Sexual Temptation

Greetings All!

     I will get right to our topic for today: SEX.  Today's post is about sexual temptation.  That usually gets the attention of most since it's a struggle we've all faced, or do face, being people God created with sexual desires (unless we were "born eunuchs," as Jesus put it in Matthew 19:12, or born without a desire/ability for sexual fulfillment).
This post is lengthy, but worth reading if you are a Christian who cares about the things God cares about, and desires to gain victory in this area.  It is one of the best pieces of advice I've read on the issue, and comes to you from Jay Kesler. It is found in his book, "Being Holy, Being Human."   Jay (presently 83 years old, but written when he was much younger) was a former pastor in Illinois and Indiana, a former president of Youth for Christ, and formerly president of Taylor University.  His book is honest, practical, and helpful - a must read for the serious Christian or pastor.  It deals with Transparency, Expectations, Identity, Doubt, Money, the Pressure to perform, and other topics as well. With that said, he speaks here of just one on those many issues affecting holiness. Enjoy.

     “We all struggle in this area [of sexual temptation], and some have fallen,” says Kesler in a book written primarily to pastors.  “It's a serious problem, one of the most serious we face in the tension between being holy and being human.... Given the usual process by which sexual sin comes about, it naturally follows that the most important part of resisting sexual temptation is to maintain a good marriage relationship… I know that with all the demands we face, including obligations to our children, finding the time to maintain this kind of relationship with a spouse isn't easy — but there's simply no more important human relationship in the world for us to maintain. It's worth the effort and time and money it takes...

     Another big help to me in actually avoiding lust has been what I call contextualization. I pastored a church for fifteen years, and after about the twelfth year it dawned on me one day that I'd never had a sexual thought about any woman in the church. That amazed me, frankly, because I'm a sexual being like anyone else. I have sexual thoughts. I notice when I see a beautiful woman on the street; I didn't go blind when I became a Christian. In fact, earlier in my Christian life, when my buddies and I talked honestly, we all admitted that maintaining sexual purity was one of the major struggles of the younger man. Why hadn't I had sexual thoughts about women in the church? As I thought about it, I finally realized it was because I saw each of them in context. I knew all the people there so well that I knew everyone's husband, wife, son, and daughter, and many of the parents and grandparents, too. No one could be an object of lust to me without my being reminded of that person's other relationships. I knew that everyone there was a dear person to other people I knew and cared for. This included the women, and I couldn't look at them apart from their contexts of family and friends.  The only way you can prey on people and turn them into some kind of objects, especially for lust, is to mentally get them out of context. Conversely, if you think of them in context, you're not nearly so tempted to lust.

     Thus, I find it a good practice in ministry to continually think of people in context. For example, suppose I'm driving down the street and see some beautiful teenager who's dressed in an attention-getting way. My automatic response now is to contextualize her, to say to myself, “Hey, she's about the age of my daughter. I wonder who her parents are and how she gets along with them?” And suddenly the sexual part of it disappears. The girl hasn't changed, but my perception has. Instead of being an object of sexual thoughts, she's become someone's daughter, someone's little girl.  The same thing is true now that I find myself a college president on a campus that has its share of beautiful coeds. I can't say I haven't noticed them—I'm not blind—but I can honestly say that I don't think of them as a sexual turn-on. To me, they're all someone's daughters, someone's sisters, someone's granddaughters.  After I realized how my mind's eye was seeing people in context, I also realized that this is a biblical principle. It's what Paul told Timothy to do in — relate to older women as mothers, to younger women as sisters.

     I've also seen enough lives and ministries ruined by sexual sin that that's a deterrent for me. I've had frightening temptations in my own life that help deter me, too; just thinking about what might have happened if they'd gone another step in the wrong direction scares a lot of sense into me when I need it. We might call that putting yourself in context when you're tempted.  One time when I was much younger, I was flying to Denver on business, and a young woman in her twenties was sitting next to me. As we were flying, I noticed she was crying. I wondered if I should say anything or just respect her privacy. But after several minutes, I finally said, "Is there any way I can help you?” "I don't know," she said, then looked away. "Well, I'm involved in youth work, in Youth for Christ," I said. "And I'd be happy to just talk to you if that would help."  She began to open up then She said she had been engaged to a young man, and she'd just learned that he had run off to marry another woman. "The worst part of it is I'm still a virgin," she said.  She went on to say that she had always believed that if you kept yourself pure, everything would turn out right. Now she had decided that since a "wild girl" had stolen her man, her remaining pure had been to no avail, and she was going to go to some ski lodge and make up for lost time.  "Do you think it's worth giving up what you've always believed because of one painful experience?" I asked.  "I don't know," she said, then sank into silence.

