I was meditating on Psalm 9 this morning, and as I read, as is typical, there were many things that jumped out to me. But as I prayed through the Psalm (which I strongly encourage--praying through the Psalms), I saw both my life and the lives of many of those around me throughout it's words.
Over the next few blogs, I'm going to be covering my meditations of Psalm 9 in sections. Today, I'm going to cover verses 1-2, and then the next one will cover verses 3-4, and so on.
Psalm 9:1-2
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
I'm young and inexperienced at diagnosing the world's problems; I'll admit it! However, it appears to me as a distinct possibility that one of the problems in both the secular world and in the Church is a misunderstanding of what it means to "love". From the Beatle's "All We Need Is Love" to the 21st century Western culture's fascination with romantic comedies, "love" seems to be the message preached from anyone who wants to preach something.
That being said, it's my conviction that the Church's definition of "love" has been much more culturally defined than Biblically and truthfully defined. What I mean is this: As many in both the Church AND the secular culture know, Jesus famously said that the Greatest Commandment is "to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength," after which He said, "and a second is like it: love your neighbor. On these two commands, all the Law and the Prophets hang." Many young liberal Christians (young-like me, liberal-not like me) have taken this passage and said, "It's ALL about this ONLY", and some have went so far as to erroneously throw out the rest of the Bible because they assume they have the whole book summed up in one statement (which, in a sense, I suppose they do--Jesus said it!).
However, since Western culture has stripped "love" of it's element of truth and puffed up it's element of feeling, "love" has all but lost it's meaning. That's why divorce is so prevalent, crime is getting worse, and social interaction is being diminished to online communication instead of TALKING amongst people in a live setting(I understand I'm writing a BLOG, ONLINE--it's because I'm attempting to meet you where you are, which is online!).
To a non-Christian secular world, I COULDN'T expect anything less than a misunderstanding of love. The Bible makes clear that they've "ALL turned away", they've "ALL went their own way", they've "ALL not known the way of God", they've "ALL had their heart's hardened by their sin", etc.
The problem is when this creeps into the Church, and it has. Since everyone assumes that "love" is much more a feeling than a commitment based on truth and honesty, they figure that their relationship with God is simply about "feeling Him" and "being happy". So when the storms of life take over, "God must not be there" is the response; or when 'church stuff' gets stale or remedial, "I feel like I'm going through the motions--lets change some things up" is the response. This is all true when the fact of the matter is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has famously said, "God is not a god of emotions, but a God of truth."
Furthermore, if you develop conclusions about God based on worldly standards (ie: your thinking, your experience, etc.), you will be sadly and despairingly let down all your life. Your relationship with God must be understood as being on GOD'S terms and not YOUR terms, as He reveals Himself to You in ways He CHOOSES to, and the Scriptures have to be your primary discerning factor in thinking on the things of God. I think that that understanding being lost in our society is one of the chief causes of the clear lack of God's Spirit in Christ's Church all over our country today: People trying to speak of God in humanly terms because they try to understand God by humanly criteria, instead of allowing the Holy Spirit given them by Christ the access to change and transform them into Christ's likeness at the behest of the Living God who gives all good things and uses His creation to justly glorify Himself. People have taken freedom and the 'American dream' of being in control of our surroundings, and have erroneously applied it to the God who holds all things in His hand and doesn't answer to ANYONE. And because of this, when God doesn't "do what we say", we get mad and assume He must be dead, or must have never existed in the first place.
The reason why there are so many in our culture who don't believe in God isn't because of the lack of evidence (there's more evidence FOR Him than there is AGAINST Him), but rather, it's because of people thinking that they're the ends of all creation, that God should be who they want Him to be, and when they've prayed to Him (not really prayed--more like given Him a trial to prove Himself) and He hasn't answered how they wanted, they dismiss Him.
Thus you see the predicament we're in: The Bible tells us to love God with our whole heart and whole self, and the fact is, we can't, because our society has run so hard and far from the true meaning of love in the first place.
When "loving God" has a misunderstanding that it's really all just a feeling, the few who DO stick around (in spite of the fact that they know it's not happiness every second) THEN make it all about that which they can do to please God. Our churches are so full of people who doubt God's existence because they can't feel His presence, so they take it all the way to the other side and act off of the compulsion that the way they 'live in God' is to do, do, and do some more.
It breaks my heart--I've been in the Church my whole life, and I've worked in many different kinds of churches over the years, and the one thing I take as a common denominator from every church is this: an outside Christian on fire with the Holy Spirit would probably despair of seeing God's presence among most churches, simply by diagnosis of the fact that most people in Church don't SPEAK of God as anything more than the bearded man who sits on a throne and gives me what I want because I perform well for Him.
Do you understand that last part? I think many find their identity in God by way of performance: they're involved in church, they pray before meals, they help out in ministries, they tithe, they stay out of trouble, etc...ALL because they think it justifies them with God.
But it doesn't--those kind of people were the people Jesus had the strongest words for when He was here; why?: Sinful motives getting muddied with holy acts is worse than sinful motives leading solely to sinful acts, because the former is based on lies, and the latter is at least consistent. That's why Jesus told the church in Laodicea He hates their lukewarmness and wishes they were either hot or cold.
The hard truth in the Bible is that no matter if you're a murderer on the streets or a church deacon or elder, you're at the same base level of sin before Christ's work is applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit when you surrender to His goodness in spite of your badness. Let me rephrase: Both the murderer and the church leader are the same kind of sinful; it's just that one kills God's people, while the other kills God's Holy Name by their bringing selfish idolatry into church office. Idolatry causes a murderer to murder, and it also causes preachers to preach for the sake of impressing others and getting affirmation. The common denominator? Idolatry.
So when the Bible speaks of "loving God", many people have idolatrous misunderstandings of what love even is, and thus CAN'T truly and freely love God with their heart the way that God intends for His people to.
You can look around and blame culture all you want, but you need to remember what Paul said to the Ephesian church when he told them "our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Don't be like Adam and blame someone else; be like David and take responsibility when you sin. But know first and foremost that the only hope you have is that JESUS took responsibility finally for all sin; that's the ONLY hope you have in the whole world.
My point is this: If you have succumbed to the worldly temptation of assuming that you are independent, don't need anyone to help you, and only need a dose of God every now and then, you've bought into a lie. God is your source. You come from Him, and one day will go back to Him to be judged. The reason you'll be judged is because He's God and you're one of his creations. But He wants you and has done all that needs to be done to GET you, in Jesus' Cross. You just need to admit your need for it, and accept all that it is.
David was able to be honest before the Living God when he wrote, "I will give thanks to the Lord with my WHOLE heart." He knew that all he had was given him by God, and the only proper and honest response was to give thanks, but not just thanks--thanks with his WHOLE heart. Every chamber of his heart had to be an open door to who God is, because God formed every chamber anyways. The truth and honesty of God's God-ship over David's life was something that took root as truth in David's mind, and then traveled to his HEART. Knowledge comes first, feeling comes second, and NEVER the other way around.
