Notes of Faith October 17, 2020

The Path Between Lukewarm and Worn Out

The normal, run-of-the-mill Christian life is a spectacular miracle, something literally impossible without real and daily divine intervention. That miracle is a genuine, lived-out, heart-level, life-in-life union with Jesus Christ himself.

Those who attempt to follow Christ without experiencing union with him inevitably run off the road in one of two ways. We either embrace a cheap-grace, obedience-optional faith that feels distant and lukewarm over time, or we enslave ourselves to external commands, leaving us exhausted, ashamed, and even further from God. Rankin Wilbourne writes,

Union with Christ is the song we need to recover and hear today as the heart of the gospel. The song of grace without union with Christ becomes impersonal, a cold calculus that can leave you cynical. The song of discipleship without union with Christ becomes joyless duty, a never-ending hill that can leave you exhausted. (Union with Christ, 78)

Union with Christ is the warm melody between detached cynicism and crushing legalism. We will not survive, much less enjoy, what God calls us to do unless we learn what it means to live in Christ — and to have him live in us.

Perils of ‘Grace’

Where grace truly rules — in a human heart, in a family, in a church — sin flees and righteousness blossoms. Unfortunately, some of us try to make grace king but without giving it any real authority in our lives. We want the forgiveness, the freedom, the approval, the clean conscience, but we fear any strings that might be attached — any conditions or commands that don’t smell or feel effortless.

The apostle Paul, however, says that grace came not just to forgive, but to reign (Romans 5:21). He then asks, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). If grace reigns in my life, I’m already forgiven, right? Why stress and sweat over what the Bible says to be and do? Why let guilt have any quarter in our hearts?

“Union with Christ is the warm melody between detached cynicism and crushing legalism.”

Paul answers his own question with a severe warning: “Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Romans 6:15–16). The moment we think that “grace” means we need not worry about sin anymore, we have made ourselves twice the slave of sin. We are obeying, but we’re obeying the cruel and oppressive master within us (Romans 6:12).

And those who borrow on grace while submitting to sin eventually grow cold toward God. He’s merely the Judge who has to acquit us again, the Butler who waits on our needs, the Banker who has to hide our debt. Cynicism springs up because God has to forgive us, accept us, love us. He doesn’t really care for us, want us, delight in us. If grace becomes god, God will seem dull, detached, and aloof, and joy will feel more removed and elusive.

Perils of ‘Obedience’

But rogue obedience is every bit as dangerous as cheap grace. While some are just looking to escape guilt and shame, others of us are quietly looking for any excuse for self-confidence and pride. And the Bible (in the wrong hands) can give us plenty of fodder for self-exaltation. Even just knowing what the Bible says can make a man proud (1 Corinthians 8:1).

The same Paul who warned about the pitfalls of grace says, “All who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’” (Galatians 3:10). Over-reliance on forgiveness will leave us enslaved to sin, and so will over-reliance on self. If we subtly begin to think God should be impressed with our righteousness, that the cross might have been overkill in our case, that our obedience ought to woo the heart of heaven, then Satan has simply snuck in the backdoor. If he can’t entice us with more obvious sins, he’ll disguise his lure with a more shrewd, more flattering, more religious temptation.

“We don’t need to prove ourselves anymore. We only need to prove his grace.”

And while the initial thrills of pride may feel gratifying for a time — the warm feeling of self-confidence and accomplishment, the approving gaze of others, the waning sense of neediness — the proud are eventually confronted with what we cannot do. With the people we still are after the dust of all our effort settles. So, we wear out, and our joy runs out. We not only have to grapple with how painfully short we fell, but also with how little of God we tasted despite all our work.

Displacing Self

Whether we are drawn to misuse grace or feed our pride (or both at different times in our lives), God himself has paved a path between lukewarm licentiousness and worn-out legalism. But we have to be willing to resign from being the center. Wilbourne writes,

Union with Christ displaces us from the center of our own lives. It tells us we can discover who God created us to be only through living in vital union with his Son. It tells us the work of Christ for us cannot be separated from the person of Christ in us. . . . Every life is better with Christ at its center, but that means Christ must become, more and more, the animating center of all you do and say — that’s union with Christ. (72)

Those who use grace to justify sin and those who obey to justify themselves have one great problem in common: self, not Christ, is at the center. Everything — grace and law, faith, work, and church, Christ and everyone else — revolves around me. But if Christ becomes the blazing sun, the irresistible center of gravity, then grace will truly reign in us and bear the fruit of real righteousness. As Tim Keller says, “Jesus is the only Lord who, if you receive him, will fulfill you completely, and, if you fail him, will forgive you eternally” (Reason for God, 179).

So, how does union with Christ keep us from abusing grace and trusting in self? The apostle John, in his first letter, shows the purifying power of union in both directions.

Christ in You

First, how does union with Christ keep us from abusing grace? John writes to those who might presume on grace, and continue in sin, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). Walking in sin betrays that we do not really know Jesus, and that he does not really live in us. Persistence in sin pulls away the masks, and exposes us as strangers, even enemies, of grace.

“Expect grace to not only cancel the wrath of God against you but to create the holiness of God within you.”

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). This is a stunning remedy for grace-abusers. Walking in the light, delighting to increasingly obey all that Christ commands, reveals just how deeply we know Jesus and his grace. Notice, obedience doesn’t cleanse us from all sin. Only the blood of the sinless Son could pay our debt and set us free. But the evidence of that freedom is walking in the light, not lingering in the darkness. Obedience parades the reign of grace.

Grace that only forgives is not as great as grace that also transforms. When you draw near to the throne of God with your sin, expect grace to be bigger than all our cheap expectations. Expect grace to not only cancel the wrath of God against you but to create the holiness of God within you. Expect Christ to live, really live, in you (Galatians 2:20).

You in Christ

But lest “walking in the light” becomes a show for our own strength, wisdom, and resolve, John also confronts self-righteousness (and in his very next words). “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). If Christianity quietly becomes a confirmation of our righteousness apart from Christ, it is not Christianity. Those who think we somehow earn the love of God by slaving away at obedience lie about God, about grace, and even about obedience. And most tragic of all, we lie to ourselves.

But “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We have to confess to be clean. We have to recognize, admit, and repent of our remaining sin if we want to walk in the light. We don’t have to carry the weight of all our sin or climb some grueling mountain to righteousness, because we live in Christ. Through faith, he has become the wisdom we could not learn, the righteousness we could not earn, the sanctification we could not produce, and the redemption we could not achieve (1 Corinthians 1:30). We don’t need to prove ourselves anymore. We only need to prove his grace.

John lights this narrow path again a few verses later, in 1 John 2:1: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin” (beware of abusing grace). “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (beware of self-righteousness). This is the path to freedom and joy: holiness and humility, conviction and confession, effort and dependence, all of it filled and fueled with grace, all of it evidence we are united to him.

Article by Marshall Segal
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

What does “Christ in you, the hope of glory” mean to you?  Being “One” with Christ brings you what kind of thoughts, attitudes and actions?  The gift of salvation, sanctification and glorification is all about our union with Christ.  May we all pursue a greater “Oneness” with Christ to bring glory and honor to God and the truest of happiness in our life on earth!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 16, 2020

Anger: Maintaining Your Passion Without Losing Your Cool

Remember this, my dear brothers! Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry. Man’s anger does not achieve God’s righteous purpose. — James 1:19

What a profound statement.

Man’s anger does not achieve God’s righteous purpose, yet so very often this is exactly our justification for our outrage.

There has been an injustice of some sort or the other, and we want it righted. But anger will never be the solution to any righteous cause. God does not use the vehicle of our rage to serve His purposes. The truth is, we have tried to use our rage to serve our own purposes. We mistakenly thought it would protect, provide, guide, and empower us. Instead it has turned on us and attacked, robbed, misled, and isolated us.

Walk in the Truth

We know the truth, and now it is time to walk in it and be set free. It is my prayer that this will equip you to structure your study of the Word and give you practical and personal applications. I have summarized what I hope will be helpful guidelines in the following six steps:

1. Make the choice not to overreact in anger. Decide to exercise constructive anger. This must be a conscious choice and decision. You must set your heart and mind to change, to turn from your old ways, patterns, and habits, and to allow the Word of God to transform you. This is not unlike when you made the decision to follow Jesus. The first step is repentance, or turning from one path to another. The children of Israel were given just such a choice:

This day I call Heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. — Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV

At first this will be a deliberate, almost mechanical, decision you’ll make in response to each and every situation you encounter that angers or upsets you. For example, we recently moved from Orlando to Colorado. It had been nearly twenty years since I had driven in snow. I was raised in Indiana and had memorized certain responses to driving on ice, but I had forgotten them through lack of use. The first winter that I was out in bad conditions, I temporarily lost control of my car. It was spinning and swerving. Without thinking I heard, Turn the wheel in the direction of the slide. What I had learned years ago was brought back to me without any effort on my part, and I was able to bring the car back under control.

