Needed: A Friend

"What kind of friend?" you ask.

"The kind who doesn't lean too far towards God's mercy to the neglect of reminding me of His holiness."

"Why do you need a friend like that?"

"Because FAR too often I take seriously God's mercy and forgiveness but forget His holiness. I forget that I'm plugged into the power source of the universe and that 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me...' is more than a cliche. I content myself with living a weak, frustrated, discouraged life when God has given me more reasons than I can count to be holy, not just in Christ but practically holy through the outworking of the Holy Spirit. I get muddled down and I complain and I grow frustrated with myself and I forget to make war on the sins I see so clearly in my thinking. Because I tend to see myself as a victim far more than I do a perpetrator of my sins. Because I unintentionally blur the lines between making a decision and falling prey to the temptations I encounter. Because when Jesus said 'I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly...' He wasn't just talking in metaphors or cliches and He wasn't speaking to a select group of people who alone can have this so-called 'abundant life'. Because I live weakly when I could be living with strength. Because Romans tells me that 'those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life...' Because infinite joy is at my fingertips (all I have to do is give the slightest effort to grab ahold) but I so often succumb to the bitter sting of inertia and laziness."

"And how would a friend help with that?"

"They'd sometimes get in my face when I'm discouraged! Tell me to stop thinking like this and maybe, God forbid, have some faith that the gospel REALLY is my sufficiency. Give me reminders once in a while that it's NOT glorifying to God to sit around and pout about my weaknesses when God has graciously enabled me to fight against them! To call me out when I make a bad decision without realizing it! To remind me that while God is in control of my life, that is NO cause to sit back and let come what may! Remind me that God and I are partners and that He is greatly glorified when I take the reigns and take action myself!"

Mission Accomplished

"Here's a controversial subject

That tends to divide.

For years it's had Christians

Lining up on both sides.

By God's grace I'll address this

Without pride.

The question concerns those

For whom Christ died.

Was He trying to save

Everybody worldwide?

Was He trying to make

The entire world His bride?

Does man's unbelief

Keep the Savior's hands tied?

Biblically, each of these

Must be denied.

It's true, Jesus gave up

His life for His bride

But His bride is the elect

To whom His death is applied

If on Judgement Day you see

That you can't hide

Because of your sin, God's

Wrath on you abides

And hell is the place you

Eternally reside

That means your wrath from God

Hasn't been satisfied.

But we believe His mission

Was accomplished when He died.

But how the cross relates to those in hell?

Well, they be sayin:

Lord knows He tried!

Lord knows He tried!

Yeah, that's what they be sayin!

Can't be sayin' that He tried

But I'm sayin' did He try and fail?

Or did He succeed?

Is there gonna be one drop of the Savior's blood in vain?

Naw, perish the thought. The Lamb will receive the reward for His sufferings.

Triune God! Father, Son, and Spirit, Three and yet One

Working as a unit to get things done.

Our salvation began in eternity past

God certainly has to bring all His purpose to pass.

A triune, eternal bond, no one could ever sever

When it comes to the church

Pepe how they work together!

The Father foreknew first

The Son came to earth to die

The Holy Spirit gives the new birth

The Father elects them

The Son pays their debt and protects them

The Spirit is the One who resurrects them

The Father chooses them

The Son gets bruised for them

The Spirit renews and produces fruit in them

Everybody's not elect

The Father decides

And it's only the elect

In whom the Spirit resides

The Father and the Spirit

Completely unified

But when it comes to Christ and those in hell,

Well they be sayin':

Lord knows He tried!

Lord knows He tried!

So if we can agree that the election of the Father is NOT universal

And the regeneration of the Holy Spirit is NOT universal

Why would the atonement of the Son be universal?

That would put the Persons of the Trinity completely at odds with One Another.

But the Triune God is completely unified.

My third and final verse

Here's the situation

Just a couple more things for your consideration

If saving everybody was why Christ came in history

With so many in hell, we'd have to say He failed miserably.

So many think He only came to make it possible.

Let's follow this solution

To a conclusion that's logical.

What about those who were already in the grave?

The old testament wicked, condemned as depraved?

Did He die for them? Come on! Behave!

But worst of all you're saying the cross by itself doesn't save.

That WE must do something to give the cross its power

That means at the end of the day, the glory's ours.

That man-centered thinking is not recommended

The cross will save all for whom it was intended.