That's why he wrote, "I will recount all your wonderful deeds." Most people don't think God's done ANY wonderful deeds, because they're just hoping God will take them to a better place than they're in right now. And any time God gives someone what they want, they realize they're still broken and torn up inside like they were before. Thus, David sings of God's wonderful deeds because He knows that God doesn't answer to him; rather, David answers to God, and since God is sustaining David's life, giving him breath, sight, taste, provisions, etc., the only proper response is thanksgiving.
He then says, "I will be glad and exult in you." Whatever it is that you're in right now, you can be glad. But the only way to BE glad in the sense of 'gladness' that is the same in every situation is to know that every situation is under God's sovereign hand. Thus you'll be thankful for the happy times, because of the joy God is allowing you to know, and also thankful in the trials and hard times, because of the fact that you know God is moving in ways you can't see, shaping you, forming you, sanctifying you, disciplining you because He loves you (Hebrews 12).
Finally David rounds out verse 2 with, "I will sing praise to your name O Most High."
If I can sum up all I've said so far in this post in one statement, it would be this: You will never be able to truly and whole-heartedly worship God for who He is, if you don't understand that He is the Most High. To many people, God is just a bearded guy sitting on a throne. But God is eternally transcendent, eternally everywhere, and eternally powerful and all-knowing. Scientists will never find the end of the universe because it's infinitely big, and it's still not as big as God is. If God is the Most High, you will be the most true. That famous line of Proverbs 1, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" is misunderstood only because of a) misunderstanding what fear is, and b) misunderstanding who God is. Fear is not scared sitting in the seats watching Paranormal Activity--fear is realizing how small and insignificant you are and how big and significant God is.
Let me conclude: you will never understand Psalm 9:1-2 unless you understand the words David's using. You'll never understand the words David's using unless you, like Him, realize how sinful and wretched a sinner you are. And you'll never be able to realize it unless you come to the Cross honestly and let Jesus be your substitute; He'll let you be His righteousness. But it calls for an honest surrender and a full commitment to Jesus having Lordship over ever aspect of your life: heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Pray over Psalm 9:1-2, if you dare.
Scott Stine - Pastor of First Baptist Church, Newton NJ. Follower of Jesus; husband, daddy, PhD student, too distracted by basketball.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Christ who lives in me
"For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."--Galatians 2:19-20
In my first few years of ministry, I've given a lot of thought to this phenomenon Paul speaks of in Galatians 2. I was talking with a friend in ministry about this same thing yesterday--the "thing" being the question regarding rather someone is really born-again or not. As we talked I spoke of how I've struggled over the years with WHEN it was I really became a Christian. I believe a Christian is someone who a) is "reborn of the Spirit and water" (John 3:5-6), b) lives in obedience to Jesus' commands (John 14:23-24), c) has a broken and contrite spirit before God (Psalm 51:17, Luke 18:9-14), and d) considers their past life as loss for the sake of just KNOWING Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:8-11).
When I look at my life honestly, I'm not sure when exactly it was that each of these "checkpoints" took place, but as we spoke I was reminded the important thing is that they've happened, and here I am NOW. Nevertheless, it is a concern of mine being one who does the ministry of preaching, counseling, and shepherding. I suppose the reason for the concern is because if someone brings any sort of conundrum or problem before me, whether or not they REALLY have Jesus living inside of them and have TRULY trusted in Him matters because it'll change that which my advice will be.
Of course, all of life's problems stem from the same 2 roots: 1) idolatry of the heart which leads our rebelling from our Creator to give glory and worship to things that aren't Him, and 2) pride that makes it impossible for this problem to be faced HONESTLY. In that sense, the advice could be the same: if it's a non-believer, I'd say, "give glory to God"; if it's a believer, I'd say, "give glory to God". But if we're being honest, the statement "give glory to God" assumes something, doesn't it? It assumes that the person I'm talking to truly believes that God is even there in the first place. Many don't. So when I say it to them, many might look at me and say, "What are you talking about? I don't believe in God." At that point, the conversation is arrested because there's not much more in the way of advice that could be said. At that point, the conversation (if it continues) has to take a turn towards a "reasoning for faith" dialogue, because I would see that the REAL issue is their having strayed from acknowledgment of Him who is their source, and we would continue talking so that I may show them a) He IS their source, and b) He is their Redeemer as well, if they turn to Him.
You may read that and think, "That's a stupid scenario, because if YOU (a pastor) are talking to them, they're probably a believer, so of course you'd never run into unbelief."
I would disagree, and here's why: Like I said earlier, I'm not sure when it was I truly trusted in Christ, but I know it's been a process and I'm here now. The times when I've been molded and shaped the most have been the times when my sin was "ever before me" and I've been reprimanded by God's holiness, in light of my UNholiness. Those have been the times when I've been drawn closest to God's presence and the Holy Spirit has changed me the most. What I've learned from this is that believers should never assume they're "saved" just because they believe in God. Salvation is marked by those four things I mentioned earlier, and when you have them, you know. For much of my life, I believed, but i hadn't been reborn.
Interestingly, in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (mentioned earlier, found in Luke 18), the ONLY way to be justified before God is to, like the tax collector, beat your breast and pray to Him "have mercy on me, a sinner!" This also assumes a few things: 1) God is Holy and Sovereign and alone can grant mercy, 2) I'm subject to Him, 3) I've sinned against Him somehow, and 4) I need to fall down before Him and pray for mercy so that I can be justified.
The problem with Jesus' definition of "justification" is that for so long I didn't think there was really much of a problem in and of myself that warrants me NEEDING to be justified. In other words, I'm good. Why does the Bible claim so clearly and unabashedly that the problem with the world is sin and that the problem with MY world is MY sin, and no one else's? Why doesn't Jesus give any thought in this indictment to how people have wronged me or hurt me or the kind of crap I have to put up with in my everyday life?
The answer is that the Bible is not written from man's perspective--it's written from God's perspective. The problem with most modern Bible-teaching and preaching is that too many preachers and teachers speak of and from the Bible as though it's penned BY us to get us to "enlightenment" or "better lives". They've forgotten (or maybe never knew) that the Bible was written by God to disclose Himself to us inasmuch as our time-space-imprisoned bodies can handle it, by way of truth and revelation. The difference between these two starting-points may seem minimal, but it couldn't be understated HOW different they really are: One looks from our perspective at God as utilitarian (meaning that God exists FOR us and He's meant to give us what we need for this life), and the other looks from God's perspective at us for who we (logically) really are: created for God's glory and His glory alone, and submissive to whatever it is He who is sovereign deems necessary for us. The second is the EMPHATIC teaching of the Bible, and I couldn't make my face blue enough screaming long enough that we're created for God's glory, instead of Him for our glory. Practically, one breeds people of pride mixed with arrogance, because people will see something in the Bible they don't like or agree with, and they'll turn away from it completely, never to speak of it again (many denominations have done this with Biblical doctrines that make them uneasy). The other breeds people who stay submissive to whatever doctrine it is that's preached if it comes from Scripture, and if it doesn't, the people will humbly hold the preacher accountable and correct him with the truth that they've been continually transformed by. Theology/doctrine/Biblical interpretation is just one example I use for the sake of brevity. The first group of people assume God exists for their glory, and the second understands they're created for God's.
