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Satan’s War to Keep You Out of Church; Thomas Brooks, Part 3

This post is part three of our summary of the Puritan classic Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks. You can read part 1 HERE and part 2 HERE. This week, we’re looking at how Brooks characterizes Satan’s attack on keeping Christians from doing what builds up our faith and souls. If he can keep us weak, he can keep us ineffective.

Satan’s devices to keep souls from holy duties, to hinder souls in holy services, and to keep them off from religious performances

Satan seeks to ensnare the soul by presenting the world as beautiful “Where one thousand are destroyed by the world’s frowns, ten thousand are destroyed by the world’s smiles! The world, siren-like, sings to us, then sinks us!”

By “world,” Brooks isn’t referring to the earth as God made it, but the system of the world that lives in rebellion against God or in apathy to God, as if He doesn’t exist or have a prior claim upon our lives. Because God is such a good creator, He has made an amazing world. The danger behind that truth is that the world is so impressive it can begin to blind us to the even more beautiful world of the eternal.

Remedies:

Dwell on the weakness and impotency of all things in the world.Dwell on the vanity of the things of the world.Dwell on the uncertainty and inconstancy of the things of the world.

“As a bird hops from tree to tree, so do the honors and riches of this world from man to man.”

Remember that “the great things of this world are very hurtful and dangerous to the outward and inward man, through the corruptions that are in the hearts of men.”Consider that all the happiness of this world is mixed.Become better acquainted with more blessed and glorious things.

“Let heaven be a man’s object, and earth will soon be his abject.” If we don’t spend time meditating on the things of God and filling our heart with worship, we can become enthralled with the less beautiful world. God and His truth are the standards. If we ignore the standard, we lower our thirst for what truly satisfies.

Dwell on the fact that true happiness and satisfaction isn’t found in the enjoyment of worldly good.

“A man may have enough of the world to sink him—but he can never have enough to satisfy him.”

Dwell on the dignity of the soul.Satan keeps us from religious duties by presenting to us the danger, losses and sufferings which accompany such duties.

Remedies:

Remember that the troubles and afflictions accompanying religious duties will never harm what truly matters and satisfy.

Today’s believers tend to view “religious duties” as lifeless legalism, but this isn’t how Brooks sees them or describes them. What he means here is that giving up time to engage in those religious activities that build our souls only serves and can never hinder what leads to true happiness and fulfillment: “The treasures of a saint are the presence of God, the favor of God, union and communion with God, the pardon of sin, the joy of the Spirit, and the peace of conscience. These are jewels which none can give but Christ, nor none can take away but Christ.”

Remember how other saints remained faithful in spite of troubles.Remember that while the troubles and dangers of religious service are temporary, the neglect of them lays us open to eternal dangers.

“The doing of heavenly services may lay you open to the frowns of men—but the neglect of them will lay you open to the frowns of God.”

Consider that God knows how to deliver us from troubles.Dwell on the fact that you will gain more serving God and walking in his ways than you can possibly suffer or lose by serving him.Satan seeks to make us negligent of religious duties by presenting to us the difficulty of our duties.

Remedies

Dwell more on the necessity of the service and duty than on the difficulty that attends the duty.Jesus will make his services easy to us through the sweet discovery of himself to our souls as we obey.Dwell on the difficulties Jesus endured on our behalf for our benefit.Religious duties are only difficult to the most ignoble part of us.Remember the reward that awaits the faithful.

“One hour’s being in heaven will abundantly recompense you for cleaving to the Lord and his ways in the face of all difficulties.”

“Christians who would hold on in the service of the Lord, must look more upon the future crown than upon the present cross; more upon their future glory than their present misery.”

Satan tempts us to make false inferences from the blessed and glorious things Christ has done (i.e., because Jesus has perfectly justified us and fulfilled the law, religious duties don’t matter or aren’t important).

Oh, how I would like to name names here! There have been some popular contemporary authors who have built a huge following by teaching this deception. They take the truth that salvation is a gift to which we contribute nothing, but then fall into the error that leads to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace” and Thomas Brooks calls “false inference.” This has been a heresy at worst and a spiritual cancer at best throughout the church’s history and remains so today.

Remedies

Dwell as often on the scriptures that show the duties Christ asks of us as we do the Scriptures that tell us what Christ has done on our behalf.

You can find both—there are plenty of both—and it is a lie to stress one in contradiction to the other. In God’s blessed truth, Christ’s work and our work are complementary realities, not enemies.

What Christ has done should motivate us to more service, not less.The saints before you were motivated toward more service.Not walking in the ways of righteousness withholds evidence to our souls that we are righteous.

“A Christian’s emblem should be a house walking toward heaven. High words surely make a man neither holy nor just; but a virtuous life, a circumspect walking, makes him dear to God. A tree that is not fruitful is fit only for the fire.”

We do what we do not just for justification, but to testify to our justification.Satan taunts us with how few and how poor those are who walk in the ways of God and continue in religious practices.

True believers often are poor, neglected, ridiculed, and looked down upon. Satan wants us to avoid the things of God by telling us we’ll share the same lot if we get too serious about our faith.

Remedies:

Though they are outwardly poor, they are inwardly rich.

“Though saints have little in hand, yet they have much in hope.”

History records a few saints who have been great, rich, wise and honorable, and who still persevered in their faith regardless of the difficulties.Remember that the spiritual riches of the poorest saints infinitely transcend the temporal riches of all the wicked men in the world.Though the saints be few, taken together, they are an “innumerable number that cannot be numbered.”It won’t be long until the poor despised saints shall shine brighter than the sun.There will come a time when the reproach and contempt of saints will be taken away and the saints will be made the head.Satan points out the examples of the most celebrated people in the world who follow their own hearts and make fun of those who follow God.

Remedies:

Remember the Scriptures that expressly tell us not to follow the example of wicked men.

“The way to be undone forever is to do as the most do. The multitude is the weakest and worst argument.”

Consider that if you win with the multitude you will suffer with the multitude; the multitude will help you sin, but it cannot help you avoid the punishment you will face as an individual.Dwell on the worth and excellency of your immortal soul.

“Surely, it is better to go to heaven alone—than to hell with company!”

By distracting the soul with vain thoughts while the soul is waiting on God or seeking God

Remedies:

Let your soul be affected with the greatness, holiness, majesty and glory of God.

“A man would be afraid of playing with a feather, when he is speaking with a king.”

Be faithful in religious services even when distracted.Remember it’s not a sin to be distracted if we fight against the distractions.Remember that “watching against sinful thoughts, resisting of sinful thoughts, lamenting and weeping over sinful thoughts, carries with it the sweetest and strongest evidence of the truth and power of grace, and of the sincerity of your hearts, and is the readiest and the surest way to be rid of them.”Labor to be filled with the fullness of God and enriched with spiritual and heavenly things.Maintain holy affections.Avoid too many worldly cares.Tempting us to rest in our religious duties by focusing on what we have done rather than us thinking about what we yet need to do.

Remedies:

Dwell on the imperfection and weaknesses of your service.Consider the impotence and inability of even your best services to hold you up in the days of trouble.Remember that good things rested upon will undo us as much as the foulest sins will condemn us.Never forget that only Christ is our true resting place.

We’ve still got at least two posts to go to cover the summary of Brooks’ magisterial work. If you’d like to get a copy for yourself, you can find it HERE (Gary Thomas is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and Church Source Affiliates Program, advertising programs designed to provide a means for Gary to earn fees through customized links to these sites.)

The post Satan’s War to Keep You Out of Church; Thomas Brooks, Part 3 appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Wealth Can be Hazardous to Your Marriage

A 2018 CNBC headline didn’t surprise me at all: “Being Rich May Increase Your Odds of Divorce.” I’ll never forget a very successful businessman telling me, “Our marriage began falling apart when I went from earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to millions of dollars a year.”

Divorce statistics are notorious to deconstruct, but news reports confirm that even extreme wealth doesn’t guarantee a marriage’s success. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, the two richest men in America, both rather recently announced divorces. Donald Trump’s three wives, Larry Ellison’s four wives, and Richard Perelman’s five wives further show that being a billionaire doesn’t guarantee marital happiness. Warren Buffett didn’t divorce his first wife, but he did live with his mistress, Astrid Menks, for years, and then married Astrid after his wife died. Sergey Brin and Michael Bloomberg are two more of the “top ten” in wealth with a divorce on their resume.

