Notes of Faith April 6, 2024

Notes of Faith April 6, 2024

Wrap Your Soul in Truth

Under-Armor for Spiritual War

Article by David Mathis

Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

Given enough time, men and women of principle stand out. After waves of social pressure and the mounting cares of this life, such people are left standing, long after others around them have compromised and toppled.

I’m referring to Christians who don’t play favorites and aren’t partisans of this age. They don’t bend the truth or sweep respectable sins under the rug. Rather, they call Jesus “Lord,” and standing with two feet on his soil, they call “spade” and “evil” to all sides of error and unbelief. Such men and women refuse to cut moral corners, or presume that strategic wrongs can make others right. They shun small compromises and may not stand out at first. But give it time, and their truth and good will be conspicuous (1 Timothy 5:25).

When justice is at stake, such people are not partial to the rich, or the poor. They don’t pick a favorite group, or preferred person, and twist truth and righteousness to fit their darling. Bearing the name of their God, and the Messiah he sent, they judge with impartiality and decide with equity.

And in the spiritual conflict in which we’re engaged, they “stand against the [plural] schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11) that come from every side. They remember that our warfare is spiritual, not “against flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6:12) — and that this war cannot be fought with the weapons of the world.

If such men and women seem to be in short supply in some circles, we might ask, Where do such people come from?

God’s Armor and Ours

“God shows no partiality” is a striking refrain across Scripture, and particularly in the New Testament (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Galatians 2:6; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25). The implication for God’s people is plain and explicit: do nothing from partiality (1 Timothy 5:21). This is James’s memorable teaching about rich and poor who come to worship: “show no partiality” (James 2:1). “If you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:9).

“The Christian who wraps his soul in the objective truth of Scripture shapes his subjective heart for the wiles of war.”

But all this truth and righteousness, precious as it is, remains downstream when we come to “the whole armor of God” — and what Paul lists first. Before we start reaching for God’s armor, we should know whose it is, and who wore it first.

Now, some of Scripture’s most magnificent passages can be lost on us through over-familiarity. Such chapters as Isaiah 53 and 1 Corinthians 13 are deservedly famous — and in that due emphasis and celebration, many of us need to move past our dulling acquaintance with them and see them with fresh eyes, and amazement.

The “armor of God” in Ephesians 6 is one of these stunning flourishes. This is Paul at his best, with dazzling Christian creativity, if we might call it that. In one powerfully rhetorical swath, he both pulls together Old Testament references to armor and presses them into Christian use (perhaps even against a Roman backdrop). This is instructive of the range of usages the apostles can make of the Hebrew Scriptures, not only as simple promise-fulfillment, but also illusions and types and patterns and artistic syntheses crafted to serve the holy designs of the authors and needs of their readers. Here the apostle is both poet and pastor.

Iain Duguid makes a compelling case that

each of the pieces of armor has a rich background in the Old Testament, where they describe God’s armor — the armor that God himself dons to rescue his people. The Old Testament, not the Roman legionary, provided Paul with his inspiration — and if we miss this background, we may misinterpret and misapply the various pieces of the armor.

So, we begin with the first — “the belt of truth,” which strictly speaking isn’t armor, defensive or offensive, but pre-armor or under-armor. Let’s see it first in its original context, and what it shows us of our Divine Warrior, and then how we, very practically, might “wear the belt” today as Christians in a world of half-truths.

Messiah Wrapped in Righteousness

Isaiah 11 tells of the coming “shoot from the stump of Jesse,” David’s father. The mention of Jesse recalls the humble origins of Israel’s greatest king. The wide trunk that is God’s first-covenant people may be felled by an invading army, but God will see to it that a stump will remain — and in time a new shoot of life will spring from David’s line.

The prophet anticipates that this coming Messiah, with the Spirit of God resting on him, will delight in the fear of God — and so will be no partisan king. He will not be deceived by appearances and personal preferences, “but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth” (Isaiah 11:3–4). Strikingly, he will not then take up the physical sword to enforce his will but exact justice with the word of his power: “he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4).

Seven centuries later, when the apostle writes so memorably to Christians about putting on “the whole armor,” he draws first on Isaiah 11:5:

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness (truth) the belt of his loins.

Gracious and merciful as will be this Messiah to rescue his people, he will not act unjustly. He will not take bribes or underwrite half-truths. He will not treat wrong as right, or sweep injustice under the rug. Delighting to reverence his divine Father and cosmic justice, he will be a king who delights in right, does right, and is known for it. Even his opponents will have to admit, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God” (Luke 20:21).

So here, looking to the righteous actions of Jesus, Paul notes our first step in dressing for spiritual battle.

Prepare Your Soul with Truth

Before reaching for breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, or sword, first comes the under-armor. There’s technically no “belt” here in Ephesians 6:14. This first step of preparation is literally, “having girded up your loins in truth” (perizōsamenoi tēn osphun humōn en alētheia). We might say wrap your waist in truth.

In the ancient world, “girding up your loins” meant wrapping your waist with the excess fabric of a long robe as “preparation for vigorous activity” (O’Brien, Ephesians, 473). Drawing up the dangling garment, and securing it at the waist, enabled running, free movement, and unhindered combat. With this foundational fashion in place, warriors then could secure their armor and go into battle.

For spiritual war, the Christian first is to wrap his loins in truth. Now, as “the belt,” this is not yet truth on the offensive (that’s the sword of the Spirit), but this is God’s truth applied to oneself, to the inner man, the soul, the “inward being” or “secret heart” (Psalm 51:6). The Christian who wraps his soul in the objective truth of Scripture shapes his subjective heart for the wiles of war. He takes the divine word deep into his human center, for transformation and joy. He not only searches the Scriptures, but lets the Scriptures search him. He ingests God’s truth both to feed and to condition his soul, subjectively using the objective truth to shape his pliable affections.

Slowly, one day at a time, over months and years, this wrapping makes him a vastly different person, far better equipped to both identify truth and embody it.

Wrap Yourself in His Word

Wrapping ourselves in truth applies to more than personal Bible intake, but not less. Those best prepared for spiritual war are those who not only dip into the word briefly but saturate their lives with it. They wrap their souls in God’s truth through various habits and patterns, personally and corporately — through reading and rereading and study and meditation and memorization and discussion. They click on content that strengthens their bearings and their delight in truth, rather than error.

We all wrap our souls in something. Is it truth or error? And as we practice choosing truth daily, reading truth, clicking truth, meditating on truth, talking truth, then we become ready to discern truth from error, counterfeits, and half-truths.

“Those best prepared for spiritual war are those who not only dip into the word briefly but saturate their lives with it.”

And having wrapped our souls in truth, we become the kind of people who bring truth with us wherever we go. We not only speak truth but embody it, and even more, speak the truth of the gospel into places and hearts of unbelief. We are truth-tellers in our jobs, on our taxes, when we fill out insurance claims, when we serve as jurors, when we find a financial error in our favor, and when we hear someone speak a half-truth about someone else. Like Jesus, we will become agents of truth wherever we go: when we walk into a room, or stand up at a school-board meeting, or sit in a conference room, or engage in conversation.

Wrapped in truth, we’ll be the kind of people who say, in every crisis, Let truth hold sway. Let the unvarnished truth be discovered and known. Truth will not undermine the cause of our God and Christ, who is the Truth. Rather, the cause of truth — openhanded, not angling, full exposure, light into darkness — is an effect downstream of our knowing and enjoying the word of truth, the gospel, about the one who is Truth himself.

