Worship While It’s Warm

As my time in Rhode Island draws to a close, I have been very reflective of the events and changes that have transpired over the past 7 years here and overall, the past 14 years in New England.  While there have been pockets of highlights, in general they have been unpleasant years.  I have experienced pain, loss, shifted directions, unmet expectations and disruptions.  In many ways, it has been a wilderness experience for me.

But I am mindful of the fact that God will intentionally allow us to experience dry, dark, painful, turbulent, disappointing and unsettled times.  His goal is to conform us to the image of Christ so we can reflect His love and His glory while on this earth.   When things are going well, it is much easier to manufacture a christian-esque presentation of our life.  It is easier, I think, to slip on sound choices because positive circumstances can give the allusion of benefits reaped for less than adequate decisions.  But because God is more concerned with fruit than with fiction, He renders discipline and this can only be found in troubling times because there is where the stuff that’s really in our hearts comes out and can no longer masquerade as irrelevant issues.   I think Hebrews 12:4-11 says it best in this Message version:

In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?

My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

Confrontation is at the forefront during these times.  We confront the reality of our agendas and motivations and we confront the supremacy of God’s plan and purpose.  And it is here that choices must be made to either relinquish the grip on self-serving expectations with a heart of holy abandonment or to cling ever tighter to self-interest disguised as spiritual and prayerful hope.  We can either draw a line in the sand of the wilderness or sign our names in surrender with the proclamation that God will have His way regardless of the suggested external evidence of inadequacy and unmet needs.

So such has been the case with me during my New England, and especially Rhode Island, sojourn these  last 7 years.  I have experienced disappointments and have come face to face with internal unhealthy attitudes.  I have had to loosen my grip on a selfish and skewed agenda.  But as the Hebrews passage suggests, it has been all about the training and that is a beautiful thing. For it has exposed me to a greater joy and freedom that can only be found by yielding to it.  I have put my signature in the sand and remember what God has done during this time in me.  It reminds me of Moses exhortation to the children of Israel at the end of their wilderness journey found in Deuteronomy 8 to remember that it was all about God and His agenda.

Falling away does not come suddenly or even surprisingly. It is a process that I believe begins with unchecked and undisciplined desires. This usually results in subtle compromises to quell the sinful pulls on our hearts. Those pulls could represent a wide cross-section of self-interest, that may include pride, lust, or self-promotion.

Such was the case with me. In my last post, I had indicated that despite making a profession of faith in 1982 and by all accounts exuding an outward appearance of salvation, by 1986 I had essentially stopped walking with the Lord and did my own thing.

I got married in 1986 not because of some great love that just bowled me over. But because marriage to me represented a sense of approval, that I was wanted, that I was loved. It did not matter to me at that time that this was not the case nor that the man I married was an unbeliever. It only mattered that I got married.

I couldn’t figure out what happened. I went from being a bible believing, praying, church going person to someone else that lived just as like people who do not know Christ. And I was out of control. Not only did I disregard everything that I had once professed and strived to live, but I continued to allow the emotional pulls of male approval to tug at me. No, marriage did not stop this at all.

I was married from 1986 to 1990 during which time I had my daughter, who is now 19. We eventually divorced in 1990 and I will attribute much of the blame on me. I needed approval not marriage but unfortunately I confused the 2 and was not fully committed. But I was still seeking and after the divorce, I continued to open myself up to the allusion of partnerships when what I really ended up with men bound to sin and self. Whatever boundaries I sought to establish as a christian, no longer existed. In fact, even before marriage, I had allowed the boundaries to erode.

I met Karl in 1992, shortly after starting a new job. We quickly hit it off and found out we lived right around the corner from one another. This was L.A. so the odds of that happening were rare. Before I knew it we were “seeing each other” and the first 6 months were great, even though in retrospect, there was a subtly demeaning and dismissive nature about him that I chose to ignore because once again, it only mattered that someone wanted me. And isn’t being in a relationship what it’s all about anyway?

He was originally from Rhode Island and lived in Boston for several years before heading to California where I met him. But he decided to go to law school and ended up back in Boston. After a couple of untenable months after he left, he pursued me and I eventually moved out to Boston in February 1994. We lived together. He was not a christian and I did not care.

If you would have asked me about salvation or what I believed about Jesus during this time, I would have indicated that I still believe all the things that I had once professed.  I would have given you the laundry list of Jesus being the Son of God, of His dying on the cross to save us, that He desires people to believe in Him and follow Him.  Sure I wasn’t exactly doing that but hey, I still believed.  But the question I ask myself in hindsight, is did I really?