And then there’s Elon Musk, who is among the supremely wealthy. Justine Musk, who was married to Elon for eight years, believes the super successful can be notoriously difficult spouses because the very qualities that help them succeed in business can work against their relationships. According to The Financial Times, shortly after divorcing Justine, Elon “married an actress, only to divorce and remarry her in quick succession. Now he is in the process of divorcing her again.” As I write this, the fifty-year old Elon Musk has moved on to father a child with yet another different woman, though they haven’t announced any plans for marriage.

I once had the opportunity of spending some time with a different kind of billionaire couple. They wish to remain anonymous, but the truth behind the strength of their marriage is worth celebrating. It aligns with the message I share in A Lifelong Love: Discovering How Intimacy With God Breathes Passion Into Your Marriage.

The Finest Christian Man

One of the first things this wife ever told me wasn’t how brilliant her billionaire husband is, how good he is at amassing wealth, or how he handles all his possessions. It was something very different:

“My husband is the finest Christian man I’ve ever known.” She admires him more than she admires his wealth.

When a wife of several decades says something like this with such conviction, I listen. So I asked them what makes their marriage different. Two things stood out: faith and mission.

“The good habits for us are faith in the Bible; going to church, tithing, prayer–we pray first thing in the morning before we get out of bed—serving in church and teaching a Sunday school class for married couples.”

These are the bedrock practices of their lives, and I’m convinced they’d be true whether they earned $50,000 a year or $50,000 an hour. Their faith, not their money, shapes what they do. Their schedule is determined by their belief in God, not their devotion to their business.  

They’ve seen individuals and couples ruined by making a lot of money because money starts to compete with the relationship instead of serving it. This couple has decided they’d rather be an intimate couple who worship God than a wealthy couple who forgets God and eventually hates each other.

The second thing they stress is mutual mission for God.  Even though they could retire and enjoy the best this world has to offer, the husband told me, “Eternity is what’s important. Don’t live for this world; live for the other world.”

The husband is an avid evangelist, sharing his faith wherever he goes. He has led hundreds of people to the Lord, and though MBA professors would advise never mixing business and religion, this man is always more concerned about an investor’s soul than he is with getting him to agree to another contract.

Because this couple is known to have a lot of money, people try to hang around them to get some of it, but this husband and wife realize they have something more valuable than money to pass on and that’s their faith. “They just don’t know it yet.” It’s always inspiring to me to see a couple live with the sense of mission that Paul writes about to the Corinthians:

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view…

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:14-20).

Here’s the difference: this couple doesn’t focus on what their money does for them; they focus on how their faith can impact, bless and enrich others. They are givers, and see every relationship as an opportunity to help someone draw nearer to God or meet God for the first time.

In one sense, Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians could be one of the most powerful marital teachings in all of Scripture. When the two of you are joined around a mission for God, your marriage becomes a fortress because there is something permanent holding you together. If you make parenting your fortress, what will happen when your kids move out of the house or reject the faith? If you make your business your fortress, what will you do if the economy collapses and your business disappears? If you make traveling and fun your fortress, what will you do if health or financial concerns topple your ability to travel?

But there is no instance where mission on behalf of God’s reconciling work isn’t relevant and urgent and important to a believing couple. And joint mission draws this couple together in admiration as each other gushes about their spouse’s zeal.

 The wife talks about living with her eyes and ears open to “divine appointments.” She purchased a lake house for extended family gatherings and a young man came out to fix their dock. While getting to know him, she sensed a deep spiritual hunger in him. “I really needed that dock fixed for an upcoming family get together, but I also knew I couldn’t be too focused on getting the dock fixed to the point that I would miss what his soul needs most—a relationship with Jesus.”

Faithful in the Little Things

It comes down to what you want out of life. The husband once met a billionaire who hadn’t been on a vacation with his wife without the kids in twenty-two years. “He had plenty of money but not much of a marriage.” He could afford a vacation, but he didn’t value a vacation because his money became more important than his marriage.

The wife I talked to doesn’t deny that “money does help,” but she’s quick to add that life brings common hurts to everyone. “If one of our kids broke a leg, we could pay for the doctor to treat it. But we’d still have an injured child. Money helps you face problems but it can’t always solve problems.”

They mentioned a private family issue that money can’t solve. I know they’d spend a billion dollars to fix it, but it’s the kind of problem money can’t fix. Being rich doesn’t erase the fact that all of us live in a fallen world.

After talking with this couple I came to realize that people tend to over-estimate what money can do for a couple and under-estimate the damage it can cause. Foolish couples pursue financial affluence with everything they’ve got, but don’t guard themselves from what might happen when it starts to come in. “It’s in prosperity that people get greedy,” the wife told me. “We see young people start earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year but instead of being grateful they get competitive and lose their marriages by focusing on their business more than they do on their families.”

The “happy” couples, in the wife’s view, are the ones who love each other and invest in relationships, beginning with their own. Psalm 49:20 warns, “People who have wealth but lack understanding are like the beasts that perish.” If you have a good heart, money can help you live an even better life. If you have a corrupt heart, money will likely speed and even enable your corruption.

I asked the husband, “What does a guy earning seventy-five thousand a year not know about the pressures and difficulties of being a billionaire?”

“The responsibility of handling all that money and being a faithful steward before God. Giving money away can be difficult.”

The wife shows empathy for her husband: “Very few people could even begin to understand the weight my husband carries.”

She has seen other wealthy men become workaholics as their businesses grow. “Here’s what so many of the guys do: they buy things for their wives to placate them: rings, clothes, cars, and then ask, ‘Why aren’t you happy?’ She’d live in a shack out in the country with him if she really loves him. If my husband lost everything, I’d go anywhere with him. We started out renting an apartment and I’d go back to that, as long as I was with him. What we share most together is our relationship with Christ, and we can’t lose that.”

It’s not just wealthy men who become workaholics. She’s seen a woman almost lose her marriage chasing after a few hundred thousand dollars a year because she was convinced that’s how much her family needed her to earn “in our neighborhood.” The young wife didn’t question whether that neighborhood was good for her marriage; the way it took her away from her husband and children, it sounded more like a prison. When she and her husband discussed their schedules and how they had to divide everything up timewise just to keep the family going, they wanted advice for their marriage but the advice they received from this couple surprised them.

“I don’t think your marriage will survive if you keep living at this pace,” they were told. “Are you sure you have to earn that much money? Is it worth the risk to your relationship?” They were so focused on how much money they needed to bring in to pay the mortgage that they were all but blind to what they needed to invest in their marriage in order to thrive as a couple.

To those who seem to be prospering financially, the husband urges, “Don’t let yourself spiritually erode, and don’t let money increase while your spirituality decreases.”  He recalls his dad telling him that handling success can often be even more difficult than handling poverty: “I’ve been poor and I’ve been prosperous. I’d rather be prosperous, but I learned a lot more when I was poor.”

It’s a Bullfight

In order for a matador to win a bullfight, he has to keep the bull focused on the red cape that hides his sword. He doesn’t want the bull to see the real danger—the sword that will actually kill him. The bull is so focused on the red cape (the color hides blood stains as well as the sword) that he doesn’t realize the matador is slowly bleeding the life out of him. When I work with affluent couples, I sometimes think of the pursuit of money as the matador. They are so focused on the “cape”—financial success and security, preserving all that they have with the same desperation that poorer couples often exert to get what they don’t yet have—that they don’t notice how the matador of affluence is slowly bleeding their relationship to death. 

Focus on your faith. Be zealous about your mission. Money doesn’t have to kill your marriage—it can actually serve it. But that happens only when faith and mission are at the center of your pursuit.

This really is the message of A Lifelong Love: Discovering How Intimacy With God Breathes Passion Into Your Marriage. If you’d like to learn how spiritual purpose and worship can build your marriage, I urge you to check out this newly revised edition.

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Recognizing the Sinfulness of Sin; Thomas Brooks, Part 2

We’re continuing our series summarizing Thomas Brooks’ Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. You can read part 1 HERE.  The outline comments are all quotes or near paraphrases from Brooks. I do a little amateur commentating on many of them. I’m hoping we can dialogue even more than usual in the comments section. What thought is particularly convicting, encouraging, or helpful for you?

