FreeTruth

I work at America's Keswick with men who have lived through the worst things a human being can experience. They have known every kind of sin and the darkness of addiction. Some have spent years in prison. Many of these men shouldn't even be alive today because of the dangers they exposed themselves to. But when they find Jesus Christ the transformation is wonderful.

A while ago I was listening to one of these men give his testimony. Stack up this man's life against mine, reveal a bit of our past, and ask the man on the street to judge us-- there would be no contest. I have a family. This colony man wrecked his family. I've been faithful to my wife, he has cheated on his. I have been honest in my dealings, and my wife and children love me. This fellow has burned every bridge behind him, and destroyed relationships through selfishness, lust, lies, and deceit.

As I listened to this man tell his story before about 500 people that night, I was struck by something; it was the humble, yet eloquent and unashamed expression of deep love for the One who had so recently saved him. He had sought the Lord from the hellish pit he was in, and Jesus Christ had loved him and lifted this broken man. It was so real, and so very believable this simple expression of love for his savior.

And there I stood in the back of the Activity Center watching and listening. And then God spoke to me, and I understood that the Lord was well-pleased with that man--more well pleased than he was with me in that moment.

My past didn't matter. His past didn't matter. In that moment, he was far better off than me. God is the God of the present, and the simple truth was that my heart was lukewarm, but this man's was red-hot with love and gratitude.

"Truly I understand that God shows no partiality..." (Peter in Acts 10)

Brothers and Sisters, pray for me, that my little love will somehow be fanned into flames of love like I saw in that Colony of Mercy man that night. I cannot coast on my past, or expect special favor or status simply because I have a long history with the Lord. I do not want to be the Pharisee, or the older brother in Luke 15.

God, help us to seek you with new strength this year, to know you, and to love you personally and passionately.

Labels: Affections, Growth, Guest Post, Loving God

"There are only two classes of persons who can be called reasonable: those who serve God with all their hearts because they know him and those who seek him with all their hearts because they do not know him." (Blaise Pascal)

Sunday morning's preaching-- along with the opening video from John Piper, were strong reminders that unless I, like St. Paul, consider all that seems worthy in my life no more valuable than one big pile of stinking waste (next to knowing Jesus Christ), I cannot hope to live this life in a meaningful and rational way. My profession of faith, and my life, will not match.

I am forced to confront myself again with the question: "Do I know Jesus Christ, or do I only know about him? Do I cling to him as my only worthy possession? Or, are there still a number of "Christ substitutes" in my life that diminish my view of HIM. Do my words and actions indicate that he is supremely important in my life?

Thank you Tim, for putting the question before me again: Why do I still live for the moment, when eternity is before me? Why do I cave in to the crazy and insane ways of this world?

I need to get down to business and decide: will I live rationally, or will I continue making unreasonable and irrational compromises?

Do I know Christ (as St. Paul knew him), or do I know about him only? On the day of judgment many who thought they knew Jesus Christ will say: "But I know you Jesus!" And he will reply: "Depart from me, I never knew you."

Brothers and sisters, we'd best take yesterday's preaching seriously... the consequences of missing the point can be eternal.

Labels: christian life, Guest Post, Loving God

One final selection from Edward's on this theme of the importance of the mind in the Christian life I think is worthwhile. Once again I draw from his sermon "Christian Knowledge", in the book "Jonathan Edwards On Knowing Christ". In this quote Edwards speaks concerning the Biblical role of teachers, the Biblical role of learners, and the relationship between the two. Listen and drink in his holy logic:

"It may be argued hence, that God hath appointed an order of men for this end, to assist persons in gaining knowledge in these things. He hath appointed them to be teachers, 1 Cor. 12:28, and God hath set some in the church; first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers: Eph. 4:11-12. 'He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.' If God hath set them to be teachers, making that their business, then he hath made it their business to impart knowledge. But what kind of knowledge? Not the knowledge of philosophy, or of human laws, or of mechanical arts, but of divinity.

