Saturday, January 03, 2009

New Mercies


"Forward, forward let us range,/ Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.” –Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”


God doesn’t change.

Anyone who has ever glanced at a catechism knows this is true, but how often do we think of what it means? We change all the time—for good or evil. He never does.

At the dawn of a New Year, I’ve got a lot on my plate. I’ll bet you do, too. Life is charging full speed ahead into another season, another adventure, and another set of changes. In the face of an ever uncertain future and diary pages yet-to-be-filled, I find it comforting to remember His unchangingness. No matter what happens, God’s promises remain.

Will He be with us this coming year? “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever…” (John 14:16) The Holy Spirit won’t depart us in 2009.

What if our economy falls into another Great Depression? “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) Even if the economy takes a record nose-dive, He remains consistent.

What if we lose friendships or loved ones this year? “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you….Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:18-20) He is the One we can never lose.

What if we feel like we’ve blown it with our sinfulness? What if we fear, in our heart of hearts, that God will give up on us?

I love what Charles Spurgeon said on the subject: “Think not, O poor downcast child of God, because the scars of thine old sins have marred thy beauty, that He loves thee less because of that blemish. O no! He loved thee when He foreknew thy sin; He loved thee with the knowledge of what the aggregate of thy wickedness would be; and He does not love thee less now.”

The God who keeps my tears in a bottle won’t forget my name. The God who held me yesterday holds my tomorrows.

"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning..." (Lamentations 3:22-23) Will He be with us this year?

We have His Word on it.

Monday, December 29, 2008

A New Year's Resolution of Sorts

In the aftermath of Christmas busyness, I keep thinking of purpose. A rested vision. A steady heart. Actually, I keep thinking of Jim Elliot.


He was the one who wrote that fiery paragraph I memorized a year ago: “We are so utterly ordinary…conscientious objectors, spiritual pacifists in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers…. Meekness must be had for contact with men…but brass, outspoken boldness is required for the comradeship of the Cross. The world cannot hate us, for we are too much like its own. Oh, that God would make us dangerous.”


Yet the real power in that paragraph was not Jim Elliot’s use of vocabulary and word-pictures, but how he lived out that declaration. He sacrificed his life.


In my own life, I wonder how that quote translates. What would it mean for Hannah Farver to become more than a “spiritual pacifist?” What actions and sacrifices would be required if I became “dangerous?”


Let’s see if I can pare down that question into even more specific terms: what steps would I have to take in order to maintain a steady heart—a focus set only on Christ, His Kingdom and His fame? What sacrifices would I need to obtain that outlook and keep it there?


Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love, shared stories of modern day people who have taken those steps to live decidedly for Christ. I remember vividly one story told of a twenty-four year old woman, Jamie, who decided to travel to Tanzania with $2,000—all her savings. Her goal was simply to serve where needed and return home only when her money ran out. In Tanzania, Jamie met a woman who was dying of AIDS. The woman had a baby. By a miraculous turn of events, the child hadn’t inherited AIDS from his mother. As Jamie cared for the baby, providing it with formula, she soon began to love the child as her own. When the woman died, she gave the child to Jamie. With adoption papers and a young child, Jamie returned home. Since then, she has married and her family has moved back to Tanzania for mission work.


Jamie filled a need. She gave everything she could out of her own slim pocketbook to help the widow and the orphan. She boldly left her safety in God’s hands and did what she felt was right.


So what does Christ-centeredness look like in the day-to-day? How does a Heaven-set vision play out in our living?


It’s December 29th, and time for New Year’s resolutions. I’m still trying to figure out how to word this one, but the intent, I believe, is clear. Christianity should be zealous, and our love should be bold. Christian living isn’t the practice of gauging our faith against the compromising-Christian, and feeling superbly “spiritual” through the comparison. It’s pursuing passion nothing short of the kind that echoes the servanthood of Christ; it’s understanding that faith without works is dead.


But works with faith? That is real living.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Our Own Far-Off Country

"As much as Israel longed for a Messiah, we should long for His return." -my dad


"In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you--the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism....

We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name...

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things--the beauty, the memory of our own past--are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness."
-C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Painting is "Precious Grace," by Makato Fujimura

Monday, December 22, 2008

Flipping through my CD collection, I notice that my most beloved albums are the ones that draw me to the Cross. I’ve found that it helps me stay focused when the soundtrack of my day is centered on the Word. But the temptation here is to lean too much on the experience the music can bring, and replace real joy in the Gospel with a foot-tappin’ enjoyment of the song. This isn’t true appreciation of the Cross.

It’s not that I believe emotions are wrong. The Bible is filled with God’s commands for us to be emotional: “Rejoice,” “take heart,” and “hope.” Nevertheless, soaring ecstasy is not necessarily a sign of devoutness. In fact, I’m learning that the more comfortable I feel, the less I’m probably focused on Christ. Real adoration starts with me feeling uncomfortable.