For those who missed last week’s post, Thomas Brooks was an English non-conformist Puritan preacher and author (1608-1680). His book is a Puritan form of C.S. Lewis’ famous The Screwtape Letters, exposing how Satan works and entraps earnest believers. Brooks points out Satan’s lies and traps, and then offers counterpoints to equip Christians to withstand these attacks. The “numbered” points are “Satan’s devices” (tactics), and the “Remedies” are Brooks’ suggestions for overcoming each spiritual falsehood.

Satan tempts us to flirt with sin, thinking we can resist it.

Intellectually, it’s difficult for a believer to jump headfirst into sin. Satan knows this, so he encourages us to “flirt” with sin, knowing that a long period of flirtation can break down our spiritual defenses and lead to an actual fall.

Remedies:

Dwell on the Scriptures that tell us to flee from sin and stay far from it.

The Bible is clear that we have no business even hanging around sin, much less flirting with it.

ii. There is no conquest of sin without the soul turning from the occasion to sin.

iii. The great saints ran from the temptation to sin as if they were running from hell itself.

One of the things that marks a saint as a saint is that she or he recognizes the sinfulness of sin and does all they could to avoid it. They aren’t looking for ways to befriend sin or walk as closely to the line as God might allow. For the saints, running from sin is simply running from hell, which makes a lot of sense.

iv. Avoiding the occasion to sin is itself an act of grace.

Walking away from sin is every bit as much an act of grace as receiving forgiveness for our sin when we fall. Grace should build moral strength, not serve moral weakness.

Satan speaks to us of the enjoyment of sin and the miseries we avoided while we walked in our sin.

Satan tries to get us to remember the momentary pleasure of sin, and how sometimes it even seemed to serve us (such as temporarily removing the pain or providing initial enjoyment). He also may try to lure us with the knowledge that by agreeing with the world’s view that sin isn’t really sin, we might be spared from popular criticism and censure. But this is all a lie, as the remedies show.

Remedies:

You can’t determine anyone’s standing before God by looking at their outward blessings

You can’t tell how highly favored anyone is by God by whether they are wealthy, healthy, popular and at ease. Jeremiah was one of the most faithful saints of all time and was brutally persecuted. Jesus lived the most obedient life of anyone and was homeless until he was crucified.

Nothing provokes God’s wrath and anger more than using His goodness and mercy as an excuse or license to sin wickedly

“This is wickedness at the height—for a man to be very bad, because God is very good.”

The worst affliction is to have no affliction in your sin; that means the physician has given up the patient as dead.

If you ever get to the point where you can “comfortably” sin, you are in a very dangerous place, spiritually. God sends His conviction to those He is bringing back. A lack of conviction could be an early sign of spiritual death.

Wicked men lack more than they enjoy.

Wicked people focus on their sinful pleasure, not realizing how much spiritual joy, peace, assurance, power, etc. that they forfeit because of their sin. Their sin is costing them far more than they realize. They look only at what sin gives them, not what it takes away.

Remember that the outward condition of the wicked isn’t a true picture of inner turmoil.

Blatant sinners may brag about their ways, but we can’t see the sleeplessness, the lack of peace, and the inner turmoil and spiritual fear that they try so hard to hide.

vi.        God often sets up the wicked to bring them down.

vii.       God often plagues and punishes with spiritual rather than temporal punishments.

Wicked men will have to give an account for all the good they have enjoyed.Satan points out the “crosses, losses, reproaches, sorrows, and sufferings, which daily attend those who walk in the ways of holiness.”

Satan wants us to think about all we have seemingly “given up” for God, and how following Christ is so costly that, in the end, it’s not worth it.  

Remedies:

“All the afflictions that attend the people of God are such as shall turn to their profit and glorious advantage.” 

This section is filled with quote gems such as these:

“Afflictions are a crystal glass, wherein the soul has the clearest sight of the ugly face of sin.”

“God’s house of correction is his school of instruction.”

According to Brooks, afflictions are a necessary part of our development, not something to be feared or hated. They are acts of love on God’s part, tools used to perfect His people. Far from afflictions turning us away from God, they are reminders of how much he loves us.

ii. Afflictions of the saints reach their worse part, but they don’t hurt the most noble part.

iii. The saints’ afflictions are short and momentary.

iv.  The afflictions of the saints proceed from God’s love. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Rev. 3:19).

I loved this line in particular: “God had one Son without corruption—but no son without correction.”

Saints shouldn’t measure afflictions by the hurt they cause, but by the ultimate good they produce in the soul.

You don’t judge labor by its pain, but by the baby who is born. You don’t judge an exercise by how much it hurts but by the muscles that it builds.  

vi. God allows afflictions only to try us, not to hurt us or ruin us.

vii. In the end, the afflictions of sin and wickedness are far worse than the ways of holiness.

An honest student of human experience will realize that sin is its own curse. It causes more pain, more disquiet and wrecks more relationships than following God ever will.

Satan tempts us to compare our lot with those who seem more wicked than us.

Remedies:

The greatest proof of a hypocrite is to miss the log in his eye as he points out the splinter in another’s eye.

God doesn’t grade “on a curve.” My neighbor’s sin has absolutely no bearing on how God views me or how sin affects my particular soul. It’s no better to be the least guilty murderer on death row—you’re still a murderer, and you’re still on death row. So don’t let the sins of others make you feel good about your “lesser” level of sin.

ii. Spend more time comparing your life with the rule of Scripture rather than comparing yourself to others.

iii. Even if your sins aren’t as bad as others, without repentance from them you will face the same damnation, though perhaps not the same torment.

Satan fills the mind of men with dangerous errors, lies about God, Scripture and truth

When Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and begins Philippians 4:8 by telling us to fix our minds on whatever is true, and Jesus calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life, it’s clear that the mind is an essential component of spiritual transformation. When we start to believe lies, we will soon start to live lies.

Remedies:

An erroneous, vain mind is as odious to God as a wicked life.

To be undisciplined in your mind is every bit as harmful as not taking care of your body, gambling away your finances, or gluttonously eating away your health.

ii. “Receive the truth affectionately, and let it dwell in your souls plenteously.”

iii. Doctrinal errors will cost us dearly.

                  Ignorance is very expensive, spiritually speaking.

iv. “Hate and reject all those doctrines and opinions which are contrary to godliness, and which open a door to profaneness, and all such doctrines and opinions which require men to hold forth a strictness above what the Scripture requires.”

Teachers can fall off either end: being lackadaisical about godly living, or putting false restrictions and burdens on people.

Hold fast to the truth. 

“It is better to let go of anything, rather than truth! It is better to let go, of your honors and riches, your friends and pleasures, and the world’s favors; yes, your nearest and dearest relations, yes, your very lives—than to let go of the truth.”

vi. Stay humble.

vii. Remember all the great evils that doctrinal error has produced.

Choosing wicked company

If we hang around wicked people, our sensitivity to sin will be gradually weakened until sin no longer seems sinful. This is Satan’s “long game,” slowly taking us back from enjoying life in Christ by gradually breaking down our discernment of what is truly beautiful and holy and true.

Remedies:

Remember all the Scriptures that tell us to shun “the society of the wicked” (Eph. 5:11; Prov. 5:14-16; 1 Cor. 5:9-11; 2 Thess. 3:6: Prov. 1:10-15).

ii.           Remember that the company of the wicked is very infectious.

iii.          Consider the disparaging names Scripture gives to the wicked: bears, dragons, dogs, wolves.

iv.          Don’t forget how much wicked people caused grief and burdens to fall on many of the saints now living in heaven.

If you’d like to order Thomas Brooks book for yourself, click HERE.

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The Motivation You Need to be Married

If you’re a regular reader of this blog or my books, you know that one of the fundamental truths for me that keeps pouring motivation into my marriage is viewing God as my heavenly Father-in-law. I never want to forget that I’m married to God’s daughter. That makes my relationship as much an expression of gratitude to One to whom I owe everything as it does about a relationship with another person.

For this week, I’m including a short excerpt from my recently updated and re-released book A Lifelong Love: Discovering How Intimacy with God Breathes Passion into Your Marriage, where, in book form, I try to unpack the meaning of this truth. 

