Jon Bloom's Blog, page 45

Pray for the Strength That God Supplies

We weak people frequently need to pray for strength. “Oh Father, please give me strength for ___” is a wonderful prayer. It’s a necessary prayer, and it’s a God-honoring prayer because it recognizes the true source of our strength (Exodus 15:2).

What Are We Really Asking For?

But when we ask God for strength, what are we asking for? Are we asking for the strength that God wants to give, or are we asking for the strength that we want to have?

The reason this is important to ask is because the two may not be the same. Highest on God’s agenda for us is strengthening our faith (Hebrews 11:6, Galatians 2:20). Highest on our agenda is frequently accomplishing something necessary or noble, or escaping affliction or humiliation. These may not be wrong desires, but they may be the wrong priorities.

When this is the case, our conception of the strength we need differs from God’s. When we pray for strength, we may imagine the answer looking like increased capacities to accomplish or escape. But the strength that God supplies (1 Peter 4:11) is often increased capacities to trust his promises, which might require dying to our envisioned accomplishment or enduring what we wish to escape.

When our conceptions collide with God’s, we are tempted to grow frustrated with God and lose heart in prayer (Luke 18:1). Because we ask for strength and what we receive, it seems to us, is less strength. In fact, things get worse. Our weaknesses are heightened, not diminished. But what’s really happening here is not God’s negligence or indifference to our prayers, but a conflict between our expectations and God’s intentions.

However, once we realize that the strength that God is working to supply us is the best, most joyful and hope-giving strength we can possibly have, it will change the way we pray for strength and change our understanding of God’s answers.

When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong?

The biblical pattern of God strengthening his saints is this:
God chooses a sinful, weak person to be his redeemed saint;
God further weakens this saint through circumstantial and/or physical adversity;
The saint is forced to trust God’s promises;
God proves himself faithful to his promises;
The saint’s faith is strengthened and hope abounds because his/her faith doesn’t rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5).

This pattern is woven all through the Bible. As soon as you see it, you see it everywhere. Perhaps the text that most clearly demonstrates this pattern is what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10:

[7] So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. [8] Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. [9] But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [10] For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

That is a strange statement: “when I am weak, then I am strong.” What did Paul mean? He meant that through the loving discipline of God’s appointed thorn — his weakening agent — Paul was forced to “rely not on [himself] but on God who raises the dead” and set his hope fully on God (2 Corinthians 1:9–10). Paul came to understand that this weakening agent became a strengthening agent in the hand of God.

God changed Paul’s understanding, which strengthened his faith, which fueled his hope.

How God Loves to Strengthen Us

When God begins to answer our prayer for strength, often the first thing he does is help us unlearn our wrong understandings. Experiencing the failure of these wrong understandings might initially cause us confusion, discouragement, or depression. But through the process of unlearning and re-learning, God supplies us the “strength to comprehend” his fathomless love and wise purposes (Ephesians 3:18–19).

An accurate understanding of God’s love and purposes then increases our faith. We begin to increasingly “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7) because we have a deeper understanding that God’s promises are more trustworthy than our perceptions (Proverbs 3:5). We begin to rely more on God than on ourselves (2 Corinthians 1:9). This is the strength that God wants to supply in answer to our prayers because it is the showcase of his strength (“my power is made perfect in weakness”).

As the strength of our faith grows, so does hope in our souls. When we rely less on ourselves and more on God who raises the dead, and when we are increasingly confident that God is for us, so nothing can ultimately stand against us (Romans 8:31), what happens is that “the God of hope [fills us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit [we] may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).

God loves to answer our prayers with the strength that causes us to abound in faith-fueled hope.

Pray for the Strength that God Supplies

God loves when you pray for strength. And he promises to answer you:

Fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10, emphasis added).

So, pray with confidence. And pray for the strength that God supplies. And keep your eyes open for his answers. They may not look like your expectations. But you can be sure that even when he answers with a weakening agent, God is working to strengthen your understanding, strengthen your faith, and strengthen your hope in him.

Related resources:

Finding Heaven Through the Haze
Prayer and the Victory of God
Prayer: the Power of Christian Hedonism

Where Do Others Fit in Your Schedule?

“All of life is a medium for relationship,” says Matt Reagan. In some cultures in the world, this statement would seem so patently obvious that folks would look at you funny if you said it. “Yes,” they might answer, “what else would life be for?”

But this is not obviously true to Americans. To us, all of our individual lives are about individual liberty and the individual pursuit of happiness. Relationships, in fact, are often perceived as obstacles to our individual life goals and jettisoned as needed. We view ourselves as free agents. Community is optional, something to abandon if it interferes with our individual preferences or goals.

So this makes the Bible counter-cultural to Americans. Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) and Paul’s to “count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3), while hard for all humans, is especially difficult for Americans to comprehend because it cuts against a core value of individual liberty.