Try to envision the scene with me:

They were large, strong hands. In infanthood they had been complete with tiny, exquisite fingernails; now they were grown, calloused and wrinkled by work. A carpenter’s hands.

Another hand, a fist, came down harshly upon the carpenter’s face. Another set of hands grabbed the carpenter’s wrists, jerking them behind his back, binding them with ropes that scratched and tore at his skin. Then all was a mixture of blood and sweat as the beating began.

After only minutes under the torture of the Roman guards, the carpenter began to lose all sign of humanity. Was this really a man who once stood to teach thousands of people for hours on end? Those arms that now hung limp, had they really once carried little children? Could that nose possibly have been part of a face at one time?

Staggering forward, his hands grasped a plank of wood. He did not need a cue. The carpenter knew exactly what he was to do; but the soldier prodded him with a whip anyway. Onward he stumbled, blinded by the blood running down his face.

The carpenter was forced onto the ground. He did not fight back. His wrists were grabbed by a Roman guard and pressed firmly against the plank. (I wonder if the soldier paid attention, could he have noticed something in this prisoner was different? Did he not realize those hands were familiar? That before the soldier was a soldier, even before he was a man, those same strong hands had formed his own? That the wrist he now held with an iron grip was the wrist of his Creator? How could he not recognize God’s Son?) The guard positioned a spike. Mallet in hand, he swung hard.

Every ounce of the carpenter’s being pulled upon those spikes. His cells were a frenzy of suffering and pain. As Joni Eareckson Tada tried to describe the scene, “God was on display in His underwear, and He could scarcely breathe.”

Sometimes when we draw near enough to the Cross, our words are depleted. Our wells of vocabulary run dry as we approach the end of human comprehension.

It’s not comfortable. It’s not always pleasant. For me, the revisiting usually ends with conviction, sorrow, and immense guilt. Those were my beatings, my nails, my bruises that He felt instead. I’m enabled by this reminder to truly worship—to realize God’s justice and grace and mercy and really, honestly adore Him. From there, I can start rejoicing in His love, which is He wanted for me in the first place.

Originally posted 3/21/08.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Listen Online!

Highlights from the True Woman 2008 conference (which featured such speakers as John Piper, Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Mary Kassian) have been posted on the True Woman website.

For me, Mrs. Kassian's lecture was particularly insightful. As I never saw the rise of the feminist movement, I can't remember (or fully imagine) life before its cultural thumbprint. Mrs. Kassian traced the path of feminism by comparing women in TV shows from Mrs. Cleaver ("Leave it To Beaver") to thoroughly modern women of "Sex in the City." Wow. What a change! Her examples stood as a reminder to form our ideas of womanhood from scripture--not on a degenerating cultural view of femininity.

Now, there's your teaser! Sync the message to an iPod, burn to a CD, or listen online here.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Case for Judgment


Well, of course" –insert awkward pause—" we don't really know his heart."

Broach the subject of a person's sin in a group conversation, lean back in your seat, and wait for it. One. Two. There—only minutes later, the qualifiers start to trickle in. Regardless of the act, someone can usually be counted on to flit to the defense of the perpetrator's unknown heart. To even entertain the thought that a fellow Christian might be violating God's law is unstomachable. How could a compassionate Christian dare to pass... judgment?

A better question could be, "How could we not?" Contrary to popular opinion, judgment is not a bad word and it is not condemned by Scripture. In fact, the Bible demands that we live with discernment (i.e. the act of judging between wrong and right). And if we know what is right, how can we Christianly condone wrong through silence?

Do judge. Judge wisely, judge well.

Does love judge it's neighbor?

Of course, since the Bible talks so much about the wrongness of hypocrisy and legalism, shutting our mouths from reproving any other person sounds humble and holy. Almost.

Here, we face something keenly ironic. The reason provided for avoiding confrontation is "love," compassion, or something nice along those lines. And yet, in almost every situation—even if we can convince ourselves of our own tenderhearted motives—the reality is much different. If I'm hesitant to bring up a serious issue I've observed in a friend's life, there's only one reason I fail to speak, and it has nothing to do with a tender heart.

My thought process runs something like this:

She'll think I'm some self-righteous Pharisee. Perhaps our relationship will be damaged. On the other hand, if I don't say anything, we can still maintain a reasonably decent friendship. Aren't we called to overlook the faults of others? Doesn't love cover a multitude of sins? If I do say something, she probably won't listen anyway. She would be deeply hurt...

On and on. I'm only thinking about myself—my coveted reputation, my discomfort. That's the antithesis of love. Love holds another person's highest good in mind—not necessarily their highest comfort. And the highest good for a brother or sister in sin is confrontation.