When couples so frequently tell me they have slowly grown apart, it only reinforces my belief that fifty percent of marriage is about motivation. How can we stay motivated to love spouses who—like all of us—aren’t always easy to love? Well, let’s look at how our heavenly Father—and, if we’re married, how our heavenly Father-in-Law–displays His motivation to keep loving the imperfect us.

When the rebellious tribes of Israel finally returned and even wept over their sin, God was eager to take His children back: “‘Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him; therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him” (Jeremiah 31:20 nasb).

In the same way, God is fully aware of our spouses’ limitations, and He is just as eager for us to be kind and generous with these faults as we are eager for our kids’ future spouses to be kind to them when they stumble (by “stumble,” I am not talking about abusive marriages—if that’s your situation, see the end).

Women, if you dreamed of long, soul-filled discussions late into the night but six months after the wedding realized you married a man who wouldn’t know an emotion if it bit him on the nose until he bled, try dealing with your frustration by understanding that you made a good God very happy by agreeing to love His son with all his limitations. My earthly father-in-law wept tears of joy at my and Lisa’s wedding rehearsal dinner. He was overcome with emotion because, as he later told me, he believed his daughter would be secure in her husband’s love, and that’s really all he needed to know. I had pathetic job prospects, virtually no earthly possessions besides a 1974 Ford Maverick Grabber, and lacked the real-world wisdom that you might hope a future son-in-law would have. But none of that mattered as much as the fact that he knew I was committed to Lisa and she’d be secure in my love.

That’s but a dim but compelling picture of how your heavenly Father rejoiced when your spouse made the decision to marry you. Your disappointment at perhaps not having the marriage you imagined is understandable, but worshipping God by loving your husband anyway is a precious choice that will be richly rewarded in eternity and will greatly impact your life on earth as well.

Men, if you married your wife not realizing that breast cancer or multiple sclerosis was in her future, and you’re thinking, I didn’t sign up for this, consider also how much joy you gave to your heavenly Father-in-Law when He could say on the day you were married, “I’m so pleased my daughter is with a good man who will stay with her and care for her out of reverence for Me. I know what is in her future, and I will give this man what he needs to see it through. I just want him to take care of My cherished daughter.”

One of the things I love about this perspective is that while “secular” love is based on things that constantly change—health, beauty, mutual enjoyment of each other, circumstance, and so on—my wife will never stop being God’s daughter, so my main reason for loving her will never change. If she is an eighty-year-old arthritic Alzheimer’s patient, she will be no less God’s daughter then than she is now. And I must never mistreat her, demean her, or do anything to dishonor her any more than I’d want my own daughter to be demeaned or cheated on.

What if I ran all my actions through this grid: “If a son-in-law treated one of my daughters the way I’m treating my wife, how would I feel?” Men, that’s how what you’re doing looks to God. Women, just switch the genders. Imagine one day hearing your daughter-in-law talking to her friends about your son with the same tone and words you use to describe your husband. How would that feel?

Things become so much clearer and evil becomes so much more transparent when we look at what we’re doing through the eyes of a benevolent parent instead of an aggrieved spouse. I want to be a faithful son-in-law, one who makes God proud, who makes God smile, who makes God sigh with satisfaction when He watches how I care for and treat my wife, His daughter.

With such an attitude, marriage becomes a central part of our worship. Putting God before all else helps me to be meticulously loving toward my wife. We learn to love imperfect people by serving them out of reverence for a perfect God, who loved us in the midst of our own brokenness. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Every believer owes God more than we could ever know. He not only created us, but He redeemed us as well. He continues to forgive us. He teaches us. He encourages us. He protects us, often in ways we don’t even know about. He provides us with a reason to live. His acceptance is the basis for our ability to face our shame.

When I owe someone so much, He can ask of me anything He wants. And one of the things He wants most particularly is for me to take care of His little girl.

Even if you spent ten years meditating on it, you’d still fall far short of understanding just how much God truly cares about your spouse. The Bible describes our believing spouses not just as children but also as “dearly loved children” (Ephesians 5:1). A good bit of their comfort, happiness, and care has been placed in our hands. What are we going to do with that?

This same understanding, ironically enough, provides abused spouses with the rationale to leave their marriage. As much as I love my son, if he was abusing his wife, I’d want my daughter-in-law to get out of there. I’d be angry at my son for the marriage’s demise, not at my daughter-in-law for protecting herself.

We worship a God of mercy and a God of justice, the most perfect Being who sees all and is fair to all. By worshiping him rightly, and understanding the fullness of Who He is, we can draw all the wisdom we need to apply to our own relationships and secure the right motivation to do marriage well.   

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Satan’s Devices to Draw the Soul to Sin

Thomas Brooks, Part 1

The next five weeks (or so—we’ll see as we go along) we’ll be looking at Thomas Brooks’ Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. Thomas Brooks was an English non-conformist Puritan preacher and author. He was born in 1608 and died in 1680. His book is sort of an early Screwtape Letters, though of course written in a much less popular format (he was a Puritan, after all). His goal is to expose how Satan works and entraps earnest believers and then to equip Christians to anticipate and withstand these attacks. Brooks wants us to know that whether we take up arms or not, we are in a fierce battle: “Satan…is so full of malice and envy that he will leave no means unattempted, whereby he may make all others eternally miserable with himself.”

If we’re being warred against, it’s wise to ask, “What am I doing to fight back?” If the answer is, “Not much” or worse, “Nothing, really,” this book might be something you want to pick up.

The format Brooks chooses is to first label the “devices” Satan uses to draw us into sin, and then offer the remedies God’s people need to apply in order to recognize the deception and fight off the attacks.  He urges a slow and meditative reading of his book, leading to application. Quoting Ephesians 6:11, he warns that the “wiles of the devil” tend to be subtle and treacherous.

My hope is that these summaries will make you want to read the book for yourself. Find the book HERE. (Gary Thomas is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and Church Source Affiliates Program, advertising programs designed to provide a means for Gary to earn fees through customized links to these sites.)

Satan’s Devices to Draw the Soul to Sin

Satan will tempt us by “presenting the bait” while “hiding the hook.”  

I love the way Brooks describes this. Satan’s play is “to present the golden cup—and hide the poison.” He seeks to give us “an apple in exchange for a paradise.”

Remedies:

i.          Keep a great distance from sin, even abhor it (Romans 12:9).

Remember that sin is bittersweet. “That seeming sweet that is in sin will quickly vanish; and lasting shame, sorrow, horror and terror” will follow. “After the meal is ended, then comes the reckoning.”Remember that sin ushers in the greatest and saddest losses.Consider that sin is deceitful and bewitching by nature.Satan will tempt us by painting sin with virtue’s colors.

An earnest believer may reject sin if sin presents itself as sin, so Satan will sometimes mask sin with something good.

Remedies:

Remember that sin is still filthy even though it is painted with virtue’s colors.The more a sin is painted as a virtue, the more dangerous it becomes.Look on that sin as you will in eternity and you’ll see its true nature.Remember that every painted sin cost the blood of Christ.Satan will tempt us by downplaying the seriousness of our sin.

Satan knows we may be inclined to reject and resist sin, so he tries to downplay its seriousness, as if God will understand “just this once.” Every sin is a serious sin; no sin is to be downplayed or toyed with.

Remedies:

Sins we consider small have resulted in great wrath from God.Giving way to a lesser sin opens the door to a greater sin: “Sin is of an encroaching nature.” “When a man has begun to sin, he knows not where, or when, or how he shall make a stop of sin.”How sad it is to sin against God for a trifle; if it’s only a trifle, why disobey God? “The less the temptation is to sin—the greater is that sin.”Remember that there is great danger in even the smallest sins. “Little sins often slide into the soul, and breed, and work secretly and indiscernibly in the soul, until they come to be so strong, as to trample upon the soul, and to cut the throat of the soul.”Remember how other saints have suffered torture rather than commit the least of sins.Even the smallest sin will “sink the soul into hell.”Consider that there is “more evil in the least sin than in the greatest affliction.”Satan may tempt us by reminding us of how other saints have fallen and making us forget their virtue and faithfulness.

Remedies:

Though the Bible is honest about how his followers fall, it also recounts their repentance.

ii. The saints didn’t make sin a practice; it stayed an event. “The saints cannot sin with a whole will—but, as it were, with a half-will, an unwillingness, not with full consent—but with a dissenting consent.”

iii. Remember that though God doesn’t disinherit us for our sins, He has punished His people for their sins (we might prefer the word “discipline” today).

iv. Biblical accounts of sins have two purposes: to keep the earnest saints from despair when they sin and to warn others not to fall into the same trap.

