Jon Bloom's Blog, page 6

A Man Among Men: Why Friendship Is Worth the Fight

Some 1,600 years ago, Augustine said, “In this world two things are essential: life and friendship. Both should be highly prized and we must not undervalue them.” He’s right, though based on behavior, it seems many men undervalue the latter.

Studies are confirming what many of us already know by observation and experience: As men grow older, they typically lose close connection with male friends. By the time they reach middle age, many men in Western cultures (including Christian men) have few or no close friends — friends who really know them. It’s a troubling trend. We have a growing population of lonely older men, and we’re discovering that loneliness is as damaging to our health as smoking.

But this trend is troubling not primarily because of its deleterious health effects. As Christians, we don’t view friendship as a mere health benefit like nutrition and exercise. Friends are more fundamental to our inner being — to who we are. The Bible teaches us not only that we are made for friendship (Genesis 2:18; Ecclesiastes 4:9–12), but also that we are made by our friendships (Proverbs 13:20; 27:17).

A man, likely more than he knows, owes who he has become to the friends who helped make him. And if he’s wise, he will not undervalue his fundamental need of friends as he ages, for he will need them every bit as much at the end of his sojourn as he needed them when it began.

Men Who Made Me

As I’ve reflected on how needed male friendships are to shape us, I can’t help but thank God for the men who made me. They remain a priceless fraternity extending back over five decades. God has used each of them to shape and sharpen me. Each has left his indelible mark. Each deserves honor. But to illustrate friendship’s fundamental role, I’d like to mention only a few men whose impact has been particularly immense.

Perhaps these examples will remind some of you of the many different kinds of friends God gives to build us up along the way. Perhaps they will also remind you how desperately we need friendships — and how important it is to fight for them.

The Boys Who Raised Me

I met my two best childhood friends, Brent and David, when we were preschoolers. We were brought together in an accident of geography: our parents all bought houses on Southridge Road. But as C.S. Lewis observed, such accidents are no accident:

Christ, who said to the disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends, “You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” (The Four Loves, 114)

Our tripartite friendship was forged through spending incalculable hours together after school, on weekends, during sleepovers (where sleep was rare), on long, lazy summer days. We listened to music, and played on the backyard football field and on the driveway basketball court and in the arcade. We schemed new adventures, talked about girls, biked all over the western metro, shared thoughts about God — all with plenty of fighting interspersed.

Through it all, we helped each other navigate the often tricky, sometimes dangerous, sometimes painful waters of childhood and adolescence, and helped each other love and trust Jesus. We saw each other into adult manhood and stood up for one another as each of us married a wonderful godly woman. These boys helped raise me. The goodness and mercy I received through them and from them is incalculable.

Brother Born for Adversity

Jim, my older brother (by five years), came to faith in Christ during his freshman year at college. I was an earnest, Jesus-believing, malleable 13-year-old who looked up to his older brother, and Jim became my first real “father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15), and showed me in word and deed what it meant to be a Christian man.

And he has done this over the past four decades. Over the years, we have partnered together in youth and college ministries, overseas missions, inner-city church plants, worship leading, and songwriting. And Jim has walked with me through the deepest, darkest seasons of my life. Next to my wife, he is my most trusted counselor and the pastor who knows me best.

Our friendship has been forged walking together along the hard way that leads to life (Matthew 7:14). He truly is “a brother . . . born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). Much of the best parts of who I am I owe to Jim.

Friend Who Loves at All Times

I’ve known Barry for about six years, and he is “a friend [who] loves at all times,” no matter how I’m doing or what I’ve done (Proverbs 17:17). The past couple of years have been a difficult season of life for me, and Barry has been a sanctuary of safety, a city of refuge. He’s “a man of understanding” who, like few others, is able to draw out the “deep water” of my heart (Proverbs 20:5). When I’ve come to him as a “bruised reed” and “smoldering wick” (Matthew 12:20), with a remarkable mixture of kindness, gentleness, and forthrightness, Barry has applied the salve of God’s grace and truth to tender places in my soul.

Being a relatively new friend, I can see the formative influence Barry’s having on me. I am learning to love others in the 1 Corinthians 13 ways I’ve received from him. What price can you put on such a gift?

Brother-in-Arms

Most of my life-shaping friendships, beginning in high school, have been forged as a group of us labored side by side to accomplish a common mission for the glory of Jesus. For men, mission is perhaps the greatest forger of friendships:

The common quest or vision which unites Friends does not absorb them in such a way that they remain ignorant or oblivious of one another. On the contrary it is the very medium in which their mutual love and knowledge exist. One knows nobody so well as one’s “fellow.” (The Four Loves, 90–91)

A company of men have been such brothers-in-arms to me. But there is one who is chief among them: John Piper. For nearly three decades, John and I have been yokefellows in the common quest called Desiring God. And as we’ve been absorbed in prayerfully pursuing together how to best spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ, our friendship has grown deep. Few know us as well as we know one another.

It’s impossible to capture in words how profound and pervasive John’s influence has been on me. I just know that his friendship, in our shared mission, has incomparably formed my heart and soul.

Friends for the End — and Beyond

Each of the men I’ve mentioned (and the host I haven’t) has significantly made me who I am. Each has left a unique imprint on me because of his unique temperament, giftings, life experiences, vocation, and perspective. I’m guessing you have been blessed with similar relationships at some point in your life. And if you and I have been so shaped and so helped by friends in the past, is there any reason to think we will need them less in the future?

Which brings us to the terrible trend of friendless, lonely older men. Why is this happening? I won’t venture simple answers. There are complex factors feeding this trend: internal and external factors, personal and social and spiritual factors.

So, how will we avoid that friendless future? This is something for us to think about now. It will require us to work — and work together, as friends and families and churches — to figure out how to resist the temptation to become isolated as we age. But the challenges facing such relationships shouldn’t surprise us. The hardest things to attain often are the most important things.

Remember, we won’t need friends less at the end of our sojourn than we did at its beginning. We will need them more to help us weather the final chapter of losses before the Great Gain (Philippians 1:21). We will need their strengths, their perspectives, and their heart-strengthening counsel, prayers, and presence. We will need our friends till the end, and for the end.

When the Troubles of My Heart Are Enlarged

I’m feeling my great need for God’s wisdom and guidance keenly these days. This has been a season of life where the Lord, in his wise providence, has been pleased to call me to a confluence of various difficult, confounding, confusing, and in some cases deeply painful issues and events. Each one exceeds my capacities; collectively, they feel overwhelming.

It’s not that I actually need the Lord’s wisdom and guidance more now than at other times. It’s just that the more troubling, perplexing, and overwhelming a situation feels, the more desperately I feel my need for him. I know from past experience and the repeated testimony of Scripture that this kind of desperation is a mercy. But the emotional experience doesn’t feel like a mercy. It feels demanding, which presses me to pray more (part of the mercy).

And what I find myself praying regularly in this season are portions of Psalm 25. In fact, I’ve memorized it so I always have this prayer with me when I need it (something anyone can do in a couple of weeks by just following a simple routine). It’s become one of my favorite psalms because of the way David pleads with God for wisdom and guidance at one of the (many) desperate moments of his life when “the troubles of [his] heart [were] enlarged” (Psalm 25:17).

David’s Desperate Situation

Few of us can identify with the kind of mortal danger King David was in. Being a king in the Middle East three thousand years ago was not for the faint of heart. There were always treacherous enemies without and traitors looming within, gunning for your position, prestige, and power. Seeming friend and foe conspired in order to undermine and destroy you.

Most kings dealt with such enemies (and their families and friends) with brutal ruthlessness. But not David. Beginning with King Saul, his predecessor who for years tried his best to assassinate him, David determined not to take vengeance on his internal enemies. Because if he did, how could he claim that his trust was in God’s power, not in his own? We can only imagine how this emboldened his enemies, who didn’t have such spiritual scruples. Resolving to let God take care of his enemies took great faith and great courage.