So we need to hear what Matt says and take it to heart. His message is targeted toward college and graduate students, but all of us must come to terms with his question, “Who are you trying to help?” It’s souls that God values. So if our life goals aren’t about living souls, we need a significant biblical recalibration.

Related resources:

Aim Higher Than 4.0

You’re Not a Student First

Education Is a Privilege, Not a Burden

Lay Aside the Weight of Irritability

Sunday morning. The Bloom family is bustling to the van for church and a debate arises between two or three about who’s going to sit where. We’re cutting it close for time as it is. Out of my mouth come firm words in a sharp tone, “Stop the bickering! Get in and sit down!”

Saturday, early afternoon. The Saturday family chore list is still long and my anxiety rises when I think that we won’t get done what needs to get done. I move into sergeant mode and start barking brusque orders. Things get done but the family tone has turned surly.

Weekday night, about 9pm. I enter a children’s bedroom to give the occupants their bedtime blessing and find clothes and toys still on the floor. With a clap of my hands I tersely say, “Get up and put these things put away—now! You were told to do this earlier!” Nothing like a peaceful bedtime blessing.

Irritability. I give into it too often. It’s time to take this sin more seriously and lay it aside (Hebrews 12:1). Every time I’m irritable I burden myself with the detrimental weights of prideful selfishness and relational conflict. And as my irritation overflows on others, it burdens them too because my harsh words stir up anger in them (Proverbs 15:1).

Does God Get Irritated?

We like to blame our irritability on someone or something else. We try to convince ourselves (and them) that they make us irritated. If they were different, we wouldn’t be irritated. Or we blame it on being tired, ill or stressed. But Paul diagnoses irritability as a heart disease; a failure to love: “Love… is not irritable” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

But we need to press on this a bit, because the Greek word that Paul uses here, paroxynō, which the ESV translates as “irritable,” can also be translated as “provoked” or “kindled,” or “incited.” It’s the same Greek word (paroxynō) that the Greek Old Testament uses in Isaiah 5:25 when the prophet said that God was provoked or kindled to anger by Israel. So if love (agape) is not provoked (1 Corinthians 13:5), and God is love (agape) (1 John 4:7), how can it be okay for God be provoked to anger?

The answer is that being provoked to anger in general isn’t the issue Paul is addressing. He (and we) knows there are just, righteous, loving, and therefore necessary reasons to be provoked to anger. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:5 is addressing the short fuse, our becoming too quickly or too easily provoked to anger. That’s why the ESV chose “irritable” and why the KJV translators chose “easily provoked.”

When God gets angry, he takes a remarkably slow time to get there (Exodus 34:6). God is provoked to anger, but he is never irritable. He only gets angry for very good reasons, when the glory of his holy righteousness and justice is despised and violated. And his anger, though when unleashed is the most devastating and terrifying thing any conscious being can experience, is always thoughtful, faultlessly appropriate, and perfectly measured. And like God, we too are to be “slow to anger” (James 1:19). We are to be angry, but not sin (Ephesians 4:26).

The Selfishness of Irritation

Our irritability never has its roots in the soils of righteousness. It springs out of the soil of selfishness and springs up fast, like the sin-weed that it is. We get irritated or easily provoked, not when God’s righteousness or justice is scorned, but when something we want is being denied, delayed or disrupted. It works like this:

When I’m weary I want rest, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m sick or in pain I want relief, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m preoccupied I want uninterrupted focus, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m running late I want to avoid appearing negligent, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m disappointed I want my desire fulfilled, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m fearful] I want escape from a threat, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m uncertain I want certainty, preferably reassuring, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

When I’m enjoying something I want to continue until I wish to be done, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

The reason irritability is unloving, unrighteous anger is that it is a selfish response to an obstacle to our desire. What we desire may not be sinful, but a selfish response to its denial, delay or disruption is a failure to trust God at all times (Psalm 62:8)—and often a failure to value, love, and serve another human soul.

Jesus didn’t die for our punctuality, earthly reputation, convenience, or our leisure. But he did die for souls. It is likely that the worth of the soul(s) we’re irritable with is infinitely more precious to God than the thing we desire. We must not dishonor God, whose image that person bears, by being irritable with them. There are necessary times for considered, thoughtful, measured, righteous, loving anger at priceless but sinful souls. But there is never a right time for irritability. Love is not irritable.

S.T.O.P. Being Irritable

If you’re like me and have cultivated over the course of your life a habitual indulgence in selfish irritation, it’s going to take some hard work to retrain ourselves in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). We need a something simple to call to mind when the oft-pulled irritation trigger is squeezed. This might be helpful:

S. — Stop, repent, and ask. We must awkwardly stop immediately — even mid-rant — to repent of our sin, and ask, “What am I desiring that is being denied, delayed or disrupted?

