Counting All Things Loss in View of Our Treasury, Jesus Christ

Something every Christian ought to do - and I would say immediately upon conversion - is count the cost of following Jesus Christ. In Philippians 3 Paul defines the Christian as one who worships by the Spirit of God, glories in Christ Jesus, puts no confidence in the flesh, and as one who considers the cost of knowing Christ, counting all things loss in order to gain Him. Our Lord said as much, and the apostle Paul was certainly convinced. Jesus said,

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me...whoever loses his life for my sake will save it," Luke 9:23.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish,'" Luke 14:26-30.

These things our Lord said when great crowds accompanied him. Does this not seem to contrast in a great way the methodology of today designed to bring masses of people in to the church? He does not comfort them with worldly pleasantries - no, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ you had to write LOSS over those things that are most dear to you in this world - your wife, your children, your family and friends, etc. But there is good reason: Jesus is the Treasure; Jesus is to be our dearest delight. He comforts us rather with the prospect of Himself - Jesus is our only GAIN. This is (but by grace) a nearly unbearable word - when a child comes forth from the womb, a climactic moment in this life, we write "loss" over them for the sake of Christ so that if we actually suffered the loss of them (although we will rightly grieve with many tears and sorrows and wailings) we will not be sidelined for the cause of Christ, but rather we will know Christ more intimately, extol Him more passionately, describe Him to the lost more all-satisfyingly - Christ is the Treasure, and He is our portion...forever.

If we treasure Jesus above all else, then "all else" becomes expendable for His sake. If Christ is most dear to us, and we suffer the loss of those things beneath Him, then we maintain that no matter the loss, Christ we still have. What is it to suffer the loss of those things which we have already considered loss...that we may gain Christ and be found in Him? I find this extremely heavy but a necessary meditation. Have I..have you counted the cost of following Christ, and thus, written LOSS over everything because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord? Not only our pre-Christian confidence in the flesh as the basis of salvation, although this is essential to salvation; but everything that in any circumstance would hinder us from knowing, gaining, and treasuring Christ above all else!

Our Lord told Ananias of Paul, "For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name," - a name that Christ chose Paul to carry to the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, - and why is suffering for carrying this name essentially linked, - because, "there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved," Acts 4:12. That is, to the exclusion of every other name - Buddha, Muhammad, or Brian. This will cause us to suffer - carrying the name in which lies the Person and Work unto an exclusive salvation. But do we not, like Paul, carry that name as Christians?

What was Paul doing after his encounter with Christ - we find him praying, spending time with the disciples for "some days", stowing away into Arabia for three years, staying with Peter for 15 days, - why? Why all of this spiritual discipline, all of this musing? In part, I think, Paul was counting the cost of following Jesus Christ, - Christ was "(showing) him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." And one by one, Paul wrote LOSS over everything - everything - on purpose - that he might gain Christ and be found in Him, that he would know Him and the power of His resurrection.

In view of the supremacy of Christ have I...have you counted the cost and found all things LOST for His sake? What things have you counted LOSS? What things must you reckon still that you have not yet? "If anyone comes to me and does not hate...his own life, he cannot be my disciple." May we all count the cost in view of the indescribable beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ and the promise that we have in Him, for if we have Him we have all things pertaining to life and godliness and glory.

Whatever Happened to Holiness?

I am becoming increasingly aware of the lack of consideration for this disposition called holiness. The name of Christ is constantly slandered by those who honor Him with their lips but trash Him with their lives. But, more than that, it seems as if those whose lives do not honor Him as Lord are completely ignorant of the dishonor; they do not tend to care, preferring to live their own lives by their own fleshly leadings without any attentiveness to the psalmist's proposition of setting Christ before us always - that is, that we might have our Lord before us, that every step we take may be evaluated in light and rememberance and reference to Him, that we might capture His mind, His affections, His aim and see and think and act as we look through that holy lens.

