Happy New Year!

In a matter of hours we will be celebrating the beginning of a new year. I am looking forward to celebrating with some good friends. Reading through tweets and posts, I see a lot of people hoping 2011 will be better than 2010. For some there's been heartache and losses. I have had my share of junk, but I have also remembered good. I have seen and rejoice in God's faithfulness in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I remember that while I've had a lot of failures this past year, God's faithfulness has remained and I have not frustrated his plans for me. His love for me all through the past year never shifted. So with the new year about to come in I pray this prayer for us all:

Heavenly Father, as I sit quietly before you on the eve of a New Year, I’ve got a healthy case of sad and glad going on inside of me. As I reflect over the past year, both of these emotions dance about, more like allies than enemies… for both are evidence the gospel is at work.

The glad? The highlights and headlines of the past twelve months compel me join the Psalmist, in praising you for your love and your faithfulness. Abba, as with each of your children, you loved me all year long with an everlasting, engaged, unwavering love…irrespective of anything I did or didn’t do. You didn’t love me more when I acted like your beloved child. You didn’t love me less when I acted like an orphaned fool.

You loved me every moment just as much as you love your Son, Jesus, for you’ve hidden my life in his. Thank you, for your steadfast love and fresh mercies that came every single day this past year… when I was aware of them and when I wasn’t. Great is your faithfulness. Concerning my life, you did everything this past year that pleases you. Not one of your plans devised for me was foiled or failed. This makes me very glad.

The sad? It’s precisely because you love your children so irrepressibly that I also feel grief in my breast. There were more than a few times this past year when I joined the nations in saying, “So where is your God?” You usually heard this complaint from me when you were busying doing what pleases you, and not what pleases me. When I wanted a butler you remained God. When I wanted a masseur you remained Master. Those were the times I began to look to my voiceless, sightless, senseless, powerless idols more than I trusted you. I own and grieve my foolishness.

Father, here’s where the gladness trumps the sadness. I will not always be a man in two minds with a divided heart. You will bring to completion the good gospel-work you’ve begun in each of your children. One Day we’ll no longer even be tempted to worship anything or anyone but you. Hasten that glad and glorious Day.

Until that Day, even on the eve of a New Year, prepare us for the next twelve new months of groaning and growing in grace. Bring much glory to yourself, as the gospel does its work in and though our lives. So very Amen, we pray, in Jesus’ faithful name.

(scotty smith)

"The church has waited long"

The Church has waited long,
Her absent Lord to see,
And still in loneliness she waits,
A friendless stranger she.
Age after age has gone,
Sun after sun has set,
And still in weeds of widowhood,
She weeps a mourner yet.

Saint after saint on earth
Has lived, and loved, and died;
And as they left us one by one,
We laid them side by side;
We laid them down to sleep,
But not in hope forlorn;
We laid them but to ripen there,
Till the last glorious morn.

The serpent’s brood increase,
The powers of hell grow bold,
The conflict thickens, faith is low,
And love is waxing cold.
How long, O Lord our God,
Holy, and true, and good,
Wilt Thou not judge Thy suffering Church,
Her sighs, and tears, and blood?

We long to hear Thy voice,
To see Thee face to face,
To share Thy crown and glory then,
As now we share Thy grace.
Should not the loving bride
Her absent bridegroom mourn?
Should she not wear the signs of grief
Until her Lord return?

The whole creation groans,
And waits to hear that voice
That shall her comeliness restore,
And make her wastes rejoice.
Come, Lord, and wipe away
The curse, the sin, the stain,
And make this blighted world of ours
Thine own fair world again.

- hymn by Horatius Bonar

The Better Country

"But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city" (Hebrews 11:16)

This past Sunday my pastor preached on the topic of heaven. It started me thinking about being heavenly-minded, or in my case the lack thereof. I am very much obsessed with the future of a better country, but not the one that the heros of the faith in Hebrews 11 were looking for. I find myself seeing the job I want or marriage as the the "better country." Both very good things to think about but should not be made the end or goal of my life. The constant thinking about and looking towards this reveals much idolatry in my heart. I forget that God, the one who should be sending me to hell, has promised me a better place with a much better inhabitant. Himself. If you're a christian, God is preparing a place for you personally, imperishable and everlasting. We were not created for this world or anything in it but for the one who created us. So, what is your "Better Country"? what are you looking to, where are your eyes gazing? As we spend the little time we have here, let's adopt the mindset of those in Hebrews who were looking to the one who would truly satisfy there souls.