T. — Trust a promise. Collect promises like 2 Corinthians 9:8, Philippians 4:19, and Philippians 4:11–13 to trust that combat your areas of temptation to irritation.

O. — Obey. Remember that your emotions are gauges, not guides. Don’t let irritation reign in you (Romans 6:12). As you obey 1 Corinthians 13:5 in faith you will find that your emotions will, however reluctantly at first, follow. Love obeys (John 14:15).

P. — Plan. Yes, plan. More forethought and intention can be a spiritual discipline, an act of love, and weapon against sin by avoiding temptations to irritability. Ask yourself, “When am I frequently irritable?” To test your self-understanding, ask this question of those who know you best (and often may be the recipients of your irritation). And based on the answers, seek to put into place some systems and habits that will remove irritable stumbling blocks from your path. Pursue the escape from temptation offered by the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:13) by taking advantage of the grace of planning.

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that this is hard going at first. Changing ingrained habits is hard work. But it is possible through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13). Keep working at it. Faithful effort to lay aside this weight will result in lighter, more loving, and more joyful faith-running down the road.

Related resources:

Lay Aside the Weight of “Not Feeling Like It”

Lay Aside the Weight of Self-Indulgence

Two Kinds of Regret, One Kind of Hope

Why Your Happiness Is So Important to God

No one puts it as bluntly as Blaise Pascal in his Pensées:

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

There you are. Warrior, pacifist, suicide, sluggard, workaholic; if you’re a human, you’re a hedonist. You can try to deny it, but you can’t change it.

If you want to try your hand at stoicism, forget the Bible. It has little for you. Scripture does not support the idea that our motives are more pure the less we are pursuing our own interested happiness. Nope. In fact, according to the Bible, unless we are pursuing our happiness we cannot even come to God: “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

What Pleasure Measures

God blatantly entices us to seek happiness, joy, pleasure — whatever you want to call it — in him with verses like this: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4), and “in your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). We’re supposed to want pleasure.

Why does God want us to want pleasure? Because it is a crucial indicator. Pleasure is the meter in your heart that measures how valuable, how precious someone or something is to you. Pleasure is the measure of your treasure.

Your treasure is what you love. Your greatest treasure is what you love the most. “For where your treasure is, there your heart [your love] will be also” (Matthew 6:21). You glorify your treasure by the fact that it’s the object of your pleasure.

And that’s why God is not indifferent about your joy. It’s a big deal to him. Your pleasure in God is the measure of how much of a treasure he is to you.

The Whistleblower of Your Heart

This also makes pleasure the whistleblower of your heart. If something sinful gives you pleasure, it’s not a pleasure problem. It’s a treasure problem. Your pleasure mechanism is likely functioning just fine. It’s what you love that’s out of whack. And pleasure is outing you. It’s revealing that, despite what your mouth says and the image you try to project to others, something evil is precious to you.

That’s what sin is at the root: treasuring evil. Which makes the fight of faith in the Christian life a fight for delight. It’s a fight to believe God’s promises of happiness over the false promises of happiness we hear from the world, our fallen flesh, and the devil. And yes, it often involves denying ourselves pleasure, but only denying ourselves a lesser, viler pleasure in order to have a much higher pleasure (Luke 9:23–25).

Wonderful and Devastating

This biblical truth that we call Christian Hedonism is both wonderful and devastating. It is wonderful to realize that God’s pursuit of glory and our pursuit of joy is not supposed to be different pursuits, but the same! Because, as John Piper says, “God is most glorified in you, when you are most satisfied in him.” That means that God’s glory in us depends on our being as happy as we possibly can be for all of eternity! If you’ve never read the book, Desiring God, dive into it this Fall and revel in what makes the Gospel so good (take advantage of our free PDF version to read or browse).

But the devastating thing is that as soon as we realize that God receives the most glory from our satisfaction in him, we also realize how far short we fall in so many areas of finding our satisfaction in him. And if you’re in a slough of discouragement over this, then put When I Don’t Desire God on your Fall’s must-reads list (we have a free PDF for this one too!). It will encourage your heart and equip you with weapons in the fight for the right joy.

Pursue Your Highest Pleasure!

Fight for the right joy! There is greater joy in God than you’ve yet known. Don’t give up. Don’t settle for the lesser joys. Make it your aim to be a full, unashamed, bold Christian Hedonist! Pursue your pleasure in God, the greatest Treasure that exists, with all your heart (Matthew 22:37). “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Related resources:

The Dangerous Duty of Delight

“Let Your Passion Be Single”

“Passion for the Supremacy of God (Part One)”

“Passion for the Supremacy of God (Part Two)”

New Every Morning, New Every Moment

So many of us love these words written by Jeremiah, the lamenting prophet, which have sustained us in dark days:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22–23)

Have you ever wondered why Jeremiah says that God’s steadfast love and mercies never cease and yet they are new every morning? How is something that never ceases, new?