2. Allow yourself a chance to step back from what has happened to you before you react. Proverbs 29:20 warns us,

Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him. — NIV

I am a student of the Scriptures and have learned that God does not offer much hope to fools. To be effective you must answer the question why. What is it about this encounter or situation that upsets you so much? Is it a control issue? Is it a fear issue? Is this an unresolved hurt issue? Do you feel violated? Often the reason is an obvious one and there is no need to dig deep for the answer, but you still need to regroup before you respond. For example, if one of my children speaks disrespectfully to me I will not like it, but I don’t need to figure out why. I do, however, need to carefully choose my response. Being angry and disrespectful in return will not model godliness in their lives. They will only feel justified if I snap back. I need to respond in a way that will help them to realize their behavior is not acceptable and they need to figure out why and resolve it. Often this stems from a bad habit. But if my reaction runs deeper than this I must slow down and take a closer look.

3. Take responsibility. Remember, responsibility is a good thing. It is not something to be avoided, but rather embraced. It is the empowerment, ability, or enabling to respond. When you blame others for your reactions, you are reduced to a slave of their whims or actions. Be responsible and own up to both your good and bad responses. First Peter 5:6 exhorts us to

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. — NIV

Humility is an integral part of taking responsibility.

Responsibility and confession go hand in hand.

Confession means to own up to something, to humbly say it is your fault, and to resist the ever-present temptation to lay blame on the back of another.

Humility deals with your part of the puzzle without worrying about anyone else’s reaction. It is also an abandonment of yourself to God. You are saying, “God, I trust You that if I humble myself, You will lift me out of this situation and set my feet on higher ground.”

4. Learn from your mistakes. This is actually a natural progression of taking responsibility. Whenever you take responsibility you are in the position to grow from your mistakes. Proverbs 24:16 encourages us,

For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity. — NIV

The wicked do not choose to get up; they remain in their fallen state. Their mistakes are not their instructors; they are their downfall. They do not learn from their mistakes; they become entangled and overcome by them. It is not so with the righteous. They humble themselves and grow stronger from each fall.

5. Forgive yourself and others. Forgive those who have hurt you. In Luke 17:4, Jesus told us,

If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him. — NIV

Forgiveness is to be given to those who repent even if they repeat their offense seven times in one day.

We are not in a position to judge them because they have repeated their transgression. Have we not many times repeated our own? We are forgiven the way we forgive. When we don’t release others through forgiveness, we find it difficult to release ourselves. When we freely release others we will find it easier to release our own mistakes. But what if they fail to repent? Do we still need to forgive? It is hard to pray,

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors — Matthew 6:12 NIV

If we in fact have not forgiven those who have outstanding debts. This debt may well be an owed apology for a previous transgression.

6. Step out of the way and make room for God. When the situation still seems hopeless after you have forgiven and done what is necessary to reconcile, then you are in a position to step back and echo the words of David:

May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you. — 1 Samuel 24:12 NIV

God will accomplish His plan in our lives. We will live in frustration and anger if we think we are ultimately in charge. Rage seeks a target or payment for wrongs done; fury and wrath seek revenge or recompense. But this is an area God does not want us to touch. God’s Word tells us,

‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge His people’. — Hebrews 10:30 NIV

God wants His daughters to be passionate and powerful. If you are not constructive with your anger, if you turn it in on yourself or lash out at those around you, you will lose your passion and become depressed or oppressed.

Freedom is not found in rebellion to God’s ways and wisdom. Freedom is found when we operate within His life-giving instructions.

Then we can live life without regret, without fear, and without dragging along the chains of our past.

Excerpted from Be Angry, But Don’t Blow It by Lisa Bevere, copyright Lisa Bevere.

Anger will never be the solution to any righteous cause. Yes, we will get angry when we’re wronged, but what we do next matters! What are you going to do when you’re righteously angry?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 15, 2020

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” sounds, to any Christian, like a grand and noble calling. Jesus’s words can inspire visions of sacrifice, courage, and daring good works. We can lose ourselves daydreaming of future plans to love.

“Jesus did not see small acts of service as interruptions to his calling, but as part of his calling.”

The daydream can vanish with surprising speed, however, when an actual neighbor asks for our help today. In the midst of our busyness, a friend in need texts, “Can you talk?” A church member asks for help to move a dresser. A coworker requests our feedback on a project. The driven among us find that such love disrupts our schedules, overturns our plans for the day, makes hash of our productivity, leaves our to-do lists half done. “Love your neighbor,” as it turns out, can feel like a frustratingly inconvenient command.

So, excuses multiply. “I’m just too busy.” “I helped last time.” “My work is too pressing.” “He reaches out too often.” These defenses are persuasive, plausible — and sometimes, certainly legitimate. Yet often, they reveal that we are taking our own work, however important it may be, too seriously.

Sinful Seriousness

If you dare, place your soul for a moment under this wise scalpel from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Nobody is too good for the lowest service. Those who worry about the loss of time entailed by such small, external acts of helpfulness are usually taking their own work too seriously. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. (Life Together, 76–77)

The words cut — especially those of us, like myself, who are prone to prioritize tasks over people, to see “real work” as the kind that can be checked off a list. Do we find, over and again, that we have no time to give “simple assistance in minor, external matters” (76)? Or that we give our assistance reluctantly, and then rush through the task while our attention is fixated on the task we left behind? If so, we are likely taking our work too seriously.

Strangely enough, Bonhoeffer goes on to observe, Christians can be particularly prone to this kind of sinful seriousness, often considering “their work so important and urgent that they do not want to let anything interrupt it” (77). Slowly, “God’s work” makes us negligent toward God’s commands. We are simply too occupied to look to others’ small and urgent interests (Philippians 2:3–4), too overbooked to spend a slow, unexpected hour listening to someone’s pain (James 1:19), too consumed by high and holy work to attend to the needs of the lowly (Romans 12:16).

In other words, we are too busy to be like Jesus.

Lord of Interruptions

We can say without controversy that no one’s work was more important than Jesus Christ’s. However significant our tasks may be, “save the world” exceeds them all. Nor was anyone more devoted to the mission he’d been given (John 4:34). Yet when approached by the multitudes with their “demands and requests,” no one was more gracious and patient.

Can you imagine how so many of us would have responded to the blind man shouting from the road (Mark 10:46–48)? Or to the woman with the flow of blood (Mark 5:25–34)? Or to the mothers bringing their children for a blessing (Mark 10:13–16)?

Never once do we see Jesus brush past someone with a hasty, “Not now.” Nor do we get the impression that he ever struggled to focus on the person in front of him — even when dozens of others clamored for his attention. Evidently, he did not see small acts of service as interruptions to his calling, but as part of his calling. “The Son of Man came . . . to serve” (Mark 10:45), and oh how he served.

We are not Jesus, of course. But we are being formed into his image. And as servants of the great Servant, he bids us to follow him (Mark 10:43–44).

Focused Love

Jesus, of course, would not advise us to tumble into the ditch on the other side of the road. The schedules of some are sealed seven times over, requiring multiple keys and elaborate knocks to gain entrance — and to such is Bonhoeffer’s counsel intended. But the schedules of others open with every “Do you mind . . . ?” or “Could you . . . ?” People such as these may need to hear the opposite advice and learn to take the tasks before them more seriously.

Jesus, for all his patience in the face of interruptions, knew how to turn down requests (Luke 4:42–43). Some need to realize that being a servant does not remove the word no from our vocabulary. Nor does it prevent us, in an always-available culture like our own, from going off the smartphone grid for parts of the day in order to give focused energy to our most important work and relationships.

More than that, there is a difference between small, everyday requests (the kind Bonhoeffer has in mind) and larger demands on our time. If as a general rule we should lean toward small interruptions and little requests, we should probably lean away from large or ongoing responsibilities — at least without stopping to count the cost (Luke 14:28).

Nevertheless, Bonhoeffer (and Jesus) still bids us toward a difficult balance: do not hold your daily plans with a vice grip, nor hand them to whoever will take them. That kind of balance comes not ultimately from pro-con lists (however helpful those can be) or any other productivity tool, but rather from a heart in tune with heaven’s priorities.

Hearts in Tune with Heaven

Once again, Jesus is our model. With so many demands and requests, and with such important work to do, how did he know when to embrace the unexpected and when to stay focused?

At the beginning of his ministry, after a long night of healing the sick and casting out demons in Capernaum, “the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them” (Luke 4:42). This time, however, Jesus said no: “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43).

“Being a servant does not remove the word ‘no’ from our vocabulary.”

Where did that kind of spiritual discernment come from? Luke tells us. When the crowd came to him, Jesus was in “a desolate place” (Luke 4:42) — and desolate places were Jesus’s favorite places to pray (Luke 5:16). The crowds came to him, in other words, while he was communing with his Father. And from that place of spiritual strength, he had the clarity to see that, this time, he must move on.

Those who anchor their hearts in heaven — not only once, but morning by morning — slowly grow in the same kind of wisdom. They have the discernment to see some requests as unhelpful distractions to the day’s work, and others as the holy interruptions that they are. In the latter case, they may still feel a pulse of selfishness pulling the other way. But by the grace of God, they will laugh at their momentary frustration, set efficiency aside, and seize the day’s interruptions as opportunities for love.

Article by Scott Hubbard
Editor, desiringGod.org

I have come to recognize divine interruptions and respond gratefully as they have also become one of the greatest sources of spiritual blessing in my life.  Follow Jesus.  Have a plan and work to do.  Be willing to be interrupted so that God can use and bless you with those interactions.  Following Jesus is hard, but learning to follow Jesus brings joy just shy of the glory we are to receive in heaven!  Let us run the race of life so as to win!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 14, 2020

A Long Night of Nothing

The last chapter of John opens on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The disciples were all in a boat, and Jesus was on the beach, watching them fish. They weren’t in Jerusalem anymore. They were maybe seventy miles away. What’s significant about the location is that this was where Jesus had first met Peter three years earlier. But by the last chapter of John, Peter is no longer traveling with Jesus. Peter wasn’t helping Jesus feed the five thousand. Peter wasn’t helping Jesus heal people. Peter had gone back to the only job he knew.