If God have made it the business of some to be teachers, it will follow, that he hath made it the business of others to be learners; for teachers and learners are correlates, one of which was never intended to be without the other. God hath never made it the duty of some to take pains to teach those who are not obliged to take pains to learn. He hath not commanded ministers to spend themselves, in order to impart knowledge to those who are not obliged to apply themselves to receive it.

The name by which Christians are commonly called in the New Testament is disciples, the signification of which word is scholars or learners. All Christians are put into the school of Christ, where their business is to learn, or receive knowledge from Christ, their common master and teacher, and from those inferior teachers appointed by him to instruct in his name."

O my---what application can be drawn from these thoughts!

Let me just say that the observation concerning teachers and their God given role within the church, indeed as gifts to the church for its strengthening (yes, even in their fallibility), at the very least should keep us from the all too popular notion among Christians in our era that all we need to grow and to learn and to guide us is the Bible and ourselves. This is not the historic, classic and Reformation truth of Sola Scriptura (i.e. the Bible alone is our sole ultimate and infallible authority for what we are to believe about God and how we are to live before Him, with various offices under Scripture having God ordained authority in our lives), but rather a contemporary distortion that can be more properly called Solo Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura (i.e. the Bible all by itself is our only authority, with the practical result that each Christian is an authority unto him or herself; pastors, teachers, creeds, confessions, church have no real authority). The Reformers would have rejected this second view outright, by the way, and so should we-----it is not Biblical and it is not the historic view of the Christian church.

Besides the vital role of teachers in the church, our role as students in Christ's school is something that it seems to me we really need to see as applying to each one of us, whatever our level of intellectual capacity may be. And we need to really take it seriously---it is a calling for each one who belongs to Christ, not just for certain "elite brainy Christians". Listen to Edward's once again: "The name by which Christians are commonly called in the New Testament is disciples, the signification of which word is scholars or learners. All Christians are put into the school of Christ, where their business is to learn, or receive knowledge from Christ, their common master and teacher, and from those inferior teachers appointed by him to instruct in his name".

We must realize that being students in the school of Christ never ends-----there is no graduation in this school. Yet, there is a "degree" conferred for faithfulness in the Savior's school at the end of this life---- it comes with these words: "Well done, good and faithful servant........Enter into the joy of your Master" (Matt. 25:21,23).

Yes, part of being a faithful student in this school involves each and every one of us loving God with all of our minds, to the best of our own individual God given capacity. The Savior expects nothing less.

Labels: christian life, Guest Post, Loving God, the Mind, Theology

Following up my post of a couple of weeks ago on the vital importance of the mind in the Christian life, I thought it beneficial to share some thoughts I enjoyed in my reading expressed by my friend Jonathan Edwards relating to this foundational issue. These comments are found in his sermon “Christian Knowledge” (you can find it, along with a number of other sermons by Edwards, in the Banner of Truth publication--“Jonathan Edwards On Knowing Christ”). The sermon is based on Hebrews 5:12, where the admonishment is given that “though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food."

Edwards says:

...The heart cannot be set upon an object of which there is no idea in the understanding. The reasons which induce the soul to love, must first be understood, before they can have a reasonable influence on the heart.

God hath given us the Bible, which is a book of instructions. But this book can be of no manner of profit to us, any otherwise than as it conveys some knowledge to the mind: it can profit us no more than if it were written in the Chinese or Tartarian language, of which we know not one word... Such is the nature of man, that no object can come at the heart but through the door of the understanding: and there can be no spiritual knowledge of that of which there is not first a rational knowledge. It is impossible that any one should see the truth or excellency of any doctrine of the gospel, who knows not what that doctrine is. A man cannot see the wonderful excellency and love of Christ in doing such and such things for sinners, unless his understanding be first informed how those things were done. He cannot have a taste of the sweetness and excellency of divine truth, unless he first have a notion that there is such a thing.