But David didn’t always feel full of faith and courage. We have a portion of his prayer journals to show it, of which Psalm 25 is one poetic entry. And this psalm is a veritable clinic on how to pray for the wisdom and guidance to navigate a difficult, confounding, even dangerous situation. He begins by describing his situation, but listen carefully to what he says.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
     let me not be put to shame;
     let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
     they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. (Psalm 25:1–3)

What’s David asking for? Of course, he’s asking for God to protect his life, but he’s also asking for more, something deeper than that. When he prays, “Let me not be put to shame,” and declares by faith that “none who wait for you shall be put to shame,” he is asking God to protect the glory of his name in protecting him. If David, while trusting God, is overthrown by a treacherous tyrant, who will then say, “O my God, in you I trust”?

We may not be able to identify with the reason David felt desperate, but we sure can identify with desperation. And as we pray in our desperate situations, what are we asking God for? Is there a deeper reason than just our desired outcome?

What David Needs

Then David pleads with God for what he needs. But remember the context: David is aware that his life is in the balance.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
     teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
     for you are the God of my salvation;
     for you I wait all the day long.

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
     for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
     according to your steadfast love remember me,
     for the sake of your goodness, O Lord! (Psalm 25:4–7)

What’s missing in these lines are any mention of his enemies. In this psalm, David is not obsessed with the source of his problem; he’s fixated on the Source of his solution. So, he makes two requests.

First, he asks God for guidance. David, like us in our troubling, perplexing, even overwhelming situations, is not sure what to do. No doubt there were layers of complexity involved, just like those we encounter. There were crucial things riding on how he handled what he was facing, like there are in what we face. What he wanted was not vengeance on his enemies. He wanted God to reveal his ways and lead him in his truth, since he was the God of David’s salvation. (Do you hear in this prayer a prescient anticipation of John 14:6?)

Second, David asks God for forgiveness. David, like us, doesn’t see himself as guiltless before God. He, like us, is a sinner in need of God’s mercy. He, like us, must bank on God’s steadfast love and goodness. So, he humbles himself and asks for God not to remember his sins.

As we pray in our desperate situations, what do our requests reveal about what we’re fixated on? Are we more consumed with our problems than with God’s presence and promises?

What David Believes

Then David declares to God what he believes about him. Not only is what David declares important here, but also where he puts this declaration in the order of his prayer (which we’ll talk about shortly).

Good and upright is the Lord;
     therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
     and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
     for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

For your name’s sake, O Lord,
     pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Who is the man who fears the Lord?
     Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
His soul shall abide in well-being,
     and his offspring shall inherit the land.
The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
     and he makes known to them his covenant.
My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
     for he will pluck my feet out of the net. (Psalm 25:8–15)

What is David doing here? He’s confessing his faith. God is good to sinners who humble themselves and look to him for guidance (and for good measure, he asks for forgiveness again). God will instruct such a person “in the way that he should choose,” because he reveals his intimate counsel (a fuller meaning of the Hebrew word sôd, translated here as “friendship”) to those who fear him and trust him to keep his covenant. And David is resolved to keep his eyes on the Lord, who will do as he promised.

But there is one sweeping, stunning sentence I want to highlight:

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
     for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. (Psalm 25:10)

Remember the situation David was in, and then ponder this phrase: “all the paths.” All of them. David was not unaware of the great evils and tragedies of life. He was more aware than most of us, given the brutal age in which he lived. Still, David trusted his Shepherd to lead him “in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” — even those that led “through the valley of the shadow of death,” where evil lurks (Psalm 23:3–4).

As we pray in our desperate situations, do we believe that all his paths are steadfast love and faithfulness to those who fear him?

What David Feels

Here’s where the order of David’s prayer is telling. After describing to God his desperate situation, pleading with God for what he most needs, and confessing to God what he believes about him, David tells God how he feels.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
     for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
     bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
     and forgive all my sins.

Consider how many are my foes,
     and with what violent hatred they hate me.
Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
     Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
     for I wait for you.

Redeem Israel, O God,
     out of all his troubles. (Psalm 25:16–22)

This is David, a renowned warrior, chief among the mighty men of Israel, slayer of Goliath and victor over “his ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7), pouring out his heart as a fearful, weary child of God to his heavenly Father. It’s a tender, touching cry for help. True men and women of valor know they are not more than humble children before God, and they’re not afraid to speak openly as humble children of God (remember, this psalm was written for public worship).

I believe the order of David’s prayer is significant: in this psalm, David declares what he believes about God, based on his knowledge of God’s word and personal experience of God’s faithfulness, before he tells God how he feels.

Whether consciously or not, I think David, the experienced warrior, knew his feelings of fear were potentially dangerous emotions. They weren’t wrong since the threat he faced was real; they should not have been repressed, but expressed. However, those emotions were powerful and could suck the courage out of him, which is deadly in battle — including spiritual battles. So, David encouraged his soul by remembering and rehearsing what he believed about God, and then pulled his emotions up into his beliefs — or placed his emotions under the governance of his beliefs.

As we pray in our desperate situations, do we regularly confess what we believe about God before we launch into how it all feels? Are we encouraging our souls in faith and placing our emotions under the governance of what we know to be true about God?

Stir Up Courage, Cast Cares

David models for us how to view and pray for what we find difficult, confusing, fearful, and troubling. David took the swollen troubles of his heart to God, asked him for what he needed, stirred up his courage by confessing his faith, and then cast his cares (anxieties) upon God, who cared for him (1 Peter 5:7).

David doesn’t repeat this pattern in all of his psalms. So, we won’t turn it into a prayer formula. However, it’s often necessary to stir up our faith before we cast our cares on God, so that we really are able to cast them and not continue to fixate on them.

David is a good mentor for us. He was experienced in fighting fear and unbelief in the face of overwhelming situations and issues. And as God did for David, he will instruct sinners like us in the way we should choose as we fear him and trust him. And as we do, we too will discover that “all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Can I Follow My New Heart?

“Why shouldn’t I follow my heart? If I am a Christian — if God has caused me to be ‘born again’ and has given me ‘a new heart’ — isn’t my new heart trustworthy?”

Readers have raised some version of this objection when I’ve exhorted Christians, “Don’t follow your heart.” And the objection is warranted. After all, the Bible clearly teaches that in this era of the new covenant, God writes his law on our new hearts so that we willingly follow him (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:8–12). This would seem to not merely imply, but even mandate, that Christians should follow their hearts.

But the Bible’s description of what a regenerated person actually experiences in this age reveals a more spiritually and psychologically complex picture — one that I believe gives Christians biblical warrant to cultivate a healthy suspicion of what they recognize as their hearts’ desires. So, while we may, and hopefully will, reach a point in our lives as Christians where it’s right, at times, to follow our hearts, allow me to make a brief case that the phrase actually undermines Christians as they labor and struggle to discern their various desires, and that Scripture itself discourages us from thinking this way.

War Within

How might we summarize the complex picture the Bible paints of the born-again experience in this already-not-yet age?

The New Testament explains that when the Spirit brings us from spiritual death to spiritual life (John 5:24; Romans 6:13), we enter a strange new reality. Our regenerated new self emerges, “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” And yet our “old self, which belongs to [our] former manner of life,” is still “corrupt through deceitful desires” (Ephesians 4:22–24). We are “born of the Spirit” (John 3:6) while still inhabiting the “flesh,” our “body of death” in which “nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18, 24).

