Who has believed our report?

Jesus’ submission to the Father’s will (the will that drove Christ into the suffering of the cross) was an act of great faith. It was unwavering faith in the nature and kingdom of the Father that kept Christ steady on the narrow way that led to life. However, it can be heard from many circles that the doctrine of propitiation is now an obtuse doctrine. Many in post-modern camps relegate Jesus’ sufferings only to the realm of passivism and the embracing of good leadership by not contending with his enemies, thereby showing His followers that resisting your enemy is not the way but simply a statement of, watch what I do and follow similarly. I have even heard it said of Christ’s passion and the subsequent doctrine which flows from it, propitiation, is nothing more than a form of divine child abuse and therefore holds no authority in and of itself for Christian living.

But this is not what the scriptures say concerning the necessity of Christ’s suffering. The whole chapter of Isaiah 53 is not only a picture of how He would be afflicted but also an in-depth, perceptive examination of why He was to be “put to grief.” Why did it “please the Father to crush Him?” It was to demonstrate the unflinching power of the bedrock principles of the Kingdom of God. This is not “divine child abuse.” The necessity for Jesus’ passion was not only for propitiation and the removal of guilt through atonement but to show that faith, hope, love, and humility will always overcome the kingdom of darkness. Jesus’ follow through in the will of His Father to live according to the laws of the Father, even unto death,  not only purchased souls for Him but demonstrated the utter superiority of the Kingdom of Heaven over and against the kingdom of darkness, thereby “disarming principalities and powers” (Col. 2:15).

Therefore, it is now evident to us that; love is stronger than death, hope greater than fear, meekness more authoritative than assertion, and submission more influential than control. He has forever drawn the clearest picture of lights’ irrepressible penetration into the darkness and its ability to drive it out of every nook and cranny where it has resided in the context of man’s loathsome existence apart from God.

We all fade as a leaf.

It’s amazing that all of man’s idols in the pre-modern and modern era have been physical, tangible idols who can neither see, hear, nor talk. All through the Old Testament the prophets of Yahweh mocked the man-made images as useless things that couldn’t do anything. What pre-modern, spiritual man created from a piece of wood he also worshiped. Isaiah hit this profoundly all through the days of his prophecy. With half of the wood, man created an idol, with the other half he made a fire to keep himself warm. With half he forms an image to bow down to, with the other half he makes a shelter to cover himself. How foolish is this! God finally says through his mouthpiece, “Have your idols of wood save you! They didn’t even create themselves apart from you and yet you worship them!”

But post-modern man is not so foolhardy. No, man today does not worship statues and forms and images. Man, it seems, has grown up from spiritual superstition. Man worships next to nothing these days, save himself. The only real, living thing is man. What started as an experiment by Descartes to begin philosophically with the “I” of man’s existence instead of God’s eternal existence promulgated, very rapidly, into atheism and man’s assertion to divinity. Man has moved from superstitious belief in an other worldly being to a humanistic, me-centered worship. Man’s real idol, is himself.

All very well and good then but let me put this forward. Can man stop nature? Can man evade death? Can man make something come to pass that is outside his immediate sphere? Can man do anything creative, completely and originally creative? No! Man could not stop the earthquake in Haiti any more than he could cause it to happen. Man still dies and plunges into the ground under that cruel tyrant of finitude. Man cannot make something that doesn’t already exist and nothing man has ever done has been completely original. All things in this tangible world that man has touched have been from borrowed ideas or previously created realities. So why this atheism? Why this assertion in this day and age of man’s grandeur?

Man worships himself. Man denies God. But this is really no different from the worship of created images by our pre-modern and modern forefathers. We have only grown up from external idolatry into self-contained idolatry. But, at the end of the day, we are not God and have no power as gods. What we have is borrowed. What we seek is outside of us. What we need comes from somewhere we cannot attain to. What we love eventually turns into the destruction of others. All of man’s striving still ends in finite and painful decay. We all fade as a leaf, here today but gone tomorrow. Surely, surely, there is something else “out there” that we can recognize. All atheism must, of rational necessity, be nihilism. Sad is the state of man’s idolatry. Hopeful is the state of the man who fears the Lord, his wisdom will be justified.

Ora et Labora (Work and Pray)

A few years ago I began cutting my teeth in contemplative prayer by reading, incessantly I might add, a small work by a humble monk named Brother Lawrence. That book was Practicing the Presence Of God.