And so we call out spades and evil, and call on Jesus as Lord. We refuse to cut moral corners, cater to lies, or presume that some wrongs can make others right. First, we wrap ourselves daily in God’s truth. Then, we reach for the armor, and over time we grow increasingly bright and shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, and in this age besides.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org

We all too often take lightly the reading of God’s Word. This is God speaking to us, to teach, to reprove, to make us more like Jesus! Read it often. Read portions over and over even if you are familiar with them. There is much truth to be gleaned, learned and used. These Scriptures are applicable to our every day. Wake up and put your armor on!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 5, 2024

Notes of Faith April 5, 2024

A Story of Reckless Love

Reconsidering the parable of the good Samaritan

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The parable of the Good Samaritan is among the handful of Jesus’ stories that, whether or not you’re a church-going person, you can likely recount from memory. “Being a Good Samaritan” has become cultural shorthand for showing kindness and assisting those who are less fortunate. But Jesus’ story is far more subversive than a fable encapsulating principles to spur common decency.

“It stretches our imagination, inviting us to walk that treacherous road through dangerous country, to know the threat of armed hooligans at every blind bend, to sense conflict over how to engage our religious convictions in complicated situations.”

In Luke 10, the parable of the good Samaritan provides not so much a moral tale for us to dissect or appropriate, but a story in which we live. It stretches our imagination, inviting us to walk that treacherous road through dangerous country, to know the threat of armed hooligans at every blind bend, to sense conflict over how to engage our religious convictions in complicated situations, to struggle over what exactly it means to love our neighbor, to grapple with how Jesus embodies reckless love.

When one of Israel’s religious experts tried to trap Jesus inside a tightly spun web of theological intricacies, Jesus reversed the interrogation: How do you understand the essence of God’s law? With his tactical examination careening out of control, the exasperated questioner found himself uttering the very words Jesus had quoted from Deuteronomy, as the greatest of all the commandments and the heart of everything Scripture teaches: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27 NIV).

You’ve nailed it, Jesus said. Go do that.

Feverishly scrambling to regain the upper hand, the religious expert had a burst of inspiration and devised one last conundrum. I’d be happy to, he answered, sitting back smugly, if only you could tell me who among all the masses is actually my neighbor. Without batting an eye, Jesus launched into a story.

“After a while a Levite (one who tended the temple) appeared, and he too crossed and hurried past, likely distracting himself by humming a worship tune and reciting a favorite Bible verse.”

Jesus’ tale commenced in an ominous setting, with the description of a man traversing the terror-filled road from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was overrun by armed bandits. These ruffians beat the man savagely, stripped him, and left him like road kill. Eventually a priest came by, but when he saw the bloody pile of a man, he crossed the road and hurried past, his eyes locked forward like a tractor beam. After a while a Levite (one who tended the temple) appeared, and he too crossed and hurried past, likely distracting himself by humming a worship tune and reciting a favorite Bible verse.

A third traveler turned the corner, a Samaritan, though that was the worst character Jesus could write into the story if He was hoping to pull this devout Jew to His way of thinking. Jews and Samaritans detested one another. They had theological animosity, each considering the other a heretic. They had racial antagonism, each considering the other inferior. When Jews saw a Samaritan, they avoided him like the plague. Purity was on the line. And reputation, too. We see much of this tension continuing now between Christians and Muslims, between white communities and communities of color, between those who have formal education or money and those who do not.

And wouldn’t you know, it was the detestable Samaritan who took pity on the man he was supposed to hate, bandaging his infected wounds and hoisting him onto his donkey. The Samaritan carried the gasping man to an inn, secured a room, and covered the cost, instructing the innkeeper to tend to every need for as long as necessary—he’d foot the bill. The Samaritan lavished this generosity not on a family member or a friend or even someone who shared his ethnicity or theological conviction. The Samaritan enacted this reckless grace for a neighbor.

“The Samaritan carried the gasping man to an inn, secured a room, and covered the cost, instructing the innkeeper to tend to every need for as long as necessary—he’d foot the bill.”

Of course, everything’s wrong with this story. The ones with the correct doctrine (the priest and the Levite) disobeyed God’s command while the one with questionable faith (the Samaritan) fulfilled His instruction. It’s humbling—and essential—to remember that believing the right things doesn’t necessarily lead to doing the right things. The story’s disequilibrium teeters even more when we recognize that ancient interpreters (Ambrose, Origen, Augustine) typically understood Jesus as the Good Samaritan. Imagine that: Jesus casting Himself as the maligned figure arriving to rescue the one who is despised, helpless, and tossed aside. Sounds like the gospel.

Something else is wrong here. This whole exchange began with the religious expert asking who precisely was the neighbor he was responsible to love. But in Jesus’ concluding query (“Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?”), the point He stressed was not aimed at clarifying who is or is not a neighbor in need. Instead, Jesus forced us to grapple with whether or not we are a neighbor to whomever we find along the way. Jesus answered the wrong question—or so it seemed. In truth, Jesus answered the right question—the one that wasn’t asked.

According to Jesus, a person in dire need as well as a person with resources aplenty are bound in a community of friendship. We are in this together. One of the parable’s strange truths is that we find Jesus in each person we encounter, even in those people we most detest. In every God-beloved human, we discover our neighbor: every desperate person and every accomplished person; every person we see as a friend and every person we consider an enemy; every person possessing a fat bank account and every person without two pennies to his name.

Some scholars suggest that Jesus did not cast Himself as the Good Samaritan but rather (shockingly) as the bloodied man, the one who suffered at the hands of human violence. That interpretation has merit, though it requires a good bit of parsing. Yet perhaps it’s a mistake to see Jesus as any single character. On the cross, Jesus both suffered with us (the bloody man) and healed us (the Good Samaritan). Jesus, after all, overwhelms every human expression of goodness. He is not a player in the story. Jesus is the story.

The reckless love of neighbor at the center of this parable could never be confused with our humanly contrived attempts at benevolence and niceness. Rather, the story points toward the immeasurable, sacrificial love of Jesus. In Christ, God both suffered and saved, loving even the unlovely with irrational abandon. And now God invites us, by the power of the Spirit, to join Him as reckless lovers. As neighbors.

By Winn Collier June 22, 2018

Everyone is our neighbor. We are to do good to help all as we travel this journey of life together. Our love and resources are to be given freely to those in need. The God-given reward at the end of the journey for being obedient and faithful will be more glorious than anything we could possibly give from the abundance we have been given in this life. Be a “Biblical Neighbor”!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 3, 2024

Notes of Faith April 3, 2024

I was visiting the ARK Encounter in Kentucky on the third of April and apparently forgot to send out a devotion. This fits for me and a great deal of my friends walking in faith with me. Pastor Dale

Five Fears of Old Age

Finishing Our Race by Future Grace

Dear older saint, I need to join you in the fight against the fears of aging, and to do so by faith in future grace. There are five fears that we will likely walk through together. God has given us antidotes for each in his word. These antidotes work through faith, and without faith they won’t work. But by faith they will work, and fear will be overcome, and we will go to be with Jesus in due time without walking in fear during our last season. That’s my confidence.

Let me first give a word about future grace. I picture the Christian life as a stream of divine grace flowing to me from the future. I’m walking into it. It flows over the waterfall of the present into a reservoir of the past. The reservoir is getting bigger and bigger, which means our thankfulness as we look back should be getting bigger and bigger. So, what’s the disposition of our hearts as we look out over that stream toward the future and that reservoir in the past? The answer is gratitude as we look back and faith as we look forward. That’s why I’m calling it faith in future grace.

By future, I mean the future five minutes from now, when you finish reading this, and the future 5,000 years from now. Grace will be arriving moment by moment as the sustaining power from God — free and gracious. So, in the future of these next five minutes, you’re going to sit there reading, being held and sustained by grace. It’s coming to you moment by moment, and we’re called to bank on it — to trust that God will keep supplying it, forever.

1. The Fear of Being Alone

Maybe you’ve lost your spouse, or you’ve been single all your life. Maybe singleness has been fine, but singleness is not looking as great when you’re outliving all your friends. Maybe you start to wonder, “Is anybody going to remember me?” Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). I think “always” is even more important than the phrase “to the end of the age.” It’s one thing to say he’ll be with us to the end of the age; it’s another for him to say, “I’ll be with you every minute of your life.”