When Christians are born again, we enter into a lifelong internal war where “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17). Stepping back and viewing these desires objectively, “the works of the flesh” that result from fleshly desires “are evident,” and so is “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:19–23). But Christians often struggle — on the ground, in real time — to discern the desires of the Spirit from the desires of the flesh.

This is why the New Testament Epistles are full of exhortations and corrections addressed to Christians. James tells his readers (and us at relevant times) that their “passions are at war within” them (James 4:1). Peter warns his readers (and us), “Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14). Paul describes this internal experience of warring passions as “wretched” (Romans 7:24). And he admonishes the Colossian Christians (and us) with strong language: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).

Why did these apostles feel the need to speak this way to regenerated people? Because the hearts of these regenerated people were not yet fully free from the influence of their flesh, their old selves.

Follow the Spirit

Much of the Christian life is a war to die to remaining sin and live by the Spirit. John Piper calls it “the main battle of the Christian life”:

The main battle is to see our hearts renovated, recalibrated, so that we don’t want to do those sinful external behaviors, and don’t just need willpower not to do them, but the root has been severed and we have different desires. In other words, the goal of change — of sanctification, of the Christian life — is to be so changed that we can and ought to follow our desires.

That’s exactly right. And when we have been so changed through progressive sanctification, so renovated that our hearts (and therefore our desires, dispositions, motives, emotions, and passions) are, as Piper says, “calibrated to Christ,” then we should follow our hearts.

However, at any given time within our churches, small groups, friendships, and families, different Christians are at different places for different reasons in this heart-renovation process. Some hearts are more sanctified, and therefore more reliable to follow, than others. I think that’s why we don’t hear the apostles generally counsel us to follow our hearts in our fight of faith against remaining sin, but rather to follow the Holy Spirit.

Let Not Sin Reign

Paul is the one who delves most deeply into this issue: “I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). He devotes most of Romans 6–8 to explaining the nature of the strange new-self/old-self, Spirit/flesh reality of the Christian life, including Romans 8:13: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Paul lays the theological foundation of our understanding by explaining “that our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that [our] body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). Our new selves were “raised with Christ” (Colossians 3:1) so that “we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Therefore, we “must consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). In light of this, Paul admonishes us,

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12–14)

And how do we do this? By learning to “set [our] minds on the things of the Spirit” and not on “the things of the flesh” (Romans 8:5) — by learning to follow the Spirit, to “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), because “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

Follow the Treasure

One of the reasons I find “follow your heart” generally unhelpful as counsel for Christians is that many of us, from the time we were young, have absorbed this as a pop-cultural creed that says if we just look deep into our hearts, we’ll be shown our deepest truth, and discover the way we should go. Given the significant amount our sinful flesh still influences our hearts, it’s not hard to see how this phrase can easily increase confusion when applying it to the Christian life.

I also don’t believe the Bible encourages that idea since, when it comes to engaging our hearts, far and away what we hear in it is counsel to “direct our hearts,” not to follow them. We see that clearly in Paul’s instructions above. God made our hearts to follow, not to lead. And what do our hearts follow? Jesus gives the clearest answer: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). In time, our heart always pursues (follows) our treasure.

When we are born again, the eyes of our hearts are enlightened (Ephesians 1:18) and, through faith, we begin to see the Treasure: God himself in Christ. And since our heart learns to pursue the object that stirs its greatest affections, its treasure, I suggest we not counsel each other to “follow your heart,” but instead to “follow the Treasure.” Looking into our hearts for direction can be spiritually hazardous. It is usually more helpful for us to direct our hearts to what is most valuable and delightful. Which is why I believe David counsels us, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

When Doubt Eclipses Faith: Learning to Fight for Spiritual Sight

In story after story, book after book, the Bible reminds us that no one is immune from deep, disorienting spiritual wrestlings. It’s a testament to the Bible’s unvarnished honesty, a reason we find it intuitively trustworthy, that it records the most earnest pursuers of God — the most prayerful, the most diligent, the most theologically educated — experiencing extended seasons of spiritual darkness, disturbing doubts, and even faith crises.

One of my favorite examples is Asaph. If you’re familiar with the Psalms, you likely recognize him, since he’s named as the composer of Psalms 50 and 73–83.

But Asaph was far more than a poet. He was among the most prominent spiritual leaders of his day. King David appointed him as one of the three chief Levitical worship leaders to oversee all the vocal and instrumental aspects of the tabernacle ministry (1 Chronicles 6:31–46; 15:16–17). Which meant Asaph was immersed in all that related to the worship of God. He carried significant responsibilities and was a well-known public spiritual leader.

And he had a profound struggle with doubt. He almost lost his hope in God. As a poet, he captured his struggle, and what delivered him, in verse. We know it as Psalm 73.

God Is Good to the Pure in Heart

Asaph was highly literate and well-educated. In his day, few would have had a deeper knowledge of the extant Hebrew Scriptures. And as a chief singer in an oral culture, he would have had most, if not all, of Israel’s corporate worship songs memorized. Therefore, he would have known:

from the song of Moses that God’s “work is perfect, for all his ways are justice” (Deuteronomy 32:4); from the song of Hannah that God “will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness” (1 Samuel 2:9); and from the songs of his king and friend, David, that “the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103:6), and “the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. . . . But the children of the wicked shall be cut off” (Psalm 37:28).

Such descriptions of God’s character were foundational to Israel’s (and therefore Asaph’s) understanding of God. The great stories from Israel’s history reinforced the belief that “truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart” (Psalm 73:1), for he “lifts up the humble; [but] he casts the wicked to the ground” (Psalm 147:6).

Foundation Begins to Crumble

However, even as Asaph led others in celebrating these foundational beliefs, his personal foundation was crumbling. He could feel his spiritual feet slipping (Psalm 73:2). Because as he sang of God’s goodness and justice, he also “saw the prosperity of the wicked,” which seemed to tell a different story (Psalm 73:3).

Given Asaph’s mature age and education, and the kind of reflection his vocation required, this issue wouldn’t have been new to him. But sometimes, due to a confluence of factors, our perspective on reality changes. Questions that didn’t trouble us before, or perhaps only mildly, now greatly disturb us. Seen in this different light, they seem to threaten our foundational beliefs about God. Doubt sets in, and we begin to feel our spiritual feet slipping. Having endured and observed faith crises myself, I’d wager Asaph experienced something like this.

As one who led thousands in singing about how much the Lord loved justice and defended the oppressed, Asaph now found it deeply disturbing that the wicked appeared to live such blessed lives. They weren’t afflicted by disease, had plenty to eat, were free from the anxieties weighing on most people, and saw their wealth increase (Psalm 73:4–7, 12). Besides that, they were cruel, proud, and blasphemous, all with apparent impunity from God’s judgment. And since God didn’t seem to notice or care, everyone else pandered to them (Psalm 73:8–11).

Cynicism Sets In

Asaph, meanwhile, had faithfully “washed [his] hands in innocence,” and what was his reward? He’d been “stricken” all day long “and rebuked every morning” (Psalm 73:13–14). The incongruence didn’t make sense. Where was the lifting up of the humble and the casting down of the wicked? His trust and hope in God’s promises were ebbing, and bitter cynicism was flowing.

He wasn’t talking much to others about this struggle for understandable reasons. In his influential position, he could betray the trust of the friends and ministry comrades he loved dearly, and he could potentially damage the faith of the saints he was charged to lead (Psalm 73:15). But inside, he envied the wicked and thought, “All in vain have I kept my heart clean” (Psalm 73:3, 13).

Asaph’s faith was in crisis. And wrestling with his questions and doubts, especially in the context of his visible, public ministry, increasingly felt like “a wearisome task” (Psalm 73:16).