     Finally she continued, "Well, where are you staying tonight?" I told her, and she said she was staying there, too. Then she suggested that maybe after we arrived we could "have a couple of drinks together and see how the evening turns out."  In effect, she was inviting me to help her initiate her new lifestyle.  "I don't want you to be confused," I said. "Let me show you my pictures." I took out my wallet and showed her my family photos. Though I didn't realize it at the time, I was putting myself in context. Looking at your wife and children really cools a potentially hot situation. After I showed her the photos, I went on, "I sympathize with the pain you feel. If you need someone to tell you you're pretty, let me tell you that you're very pretty. If you need someone to tell you you're sexually attractive, let me tell you that you're very attractive and desirable. But if you want me to say I'm willing to act on that desire, no, I'm not going to do it. You're vulnerable right now; you're in a difficult situation. Further, I'm married. I'm also a Christian. And I'm not going to do it because it would mean taking advantage of you and violating my commitments and my faith." Then I explained a bit of how my faith commitment guides my life.

     She was silent for a few minutes, but then she said, "Well, if I thought that by waiting the rest of my life I could find another man who would turn down the offer I made to you tonight, I'd stay a virgin till I found him.”  I replied, "There are more guys like me out there than you may think. I hope you don't go through with your plan."  When we got to Denver, I put the young woman in touch with some female Youth For Christ staff, and she stayed the night with them. They spent a few days with her and then sent her back home. So far, thank God, I've never been given that kind of offer when I was vulnerable. But I have been tempted, and it's always helped me to put both the woman and myself in context...  Sexual temptation is all around us these days, and if we're honest with ourselves, we know we're often vulnerable.  In spite of all we do to avoid tempting situations, there will be times, such as my experience on the plane, when temptation will stare us right in the face. Our job is to prepare ourselves and keep our marriages strong before we find ourselves in those situations so that when the temptations come, we'll be able to maintain our integrity—and our ministries.”

     A regular reading of the news is enough to assure us this is a common stumbling block for everyone -- Christian and non-Christian alike -- be it pastors or the people in the pews. But I would ask you to mull over his advice and put it into practice. For when practiced I can say from experience that it does work in helping one gain victory. Obviously, there are other pieces that are important, and John Piper shares an excellent portion that would be worth your time checking out in his book, "Future Grace," Chapter 17, "Applying the Power of Future Grace to Lust."  These two resources read and applied could go a long way toward helping break the addiction to pornography, or the lure of temptation which so many fall prey to in this area. A few dollars well spent, and these two books on your reading list, could save a lot of heartache.

 Fellow Sinner in the Struggle for Integrity and Godliness, Pastor Jeff

Addiction and Grace

Greetings All!

Sitting in my office, my eyes scanned the book shelves and fell upon one particular book: "Addiction and Grace" by Gerald G. May, M.D.  It's an intriguing title, because those two words describe the universal struggle and only remedy for humanity.  Don't let the length deter you!  Some spiritual journeys can't be condensed to a paragraph or two!   It's a worthwhile read for anyone, but especially for those trying to help and love people trapped by addictions -- which as he points out, includes all of us to varying degrees.  The "Introduction" is from years of study, experience and reflection.  It is followed by his own "Personal Testimony."  I found what he says very helpful.  Enjoy.

Introduction:
     "After many years of listening to the yearnings of people's hearts, I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware of it.  Or we may experience it in different ways -- as a longing for wholeness, completion, or fulfillment. Regardless of how we describe it, it is a hunger to love, to be loved, and to move closer to the Source of love...  Modern theology describes this desire as God-given. In an outpouring of love, God creates us and plants the seeds of this desire within us. Then, throughout our lives, God nourishes this desire...

