Hey Everyone,
I’ve been thinking about the New Covenant promise of the law being written on our hearts a lot lately. I’m sure it comes from reading what I’ve been reading (no name dropping this week) and that just goes to show how much of an impact it is making on me. I think too often we want to think of the promises of God being fulfilled in the blink of an eye. But nowhere in scripture does it say that the law will be written on our hearts instantaneously.
I’m beginning to understand that from the moment we are born into the Kingdom of God until we enter the fullness of the Kingdom on the last day of this age the law is being written on our hearts one word at a time. There are a couple of things I want to touch on here and the first one is the concept of heart. Abraham Kuyper (ok one name drop) in his book Lectures on Calvinism espouses the concept of heart as being the center of a person, the essence of a person. Unfortunately, the English translation of his work translates the Dutch word he used as mind (which gives you a clue as to where American Theologians heads and hearts are).
That concept of the heart, as being the whole person, tells me that the concept of writing the law on our hearts is probably the equivalent of making the law a part of our character, a part of who we are. When the law is completely written on our hearts it will be fulfilled in us. We will be on the path of life for all eternity.
I’ve been thinking about this as I’ve been looking back on how I have changed over the years. When the journey began I said I loved Jesus but I hated his law. Twenty some odd years into the journey I began to embrace the law as good and applicable. Slowly, I find my heart being written on by God. I find God is causing me to walk in obedience in areas that I used to refuse God’s commands. It is not by force of will on my part. Originally, I had no will to stop sinning in certain areas. But slowly over time God has begun to create in me a new heart, one drop of indelible grace at a time.
I am amazed at what has occurred. I can’t believe that I am standing where I stand. It was not of my own doing. He is giving me a heart to obey, to do, to walk on the path of life. He is transforming me from death to life. That is not just a result of growing old. I know plenty of old people that run from the path of life like it was the plague.
Someone made a joke to me the other day saying something like “I’m not doing this anymore. I only try things I’m good at.” It reminded me of me. That’s the way I’ve been most of my life; at least until recently. I’ve been really pressed into the understanding that our call to take dominion over creation begins with the creation that is us. I have to learn to take dominion over myself for God. If I can’t do it in my own heart and body then what makes me think that I can do it anywhere else?
To do that, however, is causing me to face down old demons, perhaps my oldest spiritual friends; some of the ones that I’ve always loved more than I loved my Lord. I’m not real fond of that. I’ve told you of my disdain for exercising and that hasn’t changed. I still hate it because, well, to be honest, I hate even the thought of anything that closely resembles suffering. But more than that, I don’t like doing anything I’m not good at. When it comes to athletics, well, I might have talked a good talk at one time but that was it: Talk. I still remember the feeling I got trying out for football, (insane I know – I weighed 104 lbs my freshman year and the smallest helmet could turn all around my head with ease), and basketball (who invented wind sprints?). They were organized sports and I had never played organized sports; no little league, no basketball with coaching; I was clueless. And to go to practice and be bombarded by all these kids who had been doing this stuff for years, well, it was intimidating to say the least. So I quietly turned and tiptoed away. I quit and never looked back. I stuck with things I didn’t have to learn and didn’t cause me to breath hard.
I don’t really like to talk about what I’m doing when it comes to exercise because the truth is I’m afraid I’ll quit. But something may be different this time; I can’t say for sure. I’ve been a part of an exercise class for about 4 weeks now. It’s just like basketball or football tryouts all over again for me. Everybody seems to know what they are doing and I feel like an idiot. It’s weird that at 51 I can still have the exact same emotional response to exercise that I had at 14. There came a point, I guess it was Monday, when I had a boot camp instructor and I was struggling to figure out what to do and when to do it. The class was speeding by and I was finding myself more and more frustrated. Then the instructor asked for something that was impossible, I mean absolutely impossible for me to do and in the middle of class I just laughed. Not loud but loud enough. And I started to realize that it wasn’t about the exercise it was about my brain. It was about me learning to be disciplined.
