If We’ve Only Got One Life…

The Glory Of It All

At the start
He was there, He was there
In the end
He’ll be there, He’ll be there
And after all
Our hands have wrought
He forgives

Oh, the glory of it all
Is He came here
For the rescue of us all
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, the glory of it all

All is lost
Find Him there, Find Him there
After night
Dawn is there, Dawn is there
And after all
Falls apart
He repairs, He repairs

Oh, the glory of it all
Is He came here
For the rescue of us all
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, He is here
With redemption from the fall
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, the glory of it all

After night
Comes a light
Dawn is here
Dawn is here
It’s a new day, a new day
Oh, everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be the same

Oh, the glory of it all
Is You came here
For the rescue of us all
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, You are here
With redemption for us all
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, the glory of it all

Oh, everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be same

Posted in Lyrical Commentary | 2 Comments »

Stott on Substitution

Worth reading carefully:

The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation.  For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.  Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.  Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone.

…

The doctrine of substitution affirms not only a fact (God in Christ substituted himself for us) but its necessity (there was no other way by which God’s holy love could be satisfied and rebellious human beings could be saved).  Therefore, as we stand before the cross, we begin to gain a clear view both of God and of ourselves, especially in relation to each other.  Instead of inflicting on us the judgment we deserved, God in Christ endured it in our place.  Hell is the only alternative.  This is the “scandal,” the stumbling block, of the cross.  For our proud hearts rebel against it.  We cannot bear to acknowledge either the seriousness of our sin and guilt or our utter indebtedness to the cross.  Surely, we say, there must be something we can do, or at least contribute, in order to make amends?  If not, we often give the impression that we would rather suffer our own punishment than the humiliation of seeing God through Christ bear it in our place.  

- John Stott, The Cross of Christ, pp159-160

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“If the Bible is a sword, this is the Braveheart sword!”

(according to Cornell’s Crusade staff director)

About 6 weeks ago, Crossway came out with their new ESV Study Bible.  We’ve been looking forward to it for a while now.  With the help of Desiring God (where I worked this summer) and a Cornell alum, we were able to give out 80 study Bibles to all of the students in Campus Crusade at Cornell’s Bible studies!  

This does several things:

• Every student has the same translation - the English Standard Version - which we’ve been encouraging for years now.
• Every student has a solid study Bible for use in personal Bible study and devotions - they can learn how to use and benefit from all the different reference systems - footnotes, study notes, crossreferences, concordance, charts, maps, book intros, etc.
• Each Bible has dozens of helpful articles about Christian ethics, theology, how to read the Bible, etc.  At a conference we just went to, the speaker (a prof from Gordon Conwell) said something to the extent of “if you read and learn all the extra articles in the ESV Study Bible, you’ll get the equivalent of a Bible College education.”  

The top of the stack of boxes (14 of them!):

One of our Bible studies getting their Bibles:

When you have 80 of the same Bible floating around, marking up the outside is helpful…

-Ben

Posted in Book Reviews | 6 Comments »

Don’t Waste Your Schoolwork

Over at the Cru blog, I wrote:

We study hard using the minds God has gifted us with, knowing that ultimately, what we need is not good grades or a good job, but Jesus. When we do well, we know that our hope is not in our own skills and abilities, but in Jesus. When we do poorly, we rest assured that it is Jesus that saves and satisfies us, not good grades.

A couple of people have mentioned to me recently that I talk a lot about not making schoolwork (among other things) an idol and not much about how to do schoolwork itself to the glory of God.

Some verses that come to mind are in Colossians 3 when Paul is talking about how slaves should obey their masters:

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. - Colossians 3:22-24

We can glean a couple of things from this passage.  We don’t work as people-pleasers.  Instead we work as Jesus-pleasers.  People may very well be pleased (your teachers, your parents, yourself), but that’s not the goal.  Pleasing Jesus is the goal.  This reminds me of 1 Samuel 16:7:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Honoring God with schoolwork does NOT mean getting straight A’s or a 4.3 GPA.  That might happen as a result of it, but it is not defined by it.  (Sorry parents!)  That is, God’s glorification is NOT equivalent to your academic success.  God is glorified by the attitude with which you approach schoolwork.  Glorifying God is NOT a performance issue.  It is a heart issue.

Verse 24 gives as the grounds of all of this knowing that we will “receive the inheritance as your reward.”  What is that inheritance?  

“This shall be their inheritance: I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession. - Ezekiel 44:28

An eternity spent enjoying God!  Eternal joy in Jesus is our motivation for work.