Every Single Moment Is New

We might say that Jeremiah is simply speaking phenomenologically, meaning it appears like God’s love and mercies are new with each new day, even though it’s not really new. But I don’t think that’s true. Jeremiah is not merely being more than poetic (which he is). I think there is a very real sense in which God’s enduring love and constant mercies are not only new every morning, but new every moment.

Every single moment is new. Every moment is a completely unique creation by God the Father through God the Son who is upholding the universe at that moment by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:2–3). Never is a moment neglected. Never is a moment repeated. Each moment is a new, infinitely powerful and complex word spoken by the Word with deliberate intention (John 1:1). Every moment God makes he decides to be utterly faithful to his character and his purposes. Every new moment God commits to fulfill what he says he will do.

“Old” Is the Real Illusion

When it comes to experiencing things as new or old, I think we tend to interpret our phenomenological experience backwards. The real illusion is not that old things appear new to us (like God’s mercies or a sunrise), but that new things ever appear old. We think of things as new or old mainly because of our mortality. We, and all terrestrial life in this age, die. So we observe creation as it changes and life as it progresses toward death and call it aging. But that’s phenomenological; that’s how it appears. In reality, every thing is new every moment.

God is not old. God is. He calls himself the Ancient of Days to help us time-bound creatures grasp something of the vastness of his eternal nature (Daniel 7:9). But time itself is a creation of God. He is not defined by age.

Neither are you in essence young or old. You are. Young and old are phenomenological terms we use to describe our experience of time in this age and where we think we are on the progression toward physical death. But that’s a relative measurement. Measured against God or the created universe we are extremely new. But in reality, we exist in each brand new moment and each momentary experience is new. And everything we do is new. Whatever you are doing, no matter how many times you have done something similar before, you are not doing the same old thing. You are doing something new, something that has never been done before and will never be done again. We always exist in the new and always do what’s new.

“Behold, I Am Making All Things New”

In the age to come, I doubt very much that we will speak of things being old. All things will always be new because we will live with a far greater, unfiltered awareness and wonder of the continual creation of God without the time constriction of impending death. I think we will find that a world of wonderful mystery is packed into the promise, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). And I think we will find that there was more than we’ve ever imagined packed into the statement, “the old has passed away” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

God’s steadfast love and mercies for you are indeed new every morning. In fact, they are new with every new moment as he commits with a continually fresh resolve to keep his great faithfulness working for you.

Enjoy the gift of this new moment, whatever it brings, knowing that he who is “making all things new” for you is working all things together for your eternal, ageless good (Romans 8:28).

Related resources:

Do We Live in the Matrix?

The Compelling and Costly Grace of God

A Whole World Hangs on a Word

The Antidepressant of Wonder

Living in this world tends to make us feel thin. We feel, with Bilbo Baggins, “like butter scraped over too much bread.” Another beheading, another disease epidemic, another leader’s adultery exposed, another day struggling within and without against unrelenting evil. We feel world-weary.

But it’s not really the world we’re weary of; we’re futility-weary, evil-weary. We’re weary of the curse under which we groan in hope (Romans 8:20). But the world is not only infused with futility, it is also infused with glorious wonders that, if we will look, direct our attention away from evil to the God of hope (Romans 15:13) — who made the world (John 1:3), who rules it (Philippians 2:11), and who is redeeming it (Romans 8:21). Yes, evil must be faced and fought. But if the devil can, he will keep us focused on evil to tempt us to succumb to all kinds of evil ourselves and drive us into depressive neuroses that make us feel thin on hope and long to escape.

But all around us reality is dense with wonders, layer upon layer. These are antidepressants that God has provided in abundance, surrounding us on every side, and they are there for the taking, even in the most mundane things. Let me give you an example.

Seeing the Phenomenal with a Football

Autumn is descending on America. And when autumn comes, it brings football (the American variety where a foot rarely touches the ball). On most afternoons in most neighborhoods after school’s let out you will find in some yard or field a couple boys tossing a football (with their hands). Next time you see this, stop and watch for a few minutes. If you really look you will see wonders.

In fact, all the glory converging upon you in that moment might be overwhelming! There may be a breeze carrying scents of an evening meal sizzling on a grill, the light from a nearby star giving the leaf gold of deciduous trees turning dormant a molten glow as it drops toward the edge of this spinning ball on which you live, the green life bursting from the ground beneath boys’ pounding feet, the miracle of human laughter and language. And the mind-blowing phenomenon of a football being thrown — and caught! Let’s just think about that for a moment.