For most of us, that's a steep order. You know you're inflicting pain and discomfort by bringing something to the forefront of your friend's mind, just when that friend would much rather ignore it. It sounds harsh and unfeeling. Plus, what sort of nutcase raises her hand to walk voluntarily into a situation where she's likely to be interpreted as a grim-faced busybody who totes the tablets of the Ten Commandments around in her purse?

But God speaks through His people; we are His mouthpieces in the world. If we truly care for a person, his or her relationship with Christ will be our primary interest. Consequently, when we perceive something obstructing that relationship, the individual's spiritual good must become our top priority.

To be blunt, if I don't tell a friend—more than once, if necessary—when I see a serious area of concern in her life, I care more for myself than I do for her. With that in mind, wouldn’t it seem counter-productive to attempt to make the rebuke as conciliatory, suggestion-oriented, and pleasant as possible? The purpose of biblical confrontation is to present the untampered truth in love, so that conviction, repentance, and restoration may follow. In that order.

But everything I've written so far needs to be chucked promptly out the window if it doesn't accord with Scripture. Didn't Jesus strictly forbid judging in Matthew 7:1?

Two Kinds of "Judging"

I think it's possible that Christ's famous words from the Sermon on the Mount, "Judge not, lest ye be judged,” may be one of the most over-used and misapplied verses in the Bible. Christ wasn't instructing us to halt discernment. If you look at the context of Matthew 7:1, Christ was speaking against the moral snobbery that peers down at fellow sinners, while imagining to be in the place of God—holy and blameless. In context, the verse instructs about checking ourselves for the same sin before we confront anyone else on it. It doesn’t say we should avoid confrontation altogether.

Nowhere in the Bible is it remotely implied that it's our business to scorn weaker Christians, and react without patience or compassion. Passing hypocritical judgment is a grave sin, and it's an area I know myself to be particularly susceptible in. We need to be on the constant alert against the motives of our own hearts, so easily filled with pride.

At the same time, the whole of Scripture is abundantly clear that clear discernment between good and evil, truth and error, is an absolute necessity. Just a few verses after the "judge not" edict in Matthew 7, Christ talks about proper judging—by a person's actions, or “fruits.” The Lord scolded the Pharisees, "Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment" (John 7:23-24). Again and again, Christ's astute rebukes stirred rage in His listeners.

Romans 12:9 exhorts, "Hate what is evil; cling to what is good," and if you read any of the apostle Paul's epistles, two things will leap off the pages: immense love for the churches he wrote to, coupled with unswerving commitment to preservation of the truth. That entailed kicking false teachers out of the Church, and reproving the Christians when they strayed (just check out 1 and 2 Corinthians). In a word? ...judging.

As believers who desire to see each other mature in Christ, we need to pray for the love to confront sin when we recognize it. As long as we're filtering the sin through the lenses of grace and the knowledge of our own depravity, it's absolutely nothing to apologize for.

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Monday, December 15, 2008

Volition


Today, I finally sat down and watched the short film, Volition. Of all the viral movies on the internet, I think this one truly deserves to be forwarded to others.

Watch it here.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

A Skeptical Princess


What do you think when you hear the term "God's Princess?" If you're like me, when someone reminds you that you're God's little princess, you secretly want to roll your eyes. The phrase has become so cliche and overused--an excuse to let girls believe they are something along the lines of Disney's Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, Jasmine, etc.

Why do the princessy lines bother me? I guess it's the glitz and schmaltz--the pink hoodies with the word "Princess" etched in rhinestones. Part of my prejudice stems from the marketing, I think.

Then there's the delusion that God's princesses are promised everything they want and somehow deserve fairytale lives. To believe that is to believe something theologically erroneous. The Bible doesn't promise us earthly treasure or earthly happy endings. (Just consider how most heroes of the faith have met their deaths.)

But my own prejudice aside, "God's princess" is an accurate term. We are daughters of the King of Kings, and that is an amazing thing. Even the apostle John thought so, because he marveled: "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are." (1 John 3:1)

Saved by the blood of Christ, we are God's children. God will place a crown on our head. He will give us robes of white linen. Yet the amazing part of that truth is also the most unmentioned. The great thing about princesshood is not that we get to wear pretty things---but that He is the One giving them to us. We are not deserving of these gifts.

Contrary to what we'd like to imagine, we have never been Cinderella's with hearts of gold who naturally deserve notoriety. No one is truly like that. Our (pardon me) "fairytale" began when God picked us off the street. We're dirty and homeless. The Bible even says we're harlots.

Just the same, God chose us. He cleanses us; calls us His own. He writes our names on His hands. He promises never to forget or leave us. He sings over us. He has invented a special name for each of His people--a name He will unveil in Heaven. He adopts us. He tells us to think of His Son as our Husband.

This isn't marketing. I'm not selling you a rhinestone hoodie or tiara or bumper sticker. This is the gospel truth; and it's not special so much because you're a princess, but simply because you're His.


What do you think? Do you think the "princess" label is accurate?