John Paton was a missionary to what’s now Vanuatu. He was driven up into a tree as 1,300 aboriginal natives were trying to kill him. As they were beneath him, he laid hold of the promise of Matthew 28:18, 20, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. . . . I am with you always.” And here’s what he wrote later — because he survived:

Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Savior, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene. I felt his supporting power. . . . It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after 20 years, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smiles of my blessed Lord Jesus in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being leveled at my life. (John G. Paton, 342)

He will be there for you. I don’t want to create the impression that you should discount human people in your life. God made us a church. You shouldn’t have to live by yourself with nobody caring for you. That would be a failure of the community of Christians, and we should work at resisting that failure. So, I exhort you: While you can, look around, and see who’s alone. While you can, be there for others.

2. The Fear of Being Useless

I’m a man, so I am thinking mainly of men here. Ralph Winter said, “Men don’t die of old age in America. They die of retirement.” Built into men’s souls is the need to be productive. I’m sure that’s true of women in different ways, but I’m thinking of men right now. A man who loses his sense of productivity, usefulness, and accomplishment is running the risk of losing his entire identity and reason for being.

During the Olympics in 1992, I preached on “Olympic Spirituality,” comparing the Games with Paul’s language of running and fighting and boxing and wrestling. The next day, I was told that Elsie Viren, an aged member of our church, was in the hospital, dying. I had been saying, “Come on — let’s fight.” Realizing that Elsie would probably never get out of bed, I asked, “How does Elsie, probably ninety-plus years old and dying, do that?” I wrote an article called “How Can Elsie Run?” in the Bethlehem Star (our church’s newsletter), in which I asked, “What does her marathon look like right now?”

The key verses are 2 Timothy 4:6–7, “I am already being poured out as a drink offering” — yes, she was. She had served the church faithfully for 62 years. Then Paul says, “and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” When Paul ends by saying, “I have kept the faith,” he’s interpreting the first two phrases, about fighting and finishing. So, what does Elsie’s marathon look like? The answer is believe. Believe him. Trust him. Rest in him. Don’t let Satan win this battle to destroy your faith.

So, believing is the way to fight the fear of uselessness. Is it not amazing that Paul says in Ephesians 6:8, “[We know] that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord”? He says, “Whatever good . . .” Picture the smallest, most hidden good deed you can do this afternoon. It may be some simple good that nobody knows about. At the end of this age, you will receive your reward for every good deed. That’s useful. You’re useful. The smallest thing is eternally significant.

Or consider Philippians 1:20–21, “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul considers the possibility that his next appointment is death. Someone might say, “Are you telling me, pastor, that there’s usefulness in the next three days before I die? I can be useful? I have a tube down my throat.”

And the answer is that Paul said his aim was that Christ be magnified by his death. Over the next three days, there is a way for you to die that magnifies Jesus — or not. And here’s the way to do it: Die like Paul did. Die like death is gain.

3. The Fear of Affliction

Affliction, in the purposeful hand of God, has effects now in this life, and after death. It is never meaningless. It is never without God’s merciful design for our good. Romans 5:3–5 describes the effect of affliction while we live.

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Our mindset with regard to suffering and affliction and pain should be this: “This affliction is doing something good in me and for me and through me. It’s making me a kind of person.” That’s what that text teaches.

But what about when the hour of death arrives and that doesn’t make sense anymore because there is no time left for me to grow in character building? My death is hours away. You might think, “I’m not going to be alive to show anybody my character tomorrow. I’m going to be dead at six o’clock, and it’s now noon. I’ve heard all these arguments for how suffering can be turned for good, but I don’t understand the point of the next six hours because I’ll be gone after that.”

Second Corinthians 4:16–17 is very precious to me at that very point. See if you see what I see: “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction [by that he means a lifetime of affliction] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” This affliction is preparing, bringing about, producing “for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” These last hours of suffering will have an effect for my good beyond the grave.

Let’s say I’m at a hospital bedside, and the sick person knows he has maybe one day at the most. He says, “Pastor, it hurts. It hurts. What’s the point?” I answer, “As God gives you the grace to endure to the end without cursing him, resting in him as much as you can, these next twenty hours are going to make a massive, precious difference in the weight of the glory you experience on the other side. These hours are not pointless.”

I really believe that. They are not pointless. True, they won’t make your character here shine because you are going to be gone. There will be no character on earth left to shine. But as soon as you cross that line between now and eternity, in some way God is going to show you why those twenty hours were what they were, and what they did for you. That’s good news.

4. The Fear of Failing Faith

By failing faith, I mean, “God, am I going to make it? I am so embattled, and doubts come. I have horrible thoughts.”

Consider one of the most magnificent ladies in Bethlehem Baptist Church when I became pastor there. She was a prayer warrior, and everybody probably would have said she was the most godly woman in the church. She is in heaven now.

I was with her as she was dying in the hospital. Her tongue was black like a cinder. I walked into the room, and she was trembling. She took my hand. She said, “Pastor John, they come, and they dance around my bed. They dance around my bed, and they’re taking their clothes off.” She was describing horrible things. It was so unlike her. She was being harassed by the devil. An old, godly saint was being harassed by the devil as she died. That taught me something as a young pastor: the battle is never over. I used to think that as you lived a faithful and godly life, you became more free from terrible attacks of the evil one. That’s not true.

So, in horrible moments like those, Philippians 3:12 has been a favorite verse for me: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Here I am, pressing on: “I want you, Jesus. I want to make it through death as a believer and not commit apostasy and throw you away. I want you, and I want to make it.” And he reminds me, “The only reason you’re reaching out for me is because I have hold of you.” The only reason you want Jesus is because he laid hold of you. You wouldn’t otherwise reach out so passionately for him.

One of the greatest doxologies in the Bible says, “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever” (Jude 24–25). That passage is all built on the fact that he keeps us. One of the more recent worship songs that speaks powerfully to this fear of failing faith is “He Will Hold Me Fast.” “He will hold me fast, for my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.” I love this song.

5. The Fear of Death

Here’s a little glimpse into my life. I sleep on my side because I can’t sleep on my back. I lie there on my back, saying, “Oh, this feels so good. I wish I could go to sleep like this,” but I never do. So I finally turn on my side, and I imagine the Lord saying to me as I dose off, “John Piper, I did not destine you for wrath, but to obtain salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for you so that whether you wake or sleep, you will live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10). Almost every night I say that. No wrath. No wrath! Whether I live or die.

Noël and I bought plots to be buried near our granddaughter. We’re not going back to South Carolina. We’re in Minnesota to die. So up on a hill, we have our plot, and we’ve chosen some stones, and we’ve chosen Bible verses for our stones. And 1 Thessalonians 5:9–10 — those are my verses.

For some reason, for me to have God look me in the eye and say, “I didn’t destine you for wrath. It’s not going to happen. Ever. No wrath. My Son bore the wrath you deserve. If I take your life tonight at 3 AM, it will not be a problem because my Son died for you.” That helps me fall asleep.

I know that in the context “whether you wake or sleep” means whether you are alive when the second coming happens or dead when the second coming happens. But the application to my sleeping or waking now works. He is saying, “Whether you’re awake or asleep (live or die, now or later), you’re going to be alive with me.” And I need that. I can’t go to sleep thinking, What if I die? What if I die? He says, “Not a problem. We’ve got that covered. We took care of that.”

What Would He Not Do?

To end, let me give you what I think is one of the most important verses in the Bible: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). This means that if God did the hardest thing in the universe — namely, giving his Son to be tortured and killed — what would he not do for you? That’s the logic, and he states it. He’ll do everything for you. He will give us “all things.” This applies to every promise that we’ve looked at. God’s giving Christ for us guarantees those promises.