The week before, a different instructor had talked about having the courage to be disciplined. I’d never thought about it like that before. Somewhere in there something clicked. I went back to class purposely the next day – different instructor same frustrations. I laughed again when asked to do something. I think the instructor said touch your left elbow to your right knee. I tried to do it and that made the instructor laugh because he had misspoken. He meant left ankle on your right knee. He complemented me for being the only one in the class to attempt to do what he had said.
With each passing exercise even in the midst of my ineptness and often times appearing to myself to be a bull in a china shop, I found a passion to press on. It was almost anger. To be honest, it was anger, anger for all the things that had been taken away from me by fear and insecurity for most of my life. It was like I was beginning to sing with Tom Petty – you can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won’t back down.
I have been a fool most of my life; running for cover when I should have been running down a dream. Why has it taken me so long to realize that there ain’t no easy way out? Life is hard. It is the refining fire. Slowly, I am learning to stop sleeping with the enemy and press on to the higher calling. It’s a lifelong process this writing the law upon a new heart and it hurts worse than a tattoo ever could.
Maybe now, at this point in life, I’m finally able to find the courage to be disciplined. Who knows, maybe I will turn and run again. I don’t know. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other today and walk the path that is set before me. Thankfully, there is no exercise class ‘til Friday.
I hurt just about everywhere today but it is a good hurt. It reminds me that there are still a lot of weeds and rocks that need to be taken out of the field before it can reach its full potential and produce maximum crops. In other words, before dominion can be realized to its fullest. So I press to press on.
As I write this, a thought occurs to me that has been coming up repeatedly in my head over the past few weeks; I realize that in the course of writing week in and week out that I probably fall back on the same lyrics repeatedly. In the words of Steely Dan’s song Deacon Blue: I cried when I wrote this song; sue me if I play too long. The songs that come to my mind as I write are the songs that have touched me in one way or another on a personal level. I’m sure there are other lyrics to use out there but they haven’t been etched upon my mind like the ones that keep coming up.
I guess with that attitude I still have some pages in my heart waiting to be written.
May God write his law in Indelible Grace on all your hearts,
Brad
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Make the World Go Away
Hey Folks,
There are a gazillion things that I would like to write about these days but they are still warming in the incubator of my skull and aren’t ready to be hatched yet. So I will let them continue to stew. The brain doesn’t want to stop working lately. I’m reading and reading and every once in a while I’m understanding something and that just pushes me on to more reading. I ordered another book last night.
I’ve been thinking some about the application, or perhaps, the consequences of what I have been reading for the real world. What does it mean to think Christianly about Mathematics or Psychology or any other topic in the realm of existence? I’m actually not thinking all that much about math because, thankfully, math is not my calling. I have read more about math in the last 6 weeks than I ever care to read again but I do understand the need to think about Math from biblical presuppositions more than ever before. I will humbly defer all questions to James Nickels and his book, Mathematics: Is God Silent? If you are inclined in a mathematical way then that book is for you.
Psychology is a different bird altogether. Even as I was getting my Masters in Clinical Psych I was noticing the discrepancies between what I was taught about man through science and what I knew about man from scripture – they are two different things. I chose to go to a secular school to get my degree because I knew that I would be on guard there with every idea that came into my ears. Years earlier, in the Christian colleges that I attended I was fed lies in the guise of truth and it has taken me a long, long time to recover from that. In case you don’t know it: presuppositions are everything when it comes to the truth.
You see a biblical view of the Psychology of man must include the creation, fall and redemption through Jesus Christ as its core statement of the true nature of man. Sin is not just a negative event in mankind’s existence. In other words, sin is not just a debt that we owe. It is also something that we pursue with all our hearts. It is who we are outside of Christ. The heart is deceitful above all else. That means that left to itself the core of human existence is deceitful and loves darkness while hating the light; regardless of the kind and peaceful words that flow from the lips.
One of the goals of Psychology then is to shine a light on the deceit of the heart that so easily besets us and enable those under our care to live more truthful lives. Another way to say it is that we guide anyone who wants back onto the path of life and out of the death that they love so much. This includes believer and unbelievers because the common grace of God pours out blessing on the just and the unjust and as believers walk on the path of life more consistently unbelievers will be recipients of the temporal blessings that follow.
