Notes of Faith September 15, 2020

The journey of genuine transformation to emotionally healthy spirituality begins with a commitment to allow yourself to feel. It is an essential part of our humanity and unique personhood as men and women made in God’s image.

Scripture reveals God as an emotional being who feels — a Person. Having been created in his image, we too have the gift of experiencing emotions. Consider the following:

·         “God saw that it was good… very good” (Genesis 1:25, Genesis 1:31). In other words, God delighted, relished, beamed with delight over us.

·         “The Lord regretted that He had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled” (Genesis 6:6).

·         “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5).

·         “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:14).

·         “The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until He fully accomplishes the purposes of His heart” (Jeremiah 30:24).

·         “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

·         “How can I hand you over, Israel?.. My heart is changed within Me; all My compassion is aroused” (Hosea 11:8).

·         “He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death’” (Matthew 26:37–38).

·         “He looked around them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand’” (Mark 3:5).

·         “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit…” 
(Luke 10:21). (Emphasis added throughout)

Take a few minutes and reflect on the implications of your God-given feelings. You are made in His image.

God thinks. You think.

God wills. You will.

God feels. You feel.

You are a human being made in God’s likeness. Part of that likeness is to feel.

At the very least, the call of discipleship includes experiencing our feelings, reflecting on our feelings, and then thoughtfully responding to our feelings under the lordship of Jesus.

You Feel — Even If You Are Unaware of It

The problem, however, is that we can’t reflect and respond thoughtfully to our feelings if we don’t know what they are. So much of our true selves is buried alive — sadness, rage, anger, tenderness, joy, happiness, fear, depression. Yet God designed our bodies to respond physiologically to those in the world around us.

God speaks to us through a knot in the stomach, muscle tension, trembling and shaking, the release of adrenaline into our bloodstream, headaches, and a suddenly elevated heart rate. God may be screaming at us through our physical body while we look for (and prefer) a more “spiritual” signal.

The reality is that often our bodies know our feelings before our minds.

When I speak about the need to pay attention to our emotions, I often hear comments such as these:

·         I am not very good at feelings. I really don’t have time for this. Anyway, my family was more about doing.

·         I don’t know what I’m feeling. It’s all a big blur.

·         At times when I am about to interact with authority figures or somebody I don’t know, I get physical sensations but I don’t know why it is happening.

·         Sometimes I am flooded by emotions that disorganize and confuse me.

·         Sometimes after a difficult meeting with someone (e.g., conflict) I get depressed. I don’t know why.

·         Sometimes, during even a TV commercial, tears come to my eyes.

·         When I am feeling bad, I can’t tell if I am scared or angry.

·         I carry an overwhelming feeling of being shameful, guilty, and/or defective.

·         My family taught that nice girls don’t get angry and big boys don’t cry.

The problem for many of us comes when we have a “difficult” feeling such as anger or sadness. Unconsciously, we have a “rule” against those feelings. We feel defective because we ought not to be feeling the “wrong” things. We then lie to ourselves, sometimes convincing ourselves that we aren’t feeling anything because we don’t think we should be feeling it. We shut down our humanity.

So it was with me. I never really explored what I was feeling. I was not prepared to be honest about my emotions with God or myself. As a result I often said one thing with my words, but my tone of voice, facial expressions, and body posture said another. The problem is that when we neglect our most intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and close off an open door through which to know God.

I remember the awkwardness when I began to be honest about my feelings. Initially I wondered if I was betraying God or leaving Christianity. I feared that if I opened Pandora’s box, I would get lost in a black hole of unresolved emotions. I was breaking an unspoken commandment of my family and my church tradition. 
To my surprise, God was able to handle my wild emotions as they erupted after thirty-six years of stuffing them. I came alive like never before. And I rediscovered His love and grace — much like David, Job, and Jeremiah. I also began the journey to know myself that I might know God.

Discovering God’s Will and Your Emotions

It wasn’t until later that I began to learn of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, and his classic work on the importance of maintaining a balance between our reason (intellect) and feelings (heart). His development of a set of guidelines that respected the important place of emotions in discerning God’s will has served believers for 450 years. He rightly emphasized the foundation of a complete commitment to do God’s will, follow Scripture, and seek wise counsel. Yet, in addition, he provided excellent guidelines for sorting out how God speaks to us through the raw material of our emotions. The issue is not, by any means, to blindly follow our feelings, but to acknowledge them as a part of the way God communicates to us.

Ignatius explored the difference between consolations (those interior movements and feelings that bring life, joy, peace, and the fruit of the Spirit) and desolations (that which brings us “death,” inner turmoil, disquiet, and “spiritual turbulence”).1 With this awareness of what we are feeling, Ignatius echoed the apostle John, who said “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). Sometimes they are our fleshly desires or the enemy. Other times God is prodding us to a better choice. God intends that we mature in learning to recognize how He speaks and guides us through our feelings.

One of our greatest obstacles in knowing God is our own lack of self-knowledge. So we end up wearing a mask — before God, ourselves, and other people. And we can’t become self-aware if we cut off our humanity out of fear of our feelings. This fear leads to unwillingness to know ourselves as we truly are and stunts our growth in Christ.

In The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman summarize why awareness of our feelings is so important:

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God… Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice… However, we often turn a deaf ear — through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.2

Allow yourself to experience the full weight of your feelings. Allow them without censoring them. Then you can reflect and thoughtfully decide what to do with them. Trust God to come to you through them. This is the first step in the hard work of discipleship.

Once those “buried alive” emotions rose from the dead, I knew I could never go back to a spirituality that did not embrace emotional health. And when I finally allowed myself to begin asking, “How do I feel about the church, my life, different relationships around me?” before God and others, it released an outpouring that not only set me free but everyone around me.

1.    For a great introduction to Ignatius’s teachings on discernment and our emotions, see Thomas H. Green, Weeds Among the Wheat: Discernment: Where Prayer and Action Meet (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1984). See also the sermon series “Discovering the Will of God” available at emotionallyhealthychurch.com.

2.    Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III, The Cry of the Soul (Dallas: Word, 1994), 24–25.

Excerpted from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero, copyright Peter Scazzero.

Are you an emotion stuffer? Are you aware of your feelings? OK with feeling? Embarassed or ashamed about your feelings? What might happen if you were brutally honest with God?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 14, 2020

Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27–28)

The day Jesus was born in Bethlehem was, to that point, the greatest day in history for God’s people — greater than the day Israel walked through the Red Sea, greater than the day the temple was dedicated, greater even than the day God formed the earth and filled its oceans. As glorious as it was for God to mold the mountains and carve out each valley, it was all the more glorious for him to step onto those mountains and into those valleys.

The infant cries of Bethlehem sounded like any other child’s, and yet the armies of darkness quivered before them. The day he was laid in the manger was the day the sun finally began to rise for our salvation — “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” in a body, from a womb, on a great and glorious day (Hebrews 1:3).

Horrible Yet Glorious

Then the glory of his birth was outdone on the day, thirty years later, when he laid that life down. It was a dark, horrible, frightening day — an innocent man arrested without cause, condemned without evidence, executed without justice, in the most excruciating and humiliating way possible. And yet it was glorious.

“The day Jesus was laid in the manger was the day the sun finally began to rise for our salvation.”

Those who saw the cross that day may have thought they watched Jesus crumble, defeated and conquered, before his enemies. He was crucified, but not defeated; killed, but not conquered; struck down, but not destroyed. Far from waving the flag of surrender, his death subdued Satan and all his soldiers, forcing them to serve the story of our salvation.