Therefore, trust Christ. That’s the issue for us all right now. Do you trust Christ and his purchase of all these promises? Do you trust his word? Trust his promises of ever-arriving future grace. He’ll always be there. Be glad in him. Be freed by this gladness for service, not self. Glorify him by your gladness in him and your service to others. And along with those around you, pray for each other. Help each other to die well and to live well till then.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary.

Amen! I’m working on this…how about you?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 4, 2024

Notes of Faith April 4, 2024

Take Jesus at His Word

LEARNING FROM HIS LOVE FOR SCRIPTURE

Faithful discipleship means following Jesus and submitting to his authority in every area of life, including how we treat the Bible. Jesus appealed to the authority of Scripture in the face of temptation and opposition. He used it in teaching his disciples. And importantly, he looked to Scripture to explain who he was, the message he preached, and the works he accomplished. Faithful reading of Scripture follows in Jesus’s steps by submitting to the authority of the Bible that both anticipates and explains him.

What does it mean to be a Christian disciple? Putting it as simply as possible, being a disciple means following Jesus Christ. Christian disciples want to follow their Lord in everything, to be shaped by his teaching and his example in the way they think, feel, and behave. We want him at the center of our perspective on the world, his mission as the priority of our life, his glory our chief concern in every endeavor. That is as true for the Christian theologian as for any other disciple.

Christian theology can helpfully start at any number of places. Its fundamental ground lies in the triune God himself. Theology has long been defined as “words about God and all things in relation to God.” Yet because what we know about God is made known by God — spoken through the prophets and apostles, and given to us in the more permanent form of Scripture — all true theology arises from and is tested by the Bible. So, we could start the discussion of any theological topic with a reflection upon the person of the triune God or upon what the Bible tells us about that specific topic.

But what makes theology specifically Christian theology is the critical place accorded to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God and Savior of the world. He is the one in whom the revelation of the triune God finds its proper focus (John 1:18; Hebrews 1:1–3; 2 Corinthians 1:20), he is the one who enables us to come before the God who made us without fear (Ephesians 3:11–12), and he is the one who both endorsed the Old Testament (Luke 24:44) and commissioned the apostolic program that produced the New Testament (Matthew 28:19–20). Prior attention to what Jesus taught is how the Christian theologian demonstrates faithful discipleship.

Jesus’s View of Scripture

With that understanding of theology in mind, when we think about the nature and function of the Bible — “the enduring authority of the Christian Scriptures” (as one impressive tome puts it) — keeping Jesus at the center of our thinking is not optional.1

The record we have of his life and teaching in the Gospels comes from eyewitnesses, either directly in the case of Matthew and John or indirectly in the case of Mark (who, early testimony confirms, recorded the recollections of Peter) and Luke (the companion of Paul who collected statements from a vast number of eyewitnesses and wove them into a coherent narrative). Studies of the phenomenon of eyewitness testimony point out not only that the Gospels were “written within the living memory of the events they recount,” but that even the differences of perspective and detail confirm rather than undermine their veracity.2 The Gospels are the recollections of multiple eyewitnesses of what Jesus said and did, and thus they reveal what Jesus thought about the authority of Scripture.3

What, then, are we told about Jesus’s attitude toward the Scriptures he inherited (our Old Testament) and those by means of which his apostles would fulfill his commission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth until the end of the age (the New Testament)?

Authority of the Old Testament

Most basically, Jesus understood the words of the Old Testament to bear the authority of God, an authority that surpasses that of any other person, institution, or body of writing. This is clear from his appeal to Old Testament texts when tempted by the devil in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11), when challenged by the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 19:1–9; 22:15–46), and when teaching his disciples (Mark 9:13; 14:21, 27). At each point, the Scriptures he quotes are enough to settle the matter. They are definitive in the sense that they are what God has to say on the matter.

Rejecting Temptation

The temptation in the wilderness is an interesting case in point. There are clear parallels here to the temptation faced by Adam and Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:1–6). The tactic employed by Satan in the garden of Eden is one he has continued to employ throughout human history. He casts doubt first on the clarity of God’s word (“Did God actually say . . . ?”), then on the truthfulness of God’s word (“You will not surely die”), and then finally on the character of God and the motives behind his word (“God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God”).

Jesus enters the wilderness to be tempted immediately after his baptism by John in the Jordan. There he had heard the voice from heaven say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

It should be no surprise, then, that the first temptation Jesus encounters is to doubt the word of God and seek to prove his identity on some other terms: “If you are the Son of God . . .” (Matthew 4:6). Jesus responds by appealing to Deuteronomy 8:3: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

With the second temptation, Satan assaults the truthfulness of God’s promise in Psalm 91, to which Jesus answers with Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7).

The third temptation, to fall down and worship the devil, is an assault upon God himself and is met with Deuteronomy 6:13: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10). At each point, Jesus’s confidence in the word of God and its authority is on display.

Refuting Opponents

In his exchanges with the Pharisees, Jesus often cites Scripture with the words “it is written” (Mark 7:6; John 6:45; 8:17) or “have you not read?” (Matthew 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10). Jesus expects the words that God had given his people through the prophets to be sufficient to settle the matter. He tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to make precisely that point (Luke 16:19–31). It is of no use to search for confirmations in the miraculous, as hard hearts will always find ways to explain the evidence away, as they did when the tomb was empty after Jesus’s resurrection (Matthew 28:13). “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

The “have you not read” question has an edge to it. Jesus expects them not only to have read but to have understood, believed, and obeyed what they read. This question carries with it the assumption that the meaning of Scripture is accessible. In the words of the Protestant Reformers, Scripture is clear. Of course, that doesn’t mean that every single part of the Old Testament is simple or easy. It doesn’t mean that any individual text can be plucked out of its context and, without reference to the rest of the Old Testament, immediately make sense. Nevertheless, it is accessible. Comparing one part of Scripture with another, the harder parts with the easier, sheds light over time.

Seeing Jesus’s life and ministry as the fulfillment of the promises made in the Old Testament puts the last and most important piece in place (which is what the Ethiopian eunuch found in Acts 8:26–38). But the point that Jesus is making is that what we have been given is enough — enough for the Israelites who had only the words from Sinai (Deuteronomy 29:29); enough for those who only had the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (our Old Testament, Luke 24:44); and enough for those who have all that and its fulfillment in the gospel and in the ministry of Jesus’s specially commissioned messengers, the apostles (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

Jesus as Old Testament Fulfillment

It is especially important that Jesus locates himself, his identity, and his mission against the backdrop of the history and promises of the Old Testament. At the very beginning of his ministry, when he attends the synagogue at Nazareth, he reads Isaiah’s prophecy of the one anointed by God in Isaiah 61 and then says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

His favorite form of self-description, “the Son of Man,” evokes the scene in Daniel 7 where “one like a son of man” is given the authority to execute the judgments of God. Though he does not use the title “Son of David” for himself, he responds positively to those who do, and he himself makes use of Psalm 110, which refers to the Davidic King (Matthew 22:42–45). When he is identified as the promised King coming to Jerusalem, and the Pharisees insist he rebuke those who do so, he answers, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40).

He contrasts the hard-heartedness of the religious leaders with the responses to the wisdom of Solomon (Matthew 12:42) and the preaching of Jonah (Matthew 12:41), and he says, “Something greater than Jonah is here. . . . Something greater than Solomon is here.”

As the time of his crucifixion approaches, he speaks more frequently of the prophecies concerning the suffering of the Messiah (Luke 9:22; 17:25; cf. 24:26–27), and at the Last Supper he uses the language of the “blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:28; Exodus 24:8), and the “new covenant” (Luke 22:20; Jeremiah 31:31), to describe what is unfolding on the night of his arrest. He knows that, as the suffering servant, he will be “numbered with the transgressors” (Luke 22:37; Isaiah 53:12).

In sum, Jesus clearly understood himself in Old Testament categories and as the fulfillment of various strands of prophetic promise in the Old Testament.