The Pharisee in Jesus' parable assumed that God was created for His glory. He prayed, yes, but in his prayer, in noticing his righteousness (which was apparent as he stood next to a tax collector), notice he doesn't thank God for doing this work in Him; there is a subtlety in the original Greek language that gets missed in some translations now, but what it actually says in v 11 is, "...standing, prayed to himself". Then he proceeds to go through his list of good accomplishments and good works. He's in the Temple praying, but he's only there because the LAW tells him to be. So he does it so no one else will judge him as unrighteous--God is his utilitarian god of self-service. But when he prays, he's not even really praying--he's talking TO HIMSELF! When you find your righteousness in that which you consciously do and decide daily to give your time to, you are the Pharisee.
But the tax-collector, as sinful as he is, stands far off, beats his breast and cries out "have mercy on me, a sinner". Major difference in not just posture, but in demeanor. But let's just be honest: One believes in God and one doesn't. You may say, "Well the Pharisee is in the Temple, praying, so he believes in God, just not the right way." I'd disagree--he doesn't believe in God. He believes HE'S God, and God is, at best, an angry boss in the sky, or at worst, a conjured-up concept created by man to cope with the hardness of life. Thus when he "prays", he thanks HIMSELF that he doesn't DEAL with hard stuff in his life because he's attained a level of righteousness that shields him from "that life" or "those people." The God he believes in is not the God of the Bible.
The God the tax-collector believes in IS the God of the Bible, because the Bible calls this God eternally holy, eternally sovereign, eternally eternal, etc. And the tax collector knows that all of those characteristics (holiness, sovereignty, infinitude) are traits that he himself DOESN'T have. So the only possible response to this God is to pray honestly for mercy in light of the fact that you obviously NEED mercy. Furthermore, if God is God, then shouldn't He be the all-encompassing King of every thought in our minds, every second? Of course He should be. But He's not, is he? Thus, we MUST need mercy. We MUST need forgiveness. We MUST need saving.
Which brings us back to the original passage from Galatians 2. Paul says, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." To Paul, the problem with the world is himself, and (if you read the rest of Galatians and ALL of Romans) the only thing God's Law given in the Old Testament did was show Paul how sinful he really is before God. Thus, what's the solution? Christ's finished work on the Cross. That's it, and that's ALL that's needed. How does it work?
I liken it to a boss who has many employees and in order to keep order, he lays down a lot of rules to follow. Over time, the workers develop a bitterness to the boss because they feel like he gives them too many rules to follow, because man's heart is naturally rebellious and doesn't like rules. But they try to keep them, ONLY because they want to appease him and keep him happy. Still their whole careers are miserable because it's their will versus the boss's will, and the boss always wins because he's the boss.
It would seem that the solution would be as simple as going back to each of the worker's childhood and implanting in them the idea of respect for authority. Simple! Let's do that! If we did that, they would know that the work environment in any organization is SO much better and easier to deal with if the employees just respect and honor the rules of the boss, out of simply respecting and honoring the boss. Better yet, it's better if they understand that their job isn't JUST to produce that which the company produces, but their job also includes being obedient to and observing the boss's...uh...boss-hood(?).
I know this is a very imperfect illustration, with imperfect theology. My point is that Paul would say that whereas everyone has a sense of God's authority in their lives, and everyone has strayed to different points because of their disbelief in authority, whether it be not believing in Him AT ALL (atheism or agnosticism), believing in Him SOME (nominal Creasters--those that go to church on Christmas and Easter), or believing in Him much (going to church, observing the laws, etc.), the root problem of all of this is the idea that God is up there, I'm down here, and He doesn't have the right to tell me what to do, so I'm not going to listen. Atheists and self-righteous religious people are equally non-believers, because they both believe lies about God's character and they both think that they can escape his sovereignty, the former by way of just telling themselves He's not there, the latter by way of working hard enough that God CAN'T not bless me.
Paul is saying in the Galatians passage that Christ has broken this cycle completely, in that He has obediently and willingly went to the Cross to take responsibility for the sins of every person who has found themselves in the three classes of the previous paragraph (and everyone is in ONE of those). How it works is this: Christ is obedient, and anyone who would just simply accept that He is who He said He is, receives the Holy Spirit of God which causes them to WANT to live under the authority of God, like Jesus did. He takes our sin and disobedience on Himself, obediently, and we take His holiness and obedience on ourselves, subsequently, all by an act of God's grace on us sinners.
In the boss/employee illustration (again I know it's an imperfect one), this would be the same as all of the employees all of a sudden having their hearts changed to WANT to obey the boss's rules, because they know that the rules are good and the workplace is so much better if the employees just obey and respect the rules. Now they WANT to obey and respect them. Now they don't see rule-following as a means to an end (me keeping a safe distance from the boss), but rather they see it as the ends ITSELF (me being a good employee who knows my role and keeps it).
I'm convinced that many of the problems in the Church today are not because of the sinful world "out there" (outside the walls). The reason the Church, the invisible Church which is made up of people who live in TRUE repentance and TRUE obedience to their God, isn't growing has nothing to do with the non-Christians outside the Church. It has everything to do with the non-Christians inside the Church who are so influenced by the world outside, that they really think they're Christians. I'm not trying to be ugly or crass or anything of that nature--I'm trying to speak truth. Is Galatians 2:19-20 your testimony? Have you been crucified with Christ, meaning that you are constantly at odds with the things of this world and have to constantly pray for God to give you eyes to see things the way they really are, instead of seeing things through the lies this natural world makes you want to believe? Is it Christ who lives in you now, and not yourself, meaning that the difference between you NOW and you before you received Christ is markedly different? Or are you pretty much the same; it's just that now you have your Sunday mornings booked? Could you echo Paul when he says, "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me"?
If this is your testimony, you don't feel uncomfortable--you're praising God because you recognize and understand the bankruptcy of the world and all of it's offers, and you recognize the easiness in your heart to be tossed about by every wind of culture, and this draws you into praising God because of the work He's done in your life through His Son's work on the cross, and you praise Him for the work He continues to do in your life.
If this isn't your testimony, you do feel uncomfortable, because you're struggling with a simple question: Do I really trust in Christ or do I trust in Him only given that He gives me what I think I need? Maybe it could be better stated: "Do I still live as a law to myself and expect others to match up to it, or do I let God define what my and their reality is?"
Regardless of where we are, praise be to God, He's not any farther away than simply crying out, "Have mercy on me, a sinner!" Jesus promised that this justifies us before the Father; and I'd say that this is a worthy cry at all times. But at least be honest about if it's your cry already or not. That's what the Church of Jesus Christ sings as long as it has breath on earth in this present age: "Have mercy on us sinners!" And it's always meant with the reply, "I WILL have mercy, because of what Jesus has done." And our natural response is with the angels in Isaiah and Revelation, "Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!"
To God alone the be the glory--He is good.