Perhaps it is thought that holiness is a bore, a drudgery, an ideal of the long since deceased saints of old. And the greater truth is that the one who does not practice Christian holiness is in point of fact not a Christian, for "by their fruits you shall know them." One thing certain is the thought of it as a purely human empowered thing and therefore when the reality of our unholiness hits time and time again we become vexed, discouraged, and morally complacent, giving in to the ease of the "old self". It is no doubt a complication of realities, for though holiness is a personal matter, it is a corporate matter too; and although holiness attends to the individual so that the accountability of one's own life will be the matter judged by God, yet certainly the pride of many pastors confounds the notion of internal progressive sanctity and its necessary root of Christ's holiness imputed and the precious gift of that holy principle of God's Spirit; and the sinful depravity of the world in which we live our apparently "unguarded and intoxicated" "Christian lives" attends to our corporate and personal insobriety and disciplinary laziness. It does not help that many in the church do not know exactly what holiness is, nor do they truly understand the Gospel of Christ, so that the thing called holiness is not at all a self-made disciplinary guide whereby we merit favor with God after we have "walked the aisle", but rather the overflow of the heart that has truly grasped the reality of the Gospel - that Christ fulfilled all demands of actual holiness for us so that we might rest from our self-righteous attempts through faith in Him and being infused with God's Spirit we are made alive to His principle of leadership designed to check us constantly and satisfy us both now and eternally in God preeminently, whereby, being satisfied in Him, the temptations of the world and of the flesh and of the devil, himself, are like a foul stinch that we endeavor by all means to be rid of. And if we be not rid of it then what assurance do we have that our tastes have been truly changed!? If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature! How is it possible that one can be filled with the God of the universe and not be changed by it - forever!?

But I find something else of mention - that God would call sinners holy! Have we gotten used to being called by this godly disposition? Have we grown to comfortable with the grace of this characteristic? For a sinner is a sinner and not at all a holy being. Our nature is to be unholy, opposed to God, murderous towards Christ and His saving work and testimony; we are born enemies of God, rebellious towards Him, angry fist-shakers in His glorious and patient Face; we harbor the seed of hell, of death; human beings breed sinners! We are worms, and lower than maggots in the light of His holy fire! If we were to enter His holy presence without the cloak of Christ, we would dissipate into nothing - this is why hell is a place separated from God, that our just punishment might last for all eternity! And this is our place, our wage, our very being!

It is a thing too wonderful for words that God who is transcendenly holy calls us holy, and as I see it, there is only one way in which this grace is possible - that God would dwell within the sinner! We are not holy because we are inherently holy, beloved! No, we are holy because God dwells in us, and God is Holy! 1 Peter 1:14-16 demands the Christian attention - "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy,'" - to which we ought to stand silent and amazed! God demands our holiness! But how are sinners to be holy? Sinners are to be holy in this way and for this reason - the God who called you is holy! Do not depend on yourselves for this, beloved! God makes you holy, and demands your holy obedience to the imperatives of Christ and the law of Christ precisely because in Christ God fulfilled all saving holiness for you and gave Him, Jesus Christ, to you, within you, in your mind, in your heart, in your will and mouth, so that by that principle of holiness given to you through your faith in Christ, you might actually practice holiness on a daily basis! Simply put, God has fulfilled in Christ what you could not do, and filled you with Christ's Spirit, and you are a holy person, and the church a holy nation precisely because God is holy and God is in us, not because you had a natural epiphany of internal transformation via therapeutic methods, etc. Or even more simply, "you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God," to which the apostle continues, "put to death therefore what is earthly in you...you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator," Colossians 3:3, 5, 9-10. That is, being hidden with Christ in God or accounted as perfectly holy, be growing in Christ's likness, i.e., holiness in a progressive manner.

The reality of God calling sinners holy, with the full knowledge that He alone is truly and transcendently holy, is a completely humbling truth. For as it was in Luther's mind that to be truly free in the will was to be as God is - literally that to entertain the notion of true freedom one would have to be free as God is free - so it is with the disposition of holiness; only God is truly holy! Our holiness, then, is not an inherent thing (oh, the folly of every other world religion that would boast in human works), a thing we are born with, or a thing that we grow up into with age and settling, for children and grandfathers alike are wretched apart from Christ. Beloved, your holiness is a thing alien to you, given to you by the grace of God who alone is truly holy and has at His disposal the ability and power to make holy any sinner at any time by the effectual call of that sinner to repent of sin and believe in the truth as it is in Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace. Our "life is hidden with Christ in God."

Moreover, death to the elemental things of the world is to be alive to the eternal things of the kingdom of God. Our participation in the cross of Christ is the precursor and necessary thing to our resurrection life in Him. By the grace of God and faith in Christ, we have "died" to the world and the world to us (Galatians 6:14), though we live in the world, which is to say that we have been made "alive" to God having been "raised with Christ" (Colossians 3:1), the outcome being that we "seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God," (Colossians 3:1). In other words, holiness consists in our death to the world, by which is meant that we have become alive to the preeminent satisfaction and triumphant joy of who God is, and who God is for us and in us and through us for His glory. All the sensualities of the world become colorless and tasteless in comparison to the new passion and desires, colors and tastes that God has given to us in Christ. Holiness is not a negative thing, beloved, but an infinitely wonderful gift of God; it is not a drudgery but a thing altogether pleasing for us to honor Him with - though He, Himself has given it to us so that He owns it altogether (1 Chronicles 29:14)!