     But something gets in the way...  We become addicted to other things....  A self-defeating force that abuses our freedom makes us do things we really do not want to do (Romans 7:15)... Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies. They enslave us with chains that are of our own making and yet paradoxically, are virtually beyond our control.  Addiction attaches to desire and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things or people. These objects of attachment then become preoccupations and obsessions They come to rule our lives. The word "attachment"... comes from the old French "atache" meaning, "nailed to."  Attachment "nails" our desires to specific objects or things -- alcohol, narcotics, ideas, work, relationships, power, fantasies, money, moods, and an endless variety of other things...  Addiction makes idolaters of all of us, because it forces us to worship objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly loving God and one another... It is the absolute enemy of human freedom and the antipathy of love.  Yet, in still another paradox, our addictions can lead us to a deep appreciation of grace. They can bring us to our knees....

Personal Testimony:

     It was in working with some of the most tragically addicted people -- those enslaved to narcotics and alcohol -- that I began wondering about addiction and grace. It was there also that I began to recognize my own addictedness. Most importantly, it was in the course of that work that I reclaimed my own spiritual hunger, a desire for God, and for love that many years had tried to repress.

     As nearly as I can recall, the repression of my spiritual desire began shortly after my father died. I was nine at the time.  Prior to that, I had had a comfortable relationship with God. As with all children, the earliest years of my life were "simply religious." In the innocent wonder and awe of early childhood awareness, everything just is "spiritual."  My religious education had given me a name for God, but I hardly needed it. I prayed easily; God was a friend.  In a reaction typical for a nine year old, I expected God to somehow keep me in touch with my father after his death. I prayed for this, but of course it did not happen. As a result, something hurt and angry in me, something deeper than my consciousness, chose to dispense with God. I would take care of myself. I would go it alone. My wanting -- my love -- had caused me to be hurt, and something in me decided not to want so much. I repressed my longing. Just as my father faded from my awareness, so did God, and so did my desire for God.

     During college, I fell in love with literature and philosophy. In retrospect, I think this was my desire for God resurfacing again as a search for beauty and truth. I even tried to go to church on occasion, but I wasn't consciously looking for God. By then I was searching for something that I could use to develop a sense of mastery over my life, something that would help me go it alone. In medical school and psychiatric training, I tried to make a god out of science. Science seemed learn-able, master-able, and controllable.  Throughout, I resisted prayer and rebelled at religiosity in others. Such things seemed immature; they were signs of weakness. I wanted to be autonomous, although I wasn't completely sure what that word meant. 

     I was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.  Much in the Vietnam experience I had to repress. But much of it I could not repress. In a way, the tragedy of Vietnam woke me up a little.  Afterward, I took a position as director of a community drug abuse clinic.  With all the energy that might be expected of a young doctor, I applied my best psychiatric methods to the treatment of addictions. None of them worked. I was able to help people with their emotional and social problems, but but they remained addicted to chemicals. Since so much of my desire for meaning and wholeness had become attached to professional success, and I was not being successful, I started to become depressed. A colleague called it, "a normal professional depression."  He went on to say, "All decent psychiatrists experience such depressions when they can't cure the people they treat.  If you didn't feel depressed, it would mean you didn't care enough."  It was some consolation. But not much.

     Then one day in the middle of this depression I was casually introduced to a faith healer at a conference in a nearby town.  I did not believe in faith healers, but as we shook hands she paused, holding my hand, and told me she thought I was meant to be a healer too, but, "I wouldn't take my dog to you, because you think you are the one that has to do the healing."  These are not words one might expect to be helpful for a depressed person.  But they struck me deep and well.  In my search for self-determination, I had also been trying to command the very process of healing. It was obvious that some change in attitude was called for. I still wasn't certain, however, what form that change should take.

     At about that same time, I embarked on a little informal research. I identified a few people who seemed to have overcome serious addictions to alcohol and drugs , and I asked them what had helped them turn their lives around so dramatically. All of them described some sort of spiritual experience. They kindly acknowledged their appreciation for the professional help they had received, but they also made it clear that this help had not been the source of their healing.  What had healed them was something spiritual. They didn't all use religious terms, but there was no doubt in my mind that what they spoke of was spiritual.