Catching fish.

What was Peter really doing?

When we fail Jesus, it opens a door for the Enemy to blast us to smithereens. Maybe we make a big promise, tell God what we’re going to do, tell our friends what we’re going to do, or somehow set ourselves up as being someone God can depend on. But at the end of the day, we fail and fall flat on our faces and make a huge mistake and do things we never thought we would do.

That was Peter. By going fishing, Peter was saying that he was finished. He had had his chance at following Christ, but he blew it and denied him three times. We do the same. Whenever we fall down, it lessens our confidence in God.

The Enemy comes in to attack and says, “You’ve let God and yourself down. Don’t even bother going back to God. Don’t pray about it. God’s fed up with you. He won’t listen. You’ve blown it for the last time.”

And we believe those lies. The next thing we know, we find ourselves going back to the place we came from. Have you ever whispered to yourself anything like the following?

I’ll just go back to drinking again. I mean, I can’t turn to God.

What else do I have?

I’ll just go back to this bad relationship. I know this relationship is harmful to me, but God doesn’t love me. Where else could I go?

I’ll just go back to my poor thoughts again. I can’t ever seem to get a handle on this problem. God’s tired of hearing my excuses by now. So I’ll dwell on these harmful thoughts like I always do.

I’ll go back to those old friends, back to that old environment, back to the place I used to hang out and to the people I used to run around with. I’ll go back to all the harmful stuff I used to do. I’ll run to my favorite coping mechanism because that’s where I’ve always gone for fulfillment and satisfaction. That’s where I’ve always gone to feel better. And even though I never find fulfillment or satisfaction there, and even though I always feel worse there than before, at least it’s familiar territory.

I’ll go back to what I know.

When Jesus showed up early in the morning by the shores of Galilee, the disciples had been fishing all night but catching nothing. Led by Peter, they’d gone back to what was comfortable. But at the end of a night of returning to their old ways, guess what? All they had was a long night of nothing. Have you ever been there? Our culture constantly tells us what we need to do to feel better: party harder, seek happiness in the wrong places, walk the harmful paths. Many of us have gone down that road only to find out it’s still not fulfilling in the end.

But Jesus called out to them, “Do you have any fish?” That phrase as it’s translated unfortunately misses the impact of what Jesus was saying. The phrase is actually a negative. It’s a hypothetical question. The emphasis is placed on what isn’t there. A modern equivalent might be, “How’s that working for you?” Jesus already knew they hadn’t caught any fish — that returning to their old ways was fruitless.

So he offered a solution. Jesus called out, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you’ll find some.”

To an experienced Galilean fisherman, this advice sounded elementary. I mean, fishermen are fishermen the world over, and if a fisherman isn’t catching fish, then he’s going to have some sort of excuse for it. The bait was wrong. The visibility was bad. There was cloud cover over the lake. The moon was out of position. The fish horoscope was bad.

There’s always an excuse. You can picture these guys on the boat all night. They haven’t caught anything. They’ve undoubtedly tried the right side, the left side, the front side, the back side. They’ve already put the net everywhere! You can almost hear the sarcasm coming from the boat. “Oh, the right side! We didn’t think of that, did we?”

Who knows their motivation for changing the position of their nets? Maybe they were desperate enough to try what sounded obvious. They listened to the voice, threw their net on the right side, and — boom! Greatest catch ever! They couldn’t haul the net in because of all the fish.

Let’s stay on that point for a moment, because maybe you’ve been fishing for a long time and have a whole night of nothing. Jesus stands before you, and His message is, “I know where the fish are.” Meaning, “I know exactly what you’re looking for, and I know exactly where you can get it.”

Jesus says, if you’re looking for friendship, I know where that is.

Jesus says, if you’re looking for acceptance, I know where that is.

Jesus says, if you’re looking for meaning in life, I know where that is.

Jesus says, if you’re looking for healing, I know where that is.

Jesus says, if you’re looking for significance, I know where that is.

Jesus says, if you’re looking for security, I know where that is.

Jesus says, if you’re looking for satisfaction, I know where that is.

Right now, He’s asking you the same question He asked Peter and the disciples. Jesus is looking at your familiar patterns of living and asking, “How’s that working for you?” He’s not asking for any information from you. He already knows how it’s working out for you. He’s giving you the opportunity to form the words in your heart and mind that affirm the reality of what’s happening.

Once we affirm that reality, then God is able to restore us.

As long as we deny our situation and continue to think that what we’re doing is great and fun and satisfying and that we’re running the show, then we’re still under the power of the deceiver.

The moment we speak the truth and answer to Jesus, “Actually, I don’t have anything,” or “Actually, I feel miserable,” or “Actually, what I’m doing isn’t helping at all,” then Jesus says to us, “Put your net over there.” He says, “I know exactly what you’re looking for, and I know exactly where you can get it. You find what you’re looking for when you follow Me.”

I love what happens next in the story. When the disciples’ net was full of fish, John was the first to recognize that Jesus was on the shore. Peter, always the impulsive one, jumped into the water and swam to shore. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net of fish — it was so full they couldn’t heft it into the boat. Why did Peter want to get to shore ahead of all the others? He was still the hard-driving disciple trying to work his way back into the graces of Jesus. Peter was still following his old patterns. It’s like he was announcing to Jesus, “See those guys still in the boat? They’re not swimming to you, but I am! I’m still your guy, Jesus! You can count on me!”

I wonder what Jesus was thinking. Maybe something like, “Man, Peter, do you still not get it? I can’t count on you. You told me you’d die for me, but you denied me. Three times! What I’m trying to help you understand is that I can’t count on you. But here’s the good news: you can count on me!”

Excerpted from The Comeback: It's Not Too Late and You’re Never Too Far by Louie Giglio, copyright Louie Giglio.

Do you feel like you’ve been fishing all night and had a long night of nothing? Maybe you’re back doing what you used to do, with the people you used to hang out with, at the places you used to go. Let’s stop today and ask, “Am I looking for fulfillment, hope, healing, meaning, love, etc. in all the wrong places?”  Let’s finish well the race to which we have been called in Christ Jesus!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 13, 2020

“If you faint in the day of adversity,” the king instructed his son, “your strength is small” (Proverbs 24:10). No man longs for small strength. No godly man can stomach the thought of fainting before adversity, when he should otherwise stand firm for his family, his church, and his Lord.

Alternatively, this king gives his son a different duty:

Rescue those who are being taken away to death;

hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. (Proverbs 24:11)

He trains his son to be a strong man of God. A man who risks his own comforts to rescue others. A man who exerts his mind, his will, and his heart to restrain those stumbling toward destruction. Every sword fight in the back yard, every dream of battling dragons, every ache of valor, testifies that even fallen man has not completely forgotten his purpose. It’s in his blood.

But then again, adversity is adversity. No man wants to be weak; but strength comes at a price. Danger and hardship await those who do not faint — devils fight those who do not play dead. Men want to be strong, and yet no man wants to suffer.

Ready to Fight the Elderly

Thus, it is a menace to all good men in every generation to travel the path that seems to be the hard way and yet requires nothing but small strength.

One such shortcut today is to ride your horse triumphantly into yesterday’s battles. This path avoiding the today of adversity — that dangerous, frightful, unpredictable place of here and now — allows one to still make a show of strength by combating the yesterday of adversity.

This path doesn’t seek to learn from our forefather’s gravest sins as it does to attack and cancel them. It gains moral superiority condemning those not here to defend themselves. It spits upon graves, topples statues, and wonders aloud for all to hear, “How could they?”

This, to many eyes, has the appearance of courage. But is it? Chesterton, for one, would not be impressed:

There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. (What’s Wrong with the World, 33)

How many of us are tempted to be men who fight grandmothers instead of face living giants? We all can position ourselves on the right side of history retroactively, instead of putting on the uniform of those drawing fire today. It is easier, of course, to shoot arrows onto a battlefield that has already cooled, at an enemy that has already left. “Were I around back then,” we are tempted to bluster, “I would have done thus and thus.” We denounce our ancestors’ blind spots but say comparatively little about our own.

God Knows We Know

Today, unlike yesterday, is full of tyrannies that will strike back. You can lose face, lose platforms, lose your job, and more. It is less troublesome, we discover, to smash everyone else’s idols but our own. The crowd cheering us for scolding our grandparents swiftly turns on us if we speak of their darling sins.

Thus, the adversity of today will ever require strong men (and undaunted women, Proverbs 31:25) of today. Feigning ignorance of the evils of our times, though convenient, will not absolve us. The king continues,

If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”

does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,

and will he not repay man according to his work? (Proverbs 24:12)

God knows the characteristic sins of every crooked and twisted generation. He knows well our current abominations. And more than that, God knows we know about them too. If we try and say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

He knows, for example, we are murdering our children at the altar of the goddess Choice. Ours is a civilized, efficient barbarity hushed in clinics all across our nation. And some shouting down their grandfather’s evils are also the loudest advocates for this generation’s more heinous abomination. Standing before the judgment seat of God, we can say we did not care, but none can say we did not know.