Therefore, let us say that holiness is a thing given by God apart from our own doing; that true holiness is a preeminent satisfaction and enjoyment of and rejoicing in God through Christ whereby the overflow of the heart is to drench everything and everybody with the reflection of our Lord unto the glory of God, as it is written, "You shall be holy, (because) I am holy." To mistake these things is detrimental to the authenticity of our profession of faith. To deny them with your lifestyle is to deny that you ever truly believed. And by that reckoning, let us be fearful if our lives do not reflect Christ, and humbled and enjoyably holy if by His grace we are by these things encouraged - in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Importance of Humility - NOW!

In the realm of religion the status quo of the day appears to be the exaltation of self. This can be both profound and purposeful, or subtle and ignorant. Either way, the flesh of every man is tempted by the lure of the pride of life, often taking the bait that snatches us out of the waters of true humility - the preeminent disposition of the faith in the Truth, Jesus Christ.

To exalt oneself is of the greatest of evils, for in that exaltation, we distract the attention and the affections of people from where they ought to be, which is towards God. That is, in our exaltation, we become a hindrance to people coming to Christ, and a stumbling block to many who may be on the cusp of conversion. Jesus alludes to this in Luke 18:9-14, providing a parable on the disposition of the justified. Jesus gives a comparison between a Pharisee with all of the outward appearance of religion and a widely recognized sinner tax collector; the one separates himself from everyone else and prayerfully thanks God that he is different, that he is not like other men in their sinful ways, that he fasts twice a week and tithes; the tax collector, in brokenness, would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Jesus' conclusion is that this man went home right before God, while the other who exalted himself and comforted himself by his religiosity did not; that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and that those who humble themselves will be exalted.

The question for us is not will we be humbled, but when? Christ clearly states that every person will be humbled. The importance of this statement cannot be overemphasized, because the "when" of one's humility is the difference between eternal life and eternal destruction away from God. A man will either humble himself now, in this temporal life, and thereby be declared righteous before God - because humility before God is the outcome of the knowledge of one's sin and need for God's mercy and the realization of that mercy in the grace of Jesus Christ - or he will exalt himself now, in this temporal life, and be humbled on that day when God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus - whereby he will find himself lacking and condemned to hell. The apostle Paul would write that (because Christ supremely humbled himself even unto death on a cross) God "has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father," Philippians 2:9-11.

If it was through the Divine humility that Divine exaltation came for our Lord, how much more ought we who bear His awesome name follow Him in His pattern and method of glorifying God. The admonishment is "Delight yourself in the Lord," and not, "delight yourself in the creature." God is the only Being in the universe where self-exaltation is the most loving of directions, for when we are so directed, our souls and minds and wills are led to Him who most satisfies, indeed, to Him who alone is perfectly worthy of our delight. Jesus, in His humanity and humility, understood this, and longed to be exalted back to the fullness of that Divine delight within the fellowship of the Godhead.

Therefore, let us be humble, for God gives grace to the humble, and it is grace that we need. We ought not as Christians to put on the subtle facade of humility, a facade that proves itself false when we attempt to be humble but our attempt is made in order to be exalted by men - "ah, do you see how humble that man is, did you see his kind act, how he shuns all credit" - and hearing the praise of men the supposed act of humility actually serves to feed our pride instead. So there is a true humility and a false sense of humility. Whereas by the one our end is to be observed as humble, so by the one that is true our end is that God may be more clearly seen, that God may be more powerfully glorified, that God may exalt us in due time. It is not the exaltation of men and of the day that we seek, beloved, but rather that exaltation that comes from God in secret and in that eternal life which is to come.

It is a terrible thing in this day that many dear believers are followers of men, preachers, and teachers, rather than Jesus Christ, that men base their ministry off of themselves and their own abilities rather than upon God's Word, His Son our Lord, and the power of the Holy Spirit. The latter and better type of ministry is the one that will prove most faithful, fruitful, and true, for there, Christ is the foundation, and humility the spirit, and grace thereby reigns. The apostle Paul never introduced his letters, "Paul, a highly trained, wonderfully educated minister, having earned the equivalent of 4 Ph.D.'s in biblical theology, church history, missiology, and church education, while founding several successful church plants all over the world, come to you...", although many guest preachers and speakers are either introduced by others or self-introduced in this way. No, in his epistle to the Romans he writes, "Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God." (1:1) To the Corinthians, "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each." (1 Cor. 3:5) And when he did boast he boasted in his weakness and in the power of Christ (2 Cor. 11:30, 12:9) and on the occasion that he boasted of himself he paused to say - "I am talking like a madman" (2 Cor. 11:23) - but even that was to make certain to others the authenticity of his apostleship in Christ.