Sight in the Sanctuary

But something happened to Asaph that transformed his doubt-filled cynicism back to faith-filled hope. He didn’t see God finally lift up his humble saints and cast down the proud and wicked. Instead, he once again saw something that changed his perspective on reality, this time during an extraordinary experience he had when he “went into the sanctuary of God” (Psalm 73:17).

Asaph didn’t record the specifics of what occurred, but it’s clear he experienced a transformational moment of encounter. Not unlike the two discouraged, doubting disciples who ignorantly walked with Jesus toward Emmaus until suddenly they saw him (Luke 24:13–35), discouraged, doubting Asaph suddenly saw something that changed everything.

The living and active word of God pierced into his depths and addressed his innermost thoughts (Hebrews 4:12). He encountered the Truth and the Life who gave him the sight of faith that healed his blindness (John 9:39). And the enlightened eyes of his heart told him a different story (Ephesians 1:18).

Suddenly, Asaph saw the wicked he had envied, whose sin appeared to yield such blessings, and he “discerned their end” (Psalm 73:17), the terrible end of “everyone who is unfaithful to [God]” (Psalm 73:27):

Truly you set them in slippery places;
     you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
     swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
     O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. (Psalm 73:18–20)

And he saw the life God had given him, including the strikes and rebukes that appeared to yield such privations, and discerned his end, the glorious end of everyone who is faithful to God:

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
     you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
     and afterward you will receive me to glory. (Psalm 73:23–24)

Now Asaph saw that God truly is good to the pure in heart; he really will “guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked [he will] cut off in darkness” (1 Samuel 2:9). But when he had sought to discern this reality from what he could observe in this life only, he was blind to it. Perceiving it required looking through the lens of eternity.

Revived Worship

Asaph’s transformed or restored perspective helped him make sense again of what had disturbed him. It also revealed how “brutish and ignorant” he had been in his bitter unbelief (Psalm 73:21–22). And as his revived hope flowed, and his cynicism ebbed away, this chief worship leader worshiped:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
     And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
     but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25–26)

In that powerful moment in the sanctuary of God, God again became Asaph’s sanctuary.

For me it is good to be near God;
     I have made the Lord God my refuge,
     that I may tell of all your works. (Psalm 73:28)

Three Gifts from Asaph

In composing this remarkable psalm (under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration), Asaph gave us a wonderful gift. First, in humbly exposing his personal faith crisis, especially as a prominent, public spiritual leader, he helps us see that no one is immune to significant struggles with doubt.

Second, he shows us that if a confluence of factors affects how we view foundational scriptural truths, calling them into question, we should proceed with great care and patience, since we have good cause to doubt our doubts. As convincing as matters may appear to us at the time, what might actually be fueling our doubts is not a more clear-eyed perspective but a distorted perspective. When Asaph lost sight of eternity, it changed the way he saw everything.

Finally, Asaph, who lived a millennium before Jesus was born, reminds us how essential it is to remember that “here we have no lasting city” (Hebrews 13:14). The biblical life of faith in this world has always been a sojourn to “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). It has always been true that if we hope in God in this life only, we should be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19).

And in fact, as Asaph experienced, hoping in God in this life only leads just to losing hope in God. We might as well just “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). It is only through the lens of eternity that we see the goodness, justice, and faithfulness of God. And only in the light of eternity do we long to be near God and find him to be our portion forever.

Devastating Mercy: How Jesus Redeems Our Failures

As simply worded as the Gospels often seem, the multidimensional Jesus we encounter in them is anything but simple. We can see this in the varied (we might even say extreme) ways Jesus extends mercy.

What likely comes to mind for most of us when we think of Jesus’s mercy are expressions of gentleness. We think of his lamb-like meekness during his unjust trial and his lamb-like sacrificial, substitutionary death on the cross to atone for all our sins. We might think of the Sermon on the Mount, which bursts with a many-faceted mercy (Matthew 5:2–12). Jesus invites us to put away anger (Matthew 5:21–26), to respond to evil with kindness (Matthew 5:38–42), and to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43–48). We might think of the kind of kindness that drew all manner of diseased and disordered people to him for healing (Matthew 8:1–17) and all manner of sinners to him for forgiveness (Matthew 9:10–13).

These are each great mercies in Christ, but they are not the only expressions of his mercy. His mercy wasn’t always gentle. At times his mercy could be devastating. And it’s important we see this because, as the apostle Peter discovered, sometimes the mercy we most need from Jesus comes in a severe package.

Sincerely Self-Deceived

Peter loved Jesus. Jesus knew that. But prior to Jesus’s trial and crucifixion, Peter believed he loved Jesus more than he loved his own life — in other words, more than he actually did. And so Jesus, to prepare Peter for his life’s calling (and even for his death), extended mercy to him — a kind of mercy Peter didn’t expect or recognize as mercy in the moment.

During his final Passover meal with the Twelve, Jesus announced that one of them would betray him. All responded with shock, and eleven with grief (Matthew 26:21–22). They also responded with pride, which was itself a revelation. The news moved each of them to question the others’ loyalty, and to assert himself as the greatest (Luke 22:23–24). Eleven desperately did not want to be that guy, and no one wanted the other guys to think he was that guy.

After mercifully ending that vain debate, Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you [you all, plural in Greek], that he might sift you [all] like wheat, but I have prayed for you [you, Peter, singular in Greek] that your faith may not fail. And when you [Peter] have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31–32).

Peter was stunned. Turned again? That implied he was going to turn from Jesus. He was incredulous. Even if everyone else turned away, he absolutely would not (Matthew 26:33). And he said so:

Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. (Luke 22:33)

Jesus knew Peter was sincere, but self-deceived. Peter did not know how misplaced his self-confidence was. So, Jesus dropped the bomb: “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me” (Luke 22:34). To Peter, that just seemed impossible, especially after all they had been through together. So he swore, “I will not deny you,” and so did the others (Mark 14:31).

Mercifully Devastated

And then, in just a matter of hours, after Peter’s sincere vow of loyal love to the death, Jesus’s prophecy came to pass. All it took was a servant girl’s public accusation, and Peter heard himself say the one thing he swore he’d never say: “I do not know him” (Luke 22:57).

After two more denials, the rooster crowed, and Peter was left to face the inescapable, terrible truth: he didn’t love Jesus as he thought he did. When push came to shove, and his own skin might actually be on the line, he had been a coward, and sold out his Lord — the one he knew was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). It was the worst thing he’d ever done. Likely one of the worst things anyone had ever done. He had failed miserably, sinned immensely, and there was no taking it back.

That was true: it could not be taken back. But it could be redeemed. It could be worked for such good by the Holy Spirit that it would bear the fruit of a love stronger than death — the very love, in fact, that Peter thought he had before denying Jesus. Which is precisely what Jesus had in mind — what he had prayed for Peter.

Though it surely didn’t feel so in the moment, this devastating moment of failure proved to be an immense mercy to Peter. For he hadn’t known how weak he really was on his own — how susceptible he was to his sin nature. And so, as he would for the apostle Paul a few decades later, Jesus granted a satanic messenger to humble Peter, and help him see that only God’s grace is sufficient — that his power is most clearly seen and experienced in those who know their weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

Peter would need this true, spiritual strength, what he would later call “the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11), for the future assignment Jesus would give him. Jesus had prayed that Peter’s faith would not ultimately fail. In the mercy of God, this failure would discipline Peter, not define him. He would turn again — and when he did, he would be better equipped to strengthen his fellow believers.

Mercifully Restored

Peter’s restoration took place after another meal with Jesus, an early-morning, post-resurrection breakfast on a beach (John 21:15–19). Three times, Jesus asked him some form of this question: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Though the questions pained Peter, still tender with grievous regret, all three times Peter affirmed his wholehearted love for Jesus. Three merciful times: one loving affirmation of his Lord for every terrible, unloving denial.