“No one takes [my life] from me,” Jesus said, “but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). That is the glory of Good Friday. For the sheep he loved, the Good Shepherd laid his life down — where he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted. He chose weakness. He chose suffering. He chose the cross. For us.

Even More Glorious

While Jesus lay in the tomb, the world lay silent. But then, on the third day, morning came — an even more glorious day. After Jesus breathed his last breath, tasting death firsthand, and staying dead all day Saturday, he put death itself to death by rising from the grave.

The cross was not the defeat it had seemed to be. Rather it was a defiant, emphatic, all-powerful victory. “No one takes [my life] from me. . . . I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). Death could not hold him; the grave could not keep him. Of all the glories the world has ever displayed, none compares with the carpenter from Nazareth shedding death like a robe and walking out of the grave.

Having defeated death itself, he defeated death for us, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26). Resurrection Sunday is still, today, the most glorious day in history. But it will not always be so.

Most Glorious Day

The day Jesus rose, he planted an invincible, unshakable flag of hope over the grave. How could anything ever surpass his victory? Only he could author a more glorious day, and he has, a day that is coming soon. “The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52). Death was defeated when the stone was rolled away, though it still harasses and plagues the earth — for now. But when Christ returns, we will sing,

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54–55)

No day will be like the day Jesus returns to gather his people: to finish what he started, to put an end to sin, to bring us finally home.

“Jesus chose weakness. He chose suffering. He chose the cross. For us.”

Two thousand years may have dampened or dulled our anticipation for that day, making us wonder if he really will come. But he will come. And he will come for those who are eagerly waiting for him. “Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27–28).

Has the eagerness slowly dissolved out of your waiting for him? Meditate, again, on just how glorious that great day will be.

Marshall Segal is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org.

From glory to greater glory…we, from fallenness to being saved, transforming into the image of Christ, and finally glory complete when we meet Jesus face to face.  Perhaps today is the day . . .

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 13, 2020

Beliefs are tools that can be used to control or to love. Having the correct belief doesn’t tell us much of anything. But it’s tempting because it’s easy. Already in the Bible, we have people who say that what matters is what you believe. James has this to say about that:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good!

Even the demons believe that — and shudder.
— James 2:14-19

I have a lot of people in my life who want me to give them a gold star because they believe in God. “Good for you,” James says, “so do demons. What’s your point?” Or as the rabbis would say, “He who only occupies himself with the study of the Torah is as if he had no God.”1

Our emphasis on knowledge and belief over the past few hundred years has deceived us into thinking that thinking true thoughts is what matters in the Christian faith. This couldn’t be further from how the Bible talks about faith and, frankly, how it talks about truth. There are almost no places in the Bible where it endorses a view of truth as “believing the right doctrine.”

This reminds me of Disney’s 2008 movie Wall-E. Earth has become a wasteland, and humans are living on a luxury spaceship called Axiom. The spaceship is designed so that people never have to walk. The people sit in floating chairs with giant screens in front of them and can make their way wherever they want without taking a step. Or, better yet, robots bring them whatever they want. Over time they lose their ability to walk due to obesity and lack of exercise.

Sometimes I wonder if we Christians are a little like the humans on Axiom. I wonder if we have become atrophied in actually practicing our faith. Sometimes I think we’ve convinced ourselves that we are practicing a healthy faith by simply checking off a list of four or five beliefs that make sure we are “in” and those who disagree are “out.” If that’s what it means to be a Christian, then we never have to walk. We can just sit in our chairs with giant screens in front of us. We have figured out a way to be a Christian without actually having to do anything to be a Christian except mentally check off a few thoughts. To that I want to say, “Good for you! You believe in God. You believe in the Bible.

You believe in Jesus. So do demons. What’s your point?”

Somehow we’ve duped ourselves into thinking that what we believe is more important than how we believe. Perhaps it’s time to remember that love matters more than just believing in God in our heads and that love is a verb.2

It’s time to get off those chairs to find active ways to love the people around us.

Excerpted from Love Matters More by Jared Byas, copyright Jared Byas.

What are we doing with our faith? Is it just words? Or do we follow our faith up with deeds? Let’s stop and think for a moment and then decide how we can make a verb of our love.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 12, 2020

Why the Cross?

The brutal death of Jesus on the Cross has caused many down through the ages to wonder why death was required at all.

Why did God have to punish sin in the first place?

How is it fair that God has allowed us to be born into a fallen world through no decision of our own? None of us told our parents to bring us into this world, so how is it “just” for God to ask us to struggle through life until we find Jesus when it wasn’t our decision to be here in the first place? And how is it “love” that so many people wander through life without ever finding Jesus at all and end up in Gehenna, the Second Death, as a result?

The Scriptures give us the answers. The prophet Isaiah made it clear that God has never tried to hide anything from us.

Tell and bring forth your case; Yes, let them take counsel together.

Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time?

Have not I, the Lord?

And there is no other God besides Me,

A just God and a Savior;
There is none besides Me. — Isaiah 45:21 NKJV

In His great love, God has been telling us about Himself from the beginning of time.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. — Romans 1:20 NKJV

Everything around us in creation points to the design of the One who is divine wisdom and creativity itself. None of creation is an accident.

By divine design, God the Creator cannot simply open the doors to Heaven and let everyone in. That would violate His standard for holiness and corrupt His divine design with sin. When you think about it, would you want to worship a God who didn’t demand perfection? Would you want to spend all eternity in a Heaven where evil and sin were allowed? If your answer is no, then by your own standard, your sin would separate you from the perfect and holy God you desire.

The truth is, on our own we are incapable of righteousness. “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). In the desert, God presented His commandments to the Israelites, and they had the pride to actually believe they could do everything He asked (Exodus 19:7–8).

The truth is that we deserve the wrath of God as punishment for our sin. Yet, Christ Himself came in our place to break down the wall of separation that stands between our sinful flesh and God’s holy nature. The only way to put to death the declaration of war made in the garden between our sinful flesh and God’s holy nature was for God Himself to become flesh and to die. The apostle Paul put it this way:

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. — Ephesians 2:14–16 NKJV

Jesus chose to die for our sin, opening the door for us to choose to become the “righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV).

God didn’t kill Jesus on the cross. You did, and I did; we did. And we have to take personal responsibility for it.

Jesus died in our place, as the penal substitute for our actions, for our sin. Beware of distancing yourself from the suffering of the Cross like Pilate who washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood” (Matthew 27:24). To blame the Cross on someone else is to rob it of its benefits and its beauty. Instead, accept the blame.

If you think the Cross had nothing to do with you, it becomes just a horror story of an abusive father taking his anger out on an innocent son. It is important to accept personal responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Cross. Because if you see yourself as separated and distant from the Cross, you will never receive the fullness of its benefits and marvel at its beauty.

The Cross of Jesus Christ is for you, for all of us, and because of us, it is a beautiful picture of God Himself — Jesus Christ — offering up His life and accepting the death we deserve.

The beauty of the Cross is that we don’t stop at the place of mourning because Jesus died in our place. We can move beyond mourning to celebrate that Jesus is now alive again, and when we believe, we are alive in Him!

Many years ago when I was still in my twenties, I went to a prison to talk with a man convicted of murder. I shared the gospel with him. He responded, “I can’t believe this gospel 

It is too easy to be forgiven. There would be no justice if God forgave me so easily that all I had to do was to confess my sins and commit my life to follow Jesus.” To which I responded, “It is not too easy. Your forgiveness is free to you, but costly to God. Jesus took your sins and died so you could be forgiven and the power of sin in your life defeated. He died so that you could not just be put right, but also made right. By the power of His Holy Spirit He would give you the power to not only be reckoned righteous, pardoned, but made righteous through the Holy Spirit living inside of you, empowering you to live a holy life, no longer captive to sin’s dominion.”