In my next post I will talk about my 2nd marriage, how it got worse before it got better and how God brought me back.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he tells this beloved church of his that he hopes to send Timothy to them shortly apparently so he can report back to Paul and let him know how they are doing. For both he and Timothy genuinely care about what is going on with them and this will encourage Paul greatly since he is in prison at the time of his writing (3:19-20). Paul has already sent Epaphroditus, another of his fellow workers and another who has genuine concern for the Philippian church. Once again, Paul says in 3:28, that sending Epahroditus will relieve Paul upon hearing of there welfare. The same pattern is also indicated in his letter to the Colossians letting them know that Tychicus and Onesimus are on their way.

What is interesting is that Paul is writing these letters from prison. He does not have the luxury or the liberty to check on these folks. But he is so concerned about what is going on with them, that he makes every effort to see that people are sent to check on them and report back how they are doing. If I was in prison I am not so sure I would be that concerned about how others are doing. But Paul does because I think that first that he understands one thing, that I am becoming increasingly mindful of and that is that people matter.

I find that dealing with people is often challenging. People can be selfish, stubborn, disagreeable, delusional and short sighted. Above all, people can be hurtful. I confess that I can be a bit of a hermit and have little problem with reclusiveness, especially if the alternate is deal with people that for whatever reason would cause some degree of friction or discomfort. It’s more comfortable to be in front of my computer with my books (aka my throne) and learn away. But by doing so not only am I missing out on life’s greatest blessings but I am also shortchanging my Christian walk.

People are at the heart of God’s concerns. It was not sufficient just for God to create the heavens and earth, the sun, moon and stars. Man was needed. People were needed and so the earth was populated. After the flood, God indicates in Genesis 8:21 that He will never curse the ground on account of man.

If I live to myself, I am not really living. For God is relational and created us as relational beings. For when we come to Christ, it is not so we can become regenerate and individualistic. No, we then become members of the body of Christ, a piece of the whole. We are commended to think of others better than ourselves, to look after the welfare of others, to do good to others, to pray for others and above all, to love. When another hurts it should have an impact on us. This is why I believe that gossip and partiality are so insidious because it significantly undermines the relational connection we are to have with one another. When we cut others in this manner not only are we bruising the body but we are essentially saying that people don’t matter.

It is not for doctrine or denominations or buildings that Christ died, but it is for people that God loves and calls to himself. We have many disagreements within the body of Christ and yes, we are called to shun doctrine that does not align with essentials of our Christian faith. But in the process, we don’t shun people because above all, people matter.

(I promise I will get back to my testimony)

In my last post, I indicated that I would be walking through my testimony as contemplate the subject of perseverance, about how God will not give up on those who are genuinely His.

Here is an excerpt of my conversion essay from my DTS application:

I was raised a catholic until my mother passed away in 1973, when I was 9 years old. After that I lived with my dad, who was involved with a missionary Baptist church. I sang in the youth choir and participated in youth events, it did not mean much to me. But even at a young age, I was a thinker and I began to ponder the purpose behind the weekly procession. In my junior year in high school I concluded that I did not need church to be a good person, and informed my father that I had no further interest in attending. He said “o.k.”

But that all changed shortly after I started college in fall 1982, when I met 2 christians. They did not talk to me about church…they told me about Jesus, about how I was dead in my sins and he was the only way to be connected to God. They invited me to a campus bible study and I checked it out. Immediately, I was struck by the joy and peace that the people there had, or seemed to anyway. It was clear to me that they had something I did not have. But I wanted it. So I went back the following week. To this day, I could not tell you what was said but I remember vividly how empty I felt. Soon after that second meeting, with the emptiness continually lingering, I dropped to my knees in my dorm room and told Jesus that I wanted him. That’s all I knew at the time. I was a changed person and told everyone I knew that Jesus died for their sins and they should accept him as Lord and Savior.

I said a prayer. Not through an altar call, which I think can create a false sense of security. But a genuine heart felt prayer that acknowledged I was a sinner and I needed Jesus and I wanted Him to come into my life.

I immediately began to read the bible, attend bible study, hang out with other christians and join a church. By all external accounts, it did appear that I was following Jesus.