In my first few years of ministry, I've given a lot of thought to this phenomenon Paul speaks of in Galatians 2. I was talking with a friend in ministry about this same thing yesterday--the "thing" being the question regarding rather someone is really born-again or not. As we talked I spoke of how I've struggled over the years with WHEN it was I really became a Christian. I believe a Christian is someone who a) is "reborn of the Spirit and water" (John 3:5-6), b) lives in obedience to Jesus' commands (John 14:23-24), c) has a broken and contrite spirit before God (Psalm 51:17, Luke 18:9-14), and d) considers their past life as loss for the sake of just KNOWING Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:8-11).
When I look at my life honestly, I'm not sure when exactly it was that each of these "checkpoints" took place, but as we spoke I was reminded the important thing is that they've happened, and here I am NOW. Nevertheless, it is a concern of mine being one who does the ministry of preaching, counseling, and shepherding. I suppose the reason for the concern is because if someone brings any sort of conundrum or problem before me, whether or not they REALLY have Jesus living inside of them and have TRULY trusted in Him matters because it'll change that which my advice will be.
Of course, all of life's problems stem from the same 2 roots: 1) idolatry of the heart which leads our rebelling from our Creator to give glory and worship to things that aren't Him, and 2) pride that makes it impossible for this problem to be faced HONESTLY. In that sense, the advice could be the same: if it's a non-believer, I'd say, "give glory to God"; if it's a believer, I'd say, "give glory to God". But if we're being honest, the statement "give glory to God" assumes something, doesn't it? It assumes that the person I'm talking to truly believes that God is even there in the first place. Many don't. So when I say it to them, many might look at me and say, "What are you talking about? I don't believe in God." At that point, the conversation is arrested because there's not much more in the way of advice that could be said. At that point, the conversation (if it continues) has to take a turn towards a "reasoning for faith" dialogue, because I would see that the REAL issue is their having strayed from acknowledgment of Him who is their source, and we would continue talking so that I may show them a) He IS their source, and b) He is their Redeemer as well, if they turn to Him.
You may read that and think, "That's a stupid scenario, because if YOU (a pastor) are talking to them, they're probably a believer, so of course you'd never run into unbelief."
I would disagree, and here's why: Like I said earlier, I'm not sure when it was I truly trusted in Christ, but I know it's been a process and I'm here now. The times when I've been molded and shaped the most have been the times when my sin was "ever before me" and I've been reprimanded by God's holiness, in light of my UNholiness. Those have been the times when I've been drawn closest to God's presence and the Holy Spirit has changed me the most. What I've learned from this is that believers should never assume they're "saved" just because they believe in God. Salvation is marked by those four things I mentioned earlier, and when you have them, you know. For much of my life, I believed, but i hadn't been reborn.
Interestingly, in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (mentioned earlier, found in Luke 18), the ONLY way to be justified before God is to, like the tax collector, beat your breast and pray to Him "have mercy on me, a sinner!" This also assumes a few things: 1) God is Holy and Sovereign and alone can grant mercy, 2) I'm subject to Him, 3) I've sinned against Him somehow, and 4) I need to fall down before Him and pray for mercy so that I can be justified.
The problem with Jesus' definition of "justification" is that for so long I didn't think there was really much of a problem in and of myself that warrants me NEEDING to be justified. In other words, I'm good. Why does the Bible claim so clearly and unabashedly that the problem with the world is sin and that the problem with MY world is MY sin, and no one else's? Why doesn't Jesus give any thought in this indictment to how people have wronged me or hurt me or the kind of crap I have to put up with in my everyday life?
The answer is that the Bible is not written from man's perspective--it's written from God's perspective. The problem with most modern Bible-teaching and preaching is that too many preachers and teachers speak of and from the Bible as though it's penned BY us to get us to "enlightenment" or "better lives". They've forgotten (or maybe never knew) that the Bible was written by God to disclose Himself to us inasmuch as our time-space-imprisoned bodies can handle it, by way of truth and revelation. The difference between these two starting-points may seem minimal, but it couldn't be understated HOW different they really are: One looks from our perspective at God as utilitarian (meaning that God exists FOR us and He's meant to give us what we need for this life), and the other looks from God's perspective at us for who we (logically) really are: created for God's glory and His glory alone, and submissive to whatever it is He who is sovereign deems necessary for us. The second is the EMPHATIC teaching of the Bible, and I couldn't make my face blue enough screaming long enough that we're created for God's glory, instead of Him for our glory. Practically, one breeds people of pride mixed with arrogance, because people will see something in the Bible they don't like or agree with, and they'll turn away from it completely, never to speak of it again (many denominations have done this with Biblical doctrines that make them uneasy). The other breeds people who stay submissive to whatever doctrine it is that's preached if it comes from Scripture, and if it doesn't, the people will humbly hold the preacher accountable and correct him with the truth that they've been continually transformed by. Theology/doctrine/Biblical interpretation is just one example I use for the sake of brevity. The first group of people assume God exists for their glory, and the second understands they're created for God's.
The Pharisee in Jesus' parable assumed that God was created for His glory. He prayed, yes, but in his prayer, in noticing his righteousness (which was apparent as he stood next to a tax collector), notice he doesn't thank God for doing this work in Him; there is a subtlety in the original Greek language that gets missed in some translations now, but what it actually says in v 11 is, "...standing, prayed to himself". Then he proceeds to go through his list of good accomplishments and good works. He's in the Temple praying, but he's only there because the LAW tells him to be. So he does it so no one else will judge him as unrighteous--God is his utilitarian god of self-service. But when he prays, he's not even really praying--he's talking TO HIMSELF! When you find your righteousness in that which you consciously do and decide daily to give your time to, you are the Pharisee.
But the tax-collector, as sinful as he is, stands far off, beats his breast and cries out "have mercy on me, a sinner". Major difference in not just posture, but in demeanor. But let's just be honest: One believes in God and one doesn't. You may say, "Well the Pharisee is in the Temple, praying, so he believes in God, just not the right way." I'd disagree--he doesn't believe in God. He believes HE'S God, and God is, at best, an angry boss in the sky, or at worst, a conjured-up concept created by man to cope with the hardness of life. Thus when he "prays", he thanks HIMSELF that he doesn't DEAL with hard stuff in his life because he's attained a level of righteousness that shields him from "that life" or "those people." The God he believes in is not the God of the Bible.
The God the tax-collector believes in IS the God of the Bible, because the Bible calls this God eternally holy, eternally sovereign, eternally eternal, etc. And the tax collector knows that all of those characteristics (holiness, sovereignty, infinitude) are traits that he himself DOESN'T have. So the only possible response to this God is to pray honestly for mercy in light of the fact that you obviously NEED mercy. Furthermore, if God is God, then shouldn't He be the all-encompassing King of every thought in our minds, every second? Of course He should be. But He's not, is he? Thus, we MUST need mercy. We MUST need forgiveness. We MUST need saving.
Which brings us back to the original passage from Galatians 2. Paul says, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." To Paul, the problem with the world is himself, and (if you read the rest of Galatians and ALL of Romans) the only thing God's Law given in the Old Testament did was show Paul how sinful he really is before God. Thus, what's the solution? Christ's finished work on the Cross. That's it, and that's ALL that's needed. How does it work?