When this man saw the righteousness of God in Christ and the justice of God exhibited at the cross as I read Colossians 2:13–15 to him, tears filled his eyes. He then surrendered himself to Christ and asked for God’s forgiveness.

In answer to Pilate’s question of why Jesus had to die, Scripture says that Jesus died to enact the justice and holiness of God. The justice and holiness of God kissed on the Cross, perfectly reconciling the two attributes of God’s nature.

Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed. — Psalm 85:10 NKJV

And what an astounding kiss it was! God’s righteous anger fell on His only Son, Jesus Christ, so that His perfect peace could fall on us. As believers, our New Testament reality is one of redemption and restoration, as we are lifted up to be seated in heavenly places for all eternity.

Excerpted from Destined for the Cross by Randy Clark, copyright Randy Clark.

Have you been running in the opposite direction of God’s word on your life? How has that been going for you? If your circumstances have gotten worse and worse, maybe it’s time to turn around and head in the path He set for you!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 11, 2020

Alone Against the Mob

Possessing the power to make the timid brave, the good better, or the bad devastating: crowds. When passions are shared, they swell, exciting actions to the status of legend or infamy. The power of assembly can build a better society or destroy it.

We have already witnessed (and perhaps taken for granted) the good and sanity of groups. We have seen peaceful protests in our own day, as well as read stories about those who have stood (and suffered) together for transcendent causes in the past — some of us fortunate enough to hear them firsthand from parents and grandparents. Above these, the church itself is a gathered people, an unassuming congregation that is taking over the world. But for what feels like the first time, my generation has begun to see the destructive power of the assembly — or, to use a phrase from a recent book title, the madness of crowds.

“Bad company, when a company, can make the good corrupt and the bad worse.”

Old proverbs have become visible: “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals’” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Bad company, when a company, can make the good corrupt and the bad worse. It takes brazen wickedness to attempt to burn down a business, loot a Target, or break into a town hall, but even a decent man, drunk on the adrenaline of the herd, may do just this when others are doing it too.

Anatomy of a Riot

In a time of uncertainty, fear, anger, and corruption, we can take some solace in the realization that there is nothing new under the sun. Today’s issues, as real as they are (and can grow to be), were first yesterday’s issues. That makes it an unspeakable blessing to own a Bible. Its solutions never expire.

The stirring up of the people to madness is everywhere in Scripture (something I notice more now than ever). Perhaps one of the most unconsidered characters in the Bible is the crowd — none more infamous than the one who used its voice to sound with Satan, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

So also we see the madness of crowds in Acts 19. A mob was stirred up against Paul, an experience he likely later summarized to the Corinthians: “I fought with beasts at Ephesus” (1 Corinthians 15:32). If beasts are let loose in our land, I pray that as with Paul in Ephesus, the madness of crowds would be met with the insanity of Christian love. But first, the anatomy of the riot in Ephesus.

Instigator Rises

About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius . . . (Acts 19:23–24)

What many citizens recognized as a religious riot in Ephesus started, as I venture many do today, with smaller, less-visible motives. Men with hidden agendas conspired together and utilized the masses to their hushed purposes. This “no little disturbance” began with the greed of a silversmith named Demetrius.

“Perhaps one of the most overlooked and unconsidered characters in the Bible is the crowd.”

Demetrius made his fortune crafting idols in service of Artemis, the Ephesian fertility goddess, rumored to have been born in Ephesus. Several times a year, the Ephesians hosted month-long celebrations in her honor, with music, theater, banquets, athletic contests, and even death matches. These festivals attracted many visitors, and even more money. Such celebrations “brought no little business to the craftsmen” (verse 24), craftsmen such as Demetrius.

Now Christianity, through the apostle Paul, hurt this business by persuading many “that gods made with hands are not gods” (Acts 19:26). In an attempt to protect his wallet, Demetrius employed three strategies to destroy Paul.

First, he created a tribe. He did not go after Paul himself, nor pursue legal recourse; rather, he assembled a tribe. Demetrius “gathered together” his fellow craftsmen, “with the workmen in similar trades” (Acts 19:25). He rounded up others hemorrhaging money on account of the Way. Demetrius knew the power of a mob, and he needed a small one to beget a bigger one.

Next, he did what all demagogues do: “He gathered together . . . and said” (Acts 19:25). Inciters are talking men. They speak, persuade, impassion. He begins,

Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. . . . This Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship. (Acts 19:25–27)

Observe his well-crafted propaganda. He is careful to include multiple incentives to enlist them in his cause. He begins first with his primary concern, wealth, and then moves on to a tertiary concern directly tied to the first: religion. The best hunters lay several traps. In religious societies, agitators often twist religious sentiment to their own ends.

“When [the craftsmen] heard this they were enraged and were crying out, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’” (Acts 19:28). But what about “this” made them enraged? Was it the threat to their goddess’s fame — or the loss of wealth tied to that fame?

Yet notice that Demetrius’s and the craftsmen’s chief concern of finances isn’t visible once they move into the streets. Their mantra becomes simply “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” They mask financial incentives with religious. They consider how they might be heard. They know their campaign would not survive if their narrow interests were championed, shouting, “Great is the wealth we accumulate from the idols of Artemis of the Ephesians!” So do all effective demagogues today.

The (Clueless) Crowd Swept Up

Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. (Acts 19:32)

Mobs often depend on general slogans, unspecified grievances, vague (if any) purposes for uniting, and little to no solutions for change other than destruction. They think with their rage, and many get caught in the tide. Something important seems to be happening — many seem to know why they gathered, so why not join? It is just a Tuesday after all, nothing better to do. The uproar of the group quiets the small voice of the conscience.

So it was in Ephesus. After the small mob fills the streets with, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” “the city was filled with the confusion” (Acts 19:29). Not the confusion that causes you to pause and ask questions, but the confusion that participates in assault and abduction: “They rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s companions in travel.”

“Today’s issues, as desperate as they can be, were first yesterday’s issues.”

Now the Holy Spirit informs us that — wait for it — “most of them did not know why they had come together.” Most had no clue why they were really there. They weren’t craftsmen, they didn’t attend Demetrius’s pep rally, and they agreed that Artemis was great, but what that had to do with taking hostage two Jews most could not tell. But they remained, aiding and abetting those who did know.

Installment of Cancel Culture

And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.” (Acts 19:33–34)

The time it took for me to learn what “cancel culture” meant embarrasses me as a millennial. But as new as such terminology was to me, the concept wasn’t. The Ephesians practiced it two millennia ago.

Alexander’s appearance marked him instantly. Everyone knew that Jews were no friends to Artemis. He belonged to that narrow monotheistic religion. He had nothing to say that they wanted to hear. Ironically, it is most probable that since the Jews put him forward, he was an enemy, not a friend, of Paul (possibly the same Alexander that Paul “handed over to Satan,” 1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 4:14). His “defense” would most probably have been an attempt to distinguish Paul (a Jewish man) from the Jews who were there to persecute him and his Christian companions. Regardless, the crowds wouldn’t hear it.

The clueless majority, not knowing why they were there to begin with, knew enough to shout down someone who sought to speak — for two hours. Here identity politics and cancel culture were on full display.

A Just Man Speaks

The situation in Ephesus was defused through the almighty God giving the common grace of a cool head to the town clerk. Words incited a mob; perhaps words could defuse it.

You ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. . . . If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. . . . There is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion. (Acts 19:36, 38–39, 41)

He does not pretend to be judge in matters he knows so little about. He states his views about Paul’s innocence, but points to the open courthouses for resolution of the matter. He does condemn, however, the injustice he sees with his own eyes, calling out the leader, Demetrius, by name.