The problem was that I also had a sinful pull in my heart, which juxtaposed with my new christian experience, created conflict, distraction and eventual departure. So here is what followed in the conversion essay.

I also knew that more than anything else, I wanted to be loved by a man. I wanted for someone to consider me special. While I strove to remain diligent and faithful to my Christian walk, my thirst for a human relationship began to vie with my thirst for my spiritual one. My need to be loved, slowly turned into a quest for marriage or any means of love I could obtain although what I settled for were poor substitutes. James 1:14,15 says “but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust, and when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death”. By the spring of 1986, my “own lust” won out and I fell out of fellowship with God. Greener pastures were out there and I was determined to find them.

That same year I got married for all the wrong reasons and began to live a lifestyle that was completely opposed to everything I professed as a Christ follower.  It was as though I had never made a profession of faith.  I basically wanted to do my own thing at that point.  My pleasure and desires were paramount and I no longer cared about what the bible said.

My journey continues next time

I recently started reading through the book of Hebrews and parked for awhile on this verse

But Christ was faithful as a Son over His house - whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. (Heb 3:6)

It prompted a number of thoughts. I thought of what it means to hold fast. I thought of the fact there are people who don’t. People who had professed Christ but for whatever reason, didn’t hold on. At some point, something made them let go. Some would question if these folks were even genuine believers in the first place. Ah yes, the good old doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which says that if you really have genuine faith, then you will really hold on.

So this caused me to reflect on my own grip over the years, which has experienced varying degrees of loosening and tightening, including a 13 year period where I actually let go.  No, I have not always been faithful and I have not always walked with Jesus even after saying that I would.  Yet through periods of numbness, complacency, sinfulness and yes, even flat out rebellion,  I came back.  For there has been a pull and a peace that continues to lure me.

So as I explore this area of perseverance, I’d thought I’d start by laying out my own life.  For it is a life that in spite of me, God still continues to fill and to use.  It also provides a very practical application to scriptures that indeed support the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.  For I have personally discovered that it is not I who is able to stay on course.  I couldn’t or wouldn’t but for the grace of Him who continues to show Himself strong in my life and demonstrate Philippians 2:13 live and in action,

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure 

So bear with me as I get a little personal and walk through my testimony.  For it is one that I hope with encourage that person who thinks that they’ve blown it too much, what’s the point and let’s just throw in the towel.

Stay tuned for Following Jesus - Part I

Do you like your family? I’m sure the answers will vary among the readers. For some of you may have wonderful, nurturing families that are tight-knit, supportive where you enjoy spending time with one another. On the opposite ends are dysfunctional families where relational tension and friction abound and there may even be a sordid or distasteful history. But one thing is certain, you came with the family you have.

So it is with the body of Christ. When I consider Ephesians 4:1

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

The calling in context of chapters 3 and 4, is that Christ does not draw us to operate individually but to be part of His body. Unfortunately, we live in a very individualistic culture that promotes the needs of self over a corporate mindset. But this is not so in the body of Christ. The minute we say yes to Jesus, we become part of God’s family.

Also consider 1 Corinthians 12:12

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

But I am painfully aware of those members who have encountered abuse to the extent that the only viable option for any type of peace, is to disassociate with other family members. I liken some of the experiences to some client files that I get to examine in the course of my job (I manage a federal funding program that distributes funding to homeless service providers throughout my state). It is not uncommon for me to find that some folks have ended up homeless due to substance abuse and behavioral issues that had its roots in troubled family histories, most notably childhood sexual abuse. And while this is quite a strong statement in comparison to the trauma and abuse that some members of God’s family have experienced, I do think it is and adequate analogy. For consider what childhood sexual abuse entails:

1) harmful acts against a child by those who were supposed to protect them

2) the violation of innocence where there should have been nurturing.

3) the production of emotional harm due to this violation

Yes, some have been violated as spiritual children and experienced extreme harm by those who were supposed to protect them. My heart does go out to those who have experienced this. There are others, who may not have experienced this severity but nonetheless, have been so disenchanted with how family members operate are as equally hurt and isolated and consider association to likely produce pain rather than comfort. So they disconnect.

But this is not the picture of God’s family life that I see in the bible. As members of the body Christ, our love and concern for the well-being of others should take precedent over personal needs and selfish ambition. We hurt when others hurt, we rejoice when others rejoice (Romans 12:15). We love, we care, we nourish, we encourage and sometimes even admonish. But even that should be done with the heart of concern for the other person. Shepherds are to tend to the needs of the flock and desire the spiritual growth of each member. They are to serve as an example not provide a dictator rulership.