God hath given to man some things in common with the brutes, as his outward senses, his bodily appetites, a capacity of bodily pleasure and pain, and other animal faculties: and some things he hath given him superior to the brutes, the chief of which is the faculty of understanding and reason. Now God never gave man these faculties to be subject to those which he hath in common with the brutes. This would be great confusion, and equivalent to making man to be a servant of the beasts. On the contrary, he has given those inferior powers to be employed in subserviency to man’s understanding; and therefore it must be a great part of man’s principal business to improve his understanding by acquiring knowledge. If so, then it will follow, that it should be a main part of his business to improve his understanding in acquiring divine knowledge, or the knowledge of the things of divinity: for the knowledge of these things is the principal end of this faculty. God gave man the faculty of understanding, chiefly, that he might understand divine things.

There seems to be no question that our mind matters greatly to God. Perhaps the question that can be raised is what we are intentionally and consciously doing, unlike animals, to discipline and strengthen our minds, so that we are using them chiefly for the purpose God intended--to grow in our understanding of the things of God, tasting of the sweetness and excellency of divine truth, and then to live coram Deo--before the holy gaze of God, under His authority, and for His glory.

Labels: christian life, Guest Post, Loving God, the Mind, Theology

The Lord Jesus Christ said that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He said that this is “the great and first commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38). We are to be passionately committed to, and we are to pursue the Triune God with every fiber of the totality of our being. And one aspect of our being that Jesus refers to here is our mind--our intellect, our reasoning faculty. I have been thinking recently about thinking, specifically the role of thinking in our relationship to God. It seems to me that there is a serious neglect in our day of this aspect of the “great commandment” within the Christian community. Yet at the very least we must see that we cannot pick and choose what parts of God’s commands we are going to obey. We must love God with the use of our minds just as much as any other aspect of our God-given beings as His image bearers.

Connecting with Tim’s very important comments yesterday in his blog on “Becoming a Resident Theologian”, I offer some complementary thoughts taken from Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, by R.C. Sproul, that I hope will serve to reinforce in our lives what Tim is challenging us with, and exhorting us to be. In this excellent introduction to the doctrines of the Bible, Dr. Sproul begins by giving us 10 causes which work against the Christian goal of spiritual maturity. And one of these causes that he mentions is the anti-rational spirit of the age. Here’s what he says:

I believe that we are living in the most anti-intellectual era of Christian history ever known. I do not mean anti-academic, anti-technological or anti-scientific. By anti-intellectual, I mean against the mind.

We live in a period that is allergic to rationality. The influence of existential philosophy has been massive. We have become a sensuous nation. Even our language reveals it. My seminary students repeatedly write like this on their exam pages: "I feel it is wrong that..." or "I feel it is true that..." I invariably cross out their word feel and substitute the word think. There is a difference between feeling and thinking.

There is a primacy of the mind in the Christian faith. There is also a primacy of the heart in the Christian faith. Surely that paradoxical declaration sounds like a contradiction. How can there be two primacies? Something must be ultimately prime. Of course we cannot have two different primacies at the same time and in the same relationship. When I speak of two different primacies, I mean with respect to two different matters.

With respect to primacy of importance, the heart is first. If I have correct doctrine in my head but no love for Christ in my heart, I have missed the kingdom of God. It is infinitely more important that my heart be right before God than that my theology be impeccably correct.

However, for my heart to be right, there is a primacy of the intellect in terms of order. Nothing can be in my heart that is not first in my head. How can I love a God or a Jesus about whom I understand nothing? Indeed, the more I come to understand the character of God, the greater is my capacity to love Him.

God reveals Himself to us in a book. That book is written in words. It communicates concepts that must be understood by the mind. Certainly mysteries remain. But the purpose of God’s revelation is that we understand it with our minds that it might penetrate our hearts. To despise the study of theology is to despise learning the Word of God” (pg. xvi).

We must listen well to Dr. Sproul’s final point--“To despise the study of theology is to despise learning the Word of God.” While God has not gifted or called all to be intellectuals (though He has called some), He is calling all of us to use our intellects, our minds that He has gifted us with, to the fullest capacity that we each have, to love Him, and to study Him--to the proximate end that we may more clearly display Him through our lives, to the ultimate end that we may glorify Him and enjoy Him to the full, forever.

What are some specific practical implications of this for our lives that come to mind (pardon the pun)?

Labels: Guest Post, Loving God, the Mind, Theology