sober-minded

No, not money. Here are a few offerings from Wendy Alsup, who serves as a deaconness (!) at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington.

“The Ideal Christian Woman”

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Haven’t read it yet, but I just read the review here. You go read it, too!

Twenty-seven years ago this very day I gave birth to my first child, a boy; we named him Joseph Emmanuel. “He shall add” and “God with us.” I liked having that baby. I liked bringing him home from the hospital (holding him in my arms in the front seat!! No car seat!! Times were different!) and I liked all the feelings of falling in love that progressed as they always do. The day we brought him home was warm and sunny; spring came early, and it stayed.

Then, some three-and-a-half years ago, on a warm October day, we had to bury that son; we laid him in the cold ground, we said goodbye to him. The springtime of his coming had turned stormy and troubled over the years, and we lost him to those storms. Who would have ever known or thought such a thing there in the beginning, on February 28th? I didn’t, and I kept not knowing and not thinking such a thing through most of the years, even when the storms started, because I didn’t know how to understand the times and the seasons. I was supposed to have learned, being a Christian; but I didn’t.

Too many Christian parents have lost their children like this. Bewildered and shocked, we look back with regret on squandered time… too late we realize that days and weeks that stretched into months and years could have been filled up so differently, so differently. The opportunities we had are gone; there is no getting them back. We cast about for relief, finding it hard to believe it has ended like this, but no relief is to be found. “…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” How true the words are! Why didn’t we tremble at them more?

Yet if there is no way back, there is a way forward. If there is no relief, there is new hope. “Today if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” You see, in the extravagant mercy of God in Christ Jesus, He has fixed another “today.” There remains a day to learn discernment and wisdom, to speak of these things to those who remain. Is there a generation of children and young people and families that need to hear the warnings and encouragement and exhortations to tremble and fill up their days and weeks and months differently than they’ve been doing? Then armed with the likes of Psalm 78 and Deuteronomy 6, let us go forward and tell them!

Since the day I learned that todays don’t last forever, four February 28ths have come around. The truth about ourselves–that true truth that comes when God opens our eyes to it by His word and His Spirit–could kill if it weren’t for His grace, upholding us, granting comfort and words of peace and hope. Ultimately, the truth comes to make us free. And in making us free, we are able to choose differently. We have this window of opportunity the Bible calls “Today” to make choices about. It’s another day of salvation. When this Today draws to its close, when the sun sets finally and all the fullness of everything has been gathered in, there will come the Day of days and the end of endings. But it’s not here yet; there is still time. The patience of God waits… while it is still called today.

Read what John and Noel Piper have to say on the benefits of keeping the children with us in “big church” here.

“Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

I wish we talked more in the church about the Lord’s return. We believe He is coming back and know that it’s a very good thing, a thing to be looked forward to; but for some reason, we don’t have it uppermost in our minds as we talk and think about living the Christian life on this earth. I think there are various reasons for this, ones that can be pretty easily searched out historically. But I think we are missing out by not dwelling on and meditating more on the Day that is coming.

The things the Bible emphasizes are the things we also should take care to emphasize, whether or not it initially seems relevant or appealing to us. We’re safe that way…we’re more assured of getting it right that way. The New Testament emphasizes loving God and one another, so we do, too. It emphasizes giving and working, and so we emphasize that, too. The Bible also emphasizes the glory and the imminence of His return.

The big deal a few years ago was the Left Behind books. Those books certainly had a lot of people focused on a certain view of end times events, but did they do much to promote a genuine love for and longing for Christ’s return? I haven’t seen that they did. The Bible doesn’t tell us to focus on the intrigue of exactly what it will be like in the Day of the Lord, but rather on Him…His purposes, His glory, the awe of His coming and of His kingdom.

He is coming to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at by those who have been looking for Him (from 2 Thessalonians 1:5-12). He is coming to rescue His people, and bring judgment and vengeance to their tormentors. I wonder if the suffering saints of China, Pakistan, and the Sudan long for His appearing more than we do?