This is the common courage it will always require to stand against a mob. Sometimes good men, just men, stand up and succeed. Other times they stand up and get killed. And sometimes no good men can be found, and tyranny thrives unchecked.

Insanity of Christian Love

There really is nothing new under the sun. Today’s issues, as desperate as they can be, were first yesterday’s issues. This means one convenient and profound truth for the Christian: the solutions have not changed.

Christ is still the only hope for the world. He, as the light of the world, still shines, and the darkness — with all its cold and confusion — has yet to overcome it. This world is still full of condemned masses, rabid with sin, following the devil, and teetering upon the edge of eternity — as we once did — breaths from everlasting ruin. All while a narrow way still exists — a hard way, a dangerous way, yet the only way that leads to heaven. A way that might attract a mob or lead you — in love for others — to desire to enter the heart of one as Paul did.

“Fighting with the madness of crowds is nothing if there is nothing after this life.”

Paul wanted to run toward, not away from, the murderous mob: “Paul wished to go in among the crowd” (Acts 19:30). When he considered his brothers Gaius and Aristarchus captured by the crazed multitude looking for him, he wanted to enter the theater to stand (and die, if needed) with his companions. The madness of crowds in that theater set the stage for the madness of Christian love — a dramatization of Christ’s: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Only If the Dead Are Raised

Paul did not go into the theater that day, for “the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater” (Acts 19:30–31). It was not wise — this time — to venture so boldly into harm; God had other means for deliverance. But his faith, his hope, his trust in Christ, his love for his brothers are recorded for us.

Does it not stir you?

What gave Paul his boldness? He tells us,

I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Corinthians 15:31–32)

Fighting with the madness of crowds is nothing if there is nothing after this life. If death were the end, Paul and his companions would go out for drinks, have some laughs, and never cause a commotion for Christ. But Paul believed in the resurrection. He believed he possessed eternal life. He knew his God. He knew his Savior. He knew he was immortal. He was free to face the mob (and the consequences), as he did from city to city and persecution to persecution.

Perhaps a time is coming, perhaps the stage is being set — though I pray we might live peaceful and quiet lives — for Christians in the West to be treated as most Christians have been throughout most of church history (and as many are treated now throughout the world). And should it come, we must decide now, will we be mad enough, should our God call us, to face the mobs and persecution in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit? Only those who know this world is not the end can do so.

Greg Morse is a staff writer for desiringGod.org and graduate of Bethlehem College & Seminary.

Because the dead are indeed raised to a day of judgment before Christ, for reward or eternal punishment … we must continue to protest evil and unrighteousness until we no longer are able.  Our lives belong to Christ and therefore we must give our lives to bring truth, justice and godliness to the world in which we live.  Stand firm in what you know from God, trust Him in all things to direct your path, and expect our decisions on earth to be like those of Jesus.  He is coming soon… perhaps today!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 10, 2020

He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. — Matthew 14:29 

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately… and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” 

~ Henry David Thoreau 

Sometime ago we went on vacation to a dude ranch in Arizona. My wife, who grew up vacationing there, insisted that my experience would not be complete until I knew the exhilaration of a truly challenging horse ride. We went on a trail ride, but it was far too tame to count as there was no possibility of falling and receiving a serious injury. The truth is that I have spent very little time around horses and have never actually met one I trusted, but of course I wasn’t about to admit that. 

So the next morning I rode out with five ranch hands to take the herd of horses to pasture about three miles away. I was very interested to meet my horse du jour. Often horses receive their name from some notable aspect of their temperament; when you get a horse named Pokey or Valium, you pretty much know what to expect. My horse was named Reverse, based on his particular eccentricity of going backward anytime someone was foolish enough to pull on his reins. I made a mental note not to do that. 

The trip out to the pasture was uneventful. We dropped off the herd and were on our way back when one of the ranch hands decided to make a race of the return trip. His horse took off at full gallop and the other four immediately started racing to catch up with him. 

Reverse started to make his move. Instinctively, I pulled on the reins as hard as I could. Reverse rose up on his hind legs and took a few steps backward – just as Silver used to do under the Lone Ranger – and then took off like a bat out of… a cannon. 

For the better part of a mile, Reverse ran a dead heat (the word dead sticks in my mind). We were not sauntering or trotting – this was all-out sprinting as in a scene from a movie. The five ranch hands were college-age guys who lived on horseback all summer long, racing their horses as fast as they could. Reverse and I passed four of them. I say “Reverse and I,” but the truth is, he was doing most of the work. I was just waiting to die. I was looking in the adjacent creek bed for the rock my head would split against once I was thrown off. 

Exodus 15:1 came to mind:  

I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. 

While I was wondering how Nancy would spend the life insurance policy, the strangest thing happened. I realized there was a good chance I would survive this, and then it became one of the most exhilarating moments I had all week. I had a few moments of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” – my own private optimal experience. 

For a few moments I was completely captivated by a single activity. All I could hear was the pounding of Reverse’s hooves; all I could feel was the rush of the wind in my face and the swaying rhythm of the gallop. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the startled looks of the four horsemen of the apocalypse whom we passed up (a moment I enjoyed immensely). I felt alive – from my now-hatless head to the toes of my stirrup-straining feet. I started laughing from sheer adrenaline. By the time we pulled up to the fence, I knew this had been the ride of my life. I would not have missed this experience for anything. 

Of course, when we pulled to a stop at the ranch (which to my great relief Reverse decided to do gradually), male pride would not allow me to indicate that this dash had been at all unplanned. “Yes, a decent mount,” I said. “His wind isn’t quite what it could be, perhaps, but never mind.” 

My only choice had been to say yes or no to the ride. I had to decide whether I had enough faith to ride the horse. 

When I mounted that horse, I did not have a clue as to what was going to happen to me. I did not know all the details of what would happen. 

If I had known, I might have said no – but then I would have never known the exhilaration of the ride. Once I took a single step, once I got into the saddle, a whole world of experience was set in motion. Everything else was up to the horse. I could not control it. But I could have missed it. 

Exhilaration 

In some ways, the high point in the story of Peter comes in the middle of the passage. It is contained in a single phrase: Peter… started walking on the water. There are many other parts to the story – the storm; the fear that came before this and the fear that would follow; the failure and critique. 

These are all important parts to the story, and we learn from them because we are familiar with storms, fear, and failure. We may ignore or deny them at our peril. 

But they are not the whole story. In the middle of the passage is the remarkable occurrence: Peter walked on the water. 

Peter knew the joy and freedom of experiencing God’s power after taking an enormous risk. 

I think that during those moments Peter was storing up memories he would carry to his grave: the feel of the water somehow standing solid beneath his feet; the rush of the wind in his face; the startled looks of the boatmen as he passed them by (a moment I’ll bet he enjoyed immensely). I think he knew this was the walk of his life. 

I wonder what might have gone on inside Peter’s mind… 

I can’t believe it. Nobody thought I’d actually get out of the boat – I didn’t think I’d do it myself. When I let go of the side, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was afraid I’d die. Yet now I find myself actually doing what Jesus is doing. I don’t know how it’s working – I’m not walking any differently. Yet something – Someone – is holding me up. I think I’m beginning to understand now. It is true: He really is the One. I don’t see how things can ever be the same after this. I don’t see how I could ever settle for life in the boat again. 

Most especially, I think Peter was remembering the look on Jesus’ face, because I suspect that Jesus beamed to see that one of his followers could trust him that far. I think, for as long as this walk lasted, that their eyes did not leave each other for an instant. Getting out of the boat was Peter’s great gift to Jesus; the experience of walking on water was Jesus’ great gift to Peter. 