Humility is the only possible disposition of the Christian who truly understands the Gospel, that they are sinners saved by grace through faith and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God, that no one should boast. The same seed of sin in them is in even the worst of sinners, but a salvation given to them by God through faith in Christ as a gift and not due to any merit in them whatsoever - they have no merit; their wage is God's eternal wrath - this realization brings us low, breaks us before God, that we dare not look up to heaven, but earnestly beat our chest and plead with God, "Be merciful to me a sinner!" And Christ assures us, we shall go home justified, and in time, exalted as adopted children of God in Christ to His glory.

May we who know Christ wear gladly the badge of a bondservant. May humility characterize us that God may be exalted. Let us not be a hindrance to others coming to Christ because of sinful self-exaltation; rather, abase yourself constantly, know the horror of your sin, and the wonder of God's salvation, and by this disposition, help others to see the surpassing value of Christ Jesus our Lord. Do not wait to be humbled before God, for then it may be to late, and you will find yourself humbled in horror of His glory; be humbled now, that through faith in Christ, Christ will declare to you, "go home justified...you shall be exalted in Me in eternal life."

Is Evangelism the Means of Contagious Joy?

I believe it is! I would not make it exclusive, but perhaps, preeminently important, as Paul addressed it, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received..." (1 Cor. 15: 3). Many of those people who now live outside of Christ would so deny Him because of the depravity of joy in those who profess to know Him. While many professing Christians sneer at the thought of sharing the Gospel with the lost, it is this means, this sharing of faith in Christ for righteousness and the observance of God working in and through those means in that moment of testimony to bring about regeneration and conversion in a human soul that, then, comes back to us and radiates with in our souls and overflows out from our hearts and tongues a zealous joy in God and in His sovereign kindness.

I am aware of many Christians who vouch that they experience a joyless relationship with Christ, which is a great tragedy and worthy of wonder. Could it be that the Christian who keeps to his or herself, that remains quite smug, irritable, agitated, unhappy, joyless, and complaining, is so depraved of Christian joy because he or she does not share the Christian joy, i.e., the Gospel of Christ for righteousness, eternal life, and reconciliation with God?

By the measure of our withholding the good news, shall we miss out on God's will, God's purpose and plan, God's means of salvation, God's heart and desire, God's exaltation as Sovereign Joy, the assurance that God hears our prayers and works by them by which we are made glad and assured that we were in agreement with God's passion, and the happiness and rejoicing that comes with the salvation of one lost soul - indeed, we join with the host of heaven to praise God and rejoice at the salvation of one - unless we keep silent and hide God's salvific balm.

How shall we expect an unbeliever to be favorable to our Gospel propagation but by the grace and mercy of God on us and them, when with our lives we give evidence of believing the worst news and not the greatest news? Will we complain incessantly and then speak of Christ? Will we grumble and sigh and then share the good news? Shall we never laugh, never smile, never love and expect the lost to be regenerated at our mention of the law of God which in the moment shines more brightly upon us who know the truth but do not practice it with joy?

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it," Psalm 118:22-23. This is more than the well-known children's song! It is the Christian's daily joy - to rejoice and be glad in the LORD's day of salvation in Christ!

If this is the case, not only are Christians not sharing the Gospel with words, but we are being a hindrance to the Gospel that we would share by our joylessness. But the joy that testifies is found in the sharing of the Gospel with words.

Perhaps it is because one so seldom shares the Gospel that one has so little evangelical happiness to bear and witness of in the ebb and flow of one's typical day and conversation. For I find that to pray expectantly that God would come down in your place of work, school, etc. with regenerative power, and then to have the prayer answered when the opportunity to share the Gospel comes, and to have your fear converted to boldness, and to see the miracle of God's grace working a favorable impression, providing the hope of conversion, and yet more, God sovereignly brings another at that moment to invest in the Gospel discussion, and to find that the two are in the same family and that they actually become earnest for more conversation, and agree to meet again, so that when they leave, my soul desires nothing more but to praise God to Whom salvation belongs and to rejoice with great gladness at the hope of conversion and the awesome mercy and benignity and power of God; and I find myself, then, as it were regenerated again, converted to joy and it transforms my countenance towards all things and everybody to one of contagious and evangelical happiness. And so now my happiness also testifies of God, rather than my banal bitterness.

Dear Christian, do you desire joy, then do not withhold it, that is, the Gospel of joy! The new language of the Christian is Christ-ian, it is the Gospel, and the endeavor is to take all things captive to Christ. If you swallow the Gospel and speak of it not, it will become bitter to you and not sweet. Have you truly tasted and seen that God is good? That the Gospel is great? That the enjoyment of God is the chief end of man? Speak up! For the sake of the name of Christ and the obedience of faith, speak up! And you will find, as I did today, and hope to always find, that to share the Gospel with the lost will go beyond the witness of words to that of a joyful and satisfied life in God. When you share the Gospel, the Spirit of God will lavish you with a joy that transforms your attitude, your day, your life because you will be doing that which is both the source and appropriation of true joy in Him.