Because for the elect God's wrath was satisfied

Still, when it comes to those in hell,

Well, they be sayin':

Lord knows He tried!

Lord knows He tried!

Look, at the end of the day, this is about giving God the maximum amount of glory.

We proclaim a cross that actually saves. Not "makes salvation possible," but actually saves.

Matthew 1:21 "His name shall be called Jesus because He will save His people from their sins." Not "might save them." Not "try to save." No, He will actually save them. It's a definite atonement. And yo, this ain't controversy for the sake of controversy or theological nitpicking. Salvation is of the Lord. To Him belongs all the glory. Soli Deo Gloria. But let's get into the text. See what the Scripture has to say about this. Lord, thank you for the cross."

--Shai Linne

The Knittedness of the Heart of God

"For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." --Romans 5:6-8

For the first time I recognizing that there's an implication in verse 7 that most people just read right through without realizing it. It's true that someone will die, on a very rare occasion, for a righteous man. You don't hear about it very much. Now when a person lays their life down for another there are 3 possible reasons, indeed three distinct types of love.

1) The one who sacrifices (We'll call him 'A') loves what the one he dies for ('B') represents.

2) A sees that dying for B is the right thing to do.

3) A loves B.

Number one is a bodyguard. B has pledged his love to the system that A loves. In this case, A loves the values; not the person. You also see in this situation that there is a distinct disconnectedness in the sacrifice. It's not a person dying for a person. It's a person dying for principles. This is a very sterile idea. There is passion but not the deep, connected passion that exists in the third possible reason.

In number two, A has values of his own. He sees that B is in danger and knows that sacrificing his life for B is the morally/philosophically responsible path of action. This is even more sterile than number one. There is no passion for B. There is no passion for B and A's shared principles. There is only passion for some disconnected principles that simply exist.

In number three, A has a deep, profound love for B. Not because of anything B has said or done. Not because of what B represents. Not because of any external factors. B is dear to A's heart. Like a family member or a best friend. Not a bodyguard or a member of security personnel.

Now which one is Romans 5:7 talking about? Did Christ die for us because He loves what we have pledged ourselves to? Did He die simply because it was "the right thing to do"? Or did He die for the sheer fact that He loves us? Let's examine each option and then see what Scripture says.

Number one is absolute heresy in this situation. For what we have pledged ourselves to is destruction, sin, and death. Everything that we, in our flesh, hold dear is detestable in the sight of God. It is certainly not number one.

Number two is worthy of some consideration. This might be the conclusion one draws if they see people as victims of sin rather than perpetrators. As a matter of fact, verse 6, at surface value, seems to paint this picture. We were without strength. Victims at sin's merciless attacks. We could no longer hold it off and so Christ died for us because He could not simply stand by and see us destroyed by our enemy. So is this the case? Well I'm not going to go into it (I could write a long series of notes.) but to say people are merely victims of sin is a vast oversimplification. Numerous Scriptures emphasize man's PERSONAL guilt in sin. In one sense, we are victims, but in another sense, we are perpetrators. We must recognize the blood-guilt that David confesses in Psalm 51. We have despised the glory of God. We have been at war with Him. We are personally responsible and one day we will be called to give an account for our earthly lives. Ezekiel 18:20, Luke 10:27, and James 1:23-25 clearly show that man has responsibilities in his relationship to God. It follows, then, that Christ was not at ALL bound to die for us. As a matter of fact, with man's personal responsibility in view, God, if He is truly good, is bound to do the OPPOSITE of what He chose to do. The morally right thing to do is to punish those who violate the law and despised the glory of God. Imagine that you come home one day and every person living at your house has been murdered in cold blood. What's more, the attacker is in the very process of killing the one you love most. The police come. He is arrested. Months later, you are in the courtroom witnessing his trial. The judge smiles down at him and simply says "Don't worry. I am a kind, gracious, loving judge. I pardon you. You can go home." Would you not say that this judge is FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR, UNBELIEVABLY MORE WICKED than that murderer ever was. God's righteousness BINDS Him to punish the sinner. So it is NOT number 2 because man is personally responsible in this situation.

Now we come to the last possibility. Christ died because He loved US. This is it. Verse 8 says so. "But God demonstrates His own love TOWARD US in that while we were still sinners..." It does not say "God demonstrates His own love toward what we represent..." or "God demonstrates His own love toward morality..." His love is toward US.

