This was not a repressed acting. This was a released acting. It was not acting in the service of imagination. It was acting in the service of reality. This was not rendering the imaginary as real. It was rendering the super-realness of the real as sheer awesome, breathtaking real. This was not affectation. This was a passionate re-presentation-replication-of reality. This was not the mighty microscope using all its powers to make the small look impressively big. This was the desperately inadequate telescope bending every power to give some small sense of the majesty of what too many preachers saw as tiresome and unreal.

My sister and I did well in school and we were tracking towards  lucrative careers.  We could have done anything.  We could have been incredibly comfortable and recognized.  Between my sister, my 2 brothers-in-law, my wife, and me, we have 15 undergraduate and graduate degrees.  Eleven of the 15 are from Ivy League school including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania.  

Now all 5 of us are either missionaries or heading to the mission field.

When some people hear of this, they think it’s tragic.  Tragic.  

But others see it like the pouring of ridiculously expensive and precious perfume upon the feet of Jesus.

Will those who fast the American Dream regret it in heaven?  

Now fasting the American Dream does not mean neglecting excellence.  I advocate for excellence in missions.  Somehow over the last few decades the idea has developed that missionaries are people who can’t do anything else or people who can’t have a successful ministry in their own country.  

“To those who receive great educations and have every opportunity to live wonderfully comfortable lives”, Francis Xavier says, “Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the Gospel of Christ!”

-Ben

Scott Peck, in his best-selling book, The Road Less Traveled, suggests that we can shape other people into host organisms. It is not a pretty picture: people are the intestine, we are the worm.

“I do not want to live. I cannot live without my husband [wife, girlfriend, boyfriend], I love him [or her] so much.”

And when I respond, as I frequently do, “You are mistaken; you do not love your husband [wife, girlfriend, boyfriend].”

“What do you mean?” is the angry question. “I just told you I can’t live without him [or her].”

I try to explain. “What you describe is parasitism, not love.”

The Bible summarizes these various shapes this way: People are our cherished idols. We worship them, hoping they will take care of us, hoping they will give us what we feel we need.  What we really need are biblical shapes and identities for other people.  Then, instead of needing people to fill our desires, we can love people for the sake of God’s glory and fulfill the purpose for which we were created.

-Ben

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

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

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

It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time there were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know.

The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

- The Last Battle

If you haven’t listened to Piper’s message called The Triumph Of The Gospel In The New Heavens And The New Earth, you should check it out.  Other than Prayer: The Work Of Missions, it’s the Piper message I’ve listened to the most.

-Ben

Come now, you who say, ”Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ”If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
- James 4:13-17

Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
- Psalm 150

Here’s the point. Before you can ever make a clean and unamended confession of your sin, you have to first begin by confessing your righteousness. It’s not just your sin that separates you from God, your righteousness does as well. Because, when you are convinced you are righteous, you don’t seek the forgiving, rescuing, and restoring mercy that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

What’s actually true is that when I come to the Lord after I’ve blown it, I’ve only one argument to make. It’s not the argument of the difficulty of the environment that I am in. It’s not the argument of the difficult people that I’m near. It’s not the argument of good intentions that were thwarted in some way. No, I only have one argument. It’s right there in the first verse of Psalm 51, as David confesses his sin with Bathsheba. I come to the Lord with only one appeal; his mercy. I’ve no other defense. I’ve no other standing. I’ve no other hope. I can’t escape the reality of my biggest problem; me! So I appeal to the one thing in my life that’s sure and will never fail. I appeal to the one thing that guaranteed not only my acceptance with God, but the hope of new beginnings and fresh starts. I appeal on the basis of the greatest gift I ever have or ever will be given. I leave the courtroom of my own defense, I come out of hiding and I admit who I am. But I’m not afraid, because I’ve been personally and eternally blessed. Because of what Jesus has done, God looks on me with mercy. It’s my only appeal, it’s the source of my hope, it’s my life. Mercy, mercy me!

-Ben

I—(Incline!) The first thing my soul needs is an inclination toward God and his Word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his Word and draw near to him. Where does that “want to” come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 119:36 teaches us to pray, “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” Very simply we ask God to take our hearts, which are more inclined to breakfast and the newspaper, and change that inclination. We are asking that God create desires that are not there.

O—(Open!) Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened so that when my inclination leads me to the Word, I see what is really there, and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart? God does. So Psalm 119:18 teaches us to pray, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” So many times we read the Bible and see nothing wonderful. Its reading does not produce joy. So what can we do? We can cry to God: “Open the eyes of my heart, O Lord, to see what it says about you as wonderful.”

U—(Unite!) Then I am concerned that my heart is badly fragmented. Parts of it are inclined, and parts of it are not. Parts see wonder, and parts say, “That’s not so wonderful.” What I long for is a united heart where all the parts say a joyful Yes! to what God reveals in his Word. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 86:11 teaches us to pray, “Unite my heart to fear your name.” Don’t stumble over the word fear when you thought we were seeking joy. The fear of the Lord is a joyful experience when you renounce all sin. A thunderstorm can be a trembling joy when you know you can’t be destroyed by lightning. “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to . . . the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name” (Neh. 1:11). “His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD” (Isa. 11:3). Therefore pray that God would unite your heart to joyfully fear the Lord.

S—(Satisfy!) What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is for my heart to be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 90:14 teaches us to pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

-Ben