Dear Christian, do you yearn for joy and happiness, then share the Gospel with others and observe your God work in it; aim preeminently at the salvation of souls, and when one is saved, the joy of spiritual child-bearing will overwhelm you, and that joy will serve to witness as well to the glory of God. Could the absence of evangelism in your daily practice be the root of your joylessness - Scripture, logic, and experience affirm me in exclaiming, "Yes!" When we share our joy with others, we are made joyful in their joy and in God's amazing grace. Therefore, speak up, watch God work, and observe the contagious joy of the person set ablaze with daily evangelical prowess and passion.

Spurgeon on "The Soul Winner" and His "One Business"

"It is a grand thing to see a man thoroughly possessed with one master-passion. Such a man is sure to be strong, and if the master-principle be excellent, he is sure to be excellent, too. The man of one object is a man indeed. Lives with many aims are like water trickling through innumerable streams, none of which are wide enough or deep enough to float the merest cockleshell of a boat; but a life with one object is like a mighty river flowing between its banks, bearing to the ocean a multitude of ships, and spreading fertility on either side. Give me a man not only with a great object in his soul, but thoroughly possessed by it, his powers all concentrated, and himself on fire with vehement zeal for his supreme object, and you have put before me one of the greatest sources of power which the world can produce. Give me a man engrossed with holy love as to his heart, and filled with some masterly celestial thought as to his brain, and such a man will be known wherever his lot may be cast, and I venture to prophesy that his name will be remembered long after the place of his sepulchre shall be forgotten."

-pg. 249 of "The Soul Winner"

"Now observe, brethren, if I, or you, or any of us, or all of us, shall have spent our lives merely in amusing men, or educating men, or moralizing men, when we shall come to give in our account at the last great day, we shall be in a very sorry condition, and we shall have but a very sorry record to render; for of what avail will it be to a man to be educated when he comes to be damned? Of what service will it be to him to have been amused when the trumpet sounds, and heaven and earth are shaking, and the pit opens wide her jaws of fire, and swallows up the soul unsaved? Or what avail even to have moralized a man if still he is on the left hand of the Judge, and if still, 'Depart, ye cursed,' shall be his portion? Blood-red with the murder of men's souls will be the skirts of professing Christians, unless the drift, and end, and aim of all their work has been to 'save some.'"

-pg. 254 of "The Soul Winner"

The Goal of Winning Souls

5:15 a.m. came quickly this morning; the internal clock is an awful thing sometimes; nevertheless, I was up for some early morning exercise. So, I trickled my way into the trailblazer and felt blindly for my ipod. I have been working my way through a series of sermons by John Piper on evangelism from the mid-1990's. This morning's sermon was from the text, "unless you repent, you will all likewise perish," from Luke 13:1-5.

And it was quite good and edifying, as he moved upon each word of the text, whereupon he hit upon the relevancy of the text - our passion for seeing souls saved from perishing wherever we are, whenever the opportunity arises and the earnestness with which we ought to contend for them.

To emphasize this he used a quote from C.S. Lewis to emphasize what many of us, myself included, often overlook about Lewis, in short, he had a passion for evangelism! The quote that Piper uses comes from Lewis' book The Weight of Glory and the focus of the quote is the confrontation of two eternal realities that the Christian must acknowledge preeminently - the view of the human soul through the lens of eternity, through which lens we see two conditions: one, the infinite horror of the immortal soul lost in hell, and the second, the infinite beauty and splendor of the immortal soul saved in glory; the first he points out we would only imagine the sight of in our worst nightmares, while the second, if we saw that glorious soul we would be much inclined to worship it. The consideration of the Christian is the immortality of the humans with which they interact on a moment by moment basis. Lewis argues rightly that the life of nations, and cultures are like that of a gnat in comparison to the immortality of the people surrounding us even now. And yet how much of ourselves do we poor into those gnat-like aspects of reality, all the while neglecting the immortal beings whose destination and eternal makeup depend solely on the very thing that now exists within us by faith in Christ?

When Lewis was criticized for simplifying the Trinity by the use of geometric figure, he retorted with great angst and passion stating that the books that he writes, he writes for the salvation of souls! No other end did he carry in mind or heart but to in every word bring souls to Jesus Christ. And he wondered, to what end did his critic criticize?