To do these things, we need to be able to see the pain of existence as the consequences of walking off the path of life. A biblical view of the world tells us that there are consequences for leaving the path of life. Our world is filled with sickness and death (both physical and mental) because we as a race chose to rebel against life. Healing comes in proportion to our willingness to walk upon the path of life.
Climbing back onto the path of life is both a gift of grace and the hardest work a person will ever do. It is God who gives us both the will and the power to do it but it is us who actually have to do whatever ‘it’ entails for us. There is no clear cut distinction in the real world between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. Grace is not a magic wand that fixes all your boo boos and makes everything all better. Grace gives you the power to face the things that scare the shit out of you and walk on through to the other side. In doing so it doesn’t reduce the fear, or the pain, or the consequences but it does ensure that nothing of value to God will be lost in your life – anything else is up for grabs.
Fallen mankind loves to sing with Eddy Arnold to God: Make the World Go Away and get it off of my shoulders. Say the things you used to say and make the world go away. As if with Brittany Spears we could just say Oops I did it again to make everything alright. But that can’t be done (at least that’s what God says in his word). Mankind is irreparably damaged by its jump off of the path of life. It is dead. There is no hope for recovery. There is only the promise of a new life in Christ. That is the good news. You want on the path of life you can be put on the path of life but not the dead zombie you only a new creature, from new creation, the new humanity, can be placed on the path of life. If you want it here it is come and get it but you better hurry ‘cause it’s going fast.
The problem with the good news is the bad news of sin. Mankind doesn’t want life. Left to itself mankind loves death. It pursues death with all that is in it. It loves the darkness and hates the light. That makes the good news all the gooder because while we were yet lovers of death and darkness Christ died so that anyone who wants can get back on the path of life; Being on the path of life, however, means giving up the path of death.
The weight of the world on our shoulders is the weight of sin and its curse. The good news says you don’t have to be under the curse any longer. Christ came to adopt zombies into the family of God if they are only willing to stop being zombies.
The call of the psychologist, or counselor, if you prefer, and for that matter the pastor, is to guide anyone who wants to out of death and into life. It is the call to turn a spark into a bonfire in the hearts of those who are new creatures in Christ and to warm the chilled bones of the zombies close enough to the path to feel the residual effects of those who truly walk there.
Here is a brief summary of the call of the Christian Psychologist: No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
Joy to the earth the LORD has come.
Brad
There are a gazillion things that I would like to write about these days but they are still warming in the incubator of my skull and aren’t ready to be hatched yet. So I will let them continue to stew. The brain doesn’t want to stop working lately. I’m reading and reading and every once in a while I’m understanding something and that just pushes me on to more reading. I ordered another book last night.
I’ve been thinking some about the application, or perhaps, the consequences of what I have been reading for the real world. What does it mean to think Christianly about Mathematics or Psychology or any other topic in the realm of existence? I’m actually not thinking all that much about math because, thankfully, math is not my calling. I have read more about math in the last 6 weeks than I ever care to read again but I do understand the need to think about Math from biblical presuppositions more than ever before. I will humbly defer all questions to James Nickels and his book, Mathematics: Is God Silent? If you are inclined in a mathematical way then that book is for you.
Psychology is a different bird altogether. Even as I was getting my Masters in Clinical Psych I was noticing the discrepancies between what I was taught about man through science and what I knew about man from scripture – they are two different things. I chose to go to a secular school to get my degree because I knew that I would be on guard there with every idea that came into my ears. Years earlier, in the Christian colleges that I attended I was fed lies in the guise of truth and it has taken me a long, long time to recover from that. In case you don’t know it: presuppositions are everything when it comes to the truth.
You see a biblical view of the Psychology of man must include the creation, fall and redemption through Jesus Christ as its core statement of the true nature of man. Sin is not just a negative event in mankind’s existence. In other words, sin is not just a debt that we owe. It is also something that we pursue with all our hearts. It is who we are outside of Christ. The heart is deceitful above all else. That means that left to itself the core of human existence is deceitful and loves darkness while hating the light; regardless of the kind and peaceful words that flow from the lips.