Jesus’s Exegetical Method

Jesus understood the deep structures of the Old Testament: its covenant framework (Luke 22:20), its dynamic of promise and fulfillment (Matthew 26:54, 56), and its focus on the descendants of Abraham in a way that includes outsiders like the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:25–27). In the Sermon on the Mount, he exposes the real intent of the Law: not mere outward observance, but a changed heart and a deep personal faithfulness that demonstrates a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:17–48).

Intriguingly, in a debate with the Sadducees over the resurrection, Jesus appeals to the account of Moses’s encounter with God at the bush that did not burn up. There God told the great prophet of the Old Testament, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6, 15). At first glance, Exodus 3 says nothing about the resurrection of the dead (and, to be fair, Jesus doesn’t say it does). Yet if you believe what God says in Exodus 3, then you cannot avoid the conclusion that life continues beyond the grave, and the dead are indeed raised. The Sadducees’ denial of the resurrection is entirely wrong if you take those words of Scripture seriously. Jesus here identifies what later theologians would describe as a “good and necessary consequence” of the teaching of Exodus 3. He demonstrates the same principle by his reflection on Psalm 110 in Mark 12: “David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” (Mark 12:37).

There is nothing superficial about Jesus’s appeal to Scripture, which is a constant feature of his ministry. The word of God (and he refers to it as such in Matthew 15:6) gave him his understanding of himself and his mission, and directed all that he did during his earthly ministry. He was confident in its authority and reliability, even to the smallest details. He might not have written a treatise on the doctrine of Scripture or even delivered a sermon devoted to unfolding each of its characteristics. Neither did he use the terms we so often associate with the doctrine, such as inspiration, inerrancy, perspicuity, sufficiency, efficacy, and the like. Nevertheless, the way he spoke of and used Scripture confirms he believed in all these things.

Authority of the New Testament

All of this raises the question of the New Testament. Since it did not exist during the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry, there was no New Testament text with which he might interact. However, the critical thing about the New Testament is its connection to the ministry of the apostles, those called and set apart by Jesus to be the foundational messengers of the gospel.

Jesus entrusted his words to the apostles. He commissioned them in a unique way. Revelation 21 signals their significance in the great vision of the New Jerusalem: just as the gates of the New Jerusalem are inscribed with the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel, so the twelve great foundations of the city contain “the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:12–14).

In the upper room, on the night he is arrested, Jesus promises his disciples the Spirit of truth, who will “teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26), “guide you into all the truth,” (John 16:13), and “take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14). Having been given all authority in heaven and on earth, Jesus commissions them to “go . . . and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20).

The apostolic authority of the apostles — including Paul, as “one untimely born” (1 Corinthians 15:8) — lies behind the New Testament. They were Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). They had a unique place in God’s purposes arising from their commissioning by the risen Jesus. While all subsequent faithful Christian ministry takes up their message and follows their example, they maintain that special role. Jesus gave them his words (John 17:14) and even prayed for those who would believe because of the words they would share (John 17:20). Thus, Jesus’s attitude toward this apostolic ministry shapes and guides ours toward the New Testament.

Seeing What Jesus Saw

The Christian faith is a personal trust in a living Lord. It means delighting in God and all that he has done in creating us and redeeming us. It means following his Son, given so that the terrifying problem of our sin might be dealt with from the inside, thoroughly and forever. There remains something deeply personal about genuine Christian discipleship. Jesus is not known from a distance.

Tragically, some have attempted to set this personal relationship of trust and love over against confident yet humble obedience to the teaching of Scripture. “We follow Jesus, not the Bible,” one man foolishly wrote.4 Yet that is a false choice that would have made no sense at all to Jesus himself. If we are going to take Jesus seriously, we must take the Bible seriously, because he did! Conversely, if we do not take the Bible seriously — expecting our thinking to be changed, shaped, and directed by its teaching — then in the end we are not taking Jesus seriously. Jesus and the Bible are not somehow competitors for the mantle of truth. The one who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) also said to his Father, “I have given them your word. . . . Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:14, 17).

What did Jesus see in the Scriptures? He saw the written word of God given for the rich benefit of his people and the glory of his own name. He saw a word that challenges facile religiosity and invites us into the joy of faithful living in fellowship with the God who created all things with just a word. He saw a word that is worth trusting because, though what was written was originally written by human beings, it came into existence only through the work of the Holy Spirit. These are truly the words of Moses or David or Jeremiah, actively and creatively involved in their utterance — but these are finally the words of God to us.

So, Christian theologians, like all other disciples of the Lord Jesus, find in him the example that challenges and directs all that they do. Keeping Jesus at the center of our doctrine of Scripture prevents us from pitting his authority against that of the biblical text. It also keeps us from unsettling the proper balance between biblical theology and historical theology, even in the interest of a retrieval of “the great theological tradition,” as God’s words are always more important than the words of those who speak about God.

Finally, it reminds us that our engagement with Scripture is personal and relational, not merely theoretical and abstract, though it does involve the applications of our minds. We cannot rightly speak about God from a distance or (as a friend of mine used to say) “as if he has just stepped out of the room for a minute.”

In following Jesus, we find that we stand in the place indicated by the prophet Isaiah: “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

Let us be humble, contrite, and tremble, obey…the Word of God!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 2, 2024

Notes of Faith April 2, 2024

Risen to Love His Own

The Surprising Mercies of Easter

Article by Scott Hubbard

Editor, desiringGod.org

Our tired, sinful world has never seen a surprise so momentous as the one that spread from the tomb on Easter Sunday. “The dead stayed dead in the first century with the same monotonous regularity as they do [today],” Donald Macleod writes (The Person of Christ, 111). No one, in any age, has been accustomed to resurrection.

To the disciples, it mattered little that their Lord had already given away the ending (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). The resurrection of Jesus Christ — heart beating, lungs pumping, brain firing, legs walking — could be nothing less than a surprise. The greatest surprise our world has ever seen.

Pay attention to the resurrection narratives, however, and you may find yourself surprised at how Jesus surprises his people. He does not run from the tomb shouting, “I’m risen!” (as we may have expected). In three separate stories, in fact — with Mary, with Peter, and with the two disciples on the Emmaus road — he does not reveal himself immediately. He waits. He lingers. He hides, even. And then, in profoundly personal ways, he surprises.

Some of us woke up this Easter in desperate need of this same Jesus to offer a similar surprise. We declare today that he is risen, that he is risen indeed. But for one reason or another, we may find ourselves stuck in the shadows of Saturday. Perhaps some sorrow runs deep. Or some old guilt gnaws. Or some confusion has invaded the soul. Perhaps our Lord, though risen, seems hidden.

Sit for a moment in these three stories, and consider how the Lord of the empty tomb still loves to surprise his people. As on the first Easter, he still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.

Sorrow Surprised by Joy

Maybe, this Sunday, some long sadness seems unmoved by the empty tomb. Maybe the Easter sun seems to have stopped just below the horizon of some darkened part of life — some love lost, some long and aching wait. Maybe you remember Jesus’s words, “Your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20), but you still feel the sorrow, still look for the joy.

Stand at the tomb with Mary Magdalene. Others have come and gone, but she waits, weeping (John 20:11). She has seen the stone rolled away, the absent grave, and the angelic entourage of her risen Lord — and now, Jesus himself stands near her. But though she sees him, she doesn’t see him. “She did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She mourns before the Lord of holy joy, not knowing how soon her sorrow will flee. And for a few moments more, Jesus waits.

He draws her out with a question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15). She offers her reply, supposing she speaks to a gardener. And then, in a moment, with a word, the mask comes off. Shadows break, sun rises, sorrow makes its sudden happy turn. How? “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (John 20:16). One word, one name, and this Gardener blooms flowers from her fallen tears. “Rabboni!” she cries — and cries no more (John 20:16).