At 5:30 in the morning, this was a wonderful word to wake up to - better than any coffee I've had recently (my Magic Stars cereal has been lacking too). It awakened my soul to a reevaluation of my goal in all things - to see the soul saved. Human beings are immortal - we will all spend eternity somewhere, either heaven or hell. This consideration alone is sufficient food for spiritual nourishment.

When we study, do we study with the immortal souls of men in mind? When we prepare sermons, do we prepare them in such ways that the souls of men might be saved, or are we more considerate of our contemporary literary style? When we enter conversation do we give thought to the entrances of the immortal soul that we might take opportunity to speak of the Gospel, that Jesus might bust in upon them? When we blog, is salvation in mind? Are we saturated with the mortality of this postmodern culture (which is necessary but only in so far as it is studied for the salvation of immortal souls) or are we saturated with the immortality of every immediate person?

In all that we do we ought to aim at the salvation of men, for it is inseparably linked to the biblical injunction to do all things to the glory of God. Lewis understood this; but more importantly, he shot live ammunition towards this goal of winning souls; and so ought we imitate this passion. God's grace be upon us in this endeavor. In Jesus' name. Amen.

"Lord, Make Me Pure But Not Yet"

This quote from Augustine's Confessions tends to be quite relevant to the state of the Christian Church today. We pray, "Lord, make me pure...but not yet." This is the honest cry of the redeemed soul pit against the wiles of the flesh. There exists a very real sense in which the Christian desires holiness, for the principle of new life is in the soul bringing the faculties into a glad submission to the Word and will of God. When one undergoes the spiritual operation of the new birth, they are given and called to live a new life - which is why many reject the notion.

But there exists in a very real sense the flesh and its correspondent desires too. We are conflicted at every point. We are like the apostle Paul when he wrote to the Romans, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate," 7:15. Who that belongs to Christ cannot associate with this battle?

It is a great desire that I have to promote the pursuit of the prize of Christ and eternal life in Him, to converse and teach and love in such a way that the Church's heavenly citizenship will become what it is, namely, more real and more immediate than our citizenship in this world. With the grasping of this truth, this world would be turned upside down for the glory of Christ. We would pray, "Lord, make me pure...and hedge me in by Your Spirit and Your Word," and then we might boldly guard ourselves against impurity...or sloth or worldliness or discontent or anxiety or any manner of sin. The true appropriation of the Spirit is that moment when we practice what we pray, do what we hear; we go beyond a mere profession and enter into obedience.

The problem is that we too often love the world, and neglect Christ; we take great pride in our earthly citizenship, and set aside as a light and far off thing that heavenly citizenship, and so it is easier, and a thing more appealing, to go with our flesh rather than with God's Spirit. But the Bible teaches us that our heavenly citizenship is the place of our heart, and that we ought to be growing up into it.

Read Paul's comparison of the two (Philippians 3:17-20), one who has his mind set on earthly things, the other that greatest citizenship and example:

"Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ..."

When a youth refuses to share the Gospel for fear of confrontation, although it is a common fear, the earthly mentality is yet revealed and doubled when the parent becomes a friend rather than the spiritual leader and instead of encouraging the child and teaching the child about joy and obedience, agrees with the child and places a smothering pillow over what could have become the flames of evangelical passion. The deception is evidenced everywhere: in the marketplace, in the home, at the dinner table, in the stadium, on a date, on the couch, and it infiltrates the sanctuary of God. We are lawyers and teachers who happen to be Christians instead of Christian lawyers and teachers. We advocate the sports and hobbies and clubs of our spouses and children, and this is good, but horrible when they are advocated to the negation of the worship of God on Wednesday nights or at any time. When was the last time you or I forsook the dinner table for prayer or meditation or evangelism? In the athletic arena we cheer and shout for and uplift our gladiators, but do we uplift the Son of Man with such passion? Will you argue for your favorite team and not for Christ? Student, will you perceive the passing fancy of lust a greater satisfaction than holiness, respect, and love for God and the necessary love of what is good and hatred of what is sin? And what of television? Our minds and souls are starved for the eternally Sovereign King and Almighty God but we sear the conscience with the most damnable shows that the world has to offer. And then we wake up on Sunday, late enough to powder our faces and comb our hair but not to plead with God for mercy and grace, and after the service wonder, "What is missing?" "Lord, make me pure...but not yet."

This will not do brothers and sisters - it will not do for me, nor you! The Gospel is at stake within the witness of our lives. I would rather you not profess Christ, than to profess His name and not practice it. We must take hold of what is already ours, given to us by grace - a preeminent citizenship in heaven. We are a "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light," (1 Peter 2:9). This is our truest identity and calling...and you may be a doctor as well! We ought to take everything in our path and convert it to Christ, to the Bible, to theology, to Gospel, to God's glory. If we stumble in one place, we may lose our witness forever(Matthew 5:13).

