We need more than ever to be spoken back to life again. Our endless forms of self-activation in the church and culture today have proven to do little more than exhaust us, make us anxious, and ultimately disappoint and depress us. Despite our impressive effort, preaching has not escaped this prison of self-entanglement. Snoozing in the pew is now the good ol' days as more and more people report a pathological aversion to preaching….
Only when we first respond to the Law by acknowledging all the ways we fail the Law will we be able to rightly attempt to do the Law. To not do the former and attempt the latter is to totally miss the mark; it is to sin big. Paul was using the Law to make himself righteous. Outwardly, he looked great. But because his motivation and purpose was wrong, everything was wrong. He was using a baseball bat to make music. That just doesn’t work.
“In a sense, a depressed Christian is a contradiction in terms”, wrote Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones in his amazing book, Spiritual Depression. Far from being insensitive to the realities of suffering and depression, this idea, derived from Scripture, is canon fire against our depression and solid ground in our suffering. Far from ignoring the realities of depression and suffering in the Bible, this idea is the solid ground on which to stand when you suffer and when your soul is depressed.
I’ve had far too many encounters with dogs. I love dogs but only on my terms and far too many times I’ve had to deal with dogs when I wasn’t expecting it. There was the time my friend’s docile dog bit me. There were the handful of times dogs have chased after me on a run. There was the time I was touring a home for sale only to find a dog in the attic. There was the time I was visiting someone’s home only for their dog to run at me and bite my foot, thankfully covered by a sturdy cowboy boot. On those terms, I don’t like dogs and I now look out for them. In Phil. 3 Paul calls us to “rejoice in the Lord” but then contrasts that call immediately with, “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers”. Who are the dogs, the evildoers, and how are they on the attack?
To my surprise, as though anything isn’t a surprise as a young dad, my young boys are intrigued by death. The whole concept of death elicits a lot of questions from them. To be honest, death should be fascinating in the worst way to everyone. Well, one day they were visiting a neighbor who’s dog died and they asked mom where the dog was. The response was something like, “She may have buried the dog in the ground.” The boys responded, when I die, will I go into the dirt? Little do they know my boys are curious about one of the most important, fundamental questions that has burdened humanity for all time: what happens when I die? Really, the real question is: how do I get life that can never be taken away, that death can’t snuff out?
Surround yourself with people secured in the love of Christ and able to find joy in the welfare of others. Be secured in the love of Christ, receive the love of others, and be the kind of person who seeks the welfare of others. And in everything, look to Jesus who came on a rescue mission for you.
The Bible describes the world in serious terms, terms like darkness. The fallen world is a world of darkness. But what is a mark of darkness? How do you know darkness when you see it? On the flip side, Christians are told they shine in the darkness. But what is a mark of shining? Immediately, we might think of darkness in terms of things like murder, hatred, greed, and sexuality immorality. And that would be accurate. We might think of shining in terms of loving others, being generous with time and money, and sharing the Gospel. And that would be accurate
Growing up everyone has the same irrational fear: death by quicksand. Do you remember when you were terrified that you would meet your Maker by way of quicksand? I do. There was something mysteriously dark about the idea of quicksand. Yet none of my teachers seemed motivated to let us know that we are not just going to stroll up on person-swallowing quicksand one day.
What happened with John Newton that would change him from a self-centered, me-first, arrogant man to someone who supported a historical campaign to end slavery and wrote hundreds of hymns? His dying words clue us in: “My memory is nearly gone. But I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” Newton came to know himself and he came to know Jesus. He came to know his great sinfulness and his Savior’s greater salvation.
In September 2020 my family and I were in Pensacola, FL living the good vacation life on the beach. Hurricane Sally was in the Gulf at this time moving at a snail’s pace and was going to hit the US just west of us. Nothing to worry about. However, over 2-3 days Sally moved more and more east, heading almost directly for our condo. It just so happens that Hurricane Ivan in 2004, at the exact same time, wiped out the little town we were staying in. My fear grew, knowing I had to make the right choice for my young kids who would be helpless in a bad situation. I watched as the ocean crept up something like 50 yards, ominously out of my view on the other side of a dune designed to hold back the beast of the ocean. Nothing was fun, I was busy trying to figure out what to do, I wasn’t smiling much, I felt insecure.
