so. Telling others about Him fulfills us as this is the very thing we were originally created to do. So we live for His sake. Our purpose is not to just pull over a few biblical precepts into our American way of life and go on. Our purpose is to worship with a passion that transforms us from the inside out as His Spirit makes us Holy.

So next time you are rocking a little one to sleep, or maybe yourself, don't stop thanking Jesus, but don't forget His purposes in your calling. Christ is the author of Salvation and His Glory is worth singing about!