Soon and very soon i'll be going
to the place he has prepared for me
There my sin erased
my shame forgotten
soon and very soon

I will be with the one I love
With unveiled face I'll see him
there my soul
will be satisfied
soon and very soon

The Proper Fear of God

When you think of fear of the lord, what comes to your mind? The past couple of days I've noticed an unhealthy fear, one that is antithetical to that desired in scripture. When I start to think about the future and how I really want this to happen or that to work out, I get fearful and think "I shouldn't think about this, God will probably do something with my life that'll wreck me and I'll just be frustrated". I find I've got this view of God that portrays him as the giant anvil that hits the Wiley Coyote. I'm terrified when or how the anvil is gonna hit me. So my feeling is that I've got to bury these thoughts, plans, desires or God is gonna go all Tasmanian devil on me (I apologize for the loony toon references, for some reason I can't get em out of my head).

Do you feel this way? That sinking suspicion that God is gonna do something and its gonna be bad? I've been convicted that this is unbelief in who God says he is and it is not the fear of the lord desired in scripture. Granted, we should be afraid of God but that is not dominant element. We need to remember that as Christians we serve a God who promises to deny us NO GOOD THING. He proved that by giving up his son for us. I'm seeing that legitimate fear of the lord is the fear that sees God in all his holiness and majesty and us in our creatureliness and total sinfulness and then the fact that the very same God, gave his perfect son to suffer his just wrath so that you and me could be reconciled and made children of God. We should not be afraid of God in the sense that we are afraid of what he will do, this is fear couched in unbelief. In fact, we don't need to fear judgment because Christ experienced the full load. Let's remember that we do not come to a cruel divine ogre who crushes us and our desires cause we don't measure up. We come to a heavenly father who delights in his children. And when we feel the painful rod of his discipline, it's only meant to protect us from the deceitfulness of the idols that grab for our attention. If he denies us certain things, it's only because he has something better. Sinclair Ferguson describes legit fear of the Lord as:

"The indefinable mixture of reverence, fear, pleasure, joy and awe which fills our hearts when we realize who God is and what he has done"

If you are a Christian you can come to God with those desires, but please surrender them. I need to, I need to believe he is for me. We should not be afraid because we serve a God who takes pleasure in doing good to his children.

"I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul."(Jeremiah 32:41)

Cultivating proper fear of the Lord involves thinking hard about who he is and what he has done. This same God who spoke creation into being, who wiped out nations, and abhors sin, crushed the apple of his eye, in order to wipe you and me clean and bring us to him to enjoy forever, righteous in Christ. Deep reflection of the cross and it's implications should evoke the fear that glorifies him and fuels our striving for godliness. Today rest in the fact that God is for you, he wants you to enjoy him and trust he has your good at heart.

The Uneasy Doctrine of Hell

This past Sunday my pastor preached a message on Hell. I'll admit I was a little uneasy at first, but the sermon was really challenging and definitely left me affected. In fact, I realized that Hell is a lot more important to daily Christian life than I thought: It shows us our depravity, God's holiness, and the mercy of the cross. As Christians, we have been spared from the stark reality of Hell.


Along with this realization, I also found myself encouraged to be at a church where the bible is the sole authority and have a pastor who is willing to preach hard truth, yet do it in love. The fact is that Hell is a subject that no one really wants to think about--its a problem, as even Christian apologists readily admit, i.e., the "problem of hell." Nevertheless, it is a reality that scripture teaches and one that is vital that we not neglect. In my experience, American churches today tend to two unhealthy extremes when it comes to the doctrine of Hell: (1) one in which churches preach nothing BUT hell and neglect the good news, or (2) those who simply deny it or twist it into something that scripture doesn't teach (i.e.annihilationism). Today people are very flippant about hell, dismissing it as nonsense. I thought of lyrics from a Billy Joel song (and no I don't listen to Billy Joel a lot!).