     Something about what they said reminded me of home. It had something to do with turning to God.  As a result I relaxed a little. I honestly considered there might be some power greater than myself involved in healing, and that I might be better off cooperating with that power instead of trying to usurp it.  I also set about trying to understand more of what constituted "spiritual experience" and why it had been so helpful to these addicted people... I described these spiritual experiences to some clergy friends. Most of them didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. The least helpful friends tried to give me Freudian explanations.  "Why, it's simply a narcissistic regression of the ego to a state of infantile dissociation in order to avoid reality issues that have stimulated unacceptable libidinous impulses."  They said such things as if I should have known them already. But the problem was I did know them already, and knowing them didn't help... 

     I studied Eastern religions, psychic phenomena, psychedelic drugs, biofeedback, all the great stew of psychological pop and pap that was percolating across the nation at the time. I read Alan Watts and Baba Ram Dass. I mediated every day. From a comfortable distance I watched the charismatic renewal in Christian churches, and from an equal distance, I sensed something powerful I couldn't understand in Alcoholics Anonymous. One evening about six months after my quest began, I was diligently practicing a form of Yoga meditation that encouraged the free coming and going of all thoughts. It is a method that might be described as the opposite of repression. In the freedom I gave to my mind, one of the thoughts that came was prayer. It was, in the beginning, the prayer of a nine year old, embarrassingly immature. "Dear Jesus, help me." I would have stifled it immediately had   it not been dutifully allowing all my thoughts to come and go. It was a sad and painful thing just to let that prayer happen, but it did. 

     As months and years passed, the prayer grew, and with it, my awareness of my desire for God.  I realized my exploration was less a professional research project and more a personal spiritual journey. I was not in control of my life. I needed as much of God's grace as any of my patients did.  With that growing realization, my spiritual desire seemed to pick up where it had left off some 20 years earlier.  Now it was out in the light again, and I gradually became able to reclaim it as my true hearts desire and the most precious thing in my life." 

     When I read testimonies, I seek to compare my own journey to the paths others followed.  There were places where my path crisscrossed that of Gerald May.  That may be true for others who were children of the 60's, 70's and early 80's.  The tendency to look to other "saviors" before we return to the One who truly is, is not uncommon.  How right he is when he says, "Addiction attaches to desire and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things, or people. These objects of attachment then become preoccupations and obsessions. They come to rule our lives."   And once they do, only God's all powerful and relentless grace can liberate us from those addictions and restore us to sanity and the freedom to follow Him. To root out those idols which are, "the absolute enemy of human freedom and the antipathy of love."      

Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

He Touched Me - My Pilgrimage of Prayer

Greetings All,

     After sending out my "thought"  last week from John Powell's book, "He Touched Me - My Pilgrimage of Prayer,"  and receiving the positive response I got back as a result, I thought I would send out one more from the same book.  This selection has to do with honest "self-disclosure" with God in our times of prayer.  I have found what he says to be true to my own experience and have recommended it to others. Therefore, I also commend it to you.  Enjoy. 

     "I hear Jesus say, "Without me you can do nothing. You can bear no fruit. I am the Vine and you are the branches. Cut off from me you are dead."  I hear St. John say that only he who knows God can know the meaning of love.  I hear St. Paul describe love as the highest and greatest gift of the Spirit.  Wherever I have found love I have felt the presence of God; God at work in the minds and hearts and muscles of people.

     My experience of God has been working this transformation in me, too. Oh, I am still a very selfish person. God is not finished with me yet. Others may not think of me as a very effective lover, but they do not know the before and after; they cannot read the motives of the heart. The process of divinization, in which God makes us more and more into his image and likeness, is a slow and gradual process.  I am still a pilgrim.  But I have been touched and I am partially transformed. This is the basis of my hope. The God who has touched me in the past will act again and again in my life. Over and over again I will feel his finger and find him.

     Where has all this led me? Where has God, through all this, been leading me? I now understand and approach prayer as communication in a relationship of love, a speaking and listening in truth and in trust. Speaking to God honestly is the beginning of prayer.  It locates a person before God.  I believe that the primary "giving" of love is the giving of one's self through self-disclosure. Without such self-disclosure there is not real giving, for it is only in that moment when we are willing to put our true selves on the line, to be taken for better or for worse, to be accepted or rejected, that true interpersonal encounter begins.  We do not begin to offer ourselves to others until we offer ourselves in this way, for love demands presence, not presents. All my "gifts" (presents) are a mere motion until I have given my true self (presence) in honest self-revelation.