Unlike Mary, you know your Lord is risen. Even still, for now, you may feel bent and broken. Seeing Jesus, but not seeing him. Knowing he lives, but not knowing where he is. Maybe even hearing his voice, but supposing you hear another’s. Dear saint, the risen Christ does not stand idly by while his loved ones grieve. He may linger for the moment, but he lingers near enough to see your tears and hear your cries — near enough to speak your name and surprise your sorrow with joy.

Keep waiting, and he will speak — sooner or later, here or in heaven. And until then, he is not far. Even if hidden, he is risen, and the deepest sorrow waits to hear his word.

Guilt Surprised by Forgiveness

Or maybe, for you, sorrow is only a note in a different, darker song. You have sinned — and not in a small way. The words of your mouth have shocked you; the work of your hands has undone you. You feel as if you had carried the soldiers’ nails. And now it seems that not even Easter can heal you.

Sit in the boat with Peter. He knows his Lord is risen — and indeed, he has even heard hope from Jesus himself. “Peace be with you,” the Master had told his disciples (John 20:19). But that “you” was plural. Peter needed something more, something personal, to wash away Good Friday’s stains.

“Jesus still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.”

And so Jesus stands on the shore — risen, hidden, and again with a question: “Children, do you have any fish?” (John 21:5). These are words to awaken memory (Luke 5:1–4), “yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). No, not yet. He will allow Peter to feel the night’s empty nets a few moments longer, and then the surprise will come. And so he reveals himself, this time not with a name but with fish — many fish, actually (John 21:6). Then, after feeding his men, he leads Peter in personal repentance and, as if all is forgotten, calls him afresh: “Follow me” (John 21:19).

That Jesus should turn our sorrow into joy is one of Easter’s greatest wonders. But perhaps greater still is that he should turn our guilt into innocence — that he should address our most sinful, shameful moments so personally, that he should wash our souls as humbly and tenderly as he washed his disciples’ feet. Yet so he does.

The process can take some time, however. We may not feel his forgiveness immediately, and he does not always mean us to. He sometimes hides for some moments or some days. Yet as he does, he prepares the scene for a surprise so good we too may feel like leaping into the sea (John 21:7). Our Lord is here, bringing grace and mercy; we must go to him.

Confusion Surprised by Clarity

Or maybe you find neither sorrow nor sin afflicting you this Easter, but rather another kind of thorn, a pain that can pierce deep enough to drive you mad: confusion. Life doesn’t make sense. Logic fails. God’s ways seem not just mysterious but labyrinth-like. Who can untangle these knots or find a way through this maze?

Walk with the two disciples toward Emmaus. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” you hear them say (Luke 24:21). Yes, had hoped. No more. Three nails and a spear stole the breath from that dream. Now all that’s left is confusion, a body and blood and a burial of all that seemed good and right and true. If not Jesus, then who? Then how? We had thought he was the one.

But then “the one” himself “drew near and went with them” (Luke 24:15). Again he asks a question: “What is this conversation that you are holding?” (Luke 24:17). And again he conceals himself: “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). So they walk; so they talk; so they spill their confusion all along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yes, they have heard his body was gone, have heard even a report of his rising (Luke 24:23–24). But still, they just can’t make sense of it all.

But oh, how Jesus can. So, with a swift and tender rebuke, a lesson in the Scriptures, and a face revealed over broken bread, he picks up their shattered thoughts and arranges them in a vision of startling, stunning clarity. Then “he vanished” (Luke 24:31), taking all their confusion with him. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” they ask each other (Luke 24:32). Christ had risen, and the clarity they could not imagine had walked with them, talked with them, and loved them into the light.

Our hearts today may brim with questions, some that seem unanswerable. But the resurrected Jesus knows no unanswerable questions. He can solve every riddle in every corner of every human heart — even if, for the moment, he walks beside us incognito.

Our Final Surprise

We live today in an in-between land. Jesus is risen, but we don’t yet see him. Jesus lives, but we haven’t yet touched the mark of the nails in his hands. If we are his, however, then one day we will. And these stories give us reason to expect on that day a final, climactic surprise.

If hearing Jesus’s word by faith can lift the heaviest heart, what sorrow can withstand his audible voice and the new name he will give to us (Revelation 2:17)? If even now we taste the relief of sins forgiven and condemnation gone, what will happen when he puts a white robe around our shoulders and renders sin impossible? And if we have moments here of bright clarity, then what will come when the mists lift altogether, when Truth himself stands before us, and when all deception disappears like a bad dream?

Then we will see what a risen Christ can do. His dealings with Mary, with Peter, with the Emmaus disciples — these are but the fringes of his power, the outskirts of his ways. So keep waiting, dear Christian. At the right time, he will speak your name. He will appear on the shoreline of your long-repeated prayers. He will walk with you on the road of confusion and loss until you reach a better table, and in the breaking of the bread you will see his face.

Can’t wait to see the face of Jesus! How about you? Perhaps today?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 1, 2024

Notes of Faith April 1, 2024

Good morning! He is Risen!!

I hope you had a meaningful Passion week as we recounted the suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We were able to enjoy a sunrise service on Sunday at the Hershey Gardens. Being in that setting made the angels, the empty tomb, and Mary’s conversation with the “gardener” so much more vivid and compelling!

As I walked around afterward, it seemed as if new life was bursting out all around us. The colors and scents of bright, beautiful blossoms and flowering trees were living parables of resurrection. A seed (or bulb or bud) had lain buried and hidden in darkness until a power greater than itself had called it out into the light.

It’s easy to praise a flower for its petals, fragrance, and beauty. It would be tempting to assume that producing a flower was the plant’s ultimate purpose and greatest glory. But any gardener knows that a deeper, much more vital work is at hand. That blossom is simply there to be pollinated and then wither and fall away as the real goal is accomplished—the formation of the seed. Long after the flower fades, leaves take in nutrients and nourish that embryonic life. And finally everything dies back, the fruit falls, and the plant enters a dormancy, or seeming death.

In the same way it can be tempting to glorify the Christian conversion experience. The moment that a human soul bursts into new life as it embraces Jesus is exciting, miraculous, and truly beautiful. But this is only the beginning of the story. Just like the flower, for Christ to be formed in us much of our natural beauty and strength must wither and be cast off, sacrificed to nurture the new life within us. The later stages of this growth takes place in such deep, hidden ways that it can look like ineffectiveness or dormancy to those around us.

Sometimes there is pressure to produce a lot of petals. Flowers are flashy and attract a lot of attention and affirmation. But do not cling to the first blush of vitality at the expense of the deeper life the great Gardener wants to grow and form in us. And while this might seem like an inward self-focus, when “it is no longer I who live but Christ in me,” the seed that falls to the ground is not our own, but that of Jesus, and He will spring up in the lives of others because of us.

May the resurrected Jesus live more and more fully in each of us!

Thanks again!

Deborah & Steve

Steve and Deb Wise are missionaries that we support prayerfully and financially. They help take care of and nurture other missionaries and pastors as well, reminding them to care for their own souls and deep, passionate walks with the Lord. I always appreciate Debs writings and both Steve and Deb as the work hard in serving the Lord and their fellow servants.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith March 31, 2024

Notes of Faith March 31, 2024

He is Risen!

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! — Luke 24:5-6

Epic, groundbreaking, world-changing. Every word falls short of capturing the magnitude of Easter Sunday. It’s the most significant event in world history and in the lives of Jesus followers.

Christ is risen from the dead!

It was early Sunday morning when the women went to the tomb to tend to Jesus’ burial site. As they approached the tomb, they were shaken because they realized the stone had been rolled away, and when they entered the tomb, they couldn’t find the body. Two angels approached them and asked,

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! — Luke 24:5–6

Then they remembered Jesus had said,

The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again. — Luke 24:7

Christ is risen from the dead!