Now look at the price paid; Jesus Christ, the very Son of God. Look again at the three types of love again. 1) Love of shared principles, 2) Love of morality, 3) Love of a person. What love is shared between the Father and the Son? We're talking about Trinity-level love here! There is rock-solid, cement-like love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are so knitted together in love that Moses wrote "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" in Deuteronomy 6:4. Which one but number 3 could possibly be enough to qualify as "oneness"? Look at the juxtaposition. The Trinity has the same love for His children as it does for the Son Himself. Ponder that! Drink that in! Consider the DEEP knittedness of the Heart of God to you, His child!

Meditations for ADD

It's interesting that so many of the core concepts of the gospel are simple, monosyllabic words. I think it would be interesting to see the effect that a day of meditating on each single word would have:

1. God
2. Fall
3. Sin
4. Wrath
5. Save
6. Christ
7. Cross
8. Grace
9. Faith
10. Hope
11. Love

Cyclical Sin

I'm about 101% positive that every believer has dealt with this at one time or another. You know. How you get stuck in a cycle of sin and repentance? You sin, you feel bad about it, you repent, it goes pretty good for awhile, then you sin again, again you feel bad, you repent a second time, it goes good, you sin, get struck by guilt, repent, and on and on and on and on and on. Until you've completely lost count of how many times you've sinned, felt conviction, repented, and fallen again. You don't even know if it's in the hundreds or the thousands of times. It's horribly discouraging. Every time you fail, your repentances seem to be weaker and weaker and weaker. Every time you fail you think "Well, I'm one layer of ice down. Who knows when everything's going to crack and then God will get REALLY angry with me!" This drives you to run from God because you fear His anger. The words your parents said to you as a kid come back to haunt you. "Well, sorry just isn't enough anymore!" they said after you made a mess of things for the 10th time that week, that day or that hour. It's a perfectly natural idea. You're simply carrying what you know about your earthly father and thinking about your heavenly Father the same way. Our brains are built to find comparisons between things and it seems a natural one.

BUT "You thought that I was altogether like you," says God. Meaning... what? That God is NOT altogether like we are. The thing of it is that we don't believe the gospel. That's why we grow horribly discouraged. That's why we get stuck in these cycles! We don't understand that our relationship with God has been fundamentally changed through the gospel! "Someday, God's going to get tired of my sin and do away with me!" we think foolishly. "He's only got so much patience! I can tell that it's starting to run low. I can almost see Him up there drumming his fingers and looking unimpressed. It won't be long now! He's going to unleash His fury on me! He's going to give me my due rewards! He's not going to take any more of this crap! I'd better stop! He knows by now that my repentances aren't genuine enough!"

STOP THINKING LIKE THIS!!!

JUST STOP!

This way of thinking is a lie straight out of the pit of hell itself! It's DEMONIC! Satan himself spawned this way of thinking and he takes GREAT delight in getting believers to think that it's the truth because it seems to be righteous to think this way!

So what IS the truth, you ask?

"I love you. You need to understand that I have put you in My Son. You are in Him. You cannot get out of Him. You. are. in. My. Son. You cannot be plucked out of My hand. You cannot fall out of My hand. You can't even climb out of My hand. You're there for good. I've made a covenant with you. This covenant doesn't rest at all on your behavior. It has nothing to do with your performance. If you do something monumental for Me it doesn't make you MORE in the covenant than anyone else. If you fail to do anything of any importance for Me it does not make you any LESS in the covenant than anyone else. It's a document. It's signed. It's a left brain concept; not right brain. You are secure. 'What does the covenant rest on then?' you ask? Well it's quite simple. The covenant rests on Me. Everything is up to Me. Every. last. little. detail. hangs. on. ME! And the best news of all is that I have already done everything necessary to fulfill the covenant. I put you in my Son who died for all of your sins. I died for all of these cycles you get caught in. They're history. Gone. Vamoose. As far as the East is from the West. All my wrath was poured out at the cross. The wrath of all of Me. Father. Son. Spirit. We're completely satisfied now. All of the wrath is gone! I have nothing but mercy, grace, and love for you now. You can fall into your cycles. I'm going to save you from them too. One day you'll be like me. That's another clause in the covenant. Part of my job is to make you like Myself. I promise. One day, there will be no more cycles. No more failure, conviction, or repentance. I'll see to that. Just keep on pursuing Me. I know you will. I've put the desire in your heart. So if you're struggling and discouraged, DON'T be! You're in my Son and could no more exhaust my patience than you could drain all the oceans of the world with a thimble. And even that is a poor, dim, inadequate picture of how great my mercy is. I love you. Always and forever."