Are we the same men we question from former generations — the ones who sat around and did nothing while evil prevailed? Being men of great strength for today’s challenges will require us to be willing to fight where the battle rages, to be ready to suffer for the truth, and to live with Christ, without the comfort of being welcomed in the world.

Fight Where the Battle Rages

The foe we fail to meet at the gate in our own generation is the foe we let into the city for the next. Fail to show up on divorce, marriage, manhood and womanhood, and sexuality today, and the camp will be overrun tomorrow.

English poet Elizabeth Charles (1828–1896) wrote so forcefully of Martin Luther that her words are often misattributed to him,

It is the truth which is assailed in any age which tests our fidelity. It is to confess we are called, not merely to profess. If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point.

Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved. Every generation has its specific questions for the prophets of the age to answer. Previous generations have asked, Is war moral? What kind of God would allow a plague? Are all endowed with unalienable rights by their Creator? And so today, we ask, What is a man, and what is a woman? What is marriage? What is human life, and why must it be protected? What is the nature of “justice,” and who defines what it is?

It is here, before Pharaoh’s courts, that God commands us, “Cast your staff there” (see Exodus 7:9). And no matter how many serpents the sorcerers of secularism may conjure, God’s wisdom will have the world’s tail showing from its mouth just before it disappears entirely. History divulges a pattern in which ideologies come and go; “gods” come and go, but the words of the one true God remain. So, God gives us the sobering task of destroying our generation’s arguments and capturing the lofty opinions of men raised against the knowledge of God to obey Christ.

Be Ready to Suffer

We are not promised safety in such warfare. The apostle bids Timothy, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3).

This can startle us, especially in the comfortable West. We quickly forget that war is raging outside the castle. We are tempted to live as citizens of this world, to entangle ourselves in civilian pursuits (2 Timothy 2:4). When one soldier among us lifts up his voice to rally a charge out into the violent unknown, we may even label him a radical, a puritan, an extremist. War? What is this fellow talking about? Why does he walk about in armor like that?

The Christian life requires great strength — the Lord’s, in fact. “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). This is because being strong will cost us. Christians are generally a suffering people. Our men often have spilled their blood to speak of our God. Blasphemies are the world’s love language. Plain truth, spoken unapologetically, is the only heresy remaining. And the world persecutes its heretics.

Live for Christ, Outside the Camp

I myself have imagined the heroes of yesterday were loved by their contemporaries. Some were; many were not. “We admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago,” Spurgeon observed, “but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down.” A prophet may not only go without honor in his hometown, but also in his generation.

Perhaps it is fortunate that we did not live in the days of our heroes. Their grip might have crumbled us. To meet a Luther, Spurgeon, Augustine, Athanasius, or the likes of Moses, David, Elijah, Daniel, Ezra, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Paul — or Jesus himself — would expose us. We love our heroes like many love lions — in the zoo, at a safe distance, on the other side of the glass.

It was harder to be such heroes than we first imagine. Just read their stories. They lived outside the camp of their own generation. They were outcasts, oddities, strangers — and so is our calling. We too must make peace with not being at peace with our generation, content to live outside the camp of carnal security, because we seek a different home: “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:12–14).

Why Sorrows Fester

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, “They that know have grown afraid to speak. That is why sorrows that used to purify now only fester.” In every day of adversity, sorrows fester when men who know the truth grow afraid to speak. When they faint, when they grow weary, hopeless, unwilling, listless, the vulnerable and victimized are not rescued. Evil gains a foothold.

No man longs for small strength. But then again, who among us loves so deeply, believes so fiercely, trusts Christ so unshakably that he will not — cannot — faint with so much at stake? Today, souls will be lost. Today, children will be murdered. Today, Satan launches assaults on the church, and blinds the minds of unbelievers from the glory of Christ. Today is the only day we have — and it, not tomorrow, is the day of salvation.

Will we fight today’s battles? Will we speak, or let sorrows fester? Men of God, we were forged for adversity. We were remade to fight battles, to extend God’s kingdom, to war with devils. Our society, our families, our churches will not survive without us — without men molded for such a time as this.

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

We ARE in a battle whether we realize it or not, whether we fight back or not, a battle is raging.  We are who we are, placed where we are “for such a time as this.” I have prayed to be alive when the rapture of the church takes place…the signs of the times clearly make this seem possible.  But while we wait expectantly for the return of Jesus, we must stand firm, and fight for righteousness and truth! Praise God for giving us life in these most exciting days of earth’s history.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 12, 2020

When we can walk away from toxic people, we probably and usually should. But when financial necessity, work obligations, family relationships, or even the accomplishment of our God-given mission necessitates that we find a way to live or work with a toxic person, we can learn much by following Jesus’ example with Judas.

JESUS AND JUDAS

Though Jesus often walked away and let others walk away, He obviously and clearly kept one toxic person very close to His side — His betrayer, Judas. Let’s focus on three key strategies, based on Jesus’ interaction with Judas, for how we can live with or work alongside toxic people without going crazy ourselves. 

Jesus Didn’t View His Mission as Stopping Toxic People from Sinning 

Maybe it seems more obvious to you, but it was startling to me when I realized Jesus knew Judas was a thief and never chose to stop Him. John clues us in: 

One of [Jesus’] disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray Him, objected, ‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.’ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. — John 12:4-6

If John knew Judas was a thief, Jesus knew Judas was a thief. In fact, Jesus knew that Judas was worse than a thief. In John 6:70, Jesus said, 

“Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray Him.)

Jesus knew Judas was toxic. He could have stopped Judas from stealing and His future betrayal by kicking Him out of their group at any time. 

But He didn’t. Why? Jesus kept the bigger mission in mind. To seek first God’s Kingdom, He had to raise up a band of disciples. He also had to die on the cross. He wasn’t waylaid by individual battles of piety with His disciples, as we are prone to do with people around us. Addressing Judas’s thievery would be like a neurosurgeon clipping someone’s fingernails. There were more important issues at hand. And Jesus’ mission was not to stop everybody from sinning. 

This is actually a freeing word for believers. Your mission is not to confront every sin you hear or know of, even among your perhaps toxic family members or coworkers. Of course, if you’re a parent of a child still living at home, confronting sin is an appropriate part of spiritual training.

But at extended family gatherings, with hard-hearted friends and certainly coworkers, our job isn’t to be “sin detectives” who discover how others are messing up and then unleash havoc by sharing our opinions with those who don’t want to hear them. 

Jesus could have spent all twenty-four hours of every day trying to confront every one of His disciples’ sins. “Peter, put away that anger!” “Thomas, you’re still doubting Me, aren’t you?” “Thaddeus, you’re people-pleasing again. Nobody likes a suck-up.” 

Instead, He focused on training and equipping reliable people. Focusing on others’ sin makes you focus on what’s toxic. Focusing on training makes you focus on what is good and on who is reliable. The latter is a much more enjoyable and ultimately much more productive life. 

Because our goal is to seek first God’s Kingdom and righteousness, and to seek out reliable people in the process, we’ve got to let a few things slide right by us. 

That uncle who brings another woman half his age to Thanksgiving dinner? Not our problem. The coworker who had too much to drink at the office party? If we’re not the boss, that’s not our concern. Besides, one sin is never the issue. Alienation from God, shattered psyches, unhealed and unaddressed hurts — those are the real issues. 

Feel free to enjoy people and love them without having to serve as their conscience. 

When asked sincerely, speak the truth. Just know that merely witnessing sin in your presence doesn’t require you to act as prosecuting attorney, judge, and jury. 

Keep the bigger picture in mind. Instead of upending the holiday gathering by making sure everyone knows you disapprove of what that child, cousin, uncle, or parent is doing, find a hungry soul to quietly encourage, bless, inspire, and challenge. Find the most “reliable” relative and invest in them. 

Jesus Didn’t Let Judas’s Toxicity Become His 

How much money would you spend to get an hour to ask Jesus all the questions you’ve ever wanted to ask Him? 

What would it be worth to you to go back to the first century and spend an entire weekend with Jesus, watching Him perform miracles, listening to His teachings, participating in private conversations, watching Him pray and interact with others? 

I’m guessing, if you’re reading a book like this, a whole lot. All of which makes Judas’s betrayal seem all the more ungrateful. Jesus gave him a front row seat to the most significant life ever lived, and Judas sold Him out. 

And yet at the Last Supper, when Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, Jesus made sure that Judas was still present. In a picture the sheer wonder of which leaves me in awe, Jesus used the two holiest hands that have ever existed, the two most precious hands in the history of humankind, the hands pierced for our salvation — Jesus took those exquisite hands and washed the feet of His toxic betrayer. 

Even in the face of ungratefulness and malice, Jesus kept the door open to relational reconciliation. He loved Judas to the end, essentially saying, 

“You can’t make Me hate you. Your toxicity won’t become My toxicity.” 

Just as astonishing to me is what happened during the act of betrayal. When Judas walks up to Jesus to hand Him over to the soldiers, Jesus looks at Judas and says, 

Do what you came for, friend. — Matthew 26:50

Friend? How about skunk? How about snake? Jesus said “friend” because Jesus didn’t have a toxic molecule in His body. There was nowhere for toxicity to take root. God is radically for people. He wants everyone to come to a

knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). As His followers, we also must be for everyone, even if we oppose what they’re doing. If we must live and work with toxic people, our call is to make sure their toxicity doesn’t become ours. We don’t treat them as they treat us. We don’t offer evil in exchange for evil. We love. We serve. We guard our hearts so that we are not poisoned by their bad example.