     As in all interpersonal relationships, so in the relationship with God. I do not put myself into his hands or confront his freedom of choice to accept or reject me, to love or loathe me, until I have told him who I really am. Only then can I ask him: Will you have me?  Will you let me be yours? Will you be mine? Martin Luther's first law of success in prayer was: "Don't lie to God!"  In speaking to God in the dialogue of prayer, we must reveal our true and naked selves. We must tell him the truth of our thoughts, desires, and feelings, whatever they may be.  They may not be what I would like them to be, but they are not right or wrong, true or false. They are me.

     I am sure that this has benefited me in many other ways, but certainly it has enabled to speak more honestly to my God. It has freed me from the lie of those prefabricated pious cliches that are death to true conversational prayer.  I have told him where I really live -- in belief and unbelief. I have told him of my weariness in answering his call.  Of the emotional resentment I feel at being a public utility, a servant to be used and taken for granted. I have ventilated all my neurotic, throbbing emotions... I have been like Job of the Old Testament, cursing the day he made me, and like the prophet Jeremiah, accusing God of making not a prophet, but a fool of me. I have been a King David singing of his mercy and forgiveness, which I have always needed along the way of my pilgrimage.

     There is something so healing about "letting it all out" with God. The psychiatrist Karl Jung defined neurosis in terms of an inner cleavage, a war within, the existence of fraction-hood or inward division. With Paul we all know that there is, "another law warring in my members."  The real problem is confronted when we come to the question of our willingness to accept ourselves in this human condition of weakness. Will we be comfortable as a fraction, a creature of ambiguity whose evil is always mixed somehow with good and whose good is always somehow tainted with evil?

     I am sure that my comfort in this human condition depends for me on whether God will accept me this way or not.  I am worth only what I am worth in his eyes.  All the rest is charade. So, I have to put myself on the line the way I am. Charades with God is wasted time. I have to place myself in the posture of trusting his greatness and understanding. This is the essential beginning of prayer."

     Self-disclosure with God requires two things:

     1st) It requires the assurance we will not be rejected for what we share. That is, we need to be assured of the Gospel doctrine of justification; that our acceptance is secured through another on our behalf. That God accepts us fully for Jesus sake, through faith in Him.  Or to put it in theological terms, we must believe the message of the Gospel -- that our justification is not dependent upon our sanctification or performance, but just the opposite!  If we do not believe this, then complete honesty with God and others is nearly impossible.

     2nd) To be searingly honest with God I must believe the biblical declaration that the God  who loves and accepts me in Jesus is all-knowing (Psalm 139:1-4). We must believe that there is nothing hidden from Him, not even the secret things we alone know about ourselves (Ecclesiastes 12:14).  If we think we can hide something from God, we will.  It's not until we know He knows all that we are, that we are  freed to share what we truly feel and struggle with - that mishmash of conflicting desires and compulsions Paul speaks of in Romans 7.  In fact, believing that God knows all, even the secret things, makes anything but complete openness and honesty and transparency and truthfulness with God seem so utterly childish and foolish -- like the child who naively thinks he's not fully exposed to the sight of others simply because he covers his own eyes with his hands! 

     God's omniscience actually beckons me to be completely truthful with him, because it assures me he already knows everything I'm thinking, feeling, and even repressing.  It helps me realize that in prayer he simply wants to hear me tell him what he already knows about me!  It's part of healing that neurotic cleavage and fraction-hood and bringing me (and you) to wholeness. And Powell is right, it does open the door to become the true beginning of real prayer.  Then honest communication replaces the pious cliches we often use to mask the truth of who we are and experience God loving even the darkest parts of us.

In the Bonds of the Transforming Truth of the Gospel,  Pastor Jeff

Holiness By Grace - Delighting In The Joy That Is Our Strength

Greetings All!

     This week's "thought" comes from a book well worth the time it takes to read: "Holiness By Grace - Delighting In The Joy That Is Our Strength" by Bryan Chapell.  It has to do with God's grace and favor toward us, and the common misconceptions we often have about what it is that causes that grace to come our way.  There are very few who do not desire God's grace.  Few who do not yearn for His favor.  Yet, as Chapell points out, in our attempts to attain it, we often drive it further from us.  We often go astray in the ways we seek to become recipients of it.  I found his instruction in this regard helpful.  I pray that you might also.  Enjoy.