As you watch these two, say, 11 year-old athletes play, you’re also watching them perform very advanced mathematics and physics equations. You hear the boy holding the ball say to the other, “Run a post!” The other takes off at full sprint for about ten yards, then angles to his left and looks over his left shoulder. Meanwhile, the boy with the ball drops back three or four steps while watching his receiver, stops, cocks his right arm, steps forward and heaves the ball into the air. The ball travels about 18 yards. It’s a decent spiral but it’s a little high and ahead of his target. So the receiver increases his speed, jumps off his left foot, stretches out his right arm, tips the ball into the air with his right hand, lands on his feet off-balance while twisting to his right, still adjusting his speed, and catches the ball with both hands while falling onto the green life that cushions him and rolls over a couple times while maintaining possession. You can’t help yourself shout, “Nice catch!”

Nice catch, indeed! And so much more! It is also incredibly good math — for both boys! The first boy, in about three seconds, calculated distance, velocity, thrust, and trajectory in order to hit a moving target. His calculations were very close. The second boy, in about two seconds, calculated the velocity and trajectory of the approaching object, made split-second recalculations to his original estimate, adjusted his speed, height, and extension and then recalculated again, adding a right-hand rotation, a grasp, a tuck, and a roll.

How did they do that? If you were to work out on paper the equations that took these boys five seconds to complete, how long would it take you? Could you do it at all? I couldn’t. Neither could these boys. But they did it in their heads nonetheless, all the while imagining themselves as Peyton Manning and Wes Welker.

Or ponder it in a whole different light. What was happening anatomically to make those movements possible? Or muse on the marvel of the human hand. Or contemplate the complex consciousness that processes such math and such imagination at the same time.

Recapture the Wonder

Now draw those wonders up into the question, Who made that mind or those members or that math? Take a deep breath, dive into ocean of wonder right where you are and explore new depths of Psalm 92:5–6:

How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep! The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this.

Read the whole of Psalm 92 and listen to the psalmist glean spiritual truths from natural phenomena. “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). And he gave it to us, not to ignore but to imbibe. Even in its fallen state the world pulses with hopeful health.

So if you’re feeling thin, if that depressive burden of curse-weariness is weighing on you, don’t turn on the TV or pop in a DVD. Rarely will you ever find soul-reviving wonder there. Take your Bible, a tablet, and pen and go for a walk or sit somewhere and watch. Maybe look for a couple of boys throwing a football. Watch deeply and prove the truth that G.K. Chesterton wrote,

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. (Heretics, opening sentence of Chapter 3)

God’s world is full of wonders and these are wonderful antidepressants. Biblical wonder does not deny the horrors of the world. But bumblebees can remind us that there is a gracious power to fear far mightier than ISIS beheadings, sunsets can remind us that there will be a glorious end to sex trafficking, and a football can remind us that there is always more going on than meets the eye and that God’s calculations are perfect.

Related resources:

10 Resolutions for Mental Health

Blessings Beyond Our Dreams

The Pleasure of God in His Creation

Some Books to Feed Your Brain

Books are brain food. They make you think. They help you reflect. As a rule, they are more beneficial than blog post brain snacks (like this one). As a rule, they are far more beneficial than the brain junk food of many social media options. (Yes, I know there are junk food books and nutritious social media posts, but you know what I mean.)

Like your body, your brain needs a balanced diet of theology, Christian living, history/biography, fiction, culture/politics/economics, and practical books to help you grow in your realms of responsibility, etc. My favorite guide to nutritious reading is our own Tony Reinke’s excellent book, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books.

If you’re like me, recommendations are always welcome. So here are a few books that have been food for my brain (and heart) this year:

Taking God at His Word by Kevin DeYoung

Kevin DeYoung has a gift for taking weighty doctrines and complex issues and explaining them in ways us average people understand. I find him very helpful. This short book (144 pages), released earlier this year, is a great introduction to and refresher in the authority and sufficiency of the Bible. DeYoung lays out very clearly what the Bible says about itself. Read this to stoke your love for the miracle that is the written word. Anyone from high school on up will benefit from it.

Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

This biography is relevant for reasons beyond historical interest. This is a glimpse of what faithfulness to Christ and his word looks like when a nation’s culture turns toxic with evil and hostile to the to the gospel and the true church. And it is a tragic glimpse of what an unfaithful church looks like when it abandons “taking God at his word” in order to accommodate to the pressure of cultural and political evil in order to preserve itself. We dare not think that this couldn’t happen to us. That’s what too many German Christians in the 1930’s and early ‘40’s thought until it was too late. What fueled Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s courage in confronting the evil of his day and helped him die well was his confidence in and love for Scripture and the God who breathed it (2 Timothy 3:16). You will find Bonhoeffer’s courage encouraging.

The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

I’ve just finished listening to the audio versions of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. I hadn’t read them since my late teens. They had moved me deeply then, but they have moved me even deeper now in middle age. I cannot capture in a few words the spiritual beauty they helped me see but I ended the final book with a taste of holiness on my lips and the ache of inconsolable longing for Christ and the age to come in my soul. I was filled with worshipful awe. Read all three in order. They get progressively better and they are the kind of fiction that will help you better understand Reality. And you may find yourself changed when you’ve finished.

