Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare... For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:7,11-13
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Accepting Imitations
A blog post by Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida and grandson of Billy Graham. It captures the essence of what we have been striving after in our study of Galatians. Freedom from imitations, free to know Christ more fully... Enjoy!
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In his book How People Change (co-authored with Tim Lane), Paul Tripp identifies seven counterfeit gospels– ways we try and “justify” or “save” ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. I found these unbelievably helpful. Which one (or two, or three) of these do you tend to gravitate towards?
Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”
Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”
Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”
Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”
Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”
Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”
Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”
As I said a few months ago in one of my sermons, there are outside-the-church idols and there are inside-the-church idols. It’s the idols inside the church that ought to concern Christians most. It’s easier for Christians to identify worldly idols such as money, power, selfish ambition, sex, and so on. It’s the idols inside the church that we have a harder time identifying.
For instance, we know it’s wrong to bow to the god of power—but it’s also wrong to bow to the god of preferences. We know it’s wrong to worship immorality—but it’s also wrong to worship morality. We know it’s wrong to seek freedom by breaking the rules—but it’s also wrong to seek freedom by keeping them. We know God hates unrighteousness—but he also hates self-righteousness. We know crime is a sin—but so is control. If people outside the church try to save themselves by being bad; people inside the church try to save themselves by being good.
The good news of the gospel is that both inside and outside the church, there is only One Savior and Lord, namely Jesus. And he came, not to angrily strip away our freedom, but to affectionately strip away our slavery to lesser things so that we might become truly free!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Misplaced Hope
This is an excerpt from John Eldredge's book, "Desire." He talks about the danger of placing our hope in the little kingdoms of success and pleasure, and not in the unfading and unfailing hope of heaven. This hope is tested most when our personal kingdoms begin to crumble around us.
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"Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:13). I read a passage like this, and I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
Fully?
We don't even set our hope partially on the life to come. Not really, not in the desires of our hearts. Heaven may be coming. Great. But it's a long way off and who really knows, so I'm getting what I can now. Our search is limited only by our finances, our options, and our morals. Those with fewer misgivings and greater financial discretion go farther with it.
For most Christians, heaven is a backup plan.
Our primary work is finding a life we can at least get a little pleasure from here. Heaven is an investment we've made, like Treasury bonds or a retirement account, which we're hoping will take care of us in the future sometime, but which we don't give much thought to at the present. It's tucked away in a drawer in the back of our minds, while we throw our immediate energies into playing the stock market.
Then God comes in like a corporate raider, ruining our plans as we watch our "stocks" go into a tailspin.
God must take away the heaven we create, or it will become our hell. You may not think your efforts to arrange for a little of what you desire are anything like heaven on earth. I certainly didn't; not, at least, in the more conscious regions of my heart. But some deep and tender part of us gets trapped there in those times and places where have had a taste of the life we long for...
Remember, we will make an idol of anything, especially a good thing. So distant now from Eden, we are desperate for life, and we come to believe that we must arrange for it as best as we can, or no one will.
Ultimately, God must thwart us to save us.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Cast Your Cares on Christ
For those who are plagued by anxiety, I recommend this radio broadcast.
Click Here: Cast Your Cares on Christ
The teacher is Alistair Begg, a native Scottish pastor who has been serving in the greater Cleveland area for over twenty years.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence.
We come to God because none of us have it within ourselves, except momentarily, to be joyous. Joy is a product of abundance; it is the overflow of vitality. It is life working together harmoniously. It is exuberance. Inadequate sinners as we are, none of us can manage that for very long.
We try to get it through entertainment. We pay someone to make jokes, tell stories, perform dramatic actions, sing songs. The enormous entertainment industry in America is a sign of the depletion of joy in our culture. Society is a bored, gluttonous king employing a court jester to divert it after an overindulgent meal. But that kind of joy never penetrates our lives, never changes our basic constitution. The effects are extremely temporary - a few minutes, a few hours, a few days at most. When we run out of money, the joy trickles away. We cannot make ourselves joyful. Joy cannot be commanded, purchased or arranged.
But there is something we can do.
We can decide to live in response to the abundance of God and not under the dictatorship of our own poor needs.
We can decide to live in the environment of a living God and not our own dying selves. We can decide to center ourselves in the God who generously gives and not in our own egos which greedily grab.
-Eugene Peterson
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