"A Soldier's Letter" -Ravi Zacharias

"Truth" -Ravi Zacharias

Steve Jobs Idolatry

Perhaps this will sound cold, and maybe this is a bit too soon, but I'm not always known for my tact. But, the Steve Jobs idolatry I've witnessed -even among my fellow workers in faith- has grown old. Jobs was an incredible businessman who helped revolutionize how we communicate. He garnered himself great fame. Yet tremendous fame, wealth, and influence were not enough to stave off death. He was not a god.


We all will one day face death and answer to our Creator. Shall we stand before him assured in the works of our own hands, or in the Work of His own Son who is forever mighty to save?

Our condolences to his loved ones, but let us also consider our own mortality.

Coffee Break

I like my coffee strong and black. Sometimes I like it with a little Irish Cream just to mix things up. But do you know what I wish my coffee lacked? That mandatory ruler that seems to come with every cup to measure my manhood.

I grew up where the way you drink your coffee defines how much of a 'man' you are. Growing up in the Calvary Chapel scene (thank you Lord for delivering me from evil) drinking coffee was a manly art. It was a marker of just how much of a man you were. The blacker and the stronger you were able to drink your coffee, the more of a man (a good man) you were. Which, in hindsight, makes perfect sense since the Calvary Chapel I attended in Hanford, California, didn't really have any other way to truly mark out a man. (Yes we had 'be a man' Men's Conferences, but faith and practice were truly two different things).

I have also worked in environments where drinking coffee strong -and bad- enough to put hair on your chest, or kill you, is considered a sign of a man who can be trusted and counted on. I cannot begin to tell you the number of stories I have heard from grizzled old angry men who recount drinking coffee so strong and so bad that it would have eaten a hole in the side of a U.S. Navy war vessel. It is as if somehow this strange ability to drink crap has made them good men.

I can drink strong black coffee with the rest of the pack. I grew up with bad coffee, and it has grown on me. Yet I am not quite certain if I am ready to allow that to be any kind of indicator of how much of a man, a good man, I am.

I have made some serious mistakes in my life. Big ones. Awful ones. I have hurt people whom I loved dearly; both intentionally and (more often than not) unintentionally. I have shipwrecked myself and my relationships with others on more occasions than I'd like to confess in this place. I have made people angry, I have made people cry, and I have made people hurt. I, despite my ability to drink swill, am not a good man.

However, I have owned up to the things I have done in my life. I have offered apologies, attempted to make amends, asked for forgiveness, and have worked -despite the initial reactions of some whom I have hurt- to restore what I have broken. I know what it is to have a repentant and contrite heart, and I would argue that it is these very things that, if anything could, would define me as a good man.

Still, I am not a good man. Not as far as we could define good. I am, however, a redeemed and forgiven man. And I am so not because of anything I have done, but rather because of what Christ has done. In laying down His life for my sin, and rising for my Salvation, He atoned for my sin and redeemed me for Himself.

The good I have done in my life has been because of what Christ has done, and is doing, for me. It has nothing to do with the coffee I drink. Coffee that is strong enough to strip paint from walls will never be strong enough to strip my sin from me.

If you want to define me as a good man, do so because I have owned up to what I have needed to own up to. Do so because I have done something about those things I have owned. But do so knowing that I do these things because of what Christ has done for me ( i.e., regeneration, faith, redemption, sanctification, and one day glorification), not because of what is in my coffee cup.

Now, excuse me as I add a little Irish Cream to my mug.

Quiet Places

I am not as okay as I pretend to be, nor am I over it. And I...I can't seem to fathom how each time I reach down to put the pieces back together, you somehow convince me, through religion and hindsight, that there is nothing to see in that mirror.

What are you hiding? What am I hiding from myself? What do you I we not want me to see?

I have lost count of how many times I've sworn that I will never look back, or that I am okay, or that all is finally, this time, truly, really forgiven. (I am not, and it is not.) I don't even know who I am trying to convince when I say, "this time I've really let it all go." I will never really let it go until I truly resolve these things in myself. I will never really let it go until I fit the pieces together and look into that mirror.