Satan will tempt us by presenting God to the soul as one made up all of mercy.

God is merciful, yes, but to look on God as only merciful might tempt us to be soft on sin.

Remedies:

Remember that the greatest judgment in the world is to be left in your sin.

ii. Remember that God is just as well as merciful.

iii. Sins against God’s mercy will bring judgement. “Mercy is God’s Alpha, justice is His Omega.”

iv. God shows a hand of general mercy to all, but “His gold, special mercy, is only toward those who His heart is most set upon.”

The highest saints in heaven used the truth of God’s mercy as motivation not to sin rather than as an encouragement to sin.Satan tempts us to sin by presenting the work of repentance as easy and not a matter of great concern

Remedies:

Remember that repentance is a mighty and difficult work requiring God’s strength.

ii. the true nature of repentance is turning from sin to God.

iii. Repentance is an ongoing act.

iv. If repentance was so easy, fewer would be so miserable for not doing it.

v. To repent of sin is as great a work of grace as to not sin.

vi. The same Satan who tempts you to sin by making repentance seem easy and unimportant will lead you to despair after you sin so that you give up and stay imprisoned in your sins.

If there is one area of study in the contemporary church that is sadly lacking today, it is our lackadaisical view of sin. Brooks’ Precious Remedies is a much needed reminder that we are in a spiritual war every day of our lives. Satan is luring us, sin is beckoning us, and naivete and indifference plays entirely into his plans.  

This “outline format” differs substantially from how we usually write these blogs but, again, I’m hoping to just whet your appetite to dig in to all that Brooks’ offers. You can order the book for yourself HERE. (Gary Thomas is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and Church Source Affiliates Program, advertising programs designed to provide a means for Gary to earn fees through customized links to these sites.)

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When Marital Devotional Styles Collide

Through 36 years of marriage, my wife and I have been members at more than our share of churches.  Among my wife’s favorites was an unusual gathering: a conservative, charismatic Episcopalian congregation in Northern Virginia.  Because it was a smaller church, with just one service, they had the luxury of offering services that lasted one hour and forty-five minutes.  The service had a full Episcopalian liturgy, complete with communion (every Sunday), the normal 25 to 30 minutes of charismatic chorus-type singing, and a 15-to-20-minute sermon.

I sometimes felt short-changed by the sermon, which often felt more like a “thought for the day” exercise than a real, get-into-the-guts-of-the-passage type of teaching I’m most fond of.  But we loved the other members, and during the week I’d listen to a couple sermon tapes (this was back in the days when “downloading” sermons was the stuff of science fiction) to get my “fix.”

Married couples often haveto make certain compromises when it comes to choosing a church, but in the area of personal devotion, compromise not only isn’t necessary, it can be unhelpful.  By pursuing my own study and listening to sermons during the week, I was able to fully participate in and enjoy a church that might not have been my first choice, but that served my wife well.  In this case, my Monday through Saturday personal worship made the Sunday public worship palatable.

While there is much talk about finding a church both husband and wife can agree on, there is too little talk about individual devotional practices. If you’ve read any of my marriage books you know how strongly I believe that our devotional life is an essential element of empowering our relational life: closer to Christ (first), then closer to others.

It’s to be expected that spouses will have even more widely divergent styles of personal worship than they do public worship.  In fact, it’s rather unusual for spouses to prefer a similar devotional time.  This can actually be a bonus for the kids, as they get to see two different yet genuine expressions of personal worship, but it can cause problems when one spouse thinks there’s a “right” and a “wrong” way, or worse, an “only” way.

It’s tempting to conclude that since Jesus is the only way to God and heaven, there must be only one way to worship Him.  Yet both Scripture and Christian tradition present a wide variety of devotional approaches to God, all equally acceptable, and all open to the fact that God makes us with different dispositions and personal preferences.  Some forms of personal devotion that seem to fit us just right might be too noisy, too quiet, too liturgical, or too strange for our spouse or someone else. Just as I’ll never fit into my wife’s clothes, I’ll also never have a quiet time quite like hers.  And that’s by God’s design.

9 Windows to Worship

Read through the Bible and you’ll see Abraham building altars, David dancing or writing a psalm, Mary sitting adoringly at Jesus’ feet, John the Baptist fasting, and Peter’s mother-in-law serving.  All of these spiritual heroes worshipped God while doing different things.   In my book Sacred Pathways, I’ve identified 9 different spiritual temperaments (or pathways) to describe personal worship.  See if you can recognize yourself (and your spouse or children) in one of the following:

Naturalists  These believers’ hearts open up to God when they get out of doors.  Staying in a room is one of the worst ways for them to meet with God, because God seems more real to them when there’s a mountain in the background, or they’re hiking under a big expanse of sky or at least sitting under a tree. 

Intellectuals These Christians really like books—even the reference kind—and live in the world of “concepts.”  They want to come out of their devotional time with new understanding.  If their minds aren’t engaged or they aren’t learning something new, their heart may feel cold.

Sensates are more aesthetically inclined; these are the artistic types, and they prefer creative and original music or even good architecture to open their hearts to God’s presence.  Their worship is about seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, and even tasting God’s presence.

Traditionalists find great meaning by worshipping God according to set patterns—their own, or history’s. They may organize their life around scheduled times of prayer, and may even choose to carefully observe the Christian calendar, aligning themselves with centuries of faith.   In addition to establishing rituals, traditionalists often make good use of Christian symbols.

And then there are the ascetics.  When you think of the “ascetic” pathway, think of a monk or a nun.  Ascetics meet God internally—they don’t want the distractions of a museum or a group meeting, as they prefer to shut out the world and meet God in solitude and austerity.  For them, the best environment for personal worship is silence, without any noisy or colorful stimulants. They may prefer solitary retreats, or at least a quiet place with a rather orderly environment.  They are often advocates of all night prayer vigils and many of the classical disciplines, such as fasting and meditation.

Activists love to meet God in the vortex of confrontation.  They want to fight God’s battles.  For them, church is primarily a place to collect signatures and sign up volunteers for the “real work” of the Gospel that takes place outside the church building.  God becomes most real to them when they are standing up for justice, reaching out for converts, or working on the front lines to build God’s Kingdom.

Caregivers love God by loving others. Providing care and meeting needs in Jesus’ name spiritually energizes them and draws them ever closer to the Lord. 

An enthusiast loves the excitement and celebration of their faith, and probably spends more money on music than books.  Enthusiasts tend to be more relational, and therefore may favor group worship.  They feed off the excitement of other believers praising God, and also typically revel in God’s mystery and supernatural power.  They like to take spiritual risks, and wake up hoping God will do something new and fresh.  Their exuberance tends to lead them to embrace creative forms of worship.

Contemplatives are marked by an emotional attachment and even abandonment to God.  They are God’s lovers, and they want to spend their time in God’s presence, adoring him, listening to him, and enjoying him. They often favor the discipline of journal writing, where they can explore their heart’s devotion.

When an Enthusiast Marries a Caregiver

Ellen has been married to Bob for 15 years.  She has her suspicions about Bob’s love for God, however, because she notices he never really seems to be fully engaged in the worship time at their church.  Yet Bob is the first to sign up for any opportunity to paint a widow’s house or work on the church landscaping.

Ellen makes the mistake of assuming that because Bob isn’t musically inclined, he’s not worshipful, but some people just don’t engage as well with God by singing worship choruses.  That may be a statement about their temperament more than it’s a statement about their love for God.  When Ellen the enthusiast understands that Bob is a caregiver, she can begin to appreciate her husband rather than judge him.

Jim’s a classic intellectual.  He has an impressive library of Christian reference books, most of them underlined, and enjoys studying Scripture.  His wife Anne is a typical contemplative.  She loves to journal, she writes poetry to God, and though she’s in a weekly Bible study (and faithfully does her homework), she places more emphasis on “connecting” with God than on learning new things about Him.

Jim believes that a “true” quiet time leaves you with something to apply.  If you haven’t learned a new lesson, he thinks you haven’t really met with God.  Anne enjoys just spending time with God.  Sometimes she comes away with a new thought or perspective, but for her, worship is about adoring God and reconnecting with Him.  When Jim asks her how she will apply what she learned that day, Anne wants to reply, “What good is all that head knowledge if it never changes your heart?”