But, we say, it would be easier to love His appearing if we were suffering like that. Look at us; we have it so easy, so nice and comfortable here. How can we long for Him to come and change everything up, to disrupt our lives like that? After all, we just had a new grandchild; how could we long for Him to come and put an end to this newfound happiness?

But God knows just how to intervene in our lives so as to turn our affections toward Him, and so sometimes He must. Because another thing the Bible emphasizes is the necessity of suffering in the lives of God’s people; and there are plenty of dear saints here in America, the land of the comfortable, who have learned by suffering to long for His coming. It’s not wrong to desire the freedom and rest and joy His coming will bring; it’s perfectly legitimate to long to see wrongs made right. That’s the promise held out in Romans 8 and 2 Thessalonians, and God expects us to be glad that He’s going to do that and to look forward to it.

The Bible commands all men and women and boys and girls to love His appearing, even those who haven’t (yet) experienced the kind of grief and heartache that He uses to turn our affections to eternity. It comes down to this: if we don’t love His appearing, if it’s not our earnest prayer that His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, then the plain fact is that our desires aren’t lined up with his desires in this respect, and we need to change. He wants to, He has purposed to, He has decreed it and so He will come again with all the glory and power and judgment the Bible describes. It’s a big deal to Him, this Day of His coming, and it should be to us as well.

The secret of learning to love His appearing, 1 John tells us, is abiding in Him, with all that
abiding entails and implies and produces in us. Abiding in Him will eventually break our hearts with the longing to see His glory revealed, to see His creation set at glorious liberty, to be of the same mind and heart as He is in this matter. Abiding in Him will make us people who are not in danger of shrinking away from Him in shame at His coming (1 John 2:28). That’s a danger that should make us shudder and appear often before His throne of grace for help…help to change what needs changing so that we can be people who live in light of eternity.

I’m looking forward to the day when God’s people in the church in America are looking forward more to His coming. But don’t wait for sorrow or disappointment with this world to be the thing that drives you to watch expectantly for Him. Let it be, instead, that rich abiding in Him, where you learn the secrets of His heart. Trust His word; let that be the way that you come to love His appearing. There will be many benefits, both in this life and in the life to come.

It’s been a bit quiet here at the blog! God has been working on me to improve my giddy mind, and at such times it’s a good thing to be quiet and wait on Him awhile. “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!!”

But I am inspired to tentatively open up my laptop and peck a little at the keyboard today by something intriguing I just read on a grammar website. Yes, those grammar websites are often chock-full of meaningful spiritual insights! And this one was no exception. The article had to do with the tendency of writers to use the passive voice in their writing, rather than the active voice.

Here’s the explanation, straight from “The Grammar Girl: quick and dirty tips for better writing:”

“In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action. A very straightforward example is the sentence “Steve loves Amy.” Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the object. Another example is the title of the Marvin Gaye song ‘I Heard It through the Grapevine.’ ‘I’ is the subject, the one who is doing the action. I is hearing ‘it’, the object of the sentence.

“But in passive voice the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. Instead of saying, “Steve loves Amy,” I would say, “Amy is loved by Steve.” The subject of the sentence becomes Amy, but she isn’t doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve’s love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy. If you wanted to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive, you would say ‘It Was Heard by Me through the Grapevine’, not such a catchy title anymore.”

We, like Amy, are the recipients of a great love! But so often the recipient (us) gets promoted to the subject position, and the focus of the sentence changes from God to us. I don’t mean that we are using a certain rule of grammar. I mean that we are thinking wrong, and out of that thinking comes too many songs and sermons and conversations that, while rightly showing ourselves to be the recipients of God’s grace and gifts, focuses the attention on us rather than the Giver.

If life was a grammatical sentence, and the sentence had to do with the fact that God loves us, we’d do well to make sure that God stays the subject and focus of the sentence, and not us. In other words, the main thing is not that we are loved…but that He loves us.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10.)

Ted Tripp wrote a book called “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” that changed my family’s life a few years ago. I’m not alone in the belief that every Christian parent or grandparent, no matter the ages of their children, should read and take to heart what this book teaches. Now Ted Tripp has written a follow-up book, “Instructing a Child’s Heart.” Check out a promotional video here:

YouTube - Instructing a Childs Heart

(HT Tim Challies)

We use some interesting terminology in the church. Here are a couple of phrases you might hear a lot:

“Jesus was my savior, but then I made Him my Lord.”