Have you ever considered why, having been plucked from the fire as it were, God kept us on earth for a season? To bear witness of God's Word through our joy in that Word; Jesus gave us the Word, and the Word (by the Spirit) sanctifies us and separates us in a sense from the world so that Christ could say of us, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world," (John 17:16). And we are sent of Christ to share the Word of Christ. So long as we follow the enemy, enamored with the world, how is it that we can be what Christ says we are in Him?

Understand that when I say, "must", I do not intend to bring you under law again, for you are under grace as a believer, nor is it my aim to bring to you a legalistic system. No, rather, the must that I speak of is the must of grace, not of the law, and true grace is not without law; that is, we have a new desire, a new principle of grace in us, a new leader in the soul that compels us to love holiness and set aside the desires of the flesh. Grace is the motivation of true godliness. Remember, the Gospel is not a new set of commands for you to obey, but rather the news that none of your obedience merits a claim for you upon God or His glory, and that Christ has done what the law could not do. Therefore, the "must" that I write of, I write of with the intent of grace.

1. We must be wielded by the Holy Spirit; that is, we must follow His leadership, His Word, and in so doing, mortify and crucify the flesh with its desires. In our glad submission to Him, we are distinct from the world who is not possessed of Him. And to be possessed of Him is to be passionate for the souls of the world.
2. Quite simply, we must be drenched with Jesus Christ. Fellowship with Christ now is time spent in heaven on earth.
3. We must appropriate our heavenly citizenship. We have no reservations about appropriating our earthly citizenship in order to get what we desire. Our desires must change, or at least be raised to Christ and the glory of God. And if these things be our greatest desires, then we will appropriate that citizenship and its privileges for the attainment of those greater purposes.
4. Lastly, we must have a great earnestness about us in the pursuit of God's glory in all things. By our earnestness for heavenly things, we might win others to a like passion and the reality of our heavenly citizenship.

May God grant us the grace of awakening to the realities of His kingdom, that our praise would be that we have, indeed, prayed, "Lord, make us pure. Thank You for we have been pure!" In Christ's name. Amen.

Rend Thy Hearts and Not Thy Garments

In the prophetical book of Joel, the grain and drink offerings that accompanied the sacrificial offering had been neglected and withheld from the LORD. Those offerings of wine and grain upon the sacrifice served to fragrance that aroma that was pleasing to God, which in the New Testament would be fulfilled in the reality of faith. "Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all," Philippians 2:17.

The importance of the grain and drink offerings is emphasized in Joel 1:8-9, "Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD." And it seems a thing more deep in truth, that due to the sin of the Israelites, God not only commissioned a nation to come up against Israel, but by that nation destroyed the ground from which the grain sprung, and the vine from which the wine was drawn, and so God's people became a reproach and a byword among the nations. It was a Divine judgment against the people that the source of their offerings were taken away, because they were commonly apt to abuse the fruit for worship.

The mercy of God is seen in the midst of His great anger, which I am inclined to believe, Israel would not have so appreciated His mercy without the appropriation of and the continual truth of His wrath. But in the heart of His storm, He makes room for unmerited safety, and the decree is "repent or likewise perish." The harshness of its tone is tempered by the contemplation of the fruit of repentance, that within the command to repent is the safety and enjoyment of God's Sovereign benignity or purest love.

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the LORD, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster," Joel 2:12-13.

"Rend your hearts and not your garments." It was a common thing in the Old Testament to find penitent saints ripping their garments as a sign of their turning. Confronted by God's law, or Truth, they would, if repentant, tear their garments, mourn, weep, and lay in the ashes (put on sackcloth). The tearing of the garments was the sign of an internal reality. The implication in Joel, is that this sign had become hypocritical, a type of lip service unto God which He abhorred. It is one thing if the thing done is the overflow of the internal condition of the soul; another if the thing done is the overflow of human pride and self-righteousness. As with much of the law, the Jews had externalized it as a matter of ritual rather than a matter of the inward parts wherein God desires truth.

Repentance is oft forgotten in the Church, as if it were something done once and never to be returned to again. The world needs to repent from sin and come to Christ, but the Church, who has come to Christ, must daily recognize their need for Christ and a clinging unto Him, or sanctification, of which a continual putting off (repentance) of the old and a putting on of the new (faith) is essential in the life of the Church. We say, "oh, I repented at a point in time?" But what of your life now? What sin do you oft return to from your former life when you did not know Christ? We say, "well, I have felt really bad about some of the things I've done!" But have you killed the thing at once so that it is crucified upon its untimely arrivals? Or perhaps, "I prayed for repentance!" And that is well and good, but having prayed for it, have you also sought the thing itself in pursuit of true godliness, or have you been irresponsible with thing you "so desired". Do we find ourselves falling into the same idolatries, bringing unclean vessels into the house of our God, saying "Yes, Lord" with our mouths, but "No" in our souls? Like the Israelites, have you gotten into the pattern of doing things externally to convince yourself that you are "ok" internally? And so doing, neglected the soul? If so, you are in a great danger!