I liken it to a boss who has many employees and in order to keep order, he lays down a lot of rules to follow. Over time, the workers develop a bitterness to the boss because they feel like he gives them too many rules to follow, because man's heart is naturally rebellious and doesn't like rules. But they try to keep them, ONLY because they want to appease him and keep him happy. Still their whole careers are miserable because it's their will versus the boss's will, and the boss always wins because he's the boss.
It would seem that the solution would be as simple as going back to each of the worker's childhood and implanting in them the idea of respect for authority. Simple! Let's do that! If we did that, they would know that the work environment in any organization is SO much better and easier to deal with if the employees just respect and honor the rules of the boss, out of simply respecting and honoring the boss. Better yet, it's better if they understand that their job isn't JUST to produce that which the company produces, but their job also includes being obedient to and observing the boss's...uh...boss-hood(?).
I know this is a very imperfect illustration, with imperfect theology. My point is that Paul would say that whereas everyone has a sense of God's authority in their lives, and everyone has strayed to different points because of their disbelief in authority, whether it be not believing in Him AT ALL (atheism or agnosticism), believing in Him SOME (nominal Creasters--those that go to church on Christmas and Easter), or believing in Him much (going to church, observing the laws, etc.), the root problem of all of this is the idea that God is up there, I'm down here, and He doesn't have the right to tell me what to do, so I'm not going to listen. Atheists and self-righteous religious people are equally non-believers, because they both believe lies about God's character and they both think that they can escape his sovereignty, the former by way of just telling themselves He's not there, the latter by way of working hard enough that God CAN'T not bless me.
Paul is saying in the Galatians passage that Christ has broken this cycle completely, in that He has obediently and willingly went to the Cross to take responsibility for the sins of every person who has found themselves in the three classes of the previous paragraph (and everyone is in ONE of those). How it works is this: Christ is obedient, and anyone who would just simply accept that He is who He said He is, receives the Holy Spirit of God which causes them to WANT to live under the authority of God, like Jesus did. He takes our sin and disobedience on Himself, obediently, and we take His holiness and obedience on ourselves, subsequently, all by an act of God's grace on us sinners.
In the boss/employee illustration (again I know it's an imperfect one), this would be the same as all of the employees all of a sudden having their hearts changed to WANT to obey the boss's rules, because they know that the rules are good and the workplace is so much better if the employees just obey and respect the rules. Now they WANT to obey and respect them. Now they don't see rule-following as a means to an end (me keeping a safe distance from the boss), but rather they see it as the ends ITSELF (me being a good employee who knows my role and keeps it).
I'm convinced that many of the problems in the Church today are not because of the sinful world "out there" (outside the walls). The reason the Church, the invisible Church which is made up of people who live in TRUE repentance and TRUE obedience to their God, isn't growing has nothing to do with the non-Christians outside the Church. It has everything to do with the non-Christians inside the Church who are so influenced by the world outside, that they really think they're Christians. I'm not trying to be ugly or crass or anything of that nature--I'm trying to speak truth. Is Galatians 2:19-20 your testimony? Have you been crucified with Christ, meaning that you are constantly at odds with the things of this world and have to constantly pray for God to give you eyes to see things the way they really are, instead of seeing things through the lies this natural world makes you want to believe? Is it Christ who lives in you now, and not yourself, meaning that the difference between you NOW and you before you received Christ is markedly different? Or are you pretty much the same; it's just that now you have your Sunday mornings booked? Could you echo Paul when he says, "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me"?
If this is your testimony, you don't feel uncomfortable--you're praising God because you recognize and understand the bankruptcy of the world and all of it's offers, and you recognize the easiness in your heart to be tossed about by every wind of culture, and this draws you into praising God because of the work He's done in your life through His Son's work on the cross, and you praise Him for the work He continues to do in your life.
If this isn't your testimony, you do feel uncomfortable, because you're struggling with a simple question: Do I really trust in Christ or do I trust in Him only given that He gives me what I think I need? Maybe it could be better stated: "Do I still live as a law to myself and expect others to match up to it, or do I let God define what my and their reality is?"
Regardless of where we are, praise be to God, He's not any farther away than simply crying out, "Have mercy on me, a sinner!" Jesus promised that this justifies us before the Father; and I'd say that this is a worthy cry at all times. But at least be honest about if it's your cry already or not. That's what the Church of Jesus Christ sings as long as it has breath on earth in this present age: "Have mercy on us sinners!" And it's always meant with the reply, "I WILL have mercy, because of what Jesus has done." And our natural response is with the angels in Isaiah and Revelation, "Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!"
To God alone the be the glory--He is good.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
the doubts
In the beginning, God...
I love that the Bible starts off with God. The obvious implication is that before anything else ever came to be, there was God.
Of course we live in an increasingly doubtful world, and in making that statement, I mean the fact that there are many people who doubt God's existence, if they don't just simply dismiss it all together. While this is tragic, if you believe the Bible literally, it's understandable. I've struggled with doubts over the years and I'd be lying if I said I don't anymore--I most certainly do. This is because God's invisible.
It seems like the Bible assumes that God is there, and if you're going to read it, you have to at least possess some sort of belief that God is there and that 'in the beginning, God...', meaning that everything is 'from Him, to Him, and through Him...' (Romans 11:36).
That being said, the Bible does meet those of us who doubt and question an invisible God right where we are. In Colossians 1:15 Jesus is referred to as "the image of the invisible God, and in 1 Timothy 1:17, Paul says (having just talked about Jesus Christ's display of perfect patience), "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." Upon reading these passages that refer to God as invisible, one could respond two ways: First, with despair at the idea that THIS God I'm supposed to believe in is invisible. "Who wants to believe in something they can't see?" they may question, and this could lead to a bottomless pit of depression. On the other hand, secondly, they could respond the way I've responded the last few years (which is so much better a response than the former, which I knew as response for a long time), with appreciation at the fact that the Bible meets me where I am, by calling God invisible. The Bible may call the people of this world stupid (especially me), but it also calls the people of this world incredibly loved. Both of these statements are things the Bible by nature would HAVE to say, because if it's assumed that God is the ultimate satisfaction and absolute experience of the fullness of joy for us His creatures, which the Bible DOES assume (Psalm 16:11, John 10:10), then if the created humans for whatever reason continually and persistently turn from trusting in His goodness and Godness, then it seems like a perfect picture of absurd, delusional, stupidity. This is why James says in James 1:6-7 that "the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind." Is the Bible calling me an idiot for doubting?
Not necessarily, because the Hebrews and 1 Timothy passages BOTH call Him the invisible God. If I say, "I'm struggling with the invisibility of God", I'm not saying anything sinful or wrong. We know from the Bible that I CAN struggle with God (Genesis 32:22-32), and that He IS invisible. Thus I can struggle with the invisibility of God. Therefore, the Bible meets me where I am in my doubts and questioning and says, "Yes, He IS (I AM) invisible. You're assessment is correct up to that point."