Jesus Spoke Truth to Crazy 

While Jesus invited Judas back into relationship until the very moment of betrayal, washing his feet and even calling him friend, He never pretended that what Judas was doing wasn’t toxic. In fact, He warned Judas at the Last Supper that if he were to go through with his plans, things wouldn’t end well for him: 

Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born. — Mark 14:21

When Judas kissed Him in Gethsemane, Jesus replied,

Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss? — Luke 22:48

When working around toxic people, you don’t have to pretend they’re not toxic. You don’t have to pretend they are well-meaning but perhaps misguided. 

The reason this is good news is that it helps preserve our sanity. Toxic people are experts at twisting things, making us feel crazy for admitting the truth (what counselors call gaslighting). But as followers of Jesus, we are committed to the truth because we are committed to Jesus, who said, 

I am the way and the truth and the life.— John 14:6, emphasis added

Without truth as a refuge, interacting with crazy people can start to make you feel crazy. But God is a God of order.

Craziness is a clear sign of toxicity. 

This will sound like such a cliché, but I’ve found that extra praying brings some level of sanity to a situation that feels crazy. There’s something about spending time talking to and listening to the God of truth that restores sanity when you’re forced to spend time in a place that makes you feel like you’re losing your mind. 

As we trust that God understands all that is truly going on, and as we remember that God is the only one capable of bringing everything to account, we can rest in His understanding, promise, and protection: 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:6-7

Takeaways 

·         Sometimes we can’t walk away but have to learn how to live or work around toxic people. This will require us to become stronger than we’ve ever been before.

·         Don’t try to control a controller. Work around them as you are required to, but don’t let their ups and downs become your ups and downs. Keep a healthy level of distance between the two of you.

·         Keep first things first. Our job isn’t to stop people from sinning. Focus on investing in reliable people.

·         Guard against letting someone else’s toxicity tempt you to respond in a similarly toxic fashion. We can’t control what toxic people do and say, but we can control what we do and say.

·         Don’t allow someone who is ruining their life to ruin yours as well. Leave work at work (or family drama at family gatherings).

·         Thank God that we never have to pretend crazy isn’t crazy. We live by the truth. We don’t have to pretend toxic people aren’t toxic; we just have to learn a nontoxic way of interacting with them.

Excerpted from When to Walk Away by Gary L. Thomas, copyright The Center for Evangelical Spirituality.

There are many toxic people around us, some family members we love and don’t want to leave but sincerely want to help if we can.  Others are neighbors, coworkers, politicians, etc. that we may have to interact with but must not effect who we are in Christ!  Strive mightily for those who are toxic not to make you toxic.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 11, 2020

Imagine a day when Christians are being increasingly marginalized. They are not yet being physically persecuted, but everywhere they turn, they are being insulted. They are maligned. They are regularly slandered. And the vitriol seems to be growing. Among the influential, Christianity is not trending; if anything, Christianity is being increasingly blamed for various problems perceived in society.

It’s not only a fitting description of our times, but also almost two millennia ago, the apostle Peter wrote to Christians in similar circumstances. They were not yet being physically persecuted, but they were facing the world’s growing disapproval: insults, slander, cold shoulders. And where did Peter turn, when he set his mind to put pen to paper and write them a letter? He turned to Psalm 34.

“When things are bad, taste and see that he is good.”

Twice 1 Peter quotes Psalm 34 — briefly in 2:3, and more extensively in 3:10–12. Which leads some scholars to think that Peter may have meditated at length on Psalm 34 as he prepared to write to these early Christians in their sufferings. And it makes sense. The key link between Peter’s day, and ours, and Psalm 34 is verse 19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Prepare for Affliction

Seeing how Peter uses Psalm 34 helps us see the richness of what David is doing in Psalm 34. As Peter saw, Psalm 34 prepares us to suffer. It is not only a call for God’s people to celebrate with David his deliverance from affliction, but also, as we do so, to prepare ourselves for our own afflictions, whether already present or coming. We see it in the very first line:

I will bless the Lord at all times;
     his praise shall continually be in my mouth. (Psalm 34:1)

Why say “at all times”? Because there are times when praising the Lord might seem unusual, or at least unexpected — times when we assume praise might cease. When would that be? Hard times. Afflictions.

And yet, David, having come through such an affliction (the superscript notes the time his life was under threat among the Philistines in 1 Samuel 21:10–15) he says, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” Not just in the good times, when praise is easy. Not just when all seems right with the world. Not just those times, but at all times. When under threat, when it’s hard, when it’s uncertain. When it’s painful. When I’m impatient and I just want the pandemic to be over and get back to normal life, and it drags on and on. Then — at that moment — in the downs of life, in the trials, in the pains, in affliction, there’s the all times David is talking about.

That’s the context in which we should read verse 8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” When 1 Peter 2:3 alludes to it and says “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good,” Peter is appealing to what these embattled believers themselves have experienced in affliction — the very thing David calls us to in Psalm 34: to taste and see, in affliction, in the bad times, that the Lord is good. To trust him against all odds. Lean on him, rest in him, when there seems to be no way out. When things are bad, taste and see that he is good.

So, with that help from the apostle Peter on how to read this psalm, consider four truths from Psalm 34 for us in our generation, and in this pandemic.

1. God’s people will suffer (verses 19–22).

The first part of verse 19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.”

Let that statement have its effect. Don’t move on too quickly. Jesus said to his followers in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation.” And the apostle Paul went around to his church plants, as he gave them the basics of the Christian life, and taught them “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). And to the Thessalonians, Paul writes about their afflictions, “You yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction” (1 Thessalonians 3:3–4).

Being God’s people, “the righteous,” is no promise of earthly ease. In fact, with it comes promises of affliction. And not just “some” but “many.” “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” So we might say, Well, that’s pretty poor treatment from an all-powerful God toward his people. Why, then, be his? Why bother being righteous?

Verses 21–22 make clear that affliction serves two contrasting purposes for the righteous and for the wicked, for God’s people and for his enemies. Verses 21–22:

Affliction will slay the wicked,
    and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
     none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

“Being God’s people, ‘the righteous,’ is no promise of earthly ease.”

Affliction ruins the wicked. It’s the end of their story. But affliction makes the righteous, and is not their end. It reveals their true colors. It has a humbling effect, rather than a hardening effect. Affliction has a purifying effect for the righteous, while having a punitive effect for the wicked. The wicked will be condemned at the final judgment. The righteous, though afflicted — and through affliction — will not be condemned, but the Lord himself will redeem their life.

But we need to ask more about “the righteous” here. Who are “the righteous” in verse 15? Who are God’s people, his “servants” in verse 22, his “saints” in verse 9? I want to be in that number! Psalm 34 tells us far more about God’s people than that they are righteous, but also what makes them righteous:

Verse 2: they are humble: “Let the humble hear and be glad.”

Verse 5: they are “those who look to him.”

Verses 7 and 9: “those who fear him.”

Verses 8 and 22: “those who take refuge in him.”

Verse 10: “those who seek the Lord.”

Verse 14: they “turn away from evil and do good.”

Verse 18: he calls them “brokenhearted” and “crushed in spirit” (not the unbroken and uncrushed, but the broken and crushed).

So, as the whole psalm implies, and as verse 19 makes explicit, God’s people will suffer. The afflictions of the righteous are many. Cities Church, we take this with utter seriousness. We do not pretend that Christianity frees us from afflictions in this world. In fact, we assume it brings more, for now, not less. Many afflictions.

And so Peter tells his readers in 1 Peter 4:1, “Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.” He says in 1 Peter 4:12, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Expect it. Prepare your heart for it.

Let’s be armed. Let’s not be surprised. But let’s be ready to taste and see, in the bad times, how good our Lord is.

2. God’s people “do good” while they wait (verses 11–18).

The idea of waiting is implied by verses 11–18. The assumption is that deliverance from affliction does not come immediately. God is not the genie of the lamp who fulfills wishes the moment we ask. He is God Almighty. He rules the universe without our counsel. He freely chooses to rescue the righteous, and does so on his timetable — not theirs.

Verses 11–18 provide a dual clarification for the righteous in their many afflictions. First, the promise of divine rescue is not a promise of immediate rescue. Waiting in affliction is part of what makes it affliction. God means for his people to endure in suffering that doesn’t go away right away. And 1 Peter is explicit about this call to wait on God’s timing:

1 Peter 1:6, “Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” — meaning, longer than you want, but small in relation to eternity.

1 Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”

1 Peter 5:10, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

So, first clarification: the promise of divine rescue is not a promise of immediate rescue. Second: affliction and suffering are no excuse for evil. Rather, as we wait for God’s rescue, Psalm 34 calls us to “do good.”

“There will be fears, troubles, afflictions, even death — and there will be resurrection on the other side.”

Psalm 34 has two big parts: Verses 1–10 is the call to worship and testimony time (I cried for help; God rescued me; rejoice with me). Then, verses 11–22 are the teaching time (he shares lessons). Verse 11 starts the new section: “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Then, David appeals to us: to our desire for life (when death threatens) and for many days (when they seem few) and to see good (when facing evil), and he says — what? Find your way to cope? Lament? Grumble? Be authentic and air your grievances with God? He says in verses 13–14,

Keep your tongue from evil
     and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good;
     seek peace and pursue it.