So if you’re reading this and you have been burned by dysfunctional body life within God’s family, I encourage you to allow healthy connections to fellow members. We are all fallible human beings who demonstrate myriad acts of imperfection on a regular basis. Give the body a shot because that’s what you were called for.  You’re not supposed to go it alone.

And I would encourage those of us who have experienced healthiness in our fellowship to seek out those who have been burned. Embrace them and show them that the love of Jesus is not what they experienced. It is also for this, that we have been called.

As my departure to begin seminary draws near, one question frequently asked of me is “so what are you planning to do with this education”. Of course, not always those words verbatim but the theme does prevail in most questions. While I can recite a list of multi ambitions (which I do have), my short answer is very simple. I want christians to undertand how to read their bibles. Yes, it does seem like a simple goal relative to the investment of time and cost to achieve 4 years of education. But, it is so foundational to understand our christian walk that how we approach the bible will make all the difference in the world.

I have heard many a preacher direct their listeners to just read their bible. Just do it! (as the title of post says). Read it and do what it says. The problem with this approach is that it does not give really give believers the tools to adequately understand what the christian life is about. It does not train the learner to adequately understand how all the books fit together. For it is the fitting together that creates the theme of this christian life - 66 books, written by 40 different authors over the span of 1,500 years in different genres of literature, divinely inspired to create a whole picture of what a loving God would want to communicate to us about Himself and about us.

The Just do It approach will encourage eisegesis through promotion of some passages over others. It will generate favored themes, that if left unchecked will deviate into misunderstandings of what the text is really communicating. Has this not been the case of many a cult? Even within evangelical circles, we can gravitate towards what seems appealing about christianity, because maybe that theme is not weighed against the whole counsel of scripture nor considered in its historical, cultural, grammatical context. One of the most egregious errors I have heard is scriptures ripped out of context to support an idea. Recently, I was listening to Joyce Meyer who was using Hebrews 1:9 to indicate that God was us to enjoy everyday life. Many people in the audience clapped. I cried and became a little angry. While she is one of the stronger deviants, it does demonstrate that had folks in the audience received adequate training in bible study methods, they would not have been clapping.

I think it is doing christians a major disservice to not teach proper bible study methods. We teach them to accept Christ and follow Him, to love God and to serve Him. But this necessitates having the foundation of what that means. And without the foundation of good bible study methods, I think we create a false dichotomy of knowing God but not really knowing God. If you were to write a book about yourself so people would understand who you were, would that picture not get distorted unless the book was understood as a whole? Good bible study methods give christians the tools to allow the bible to say what it says to get that whole picture. For in that, we learn about the nature and attributes of God, the necessity of salvation and the cross and life as we should live it. But people have to be trained in how to navigate through the 66 books to get the whole picture. And sometimes, its just training people how to read, how to follow the flow of thought and the theme of what’s being written. In fact, I think every church should have as a requirement for all members, a class in how to understand the bible.

One book that I shamelessly plug all the time is Living by the Book, by Howard Hendricks. If you are reading this post and have not read Hendricks book, I would strongly encourage you to read it. It provides the 3 components of approaching the bible:

1) Observation - what does it say

2) Interpretation - what does it mean

3) Application - what does it mean for me

There is an interesting conversation going on over at the Parchment and Pen blog about sin what Jesus did not the cross. Some folks seem to reject the notion of penal substitution, that is Jesus being made a sacrifice for our sin, bearing the guilt, shame and penalty of that sin for us. One commenter suggested that what he did was set an example for us to live obediently, in a life surrendered to Him. And I will agree that that is what our life should be about as Romans 12:1 tells us…to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy acceptable to God, which is our spiritual act of worship.

Yes, we must live lives that are surrendered to God. But I have to step and think about what gives me the ability to do this in the first place. It is one thing to have this as our goal but quite another to actually live it out.

For I see in scripture that I am not naturally inclined to want to surrender to God’s will and ways. And especially, apart from Him I am dead in my trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1), a slave to sin (Romans 6:17-20), hostile towards God (Romans 8:7) and unable to comprehend a life of surrender to God (1 Cor 2:14).