But it's when we move PAST that point that our assessment takes a turn for the worse. The problem arises when we consider what we mean when we say we're struggling with the invisibility of God:
Most of the time, we mean that we're struggling BELIEVING IN the invisible God. Most of us can sing honestly with the band The Fray's song 'You Found Me', which famously sings (to God), "Where were you when everything was falling apart? All my days were spent by a telephone that never rang...Why'd you have to wait? Where were you?...Just a little late...You found me." I always struggled with this song, because I can't tell if the guy singing is grateful, or if he's shaking his fist at God saying, "I KNOW you're there and you DID find me, but why didn't you do it THIS way?" It seems like the latter is more believable--the singer KNOWS God's there, but he wishes God would have acted differently in response to his cries. Most people find themselves in this place--they struggle with the idea that God doesn't do things THIS way, but they DO believe He's there. Even if they say they don't, they do (MOST do; I know some just absolutely don't, and I don't mean to arrogantly assume wrong things about you if you're one).
As Tim Keller brilliantly hypothesizes in his 'The Reason for God', if you have a framework of belief in 'right and wrong' or 'good and bad' (which everyone does--everyone agrees the Holocaust was a tragedy, and that the Penn State thing is horrible because it involves violation of innocent children), then clearly you HAVE to believe that those moral convictions came from SOMEWHERE and they couldn't have come from just simply evolution or 'nowhere'. You also can't say "Well everyone believes this..." Really? If everyone believes it, why does it happen still? Keller concludes, "If there is no God, then there is no way to say any one action is 'moral' and another 'immoral' but only 'I like this'. If that is the case, who gets the right to put their subjective, arbitrary moral feelings into law?" He's right. If truth is absolutely relative, then you and I couldn't call anything wrong, and if that's the case, then how much despair and hopelessness is there in a world with many problems, and everyone has differing opinions on how to fix these problems? 'Virtue' and 'vice' are relative, and you set yourself and others up to not have any opinion about anything. If you do, then you'll be inconsistent in your arguments, because you'll be arguing from a transcendent moral law that not everyone agrees with (because you've written it yourself), and you'll realize that every argument is pointless because no one believes exactly like you do. You'll say, "Why can't the world just all believe THIS?" or "Why don't they just see it THIS way?" which is exactly what both the Bible and Christians are saying, to which the common response is "That's oppressive." With all due respect, isn't ANY argument oppressive? Because it assumes a transcendence of virtue over the opposite side of the argument. In other words, isn't everyone close-minded about their beliefs?
Notice in the James 1:6-7 passage, after speaking of the man of doubts being like a wave of the sea tossed and thrown, he says, "For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." Notice James doesn't say, "That man will be sadly disappointed to find out God is really there..." Why is this significant? Because if the man COULD firstly have assumed he'll receive anything from the Lord, then he's already assuming that the Lord is THERE in the first place. He clearly believes in God already--he just is struggling with doubts. Doesn't it seem like nonsense to know God is there, and STILL doubt him? Of course it does.
And yet we who would say that that's nonsense are the same people who watch the news for five minutes and walk away saying, "I'm tired of seeing people break the law", as we get into our cars and drive 10 over the speed limit, breaking the law. You could push back, "That's not near as bad as murder." I'd respond by asking, "Who SAYS it's not as bad?" Well, it's just commonly accepted, you may responded. In one sense, I'd grant that, because clearly the penalty is different. In another sense I'd disagree, because they BOTH have a penalty because they're BOTH breaking the law. Furthermore, speeding puts yourself in a position where you could potentially hurt someone else--or worse--kill someone else. Then you're guilty of both. You might push back, "But I'm in control," which is what I'm sure intoxicated drivers think when they get into their car to drive home, and they hit some kid on a bike. Maybe you're NOT in control, and you just think you are. Maybe you're LYING to yourself.
Maybe we lie to ourselves all the time and just won't admit that we do.
Maybe we lie to ourselves when we project our culturally conditioned and personally biased sense of right and wrong on God. Maybe our doubts of his existence really don't stem from what we call 'facts', but rather from Him not fitting our personal criteria. We say that the FACT is that science has disproved God. No it hasn't. Science can't prove anything--science is just theories; even scientists say that. We say the FACT is that history has disproved God. Really? The history which bears God's name on it--BC (before Christ) and AD (anno domini--Latin for 'in the year of our Lord' which refers to Christ)? If anything, the Bible seems to have God making all sorts of promises that have either come to pass, or haven't passed YET.
Psalm 53:1 plainly says, "The fool says in his heart 'there is no God'." I've struggled with that verse for a long time and would say, "I thought God was a God of LOVE--if so, why would he coldly bash my heart which desperately WANTS to believe, but seems like it just CAN'T?"
The two clearest responses I received from God were these:
a) He is a God of love, but "love" doesn't just tell the beloved what they need to hear all the time. Love hurts sometimes, because love is honest. Often what we mean by 'love' is 'nice'. God is 'nice'. Whoa is me if I stand up in my inner-city neighborhood where there's crime, violence, drugs, and murder, and preach, "God is nice." Truly I've had more success in my short time here so far saying, "God says you suck, and He says it because He loves you." Nice doesn't cure sin. The naked and humiliated and offensive Savior of the world hanging on the cross cures sin. You can't preach the cross 'nicely'.
b) Secondly, if I'm reading the Bible and it says I'm a fool for saying there's no God, it must be true, because the Bible calls itself God's own Word on numerous occasions, and if I REALLY didn't believe in God, I wouldn't be sitting at a desk reading this book that claims to be God's Word--I'd be out doing what the rest of my neighborhood is doing.
But I realized that since I at least WANT God to be real, maybe that says something about God Himself. Maybe He's drawing me to Himself, and my doubts are really just misguided God-given longings for peace and justice. This would seem to make sense in light of Scripture--it talks all the time of God drawing people to Himself (Ephesians 2:13, 1 Peter 3:18) and it talks all the time of a) God's concern for peace and justice (Isaiah 1:21-23, Matthew 25:31-46), b) my having His characteristics built into me(Genesis 1:27, Romans 2:14-16), and c) those characteristics being tarnished by my sin of not trusting what God says (Romans 1:18-23, Revelation 3:15-20).
Then we read of Adam and Eve eating the fruit God said not to eat, but they do it anyways because the serpent appealed to their desire to 'be LIKE God', by telling them they WOULD be. Finally, the mirror was turned back on myself, and I realized that every waking second of every day I'm standing at trees, picking fruit that God says I shouldn't eat from.
We wonder why God's presence is so far from us? It's because we don't want His presence close to us, because if it was, we'd either run away and hide like Adam and Eve (because of embarrassment at our sin), fall face down like Isaiah at God's throne (because of the conviction of our sin), or die (because of our sinfulness's inability to handle the sight of God's holiness).