But not only did Jesus forgive Peter’s sins, and redeem his denials that morning; he also mercifully prophesied the death Peter would someday endure (John 21:18–19). How was that a mercy? Remember back to that terrible night when Peter passionately declared, “I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33)? In that moment, Jesus restored to Peter the honor of one day fulfilling his vow.

And lastly, Jesus restored Peter to his ministry calling. Peter had been deeply humbled; he was weaker, which made him stronger in the ways that mattered most. Peter had turned from Jesus but had now re-turned, and was received by Jesus with open arms. Peter, having experienced so profoundly the grace of Jesus, was now more prepared than ever to strengthen his brothers, to feed Jesus’s flock with the gospel of grace, and to do so in the strength God supplies (John 21:17). So, Jesus ended Peter’s restoration service with perhaps the most merciful words he could say to a loving disciple who had failed so dramatically: “Follow me” (John 21:19).

The Lord Will Restore You

In Peter’s whole experience — from the shame of his failures through the sweetness of his restoration — we see the mercy of Jesus in its wide range of expression. Peter was mercifully devastated and mercifully restored. It was not the experience of mercy he likely wanted, but it was the mercy he needed. And it was all unfathomably kind, even in its most devastating moments.

We all, in our unique ways, need to be so devastated by the merciful love of Jesus. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). Such discipline might even involve demonic “sifting,” like it did for the disciples. But the Lord knows what we need, and aims to give us what ultimately will fill us with his joy (John 15:11) and make us most fruitful (John 15:5).

Peter’s painful and humbling experience not only modeled this kind of mercy for us, but also wonderfully equipped him to pastor us through our experiences of the devastating mercy of Jesus. To anyone who has been similarly humbled, he promises in 1 Peter 5:10,

After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

‘You Did Not Choose Me’: How Jesus Awakened Me to His Sovereignty

We’re told that “the word of God is living and active,” that it can cut through the complexities of our inner being and reveal “the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). This makes the Bible, the Holy Spirit-inspired, authoritative repository of the words of God, a place of encounter with the living God. Much of the time, Bible reading isn’t a dramatic experience. But there are times when the Word reveals himself in the word in such an extraordinary way, we are consciously never the same.

Let me share a powerful encounter with Jesus I had one summer morning in Manila, just before my twentieth birthday. I was having my morning devotions when he awakened me to the doctrine of election, though I had no clue yet what Calvinism was. He also called me to a life of pursuing my greatest joy in him, though I had no idea what Christian Hedonism was. What happened that morning, 36 years ago, has altered the course of my life.

Encounter with Jesus

I was in the Philippines participating in a six-month Discipleship Training School operated by Youth With A Mission (YWAM). During a teaching session the previous evening, a guest teacher had strongly asserted that all Christians who wished to be fruitful and effective in their service of Christ needed to acquire and exercise a certain spiritual gift. If they didn’t, their lives and ministries would suffer for it.

This deeply troubled me, partly because I hadn’t acquired this gift, and partly because I hadn’t seen this emphasis in Scripture. I also knew Christians who both did and didn’t exercise this gift, and I didn’t observe any such correlation in their fruitfulness. But what if I were wrong? What if my misgivings were signs of resisting the Holy Spirit?

So, that morning I came to my devotions earnestly praying that God would give me understanding. I opened my Bible to the day’s reading, which happened to be chapter 15 of John’s Gospel.

Suddenly, as I began to read, it seemed as if Jesus were right there. The first 17 verses leaped off the page. The Lord’s words became intensely living and active as the Holy Spirit illumined them to me. And I heard Jesus himself strongly assert what all Christians most need to be fruitful and effective: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). His message for me that morning was clear: a fruitful life didn’t require a certain spiritual gift; it required trusting Jesus. Peace washed over me.

He Chose First

When I reached verse 16, what Jesus said about took my breath away. This, even more than verse 5, reformed my understanding of what makes a Christian fruitful and effective:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. (John 15:16)

I wasn’t raised in a church that taught Reformed theology. Up to that point, I had given little thought to the doctrine of election, so I didn’t really understand it. My immature, arrogant impression was that it was one of those peripheral, controversial doctrines that people with too much time, and too little concern for lost and hurting souls, liked to debate.

That all changed as I sat awestruck, staring at those words: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” They weren’t the words of some teacher with a misguided, exaggerated theological conviction. Nor of John Calvin. Nor even of the authoritative, but oft-debated, sophisticated arguments of the apostle Paul. They were the crystalline, simple, forthright, understandable words of Jesus himself: I chose you.

As they sank in, the renewal of my mind began a transformation in me (Romans 12:2). My life was reframed. When, at age 11, I responded to a gospel invitation at Camp Shamineau, I hadn’t chosen Jesus; Jesus had chosen me. The immense implication began to dawn: if that were true, then God had been far more providentially involved than I had understood leading up to that moment in Manila as I lingered over John 15. It was devastating, it was humbling, and it was precious and glorious beyond words. Jesus had chosen me.

And this filled me with hope as I looked to the future.

He Appointed Fruit

My hope came from what Jesus said next: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . .” I saw that when Jesus chooses his disciples, he appoints them to “good works, which God prepared [for them] beforehand” (Ephesians 2:10). I didn’t yet know what future labors the Lord had appointed for me, but it filled me with hope to realize I didn’t bear the primary weight of figuring it all out. The Lord who chose me was fully able to direct me into what he had appointed for me.

But that wasn’t all. Jesus went further: “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” My awe and hope increased as I saw that my fruitfulness ultimately depended, not on any specific spiritual gift, nor even on my faith in Christ, but on Jesus himself. The God who chose me to be his disciple and appointed me to my present and future kingdom labors would also make me fruitful in those labors — including the labors of my prayers: “. . . so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”

Over time, John 15:16 became a kind of lens through which I viewed what Jesus said earlier in the chapter about the Vine and the branches (John 15:1–8). He described the mysterious interplay of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in action. The power for me (a branch) to bear fruit comes solely from abiding in Jesus (the Vine). Therefore, I must undertake my responsibility to do the work of abiding (exercising trust in Jesus in everything). And yet, ultimately, the very power to carry out my responsibility comes from the sovereign Vine, who chose me as a branch and appointed my place in the Vine so that I would abide and be fruitful. For the faith required to abide is not my own doing; it is itself a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8).

That Your Joy May Be Full

One more verse illuminated the whole section I read that morning as if in a warm light. Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Jesus wanted me to be full of joy. More than that, he wanted me to be full of his joy! More than that, he was actually pursuing my experience of his joy in me by speaking the things he was saying.

The whole experience that morning was overwhelming, and I couldn’t take it all in. I’m recounting here in words clearer than I could have articulated then. Jesus was awakening me to these things that morning, and my understanding increased over time.

For example, I didn’t begin reflecting deeply on what Jesus meant by his joy making my joy full until three years later when I was introduced to John Piper’s teaching on Christian Hedonism. Then Jesus’s promise that those who trust him with everything will know the greatest love (John 15:9–14), the fullest joy (John 15:11), and the most abundant fruit (John 15:1–8) began to open up to me in deeper ways. And the more I understood, the more I wanted that life. Because that life was in essence the life (John 14:6). And I wanted him.

That steamy summer morning in Manila, what I wanted from Jesus was clarity regarding a troubling teaching. But what he wanted to give me was a revelation of himself through his words that would awaken me to his sovereignty over my salvation, plant the seeds of Christian Hedonism, and set my course for a future appointment. And he did that in under an hour.

I wish all my devotions were like that. Very few have been. Most have been quite ordinary. Jesus seems to prefer giving us what we need mainly through the cumulative effect of our daily, faithful seeking him in Scripture. But those few extraordinary times I’ve encountered the living and active Word of God in the written word have transformed my life.