The labor of prayer is a labor of love. It takes skill, determination, honesty, and a relentless faith in the face of overwhelming odds. It has been said that prayer is the highest labor in God’s kingdom. It is the foundation of all spiritual life  and the only way to stay steady in the faith. It is a power wielded by even the weakest saint and a tool that can be picked up by a toddler or a mystic for the very same purpose, oftentimes with the very same result. It is enjoyable and trying, easy and difficult. Prayer is work… and it pays so well. For those who take it up as an occupation it can be a source of extreme frustration. One who has committed to 8 hours of prayer a day is tested intensely after hour one is over. Pressing in, it seems, is not an easy lean.

Through the years I have found the words of the Apostle Paul to “pray without ceasing” both an encouragement and, more than a few times, a scourge. How can this be, this unceasing life of prayer? If it is a command then surely I am breaking it, and horribly at that!

But it is not just an act. Prayer is not only a duty or obligation. It is not necessarily even words. Prayer, for all intents and purposes, is an attitude. Can I pray while I’m eating, working, playing? Can I pray while I blog and write and study? The answer; of course I can… if I am conscious of His presence. My heart is in tune with Him through all hours of the day if my life is one of agreement with Him in all I do and attempt. Prayer is easy in that it is born of the spirit and led by Him for our benefit. It is a challenge, however, in that we must submit ourselves to it in all things. Thank you Brother Lawrence, for your insights and thank you Lord, that you want this more than I do and are committed to teaching me until I learn.

Is your head ahead of your heart?

I have been reading a ton lately. From topics ranging anywhere from Celtic spirituality, to the emerging church, to commentary on the Old Testament, to contemplation; I have averaged a good, weighty, book a week, sometimes two. Needless to say, I have been having a dramatic influx of thoughts, prayers, desires, frustrations, and headaches. When did my favorite pastime, reading, become my worst nightmare?!

I was pondering this reality the other day when I finally just decided to “turn off” and wait, silently… just sitting, breathing, hearing. All of a sudden came that still small voice. That voice that has power to rend rocks in two, drive back the storm, cast fire upon water, and spread blackness across the heavens; that voice came so softly, so gently, so clearly.

Nathan, you’ve stopped enjoying me. Aggghhhhhh!! Oh God! the pain, the conviction, the sweet revelation of why my heart had been so stagnant and needy. In my search for the truth, for God, I forgot to look for Him where He usually is, right in front of me, in the stillness of anticipation and longing.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the necessity for a generation to embrace a contemplative lifestyle in order that we would clear away the noise of the world and hear that timeless, unhindered voice of mysterious love, God incarnate. In my zeal and fervor to get to that place I made the means the ends and forgot about the man. My love of the truth had kept me distant from the person of truth. So, re-alignment this week with the help of the Helper, my comforter and teacher, thank you Holy Spirit!

Why do I do this?

Blogging is preaching. It is a gateway for thundering a message beyond what is immediately visible, much like a clasp of thunder in the summer skies, heard from miles away yet unseen. It is not a mere hobby but a resounding echo of the imperatives and implications of the gospel which God has called “good news for all creatures.”

Many times I’ll slap a post up and wonder if anyone will ever actually get around to reading it. But then I think about the fact that I, as a preacher, have this free resource to hone and define a skill that also happens to be a command from God; that of preaching to all creatures.

This post is a shout out to my blogging comrades, especially the ones around IHOP–KC. Preach! Write! Clarify and expound that which the Lord has given to you. You never know if someone may stumble across your words and be pierced with revelation of the beauty of Jesus, maybe for the first time. This is worth doing because it is obedience to the call of the great commission. My platform in this season is this site and I love doing it. This is why I blog.

Free Will and Accountability…

“For your iniquities you have sold yourselves.” Isa. 50:1

God has given man an ability to choose. This valuable choice is not limited to simple, daily acts of the will but encompasses all of mans endeavors and ultimately, his eternal destiny. God gives man what he wants because God made man to choose what man wants. Sometimes God takes the initiative to give, other times man receives passively from God as God removes something that would hinder or stop mans reception of what it is that was wanting. It’s not that God has not the power to exercise what man gets or when he gets it but simply that man will get it for himself because of choice, by God removing His hand in certain situations.

“Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot save? Or have I no power to deliver?” Isa. 50:2a

“Indeed with my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness…” Isa. 50:2b

God has all power to do all things. Man has some power to do some things. God has power to create, man has power to destroy. In judgment, God may very well “clothe the heavens with blackness” but usually what happens in judgment upon man is caused by man because of his destructive nature.

Hell is a very real place. In its character it is a place of torment simply by the absence of God’s presence and therefore of any good thing, life, love, hope, truth, etc. Man makes hell what it is because it is the place of man getting what man wants, the absence of God. If they crucified Him before, they would try to crucify Him again; by conscience, doctrine, rage, and argument. Hell is the place of man’s thirst for a “no God” reality.

“Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with sparks; who walk in the light of your fire…” Isa. 50:11

Quote from “Mountains and Why We Love Them”

I can see no escape from that conclusion in the signs of the times; too inexorable seems to me to be the march of events. No, I can see only one alternative. The alternative is that there is a God—a God who in His own good time will bring forward great men again to do His will, great men to resist the tyranny of experts and lead humanity out again into the realms of light and freedom, great men, above all, who will be messengers of His grace. There is, far above any earthly mountain peak of vision, a God high and lifted up who, though He is infinitely exalted, yet cares for His children among men.

J. Gresham Machen

Realistic Prayer Becoming Incessant Prayer

When you pray, do not be wordy. You cannot affect one single response from God. Remember, you are praying to the One who knows everything; to the One before whom all things are laid bare. The point of prayer is to connect with Him as he is. To come to Him is to come to pure, absolute power with unrestricted, unhindered glory. We should not come lightly, flinging random statements and sentiments. Rather, when coming, it is best to remember that He knows us perfectly, right through to our core. The emphasis should not be on the act of prayer but the object of it. Transcendent as He is, He humbly welcomes all of His creation, for His own enjoyment, which He has designed for true communion.

The arrogance of man…

Man has not formed himself, therefore man cannot rightly determine the bounds of His subsequent governance. If man wants to re-define the terms for something which he has not created or instituted then it would only prove his ignorance and his arrogance. The saddest of all realities is that creation wants to re-create itself in a way other than its intended design. The whole issue of immorality and perversion stems from the “God debate” and mans assertion that evolution is truth because it seeks to absolve man of responsibility and divine authority. What the will man do when God himself demonstrates his power through his personhood? What will humanists say when all authority in heaven and earth is expressly demonstrated in tangible creation? They will either bow now or submit eternally. There are no other options. For such a time as this there can be no recourse but prayer.

Thoughts on a postmodern ethos…

This culture and this generation has the most spiritually and religiously diverse belief system of any preceeding it. A postmodern mindset is a sort of chaos theory, randomly scattered underpinnings between intellect, emotion, psychology, and spirituality that basically says, “Hey, anything is right as long as it’s undefinable.”

But Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life!” (John 14:6). There is only one truth and one way to it. Pop therapy and spiritual seeking that is not aligned with the truth but rather with subjective experience is shallow in that it cannot provide a remedy for man’s dementia (any argument here that would assert mans innate goodness and therefore unnecessary redemption is ludicrous considering the rampant evils prevailing in all societies worldwide). The supremacy of Christ as Redeemer Messiah (God-incarnated-man) needs to be stressed in a postmodern world that is seeking a spiritual transformation by self-actualization.

If mans spirituality be false on account of sin, then mans salvation (transformation) needs to be completely different from mans falsity. Enter Christ, the messiah which no one was expecting (expecting in likeness as opposed to anticipation) or likened unto.  The false self of fallen man needs the truth of an actual self  in bodily form in order that man may be comprehensively redeemed. A spirituality that resembles fallen humanity is not a true expression of the life of the spirit but a vague, shallow, proud, and false transience that, at its core, is an arrogance not willing to submit to a higher power and authority.

I believe this is why Paul said that without the reality of the resurrection our Christian belief would be the most foolish and despised. If man is not redeemed fully, mind, spirit, and body, then man is not redeemed at all, only changed from one bad image to another. Therefore God has resurrected Him that He might be a first fruits of a new creation! Glory be to God that the work has been accomplished and imparted to a dead and decaying condition. He alone can animate and bring life to the dead, and He has!