Do It Tomorrow by Mark Forster

If you can read a book that gives you one or two tools that make a lasting difference in helping you maximize your time and increases your effectiveness in stewarding the calling God has given you, that book is gold. Do It Tomorrow is one of those books for me. Forster has 1) shown me how I’ve used lists wrongly and how to use them more effectively, 2) helped me finally make a dent in my backlog of tasks, and 3) make more headway with difficult projects. If you’re struggling with what feels like task overload, I commend it to you.

A Word About Audio Books

There are numerous slots of time everyday (commutes, chores, errands, exercise, etc.) that can be redeemed for “reading” with just a phone or MP3 player by listening to audio books. I especially recommend this for fiction, history, and biography. If you haven’t done this, you will be amazed at how many books you can get through this way and how they can turn a chore into an enjoyment. These odd time slots often add up to an hour or more a day of reading, and my commute is only 8 minutes. If you travel for work or sit at soccer practices or tackle a major home project you can make a big dent in a book. I’ve listened to 21 books so far this year, a couple of them over 1,000 pages long. There are a number of free audio book services, like LibriVox, which uses volunteer readers (some good, some not so good). I invest in a subscription to Audible.com because of their excellent service, readers (mainly), and selection. This is a good way to make the most of time fragments to feed your mind and encourage your soul (Ephesians 5:16).

Whatever you do, choose a couple books this fall, make a simple plan, and feed your brain some good food.

Related resources:

Think Hard, Stay Humble: The Life of the Mind and the Peril of Pride

Thinking Deeply in the Ocean of Revelation: The Bible and the Life of the Mind

Quantitative Hopelessness and the Immeasurable Moment

Lay Aside the Weight of Self-Indulgence

We are all self-indulgers. The whole lot of us. Let’s just admit it upfront and help each other fight.

Biblical self-indulgence is feeding the “passions of the flesh” (1 Peter 2:11). It’s indulging ourselves in any pleasure that is harmful to our souls, that does not spring from faith (Romans 14:23).

Recognize the Danger

Self-indulgence is spiritually dangerous to us because it’s a form of idolatry. It’s something we turn to instead of God for happiness. It dulls our spiritual tastes and curbs our spiritual appetites (Proverbs 27:7). If we don’t take it seriously, it can, like Solomon’s wives (1 Kings 11:1–3), turn our hearts away from God.

Self-indulgence comes in all shapes and sizes. We can all name obvious or “gross” kinds (like those listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10). But perhaps for most of us the more dangerous indulgences are those that appear outwardly respectable. These are insidious because it is not the actions themselves that are sinful but our heart motives in doing them. So we may appear to do good while secretly indulging in pride (pursuing self-glory), greed or gluttony (too much of a good thing), negligence (should be doing something else), or lack of love (failing to serve someone else). This is what Jesus was talking about when he said,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” (Matthew 23:25)

Feel the Weight

But whether gross or “respectable,” self-indulgence is a hard sin for us to fight because it’s hard for us to want to fight it.

At the moment of indulging, it doesn’t feel like an enemy. It feels like a reward that makes us happy. And it feels like a relief from a craving that insistently begs for satisfaction. But after indulging, defeat hangs like a heavy yoke around the neck of our souls. This makes running our race of faith difficult (Hebrews 12:1).

If an indulgence has become a habit, then we live with this heavy weight of defeat. And though we may repent and confess our sin each time and know that the Father forgives us in Christ (1 John 1:9), the demoralizing effect of repeat defeat is still heavy.

Jesus doesn’t want us to live with this weight of defeat but in the freedom he purchased for us (Galatians 5:1). He wants us to lay it aside (Hebrews 12:1). It’s a matter of obedience — and joy!

What Fuels Self-Indulgence

To fight self-indulgence, we need to know that what fuels it is a promise we believe.

If you ask yourself what promise you’re believing that’s fueling your indulgent behavior, you might not be able to articulate it right away. In fact, you might be tempted to think, “It’s not about believing a promise. It’s not rational at all. It’s an instinct, a craving. It’s about just saying ‘no.’” Well, just saying “no” has a place in the fight. But it will never get to the heart of indulgence. Often our governing beliefs are so much a part of us that we aren’t consciously aware of them. They reside at a deeper heart (or subconscious) level and it can take some probing to bring them to light.

Not only that, but our Adversary doesn’t want us to consciously experience temptation as a process of promise — belief — action. Too much thinking on our part might tip his hand. He wants us to experience it simply as a pleasurable invitation to happiness.

