If We've Only Got One Life…

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 Music/Videos, Recommendations | 6 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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This Is Love

How do you define “love”?

First John 4:9 warns us NOT to try to define it based on ourselves: “not that we have loved God but that he loved us.”  We do love God and love people, but the Bible says that we can’t use our meager loving to define love.  We are to use God’s love for us and God’s love for himself.

The Ben Hutton paraphrase of 1 John 4:9-10:  “This is the most loving thing ever, and should be an example of how to love: a Father sent his Son on a mission to die, and as part of that death, the Father punished the Son for the sin of many people by pouring out his righteous fury on him.”

God’s chief example of love involved wrath and death.  It wasn’t pretty.  It wasn’t comfortable.  But it was glorious.  The objective fact was that God’s actions were loving.

Too often we rely on our subjective feelings to determine whether actions are loving.  But often, we feel wrong.  Just as our thoughts and our actions need to be sanctified, so do our feelings. And what is most loving might also be what is most painful, and not feel loving at all – especially in the short-term.  Looking back, things are often different.

Back in the day, some of the guys in Crusade liked to throw the term “bricking” around.  It consisted of speaking truth, in love, into each other’s lives.  It often felt, at the moment, like you were getting hit with a brick.  But that’s how it has to happen sometimes.  Life is war.

First John 4:7 is startling:  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

Love is distinctly Christian.  Nonchristians “love” each other… but according to the Bible, not really.  There must be something distinct about the Christian way of “loving” that makes it love.  What makes it distinct is that Christian love is not about subjective feeling (though it often includes that), but about objective Fact.

One way to describe God’s love: “his commitment to do everything necessary (most painfully the death of his only Son) to enthrall us with what is most deeply and durably satisfying—namely, himself.”

It works the same for us – we love others by working to “enthrall them with what is most deeply and durably satisfying.”  We love others by pointing them to that which is the greatest good and the greatest joy: God.  We love others by making them happy in God! This is our goal with both Christians and nonchristians – that they would be know God.

Verse 7 says that love comes out of “knowing God”.   To help others know God, we need to know him first.  Love necessarily flows out of knowledge of God.

Verse 12 says, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” We make up for the fact that nobody has directly seen God’s face by loving them – showing them God!

Verse 10 says, “he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  The ultimate loving act was God doing what was necessary for us to be with Jesus forever in heaven.  God gave us himself by taking our sin and punishment upon himself.

Why?  So that we would know and enjoy God forever.

Does your definition of love match up?  Are you really loving people?  Christians?  Nonchristians?

-Ben

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C.S. Lewis on Heaven

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

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A Liberal Church… “A Lonely Place”

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  – James 4:8

-Ben

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