But see the Scriptures:

Acts 2:36-”Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ , this Jesus whom you crucified.” (italics mine.)

Phillipians 2:9-11-”Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

For a helpful perspective on the “I made Him my Lord” terminology, go see John Piper

And here’s one more that’s worth thinking about:

“At the age of 14, I accepted Christ.”

Okay I know this is not a deal-breaker, but after all, the Bible doesn’t use that phrase in regards to our response to His salvation. It does use the word receive:

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12)

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Colossians 2:6.)

I think the main problem with the use of “accept” is the connotations it has for today’s culture. For an interesting perspective on that, see A.W. Tozer.

“I don’t really know what suffering is; I’ve never really suffered.” “We Christians in America don’t know the meaning of suffering.” “I don’t suffer…not like Christians in other countries.”

Ever heard those words or spoken them yourself? I’ve said them many times before. But that way of thinking, I’ve come to realize, stems from a lack of biblical understanding about the role of suffering in our lives. The view that we as blessed, sheltered, American Christians do not suffer doesn’t match up with Scripture. As Christians we are called to suffer; it is one of the marks of discipleship.

We see from Scripture:

“And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Hebrews 8:17)

“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:4; and read the whole chapter)

“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (2 Peter 4:1)

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5)

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21)

Suffering is a big part of what we signed on for when we received Christ; we are called to battle, and soldiers suffer. Hebrews 12:4 says that we war against a vicious enemy within: sin. Read Romans 6, 7 and 8 if you need more convincing that we are in for a life-long battle! John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” Our own sin, the persistence of it and our own coddling of it, should cause us real grief and mourning. We suffer and groan many times under the weight of it, and long for final freedom from it, if we long to be like Christ.

Another way we are called to suffer is that, as members of Christ’s body, we don’t experience anything in isolation:

“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26)

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15)

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)

We see that it’s not only our own pain, loss and sinfulness that bring suffering, but each other’s. Or it should; we are called to share in the infirmities and sufferings of our brothers and sisters, whether it be the grieving and afflicted we go to church with, or those who languish in Chinese prisons, or those who endure beatings, torture and rape in Muslim countries. If we really believe that we are many members, yet one body, then again, we can’t say that we don’t suffer.

And if you’d like one more biblical truth that can cure you of your lack of suffering (and you know you do!) there is this:

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32)

The desire to put into practice (towards your husband or wife!) that one little command will teach you how to mourn over your own hard-heartedness and despair of your own goodness for pretty much the rest of your life. You won’t even try unless it springs from your love and thankfulness to the Lord who forgave you in Christ. And that’s the secret of the suffering the Lord has called us to.

Sometimes I think men can understandably be reluctant to seen as overly nice. Niceness is just not thought of as a particularly masculine trait. The fear of being perceived as a sissy has likely spurred many men to say or do certain things just to avoid that label! And besides, everybody knows that nice guys finish last…

But here’s a thought to ponder: do you recognize that while “niceness” is not a fruit of the Spirit, goodness and gentleness are? Those are not feminine qualities, sirs; those are the qualities of our Lord Himself, the manliest Man who ever walked the earth. The daily mortification of the sins of pride, and sarcasm, and biting wit and caustic replies, is as difficult a job as you’ll ever undertake.

So it’s not a question of being a nice guy; it’s more the challenge of being that battle-scarred disciple who goes, once again, into the war room (a.k.a., the prayer closet) to wrestle in prayer; who seeks to kill, as on other days, relentless urgings towards pride and ego and anger; who submits himself to God and looks to overcome besetting sin only through the power of the Spirit; who does it all in the fear of the Lord: and who emerges a fruit-bearing branch of the Vine, laden just a bit more with the aromatic, life-giving fruit of the Spirit, a blessing to all who come seeking, and a future heir of the crown of life from the Lord who sees.

Nice guys may well finish last. But guys bearing the fruits of gentleness, self-control, goodness, faith, joy, love, peace, patience, and kindness always finish well.