So now I come to Christ and believe in Him. I am saved and am born-again. All is right and so my surrender should begin, right? Well, not so fast. Because if first begs the question of what am I coming to Christ for. I recognize that I am a sinner that everything in the previous paragraph applies to me. I cannot in my own efforts be right with God or be reconciled to Him giving me the ability to stand before Him. For God demands holiness, which I am unable to provide. And His righteousness demands payment for sins. But Jesus has made the way. He took on flesh, stepped down from glory to become a sacrifice and bear the penalty of my sin so I can be reconciled to God. Acts 16:21 says to “believe in the Lord Jesus”. When I believe in Him, I am trusting what He accomplished on the cross for me. This is why He is a Savior, because I was a sinking ship with an anchor called sin and needed rescuing. His example could not rescue me. Only the blood of His sacrifice, which provided the propitiation in that it satisfied the demands of God’s righteousness (Romans 3:25).

Yes, we are new creatures in Christ if you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior. But anyone reading this who has had to the desire to please God, to surrender to His will knows that often there is a struggle. There is a battle of the wills and to follow an example just doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Paul describes this as the sin principle in Romans 7:21-23.

But what follows in Romans 8:1-2 is that I am free from condemnation through the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets me free from the Law of sin and death. His payment for the penalty of my sin set me free from a system of “doing good” in my own effort. And this makes the following verses so powerful in Romans 8:3-4

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So the example is fine but it is the sacrifice on the cross that gives me the ability to follow the example. Life in the Spirit is achieved through recognizing that that life is only made available because of what Jesus did on the cross. And this is at the heart of surrender that will allow me to have a life well lived.

I found this compelling by John Piper

The Sovereignty of God and Prayer
John Piper

I am often asked, “If you believe God works all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11) and that his knowledge of all things past, present, and future is infallible, then what is the point of praying that anything happen?” Usually this question is asked in relation to human decision: “If God has predestined some to be his sons and chosen them before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4,5), then what’s the point in praying for anyone’s conversion?”The implicit argument here is that if prayer is to be possible at all man must have the power of self-determination. That is, all man’s decisions must ultimately belong to himself, not God. For otherwise he is determined by God and all his decisions are really fixed in God’s eternal counsel. Let’s examine the reasonableness of this argument by reflecting on the example cited above.

1. “Why pray for anyone’s conversion if God has chosen before the foundation of the world who will be his sons?” A person in need of conversion is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1); he is “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:17; John 8:34); “the god of this world has blinded his mind that he might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (II Corinthians. 4:4); his heart is hardened against God (Ephesians 4:18) so that he is hostile to God and in rebellion against God’s will (Romans 8:7).

Now I would like to turn the question back to my questioner: If you insist that this man must have the power of ultimate self-determination, what is the point of praying for him? What do you want God to do for Him? You can’t ask that God overcome the man’s rebellion, for rebellion is precisely what the man is now choosing, so that would mean God overcame his choice and took away his power of self-determination. But how can God save this man unless he act so as to change the man’s heart from hard hostility to tender trust?

Will you pray that God enlighten his mind so that he truly see the beauty of Christ and believe? If you pray this, you are in effect asking God no longer to leave the determination of the man’s will in his own power. You are asking God to do something within the man’s mind (or heart) so that he will surely see and believe. That is, you are conceding that the ultimate determination of the man’s decision to trust Christ is God’s, not merely his.

What I am saying is that it is not the doctrine of God’s sovereignty which thwarts prayer for the conversion of sinners. On the contrary, it is the unbiblical notion of self-determination which would consistently put an end to all prayers for the lost. Prayer is a request that God do something. But the only thing God can do to save a lost sinner is to overcome his resistance to God. If you insist that he retain his self-determination, then you are insisting that he remain without Christ. For “no one can come to Christ unless it is given him from the Father” (John 6:65,44).

Only the person who rejects human self-determination can consistently pray for God to save the lost. My prayer for unbelievers is that God will do for them what He did for Lydia: He opened her heart so that she gave heed to what Paul said (Acts 16:14). I will pray that God, who once said, “Let there be light!”, will by that same creative power “shine in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). I will pray that He will “take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). I will pray that they be born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God (John 1:13). And with all my praying I will try to “be kind and to teach and correct with gentleness and patience, if perhaps God may grant them repentance and freedom from Satan’s snare” (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

In short, I do not ask God to sit back and wait for my neighbor to decide to change. I do not suggest to God that He keep his distance lest his beauty become irresistible and violate my neighbor’s power of self-determination. No! I pray that he ravish my unbelieving neighbor with his beauty, that he unshackle the enslaved will, that he make the dead alive and that he suffer no resistance to stop him lest my neighbor perish.