In other words, the pains of affliction are no excuse for evil. The affliction of a pandemic, or unjust treatment at work, or childhood trauma, or being insulted because of your faith, is no reason for God’s people to act like the devil’s. Affliction is no excuse for gossip, or sinful anxiety, or sinful anger, or spiritual apathy.

In fact, affliction is a call, to God’s people, for precisely the opposite. A pandemic is no sign from God that we’re on a break and you have an excuse to be spiritually slack. Rather, affliction rings in the ears of the righteous as a call to “do good” all the more, to keep our tongues from evil, and our hearts from unbelief. Affliction is game time: Will our lights really shine and give glory to our Father in heaven, or not?

So, not only do the righteous face many afflictions, and wait in those afflictions, but they do good while they wait. The righteous are righteous in affliction. The righteous are righteous when threatened.

And this emphasis in Psalm 34 on doing good while we wait is what prompts Peter to reach for this psalm to encourage his readers. He says to insulted, ill-treated Christians, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (2:12). And then, he quotes verses 12–16 as support for saying, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless [do good], for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9).

So, David says to his people, and Peter to his, and now this psalm and 1 Peter say to us, affliction is no excuse for sin. In fact, affliction is a fresh call to do good.

A question for us all, in this moment, is: What good are we doing as we wait in the affliction of this pandemic? Have you let this affliction become an excuse or cause for sin, or spiritual apathy? Are you doing good to others as you wait? And if, let’s say, we’re at the halfway point of the pandemic, how has your first half been? Have you done good, rather than evil, as you’ve waited? And what might God be calling us to, in the weeks ahead, in our fatigue, as this affliction drags on?

3. God rescues his people resoundingly (verse 20).

Resoundingly — not barely, but fully and finally. This is verse 20, but includes all the seemingly over-the-top language in the psalm. Did you notice all the “alls” and “nones” of Psalm 34?

Verse 1: “I will bless the Lord at all times.”

Verse 4: “He . . . delivered me from all my fears.”

Verse 5: “Their faces shall never be ashamed.”

Verse 6: God “saved [David] out of all his troubles.”

Verse 9: “Those who fear him have no lack.”

Verse 10: “Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

Verse 17: “The Lord . . . delivers [the righteous] out of all their troubles.”

Verse 19: “The Lord delivers [the righteous] out of . . . all [their afflictions].”

Verse 22: “None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.”

Delivered from all fears, all troubles, all afflictions — so we ask, Does God always deliver the righteous?

Life from Dry Bones

The answer in Psalm 34 comes in verse 20, with one final “all.” Start at verse 19:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
     but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones;
     not one of them is broken.

Verse 20 is probably the most obscure part of this psalm for us today, because we no longer attach much symbolic significance to bones. But in the Bible, bones have all sorts of figurative meaning, depending on context. We not only hear of “flesh and bone,” referring to the human body, or to kinship, or of bones being buried, bones being the last remaining part of the body once the flesh has rotted or been consumed. Seeing bones, through the skin of someone living, is a sign of starvation or sickness or wasting away. Bones also refer to the deepest part of humans (as in Psalm 6:2: “I am languishing . . . my bones are troubled”).

And in our studies in Genesis and Exodus, remember two strange mentions of bones. First, there are no more famous bones in Scripture than Joseph’s. The book of Genesis ends with Joseph making the sons of Israel swear to bring up his bones from Egypt to the Promised Land when God delivers them (Genesis 50:25). And when Israel makes its exodus, the pledge is fulfilled. Exodus 13:19:

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.”

“Affliction rings in the ears of the righteous as a call to ‘do good’ all the more.”

And not just Genesis, but the book of Joshua also ends with Joseph’s bones. Joshua 24:32: “As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought.” In the New Testament, Hebrews celebrates this as a great act of faith: “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones” (Hebrews 11:22). How is it an act of faith?

In the very midst of it all, just breaths before the mention of Joseph’s bones in Exodus 13, comes instructions about the Passover lamb in Exodus 12: “It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones” (Exodus 12:46; also Numbers 9:12). There is something sacred, it seems, about the bones. But the picture is not yet complete.

Then we come to Ezekiel 37 and his vision of a valley of dry bones — the bones being the remaining part of bodies that once lived. The dry bones represent death, and yet not utter devastation. Something remains. Bones remain. And God tells Ezekiel to prophesy, and flesh returns to the bones, and then breath returns to the restored bodies, and an army of God’s people is raised from the grave.

In other words, intact bones, kept bones, unbroken bones, represent the hope of resurrection, that God, in his perfect timing, will reassemble the bones, and restore the flesh, and give breath, and bring dry bones back to full life with resurrection power.

Resurrection Promise

Now, to turn back to Psalm 34, God keeping the bones of the righteous is a promise of resurrection. He keeps them to restore them. And note well, resurrection does not mean no death. In fact, it requires it. You must first die to be brought back to life again. Just as deliverance does not mean no trouble. There must first be trouble before you can be delivered from it.

So, Psalm 34 does not say the righteous won’t die, that they won’t suffer in the flesh, and die in the flesh. But it does promise that God will raise them. All their bones will be kept; which is figurative, not literal. Not one will be broken. A righteous man may indeed break bones and even die with broken bones. The point is God will keep his bones — God will raise him; God will put him back together and give him flesh again and breath again. And affliction, even if it kills him, will not defeat the righteous in the end.

The reason Joseph cared about his bones is that he believed God would raise him back to life one day. And the reason God instructed his people not to break the bones of the Passover lamb is that one day God would raise the true Passover Lamb back to life. And so John 19:36 reports, at the death of Jesus,

These things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”

And if we know the meaning of bones, we say at that point in John’s Gospel (if it hasn’t already been clear enough), Jesus is going to rise. He won’t stay dead. These unbroken bones are a sign. God is keeping them. God will raise them.

So, back to our question from the “alls” and “nones” of Psalm 34: Does God always deliver the righteous? And the answer is a resounding yes. From all fears. From all troubles. From all afflictions. God will keep all his bones. Not even one will be broken. Which means there will be fears, troubles, afflictions, even death — and there will be resurrection on the other side. And God will deliver his people not in their preferred timing, but his.

If we only knew, in our afflictions, however severe, what a resounding rescue we have coming, we’d be so much more ready to bear up under our momentary trials.

4. God’s people celebrate him together (verse 3).

In one sense, this is the whole first half of the psalm (verses 1–10), but look especially at verse 3: “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

What does it mean to “magnify” God? It does not mean to make him look bigger than he is — as if when we gather together to sing his praises, we make him look big, when in fact he is small. That would be to magnify like a microscope. A microscope takes tiny objects and makes them look bigger than they are so that our weak eyes can see them.

“We want to magnify the truth and beauty and worth of God in Christ to each other.”

Rather, when we join our voices (and lives) together in praise of our God, we magnify him like a telescope. Telescopes take massive objects that look small to our frail, human eyes and make them look more like what they really are: enormous beyond our capacity to comprehend. That is more like the magnifying we do when we gather in worship, and the kind of magnifying we do, for each other and for our world, through our words and our lives.

God is enormous beyond our capacity to comprehend. And glorious beyond our ability to fully appreciate. And powerful beyond our capacity to measure. But tragically, he often seems small to our frail and fallen human eyes. We do not see him as he is. We need help. From David. From Peter. From each other. And we gather weekly as a church for that kind of magnification: to remind each other what’s most real, what’s most precious, what’s glorious. And in our lives, and through our words, we want to magnify the truth and beauty and worth of God in Christ to each other, and to a world that does not see reality as it should.

Magnified in Our Gladness

There’s one last component here we can’t overlook. David is not just reporting the facts. Psalm 34 is not a detached, objective report. David is celebrating. He is boiling over. He has tasted God’s goodness in bad times. He is happy. He says in verse 2, “Let the humble hear and be glad.”

God is not so magnified in our words, and our lives, when we simply report the truth, as he is when we rejoice in him. When we are glad in him, he looks good. When we celebrate him and his goodness to us, and his goodness to all who look to him and fear him and seek him and take refuge in him, he is magnified — and especially when we taste and see he is good in the midst of many afflictions.

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

Christians in the United States are beginning to feel the pain of serious persecution.  The worst is yet to come, but the writing is on the wall and in the mouths of some leaders of our nation.  Even so, we were created for such a time as this, and must stand firm in truth, praising God, being the light of the world until Christ returns or calls us home.  May we draw ever close to God, our Father, and Savior Jesus Christ through the power of His Spirit within us.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 10, 2020

It is a settled spiritual principle that small thoughts of sin lead to small thoughts of Christ. If we think we have been forgiven little, we will love little (Luke 7:47). The same principle applies, however, to those who have simply forgotten how much they’ve been forgiven. And to one degree or another, we are all prone to forget.

Hence the apostle Paul’s command to remember what life was like without Christ:

Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh . . . were . . . separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:11–12)

“If we are going to treasure all we have in Christ, we need to remember who we were without him.”

Remember, Paul tells the Ephesians, that you were once separated, alienated, estranged, hopeless. Because then, and only then, will it mean something that in Christ you are reconciled, welcomed, adopted, saved.