     "Despite the teaching of Scripture, I am at times no less troubled than Christ's disciples were with God's determination to resist human efforts to purchase his love.  I want to believe that God must be good to the organizations I serve, to the family I love, and the career in which I seek to advance, because I have tried to be good. Such reasoning abandons me, however, when I honestly compare my righteousness to Christ's standards... When I face the reality of the inadequacy of my works to merit God's favor, then I recognize that I must depend on his goodness and not my own. At times this dependence (on his goodness) is scary because it lifts control from me, but there is no other choice when I recognize the true character of my good works. For according to Scripture, even my best works are only "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:5). There is too much human imperfection and mixed motives in my best deeds to have them obligate God to do as I wish...

     That does not mean, however, that God never desires or blesses our goodness.  Walking in God's ways is itself a blessing (Ps. 1, Matt. 5:3-10). For example, being faithful to one's spouse brings integrity to a marriage that is a blessing.  Speaking honestly can enhance one's reputation and help secure faltering relationships... Still, no degree of human goodness will lock God into a pah of blessing according to our choosing, as though we have become his master through our merit.  God promises to bless obedience by using it for his purposes, but the blessings that result should be seen less as credit for our goodness, and more as evidence of his faithfulness to his purposes... Divine blessing flows from God's mercy rather than from our merit. Thus, we cannot guarantee that his care will flow according to our plans simply because we conform in some degree to biblical standards. Our works do not obligate God to care for us in the way WE think is best... God blesses according to the wisdom of his eternal mercy rather than in proportion to our works of earned merit...

     [In Luke 17:11-19 ten lepers cry out to Jesus in desperation, "Jesus, master, have mercy on us!"]... What does Jesus do when these desperate people plead with him for mercy? He shows them mercy.  Jesus shows pity to those who have nothing to claim but desperation.  He is moved by their desperate cry for help.  What is the message to us?  Our God is not moved by the deeds we trophy, but by the desperation we acknowledge as our own....

     God's heart is moved, not when we protest our innocence by pointing to our inadequate good deeds, nor when we promise that we will do better in the future. Though there is no reason for God to love us, yet he does.  This is the nature of grace that we must treasure to know the joy that God wants for our lives. Until we recognize that there is no reason God will be moved to love us other than the spiritual need we acknowledge, we have no good news to tell others or ourselves. How could it be good news that God waits to love us until we reach an unattainable standard of righteousness, or that he counts our "filthy rags" as meritorious?  Biblical faith is most evident not when we demand that God honor our flawed deeds, but when we trust that he will mercifully respond when we humbly and helplessly cry out, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

     Those who cry out in desperation have more hope of moving God's heart than any who would trophy their own righteousness before him.  Those who face the hopelessness of their spiritual condition apart from God's mercy are nearer to experiencing his grace than those who pride themselves on their goodness. Not beyond God's mercy is the homosexual dying of AIDS, who says in a broken spirit, "People may condemn me for a life they do not approve, but to tell you the truth, I would have loved anyone that loved me back."  In fact, such a man may be nearer to expressing what melts the heart of heaven, than I am on the days that my preaching, my position (as a seminary president), and my righteousness, swell my pride to make me think I am deserving of God's blessing.

     To experience God's blessing I must readily and repeatedly confess my own hopeless condition. What makes me willing to do this is the knowledge that it is my desperation that inclines God's heart toward my own.  The awareness that he does not turn away from my desperation will actually draw me to confession and deep repentance. The assumption that God only loves the righteous will tempt me to hide from him (and myself) the flaws under the public veneer of my character and my fears of deeper failures... 

     Our Lord's response to the leper's cry for mercy should compel us to confess our sin to him no matter its degree or persistence. We need not have corrected the wrong in our lives to ask him to forgive us We should not attempt to try and compensate for our sin before we ask him to love us. Remember that Jesus cleansed all the lepers when they cried out for his mercy, even though in his divine nature he could have known that only one would return to thank him.  Neither past failing nor future weakness will dissuade our Savior from showing us mercy when we honestly acknowledge our desperate need for his grace."

