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

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

1. Everyone else to stop sinning in ways that annoy me, inconvenience me, or make me feel like I need to rebuke them or tell them to stop.
2. Everyone else to focus on making me happy, meeting my needs, fixing my problems.

Simple enough, right?  I feel like I’m not too unique here.

Here’s Jesus’ approach: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Mark 10:45

I can’t “give my life as a ransom for many” and atone for sin.  But I can stop looking at myself and start looking at Jesus because of His atonement for sin. And I can serve others, for His glory, as Jesus enabled me and showed me how to do.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. – 1 Peter 4:10-11

How to really be happy?  Live pointing at, relying on, and hoping in Jesus.

-Ben

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.

But on the other hand I find that, because I am a sinner, I have got to work harder intellectually and mentally to see there is an even richer vocabulary for grace. Under the principle of Romans 5:20—“where sin abounds, grace super-abounds”—has got to be a principle on which I will live my Christian life. I’m reminded of the hymn,

O Jesus! full of pardoning grace,—
More full of grace than I of sin.

And if somebody quibbles by saying surely the work of Christ is equivalent grace to sin, I think, “No. Paul is saying there really is more grace in Christ than sin in me.”

And then later on…

Grace is Christ. When I am in Christ I am going to become more conscious of my other sins and the same sins at deeper levels. I realize what I thought was the sin was actually only the manifestation of the real sin.

I am constantly being turned in this sin/grace, sin/grace, sin/grace cycle all my days.

Okay, now go read the whole thing.

-Ben

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” – Luke 21:1-4

I think that too often I (all of us, probably) read this passage and think, “well, I’m not in poverty, so I don’t need to “put in” all I have. As long as I’m not as stingy as the “rich”, I’m alright.”

But then I read down a little farther and am further warned:

“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life” – Luke 21:34

The woman who put in all she had to live on was not weighed down with the cares of this life. The rich were.

I am.

But that, too, is a sin for which Jesus died.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. – 2 Corinthians 8:9

By Jesus’ poverty – not by my own wealth accumulation – I become rich. Rich in what? I get to enjoy Jesus, forever, in heaven – that’s true richness.

-Ben

Some quotes that struck me today:

As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature.  It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived. – C.H. Spurgeon

Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters.  The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy. – G.K. Chesterton

Saving grace makes a man as willing to leave his lusts as a slave is willing to leave his galley, or a prisoner his dungeon, or a thief his bolts, or a beggar his rags. – Thomas Brooks

God’s goal in saving you was not just to make your few years on planet Earth easier or more enjoyable.  He had an eternal end in view.  His intent was to make you holy, as He is holy, that you might perfectly glorify Him, that you might bring Him pleasure, and that you might enjoy intimate fellowship with Him for all eternity. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

The message of the Bible provides the only answer to humanity’s most pressing need:  to know God himself.  Having been created by God for God, the “self” can never be “self-satisfied.”  Yet, having lost sight of the God revealed in the Bible, all we can see is our self, with its futile drive to meet its own ever-changing but never satisfied cravings for the second-rate pleasures of this world. – Scott Hafemann 

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water…. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. – C.S. Lewis 

A note of caution: be wary of idolizing the words of men and the men who speak those words.  Let them point you away from yourself (and away from themselves) towards God.

-Ben

This could become one of my favorite books, I think.

I’ll post much more thoroughly from it in the coming days, but let me leave you with the following thoughts/quotes (bolding mine, italics not):

“Only those who are aware of God’s wrath are amazed at God’s grace.”

In a chapter on feeling:

“Lloyd-Jones reminds us that ‘what we have in the Bible is Truth; it is not an emotional stimulus…and it is as we apprehend and submit ourselves to the truth that the feelings follow.’”

“Lloyd-Jones then proceeds to this profound application: ‘I must never ask myself in the first instance: What do I feel about this?  The first question is, Do I believe it?’”

“Knowing and wholeheartedly believing the truth will always bring you, in time, to a trustworthy experience of the truth.  But if you trust your feelings first and foremost, if you exalt your feelings, if you invest your feelings with final authority – they’ll deposit you on the emotional roller coaster which so often characterizes our lives.”

“‘Have you realized,’ [Lloyd-Jones] observed, ‘that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?’”

“On a daily basis, we’re faced with two simple choices.  We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He’s accomplished for us at the cross through His Son Jesus.”

And the next few chapters….

“John Calvin wisely instructs us, ‘When we behold the disfigurement of the Son of God, when we find ourselves appalled by his marred appearance, we need to reckon afresh that it is upon ourselves we gaze, for he stood in our place.” 

“When you’re tempted to doubt God’s love for you, stand before the cross and look at the wounded, dying, disfigured Saviour and realize why He is there.  I believe His Father would whisper to us, ‘Isn’t that sufficient?  I haven’t spared My own Son; I deformed and disfigured and crushed Him – for you.  What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?’  That’s how far God’s love goes.”

“R. C. Sproul wrote that the most perplexing theological question is not why there’s suffering in this world, but why God tolerates us in our sinfulness.  Considering how our sin must appear in the pure sight of the righteous and holy God who created us, why are we even still here, alive and breathing?  God’s mercy is indeed an incredible mystery.”

“When you tell non-Christians, ‘God loves you,’ they aren’t surprised, they aren’t perplexed, they aren’t stunned.  Regrettably, the same is true among most evangelicals, who simply assume this gracious disposition of God – and therefore presume upon it.  And we’ll continue to do this until we learn to see our condition more fully from God’s perspective.”

I’ll comment on these, and undoubtedly have more to post, in the coming week.

-Ben