Let me tell you why I'm a Christian: It's because in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon, the richest, wisest, and womanizerest man of all time (made that last word up--he enjoyed the presence of the ladies), pours his heart and his mind out in this book at the end of his rich, wise, womanizering life, and his conclusion is, "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind."(Ecc. 1:14)
Can I be personal?--I needed to hear that. "WHEW, finally, not only am I not the only one who sees the pointlessness and meaninglessness of the things in this world, but God's Word ITSELF is actually calling it that way as well!" And when you come to this realization, the only possible response is, "There HAS to be a God who will make all things new one day,". Then you realize the Bible speaks over and over and over again about how God will. Then you fear Him, because if He's God, you can't just like Him or love Him. You have to fear Him, because He's God and He owes you nothing and could take everything in a second (see Job). And, keeping with the famous Proverbs 1:7, which says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom," when you begin to fear Him, you begin to love Him; and when you love Him, you begin to truly love others, because you see them for who they really are: creatures of the Living God. You also see yourself for who you really are: a creature of the Living God. And when this becomes your reality, things start to make sense, and the beginnings of (what at least appears to be) wisdom start to take root.
At this point you realize that the God who doesn't owe you ANYTHING, gave you EVERYTHING at the Cross. In spite of the fact that you couldn't offer Him ANYTHING, He gave EVERYTHING to draw you back to Himself. Why? Because it glorifies Him if His creatures worship Him. As John Piper has said, "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." The only way for us to worship Him and be satisfied in Him is if He changes our hearts to want to worship Him, so that we realize we CAN be satisfied in Him. And the only way this is possible is if the pure and spotless Lamb, Jesus Christ, who perfectly worships the Father with His whole heart and is eternally satisfied in Him, is laid down as a final sacrifice for sins for all time, so that the stupid idolatrous people He created would finally have hearts that only desire God.
Of course we'll always have doubts because God is invisible. But He's only invisible if we refuse to see how He's been revealed in Christ Jesus. Hebrews 1:3 calls Jesus, "The radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature." You want to see God? Look to Jesus. But don't say that He's so concealed that it's impossible. I'm glad God didn't look at our radical and total depravity and say, "There's no good in them...I have better things to do." Instead He said, "There's no good in them...but I want them, and I'll go to the end of myself to get them." Furthermore, if you look for God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ, you'll see that all of the things you truly care about and desire in this life are things that He cares about too.
Solomon ends Ecclesiastes with these words: "The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." (12:13-14).
Will it ever be enough for us to just trust that this is true? Or will we go on living as though we're God because we don't think we can see enough of God Himself because we think He's hiding? When will it be enough to believe it when He says, "This command is all you need to know. JUST. TRUST. ME."
I love that the Bible starts off with God. The obvious implication is that before anything else ever came to be, there was God.
Of course we live in an increasingly doubtful world, and in making that statement, I mean the fact that there are many people who doubt God's existence, if they don't just simply dismiss it all together. While this is tragic, if you believe the Bible literally, it's understandable. I've struggled with doubts over the years and I'd be lying if I said I don't anymore--I most certainly do. This is because God's invisible.
It seems like the Bible assumes that God is there, and if you're going to read it, you have to at least possess some sort of belief that God is there and that 'in the beginning, God...', meaning that everything is 'from Him, to Him, and through Him...' (Romans 11:36).
That being said, the Bible does meet those of us who doubt and question an invisible God right where we are. In Colossians 1:15 Jesus is referred to as "the image of the invisible God, and in 1 Timothy 1:17, Paul says (having just talked about Jesus Christ's display of perfect patience), "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." Upon reading these passages that refer to God as invisible, one could respond two ways: First, with despair at the idea that THIS God I'm supposed to believe in is invisible. "Who wants to believe in something they can't see?" they may question, and this could lead to a bottomless pit of depression. On the other hand, secondly, they could respond the way I've responded the last few years (which is so much better a response than the former, which I knew as response for a long time), with appreciation at the fact that the Bible meets me where I am, by calling God invisible. The Bible may call the people of this world stupid (especially me), but it also calls the people of this world incredibly loved. Both of these statements are things the Bible by nature would HAVE to say, because if it's assumed that God is the ultimate satisfaction and absolute experience of the fullness of joy for us His creatures, which the Bible DOES assume (Psalm 16:11, John 10:10), then if the created humans for whatever reason continually and persistently turn from trusting in His goodness and Godness, then it seems like a perfect picture of absurd, delusional, stupidity. This is why James says in James 1:6-7 that "the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind." Is the Bible calling me an idiot for doubting?
Not necessarily, because the Hebrews and 1 Timothy passages BOTH call Him the invisible God. If I say, "I'm struggling with the invisibility of God", I'm not saying anything sinful or wrong. We know from the Bible that I CAN struggle with God (Genesis 32:22-32), and that He IS invisible. Thus I can struggle with the invisibility of God. Therefore, the Bible meets me where I am in my doubts and questioning and says, "Yes, He IS (I AM) invisible. You're assessment is correct up to that point."
But it's when we move PAST that point that our assessment takes a turn for the worse. The problem arises when we consider what we mean when we say we're struggling with the invisibility of God:
Most of the time, we mean that we're struggling BELIEVING IN the invisible God. Most of us can sing honestly with the band The Fray's song 'You Found Me', which famously sings (to God), "Where were you when everything was falling apart? All my days were spent by a telephone that never rang...Why'd you have to wait? Where were you?...Just a little late...You found me." I always struggled with this song, because I can't tell if the guy singing is grateful, or if he's shaking his fist at God saying, "I KNOW you're there and you DID find me, but why didn't you do it THIS way?" It seems like the latter is more believable--the singer KNOWS God's there, but he wishes God would have acted differently in response to his cries. Most people find themselves in this place--they struggle with the idea that God doesn't do things THIS way, but they DO believe He's there. Even if they say they don't, they do (MOST do; I know some just absolutely don't, and I don't mean to arrogantly assume wrong things about you if you're one).
As Tim Keller brilliantly hypothesizes in his 'The Reason for God', if you have a framework of belief in 'right and wrong' or 'good and bad' (which everyone does--everyone agrees the Holocaust was a tragedy, and that the Penn State thing is horrible because it involves violation of innocent children), then clearly you HAVE to believe that those moral convictions came from SOMEWHERE and they couldn't have come from just simply evolution or 'nowhere'. You also can't say "Well everyone believes this..." Really? If everyone believes it, why does it happen still? Keller concludes, "If there is no God, then there is no way to say any one action is 'moral' and another 'immoral' but only 'I like this'. If that is the case, who gets the right to put their subjective, arbitrary moral feelings into law?" He's right. If truth is absolutely relative, then you and I couldn't call anything wrong, and if that's the case, then how much despair and hopelessness is there in a world with many problems, and everyone has differing opinions on how to fix these problems? 'Virtue' and 'vice' are relative, and you set yourself and others up to not have any opinion about anything. If you do, then you'll be inconsistent in your arguments, because you'll be arguing from a transcendent moral law that not everyone agrees with (because you've written it yourself), and you'll realize that every argument is pointless because no one believes exactly like you do. You'll say, "Why can't the world just all believe THIS?" or "Why don't they just see it THIS way?" which is exactly what both the Bible and Christians are saying, to which the common response is "That's oppressive." With all due respect, isn't ANY argument oppressive? Because it assumes a transcendence of virtue over the opposite side of the argument. In other words, isn't everyone close-minded about their beliefs?