     One only needs to glance at the any of the four Gospels to see the truth of what Chapell says.  God inclines his ear and opens his heart to the desperate, but resists the proud. He embraces the sinful man who won't even look up to heaven but in shame cries out, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner," yet refuses to listen to the Pharisee who looks down on that heart-broken man and brags inwardly that he is so much better and thanks God he is not like him.  Pride and self-righteousness (that is, thinking we can make ourselves acceptable to God by our personal deeds and efforts) pushes the divine hand of grace away, it does not (as many curiously think) bring God's favor and blessings near.  We must always remember: "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble."   It is the acknowledgment and confession of our sin, deep need, and personal inadequacy that draws close the grace and mercy of God, and the vain illusion that we have all our moral and spiritual ducks in a row that drives it away.

     If you would like to pray for grace, here is a simple prayer I often use: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Eternal God, be merciful to me a sinner." 

For His name's sake,  Pastor Jeff 

Every Good Endeavor - Connecting Your Work to God's Work

Greetings All!

     This week's "thought" comes to you from Tim Keller's book "Every Good Endeavor - Connecting Your Work to God's Work."   I have not finished it yet (just over half way through), but what I have read is enlightening, inspiring, well-thought-through (as is typical for Keller) and so helpful for those seeking to find meaning and purpose in their jobs or work.  Better yet (as the title suggests), it is helpful for those who would like to connect their work to God's work in this world, and bring redemptive change into their workplace.  In my humble opinion, this book really is a must read.

     We all function according to some type of underlying worldview -- a worldview that guides our choices, priorities and pursuits. "Our worldview," says Keller, "places our work in the context of a history, a cause, a quest... and in so doing it frames the strategy of our work at a high level."  My challenge to you today is to see if your worldview is Christian, non-Christian, or a mixture of competing worldviews spliced together?  Read below and find out...  Enjoy.

The Gospel and Other Worldviews

     "Any worldview consists of posing and answering three questions:  1. How are things supposed to be?  2. What is the main problem with things as they are?  3. What is the solution and how can it be realized?  Leslie Steven's book (Seven Theories of Human Nature) includes Christianity among its "theories," but the author points out how different Christianity is from the alternatives. He observes that "if God has made man for fellowship with Himself, and if man has turned away and broken his relationship to God, then only God can forgive man and restore the relationship." In other words, the biblical worldview uniquely understands the nature, problem, and salvation of humankind as fundamentally relational.  We were made for a relationship with God, we lost our relationship with God through sin against him, and we can be brought back into that relationship through his salvation and grace.

     Plato, Marx, and Freud all identify some part of the created world as the main problem and some other part of the created world as the main solution. The protagonists and antagonists of their respective world-stories are played by finite things.  Thus, Marxism assumes that our problems come from greedy capitalists who won't share the means of economic production with the people. The solution is a totalitarian state.  Freud, on the other hand, believed that our problems come from repression of deep desires for pleasure. The villains are played by the repressive moral "gatekeepers" in society, like the church. The solution is the unrepressed freedom of the individual.  Many people have a worldview that to some degree is indebted to the Greeks or Plato. They think the problem with the world rests in undisciplined and selfish people who won't submit to traditional moral values and responsibilities. The solution is a "revival" of religion, morality, and a virtue in society.  Philosopher Al Wolters writes: "The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God's good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error conceives of the good-evil dichotomy as intrinsic to the creation itself...  Something in the good creation itself is identified as the source of evil.  In the course of history this "something" has been variously identified as the body and it's passions (Plato and much of Greek philosophy), as culture in distinction from nature (Rousseau and Romanticism), as authority figures in society and family (psycho-dynamic psychology), as economic forces (Marx), as technology and management (Heidegger and existentialists)...  As far as I can tell the Bible is unique in its rejection of all attempts to either demonize some part of creation as the root of our problems, or to idolize some part of creation as the solution. All other religions, philosophies, and worldviews in one way or another fall into the trap of idolatry -- of failing to keep creation and fall distinct.  And this trap is an ever-present danger for Christians [as well]."