And that’s what fuels self-indulgence: the promise of happiness, however brief. And though we typically experience this promise as a strong, visceral craving, it’s the promise that gives the craving its power.

The Real Power for Change

So, wherever we have a persistent pattern of self-indulgence that we just can’t seem to conquer, what we are dealing with is our own unwillingness to let go of a promised happiness. If we simply try to address our craving we likely won’t see long-term change. Because it’s not our craving that’s so strong. What’s strong is our belief that we will be less happy if we pass up the indulgence. Belief governs cravings.

Let me illustrate.

What enables a 25-year smoker to finally give up smoking? Or what enables someone who has indulged bad eating habits and has been overweight for 30 years to finally change those habits and lose the weight? It isn’t that they finally found the magic program (though some programs may be more effective than others). What happened is that their beliefs finally changed. They went from believing one promise of happiness to believing another. That belief fueled their behavioral change and they went from self-indulgence to self-denial — but a denial for the sake of a better happiness.

Replace the Paltry Promise

The power to change self-indulgent behavior is in believing a different promise for happiness. That’s what Jesus meant in Luke 9:23–25:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”

Jesus never requires you to deny yourself happiness. He only requires you to deny pursuing happiness in paltry, idol pleasures in order that you may have a better happiness.

The way we lay aside the weight of self-indulgence is through believing a better promise. The new belief will conquer the old craving.

What promise is that? Ah, that’s part of the race training. You must mine the promise jewels from the Bible yourself (2 Peter 1:4). Self-indulgence takes as many forms as there are people and pleasures. But there is a promise that will help you escape any temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13) and lay aside every sin-weight (Hebrews 12:1).

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Because there is a great Prize awaiting you (Philippians 3:14).

Related resources:

God’s Great and Precious Promises

Teach Believers What Happened to Them in Conversion

You Can’t Buy Happiness

What’s the Point of All this Futility?

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope. (Romans 8:20)

Are you tired of fighting futility? Evil and disorder relentlessly throw wrenches into the gears of your life. What’s the point?

For God, the point is hope. Which is very strange. Futility and hope are not friends. The former tends to kill the latter. Humans can’t make them both be true at the same time. But God can.

Futility — Turned on Its Head

Futility means things fall apart. It means that what begins fresh and green and thrilling in the morning of life and love and new ventures fades and withers in its evening (Psalm 90:5-6). People die, families disintegrate, churches split, love is betrayed, revivals dissipate into nominalism, revolutions devolve into corrupt establishments, and universities founded to preserve doctrinal orthodoxy decline into bastions of godlessness.

We are futility’s subjects. We live under its governance. And “when the wicked rule, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2). As a tyrant, futility does not inspire hope, but rather cynicism, resignation, anger, and, as Bertrand Russell put it, “unyielding despair.”

Except when God decides to use it. Then it gets turned on its head.

God does things very differently from us (Isaiah 55:8). But there is a pattern. This is a God who chooses death as the means to life (Hebrews 2:14-15), foolish things as the means to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27), humility as the means to exaltation (1 Peter 5:6), and poverty as the means to riches (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Is it any surprise that he also chooses futility as the means to hope?

What This Means for You

So what is this hope? “That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Do you know what this means for you? It means that the disorder that continually works against you, those things that make you cry out for deliverance, are going to actually increase your joy when you are free at last.

Like Pharaoh in Exodus, God is enslaving the slave master for your sake. Futility will find itself just one more tyrant in redemptive history whose existence served to show that with God all things really are possible (Mark 10:27).

Hope for Today’s Chaos

So in the midst of your painful chaos today you have great reason for hope. Like Israel in Egypt, God has heard your groaning and has come down to deliver you (Acts 7:34). The Son has and will set you free indeed (John 8:36).

Like the prisoner of war who has heard that his captor has been conquered and his deliverer is coming, though he is still weak and stuck in the concentration camp, you can see your affliction in a whole new light. Hope replaces despair and captivity only heightens the anticipation of your full freedom.

That’s how God is now making futility serve you. The subjector is becoming the subjected. Futility is now fueling your hunger for freedom.

And freedom will be all the sweeter for the years you have seen evil (Psalm 90:15). Futility will have increased your capacity to enjoy “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

So face your defeated tyrant in hope today.

Related resources:

What Is Hope?

Your Hope Is As Alive As Jesus

Hope for the Despairing Heart

“Invictus” Redeemed

The English poet, William Ernest Henley (1849–1903), is remembered mainly for a single poem, “Invictus” (Latin for “unconquered”):

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be


For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance


I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance


My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears


Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

This poem has inspired millions. Famous and infamous alike have drawn courage from it. Nelson Mandela recited it on his darker days in prison. Timothy McVeigh invoked it as he received lethal injection for murdering 167 people in the Oklahoma City bombing.