So too with us. If we are going to love Christ much, we need to remember the depths from which he saved us. If we are going to treasure all we have in him, we need to remember who we were without him.

Ruined Temples

The biblical authors never speak softly about our sin. Paul does not hesitate to describe us as “dead in . . . sins” (Ephesians 2:1), nor does John to call us “blind” (1 John 2:11). In Jesus’s eyes, even the most generous among us are nevertheless “evil” (Luke 11:13). We should not flinch, then, to apply to our pre-Christian selves the infamous label of “totally depraved.”

Despite popular misperceptions, total depravity begins with a rather modest claim. The doctrine does not suggest (as some mistakenly believe) that we are as bad as we could be, but only that every part of us is bad: our minds, hearts, wills, affections. None of our faculties left Eden unfallen. As J.C. Ryle writes,

We can acknowledge that man has all the marks of a majestic temple about him — a temple in which God once dwelt, but a temple which is now in utter ruins — a temple in which a shattered window here, and a doorway there, and a column there, still give some faint idea of the magnificence of the original design, but a temple which from end to end has lost its glory and fallen from its high estate. (Holiness, 5)

Fallen man walks the earth like a ruined temple, at once magnificent and miserable. Our minds, which once welcomed the light of truth, are now “darkened” and “futile” (Ephesians 4:18; Romans 1:21). Our hearts, which once pulsed with holy passion, are now “hardened” and “deceitful” (Ephesians 4:18; Jeremiah 17:9). Our wills, which once leapt at God’s commands, now refuse to heed his voice (Jeremiah 9:6; John 5:39–40).

The temple of humanity may still be standing, but sin inhabits every ruined room. Apart from Christ, we are totally depraved.

No, Not One

Total depravity becomes a more difficult doctrinal pill to swallow when we consider some of its implications. For example: in our fallen state, we cannot submit to God (Romans 8:7), we cannot please God (Romans 8:8; Hebrews 11:6), and most striking of all, we cannot do good (John 15:5; Romans 14:23). “No one does good,” Paul tells us — “not even one” (Romans 3:12).

How do we make sense of such a statement? Don’t we see non-Christians help their neighbors and care for their children every day? Don’t we ourselves remember doing various good deeds before we followed Christ?

To be sure, the biblical writers are willing to grant a kind of goodness to the godless. Even the evil can “give good gifts,” Jesus says (Luke 11:13). Likewise, Paul assumes that rulers know how to recognize “good conduct,” and that pagan citizens know how to display it (Romans 13:3). But God-ignoring goodness, helpful as it may be for a well-ordered society, can never please God — any more than a song of praise to Baal could please him simply because it had a few pleasant notes. If our goodness is not through God, for God, and to God (Romans 11:36), then we are singing in the service of an idol.

“Fallen man walks the earth like a ruined temple, at once magnificent and miserable.”

Perhaps if God were peripheral to this world, if he were of merely marginal interest and importance, then non-Christian goodness would qualify as true virtue. Perhaps if, as C.S. Lewis once wrote, God were less of a Father in heaven and more of a “grandfather in heaven, a senile benevolence . . . whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’” (The Problem of Pain, 31), then even he would be satisfied with our secular kindnesses.

But what if God is instead the blazing sun of the universe? What if our highest duty (and happiness!) is to love him with heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30)? What if the very breath in our lungs is his gift (Acts 17:25)? What if he is jealous to get the glory he deserves from us (Jeremiah 13:11)? What if history is rushing toward a day when he alone will be exalted (Isaiah 2:17)? If that is the case, then there is no true virtue without true worship. There is no good without God.

Without Defense

In ourselves, we are totally depraved; in God’s sight, we are wholly displeasing. Those two facts, taken together, lead us to a third: without Christ, we are hopelessly condemned.

The judgment, in fact, has already begun. Paul writes, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18). Is revealed, not will be revealed. And how is God revealing his wrath? By handing us over to our favorite sins. “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts. . . . God gave them up to dishonorable passions. . . . God gave them up to a debased mind” (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). We desired freedom from God, not realizing that, the freer we are from him, the more enslaved we are to sin.

The wrath of God already abides on us (John 3:36). And unless God himself intervenes to lift his wrath from us, our darkened minds become darker; our hardened hearts become harder; our bent wills become ever more crooked. We labor every day in service to our sin, stockpiling all the while the only wages this master can ever give: death (Romans 6:23).

Very soon, we will stand before the great Judge, whose eyes are too pure to look on evil, and before whom our secret sins are laid bare (Habakkuk 1:13; Psalm 90:8). What hope will we have in that moment? With every part of us depraved, and our best works displeasing, what can we say in our defense? Apart from Christ, nothing. We are hopelessly condemned.

Great Sinner, Greater Savior

The portrait of humanity under sin is a bleak one — so bleak that many would prefer to forget it altogether. Yet we do so at the cost of our deepest comfort.

“God-ignoring goodness, helpful as it may be for a well-ordered society, can never please God.”

When those in Christ heed Paul’s command to remember, and allow our sin to overshadow us, we arrive at a place we do not expect: not outside of Eden, with cherubim guarding the entrance; not beside the lake of fire, with the flames threatening judgment; but rather beneath the storm clouds of Calvary, where, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While we could not escape our depravity, while we could not win God’s approval, while we could not avoid condemnation, the Son of God spilt his precious blood.

Remembering our sin in this way, far from sending us into despair, deepens our assurance. For if Christ loved us then, while we wanted nothing to do with him, will he not surely go on loving us now (Romans 5:10)? Our sin reminds us that the love of God never rested on our worthiness — for we had none — but only ever on Christ’s.

John Newton famously said on his deathbed, “I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.” The two statements always belong together. If our sin was small, then so is our Savior. But if we were depraved, displeasing, and condemned, then our thoughts of Christ cannot be too great.

Scott Hubbard is a graduate of Bethlehem College & Seminary and an editor for desiringGod.org.

My prayer is that each of us would consider ourselves the greatest of sinners, placing all our faith and hope in our great Savior!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 9, 2020

Mr. Risk-Taker

In the work God has given me through the years, I’ve had to make a lot of difficult decisions. Left to myself, I might have erred too often on the side of safety and security. But there’s a man in the Bible who inspires me to keep stepping out and taking risks with wholehearted confidence in the Lord. I’m convinced you’ll be able to go forward — unafraid to take risks — if you can embody his spirit.

That man is Caleb. Do you know him? Many people don’t know a great deal about Caleb because he only occupies thirty verses in the Bible. But what verses they are! What a man of faith! In this chapter, I want to show you how this Old Testament hero left a legacy of courage for you — a powerful example of risk-taking, future-grabbing grace.

In the book of Numbers, Moses sent twelve men — Joshua, Caleb, and ten others — as an advance party to reconnoiter the promised land. These men left the safety of their encampment, forded the Jordan River, and slipped into Canaan. Their mission: to make notes of the land, observe the enemy, study the fortifications, estimate the population, and bring back enough intelligence to aid Moses in planning the coming invasion of the land God had promised the Israelites. The Bible tells the story this way:

So they went up and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin... Going north, they passed through the Negev and arrived at Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai — all descendants of Anak — lived. — Numbers 13:21-22 NLT

The city of Hebron had been the ancestral home of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but now it was inhabited by an evil tribe of huge warriors known as the descendants of Anak. The sight of these warriors terrified some of the spies.

The scouts quickly harvested some pomegranates and figs from the orchards of Canaan, and two of them lugged back an enormous cluster of grapes, carrying it on a pole between them. Imagine the excitement when the spies returned to Kadesh Barnea! Their mission had taken forty days, during which no one knew if they had survived or perished. Day after day, sentries at Israel’s parameters watched for them. Now they were back — all of them safe and sound.

But they were not united.

How to Live Life in the Safe Zone

In professional football, NFL coaches study the smallest statistic to find every possible advantage. But according to author John Tierney and research psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, many coaches make the same simple mistake week after week. It happens on fourth-down-and-short situations, when their team only needs a yard or two to keep possession of the ball. Nine times out of ten, instead of the riskier decision to try to win by going for another score, the coach settles for trying not to lose and sends in the kicker to punt the ball to the other team.

Statistics show that trying for the goal and the win is actually the better strategy. So why do coaches punt on fourth down? Tierney and Baumeister concluded there’s another factor involved. They call it “the power of bad.”

Simply put, our brains are wired to give more importance to negative events than positive ones. So “bad” events influence our decision-making more than positive ones. That means no matter how much we want to succeed, avoiding “bad” events can easily become our primary goal.

Back to the coach. He knows if he chooses the risky play and fails, and the other team goes on to score, the fans and press will be unforgiving. Sportscasters will denounce him as reckless and use phrases like loss of momentum and the turning point in the game. If his team loses by a narrow margin, that failed fourth-down attempt will be blamed for the loss and replayed endlessly afterward.

That image of potential failure is hard to overcome. So the coach plays it safe. The fear of failure has lost many a game.1

Have you ever heard these names: Shammua, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi, and Geuel? No? These are the names of the ten spies who risked their lives on an espionage mission only to lose heart, doubt God’s power, and miss God’s will (Numbers 13:4-15). They came back so discouraged they disheartened the people of Israel.

Those men made three terrible mistakes. They fell into three traps you and I must avoid at all costs.