In reality, all head knowledge is a danger, just as is focusing only on “heart” worship and never studying to open up your mind to God’s truth.  Instead of chastising each other, however (or worse, competing with each other), Jim and Anne need to recognize that, together, they model a fuller response to God than either one would alone, and their kids can benefit accordingly.

Learn, Don’t Judge

Two key attitudes will help couples get the fullest benefit from different marital styles of worship.

First, instead of judging your spouse’s devotional style, seek to understand and learn from them.  May none of us ever dare to think that we’ve cornered the market on understanding, knowing, and loving God.  We worship such an immense God, with a breathtaking creativity, that we can expect one of the reasons He calls us to become a church is because no one individual can adequately represent what it means to relate to Him.  Contemplatives need intellectuals; caregivers should work with activists, rather than fight over which one is being more faithful.  God has given you your spouse to increase your own understanding of worship; don’t try to limit your spouse’s understanding by making him or her fit into your own box.

Second, make an effort to encourage your spouse to pursue God according to their personal bent.  If you’re married to a naturalist, you’ve got to give them freedom to get outdoors.  They may want to spend lunchtime walking through a park or take a detour home from work to reconnect with God before coming home.  If you’re married to an ascetic, he or she is going to need some time alone.  Don’t take it personally.  Ascetics need their space, and quiet, to connect with God.  They’re not rejecting you—they’re pursuing Jesus.

Every pathway needs to remember, however, that there are four elements essential to personal devotion: adoration, communication with God, building the mind with God’s Word, and service.  Just because the intellectual enjoys study, and the activist enjoys confrontational ministry, doesn’t mean they don’t need to spend time adoring God and praying.  And just because the enthusiast can sing for hours doesn’t mean she can mature without spending time in God’s word.

But here’s the key: how we pray, how we worship, how we study God’s word will differ.  As long as we are praying, getting into Scripture, spending time adoring God, and serving Him with all our might, our differences are something to be celebrated and embraced.  Thank God that your marriage offers you the opportunity to give a fuller response to God as a couple than you ever could as an individual.

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Who Shouldn’t Read My Books: When Writings on Marriage and Spiritual Formation Collide

Throughout my career I have felt significant tension between writing about marriage and upholding the ideal of growing in Christ, which includes sacrifice. Sacred Marriage is really, in my view, a book on spiritual formation, while Cherish and A Lifelong Love are more “traditional” marriage books.

The tension I face is that the ancients teach sacrifice and idealism in virtue as necessary elements of spiritual formation, reminiscent of the teachings of the apostle Paul. But when addressing contemporary marriage, it’s irresponsible not to include caveats about abuse. The line between patience, service, and forgiveness as a Christian discipline, and enabling abuse, isn’t always clear cut. Physical violence is clear cut—there should be a zero-tolerance policy in the church for domestic violence. But where do verbal attacks, selfishness, and narcissism fall? (I’m not speaking about the clinical kind of narcissism, but rather the way the word is used more popularly to describe the sinful self-absorption that many of us fall into.) There is certainly a point where emotional abuse is equally untenable, and the work of Leslie Vernick and many others can be helpful in finding the appropriate line between people who get angry and repent and people who are abusers. It may surprise some how many Christian books on marital abuse have been written in the last decade (See here: https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/article/mutuality-blog-magazine/15-books-domestic-violence-pastors-believers-and-survivors). So, help is out there. If you think you may be in a destructive marriage, please stop reading this post and read some of the books listed above.

Having said that, Christ models ideal forgiveness, patience, and even sacrifice, as do the classics. I was reminded of this recently when reading Francis of Assisi. Francis lived and taught heroic piety in a way that could be dangerous in a marital context but is so convicting as a Christian ideal for the kind of person we probably all want to be.

Let me give you an example from a late Franciscan teaching about what “true joy” really is. This was dictated by Francis of Assisi to Brother Leo. It’s a bit long, but worth it, and I doubt Francis will sue me for copyright if I print it with just a few tiny abridgements and clarifications:

“A messenger comes and says that all the masters in Paris have come into the Order (become Franciscans); this is not true joy. Or say that all the archbishops and bishops and the king of France and the king of England have entered the Order; this is not true joy. Or say that all my brothers have gone to the nonbelievers and converted all of them to the faith, or that I have so much grace from God that I heal the sick and perform many miracles. I tell you that true joy does not consist in any of these things.

“What then is true joy?

“I return from Perugia and arrive here in the dead of night; and it is wintertime, muddy and so cold that icicles have formed on the edges of my habit and keep striking my legs, and blood flows from such wounds. And all covered with mud and cold, I come to the gate and after I have knocked and called for some time, a brother comes and asks, ‘Who are you?’ I answer, ‘Brother Francis.’ And he says, ‘Go away, this is not a proper hour for going about, you may not come in.’ And when I insist, he answers, ‘Go away, you are a simple and a stupid person; we are so many and we have no need of you. You are certainly not coming to us at this hour!’ And I stand again at the door and say, ‘For the love of God, take me in tonight.’ And he answers, ‘I will not. Go to the Crosiers’ [a different Order of monks] place and ask there.’ I tell you this: If I had patience and did not become upset, there would be true joy in this and true virtue and the salvation of the soul.”

As a writer on Christian spiritual formation, I love the convicting nature of this story. It’s powerful, and it resonates with me, and it humbles me over how easily irritated I can become with others. I want this truth. I need this truth. But it would be monstrous to tell this story to a woman in a ten-year marital hell of abuse.

When I write and preach, I reach high. Through the years I have tried to become more sensitive to issues (like marital abuse). I didn’t, at one time, understand that some men get an evil, sick pleasure out of terrorizing a woman, and these toxic husbands wanted to keep the marriage alive only to preserve the platform to keep terrorizing. When I wrote on sex, I was completely unaware of the cavernous “orgasm gap.” It never occurred to me that men would be so selfish as to have sex with their wives and be okay with her not finishing. The statistics astonished me. (I realize there are reasons other than mere selfishness behind the orgasm gap; this is just an example.)

I apologize for my ignorance.

Thankfully, with the gracious acquiescence of my publishers, I’ve had the opportunity to revise many of my books, address these issues further in blogs, and work hard to be more thoughtful and precise, but I’m sure there is still much I haven’t gotten exactly right.

All of which is to say, I completely understand if someone says, as so many have, “Gary’s books have inspired me and challenged me like no others (I’m not trying to brag with that last quote—but I can’t even count the number of times these or near identical words have been written to me or spoken to me),” but then you add, “but they’re not for you.”

Both things can be true: high, idealistic marriage books can be appropriately convicting for many marriages, hopefully the vast majority of marriages, but shouldn’t be recommended to those who are in abusive or even near-abusive marriages. I don’t take offense at this: I applaud it and commend it.

I want to keep “reaching high.” I want to err on the side of calling us to patience, sacrifice, service, generosity, humility, gentleness and compassion, all the while realizing that courageously saying “no” to further abuse is about the holiest act any spouse could ever perform.

I do still believe that, properly understood, God designed marriage to make us holy even more than to make us happy, and that we should learn to forgive, as Jesus taught us, “seventy times seven.” For the love and honor of God, I don’t believe this is the proper place to begin counseling a woman in an abusive marriage. 

The Bible predicted that Jesus would be gentle (Zechariah 9:9, quoted again in Matthew 21:5), Jesus affirmed that He was gentle (Matthew 11:29), and the early church remembered Jesus as gentle (2 Corinthians 10:1). This is the same Jesus who overturned the tables in the Temple, using a whip (John 2:15). Is that contradictory? Or is it just the reality of living with high ideals in an evil world?

I think it’s the latter (see When to Walk Away).

So, thank you for those who read and recommend my books. And for those who think they can be dangerous for some, I don’t disagree. I have tried as diligently as I know how to qualify their danger and put everything in context. Perhaps the line I have drawn is too far one side or the other. Before God, I have done and am doing my best, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and resting in the forgiveness of the God who knows my heart wherever and whenever I get it wrong.