Notice in the James 1:6-7 passage, after speaking of the man of doubts being like a wave of the sea tossed and thrown, he says, "For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." Notice James doesn't say, "That man will be sadly disappointed to find out God is really there..." Why is this significant? Because if the man COULD firstly have assumed he'll receive anything from the Lord, then he's already assuming that the Lord is THERE in the first place. He clearly believes in God already--he just is struggling with doubts. Doesn't it seem like nonsense to know God is there, and STILL doubt him? Of course it does.
And yet we who would say that that's nonsense are the same people who watch the news for five minutes and walk away saying, "I'm tired of seeing people break the law", as we get into our cars and drive 10 over the speed limit, breaking the law. You could push back, "That's not near as bad as murder." I'd respond by asking, "Who SAYS it's not as bad?" Well, it's just commonly accepted, you may responded. In one sense, I'd grant that, because clearly the penalty is different. In another sense I'd disagree, because they BOTH have a penalty because they're BOTH breaking the law. Furthermore, speeding puts yourself in a position where you could potentially hurt someone else--or worse--kill someone else. Then you're guilty of both. You might push back, "But I'm in control," which is what I'm sure intoxicated drivers think when they get into their car to drive home, and they hit some kid on a bike. Maybe you're NOT in control, and you just think you are. Maybe you're LYING to yourself.
Maybe we lie to ourselves all the time and just won't admit that we do.
Maybe we lie to ourselves when we project our culturally conditioned and personally biased sense of right and wrong on God. Maybe our doubts of his existence really don't stem from what we call 'facts', but rather from Him not fitting our personal criteria. We say that the FACT is that science has disproved God. No it hasn't. Science can't prove anything--science is just theories; even scientists say that. We say the FACT is that history has disproved God. Really? The history which bears God's name on it--BC (before Christ) and AD (anno domini--Latin for 'in the year of our Lord' which refers to Christ)? If anything, the Bible seems to have God making all sorts of promises that have either come to pass, or haven't passed YET.
Psalm 53:1 plainly says, "The fool says in his heart 'there is no God'." I've struggled with that verse for a long time and would say, "I thought God was a God of LOVE--if so, why would he coldly bash my heart which desperately WANTS to believe, but seems like it just CAN'T?"
The two clearest responses I received from God were these:
a) He is a God of love, but "love" doesn't just tell the beloved what they need to hear all the time. Love hurts sometimes, because love is honest. Often what we mean by 'love' is 'nice'. God is 'nice'. Whoa is me if I stand up in my inner-city neighborhood where there's crime, violence, drugs, and murder, and preach, "God is nice." Truly I've had more success in my short time here so far saying, "God says you suck, and He says it because He loves you." Nice doesn't cure sin. The naked and humiliated and offensive Savior of the world hanging on the cross cures sin. You can't preach the cross 'nicely'.
b) Secondly, if I'm reading the Bible and it says I'm a fool for saying there's no God, it must be true, because the Bible calls itself God's own Word on numerous occasions, and if I REALLY didn't believe in God, I wouldn't be sitting at a desk reading this book that claims to be God's Word--I'd be out doing what the rest of my neighborhood is doing.
But I realized that since I at least WANT God to be real, maybe that says something about God Himself. Maybe He's drawing me to Himself, and my doubts are really just misguided God-given longings for peace and justice. This would seem to make sense in light of Scripture--it talks all the time of God drawing people to Himself (Ephesians 2:13, 1 Peter 3:18) and it talks all the time of a) God's concern for peace and justice (Isaiah 1:21-23, Matthew 25:31-46), b) my having His characteristics built into me(Genesis 1:27, Romans 2:14-16), and c) those characteristics being tarnished by my sin of not trusting what God says (Romans 1:18-23, Revelation 3:15-20).
Then we read of Adam and Eve eating the fruit God said not to eat, but they do it anyways because the serpent appealed to their desire to 'be LIKE God', by telling them they WOULD be. Finally, the mirror was turned back on myself, and I realized that every waking second of every day I'm standing at trees, picking fruit that God says I shouldn't eat from.
We wonder why God's presence is so far from us? It's because we don't want His presence close to us, because if it was, we'd either run away and hide like Adam and Eve (because of embarrassment at our sin), fall face down like Isaiah at God's throne (because of the conviction of our sin), or die (because of our sinfulness's inability to handle the sight of God's holiness).
Let me tell you why I'm a Christian: It's because in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon, the richest, wisest, and womanizerest man of all time (made that last word up--he enjoyed the presence of the ladies), pours his heart and his mind out in this book at the end of his rich, wise, womanizering life, and his conclusion is, "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind."(Ecc. 1:14)
Can I be personal?--I needed to hear that. "WHEW, finally, not only am I not the only one who sees the pointlessness and meaninglessness of the things in this world, but God's Word ITSELF is actually calling it that way as well!" And when you come to this realization, the only possible response is, "There HAS to be a God who will make all things new one day,". Then you realize the Bible speaks over and over and over again about how God will. Then you fear Him, because if He's God, you can't just like Him or love Him. You have to fear Him, because He's God and He owes you nothing and could take everything in a second (see Job). And, keeping with the famous Proverbs 1:7, which says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom," when you begin to fear Him, you begin to love Him; and when you love Him, you begin to truly love others, because you see them for who they really are: creatures of the Living God. You also see yourself for who you really are: a creature of the Living God. And when this becomes your reality, things start to make sense, and the beginnings of (what at least appears to be) wisdom start to take root.
At this point you realize that the God who doesn't owe you ANYTHING, gave you EVERYTHING at the Cross. In spite of the fact that you couldn't offer Him ANYTHING, He gave EVERYTHING to draw you back to Himself. Why? Because it glorifies Him if His creatures worship Him. As John Piper has said, "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." The only way for us to worship Him and be satisfied in Him is if He changes our hearts to want to worship Him, so that we realize we CAN be satisfied in Him. And the only way this is possible is if the pure and spotless Lamb, Jesus Christ, who perfectly worships the Father with His whole heart and is eternally satisfied in Him, is laid down as a final sacrifice for sins for all time, so that the stupid idolatrous people He created would finally have hearts that only desire God.
Of course we'll always have doubts because God is invisible. But He's only invisible if we refuse to see how He's been revealed in Christ Jesus. Hebrews 1:3 calls Jesus, "The radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature." You want to see God? Look to Jesus. But don't say that He's so concealed that it's impossible. I'm glad God didn't look at our radical and total depravity and say, "There's no good in them...I have better things to do." Instead He said, "There's no good in them...but I want them, and I'll go to the end of myself to get them." Furthermore, if you look for God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ, you'll see that all of the things you truly care about and desire in this life are things that He cares about too.
Solomon ends Ecclesiastes with these words: "The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." (12:13-14).
Will it ever be enough for us to just trust that this is true? Or will we go on living as though we're God because we don't think we can see enough of God Himself because we think He's hiding? When will it be enough to believe it when He says, "This command is all you need to know. JUST. TRUST. ME."
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