How does that work out practically?  A few ways:

1. We do schoolwork for our joy, in GOD.  Our hope is God, not the schoolwork, not the grades, not the approval of parents, not the job, not the money, not the status, not the comfort.  Our hope is far greater and deeper, and lasts far longer.

2. We do schoolwork “serving the Lord Christ.”  Pursuing God and doing work are not mutually exclusive.  Schoolwork is NOT to be discarded, it is to be redeemed.

3. We do schoolwork thankfully.  

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. - Colossians 3:17

One of the guys in my Community Group put it this way: “You don’t deserve an F.  You deserve death.”  We’ve been saved by grace, we’ve been given life by grace, we’ve been allowed to work and learn by grace, and we’ve been given the capacity to do so by grace…

4. We do schoolwork attentively.  You’re learning about God and the things he’s done!  God created an ordered universe, and as we learn about it, we learn about God.  And as another of the guys in my Community Group pointed out, we also learn about man’s depravity (history, government, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.) and can use that to learn about our depravity.

Work is obedience that flows out of our love for Jesus.  

-Ben

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The Lord’s Prayer

From pages 61-62 of Paul Tripp’s Whiter Than Snow:

Here are the radical words I have been alluding to: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).  I must admit that I don’t always greet God’s kingdom with delight.  There are things that I want in my life, and I not only want them, but know how, when, and where I want them!  I want my life to be comfortable.  I want my schedule to be unobstructed and predictable.  I want the people around me to esteem and appreciate me.  I want control over the situation and relationships in my life.  I want people to affirm my opinions and follow my lead.  I want the pleasures that I find entertaining to be available to me.  I want the ministry initiatives I direct to be well received and successful.  I want my children to appreciate that they have been blessed with me as their father.  I want my wife to be a joyful and committed supporter of my dreams.  I don’t want to suffer.  I don’t want to live without.  I don’t want to have to deal with personal defeat or ministry failure.  What I am saying is that I want my kingdom to come and my will to be done.

In this way I stand with David.  In David’s kingdom, Bathsheba would be his wife.  In David’s kingdom, Bathsheba would have had no husband.  In David’s kingdom he could have Bathsheba and the blessing of the Lord on his reign at the same time.  So, David acted out of zeal for his own kingdom, forgetting that he was sent as the ambassador of a greater King.  Sadly, I do the very same thing.  I get mad at one of my children, not because they broke God’s law but because they broke mine.  I get impatient with my wife because she is delaying the realization of the purposes of my kingdom of one.  Or I get discouraged with God because he brings the very uncomfortable things into my life that I work so hard to avoid.

“Thy kingdom come” is a dangerous prayer, for it means the death of your own sovereignty.  It means your life will be shaped by the will of another.  It means that you will experience the messiness, discomfort, and difficulty of God’s refining grace.  It means surrendering the center of your universe to the One who alone deserves to be there.  It means loving God above all else and your neighbor as yourself.  It means experiencing the freedom that can only be found when God breaks your bondage to you!  It means finally living for the one glory that is truly glorious, the glory of God.

-Ben

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Lecrae’s New Album: Rebel

Here’s 3 of the songs from Lecrae’s new album.  I really like Don’t Waste Your Life, but all are good.

Click here to pre-order “Rebel.” Releases 9/30/08.

I’ll post lyrics as soon as I get them. Here’s the album cover:

-Ben

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

What’s the biggest thing you’ve asked God for this week?

Do you know why I often ask Christians, “What’s the biggest thing you’ve asked God for this week?”  I remind them that they are going to God, The Father, the Maker of the Universe, The One who holds the world in His hands. What did you ask God for? Did you ask for peanuts, toys, trinkets, or did you ask for continents?

I want to tell you … it’s tragic! The little itsy-bitsy things we ask of our Almighty God. Sure, nothing is too small — but also nothing is too big. Let’s learn to ask for our big God some of those big things He talks about in Jeremiah 33:3: “Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things that thou knowest not.”

- Dawson Trotman

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Christ Died To Bring You To God

The Cross doesn’t show us how amazing we are.  The Cross shows us how amazing God is.

I don’t go out of my way to get you to use Google Talk, Gmail, Google Docs, etc. because I think you’re amazing.  I do it because I think they’re amazing.  My love for you, as demonstrated by me commending Gmail to you, is not based on how amazing you are.  My love for you plays itself out by me working for your good - using Gmail :-).

Gmail is pretty amazing, but it isn’t that amazing.  I wouldn’t die so that you would use Gmail.  But there is something worth dying for:

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. - 1 Peter 3:18

Why did God die for us?  Because He loves us:

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

How does that love play itself out?  By working for our ultimate good.  By bringing us to God!