One of the goals of Psychology then is to shine a light on the deceit of the heart that so easily besets us and enable those under our care to live more truthful lives. Another way to say it is that we guide anyone who wants back onto the path of life and out of the death that they love so much. This includes believer and unbelievers because the common grace of God pours out blessing on the just and the unjust and as believers walk on the path of life more consistently unbelievers will be recipients of the temporal blessings that follow.
To do these things, we need to be able to see the pain of existence as the consequences of walking off the path of life. A biblical view of the world tells us that there are consequences for leaving the path of life. Our world is filled with sickness and death (both physical and mental) because we as a race chose to rebel against life. Healing comes in proportion to our willingness to walk upon the path of life.
Climbing back onto the path of life is both a gift of grace and the hardest work a person will ever do. It is God who gives us both the will and the power to do it but it is us who actually have to do whatever ‘it’ entails for us. There is no clear cut distinction in the real world between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. Grace is not a magic wand that fixes all your boo boos and makes everything all better. Grace gives you the power to face the things that scare the shit out of you and walk on through to the other side. In doing so it doesn’t reduce the fear, or the pain, or the consequences but it does ensure that nothing of value to God will be lost in your life – anything else is up for grabs.
Fallen mankind loves to sing with Eddy Arnold to God: Make the World Go Away and get it off of my shoulders. Say the things you used to say and make the world go away. As if with Brittany Spears we could just say Oops I did it again to make everything alright. But that can’t be done (at least that’s what God says in his word). Mankind is irreparably damaged by its jump off of the path of life. It is dead. There is no hope for recovery. There is only the promise of a new life in Christ. That is the good news. You want on the path of life you can be put on the path of life but not the dead zombie you only a new creature, from new creation, the new humanity, can be placed on the path of life. If you want it here it is come and get it but you better hurry ‘cause it’s going fast.
The problem with the good news is the bad news of sin. Mankind doesn’t want life. Left to itself mankind loves death. It pursues death with all that is in it. It loves the darkness and hates the light. That makes the good news all the gooder because while we were yet lovers of death and darkness Christ died so that anyone who wants can get back on the path of life; Being on the path of life, however, means giving up the path of death.
The weight of the world on our shoulders is the weight of sin and its curse. The good news says you don’t have to be under the curse any longer. Christ came to adopt zombies into the family of God if they are only willing to stop being zombies.
The call of the psychologist, or counselor, if you prefer, and for that matter the pastor, is to guide anyone who wants to out of death and into life. It is the call to turn a spark into a bonfire in the hearts of those who are new creatures in Christ and to warm the chilled bones of the zombies close enough to the path to feel the residual effects of those who truly walk there.
Here is a brief summary of the call of the Christian Psychologist: No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
Joy to the earth the LORD has come.
Brad
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Battle of Evermore
Morning Everyone,
The reading onslaught continues in my life. At this point, it is a history of philosophy starting with the Greeks. So far, I’ve made it up to Immanuel Kant and there are a couple hundred pages of volume one to go. I’ve learned a lot, my perspectives keep changing as I see things and understand things that, to be honest, I never wanted to know before. I think there are a lot of people out there who don’t want their eyes opened; they want to live in fantasy land their whole life. Disney trumps Jesus every time in our day and age.
I will admit that I have this whole mythology of the way the past was that I don’t want to give up. I’m finding out that many of the foundations that I hold are rooted, not in Christianity, but in humanism couched in the words of religion. In other words, I am very well acquainted with idolatry but not nearly as familiar with Christianity as I thought I was.
Certainly there have been times when people have walked in obedience more than they do now but I don’t believe there has ever been a time since the fall when anyone (except for Christ) has walked in a faith that is pure; surely the Old Testament saints can vouch for that. But of course we want to glorify the past and look for the good old days when our idolatry was not as easy to see because humanism tried to mimic the faith. Enter Rousseau.
You see if we went back to the good old days of the founding of this country and started over today; 250 years into the future our nation would be in the same mess it is in today because, as good as the foundation was, it was still a foundation of synthesis; it was a mixture of faiths. Now it may be true that the mixture ratio was 90 percent Christian and 10 percent Humanism (I’m being overly generous here) but 10 percent is enough to destroy a nation. How much idolatry will it take in our own hearts for God to say, I don’t know you. Isn’t the Christian faith all or nothing?