Excerpted from If You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat by John Ortberg, copyright Zondervan. 

Can you imagine that moment of stepping out of the boat? Don’t you want to experience that thrill of faith? In what area of your life do you need to get out of the boat and walk on water? 

Pastor Dale 

Happy Birthday to my son Michael, 35 today!  You walk with faith, always willing to step out of the boat for what God has for you.  I am greatly blessed because of you!

Notes of Faith September 9, 2020

Romans 5:1-3

Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has brought us into that blessing of God’s grace that we now enjoy. And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory. — Romans 5:1–2

Batters hustling to the plate to take their swings? Questionable calls going uncontested? Umpires being thanked after the game? Fans returning foul balls?

This is Major League Baseball?

It was. For a few weeks during the spring of ’95, professional baseball was a different game. The million-dollar arms were at home. The Cadillac bats were in the rack. The contracted players were negotiating for more money. The owners, determined to start the season, threw open the gates to almost anybody who knew how to scoop a grounder or run out a bunt.

These weren’t minor-leaguers. The minor leagues were also on strike. These were fellows who went from coaching Little League one week to wearing a Red Sox uniform the next.

The games weren’t fancy, mind you. Line drives rarely reached the outfield. One manager said his pitchers threw the ball so slowly the radar gun couldn’t clock them. A fan could shell a dozen peanuts in the time it took to relay a throw from the outfield.

The players huffed and puffed more than the “Little Engine That Could.”

But, my, did the players have fun! The diamond was studded with guys who played the game for the love of the game. When the coach said run, they ran. When he needed a volunteer to shag flies, a dozen hands went up. They arrived before the park was open, greasing their gloves and cleaning their cleats. When it was time to go home, they stayed until the grounds crew ran them off. They thanked the attendants for washing their uniforms. They thanked the caterers for the food. They thanked the fans for paying the dollar to watch. The line of players willing to sign autographs was longer than the line of fans wanting them.

These guys didn’t see themselves as a blessing to baseball but baseball as a blessing to them. They didn’t expect luxury; they were surprised by it. They didn’t demand more playtime; they were thrilled to play at all.

It was baseball again!

In Cincinnati the general manager stepped out on the field and applauded the fans for coming out. The Phillies gave away free hot dogs and sodas. In the trade of the year, the Cleveland Indians gave five players to the Cincinnati Reds — for free!

It wasn’t classy. You missed the three-run homers and frozen-rope pick-offs. But that was forgiven for the pure joy of seeing some guys play who really enjoyed the game.

What made them so special? Simple. They were living a life they didn’t deserve. These guys didn’t make it to the big leagues on skill; they made it on luck. They weren’t picked because they were good; they were picked because they were willing.

And they knew it! Not one time did you read an article about the replacement players arguing over poor pay. I did read a story about a fellow who offered a hundred grand if some owner would sign him. There was no jockeying for position.

No second-guessing the management. No strikes. No lockouts or walkouts. Heavens, these guys didn’t even complain that their names weren’t stitched on the jerseys. They were just happy to be on the team.

Shouldn’t we be, as well? Aren’t we a lot like these players?

If the first four chapters of Romans tell us anything, they tell us we are living a life we don’t deserve.

We aren’t good enough to get picked, but look at us, suited up and ready to play! We aren’t skillful enough to make the community softball league, but our names are on the greatest roster of history!

Do we deserve to be here? No. But would we trade the privilege? Not for the world. For if Paul’s proclamation is true, God’s grace has placed us on a dream team beyond imagination. Our past is pardoned, and our future secure. And lest we forget this unspeakable gift, Paul itemizes the blessings that God’s grace brings into our world (see Romans 5:1–12).

Blessing #1: We Have Peace with God

Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. — Romans 5:1

Peace with God. What a happy consequence of faith! Not just peace between countries, peace between neighbors, or peace at home; salvation brings peace with God.

Once a monk and his apprentice traveled from the abbey to a nearby village. The two parted at the city gates, agreeing to meet the next morning after completing their tasks.

According to plan, they met and began the long walk back to the abbey. The monk noticed that the younger man was unusually quiet. He asked him if anything was wrong. “What business is it of yours?” came the terse response.

Now the monk was sure his brother was troubled, but he said nothing. The distance between the two began to increase. The apprentice walked slowly, as if to separate himself from his teacher. When the abbey came in sight, the monk stopped at the gate and waited on the student. “Tell me, my son. What troubles your soul?”

The boy started to react again, but when he saw the warmth in his master’s eyes, his heart began to melt. “I have sinned greatly,” he sobbed. “Last night I slept with a woman and abandoned my vows. I am not worthy to enter the abbey at your side.”

The teacher put his arm around the student and said, “We will enter the abbey together. And we will enter the cathedral together. And together we will confess your sin. No one but God will know which of the two of us fell.”1

Doesn’t that describe what God has done for us? When we kept our sin silent, we withdrew from Him. We saw Him as an enemy. We took steps to avoid His presence. But our confession of faults alters our perception. God is no longer a foe but a friend. We are at peace with Him. He did more than the monk did, much more. More than share in our sin,

[Jesus was] crushed for the evil we did. The punishment, which made us well, was given to Him. — 
Isaiah 53:5

He accepted the shame. — Hebrews 12:2

He leads us into the presence of God.

Blessing #2: We Have a Place with God

Being ushered into God’s presence is the second blessing Paul describes:

This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has brought us into that blessing of God’s grace that we now enjoy. — Romans 5:2

Look at the phrase, “who has brought us into.” The Greek word means “to usher into the presence of royalty.” Twice in Ephesians Paul reminds us of our right to enter God’s presence:

It is through Christ that all of us are able to come into the presence of the Father. — Ephesians 2:18 TEV

Now we can come fearlessly right into God’s presence… — Ephesians 3:12 TLB

Christ meets us outside the throne room, takes us by the hand, and walks us into the presence of God. Upon entrance we find grace, not condemnation; mercy, not punishment. Where we would never be granted an audience with the King, we are now welcomed into His presence.

If you are a parent you understand this. If a child you don’t know appears on your doorstep and asks to spend the night, what would you do? Likely you would ask him his name, where he lives, find out why he is roaming the streets, and contact his parents. On the other hand, if a youngster enters your house escorted by your child, that child is welcome. The same is true with God. By becoming friends with the Son, we gain access to the Father.

Jesus promised,

All those who stand before others and say they believe in Me, I will say before my Father in Heaven that they belong to Me. — Matthew 10:32

Because we are friends of his Son, we have entrance to the throne room. He ushers us into that “blessing of God’s grace that we now enjoy” (Romans 5:2).

This gift is not an occasional visit before God but rather a permanent “access by faith into this grace by which we now stand” (Romans 5:2 NIV). Here is where my analogy with the replacement baseball players ceases. They knew their status was temporary. Their privilege lasted only as long as the strike continued. Not so with us. Our privilege lasts as long as God is faithful, and His faithfulness has never been questioned.

If we are not faithful, He will still be faithful, because He cannot be false to Himself. — 2 Timothy 2:13

Isaiah described God’s faithfulness as the “belt around his waist” (Isaiah 11:5). David announces that the Lord’s faithfulness “reaches to the heavens” (Psalm 36:5).

I suppose the baseball analogy would work if the team owner conferred upon us the status of lifetime team members. Upon doing so our position on the squad would not depend upon our performance but upon his power. Has an owner ever given such a gift? I don’t know, but God has and God does.