I share this story to encourage us all to keep seeking the Word in the word. Jesus knows what we need when we need it. And when the need is right and the time is ripe, he who chose us, appointed us, and makes us fruitful will come and do more than we could ask or think. And life will never be the same.

You Have Need of Endurance

A few months ago, I met a friend for breakfast. When I asked him how he was doing, he answered, “I’m enduring.”

If his response doesn’t sound remarkable, it’s only because you don’t know the howling spiritual storm that had raged in his soul over the past year, and the relentless questions and doubts that pressed on him. He was wrestling “spiritual forces of evil” (Ephesians 6:12) in a fierce, disorienting fight for faith (1 Timothy 6:12), all while faithfully leading a young, growing family, helping to (bi-vocationally) lead a young, growing church, and helping to (vocationally) lead a young, growing, increasingly visible ministry. And on top of that were the taxing stresses of normal life. Few knew the fortitude this season required of him. He was enduring, and it was remarkable.

When we observe those like my friend enduring such a difficult struggle, we often feel the merciful impulse to try to relieve their anguish. This can be a loving impulse, and at times exactly what we should do. But we must be discerning and careful, because sometimes it isn’t. In fact, we might be trying to take away something precious the Lord is giving: endurance.

Loving Gift in a Painful Package

The New Testament makes it clear that, for the Christian, developing endurance is essential. It tells us “the way is hard that leads to life” (Matthew 7:14), and fiery trials most certainly will befall us (1 Peter 4:12). Therefore, it says, “you have need of endurance” (Hebrews 10:36) because “by your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19). God promises to us the “eternal weight of glory” of knowing and being known by Christ (2 Corinthians 4:17; Philippians 3:8). But the promise has a crucial condition: our endurance.

When our heavenly Father determines to give us the gift of endurance, it is one of the most precious, loving gifts we can receive from him. But how is endurance gained? You may know the answer: pain. There’s no way around it. We attain every form of increased stamina only by the discipline of forcing ourselves (or being forced) to push beyond our current limits and persevere through an arduous, sometimes agonizing, experience of discomfort.

So, what package should we expect God’s loving gift of endurance to arrive in? One that “seems painful rather than pleasant” (Hebrews 12:11): a season of discipline.

Need of Endurance

God’s discipline can be a confusing, disorienting experience for Christians. It certainly was for the original recipients of the epistle to the Hebrews. As a church, they were suffering various forms of persecution and social alienation because of their faith in Christ. They too were in a howling spiritual storm, continually being pressed by their own questions and doubts. They were growing weary and discouraged.

And here’s where the author of Hebrews exercised careful discernment in his response. As he listened to these Christians express their fatigue, he didn’t hear endurance, like I did that morning from my friend. He heard them drifting away from the gospel (Hebrews 2:1). He heard them losing confidence in Christ, and beginning to shrink back in fearful unbelief (Hebrews 10:35, 39). He heard them risking the loss of the better and abiding possession that once had given them such joy (Hebrews 10:34–35). They faced a clear and present danger. They surely needed encouragement. But this author knew they didn’t need the soft, consoling kind. They needed a firm exhortation.

Therefore, he didn’t mince words. He warned them of the danger and said, “You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36). Then he encouraged them at length to faithfully endure just as the great saints of the past had done (chapter 11), and just as “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” had done (Hebrews 12:1–2). And then he reminded them that their affliction was the painful package containing God’s loving gift of endurance, a gift he gives to all his children (Hebrews 12:3–11).

God Treating You as Sons

God’s children in every age need this reminder. That’s why the author pointed his Hebrew readers back to an ancient proverb they all knew, and said, “Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?”

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
     nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
     and chastises every son whom he receives. (Hebrews 12:5–6; Proverbs 3:11–12)

Years ago, when the Spirit directed me to Hebrews 12 during a confusing, disorienting, howling spiritual storm, it completely changed my perspective of my affliction.

“The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). This is an expression of God’s love for me. “God is treating you as sons” (Hebrews 12:7). I really am his child. “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10). There is a long-term, sanctifying, satisfying purpose to this agonizing experience.

This exhortation didn’t immediately quiet my internal storm; it didn’t alleviate all my anguish. But as I began to understand my suffering as the endurance-building discipline of my loving Father, I was able to “rejoice in [my] sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance” (Romans 5:3). The God of hope filled me with joy and peace in believing the promise in this exhortation (Romans 15:13). And that hope fueled my resolve to endure.

Endure for Joy

When my friend expressed his own resolve to endure, I was given a glimpse of the Father of spirits giving his son a precious gift in a very painful package — so his son would live (Hebrews 12:9). My friend was not regarding lightly the discipline of the Lord, but receiving it in humble faith, even though his trials grieved him (1 Peter 1:6). He was considering the example of his Older Brother, Jesus, and seeking to endure for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2).

That’s why we all “have need of endurance, so that when [we] have done the will of God [we] may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36). And what is promised, what is set before us, is “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

So, let us give each other the encouragement we most need — the encouragement that will help us receive that promise. At times it is tender comfort and consolation. But at other times, perhaps more than we think, we must strengthen one another’s souls by “encouraging [each other] to continue in the faith, [since it is] through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

In the middle of a howling storm in the soul, in the agony of “a severe test of affliction” (2 Corinthians 8:2), it is easy to grow weary, and the temptation can be strong to just give up. At that point, what we often most need is an exhortation to “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3 KJV). Because “by [our] endurance [we] will gain [our] lives” (Luke 21:19).

To All Who Need Rest: How Jesus Welcomes the Weary

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Life is hard. There is so much that makes us feel weary: our vocational labors, our parenting labors, our ministry labors, our relational conflicts, our sudden or lingering illnesses. Almost everything we do can at times exhaust us. But what makes us most weary aren’t the things we do; it’s what we believe.

Our beliefs either lighten our burdens or add to them. Jesus knew this. That’s why at times he would look out on the crowd of people flocking to him, and he’d overflow with compassion, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). At least once it moved him to cry out to the weary,

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)

And because of his great compassion, we have one of the most beautiful gospel invitations from God to sinners in all of Scripture. In these three precious sentences, the Savior bares his shepherd’s heart to us.

Yes, to us. Jesus feels the same compassion toward those of us who are heavy laden today as he did to the weary back then. And he extends his invitation as urgently and tenderly to us as he did to those harassed and helpless people. His great desire is that we find the rest we so desperately need, which is a rest that only he can give. And so he calls us to come to him, a command loaded with burden-lifting grace and mercy.

Unbearable Weariness

“Come to me . . . and I will give you rest.” My goodness, who would not want to receive such a wonderful invitation? Many, as we discover in the immediate context surrounding these verses.

Just before and after Jesus made this amazing offer, we hear him rebuke the people of certain cities (Matthew 11:20–24) and then the Jewish religious leaders (Matthew 12:1–14). For they had heard his teaching and saw firsthand his miracles — works that so clearly demonstrated who he was (John 5:36) — and yet they still did not believe in him.

In fact, the leaders’ offense was worse. Not only were they rejecting Jesus’s rest for themselves, but what they taught was only adding to the burdens of their heavy-laden listeners. We hear this in a rebuke Jesus delivered to them on another occasion: “You load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:46).

Unbelief and wrong belief (and false teaching) were causing great misery.

So, out of the heart of God the Son, “the exact imprint of [the Father’s] nature” (Hebrews 1:3), pours this great invitation. It flowed from his grief over watching unbearable burdens being heaped on people and from his compassionate desire to bear their burdens for them. If they would but let him, he would exchange the unbearable for an easy yoke and a light burden.