The more I read and understand; the more I see the synthesis of faiths and the heavier my heart gets because synthesis is death to the Christian faith. The result of my improved vision is that the call to Christ alone becomes more important. The church seems weaker. The gospel becomes more vital. What is the gospel but a call to leave our idols behind? And yet the history of the world both in and out of the church is the history of trying to make our idols mesh with our faith.
I am feeling the effects of my past idolatries as I read these days. You see, I was raised in a Christianity that was more Neo-Platonist than Christian. The material world was bad and that included history. You didn’t need to know anything about the natural history of the world. You didn’t need to study philosophy because it would just taint you. Of course we didn’t know that the words we were speaking and ways we were thinking were already tainted. We were living in a mixture of faiths while trying to be pure and holy. I’ve been doing it my whole life.
At the same time that I’m concerned about the condition of the church and its hybrid faith, I am greatly encouraged for the future. Why? Because humanism, the idolatry of self, has already reached its pinnacle. It has no foundation to build on. As long as it was mixed with Christianity it could pretend to look to the future with hope but that time is long gone. The tide is turning. Humanism is dying. Of course it has been dying for 6000 years but it is working out its core beliefs like never before and it is finding there is no place it can turn for meaning because from its foundation there can be no meaning.
One thing I can be grateful for in american culture is that we have led the way in making sure that humanism has infiltrated every inch of the world we live in and that means that Islam and all the other religions that are already idolistic in nature will also succumb to the decay of the exaltation of man as God and eventually come tumbling down just like we have.
That is a glorious opportunity for a remnant to rise to the occasion because Christianity is the only faith that can provide meaning beyond a superficial level in this world. It is in the death of a cultures and the collapsing of foundations that God provides the best opportunity for his kingdom to advance by building a strong foundation.
We have the opportunity before us in the next 25 to 50 years to lay a solid foundation for a new culture if we are willing to lay aside our idols and purge our minds of synthesis. Now is the time for the bride to stop playing around on her husband and be faithful. It’s time to stop looking back at the lie of the good old days. The reformation may have been a wonderful thing in the life of the church but it was also a wonderful thing in the life of Humanism and two hundred years after the revolution began humanism had for all intents and purposes already won that battle. The long slow collapse we are in is evidence of that.
The time is fast approaching for a new battle. The question is will humanism be fighting a hybrid Christianity built on a foundation of sand or Christianity build solely on the rock of Christ Jesus? If it is the former then nothing will change. If it is the latter then the gates of hell will not, cannot prevail. The question is will we advance the kingdom of God or the kingdom of man? There aren’t any other options.
I’m reminded of Led Zepplin’s Battle of Evermore:
The Queen of Light took her bow and then she turned to go. The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom and walked the night alone. Oh, dance in the dark of night Sing to the morning light.
The dark Lord rides in force tonight and time will tell us all Oh, throw down your plow and hoe Rest not to lock your homes
Side by side we wait the night of the darkest of them all. I hear the horses' thunder down in the valley below
I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon waiting for the eastern glow.
It may be that the angels are waiting for us to quit being a mixture of clay and iron before they begin to fight. How long will we relish being married to two husbands? How long until we pick one and love him with all our heart, soul and might? Only then will we see the eastern glow break through this dark night.
Grace and Peace,
Brad
The reading onslaught continues in my life. At this point, it is a history of philosophy starting with the Greeks. So far, I’ve made it up to Immanuel Kant and there are a couple hundred pages of volume one to go. I’ve learned a lot, my perspectives keep changing as I see things and understand things that, to be honest, I never wanted to know before. I think there are a lot of people out there who don’t want their eyes opened; they want to live in fantasy land their whole life. Disney trumps Jesus every time in our day and age.
I will admit that I have this whole mythology of the way the past was that I don’t want to give up. I’m finding out that many of the foundations that I hold are rooted, not in Christianity, but in humanism couched in the words of religion. In other words, I am very well acquainted with idolatry but not nearly as familiar with Christianity as I thought I was.