Before moving on, note the sequence of these blessings. The first blessing deals with our past; we have peace with God because our past is pardoned. The second blessing deals with the present. We have a place with God because Jesus has presented us to his Father. Any guess what the next blessing will cover?

Blessing #3: We Share in His Glory

You got it: our future.

And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory. — Romans 5:2

Because of God’s grace, we go from being people whose “throats are like open graves” (Psalm 5:9) to being participants of God’s glory. We were washed up and put out; now we are called up and put in.

Excerpted from In the Grip of Grace by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

Are you happy? Even with everything going on in the world, we have every right to be absurdly happy! God handed us major league grace and, even though we don’t deserve eternal life with Him, we’re in it with Him forever! Talk about grace! We are beyond the major leagues!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 8, 2020

Loving God Through Confrontation

Rob and I had spent the better part of the last hour in intense prayer. I don’t know when I had felt closer to him. We had played on the Puyallup city champion Little League baseball team. In high school, we graduated to the grueling cross-country runs — Rob having the advantage, I remember, of never needing to duck under low-lying branches. The respect, and even fear, for the impending pain before such races binds boys together like war binds men.

But now, in college, we were facing a new challenge. I don’t know that either of us had ever been more nervous. Both Rob and I looked out over Red Square, shifting our weight from side to side; then, instinctively, we both knelt down to retie our shoes. Looking at each other, we laughed. Retying shoes is a natural habit for runners, but it was a classic case of symbolic nervous confusion for what we were about to do.

Rob laughed it off. “We don’t want our shoes to fall off while we’re preaching,” he said.

The square started to fill with college students, and we walked up to the fountain like two lightweights facing a boxing ring housing Muhammad Ali. We had done this before, but open-air preaching is never easy, especially to your collegiate peers.

Open-air preaching was my first introduction to the confrontational world of the activist. Emulated by many, yet scorned by an equal number, the activist is actually in good company, biblically speaking. Persons of this temperament can join such luminaries as Elijah and Moses, who showed evidence of profound and courageous activism. From them and others we can learn both the blessings and pitfalls of loving God by standing up for righteousness in hostile places.

Biblical Lessons of Activists

Activists burst onto the history of faith in Scripture in both glory and infamy. It seems that few groups of believers can be so right at some times and so wrong at others. When I think of Moses, Elijah, Habakkuk, and Peter, I think of men who have challenged me with their courage and leadership yet encouraged me through their weaknesses. Let’s look at a few of these individuals to get a feel for the activist mentality.

Moses

Moses began his career as an activist (albeit a misguided one!) when he killed an Egyptian in defense of a fellow Israelite (Exodus 2:11–12). His strategy was all wrong, but he would need all this courage, and then some, in the years ahead. I’ve met few activists who don’t cringe, as Moses must have, when they look back at their early days of faith. It can take some time for the enthusiasm generated by the activist mentality to be tempered and seasoned by maturity and foresight.

Shortly thereafter, Moses the activist rescued some young women who were being pushed by unruly shepherds (Exodus 2:17). Whenever we see the young Moses, he is embroiled in confrontation. In this case, the conflict led him to his future wife.

Then there is Moses’ classic confrontation with Pharaoh. Moses didn’t have the benefit of being told beforehand that there would be ten plagues. All he knew was that God told him to tell Pharaoh, “Let My people go!” and that when he obeyed, the situation actually grew worse. Pharaoh put a greater burden on the Israelites, and overnight Moses became the most hated man in Israel (Exodus 5:1, Exodus 5:20–21).

God sent Moses back again — and again, apart from a few snake tricks, nothing happened. It was at this point that the ten plagues started (Exodus 7:8–18). I think most of us would quit around the third or fourth plague. I can just hear myself: “God, give me a break! I’ve done what You told me to do — five times now. Pharaoh hasn’t set Israel free, so forget it; I’m done. Send somebody else.”

When God first gave Moses his commission, Moses did display a little reluctance: “Who am I, that I should… bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” God’s response was an implicit rebuke against such self-sufficiency. He said simply,

I will be with you. — Exodus 3:11–12

In other words, it doesn’t matter who you are, Moses; what matters is who is sending you.

After great perseverance, Moses finally saw Israel gain freedom. It wasn’t long, however, before he adopted the “I’m the only one who can do it” complex and began wearing himself out on good causes (Exodus 18:14). Fortunately, Moses also had a teachable heart. By listening to his father-in-law, he avoided the nervous exhaustion so common among activists. Still, his attitude reveals the danger of the activist mind-set — “me and God against the world.” at one point, Moses asked in desperation, “What am I to do with these people?” (Exodus 17:4). Exasperation and fatigue are particular temptations for activist Christians.

Elijah and Elisha

Elijah’s confrontations with the rulers of Israel rival Moses’ confrontations with Pharaoh. Elijah displayed great courage in his confrontation with Ahab and the prophets of Baal, but his demeanor also reveals pride. Elijah thought he was the only true prophet left, and the only one who demonstrated true zeal (1 Kings 18:22; 1 Kings 19:10). However, God assured Elijah that seven thousand others were still true to the faith (1 Kings 19:18).

Elijah reveals classic activist symptoms (the negative kind) in his feelings of isolation and exhaustion (1 Kings 19:4). activism is one temperament that can spiritually feed many Christians but can also exhaust them.

Elisha, Elijah’s replacement, was also an activist, and he showed great maturity in his confrontation with Hazael, who would eventually become king of Israel. Elisha saw the harm that Hazael would do and wept over it, but he didn’t become consumed with it (2 Kings 8:11-13). Most Christians have to learn that whenever God calls us to an activist posture, we must leave the results to Him or we will be consumed and driven by immediate results rather than by the Holy Spirit. I’ve seen a number of activists who just can’t accept defeat. When their political or social campaigns fail, their faith is rocked. Elisha would be a good role model for such people to emulate, in part to keep them from responding like Habakkuk did.

Habakkuk

Habakkuk is a good biblical warning to activists, one that I’ve taken to heart many times. I’ve heard too many prayers offered by activists in which God is accused more than He is petitioned, as if the activist is more concerned about justice than is God Himself. Habakkuk cried out,

How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen?
Or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save?…
therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.
the wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
— Habakkuk 1:2, Habakkuk1:4

God’s response to this accusation is instructive. He says that he is working behind the scenes. Justice is coming even though Habakkuk couldn’t see it. Activists need to learn the message of the book of Habakkuk: live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). Life situations and circumstances can tempt us to question God’s sovereignty and goodness, but we see with a finite eye. God is not blind to injustice, nor is He indifferent.

The activist must be careful that intercession doesn’t become accusation. Because there is so much apathy in our world and even in the church, it is easy for an activist to feel isolated and alone. We see the injustice; we see wickedness passed off as good. Our hearts burn within us, yet when we look around, the church seems to be sleeping.

This can create an isolation that, if not kept in perspective, can eventually be broadened to attribute “apathy” to God. Not only will the church not respond, the activist thinks, but even God is silent! When we think our concern for righteousness exceeds God’s, we have slipped into the delusion of being self-appointed messiahs. “[The proud] is puffed up; his desires are not upright — but the righteous will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).

Excerpted from Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas, copyright Gary L. Thomas.

This world needs activists! Activists like Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Habakkuk are fighters against injustice. They see what needs to be changed and charge at it. Who are the activists in your circle that we can be praying for?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 7, 2020

Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. — 1 Corinthians 1:26-28

I often wonder how seriously we take that passage in the church. We tend to look to the most articulate and gifted among us, but God has a different set of scales that He uses to measure a life. He looks at the heart. If you just take the last two lines of the passage above — “God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important” — it reads exactly like the story of the life of David, the shepherd boy whom God chose to be king over Israel.