The Necessity of the Gospel

Before you consider the cross of Christ consider the impasse that existed in the universe. You had sinned. You had violated God's law. You had disobeyed God. God told you what you were supposed be and you had failed to be it. The violation was clear. There was no denying it. You could beat around the bush maybe but the fact of the matter was that a crime had been committed. There was no way around it. There was no justifying yourself. Any self justification merely added weight to the sin that had already been committed. You could not hide because God sees all things and weighs the human heart. He knows all things. He knew you had sinned against Him. You knew you had sinned against Him. You could not put up window dressing to hide what had happened. You. Had. Sinned.

God is just. He is completely just. He is completely righteous. All His ways are perfect. He does not in the least condone fraud, deceit, or trickery. He is bound by the very essence of who He is to punish any, every, and all evil in the universe. God and sin cannot coexist together. God is light. Sin is darkness. Light destroys darkness when it is shone into a dark place. God cannot overlook any sin. In any way, shape, or form. If the sin is big, God cannot ignore it. If the sin is little, he cannot sweep it under the rug. God is righteous. Sin is not righteous. If God is in a place, there can be no sin. He cannot tolerate it. He is bound by His very nature to completely do away with sin eventually. Every conceivable sin and every conceivable instrument of sin must and will be destroyed. Every person who sins must, by God's very nature, be cast away from His presence eventually.

God is merciful. He delights to show mercy. Mercy is another part of the very essence of God. He is merciful and He is gracious and it brings Him immense pleasure to show love to people. He wants so much to restore what was lost in Genesis 3 and to gain His beloved back to Himself. He wants so much to show her mercy. He wants so much to delight in her and to see her filled with all the fullness of His Spirit. He longs to forgive and to love and to redeem and to lavish His grace on His people. Forgiving brings God such great joy and He wants more than anything to show this attribute of Himself for the rest of eternity.

So you see... there is a complete impasse. Man has sinned. God cannot condone sin in any way. God longs to forgive. His very essence dictates both that He punish eternally and that He also forgive. These are both essential parts of who God is. Two things God delights in: showing His righteousness and showing His love and grace. It's a dead end. There is no way God can do both of the things He delights in. He must either punish sin without mercy or show mercy and sin profoundly against His justice and righteousness.

If it hasn't sunken it yet just how absolutely hopeless any thought of resolving this absolute theological quandary, reread up to this point and meditate on how irresolvable the whole situation truly is. You must see no hope in the situation for the cross to be seen in all its beauty. If there is any hope of another solution the cross will appear dull and unimportant. God's people will not see the beauty of what God has done unless they see completely how truly, devastatingly hopeless the entire situation is without it! So when you think of the cross of Christ think of this situation from which there was no escape and that our God made a way where there WAS NO WAY!

My 43 Things

Found this great website! www.43things.com is an online community for goal-setting/ encouragement. I've had some of these goals for a while but the website itself inspired a few more. I highly recommend joining as it is free and a great way to think about where you want your life to go! So after creating a list of what I want to do in my life I decided to narrow it down and categorize the time frame I want to accomplish them within. Some of these are really nebulous goals but I feel they still inspire me. My next step will be to make an action plan towards reaching each of them that are clearly reachable. Hope this challenges you to define your life more clearly!

Goals:

For 2011:

1. Just jump on a bus to some city I've never heard of to see what's there

2. Limit my time on the computer to 3 hours a day

3. Memorize the book of Romans

4. Get my weight down to 150 pounds

By 2015:

1. Read the Bible in 1 month/ 6 times in a year

2. Send a postcard to Post Secret

3. Eat caviar

4. Memorize the Gospel of John

By 2025:

1. Visit/ backpack through Switzerland, Germany, and France

2. Skydive

3. Climb one of the Alps

4. Publish an anthology of poetry

5. Get my Master of Fine Arts degree

6. Own my own house

7. Visit Ireland/ Scotland/ England

By 2030:

1. Become a professor

2. Attend seminary

3. Make a contribution to Pixar

Indefinite/ Out of my control

1. Not care what other people think of me

2. Take one large, God-glorifying risk every year

3. Desire God more than anything else in life

4. Fall in love/ get married/ have a family

5. Sacrifice something important to me to make someone genuinely happy

6. Judge people less and enjoy/ love them more