A Delusional Fantasy

Henley wrote “Invictus” when he was 27 years old, having battled Tuberculosis of the bone for years, to which he had lost a leg and which eventually killed him at age 53. He was an avowed atheist, so the only place he could look for strength was himself. He didn’t believe there was any larger purpose to his pain. It was just “the bludgeonings of chance.” His only hope was to take his bludgeonings like a man, which to him meant a stoic resolve never to surrender.

So Henley wrote “Invictus” as a poetic middle finger to the cosmos — and if God did exist (see the last stanza) to him, too.

“Invictus” is decent poetry, but as a declaration of cosmic independence it is, frankly, a delusional fantasy. Even if God didn’t exist, it would be a fantasy. In what possible way could Henley reasonably claim to be the master of his fate, being subject to a thousand forces beyond his control? It takes more than stubborn resolve to make one master of his fate, as any parent of a toddler can tell you. The poem is more like a metaphysical temper tantrum — “No one’s going to be the boss of me!” (If you like your “Invictus” with more schmaltz and melodrama, there’s always “My Way.”)

Henley also wrote this during the heady days of Victorian-era enlightenment when the air of Darwin and Nietzsche felt bracing and fresh, and when Christianity looked (as it has so often) to be gasping toward extinction. And yet such verses could be written in the safety and prosperity of a Europe still governed by the courtly ethics of Western Christendom.

One wonders, if Henley had been given another century to live, would he have still written this in 1975, after men of Darwinian worldview and nihilistic, Nietzschean and Marxian philosophies had willed to power and ruthlessly wielded their invictus resolve, resulting in the slaughter of tens of millions?

A Close Counterfeit

But one reason this poem has power to inspire people (besides its appeal to their fallen prideful natures) is that it’s a close enough counterfeit to the courageous resolve of true greatness that it stirs their admiration of it.

We all know instinctively that there is virtue in courageous resolve. But it has to be the right kind. That’s why the real heroes of history have been those who sacrificed greatly, sometimes ultimately, for a just cause bigger than themselves. Biblically speaking, there are several:

Moses before Pharaoh,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego unbowed before Nebuchadnezzar,
Daniel willing to face the lions,
The Apostles before the Sanhedrin,
James facing Herod’s sword,
Paul facing Nero’s sword,
Jesus before Pilate.

All these stood up to evil for the sake of righteousness and swore to their own hurt. We admire this kind of courage because we know intuitively that this is true greatness: dying to self for the sake of others.

But most of us don’t admire the Nebuchadnezzars, Nietzsches, Hitlers, or Timothy McVeighs of history, even if what they accomplished required a kind of courageous resolve. Why? Because we know nihilistic, self-centered, self-exalting courageous resolve is not true greatness. It is greatness perverted.

And that’s what “Invictus” is at its heart. It is a deluded claim to self-sovereignty. It has a ring of heroism, but it is a counterfeit. When we see self-supremacy for what it really is, we recognize delusion. And we have seen that when it wields real power, horribly destructive evil is unleashed.

“Invictus” Redeemed

In the early part of the 20th Century, Dorothy Day responded to Henley’s manifesto with this poem that she titled, “Conquered”:

Out of the light that dazzles me,


Bright as the sun from pole to pole,


I thank the God I know to be,


For Christ - the Conqueror of my soul.

Since His the sway of circumstance,


I would not wince nor cry aloud.


Under the rule which men call chance,


My head, with joy, is humbly bowed.

Beyond this place of sin and tears,


That Life with Him and His the Aid,


That, spite the menace of the years,


Keeps, and will keep me unafraid.

I have no fear though straight the gate:


He cleared from punishment the scroll.


Christ is the Master of my fate!


Christ is the Captain of my soul!

The greatest need of our souls is to be conquered by the self-sacrificing, sinner-serving Christ and direct our invictus manifesto against evil — especially the evil within us. Supernatural and natural evil will beat us bloody at times (literally and metaphorically). Against such evil, by all righteous means, stand firm (Ephesians 6:13).

The incredibly good news is that in Christ who loved us and gave himself for us (Ephesians 5:2) we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37)! Ours is not a stoic resolve against mindless evil. Ours is a hope-infused courageous resolve because, come what may, the end will be glorious beyond all comparison (Romans 8:18).

If Christ is the master of our fates, the captain of our souls, we have nothing to fear (1 John 4:18), we will be sustained to the end with our scroll reading guiltless (1 Corinthians 1:8), all will work together for our good (Romans 8:28), and though we die, yet shall we live (John 11:25).

To have an invictus soul is not heroic. It is unbounded foolishness. But to have a soul conquered by the greatest love that exists (John 15:13), that then by God’s grace can withstand the worst that evil can throw at us and be more than conquerors, and then know eternal joy, that is a life worth living.

Recent posts by Jon Bloom:

Make Your Mouth a Fountain of Life

True Grit

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