How much is God worth?  How good/satisfying is God?  We get a glimpse of that when we see what God was willing to do to bring us to himself.

The incomparable terror of God pouring out his wrath on Jesus points to the value that God places in Jesus. Jesus was terrorized so that we might be satisfied in Jesus above all things, and see that Jesus is satisfying above all things!

-Ben

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Far Too Easily Pleased

God gives us many good gifts, but it is easy to treasure gift above Giver.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. - Romans 1:24-25

What is the “truth about God”?  That he is good, that he is the ultimate satisfaction, that he is not just the ticket to the show… he is the show!

I noticed a few times today how I keep looking for satisfaction in things other than God - music, blogs, CNN, food, wandering around talking to my family, Olympics, Wikipedia, packing, cleaning, etc.  And all of those can be used to glorify and point to God.  But God kept pointing out to me the state of my heart: Jesus wasn’t enough for me, so I kept running to other things.

What are you trying to satisfy yourself with right now?  Olympics or Jesus?

If all else were to disappear right now and it was just you, your Bible, and Jesus, would that be enough?

Can you say with the Psalmist, “I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight” (Psalm 119:174)?

Praying that Jesus would satisfy our souls,

-Ben

ps. here’s what God drew me to late this evening:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

- Colossians 1:15-23

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Eyes Open by Trip Lee

[Note all the theology packed into verse 2...  ]

Verse 1:
Good evening brethren, let’s go a special direction
Look back, let’s meet a young’n that was born in 87
His parents was so happy, rejoicing at they new blessing
He breathes life, at the same time death without a question
His parents gazed in his eyes, adoring him as he hollers
He got his eyes from his mama, he got his nose from his father
Its crazy how this baby, is so precious but I’m saddened
He got his name from grandfather, his depravity from Adam
That’s how it goes and hey look as he grows
You can see he’s so blind, his eyes seem as they closed
He’s so weak and it shows, he can’t keep from what He knows
Is wrong, he knows it’s bad but dag he wants it though
And all throughout his years, he looks good to his peers
And his parents, and his self but if we could only peer
On the inside, we’d see that from the start it was dark
Until a Savior stepped in and gave Him a new heart, eyes opened!

Hook:
I know I once was blind, Oh Lord but now I see
You sent your Son from above to come and rescue me
He’s the light of the world, maker of you and me
His Spirit shines so bright for all of us to see
Now that my vision’s clear, Oh Lord we sing your praise
And pray that those in the world would turn and seek your face
Father we thank you for eyes to see so we can know you and love you forever
So that we can love you forever (2X)

Verse 2:
Yeah I was blinded in the past, like my mind was in the trash
Incapable of doing good or even finding him the task
Was beyond what I could grasp, my righteousness is rags
So He had to do all the work, by His design you do the math
The math, who get’s the glory, hey who get’s the praise?
Predestined, I was elected, resurrected from the grave
Plus His loved was never based on my past or present state
On anything that I obtained I was a mess but blessed with grace
By grace, I’m in love with Him
He gave me something within
He doesn’t love me cause of me nope He loves me because of Him
No He didn’t have to save and raise me when I was dead
But He dragged me out the morgue, now the praise of His name is spread
He died for all He would save, it’s crazy the Savior bled
Erasing taking my dread, and gave me some grace instead
The kind I wouldn’t resist, I came praise be to Him
And I’m confident if I’m in Him Ima make it to the end with eyes open

Hook:
I know I once was blind, Oh Lord but now I see
You sent your Son from above to come and rescue me
He’s the light of the world, maker of you and me
His Spirit shines so bright for all of us to see
Now that my vision’s clear, Oh Lord we sing your praise
And pray that those in the world would turn and seek your face
Father we thank you for eyes to see so we can know you and love you forever
So that we can love you forever (2X)

Now that my eyes is open, gotta keep that Bible open
Not just so that I can quote Him, I’m hopin that I’ll behold Him
Until I lay in the grave, I’m praying I’ll stay in motion
Gazing with eyes of faith He gave me baby, I’m focused
I’m praying all through my 20’s I’ll see Him in 20/20
Looking at Him till I look like Him almost like His twin He’s
So merciful, His Word is so packed I’m telling many
About the glory of Christ, tryna rep Him with all that’s in me

Hook:
I know I once was blind, Oh Lord but now I see
You sent your Son from above to come and rescue me
He’s the light of the world, maker of you and me
His Spirit shines so bright for all of us to see
Now that my vision’s clear, Oh Lord we sing your praise
And pray that those in the world would turn and seek your face
Father we thank you for eyes to see so we can know you and love you forever
So that we can love you forever (2X)

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