Let Me Bear the Unbearable

What precisely is this easy yoke Jesus offers us? Jesus actually provided an answer to that question when a crowd once asked him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (John 6:28). “This is the work of God,” he responded, “that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29). And to his disciples on the night before he died, he put it this way: “Abide in me” (John 15:4). Believe in me, abide in me, trust me: this, at root, is the work Jesus requires of those who would find rest in him. Jesus wants for us to live by faith in him — to rest on the hope-giving promises of God.

And in exchange, Jesus removes our former yoke from us and carries it on his own shoulders: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). On the cross, Jesus took our inconceivably and unbearably heavy yoke of sin’s condemnation and penalty. And that redemptive work not only purchased our justification (2 Corinthians 5:21); it also ensures the fulfillment of God’s promise to supply all of our needs (Philippians 4:19) and underwrites his invitation that we continually cast all our anxieties on him, since he continually cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).

In this exchange, Jesus bears all our unbearable soul-burdens and gives us the soul-rest we so desperately need.

The Rest We Most Desperately Need

That’s what we deeply long for: rest for our souls. For the hardest burdens to bear are our soul burdens. And so often what burdens our souls are the effects of false beliefs — half-truths we believe about God, ourselves, others, the world, the future, and life that weigh down our hearts with sorrow, fear, anxiety, discouragement, or despair.

The degree that something we believe drains us of hope is the degree to which that belief burdens our souls. For our souls only find peace and rest in hope. This is why we find Scripture recording God’s people saying things like,

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God. (Psalm 42:11)

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
     for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
     my fortress; I shall not be shaken. (Psalm 62:5–6)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)

Hope is what we’re frantically looking for whenever our souls are heavy laden. But hope is only as good as what it rests on is true. A false hope will eventually become its own unbearable soul-burden.

And that is why Jesus cried out, “Come to me!” The God of hope himself, the God of compassion, the God who wishes to bear our sin, to daily bear us up (Psalm 68:19), to shepherd through places of refreshment and danger (Psalm 23), to give us all we need, and to “rescue [us] from every evil deed and bring [us] safely into his heavenly kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:18), this God invites us to come to him and receive from him rest for our souls.

For only Jesus can provide that rest.

Rest That Makes the Hard Way Possible

Coming to Jesus for soul-rest doesn’t change the fact that life is hard. It doesn’t mean our vocational, parenting, and ministry labors, or our relational conflicts, our illnesses, or the countless other struggles we could include will no longer weary us. Jesus made that clear when he said, “The way is hard that leads to life” (Matthew 7:14).

In fact, in another great invitation, he said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). This sounds very different from Matthew 11:28–30. Is Jesus calling us to a life of refreshing rest or to a life of sacrificial dying?

The answer, as you might expect, is both. These invitations aren’t at all contradictory. The truth is, accepting the invitation to Christ-given rest makes accepting the invitation to Christlike living and dying possible. For when a soul has been relieved of its unbearable burdens and is abounding in Spirit-empowered hope and joy through believing the promises of our burden-bearing Lord, we are able to say with Paul,

This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

Coming to Jesus for rest doesn’t shield us from afflictions. It transforms afflictions from fear-dominating, anxiety-producing, and hopeless to “light and momentary.” Hoping in the God of hope makes all the difference.

So, Jesus says to us, “Come to me.” His shepherd’s heart toward us is filled with the same compassion, and his invitation is as urgent and tender as ever. But it is an invitation that must be accepted. Many do not.

Will you?

‘Love What Others Have’: The False Gospel of Covetousness

One day, as Jesus was teaching, a man in the crowd shouted out, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13). Now, if we had been in that crowd, after cringing over such an awkward issue raised in public, what would we have assumed most likely prompted this man’s request? Probably a family injustice.

But what did Jesus hear? Covetousness. And we might have cringed over Jesus’s response more than the man’s request. Surprisingly, Jesus used the man’s plea for justice not to rebuke unjust oppressors, but to warn not only the man but all his hearers (present and future) of the greater danger earthly wealth poses to every soul that craves it: “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

This wasn’t because Jesus didn’t care about injustice. It was because Jesus knew how deceptive, and spiritually dangerous, earthly wealth was to the plaintiff who cried out that day — and to all of us. So, he issued a strong warning to be on guard against all covetousness. Then he illustrated it with a powerful parable, and showed us the way of escape from its temptation.

What Is Covetousness?

The last of the Ten Commandments makes clear what covetousness is:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s. (Exodus 20:17)

To covet is to earnestly, even obsessively, desire what your neighbor has. It’s a sin-cousin of envy, though not the same, as Joe Rigney helpfully explains,

Covetousness is an overweening desire for that which is not yours. Or, as I try to explain to my young boys, covetousness is wanting something so much it makes you fussy. Covetousness wants what the other guy has; envy is angry that the other guy has it. Covetousness is oriented toward your neighbor’s possessions; envy toward the man himself. (Killjoys, 22–23)

Envy moved Cain to murder his neighbor, his own brother (Genesis 4); covetousness moved Achan to take forbidden treasure for himself, resulting in the deaths of numerous of his neighbors (Joshua 7). Envy moved Saul to keep trying to assassinate his neighbor, David (1 Samuel 19); covetousness moved David to steal his neighbor’s wife, and then murder him as a cover-up (2 Samuel 11).

Both envy and covetousness are destructive, even lethal, sins against our neighbor, but for different reasons. While envy is an evil, perverse, twisted kind of valuing of our neighbor (we wish we were him), coveting is an evil, perverse, twisted kind of devaluing of our neighbor (we care more for his stuff than for him).

Idolatry with a Double Edge

The unique evil of covetousness is that we value what our neighbor has more than what our neighbor is. We desire our neighbor’s possessions for ourselves rather than loving our neighbor as ourselves. Which makes coveting a particularly heinous form of idolatry (Colossians 3:5).

In literal idolatry, we “[exchange] the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things”; we value creatures more than the Creator, the one who gives them real value (Romans 1:23, 25). But coveting adds another dimension to this. For we exchange the glory of God inherent in a person (the imago dei, however marred by the fall) for the created things that a God-imaging person owns. In doing so, we both rob God of the glory he deserves and rob our neighbor of the dignity he deserves. Coveting is a double-edged form of idolatry.

When we covet, we love stuff more than human life, more than Divine Life, and more than eternal life. Which is why Jesus told the man, the crowd, and us that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). And then he drove his point home with a powerful parable.

Where Covetousness Leads

At first, it doesn’t sound like the parable has anything to do with coveting:

The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” And he said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” (Luke 12:16–19)

This story seems to be about a man who trusts his investment portfolio more than God, but it says nothing about the man desiring his neighbor’s possessions. So, what does it have to do with coveting?

Everything. We just need to understand that this parable isn’t about the man’s coveting, but about ours. Jesus isn’t showing us what coveting looks like; he’s showing us where coveting leads. The temptation to covet promises us that if we can have what someone else has, we’ll be happy. Jesus is about to show us the emptiness of that promise through the fate of the rich man. So, we’ll let him finish the parable:

But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. (Luke 12:20–21)

This man had essentially what most people believe will make them happy: material wealth and security and a retirement of leisure and entertainment ahead of him. Many around him would have coveted his lifestyle. Then suddenly, death brought it all to a terrible end. The coveted life ended up being a foolish, trivial life since it wasn’t ultimately about life at all. For life never consists in the abundance of our possessions.

End of Coveting

This raises the burning question, So what does life consist of? That’s what Jesus turns to next (Luke 12:22–34), and his answer is quite shocking: life does, in fact, consist of wealth accumulation — a kind that liberates us from the sin of coveting.