Listen to the words of John the Baptist to those Jews who had adopted the externalities of religion to the neglect of the internal need for repentance: "When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire," Matthew 3:7-10.

Now what of this? Genuine repentance is the root of godly fruit. If there is no root, then whatever external fruit that is offered as proof of the root, does not come from the God-given root (2 Timothy 2:25) of repentance, but of the sinful root and delusion of self-righteousness. It is bad fruit and the end of that tree is to be cut down and thrown into the fire. But the primary fruit of authentic repentance is a knowledge of the truth - of personal and eternal guilt, of consequence, and of the right Way, Jesus Christ and all that accords with Him. Moreover, repentance is an inward reality of the soul, wrought by God, and not a claim of heritage (Abraham). The one who engages in initial repentance unto faith will continually engage in the practice of the repentance of the faith, and this daily repentance, when truly wrought, will transform the affections away from the thing repented of, while creating the realization of and passion for the object that one has turned unto, namely, God and His command of obedience, so that when the one comes again, it has been done away with not only because of a crucifying of the thing itself, but also because of the greater enjoyment in and love of its counterpart, which is God.

Oh, Church, "Rend your hearts and not your garments!"

What is Piper-ism?

When I use the term "Piperism" I am not referring to his doctrine necessarily, which is of academic Calvinism, a self-asserted "7-pointer". I am not making reference to his Puritan-like exposition of Scripture. Though I am a great admirer of his academia, his exposition, and his careful, thought-provoking, insightful and passionate pleas in the area of religious journalism, I am not referring to these things specifically, though these in one sense are both the likely source and overflow of this main personality trait, which God has been gracious and pleased to make use of in my life and many others, namely, passion.

When I use the term "Piperism" I am referring to his God besotted passion that seems to fragrance every word that he utters, every letter than he writes. When he preaches, whether one has heard him live or through an ipod, his passion for God oozes out and gets all over you in such a way that you are transformed by it, and desire to have what God has done and given to him in such abundance. And at times, the cry of my soul is to be able to handle God's Word in any degree like he does, with freshness, with emboldening and empowering precision, but more than all, a genuine passion for Christ that comes from the overflow of personal Bible study and comes out to the people in such a way that the great chasm that so often exists between the pulpit and the pew is smashed into pieces bringing the people face to face with their God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Piper calls it "expository exultation". This is a good definition of preaching!

But what separates John Piper characteristically from others? Why has he been so foundational in the lives of so many other pastors, teachers, etc.? What about him serves reformationally and revivalistically in the lives of a younger generation of seminarians and pastors? Of course, I would, first, give glory to God, for Piper is what he is by the grace of God, and even his great labors are found in that gracious Almighty. And as Calvin states, it is a gracious thing that God would call His works in us "your (our) good works" (Matt. 5:16). But Mark Dever hits the mark when he declares Piper's distinguishing characteristics and labors in this way, "Theological precision meeting up with spiritual, life-consuming passion. A profound hope imparting a serious joy leading to satisfying sacrifice" (blog.9marks.org; Where'd all these Calvinists come from?).

For me, though I have never met the man, and heard him live just once, I would argue that what separates him from many great men is that he really believes God, he really believes the Gospel, and he seems to eat, drink, sleep, and breathe Christ and Him crucified. And I know, and he knows, that there is not a day that goes by that he doesn't need to cling to Christ for righteousness in a severely practical way, but he seems to do this more often than not, more often than most. And this is what I desire, to know God, to love God, to walk with God, to enjoy God like this man does; in a word or two, to have an authentic, God-besotted, Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent passion for the glory and honor and praise of God in Christ.

Piper's passion grounded in Christ oozing out to the Church and to the world is what both the Church and the world need most in this age of spiritual apathy, and shadow-figured Christians who have no real root or fruit, nor do they treasure God in and through Jesus Christ. So, I adhere to Piperism in this sense of it, in the conscious pursuit of a "God-entranced vision of all things", and a Bible wrought passion for Christ communicated unto the world for His name's sake. This is the great need of the Church today! This is my great need today! To take all things and convert them into a God-centered perspective, a God-centered life. Let us praise God for such men, and plead with Him for more of them - diligent disciples, earnest with the Word, imploding and exhaling the great worth of our great God in our great Lord Jesus Christ. May God have mercy upon us, and grant us a like passion that consumes us by and for His glory.