     Look again at the uniqueness of Christianity. Only the Christian worldview locates the problem with the world NOT in any part of the world, or any particular group of people, but in sin itself (our loss of relationship with God). And it locates the solution in God's grace (our restoration of a relationship with God through the work of Christ).  Sin infects us all, and so we cannot simply divide the world into the heroes and the villains. (And if we did we would certainly have to include ourselves among the latter as well as the former.) Without an understanding of the Gospel, we will be either naively Utopian or cynically disillusioned We will be demonizing something that isn't bad enough to explain the mess we are in, and we will be idolizing something that isn't powerful enough to get us out of it. This is, in the end, what all other worldviews do... The Christian story line, or worldview, is: Creation (plan), Fall (problem), Redemption and Restoration (solution): 

     1.  The whole world is good.  God made the world and everything in it was good. There are no intrinsically evil parts of the world.  Nothing is evil in its origin... You can find this "creational good" in everything. 

     2. The whole world is fallen.   There is no aspect of the world affected by sin more or less than any other. For example, are emotion and passions untrustworthy and reason infallible?  Is the physical bad and the spiritual good?  Is the day-to-day world profane but religious observances good? None of these is true. But non-Christian story lines must adopt some variations of these in order to villainize and even demonize some created thing instead of sin.

     3. The whole world is going to be redeemed. Jesus is going to redeem spirit and body, reason and emotion, people and nature. There is no part of reality for which there is no hope.

     The Gospel is the true story that God made a good world that was marred by sin and evil, but through Jesus Christ he redeemed it at infinite cost to himself, so that someday he will return to renew all creation; end all suffering and death; and restore absolute peace, justice, and joy in the world forever. The vast implications of this gospel worldview -- about the character of God, the goodness of the material creation, the value of the human person, the fallenness of all people and all things, the primacy of love and grace, the importance of justice and truth, the hope of redemption -- affect everything, and especially our work." 

     That's obviously a bit to chew on!  But I hope it helps you see how the worldview one chooses to adopt will have great effect on how they view their work, carry out their work, and choose to live. My question is:  Do you have a Christian worldview?  Or, like many, have you adopted elements of a Marxist, Greek, Capitalist, or Freudian worldview?  Everyone has a worldview that under-girds their life choices and endeavors. Is your a Gospel worldview, or a syncritistic mix of many others with a small element of Christian lingo or references to Jesus added in?

     And I must stress that it is NOT irrelevant.  Since God commands us: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all you soul and all your mind and all your strength," it would seem to lay upon us as believers an unavoidable responsibility to think things like this through as best we possibly can.  For whatever worldview we have has a profound effect on influencing the choices we make, why we make them, and what we will pursue. It will impact how we treat people, why we love and value the things we do, live as we do, and view work the way we do. 

     So my prayer for everyone is this:  If you have come to Christ, yet retained a non-Christian worldview (or elements from various ones), you will seek (by the grace God gives) to root those elements out and replace them with distinctly Christian or Gospel elements -- something Keller's book distinctly aims at helping us with! 

In His Service, Pastor Jeff 

C. S. Lewis - A Collection of Thoughts

Greetings All!

     Today you get another post of many different "thoughts" rather than one longer continuous thought.  Yet, unlike my last mailing sent out two weeks ago, these all come from one author - C. S. Lewis.  I've been going through three of his books lately and found them all very rewarding. This is just a sampling of short thoughts from him.  I trust you might find a few of these to be helpful as you mull them over, and that one or two might be used of God to encourage, challenge, or comfort you.

     At our men's group this morning we discussed our favorites from my previous mailing two weeks ago, and why each person found particular ones the most helpful. If you get a chance today, and would want to share with me what your particular favorites are from the list below, I'd be interested in receiving your feedback!  Enjoy.

"If everything comes simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment dependent upon God." 

"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but God will make us good because He loves us."

"It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they will see God, for only the pure in heart want to."

"I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I knew that a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity." 

"We are not necessarily doubting God will do the best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." 

"Don't shine so that others can see you. Shine, so that through you, others can see Him."

"Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did."

"If God had granted all the silly prayers I've asked in my life, where would I be now?" 

"If you're thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something that will take the whole of you."

"Everyone thinks forgiveness is a wonderful idea until he has something to forgive."  

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... No one knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.  That is why bad people know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in." 

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."

"God cannot give us happiness apart from Himself, because there is no such thing."

"It is not your business to succeed, but to do right. When you have done so the rest lies with God." 

"Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties."

"We must lay before God what is in us, not what ought to be in us."

With prayers for your continued growth in godliness, and your service in Jesus name, Pastor Jeff