Wait. Didn’t Jesus just say wealth is dangerous, so don’t orient your life around accumulating it? No, Jesus said a certain kind of wealth is dangerous, so don’t orient your life around accumulating it. Jesus isn’t against wealth. Jesus is against deceptive wealth, which ultimately impoverishes. But he’s very much in favor of true wealth. Which is why he pivots from this parable to encourage us all to pursue real treasure.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. (Luke 12:22–23)

He reiterates here that life doesn’t consist of possessions. He goes on,

Instead, seek [God’s] kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:31–34)

There’s the end — the death — of covetousness: desiring and providing for ourselves, through faith, an infinitely more valuable, more satisfying, longer-lasting treasure that isn’t possessed by any human being but is freely given to us by God and is, at its heart, God himself. This is a money bag with no holes, a treasure that can’t be stolen, a surplus that doesn’t end but actually begins with death. This is a treasure so liberating that it frees us from fearfully hoarding earthly wealth to instead give it away in love.

Pursue Real Treasure with All Your Heart

The rich man wasn’t wrong in wanting to lay up treasure for himself; he was wrong in what treasure he wanted to lay up for himself (Matthew 6:19–20). All he wanted was a heaven of fully funded retirement for a few toilsome, troublesome years when God was offering a heaven of eternally funded retirement of the fullest joy and forever pleasures (Psalm 16:11). The man wanted to be rich with what is not life when he could be rich with never-ending Life: God. And God called him a fool.

And perhaps the only thing more foolish than this man’s pursuit is for us to covet the treasure this man possessed.

This was the great danger Jesus saw for the man pleading for his share of an inheritance, and this is why he used this opportunity to explain why God commands us not to covet (Exodus 20:17). He wanted us all to keep our lives from the love of money (Hebrews 13:5), since “through this craving [many] have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10), only to discover it all ends tragically with death.

Jesus knew that freedom from “all covetousness” is possible only if we value a superior treasure. And so, his message from this section of Luke 12 is to protect us from the snare that plunges so many into ruin and destruction (1 Timothy 6:9) by instructing us to pursue the real, true, superior, eternal Treasure with all our hearts.

For he knew that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34).

If We Don’t Love, We Won’t Last: Overcoming Offenses in the Church

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21)

When Paul wrote these words to the members of a small church in Rome, he wasn’t merely imparting some sage advice. He wasn’t merely trying to inspire them with a platitudinal ideal to shoot for. These words came stained with the blood and tears of spiritual trench warfare. Paul was telling the precious saints in this church how to stay alive in an evil world. For if churches don’t overcome evil with good, they won’t survive.

I’m writing this out of some personal grief. In recent years, I have watched churches I love dearly fracture, and even break apart. And in the cases I have in mind, the breaks weren’t over doctrinal disagreements or gross immorality, but over offenses given and taken. Longtime friends, having lost trust in one another, could no longer fellowship together. Like most breakups, they’re complicated. Certain parties bear more responsibility than others. But the heartbreaking result is that once-vibrant worshiping communities have ruptured, sometimes leaving a remnant struggling to rebuild from the rubble.

And what I find particularly grievous is that Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). What do these breakups say about Jesus’s love? What do they say about his disciples?

Such relational breakdowns didn’t have to happen. But they illustrate a sobering reality: if we do not love one another enough to overcome evil with good, we will be overcome by evil. Paul’s instructions in Romans 12 on how to love one another with aggressive grace are critical to our churches’ survival. If we don’t understand that, we won’t survive as witnesses of the love of the Lord Jesus that overcame the world.

Most Potent Force in the World

As Christians, we know that love is the king of the affections and the queen of the virtues. It’s in a league of its own. For while every other righteous affection and virtue is an attribute of God, only one is twice said by the apostle of love to be at the core of the divine essence: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).

We know from Scripture of love’s incomparable power. It encompasses all of the Law and the Prophets: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind . . . [and] you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–40). And it was at the very heart of the most potent act in human history: Jesus’s death on the cross. Love moved the Father to give his only Son (John 3:16), and love moved the Son to lay down his life for his friends for the glory of his Father (John 15:13; 17:4).

And we know this supreme act of love did more than redeem lost people. It was also the most powerful act of spiritual warfare ever committed. For through it, Jesus overcame the hate-filled world (John 16:33) and set in motion the eventual and total destruction of the devil and his evil kingdom (1 John 3:8).

Therefore, nothing is more Godlike or gives God more glory and delight than love. Nothing is more morally beautiful, profoundly meaningful, and joy-producing in the human experience than love. And nothing is more offensive, violent, or destructive to the forces of darkness than love.

We know this.

But as Jesus said, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17). Knowing isn’t enough. For the whole blessing of love is in the doing of love. Indeed, if what we do doesn’t proceed from love, we are nothing and gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1–3). But that’s not all: we can also wreak great damage in our churches.

Love with Aggressive Grace

Paul had seen this damage firsthand. He had grieved over it. And so his instructions to the church in Rome were full of urgency — urgency the Holy Spirit wants us to feel over our churches as we read them today. The Spirit, through Paul, wants us to love one another with aggressive grace.

I call it “aggressive grace” for two reasons. First, we are not called to love one another as we deserve to be loved, but as Jesus loved us — with shocking, remarkably gracious love (John 15:12). Second, it’s aggressive because it is a remarkably pursuing, persevering, selfishness-slaying, overcoming love. Such aggressively gracious love is otherworldly, a taste of heaven on earth.

What Love Looks Like

Listen to some of the ways Paul describes the love we are called to feel for and give to one another.

“Let love be genuine. . . . Love one another with brotherly affection” (Romans 12:9–10). It doesn’t take long before we realize what it requires for us to keep loving like this. We all sinfully stumble in many ways (James 3:2). Which means we repeatedly offend one another. It takes persevering graciousness to keep love genuinely affectionate.

“Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). Note the aggressive, even competitive, word Paul chose: “outdo.” Imagine a church’s culture so marked by the healthy humility of considering others more significant than ourselves and overtly making the case for it, that the sin-diseases of selfish ambition and conceit we all carry are held in check (Philippians 2:3). A foretaste of heaven. But this kind of humility is cultivated only by intentional, even stubborn, habitual practice.

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). With the influence of our indwelling sin, we all know how challenging it is to actually obey this command. But if we’ve been on the receiving end of such love, we know how blessed it is.

“Never be wise in your own sight” (Romans 12:16). The more seriously we take this, the more carefully we will listen and respond to others. This alone would prevent many relational conflicts. But it is hard to die to the self-blinding assumption that we’re wise and don’t really need counsel.

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all” (Romans 12:17). Implicit here is that we each will sinfully wound each other. And we all know it requires aggressive self-control not to respond back in sin. “Give thought” captures the intentionality this love requires.

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). How far is “so far”? This can be difficult to answer. But if we are to bear with and forgive one another as Jesus has with us (Colossians 3:13), “so far” is likely much farther than we naturally wish to go.

And, of course, Paul says so much more in Romans 12. But this sampling helps us see to some extent the aggressively gracious, costly Calvary love to which we are called as Christians. It is the love of Jesus, the love the world is meant to recognize in his disciples, the love that overcomes evil with good.

Overcome Evil with Good

Paul ends the chapter with the exhortation I opened with: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). It is the high calling of each church. And it is an admittedly hard calling, for “the way is hard that leads to life” (Matthew 7:14). It requires each of us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow in the footsteps of our Lord, who so loved us (Matthew 16:24; John 15:12).

The stakes are high. For if we will not overcome evil with good, we will be overcome by evil. If we will not love one another as Jesus loved us, we will not last together. The demonic forces know this and aim their fiery darts strategically. Which is why the demise of too many churches is due to internal conflict rather than external persecution. Which is why once strong churches can break apart.

This doesn’t have to happen. But our churches’ survival is staked on whether or not we, their members, love one another with the aggressive grace that comes from Jesus. We know these things. But knowing isn’t enough. Blessed are we if we do them.