"[T]hey say there's a heaven for those who will wait

Some say its better but I say it ain't

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints

the sinners are much more fun"



What my pastor made clear (and more importantly what scripture makes clear) is that hell is definitely not an endless party for sinners but a place of torment from a holy, wrathful, and just God. Many would see this image as barbaric, but it is what scripture teaches and our consciences confirm: Hell is what each and every individual on this planet deserves. God would be 100% just to send me to hell. As my pastor pointed out, "For God to punish sin is completely just, in fact for him to not punish it would make him unjust." When we deny hell or candy coat it into something else we distort the gospel into a different message.


At the same time, the Scriptural position on Hell is stage-setting for God's merciful intervention through Jesus Christ. Jesus came to earth to bear the wrath the we deserve. He endured hell for us. R.C. Sproul comments on the cry of Jesus on the cross: "[H]is cry was the cry of the damned FOR US." If you're not a christian you need to flee to Christ and trust in his atoning death for you. Everyone who calls upon his name, THEY WILL BE SAVED. God's love in preserving us from Hell is just as astonishing as his holiness is in requiring that there be a Hell. And the reality of this love demands a response. Like my pastor suggested, "We need to be asking, 'Why was I spared?'" Christian, have you marveled at this mercy? Before this past Sunday, I certainly hadn't! I need to! I am sure that considering the reality of Hell is linked to growth in compassion and joy. God has been more merciful to us than we can imagine, and we will spend eternity wondering why.





http://www.sgcsc.org/media/audio/e31397ba-c4a2-3034-2dfe-311da14a11bc.mp3

Misguided Prayer

I've found that I have a twisted mindset when it comes to prayer. Do you ever feel discouraged or stressed and think that if you don't pray the right way or for the adequate amount of time that God won't hear you? I get like this, especially in times when I have a friend who is going through some trial (physical pain, stress, anxiety, ect.) I feel like I need to get this right, or God won't answer or help this person. I know it's stupid, but it is seriously the mindset I adopt without even knowing it. The other night I read something by Charles Spurgeon that convicted and humbled me:

"The prayer which moves the arm of God is still a bruised and battered prayer and moves that arm because the sinless one, the great mediator has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication."

I was reminded that evening, that nothing I say or do moves God. It is strictly and completely Christ. God not only sees HIS righteousness but he also hears and acts upon HIS prayers which filter my own. This takes a tremendous burden off of me, b/c I am forced to depend wholly on Jesus. I am a sinner through and through and even my best works, the bible say, are but filthy rags. I don't need to worry about getting my prayer right, I simply need to ask God and rejoice in the fact that Christ is praying for me and that the holy spirit is communicating with groans that words cannot express. Lets let that embolden us to come before God with anything. If you are in Christ, God delights for you to come to him with your requests, and this is only because of Christ.

The long frustrating road of sanctification

This past weekend my family came to Greenville so that we could spend some time together. While it was only a brief visit, it was a lot of fun--and this came as a surprise to me. I'm still wrestling through a lot of things when it comes to encouraging and engaging my family. My natural tendency (to be perfectly honest) is to be quiet and bitter, avoiding real interaction by playing on my phone. But on this last visit, God gave me a good attitude and helped me to be engaging and kind. And I found this really encouraging.

God spoke to me that evening in another way though. My youngest sister was born with cerebral palsy: Blood had leaked into her brain while she was still in the womb and, as a result, motor and speech functions have been impaired. She did not learn to walk by herself until she was 8, and it has taken her much longer to learn to speak than it usually does for other children. Still, I love my little sister she is truly a delight to be around. While at dinner with my mom and sisters, my mom pointed out how much she has grown. I agreed: My sister speaks so much more boldly and clearly than she used to and she is more independent than I have ever seen her. She has grown so much.

As I watched her that evening at dinner, I thought to myself how the long process of my sisters growth is similar to the (often) slow process of sanctification. Like my sister's maturing, sanctification is a process. Most of the time, I forget that--and I become frustrated and discouraged because it doesn't seem like I am making any headway in godliness. But feeling is often far from reality. Although it may be a while until I see complete victory over certain struggles in my life, nevertheless, because I am justified in Christ, and adopted, I know that I will have that victory nonetheless. One of the sweetest promises of Scripture is that God WILL complete his work of sanctification: If you are a Christian, you may be discouraged by the ugliness still in you, but be assured God and his promise are sure. It is long, it is tough, but the day will come when you will stand before him completely like Christ.


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