2. If someone now says, “O.K., granted that a person’s conversion is ultimately determined by God’ I still don’t see the point of your prayer. If God chose before the foundation of the world who would be converted, what function does your prayer have?” My answer is that it has a function like that of preaching: How shall the lost believe in whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach unless they are sent (Romans 10:14f.)? Belief in Christ is a gift of God (John 6:65; 2 Timothy 2:25; Ephesians 2:8), but God has ordained that the means by which men believe on Jesus is through the preaching of men. It is simply naive to say that if no one spread the gospel all those predestined to be sons of God (Ephesians 1:5) would be converted anyway. The reason this is naive is because it overlooks the fact that the preaching of the gospel is just as predestined as is the believing of the gospel: Paul was set apart for his preaching ministry before he was born (Galatians 1:15), as was Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). Therefore, to ask, “If we don’t evangelize, will the elect be saved?” is like asking, “If there is no predestination, will the predestined be saved?” God knows those who are his and he will raise up messengers to win them. If someone refuses to be a part of that plan, because he dislikes the idea of being tampered with before he was born, then he will be the loser, not God and not the elect. “You will certainly carry out God’s purpose however you act but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.” (Problem of Pain chapter 7, Anthology, p 910, cf. p 80)

Prayer is like preaching in that it is a human act also. It is a human act that God has ordained and which he delights in because it reflects the dependence of his creatures upon Him. He has promised to respond to prayer, and his response is just as contingent upon our prayer as our prayer is in accordance with his will. “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). When we don’t know how to pray according to God’s will but desire it earnestly, “the Spirit of God intercedes for us according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).

In other words, just as God will see to it that His Word is proclaimed as a means to saving the elect, so He will see to it that all those prayers are prayed which He has promised to respond to. I think Paul’s words in Romans 15:18 would apply equally well to his preaching and his praying ministry: “I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles.” Even our prayers are a gift from the one who “works in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (Hebrews 13:21). Oh, how grateful we should be that He has chosen us to be employed in this high service! How eager we should be to spend much time in prayer!

So what this communicates to me is this, whether you believe in conditional or unconditional election, the requirement is the same. No one can come to the Father unless the Spirit draw him. And so prayer is just as needed as the preaching of the Gospel.

I also think that Piper’s arguments dispel the misconception that unconditional election involves a robotic response to God’s calling.

In my last post, I talked about the nature of sin being rebellion in our hearts that does not want to conform to God’s moral and righteous standards and therefore, wants to act independent of God’s standards.

Now you may be reading this and say, “ok that does not really apply to me because I have the love of God in my heart”. And perhaps may even relegate this discussion to those who do not know Christ.

But the simple truth is that each one of us contends with sin everyday, the principle at work in us that does not want us to conform to righteous demands of God. And that sin will want self to rule. If we love the Lord and desire to follow after Him, I don’t think that self-rule will be bold or blatant but will be very subtle and creep in to what we consider our opinions and our perspective on things.

Now our perspectives will be influenced by many factors, including life experiences, expectations and disappointments, family history, and general life observations. And the sin principle at work in us will want us to filter our christianity and biblical understanding through the lens of our perspectives. The self-rule will say “I think this is important and this is the way it should be”.

So consider for a moment those ideas that you hold dear about what this christian life is all about, or suppose to be about from your perspective. More importantly, consider your doctrinal positioning and think about the defenses you raise when there is a contradictory position. I have found in my blogging travels that certain people will rally around discussions about specific topics but are nowhere to be seen in others. Why? Perhaps there is an agenda to uphold a certain position.

We come to Christ with baggage and that baggage must be left at the foot of the cross. The sin principle that wants to keep our agendas at the forefront, must first be recognized and as self-interest but more importantly subjected to the unadulterated and objective consideration of biblical truth. We will undoubtedly come across concepts and commands that trouble us that we may even deem unfair. The self-rule of our perspective may dismiss these ideas as contrary but a submitted heart would say to God “I don’t like what this is saying, but if this is true, help me to understand”.

If we are not mindful of this self-rule, we will most likely gravitate to those with like opinions and reject opposing viewpoints. With mass support, our positions become validated. And so I consider Paul’s encouragement to Timothy:

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For a time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:2-4, nasb)