Nothing about his early days would have made anyone believe he would be the chosen one. His own father missed it, but then again, so did Samuel, God’s prophet.

Before we meet David in Scripture, we’re given a picture of what happens when God’s people think they know what they need more than God does — a slippery slope.

Have you ever done that? Have you ever prayed a prayer and then been profoundly grateful in retrospect that God didn’t answer it the way you asked Him to?

I know I have.

David wasn’t the first king or the people’s choice. He wasn’t the one they wanted. You can read the whole story in 1 Samuel 8-10, but let me give you the “Cliffs Notes” version.

Before Israel had a king, judges ruled them — some good, some not so good. Samuel was the last of the judges. He was an old man when the elders of Israel came to his home in Ramah. They had come for an intervention of sorts.

Here’s why. As Samuel aged, he had continued as judge in Ramah and the nearby towns, but he had appointed his two deadbeat sons as judges on the southern border of Israel.

Whether he should have done that or not is questionable because we’re told throughout the book of Judges that God appointed a new judge. Add to that the fact that his sons took bribes and twisted justice and you get a bit of a picture of the mess that led up to this meeting with Samuel. The elders put their cards on the table:

‘Look,’ they told him, ‘you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.’ — 1 Samuel 8:5

Israel, God’s chosen people, wanted to be just like everyone else. Samuel was devastated that the people showed such faithlessness. Not only that, but he carried the heartache of seeing his own children reject everything he had ever taught them.

Some of you might be there right now. How the enemy loves to torture parents who have been faithful but whose children appear faithless. Our son, Christian, is about to go off to college as I write this, and he is a great boy, but I know there will be moments in life when I will need to resist the torments of the enemy and stand on the truth that our God is sovereign and my son is on His schedule, not mine.

Nothing will happen to your child today or tomorrow that doesn’t pass through the merciful hands of God, even though at times it will feel like a severe, tearstained mercy.

There are many lessons for us to learn from the faithlessness of God’s people. The children of Israel demanded a king, but they already had a King. They always had a divine King in God. Now they wanted what made sense to them, what they could see with their eyes.

I wonder if I’m much different at times. God’s Word is filled with more than three thousand promises. But when I walk through a hard season, I want tangible signs that God is going to come through for me.

Do you ever find yourself there?

We long for love and acceptance. We know that God loves us, but we can’t see God with our eyes or feel His arms around us or hear His audible voice telling us that we are loved. So we look for that kind of love and acceptance in someone else.

So, back to the children of Israel. God said to Samuel, “If that’s what the people want, let them have their king.”

As they looked around, the Israelites saw that every other nation had a king who was a strong warrior leader, who would take them into battle. They wanted a victorious warrior-king too. Not only that, they wanted a king who looked like a king. That’s exactly what they got in Saul. He was tall, dark, and handsome, but on that day when the people cried out, “Long live the king!” they had no idea what they had just signed up for.

Saul started well, but before long he showed how flawed his character really was. Life is like that. We can all put on a good face for a time, but add enough pressure and stress, and our wounds and flaws will surface. Israel’s king showed himself to be a mean, selfish, petty, and violent man. But in God’s eyes, he was a law unto himself. Three times Samuel caught him in serious acts of disobedience to God.

He offered a sacrifice that he had no right to offer. He had been instructed to wait for Samuel. (See 1 Sam. 13.)

He made the men in his care take a rash vow that almost cost him the life of his own son Jonathan. (See 1 Sam. 14.)

He directly disobeyed a specific instruction from God to kill King Agag. This final act of defiance cost him everything and led to these tragic words: “And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sam. 15:35 esv).

Saul’s disobedience broke Samuel’s heart. He grieved so hard and so long that God finally intervened and said, “Enough!” It must have seemed to Samuel that everything had gone wrong. But he would live to see that no matter how often we fail God, God never fails us.

We are introduced to David in person in 1 Samuel 16 but meet his character before that. In the last conversation Samuel ever had with Saul, he said this:

But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after His own heart. — 1 Samuel 13:14

What an incredible commendation from God, a letter of reference from the Most High. I can’t think of anything I want more in life than that — to be known as a woman after God’s own heart!

God instructed Samuel to go to Bethlehem, where He had already chosen a king from Jesse’s sons. Do you remember who Jesse was? He was Ruth and Boaz’s grandson. Ruth’s story is the antithesis of the children of Israel’s. She wasn’t born an Israelite. She married into the nation. Then, even after her husband died, she refused to abandon her mother-in-law. Instead, she traveled with her to Bethlehem, saying,

Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. — Ruth 1:16

That passionate faithfulness had trickled down through the years and would also be found in a teenage boy out watching his father’s sheep.

This is what God told Samuel to do:

Take a heifer with you… and say that you have come to make a sacrifice to the Lord. Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you which of his sons to anoint for me.” So Samuel did as the Lord instructed.

When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the Lord’s anointed!” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:2–7

Though the minute Samuel saw Jesse’s oldest son, he knew he’d found his man, God said no. Eliab was the one everyone would have chosen — the eldest, strong, handsome — but God told Samuel that He’d already rejected him. He didn’t pass heart inspection.

Next, Jesse offered up the other six sons he’d brought with him, and each time God said no.

Finally Samuel asked if this was it, or if there were any others.

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.” — 1 Samuel 16:11

Isn’t it interesting that Jesse didn’t think it was worth bringing David out? After all, who was he? He was just a kid watching the flocks. Yet while he shepherded in silence, God saw him.

Now, let me ask you: How many ministry opportunities do you think David had out in the field? None that we would have noticed, but God did not miss one. He heard the psalms that David sang over the flock. He saw his courage as David risked his own life to snatch a lamb from the paw of a bear or a young goat from a lion. He discerned David’s heart and knew that this teenage boy who would sing in the darkness and fight in the light would be the one He would anoint as king of Israel.

Excerpted from The Longing in Me by Sheila Walsh, copyright Sheila Walsh.

We have opportunities every day to speak, or act in a way that is a witness of Jesus in our lives.  Let us trust God to put us exactly where He wants us to draw someone to Himself and bless us with the opportunity!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 6, 2020

Images of the Invisible God

In the image of God — it may be one of the most often invoked, and yet least understood, catchphrases among Christians today. Whether defending the unborn, or protesting injustice, or advocating for the elderly and disabled, Christian voices often appeal for common ground, across other differences, by declaring that all humans are “in the image of God.” And so they are; we’re right to remember it.

But what does it mean to be made “in God’s image”? Rarely is that explained, and when it is, the answers can be quite speculative — that we are thinking or deliberative creatures. Or feeling creatures. Or that our will is “free” and not enslaved to instinct. Are such essentially invisible abilities really what it means to image God? Doesn’t the Bible have more to say and clarify the issue for us?

Pixels, Paintings, and People

In one sense, the image of God is (surprisingly) not a major theme in the Bible, at least in terms of explicit repetition. It is, however, the climactic declaration in the opening chapter of the Bible — and in the voice of God himself, no less. God’s poem, in just three lines, pours a foundation for theological anthropology (the Christian doctrine of humanity):

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26–27)

An all-important initial question, right here at the outset, is, What is an image? Images flood our screens, fill our magazines, and catch our eyes on billboards. We are no stranger to images, though we are so awash in them we might be numb to their significance.

“We humans are living, breathing, speaking, singing, moving images representing the invisible God to His world.”

In the ancient world, images were not pixels and paint but more typically like what we think of as statues or monuments. Pagan religions employed such carved images as physical, visual representations of otherwise invisible gods. Into such a context, then, the voice of the one true God rings out, at the climax of Scripture’s first chapter, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

While fallen men make images of their gods, the true God made man in his own image — to image himself in the world. We humans are living, breathing, speaking, singing, moving images representing the invisible God to his world, so that others would remember and reverence him.