My heart truly is to serve God by serving His church. I am not particularly intelligent, or good, or wise, or discerning, but somehow and for some reason God has given me a platform. I don’t take this burden lightly, especially as I am certain that many others could bear it more wisely and more appropriately, but I am determined to do my best to get it right as God gives me the grace to see the right.

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Virtue and Friendship

Ambrose begins Book III (you can read summaries of Book I HERE and Book II HERE) of his magnum opus Duties of the Clergy by extolling the importance of drawing wisdom and understanding from scriptural examples rather than from popular philosophical teachers, which was a big issue during his day. Rhetorical speakers of that time were sort of like the Tony Robbins, Jordan Petersons, and Christopher Hitchins of our day. You could make a good living back then (and now) by speaking creatively and confidently. Ambrose wanted the early church to stick to being motivated by scriptural truth and God-inspired wisdom that comes only from walking with the Holy Spirit.  

As has now become a theme with him, he vigorously warns ministers against seeking financial gain from their service, urging them instead to seek to bless others. Our motivation to enter ministry should always be to help others, not to further our own reputation, sense of worthiness or bank account. He points out that true ministry is a life of difficult, selfless labor, not a shortcut to “fleecing the flock” and living the good life. In fact, Ambrose is adamant that a life of leisure isn’t for God’s servants: “We must think it a far more noble thing to labor for our country than to pass a quiet life at ease in the full enjoyment of leisure.”

I find this inspiring and aspirational. God created us to work, to labor for the good of his kingdom, indeed to seek first his kingdom (Matthew 6:3). There will come a time in every man and woman’s life when sloth is as great a temptation as lust and gluttony. Just because we have the means to retire doesn’t mean we should retire (and never from Kingdom service).

Ambrose keeps returning to the need to make sure no one—absolutely no one—can say they have been cheated by one of God’s servants, especially in business. Commerce is a part of life, but if you are selling a house or making a profit, no one should feel ill-treated by you. Our reputation matters far more than any monetary gain via any one transaction.

The pursuit of integrity needs to be internal, not external. We don’t live a virtuous life so others see it, but because we know it is right and what honors God: “We must never aim at anything but what is virtuous. The wise man does nothing but what can be done openly and without falseness, nor does he do anything whereby he may involve himself in any wrongdoing, even where he may escape notice. For he is guilty in his own eyes, before being so in the eyes of others; and the publicity of his crime does not bring him more shame than his own consciousness of it.”

Integrity means being motivated more by the fear of God than concern over our own reputation.

The message here is that Christians in general but also leaders in particular need to be very careful in business dealings and transactions. Virtue matters more than profit.  Better to earn a little less with righteousness, than more with greed or deception. Ambrose keeps returning to this, to the point of being repetitive. It was clearly an issue of some importance in his day, and I’m convicted at how infrequently (i.e., almost never) I hear us preachers challenging shady business practices. I don’t think Ambrose would be shy about condemning strip clubs, but I think he’d put just as much effort into calling out sketchy check-cashing storefronts who charge 40% interest or multi-billionaires who underpay their workers.

When it comes to dealing with foreigners, Ambrose urges liberality, especially during a time of crisis or famine. “They who would forbid the city to strangers cannot have our approval…Beasts do not drive out beasts, yet man shuts out man.” When Ambrose writes this, I think, “He’s never watched the National Geographic Channel! Beasts eat each other alive!” But seriously, he urges mercy and compassion. “We do not allow our dogs to come to our table and leave them unfed, yet we shut out a man.” In all our policies, we should lean toward compassion. I don’t know how any Christian can deny this as the teaching of Christ. Applying it as a matter of government policy can be tricky; applying it as a matter of personal practice less so.

In the last chapter Ambrose celebrates friendship but in a way that once again showcases the importance of virtue. Rebukes, when warranted, are better than a “silent friendship.” A while back I was feeling a little sorry for myself, telling one of my closest friends that maybe it’s time I just shut up and retire. He gave me a holy “kick in the butt”: “Don’t you want to go down shooting?” That’s one of many reasons that he’s my closest friend. I want a rebuke when a rebuke is warranted.

Ambrose insists, however, that a virtuous friendship is one in which you defend your friend over the crowd’s disapproval. We shouldn’t worry about our reputation more than we do about our friend’s reputation. If an injustice is being done to them, we must defend them, for “nothing in the world is more beautiful than [friendship]. It is indeed a comfort in this life to have one to whom thou canst open thy heart, with whom thou canst share confidences, and to whom thou canst entrust the secrets of thy heart.”

Ambrose’s emphasis on virtue makes it clear that he’s not talking about excusing a friend’s misbehavior; instead, when we know our friend is in the right but the popular acclaim says otherwise, it is cowardly and horrific to be silent hoping that the same crowd won’t turn on us. This is eerily relevant in today’s cancel culture hysteria.

Of course, as we’ve come to expect with Ambrose, friendship and loyalty to Christ supersedes any human bond: “Faith may not be put aside for the sake of friendship. He cannot be a friend to a man who has been unfaithful to God.” Which means, we can’t really experience true friendship with someone who is in rebellion against God: “There can be no friendship between diverse characters.”

Ambrose, always so aware of class, notes that it is generally easier for the poor to have true friends, as people fawn over and flatter the rich. In a curious phenomenon, it can be very expensive spiritually to have a lot of money physically.

The modern caricature of a “famous clergyman” today is someone who is in it only for the money, a hypocrite who preaches one thing in public and lives another way in private, and a shallow person who has no true friends, only “yes men” and servile employees. Isn’t it fascinating that Ambrose, writing in the fourth century, dealt with the very same issues? That’s why Ambrose stresses over and over that clergy members earnestly pursue virtue, guard against the love of money, and value true friendship over reputation. And that’s also why I think every modern leader would do well to become familiar with this early bishop’s wise words. They are every bit as relevant today as they were in the fourth century.

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It’s What You Do with It

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt.”

Jeremiah 31:3–4 NASB

When German-speaking Mennonites began migrating to the Central American nation of Belize in the 1950s, Belizean officials were a bit wary. It had been barely a decade since World War II, and though the Mennonites didn’t look, act, or talk like Nazis, they spoke German and so, despite the fact they had been living in Mexico since the 1920s, they were suspect. What to do?

The Mennonites wanted nothing more than to be free to practice their religion, teach their children in their own schools in their own language, be exempt from military service (they were pacifists), and set up their own farming community. In the end, the Belize government permitted them to immigrate but gave them the most unproductive land in the country, the property no one else wanted.

It was a brilliant solution, though perhaps not in the way the Belizean officials anticipated. By applying their committed faith and work ethic, the Mennonites eventually made their part of Belize not just productive and fruitful but, indeed, the most fruitful and productive region of the entire country. Today, the Belizean Mennonites produce a large portion of the country’s agricultural output—including 85 percent of all poultry and dairy products—from land that a hundred years ago nobody else wanted!

“You know as soon as you hit the Mennonite area,” a person from Belize once said to me. “You just know.”

It’s an inspiring tale. The Belizean Mennonites, applying their faith, took the worst land in the country to work with and made it the most productive.

That’s not a bad picture of what can be made of a marriage. It is possible, with faith and effort, to begin with a relationship that is unproductive and perhaps even unwanted and end up spiritually feeding others from its fruits. Maybe you feel like you have nothing left to give to your marriage. Perhaps it’s difficult to even imagine that your relationship could be satisfying, much less inspiring to others. You may feel, like many do, that your marriage is stuck in a rut that grows deeper by the day, or that you and your spouse lack the raw materials or “natural resources” of compatibility and intimacy skills to ever achieve anything even resembling happiness. Is it possible that a relationship like yours could become a source of profound joy, rich togetherness, and powerful witness?

You may have dreamed of an intimate, lifelong love but now wonder if you can make it to the end of this year without losing your mind to boredom, frustration, or animosity.

Or maybe you’re actually in a good place in your relationship, but you’re wondering if you’ve got what it takes to make it last. You’ve seen so many couples start out well and end miserably, and you don’t want that.

How do I know all this? I’ve met you! I’ve received countless emails, sat down with many people just like you, and faced plenty of challenging seasons in my own thirty-plus years of marriage. One thing three decades of marriage gives you (as well as being a pastor in the nation’s fourth largest city) is a realistic understanding of just how difficult marriage can be at times. Marriage has such amazing potential and can often be a rich, joyous, and life-giving relationship. But at times it can seem as though it’s sucking the very life out of you. And the bounce between these two extremes can happen faster than it takes an ice cream cone to melt in August.

