More to be Desired

When you hear the same message three times in a week, you’d better stop and pay attention.

In the past week I’ve heard two sermons preached on Psalm 19. The third time I came across this passage was during my Bible reading last night in Romans 10. In this chapter, Paul talks about the message of salvation to all people. Here in verse 13 we have the famous promise: “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Paul then changes direction. The two verses that follow ask a series of rhetorical questions:

Romans 10:14-15
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

There has never been a greater need for the Gospel than today. You can look at the sidebar and see an unreached people group, those who have never heard the Gospel shared before. Today’s generation is arguably the most biblically illiterate generation in America’s history. And I have to wonder why.

If Paul were to add one more rhetorical question to his list, perhaps it would be this: “And how are they to be sent unless they understand the message themselves?”

We have to know the message.

The message of God – the Gospel – starts with God revealing Himself. This is the truth that David writes about when he opens Psalm 19:

Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.

You don’t have to look further than the night sky to see a testimony of God’s glory. For six verses David pours out his marvel at God’s revelation in the world, inescapable glory in the sun and the stars.

God’s revelation doesn’t stop there. On top of nature’s manifest testimony, God gives us His written Law, known better today as the Bible. Even with the limited amount of God’s Word in David’s day, he was able to see a benefit far outshining the sun.

For five more verses David pours out his delight over God’s Word, both their value and the effect. “The Law of the LORD is perfect (value), reviving the soul (effect).”

I’m not a theologian.

The call to understand God’s Word can drive people away from Him. People see the impossible task of knowing God and understand that they’ll never fully comprehend Him. If we can’t know everything about God, why strain to try?

One of my professors brought up this question in a class on Wednesday. There are some things we cannot know about God, he said to the class, but that doesn’t mean we can’t know far more than we do now by studying His Word.

The more I get into the Word, the more I realize how much there is to know about God. But like David, the more I understand God’s Word, the more I’m able to treasure this Book. I know that I’ll never fully understand God – that’d be like trying to hold the ocean in a pitcher.

Instead, we must realize that knowing God isn't first about knowledge but desire – not so much about our location as our trajectory. Our hearts must be like David, who saw his own sin against a holy God and closed his psalm of praise with a prayer:

Psalm 19:14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

How about you? What are some of the benefits and challenges you've noticed as you get into the Word? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Cardinal Moments

As I sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal and my Bible in front of me this morning, I looked outside to see snow falling. All my attention was shifted to one place outside where a red cardinal sat on a branch. 

The contrast between the white snow covering everything and the red cardinal was stark, impossible to ignore. Though there was a beauty in the snowfall, this one bird caused the entire scene to become something altogether more amazing.

Opening my Bible, a thought crossed my mind about the snowfall and cardinal.

This is how I want to read God’s Word.

I want the Bible to mean more to me than a piece of my daily checklist. In the middle of pages of white, I want to see something that stands out like a cardinal in a snowstorm.

God gave me my cardinal moment.

Isaiah 9:7b
If you are not firm in faith,
You will not be firm at all.

God’s spoken a lot to me about surrender. Specifically, Christmas break serves as a good time for God to bring out his hammer and chisel and go to work on my heart. But more on that later.

Facing anxieties or frustrations, I’m reminded of God’s call to be firm in my faith. If I say I believe Philippians 4:6-7 about God’s peace for our anxieties, then I must stand firmly in faith rather than continued worry.

Maybe you read your Bible often, but it’s become more of a chore than a privilege. Ask God for a cardinal moment then look for it in His Word. When we ask God to speak, His answers are impossible to ignore.

Winter Snow

This morning I made an experience from last year into a tradition. 

I warmed up some ramen, garbed myself with all my winter decor, and walked through my school until I came to a stairwell outside one of the resident halls. Sitting there on the stairs, I ate my noodles while watching the snow fall from under the arched staircase.

As I sat there, a psalm I read this morning stuck in my mind. One of the "Song of Ascents" psalms, written by David, spoke to me on this quiet winter morning.

Psalm 131
1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
    from this time forth and forevermore.

We sometimes make salvation too complicated. There's a time for theology and a place for deep thoughts. But sometimes we need to step back, lower our eyes, and rest in God.

Sometimes salvation looks a little more like a child resting in a mother's arms.

Sometimes salvation looks a little more like a winter snow.

Camden

Friendship—It Matters

In the summer of 2010, I met a kid named Nick at a summer camp where I worked. When I met Nick, I decided that I wasn’t going to let this connection slip past me. For a semester I forced myself to call him week after week and invite him to my youth group (if you didn’t know, phone calls were a major phobia for me). Many weeks he wouldn’t come; on weeks that he did, he seemed lost from the lessons.

When I left my youth group for college, I seriously wondered if anything I had done would last. I kept Nick along with a couple other friends on a short list of people I was committed to pray for through the school year.

Coming back for the summer, I saw Nick weekly during Ultimate Frisbee with friends from church. There wasn’t any incredible ministry, just living life and being a friend to him. When my friend’s graduation rolled around, I was convicted to ask if there was any way I could pray for Nick. When I saw an opportunity to sit down with him, he surprised me by starting the conversation.

“I’ve never really told you this before,” he said sitting next to me, “but I just wanted to thank you for all you did for me.” He then told me how thankful he was that I had invited him to youth group, how thankful he was that I had introduced him to some guys that are now some of his closest friends. All this paled when he told me how much closer he was to Jesus because I had lived and loved like Christ.

So what about you? Do you wonder if your actions really show through to your friends? Take a rain check on your worries and keep living as Christ to them. We honestly cannot overestimate the power of praying for our friends and living as Christ's ambassador with them.

2 Corinthians 5:20
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Spiritual Obesity

We’ve all seen the blaring news headlines:

OBESITY ON RISE IN AMERICA

According to the CDC, there were no states in the year 2000 where 30 percent of the population was obese. Today, the national average is over 35 percent, and the average of every state is above 20 percent.

What’s the cause of this upward trend? I’m no expert, but it seems that there’s a lot of indulgence with our wealth. We invest in ourselves because we’re scared of not being satisfied otherwise. If food is the answer to satisfaction, then let’s keep investing in us! It’s an absurd statement, yet it’s the default that many of us live.

A line of comparison can be drawn between the obese state of the nation and the state of the American church. Our churches are packed with messages of encouragement that everyone will want to hear. Let’s face it—when we turn to a Christian radio station in the car, you’re expecting to hear something “positive and encouraging.”

There’s a serious problem to this national church trend. We’ve come to believe that feeling good about ourselves is the answer to satisfaction in the Christian life. So we build nicer churches with coffee shops and cool lighting; we write and read an entire genre on positive Christian life; we hire pastors who will give encouraging messages so that we can leave with a smile. Hey, if feeling good about our belief is the answer to satisfaction for the Christian, then let’s do everything in our power to make sure we feel comfortable and encouraged!

2 Timothy 4:3 
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

Church, I’m worried that we’re packing ourselves with empty Calories in the name of Jesus. We’re turning into the obese church, the congregation that will only fill itself with the message of life instead of pouring out on others.

If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. –A. W. Tozer

Do you think you can ever have too much encouragement?
What else could be causing this trend of “feel good” churches?