No guilt. Not this time. I don't care anymore if this hurts you. This isn't about you. And, truly, I don't care if your names slip from time to time. This isn't about blame. This...this is about confronting the things that keep me up at night. And it will hurt, but unless I set my hands to this and put this to rest, it will always haunt me.

Sparing your feelings is just not that important to me.

Why the Bible?

Because It Is Bigger Than It Seems

Jesus tells us he is present in the weak, the vulnerable, the useless. He is there in the least of these (Matt. 25:31-46). Somewhere out there right now, a man is wiping the drool from an 85 year-old woman who flinches because she think he’s a stranger. No television cameras are around. No politicians are seeking a meeting with them.

But the gospel is there. Jesus is there.
-Dr. R. Moore, Moore to the Point, Christ, the Church, and Pat Robertson

Because it is bigger than it seems, you should consider reading the above linked article.

I saw that Pat Robertson was trending on Twitter today. Generally I leave the trending topics be because I end up getting frustrated with the power of stupidity to organize on a grand scale. However, this time my curiosity got the better of me and I clicked the link.

The first thing I saw was a tweet by Dr. Russell Moore.

Pat Robertson's latest craziness isn't just an embarrassment. It's a cruel repudiation of Christianity itself. -@drmoore

I can't say that I idolize Dr. Moore, but when he speaks I tend to take notice because he has shown himself to be a man given to Christ with a desire for others to see Christ. That statement carries more weight than it may imply, but essentially it means, for me, he has shown himself to be a Brother in Christ with a gift to teach. He has been gifted with a fair amount of wisdom, and I don't quickly brush him off.

After seeing Dr. Moore's tweet, I went ahead and followed down a massive row of comments until I found a link that took me to the offense in question. What I had found was more than a little troubling: Pat giving a green light for divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease.

Immediately I had the same gagging reaction to this horrible statement as when I listened to Calvary Chapel's founder Chuck Smith all but encourage a woman to have an abortion some time back. (Google it and make up your own mind about that situation.)

Still, I was fine with the disgust, and not the least surprized by Pat Robertson's crazy, and I was simply ready to close out and go on with my day. Then I saw a link to Dr. Moore's insightful article that drives an incredibly important point home; a point that I believe is applicable in more just this one situation.

I strongly encourage you to to read the article. It (this situation) is bigger than it seems.

Observations

"The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word." -A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I see this becoming a reality every day. My own spending so much time and effort on being right; arguing over (virtually) every minor technical detail. I have seen, and likewise have been guilty of, so much wasted energy correcting everything that we see wrong. Throwing out our sarcastic comments and bullying those with whom we disagree. Many of us -too many of us- are unable to see the forest for the trees.

Certainly truth must be had and defended, but sometimes I wonder if we are coming to a place where we are merely straining gnats and swallowing whole camels. I am greatly troubled by what I have seen over the past few years. I am discouraged by all the noise of we proud men boasting in our rightness; as if we desire more to scream, "in your face," than to know God fully.

It is laughable when we speak so haughtily of how God has rescued we low and humble men, and yet we act neither lowly nor humbly. We are proud and self-assured, and this "self-assuredness" should cause us all a great amount of concern. Certainly, in one form or another, it has caused us a great amount of grief.

Though we strive for what is right, there is a right and wrong way of going about that goal. The ends never justify the means.

"...though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you..." Philemon 1:8-9

"...And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh..." Jude v.22-23

Being a jerk for Jesus is a lot of fun -believe me I know-, but there is a time and a place for it. We have to learn when to turn it off. We have to learn when we need to climb down from our pedestal of theological understanding, and graft our rugged and sharp passion for truth with compassion and mercy and grace. This is not to say that we water down what is true, but that as we strive for truth, we strive for it in a correct and godly manner; seeking always first to see Christ.

We are not all commanders firing cannons at every waterless rain cloud blowing our way high atop the grand ivory tower, many of us are mere grunts on the ground facing hand-to-hand spiritual combat. Ours is not a human war meant for destruction and proud boasting, but one of humble confession and witness to a message of Reconciliation in and through our Savior, Christ Jesus.