Certainly there have been times when people have walked in obedience more than they do now but I don’t believe there has ever been a time since the fall when anyone (except for Christ) has walked in a faith that is pure; surely the Old Testament saints can vouch for that. But of course we want to glorify the past and look for the good old days when our idolatry was not as easy to see because humanism tried to mimic the faith. Enter Rousseau.
You see if we went back to the good old days of the founding of this country and started over today; 250 years into the future our nation would be in the same mess it is in today because, as good as the foundation was, it was still a foundation of synthesis; it was a mixture of faiths. Now it may be true that the mixture ratio was 90 percent Christian and 10 percent Humanism (I’m being overly generous here) but 10 percent is enough to destroy a nation. How much idolatry will it take in our own hearts for God to say, I don’t know you. Isn’t the Christian faith all or nothing?
The more I read and understand; the more I see the synthesis of faiths and the heavier my heart gets because synthesis is death to the Christian faith. The result of my improved vision is that the call to Christ alone becomes more important. The church seems weaker. The gospel becomes more vital. What is the gospel but a call to leave our idols behind? And yet the history of the world both in and out of the church is the history of trying to make our idols mesh with our faith.
I am feeling the effects of my past idolatries as I read these days. You see, I was raised in a Christianity that was more Neo-Platonist than Christian. The material world was bad and that included history. You didn’t need to know anything about the natural history of the world. You didn’t need to study philosophy because it would just taint you. Of course we didn’t know that the words we were speaking and ways we were thinking were already tainted. We were living in a mixture of faiths while trying to be pure and holy. I’ve been doing it my whole life.
At the same time that I’m concerned about the condition of the church and its hybrid faith, I am greatly encouraged for the future. Why? Because humanism, the idolatry of self, has already reached its pinnacle. It has no foundation to build on. As long as it was mixed with Christianity it could pretend to look to the future with hope but that time is long gone. The tide is turning. Humanism is dying. Of course it has been dying for 6000 years but it is working out its core beliefs like never before and it is finding there is no place it can turn for meaning because from its foundation there can be no meaning.
One thing I can be grateful for in american culture is that we have led the way in making sure that humanism has infiltrated every inch of the world we live in and that means that Islam and all the other religions that are already idolistic in nature will also succumb to the decay of the exaltation of man as God and eventually come tumbling down just like we have.
That is a glorious opportunity for a remnant to rise to the occasion because Christianity is the only faith that can provide meaning beyond a superficial level in this world. It is in the death of a cultures and the collapsing of foundations that God provides the best opportunity for his kingdom to advance by building a strong foundation.
We have the opportunity before us in the next 25 to 50 years to lay a solid foundation for a new culture if we are willing to lay aside our idols and purge our minds of synthesis. Now is the time for the bride to stop playing around on her husband and be faithful. It’s time to stop looking back at the lie of the good old days. The reformation may have been a wonderful thing in the life of the church but it was also a wonderful thing in the life of Humanism and two hundred years after the revolution began humanism had for all intents and purposes already won that battle. The long slow collapse we are in is evidence of that.
The time is fast approaching for a new battle. The question is will humanism be fighting a hybrid Christianity built on a foundation of sand or Christianity build solely on the rock of Christ Jesus? If it is the former then nothing will change. If it is the latter then the gates of hell will not, cannot prevail. The question is will we advance the kingdom of God or the kingdom of man? There aren’t any other options.
I’m reminded of Led Zepplin’s Battle of Evermore:
The Queen of Light took her bow and then she turned to go. The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom and walked the night alone. Oh, dance in the dark of night Sing to the morning light.
The dark Lord rides in force tonight and time will tell us all Oh, throw down your plow and hoe Rest not to lock your homes
Side by side we wait the night of the darkest of them all. I hear the horses' thunder down in the valley below
I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon waiting for the eastern glow.
It may be that the angels are waiting for us to quit being a mixture of clay and iron before they begin to fight. How long will we relish being married to two husbands? How long until we pick one and love him with all our heart, soul and might? Only then will we see the eastern glow break through this dark night.
Grace and Peace,
Brad
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