The powers of darkness had taken their best shot at Jesus as He hung on the cross. And yet, things unfolded precisely the way Jesus said they would (Matthew 16:21). Death could not hold Jesus in the grave, and on the third day, He stepped out of the tomb. You serve a risen God who is as alive today as He was on that resurrection Sunday. No power of hell and no force of evil can prevail over Him!

Rejoice that you belong to Him and that with Him all things are possible!

It is because of the physical resurrection of Christ that you can have hope. You can have faith. You can have freedom. Your life is altered because of what you’re celebrating today. This is not just a feel-good story. This is the story that rewrites your story. When Christ rose, He proved that He is Lord. His promises are true. His Word can be trusted. His relationship with you is ever-fixed and abounding in steadfast love. And you can walk freely in mission with Him forever.

Lord, I praise You, I worship You, and I thank You. I rejoice that You are alive and in control of all things.

Excerpted from A Savior Is Risen by Susan Hill, copyright Zondervan

This is eternal life…Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Praise God for His love for His creation, especially that created in His image…you! This is our reason for faith and hope…Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! He is our Lord and Savior! Praise Him. Worship Him! Serve Him! Give Him back the life He gives you!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith March 30, 2024

Notes of Faith March 30, 2024

Life Is for Living

Article by Greg Morse

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

“Youth,” an old writer complained, “is wasted on the young.” Why hand the strongest draught of life to those who least know what to do with it? Why entrust bright eyes and boundless energy to those blowing bubbles and scrolling phones and living best friends with frivolity? With too few scars to instruct them, youth, you may know too well, is often wasted on the young.

Oh, if you could bring an old head to young shoulders — how differently life would have gone. To think, really think, about what decisions you were making, what paths you were taking, what hearts you were breaking — if only you knew then what you know now. But you cannot read through and edit life. The past is well-defended and heartless to your pleas.

Life — to be placed on a bicycle before you can balance. You crashed so many times, and others suffered in your falls. You knew not where to go. And yet now, just as you get riding in the right direction, how cruel, it seems to you, to reach the sidewalk’s end. Why do we finally learn to make the most of summer days in breezy autumn?

Where was the Preacher then to instruct you, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)? His prophetic voice spoke too softly, and it all passed by so quickly. If only you could go back and live again; this time things would go differently.

Teach Us to Measure Our Days

How vital is it for us to pray with the psalmist?

O Yahweh, make me know my end

and what is the measure of my days;

let me know how fleeting I am! (Psalm 39:4)

How needful is it to “know our end” before we get there? How precious to “measure our days” before we spend them? How priceless to feel our fleetness before our ship sails?

Who shall teach us to measure our days? Man flatters us and hides our end from sight. We conspire, deceiving ourselves, we gods amidst mortals. Satan slithers still, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). The world catechizes of nothing beyond its walls. Who shall teach us of the ill-favored end we wish forgotten? Who shall speak the truth to make us wise?

O Lord, teach me my end! Make me know the finish of all flesh for the good of my soul. Bring near my casket; let me read my tombstone. Let the clouds of that day surround me, show me how dark is that silence six feet below. There, let me think. There, let me learn. For “it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Bury me, my Lord — throw dirt upon my aspirations, my dreams, my life — and then exhume what is worthy, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful, that which is pleasing in your sight. I am but a dream, a shadow, a blade of grass blowing in the wind. Show me death to teach me life!

Prayer of the Living

O Lord, in your school, I learn to measure my existence — not by others, but by you.

Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,

and my lifetime is as nothing before you.

Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! (Psalm 39:5)

In your school, I learn to weigh this life and the vanity of its riches.

Surely a man goes about as a shadow!

Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;

man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! (Psalm 39:6)

In your school, I learn to chasten all other hopes.

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

[My hope is in . . . these relationships, things, achievements? No.]

My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:7)

You discipline me, you correct me, you blight the mirages I misjudge as Joy, and lead me to life in you. Oh, teach me the small dimensions of my days! Send forth your cloud by day; shine forth your fire by night. Lead me safely through this dark and dreary land, this cemetery. Teach me to live while I live. Take me to the end of life that I might learn to live this life as I wait for life with you.

Spend Time with Death

We pray this to our Lord because he must teach us how to measure the days he gives. But we must measure our lives through prayerful meditation. Practically, John Bunyan, that tour guide of the faith, advises us to dwell nearer our death.

It is convenient that thou conclude the grave is thy house, and that thou make thy bed once a day in the grave. . . . The fool puts the evil day far away, but the wise man brings it nigh. Better be ready to die seven years before death comes, than want one day, one hour, one moment, one tear, one sorrowful sigh at the remembrance of the ill-spent life that I have lived. (Christ a Complete Saviour, 221)

“Get an eyeful of Christ, a soulful of Christ, and all your wasted days will be redeemed.”

Our problem is not that death comes too swiftly, but that we visit death too seldomly. Reader, are you ready to die? Conclude now, young person, old person, middle-aged person: The grave is thy house. The wages of your sin is death; to dust you must return. But do not stop there, for your soul does not stop there. We must all read past death’s cold chapter. What lies beyond for you? What final destination is death but the turbulent flight? Eternal life or unending death? Is death gain or utter ruin?

Span of Today

Let that thought be a spur to change. Consider how many days have already escaped unfelt, untasted, unvalued. Life has happened to us more than it has been lived thoughtfully, fearfully by us — how much remains? Perhaps not much. The one life we had to live in this world — how unkindly we passed it before our Creator. Youth is wasted on the young perhaps because death is wasted on the young. Life, how valuable; we, how foolish.

Yet consider more. With all the wasted and mishandled days, realize the potential of time remaining. If you are young enough to read these words, you are young enough to hope.

Much can happen in a day. This day, you can place a phone call to a loved one you’ve not spoken with for years. This day, you can extend forgiveness, repair old bridges, heal scarred marriages. This day, we can choose what is right over what is easy. This day, we can confess sin we’ve kept secret for so long. This day, wars can cease, great enterprises begin, revivals ignite, reformation commence, lives change.

This day, Jesus Christ can place scarred hands upon an irretrievable past and amend it, reclaim it. He decisively saves souls within the bounds of today: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” (Hebrews 3:7–8). He will take your wasted and ruined life. He can make something beautiful from it still. From the barren land, flowers may yet grow.

Within the final breaths of this day, you can hear by faith, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). This day, you can discover the purpose of all days: Jesus Christ. Get an eyeful of Christ, a soulful of Christ, and all your wasted days will be returned to his keeping, and your future days will be sceptered by his care.

Redeemer of Days

One has gone before you to your end, into death, tasting death for his people. He changes the calculus of our days. Even a spoiled life plus Christ equals eternal life. Live 969 years as Methuselah (Genesis 5:27) or 16 like Lady Jane Grey (or younger, as some of our beloved children who died trusting Jesus), if Christ is yours, death is gain. He stands beyond our end; distance from him marks the measure of our days. Our life is fleeting, yes, but we fleet to him.

Hear how Christ can beautifully map upon our brief existence:

Lord, it belongs not to my care

Whether I die or live;

To love and serve Thee is my share,

And this Thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad,

That I may long obey;

If short, yet why should I be sad

To welcome endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms

Than he went through before;

He that unto God’s kingdom comes

Must enter by this door.

Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet

Thy blessed face to see;

For if Thy work on earth be sweet,

What will Thy glory be!

My knowledge of that life is small,

The eye of faith is dim;

But ‘tis enough that Christ knows all,

And I shall be with Him.

(Richard Baxter, “The Covenant and Confidence of Faith”)

Life, how fleeting. Life with Christ, how eternal.

Life, how shadowed. Life with Christ, how bright.

Life, how regrettable. Life with Christ, how redeemed.