We have nothing in which to be self-assured. Our assuredness should be in Christ alone. And it is in His image in which we should be conformed as we come to know Him through His Word, through prayer, through study, and through our fellowship with one another.

Unfortunately, I see too many of us growing proud and boastful in the knowledge we have of Scripture, while growing less interested in knowing God. And truly I see men who "...are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word."

I feel greatly troubled.

S T A G G E R E D

I cannot express how staggered I am by the mercy and love of God. His faithfulness and longsuffering towards me even when I am not brings me breathlessly to my knees.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
-Psalm 51

Luke 22:42

"Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." -The Lord Jesus Christ, Luke 22:42

What did it cost? Jesus Christ, obedient even unto death, in His love for us, did what we could not do. Having perfectly fulfilled the Law, He laid down His life for our sin, that we may be imputed His righteousness as He bore our sin and suffered our wrath. Having done this, for we who are in Christ Jesus it may be said:

"There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." -Romans 8:1

And I...in all my transgression, having been so fully F O R G I V E N because Christ suffered and died in my place...I am S T A G G E R E D and brought to my knees! Unable to fathom the love of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God, that at the cross would fall upon me.

I am staggered.

Save me, O God. I am yours. Save this family, for we are Yours. O God, there is none greater and able than You.

Sermon Jam: "He Drank It" by C.J. Mahaney

Psalm 51

Psalm 51

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise...

-Psalm 51, ESV

Limited Atonement

It is the sticking point when discussing Calvinism. It is the point folks get so hung up on, and so distressed over, but the Atonement is truly limited. I think the argument is not so much over it being limited, but rather over who limits it; us or God. For if the Atonement were unlimited, then it would have to be universalism. And if that is the case...well then we all owe Rob Bell a big fat apology.

"Atonement" has been the center of my study and a few discussions this week. We know that Christ died for the sins of the World, Christ died as a ransom for many, that ALL are commanded to come to repentance and faith, and that NO ONE may come to repentance and faith unless the Father who sent the Son through the work of the Holy Spirit draws us to Himself (regeneration/transformati​on/etc.).

Yet when we talk of Atonement (the act of making right or peace with God, or biblically rendered Christ's act which made right and peace with God the Church), the struggle becomes for whom and how.

Some argue passionately that the Atonement is for ALL mankind. If this were true, then universalism is true and all roads do in fact lead to God. Yet we know by the Word of God that universalism is not true. So while Jesus died for the sins of the world, He did not do so as to save ALL people.

Some argue passionately that the Atonement is for ALL who accept the gift. It is limited by us. It makes Christ a potential Savior, and the Atonement is applicable to only those who choose to believe. This would seem to indicated, then, that Christ died for all sin EXCEPT unbelief. And apparently that sin is made right by us through our act of belief. If this were true then not all of the righteousness which we bring before God is as filthy rags; there is something we could bring that is acceptable. The Bible contradicts this therefore it cannot be true.

Some, and I am of this party, say instead that the Atonement is for ALL for whom God intended it. Truly Christ is a complete and sufficient Savior completing the work of Salvation at the Cross. Christ died for the sins of the world, but also true, He died as a ransom for many. We cannot have faith unless it is given to us by God as a gift (Eph. 2), and we are unable to even approach Christ unless we are drawn by God (John 6). And we know this to be very true because Scripture is clear not only in this, but also in proclaiming that our wills are enslaved; enslaved either to sin and death or to God.

So before God shatters our chains and calls us by name out of death, our wills are tuned, ensared, and enslaved to our hearts which are incredibly deceitful and desperately sick. In this state we, like all unbelieving, not only do we love our sin, but also HATE God. We are uninterested in repenting and submitting to Christ.

And if, as Scripture proclaims, we have turned away and none seek God, then God seeks us. He calls those whom He has foreknown from the foundation of the world having predestined us to be conformed into the image of His Son.

So then if the Atonement is limited, and it is, then it is either we or God who limits the Atonement. Scripture not only indicates, but proclaims that Salvation is based upon God's will and not our own. Therefore it must be God who limits the Atonement, and truly He has completely and sufficiently completed what He has intended from the foundation of the world.