God made us to image him, to show him, point to him, display him. He means for humans, through the words and actions of other humans, to get a greater sense of what he is like, and to appreciate and adore him for who he is — that is, to glorify him. Images glorify. They bring to mind someone great, and reveal admirable, praiseworthy traits, so that we honor the imaged one. This is why the theme of man in God’s image is so profound in Scripture, even if it’s not often explicit.

Value of Human Life

As for that explicitness, only two more verses in all the Old Testament refer to man in God’s image, and both are in the immediate chapters that follow. Genesis 5:3 tells us, “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” The image-and-likeness language recalls Genesis 1:26 and signals, significantly, that while tainted by sin, humanity’s calling to image God endures beyond Adam. Because of human sin, however, our words and actions display God as much (if not more) by way of contrast, rather than by way of example.

The third and final mention of man being made in God’s image, then, is Genesis 9:6, after the parking of the ark and recommissioning of Noah. Again, it’s divine speech and poetry:

Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.

Man’s uniqueness and dignity among all the creatures in imaging God makes the taking of human life the gravest of offenses, against both God and fellow man — so grave, in fact, that the shedding of human blood warrants the death of the killer. Such is the value of human life, made in the image of God, in God’s created world.

Then, after only three mentions, the Old Testament goes silent about God’s image.

Almost.

Imagers Marred

While the explicit notion of man in God’s image disappears, related concepts resurface. For instance, Psalm 8, while not mentioning “God’s image,” celebrates humanity’s exalted position in the world. Also “image” as “carved image” and “metal image” appears dozens of times (more than fifty) in the Old Testament, and as we’ve already implied, there is a connection to be made.

Beginning with the second commandment, God’s people knew, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything. . . . You shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus 20:4–5). Which, of course, became the very sin the nation collectively embraced. As Psalm 106 narrates the events of Exodus 32,

They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt. (Psalm 106:19–21)

This was enough to certify their destruction “had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before [God], to turn away his wrath from destroying them” (Psalm 106:23).

“The most exciting, never-ending, ever-enthralling calling in the universe is to visibly image the invisible God.”

So, the nation’s temptation to image-making regularly returned throughout the ups and downs of their history. Made in God’s image, “they forgot God” in their sin and turned to making images of gods with their own hands — a tragic picture of the reversal and irrational, self-destructive nature of sin. As the apostle Paul later would decry, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:22–23).

Behold the Image

Then, at last, after centuries of (near) silence, this same Paul would reveal for the world the depth — and keystone — of what it has meant all along to be made in God’s image. In all, Paul mentions the divine image nine times in his letters, and does so in service of two clear and distinct revelations.

1. Jesus is the image.

First, Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, as man, is the image of God. Twice Paul makes this game-changing claim:

He is the image of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15)

The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

The man Christ Jesus — not merely as God the Son, but as God the Son become man — is the great answer to Scripture’s previously unsolved riddle of what it means, at bottom, to be “in God’s image.” Humans are in God’s image; Jesus is God’s image. He is the full and complete embodiment of what it means for God himself to enter into his created world as a creature. Which means that God created the first man and woman in Genesis 1 and 2 in view of what he himself would be as a creature (“in his image”), when he would enter in as man in the person of his Son.

“Humans are in God’s image. Jesus IS God’s image.”

To be human is to be the creature, in body and soul, that God built for himself to be in Christ. When God designed and constructed the human body, he was devising the very vessel in which his Son would perfectly glorify him as a creature in his world. And thus he did, as he prayed the night before he died, “I glorified you on earth” (John 17:4; see also 17:6, 26).

And Jesus, as the image of God, did not just live perfectly to his Father’s glory, but also uniquely gave his own untainted life, to glorify his Father (John 12:27–28), so that we tainted and marred imagers might be snatched from the justice we deserve and restored to our original calling and what it anticipated.

2. Humans realize our destiny in Him.

The second revelation, then, is that human destiny, through faith, is our being conformed to the image of Christ: “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29).

Christians are, literally, “little Christs.” He is the image, the singular lamp from which the glory of God streams into his new world (Revelation 21:23), and we are remade in God’s image, after Christ’s likeness, to glorify God as we are increasingly conformed to Christ. That it will happen, in Christ, is certain: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven [Christ]” (1 Corinthians 15:49). And how it will happen is through “beholding the glory of the Lord” — that is, by looking in faith to Jesus, the image of God par excellence, we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

In Christ, as we “put off the old self with its practices and . . . put on the new self,” we are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9–10).

Our Minds, Hearts, and Wills?

But now that we’ve located the essential meaning of the image of God in the Son of God become man (and the restoration of our capacity to physically image him in his world), we have an important question to address: What of the invisible qualities that set humanity apart — qualities like thinking and feeling and willing that theologians and laymen alike have so often pointed to when asked what it means to be “in God’s image”? Does it matter for imaging God that we think and feel and will as humans?

“To be human is to be the creature, in body and soul, that God built for himself to be in Christ.”

Begin with Jesus. How did he perfectly image God? Doubtless, his mind, heart, and will were not irrelevant. Imaging is indeed visible, but mind and heart and will matter related to imaging when they give rise to visible actions and audible words. While our (invisible, internal) thinking and feeling and willing are not themselves what it means to be in God’s image, these capacities are not irrelevant to our irreducibly visible and external calling. In fact, that humans think and feel and choose gives meaning to our words and actions in the world.

Because of what we know about our own inner life as humans, we invest human words and acts with significance.

Because humans think and meditate and ponder and consider and deliberate, we hear meaning in their sounds (words) and see meaning in their movements. Yet, in doing so, we do not reduce imaging God to anything less than how we, in Christ, live to God in the world for others to see and hear.

Let There Be Light

Jesus anticipates our task as restored divine-imagers, when he says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). This is what images do. They shine. They display. Others see, and give glory to the imaged one.

Which means our task as divine-imagers in Christ, in this life and forever, never gets old or boring. Because God is never boring. There is always more of him to see and enjoy and show. The most exciting, never-ending, ever-creative, ever-enthralling calling in the universe is to visibly (and audibly) image (and echo) the invisible God in his created world. This is amazing dignity, and the greatest possible ground for human dignity: designed by God as his special representatives in this world — and not just in creation, but as recreated ones in Christ. Even greater than our original design and commission is our being brought back from the dominion of sin, through the death of the sinless image of God, and then conformed to his image.

‘Image’ Is Not Enough

So, as we advocate for human life and dignity and justice — from the unborn, to the poor, to the mistreated, to the disabled, to the elderly, to the sojourner — we are not content to leave our plea at “in the image of God.” Not as Christians. We have more to say, gloriously more to say. Bad news first: sin has tainted all our imaging. Then the best news in all the world: God himself in Christ came as the image, and is now the dividing line of human destiny. In him we offer a dignity that surpasses even that of the pinnacle of creation.

We never say less than “image of God” for fellow humans, but as Christians, we say more. We dream of more. We pray for more. To speak of “the image of God” as a Christian is to hope for more than a return to creation. It is to do more than “go back” to Genesis 1. To speak as Christians, we speak of sin and salvation. We speak of a destiny fulfilled only in Christ. And we remind ourselves of our calling to real, tangible, sacrificial acts of love and good works that bring glory to our Father.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Though Jesus Christ is THE image of the invisible God, we, that are in Christ, represent perhaps the only image that people will ever see of God in this life.  May we represent Him well . . . love God, and love our fellow man!

Pastor Dale