Greg Morse is a staff writer for desiringGod.org

Our Lord was placed in a grave before sundown yesterday. Today is a day of unknowns, of despair, of suffering because of what we do not know or trust to believe. But Jesus said He would rise on the third day…and He did. Our day is coming to visit the grave. But we too, will rise. Where will we go? Will our eternal destination be endless bliss with our Savior and Lord, or will we go to eternal condemnation and judgment? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith March 29, 2024

Notes of Faith March 29, 2024

Good Friday for Bad People

Article by Marshall Segal

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for. It wasn’t something in you that convinced him to bear the nails, the thorns, the wrath.

We’ve heard so much about his real and wondrous love for us that we might forget his love is wondrous precisely because we were not. Because, when he set his loving eyes on us, we were corrupt, defiant, repulsive. We were the treacherous wife prostituting herself out and then spending the husband’s money on other lovers. We should have been swallowed by holy rage, not by his mercy.

And yet he died for us, even us. “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8). Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love? Do you know that Christ died for you when you were still at your worst, when your black heart had wandered its furthest and hardened near to cracking?

Good Friday bids us to stop and remember just how sinful we were — just how bleak it was for us before that darkest day in history — and to remember the wild and tenacious love with which we’ve been loved.

While You Were Weak

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

(Romans 5:6)

When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were weak — and not a little tired or flawed, but lame and helpless. Incapacitated. This word for weak is the same word used for the crippled man whom Peter and John met on their way to the temple in Acts 3. He was lame from birth, and had to be carried to the temple gate every day so that he could beg for enough to survive another day. That’s the kind of weak you were when Jesus found you.

In fact, Jesus died only for weak people. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” he warned those who thought themselves strong. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31–32). “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). He loves whom he loves to show us just how shortsighted all our “wisdom” really is and to expose the sickly frailty of our so-called “strength.”

While You Were Wicked

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

You were not only weak and helpless, however, but also thoroughly wicked. Your heart was deceitful and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). Can you see that kind of darkness in your former self? Even your very best deeds were as filthy rags, because they were polluted with selfishness and pride. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Everything you thought or said or did was an act of defiance. “Terribly black must that guilt be,” J.C. Ryle observes, “for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction” (Holiness, 8–9).

“When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for.”

“Do not be deceived,” the apostle warns us. “Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). And lest we think he has other, especially wicked people in mind, he says in the next verse, “And such were some of you”

(1 Corinthians 6:11). All of that nasty, ugly evil was who you were, at least some of you.

And who you were was who Christ came to save. “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

While You Were Hostile

If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

(Romans 5:10)

In our wickedness, we sinned not just against the laws of God, but against God himself. All of our sinfulness was (and is) intensely personal. Your life apart from Christ was one prolonged act of divine hostility.

When King David slept with another man’s wife, impregnated her, and then had her husband murdered, notice how he confesses his sin to God: “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:3–4). How could he say that? What about Bathsheba? What about righteous Uriah? What about the precious infant son who died because of his sin?

His prayer doesn’t diminish the awful sins he committed against the husband, the wife, the child — he sinned grievously against each — but it reminds us that the greatest offense in any sin is the offense against God. As awful as adultery and murder are at a human level, they’re a thousand times worse at a heavenly one. To be an unforgiven sinner, even a polite, socially acceptable sinner, is to be “alienated and hostile in mind” (Colossians 1:21).

And yet, while you were hostile, Christ died for you. In love, he walked directly into the arms of your animosity and bore its curse for you on the cross. He made his perverse and ruthless enemies his friends, his own brothers.

While You Were Dead

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

(Ephesians 2:1–2)

You were not merely weak and wicked and hostile, though. You were dead. Sure, you may have been moving and breathing and eating and talking, but in all the ways that matter most, you were empty, barren, cold. You weren’t gasping for air or hanging on in a coma. The doctor had called it. And while you were lying in your lifeless blood, Jesus stopped beside you. And he not only stopped, but he chose to bleed and die so that you might stand up and live. Christ took the awful thing that killed you — your sin — and then breathed his own life and joy into your unmoving heart.

“Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love?”

Who would die for a dead man? The one who died for you. Who would die for his enemy? The one who died for you. Who would die for a sinner? The one who died for you. He found you at your very worst, saw all of you at your very worst, and then he made himself your worst, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

There Is a Remedy

One reason we lack the depth, faith, and joy we long to experience is that we fail to confront the sinfulness of sin — specifically, the sinfulness of our own sin. When Ryle wrote his classic book on holiness, he believed he had to begin here, with our weakness, wickedness, hostility, and ruin:

Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. (Holiness, 1)

Why do people wander after false gods and false gospels? Because they don’t take sin seriously enough. If they saw sin for what it is — crippling our souls, corrupting and twisting our minds, seeding hostility, and breeding death — then they would see that the cross is the only cure. Then they would find in Jesus a God more lovely than they are wicked, more alive than they are dead, more forgiving than they are guilty.

There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin, and study its nature, origin, power, extent, and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the Almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. (Holiness, 12)

So, this Good Friday, look deeply again into the awful weight of sin — and then look even more deeply into the loving eyes of the sinless Man of Sorrows, crucified and crushed for you.

Marshall Segal (@marshallsegal) is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org.

The truth of this day flashes before my mind as God reveals to me what He did for me and why He did what He did. Last night was powerful as God placed me on the Mount of Olives, in the crowd, as Jesus was being arrested. In this vision/dream, I followed the events of the night, like the apostles, not fully understanding what was happening. My Lord and Savior was sacrificing Himself that He might redeem me from sin, death, and the judgment of eternal hell. I did not know Him, love Him, or worship Him for who He was, and yet He died for me! This experience was physically and emotionally draining though I was not a participant in the brutality of Jesus’ fate. He drew me to Himself and now my desire is to draw closer still to my Creator and lover of my soul!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith March 28, 2024

Notes of Faith March 28, 2024

During His intense struggle on the Cross, our Lord spoke seven times as He hung suspended between heaven and earth. The strangest of these cries was,

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? — Matthew 27:46

He knew well what it was to be forsaken. In Galilee, He was forsaken by His family. They distanced themselves from Him, and we read that He had no honor “in His own house” (Matthew 13:57). In Gethsemane, He was forsaken by His friends when they ran away after He was taken by the mob (Mark 14:50). And at the end of the journey, at Golgotha, while bearing our sins, He was forsaken for a time by His Father so that we might never be forsaken.

Perhaps there is no more haunting word in our entire English language than the word forsaken. Many today know this reality. There are those who one day stood at a wedding altar, hearing the love of their life promise to “never leave or forsake” them. But they lied and left the gnawing pain of being forsaken. Countless children, abandoned by their fathers and/or mothers, also know the meaning of this cruel word.

Don’t give up. Reach up.

Jesus truly knew its meaning. But He didn’t give up. He reached up! This is a help and a hope for any of us who have been forsaken. He understands.

Don’t give up. Reach up.

So many times, when difficulties or heartbreak come knocking on our doors, we look at the swirling circumstances around us, or worse, focus all our attention on them. But look up. Be reminded that Jesus sees even the smallest sparrow that falls to the ground — and He cares so much more for you.

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me. — Psalm 27:10

Lord, I am so grateful that there is no fear of You ever forsaking me. I stand on Your promise that You will never leave or forsake me… never. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Excerpted from The Passion Code by O. S. Hawkins, copyright Dr. O. S. Hawkins.

Hab 1:13

13 Your eyes are too pure to look on (sin);

The forsaking of Jesus by the Father is something too difficult for my finite mind to understand. But a holy God and the unholiness of sin caused that separation when Jesus became sin (took upon Himself all sin of all mankind from Adam to the last of man) on the cross. This was the greatest suffering that Jesus experienced on earth. Yet He endured this suffering knowing the glory that was coming, not just in His resurrection, but in those that would believe in Him, His work of saving grace on the cross, and the redeeming of the remnant that would believe in Him!

Jesus has promised us that He will never leave us nor forsake us!

Pastor Dale