What wisdom once devised the plan
Where all our sin and pride
Was placed upon the perfect Lamb
Who suffered, bled, and died?
The wisdom of a Sovereign God
Whose greatness will be shown
When those who crucified Your Son
Rejoice around Your throne

And, oh, the glory of the cross
That You would send Your Son for us
I gladly count my life as loss
That I might come to know
The glory of, the glory of the cross

What righteousness was there revealed
That sets the guilty free
That justifies ungodly men
And calls the filthy clean?
A righteousness that proved to all
Your justice has been met
And holy wrath is satisfied
Through one atoning death

What mercy now has been proclaimed
For those who would believe
A love incomprehensible
Our minds could not conceive?
A mercy that forgives my sin
Then makes me like Your Son
And now I’m loved forevermore
Because of what You’ve done

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

First Kings 18 is the famous story of Elijah vs. the Prophets of Baal… The prophets pray all day for fire and don’t get it.  Elijah prays a very simple prayer for fire and God sends fire that incinerates everything.  Pretty sweet story.  If you want to read something that might get you excited about reading the OT again, read this one.  First Kings 19 is Elijah running away from Ahab’s angry wife Jezebel, and ends with Elijah finding Elisha, who will eventually succeed him.

Chapter 20 is what struck me as odd.  Ahab is the King of Israel.  He’s fighting with the king of Syria.  Ahab was a wicked king who did not love God.  The king of Syria gathered together a bunch of other kings to go attack Ahab at Samaria.  They threaten Ahab then do something really stupid – get drunk in their tents.  So Ahab goes out after the kings, killing a bunch of people and causing the rest to flee.

Like any semi-intelligent commander, the king of Syria and his servants debrief what happened during the battle.  Here’s their diagnosis – fitting with their pagan, superstitious nature and not all that odd to us:

²³ And the servants of the king of Syria said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills, and so they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. ²⁴ And do this: remove the kings, each from his post, and put commanders in their places, ²⁵ and muster an army like the army that you have lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot. Then we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.” And he listened to their voice and did so.

See their solution: their god is a god of the hills, so fight them next time in the plains instead.  A few verses later, we see that this line of thinking leads to their destruction:

²⁸ And a man of God came near and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,” therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ”

That shocked me. It shouldn’t, but it did.

My thinking goes like, “these people are sinners.  And they’re not even Israelites.  They worship Pagan gods, they always have, and they probably always will.  This response is their natural, default response.  If I were in their position, I would probably come to the same conclusion.  It make sense.”

God’s thinking goes like, “these people are sinners.  With their every breath, they glorify things other than me.  This may be their default, but their default is sinful and thus deserves wrath.”

The difference?  God takes sin – each sin – much more seriously than we do. God takes us treasuring things other than Him seriously.  Every single instance of it.  He “gave over” a King and a “great multitude” because of a sin as simple as this, and it was completely just.  But we reduce it to “oh, that one action isn’t that bad.  I’m dealing with other sin right now.”  Or worse, like the Syrians, we think “there’s nothing wrong with this.  This is right and good and natural and consistent and normal,” blind to our own blindness.

1.  “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” – Philippians 1:21

As I’m writing this, I happen to be listening to the song “Center” by Charlie Hall.  Here’s the chorus:

Oh, Christ be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

A Christians, we need to be Christ-centered, Cross-centered, and Gospel-centered in our thinking, in our feeling, and in our acting.  When Christ is the center of our lives, everything revolves around Him.  Everything is done in light of Him.   As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 

So often we like to think that we are our own – we are accountable only to ourselves and we can do anything we want.  That there is no reality outside ourselves.  Even more often, we intellectually acknowledge that “we are not our own”, but we still don’t “glorify God in our bodies.”

Why?  Peter diagnoses it perfectly in 1 Peter 2:9 – “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”  We’ve forgotten the Gospel.  We don’t live in light of what Christ has done.

Christ, and the Gospel, are no longer at the center.

And so we can no longer honestly declare, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  Because to live isn’t Christ, and dying sucks because all the things we think life is can’t come with us when we die.

But as “to live is Christ” becomes more of a reality, we can think and make decisions in light of the fact that dying is gain.  How radically transformative is that?   We decide to do things – get a job, get married, get a new house, etc. – knowing that they are only temporary, they aren’t the biggest deal, and that Jesus and life with Jesus forever is so much greater.

2.  “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1

An observation: we need to be discerning of seasons.  That is, sometimes it is the right time to do something and we don’t realize it and so we don’t do it.  And equally often, it is the wrong time to do something, and we don’t realize it, and we do it anyway.

Just because something is good in general doesn’t mean it is right for you RIGHT NOW.

An obvious example: college is good.  If you’re 5 years old, though, you probably shouldn’t be in college.

Marriage is good (for most – some are called to singleness, but most aren’t).  But right now might not be the right time.  Moving to an unreached people group to tell them about Jesus is good.  But right now might not be the right time.

3.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:2

What this verse is saying:

1. The “will of God” is “what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  We should want to know these things.
2. It is possible to discern the will of God.
3. Discerning is done by us
4. We are evil and need to be changed before we can properly discern what God’s will is
5. WE (our whole selves) are transformed as our minds are transformed
6. Our minds are transformed through scripture (2 Tim 3:16 – scripture is useful for training in righteousness)

Bottom line – there is a will of God, it is revealed to us through scripture, and we should try to know it and follow it.

4.  “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4

This verse is important as you look at this question from a Christian Hedonistic perspective.  As you delight in God – as He becomes your joy and your treasure – then He will give you new desires, in line with what will increase your joy in Him.  As Christ becomes your treasure, you will long for more and more of Him.

Similarly, if you are not delighting in God, you should be skeptical of your desires.  Your mind may deceive you as you know what categories of things are “good”, but you don’t know which one is “right”, and so human desires – for comfort, security, status, approval, etc. – take over and your heart desires for you to be made much of instead of Jesus.

5.  “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31

All of life is worship.  That is, we are always worshiping (making much of) something.  It may be God, it may be something else.  Our job as Christians is to repent of sin (worshiping things other than God) and worship God.  Everything we do should be done to make God – not that which we are doing – look great.

This is one of the most important questions we need to ask as Christians, and I fear we think about it far too little – “How do I do ______ to the glory of God.”  How do I walk to class to the glory of God?  How do I do homework to the glory of God?  How do I go shopping for food to the glory of God?

As Christians we know we’re supposed to avoid “sin”.  Too often we try to do that by asking questions like, “How far is too far?” or “This isn’t bad, is it?”.  Those questions betray us, as they reveal a self-centered heart that wants to assuage its guilt, not glorify God.  Glorifying God should be the primary question, motive, and desire of our hearts and lives.

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” – Romans 11:36

-Ben