Marching On

War. It plays its ugly little death march in my head while I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and pray that the Lord might spare me this one day; that He’d give these voices laryngitis, so I might know quiet. But in place of quiet He grants me the strength to walk through the violence and stand firm against the cold onslaught I am known to unleash upon myself.

On Limited Atonement

Look, the atonement is limited. It is limited in its efficacy. It is limited in its efficiency. It is limited in its application. It is limited obviously. The only question is, who limits it? And the only right answer is that God limits it and that He limited it in this sense, that it was an actual payment in full of all the sins of all the people who would ever believe. And the people who would ever believe would believe because of His mighty work on their hearts based upon His sovereign eternal purpose.
-John MacArthur

Discernment

"With the wolves you cannot be too severe. With the weak sheep you cannot be too gentle.”
- Martin Luther.

"I See a Darkness" - Johnny Cash

Zombies or Brilliant Picture of the Gospel?

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
~Matthew 27:51-53

I have been known to tease about there being zombies in the Bible. The above text is my proof text when playfully defending my position on zombies and the role they played in spreading the Gospel (I call them my "Zombies for Jesus"). However, when looking at this passage with a bit more serious thought and contemplation I believe that we see an amazing picture of the Gospel.

Many times we read in Scripture that before the grace and mercy of God was poured out upon us, we were dead in sin. And like the bodies in those tombs, we were utterly helpless and unable to do anything until the power of God fell upon us.

If you were to walk into a graveyard and command the dead which lie in their graves to rise up and flee their confines, nothing would happen. They are unable and incapable to do whatever it is you command them to do. Likewise the Bible reminds us that we were once like those bodies; dead. Unable, we could not repent. We could not turn away from our sin. We could not do that which all have been commanded to do by God.

Prior to the work of God in us, we were nothing more than slaves to sin and death; following in passionate pursuit the desires of a corrupt and deceitful heart. But God, being rich in mercy, has made us alive through Christ.

Those believing, He has called specifically and intentionally out of death and into life. By the power of God upon us, we have errupted out of our tombs. We have been brought from death to life. Transformed from slaves of sin and death to fellow heirs with Christ; living and alive in Christ. And like those saints who came up out of their tombs to appear to many, we now stand before all men as witnesses to the Gospel which raised us from the dead, echoing with God that all men must repent, believe, and be saved.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
-Ephesians 2:1-10

How Amazing this Grace...

For there the question is not how we may become righteous but how, being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous.
~John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

A Proper Introduction: Confession

I try to convince myself that I have it together; that I got this life figured out. I'm afraid that if I can't fool myself, then no one else will believe me either. I forget that they don't believe me. They see clearly the broken man that I am.

I have enough scar tissue to trace out a road map leading from the hell I came from to the amazing grace that saved this wretched man that I am. And though rescued, there are still nights when the old wounds ache and I must put my feet to the floor and run to the Father's arms. It is in those painful hours that I am most grateful for God's continued forgiveness, and the heart He has given me to continue in repentance.

In the most honest assessment of myself, I am a goofy twenty-eight year old husband and father. I am not the perfect anything; I don't come close to perfection in any aspect of my life. What I have here is a serious work in progress with many parts left unfinished. I often want to be what I am not, and grasp what I can't have.

When I open the Scriptures, I don't see you. I see myself, and myself falling so far short that how dare I puff up with any sort of pride. I've come a long way, but I have so much further to go in rightly reflecting Christ. The progress I have made, that's not my work nor my doing, but the work of the Spirit in me. Where I screw up and fail...yeah that's all me. And I am good at screwing up.

You can find me most days meditating on the Scriptures and clinging to the Gospel. It is not because I think that I am somehow holier than you. On the contrary, I know the wreckage I am apart from Christ. I know the Old Man is always lurking near; and I hate that man.

If you offer me moralistic deism or religion, I will turn away your idols. I've already been down that road, and it almost killed me. I have many rough edges still to be smoothed over by the hand of my Savior. He's working on me. Maybe not in the way you'd like, but His work is far better than yours.