Maximize the Opposition

God wants you to go forward. He has adventures, challenges, victories, and meaningful tasks for you. As you look at the bridge to your future, are you looking at the ropes or at the holes? Jean Hanson wrote, “If you’re one of those people that are afraid to take calculated risks, worry about every little thing, and have a hard time making decisions in your life, it’s time to take a break and do a little work on yourself... I learned a long time ago that being timid and conservative will get you nowhere.”2

In Numbers 13, the ten spies magnified every threat. They looked at the “bridge” God had designed for the future, and all they saw were the holes. The Bible says,

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” — Numbers 13:31-33

Notice all the holes the ten unbelieving spies fixated on:

• We are not able to go up against these people.

• They are stronger than we are.

• The land devours its inhabitants.

• The men are of great stature.

• The men are giants.

• They are from Anak, the land of giants.

• We are like grasshoppers in our eyes.

• We are like grasshoppers in their eyes.

If you propose to move forward in life, especially if you aspire to leadership, you’ll have to learn what it means to take risks — to live by faith. Scripture says,

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. — 2 Timothy 1:7 NLT

Whenever we compare ourselves to the opposition, instead of comparing the opposition to God, we can get into a state of fear. If that’s a pattern in your life, the first step forward is recognizing it.

When Jesus left Galilee to travel to Jerusalem near the end of His life,

His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. — Luke 9:53

Jesus knew the Cross awaited, yet there was no looking back for our Lord, no comparing, and no fear. His way forward was clear and He faced it head on.

You must do the same. Recognize the risk and properly evaluate the opposition. Then, when you have an inkling of God’s will for your life, set your face toward it and go forward.

Don’t Minimize the Opportunities

While the ten spies maximized the opposition, they also minimized the glorious opportunities that lay ahead of them. They only had a dim perception of what God had in store for them; they believed in their hearts that God was setting them up for destruction, and their unbelief was contagious.

You can read it for yourself in Numbers 14:

"So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?’” — Numbers 14:1-3

Their perception of God would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. After all the Lord had done for them! He delivered them from slavery! Parted the wide waters of the Red Sea! Accompanied them with cloud and fire! Gave them His Law! Provided food and drink in the wilderness! Promised to make them a great nation in a land flowing with milk and honey!

How could they so quickly forget?

More importantly, how can we? When we forget all the blessings God has provided for us in the past, we’re apt to minimize His ability to guide us in the future. We may even dread the future and where we think God is leading us. If so, we’re exactly where the devil wants us: in a place of avoiding risks and playing it safe. Oh, we of little faith.

What I’m telling you is this: don’t minimize the opportunities God has for you in the future. Don’t put all your efforts into avoiding loss or turn your face away from the future He has planned for you. Instead, go forward with confidence and courage to do the task He has set for you.

1. John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister, The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us, and How We Can Rule It (New York: Penguin, 2019), 11–12.

2. Hanson, “Worry and Fear Kept Me From Taking Action.”

Excerpted with permission from Forward by Dr. David Jeremiah, copyright David P. Jeremiah.

Fear can keep us trapped, hold us back, cause us to shrink down instead of step out in faith. Today, let’s pray for faith and boldness like Mr. Risk-Taker, Caleb!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 8, 2020

To Spank or Not to Spank

Opposition to spanking (including a total ban) comes from pediatricians, social-science departments at institutions of higher learning, child-rights advocates, publications such as Psychology Today, parents who are earnestly concerned about harming their children, and other spokespersons. The American Academy of Pediatrics speaks for many when it says, “Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects.” Can all of these well-intended child advocates and experts be mistaken?

“Good parenting gives out way more affirmation — commending the commendable — than correction.”

They raise valid concerns. After all, discipline initially considered legitimate can so easily spill out of bounds. Nevertheless, many who oppose spanking sweep all corporal punishment into a single bucket without distinguishing between wise and foolish parental correction, as if factors like timing, dose, implement, and advance instruction make no difference.

Just as bad preaching doesn’t disqualify all pulpits, and bad writing doesn’t mean we should banish publishing, and a bad haircut doesn’t mean you should go Nazarite, so bad spanking doesn’t mean there isn’t good spanking.

Spare the Rod?

What is good spanking? Parents spank well when, in love, they apply a predetermined amount of physical pain in direct response to a child’s defiance. Defiance starts in the heart and works its way out into behaviors of the body (tantrums, disobedience, mouthiness, rebellious facial expressions), so spanking works in the opposite direction: it moves toward the heart by first gaining the attention of the body, commonly via the well-padded buttocks.

Christian parents in favor of spanking frequently appeal to several passages in the book of Proverbs, including the following:

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. (Proverbs 13:24)

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15)

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. (Proverbs 23:13–14)

Some wonder, however, whether “the rod” refers to corporal punishment at all. Is spanking an appropriate way to apply these passages? Three observations show that it is.

First, the plainest reading of these passages suggests that a rod is a physical device applied physically to awaken attention. Second, mere talk is inadequate to achieve awakening, both in practical experience and in the Bible. “By mere words a servant is not disciplined” (Proverbs 29:19). Third, the rod appears alongside speech as a means of discipline: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother” (Proverbs 29:15). If the rod were merely a metaphor for reproof, this passage would make little sense.

God-fearing parents may hear from both non-Christians and fellow Christians that they should spare the rod lest they harm their children and damage their prospects for the future. In reality, however, when the rod is applied with consistency and love, it can be a means God uses to help our children flourish.

Protected by Spanking

I recently contacted a number of adults who experienced the loving rod of correction as a child and have subsequently decided to use it with their own children. I’m acquainted with the parents, their children, and the grandparents. I invited their testimonies. Here’s a sample.

My parents spanked me and my sisters on occasion, and I am very grateful for that. I consider spanking to be one of the best ways of protecting children that God has created (though by no means the only way of protection!). . . . I have seen the good fruit of spanking not only in my own life but also in the lives of our children, as they begin to understand from an early age that obeying God’s instructions (such as “children, obey your parents”) leads to joy, while disobedience leads to painful consequences.

Another grandparent said,

I was very blessed to have a father and mother who lovingly disciplined me throughout my childhood. I routinely was spanked, usually by my father’s hand, for disobedience and foolishness. I understood that there were consequences to my actions and attitudes and that there was a standard outside myself that was being upheld. Just as we are to fear the Lord, I had a measure of fear of my father, knowing that he would spank me if I did something deserving of it. I am sure that Proverbs 22:15 (“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him”) proved true in my life, and I am the beneficiary of it.

The child’s sin is in the heart, but visible “outbreakings” (as Puritan Cotton Mather called defiance) should be addressed by parents. While hoping and praying for heart transformation and reform, the minimum objective is to restrain obstinacy, to keep the child from inflicting harm and harassment on others, and to prevent future regrets upon himself.

Six Principles of Good Spanking

How, then, should parents think wisely about spanking? How can we wield the rod so that, by God’s grace, it accomplishes his purposes and creates testimonies like these?

First, understand that the perfect loving Father uses the rod.

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him. (2 Samuel 7:14–15)

Second, model acceptance of correction yourself. Let the children observe you confessing, repenting — and paying your parking fines.

Third, be alert to both overreaction and underreaction. Some parents foolishly apply the rod as if every misbehavior were a spank-worthy offense. Others just as foolishly neglect the God-appointed rod altogether. Spanking should be done selectively (for defiance) and only for a limited season in the child’s development, to be phased out as the child shows more and more responsibility, self-restraint, and maturity.

Fourth, spanking should be applied with utmost consistency, not according to whim, weariness, emotions, or impulse, but according to (clearly communicated) boundaries established in advance. When God says such things as, “Lest I come and strike” (Malachi 4:6), he is providing fair warning in advance. Beginning in the garden of Eden, God has communicated the ground rules in advance. He does not punish without tying it back to a command given earlier. Once warned, sureness and swiftness, not severity, are effective.

Fifth, and on a related note, wise spanking establishes boundaries, such as a limited number of strokes; no breaking of the skin; no impact to ears, eyes, and other parts of the anatomy vulnerable to injury; and no administering spanking out of rage. And healthy spankings are strengthened by tender follow-up.

Sixth, spanking is not the only tool in the toolbox, but must be accompanied by other tools of parenting. Wise parents don’t start with spanking, but with other measures: rewards, interruptions, “the look” of disapproval, loss of privileges, restitution.

Peaceful Fruit of Righteousness

I cannot overstress that good parenting gives out way more affirmation — commending the commendable — than it does correction. The absence of healthy affirmation undercuts the effectiveness of any disciplinary methods, including spanking. God himself is eager to say to his children, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

Within a larger ethos of affirmation, spankings are one small, rare, and yet effective aspect of disciplining and discipling a child for the glory of God, the minimizing of regret in the life of the child, and the joy of all who have to share society with him.

Parents who desire the peaceful fruit of righteousness, rest, and delight are wise to decisively stem their children’s defiance (Hebrews 12:11; Proverbs 29:17).

Sam Crabtree serves as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church. He is the author of Parenting with Loving Correction: Practical Help for Raising Young Children.

No consequences for lawless choices and evil intent came from the same ideology as no spanking?  I was reproved with a toy paddle, a wooden kitchen spoon, a switch off of a tree (that my mother made me get myself), my dad’s belt…Sure sounds like I was often disobedient…but I think I turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.  Discipline is judgment.  May God remove us to glory before His righteous hand of righteous judgment falls on this evil unspanked world!

Pastor Dale