The spiritual principle we can take from Belize and that gives us hope as we look forward to building a lifelong love is this: It’s not what you have; it’s what you do with it. When God becomes part of the equation, it’s not what we bring into our marriages, what we can learn, or what we can figure out on our own. It’s what we do with His empowering presence that lays the foundation for an ever deepening, rich intimacy and a beautiful, satisfying relationship.

The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed a bold promise from God to His people:

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt.” (Jeremiah 31:3–4 nasb)

Time and time again, I have seen the dynamic in this passage manifested in my own marriage. (I realize it is poor scriptural interpretation to take a promise made to the children of Israel and arbitrarily apply it to marriage. I am not intending to proof-text here, but rather, to use biblical language to paint for you a picture.)

Time and time again, this passage has been proven to me in my marriage. Discouraged like you at times, recognizing that we had fallen into the same old rut, occasionally even wondering if perhaps we just weren’t even a good “match,” three big spiritual truths with a lot of little implications have given me a glimpse of a new way forward.

I want as much as anybody has ever wanted to experience a lifelong love. I don’t want a marriage that limps to the finish line; I desire to see renewed affection, new passion, and a deeper intimacy through the years.

Here’s what I have found and am continually finding—that for two sinners to grow in affection for each other even as they learn more about each other requires more than a few romantic gimmicks and marital tricks to pull it off. Experiencing a lifelong love requires that both husband and wife have:

1.   A “magnificent obsession” with God and His kingdom. This will give us the motivation to love each other in the face of repeated disappointment. This obsession enriches and gives meaning to our lives, which in turn enriches and gives meaning to our marriages. Profoundly so. This is about spiritual intimacy.

2.   A passion to fight normal marital drift by intentionally growing together. In a world that seems bent on pulling us apart, we must be thoughtful and purposeful in growing together. This is about relational intimacy.

3.   A new understanding of love as God defines it. Marriage is frustrating if we live with a different agenda than God’s. If we don’t learn and embrace what love is from God’s perspective, we will resent what God created marriage to celebrate and showcase. This is about devotional intimacy.

Think of these three elements—a magnificent obsession with God, a passionate pursuit of relational intimacy, and a new understanding of love—as three legs of a stool. Together, they provide a sturdy foundation to support a lifelong love. If you take away just one of these legs—for example, focusing on God and love but not intentionally growing together—the stool will be unbalanced and your relationship headed for a fall. Likewise, if you focus on love and an intimate union but ignore God, you will eventually lose your way and the relationship will come crashing down.

The point of this three-point approach is to acknowledge the triune God as the center, the model, and the empowering agent of our marriages. He sets the agenda for what we should desire, what we should strive for, and how we can get there. He even promises to make it happen: “I will build you and you will be rebuilt.” This makes the meaning of our marriages something much bigger and grander than we ever could have dreamed.

This approach will address virtually any season or condition of marriage: people who are frustrated with the person they married and who wonder how they can find fulfillment in the midst of it; those who believe they’ve made generally good choices but whose marriage hasn’t lived up to all they hoped it might be; or those who simply desire to take their marriage to new levels by bolstering it with a spiritual purpose and dynamic that has been lacking up till now.

Here’s the question we seek to answer: How can we remake our marriages to become fruitful relationships that breathe spiritual life, that create an intimate union, that enables us to grow together through the years, and that God can use to encourage others?

Note: this week’s post is the introduction to the newly revised and updated edition of A Lifelong Love: Discovering How Intimacy with God Breathes Passion Into Your Marriage. It lays out how we can push into new levels of spiritual, relational, and devotional intimacy to enhance the quality of our relationship.

Because I feel I have a real bond with my readers, I want to be honest here: if you have read the previous edition, I don’t think it’s worth your money to get the updated one. More than adding new information, I trimmed the book down, focused the message, and clarified the thoughts. However, if you have enjoyed Cherish or Sacred Marriage and haven’t gotten around to this one, now would be a good time to do just that.

I’m not a marriage therapist, so this book is not based on typical how-tos (which I value and appreciate; I’m just not qualified to offer them). It’s based on the spiritual qualities and realities that breathe life into our efforts and keep us motivated when the “how-tos” take a while to work.

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Happiness is Found in Holiness

Sacred Marriage’s subtitle: “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” has stirred a lot of debate. In the updated revision, I made sure to clarify that holiness secures our happiness rather than threatens it. It was a happy occasion for me to find that in book II of Ambrose’s On the Duties of the Clergy (you can read our summary of Book I HERE), Ambrose likewise ties virtue and happiness into an indissoluble knot: “So great is the splendor of a virtuous life that a peaceful conscience and a calm innocence work out a happy life.” Such a life is free from the opinion of others. “It needs no popular opinion as its reward in any way; nor has it any fear of punishments.” He insists Scripture teaches that happiness arises largely from “a knowledge of divine things and on the fruit of good works.”

Pursue holiness and find happiness!

When I challenged the notion of putting a priority on emotional happiness in Sacred Marriage, it was to counter the contemporary actions of those openly admitting God might not be pleased with how they were acting, but trying to excuse this with the statement, “Doesn’t God want me to be happy?” Happiness has many definitions and distortions, a fact that many of my early (and current) critics perhaps fail to consider. And our reluctance to put a priority on pursuing holiness, in fact, even thinking that holiness might be counter to our overall happiness, is a sad indictment of how little we read the ancients and how shallowly we read Scripture.

Ambrose goes on to highlight the “virtuous life” as something to be favored and pursued above riches and fame: “No state is so blessed as that wherein one is free from sin, is filled with innocence, and is fully supplied with the grace of God…Innocence, then, and knowledge make a man blessed.”

No state is so blessed…. If that’s true, why do we pursue making money with far more vigor than we do pursuing holiness? Why do we put more effort in romantic relationships than we do living lives of purity before God? Why don’t we value holiness like the ancients and Scripture do?

To be lacking in character should alarm us far more than to be lacking in money. True blessing, the only kind that matters and fulfills, is found in obedience, not in the fulfillment of worldly desires.

Ambrose completely turns “worldly” views of happiness upside down: “Riches, then, give no assistance to living a blessed life, a fact that the Lord clearly shows in the Gospel, saying: ‘Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst now, for they shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.’ Thus it is stated as plainly as possible that poverty, hunger, and pain, which are considered to be evils, not only are not hindrances to a blessed life, but are actually so many helps toward it.”

This line of thinking is why I still confidently say that God can use even a difficult (as opposed to an abusive) marriage to lead us to a blessed life. A difficult marriage doesn’t lead to a “happy” life if you define happiness by emotional ecstasy, but it does lead to happiness if you value the blessedness that comes from a life of obedience, surrender and a more devout character.

Ambrose calls the very things most people seek—riches, abundance of possessions, and joy without pain—“hindrances to the fruits of blessedness. Corporal or external things are not only no assistance to attaining a blessed life, but are even a hindrance to it.”

Think about the revolutionary thought behind this: according to Ambrose, the very things most people seek to be happy lead them away from happiness; those things most people fear will make them unhappy are the very things that lead to true happiness. “It is quite certain that virtue is the only and the highest good; that it alone richly abounds in the fruit of a blessed life; that a blessed life, by means of which eternal life is won, does not depend on external corporal benefits, but on virtue only. A blessed life is the fruit of the present, and eternal life is the hope of the future.”

Ambrose does qualify this a little: he points out that it’s not a blessed thing to suffer per se, but it is blessed to not be overcome by suffering. We shouldn’t view (and certainly not seek) suffering as an end in itself, but when we face it, we should humbly use it as a tool for our character. Suffering, in the wrong spirit, and without surrendering to God, can ruin us rather than build us. On the other hand, a life without any suffering is, according to Scripture, a life half-baked: “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4).

After extolling how the virtuous life is the happy life, Ambrose praises virtues like love, gentleness, and kindness, which he sees as the bedrock for genuine effective ministry. Some people might be impressed by our clever words, but the truest ministry flows from virtue: “Uprightness in life, excellence in virtues, habits of benevolence, and the charm of good-nature have very great weight.” In other words, listen to people who display the most character rather than the people with the most creative speaking style. And if you want to be listened to, focus on your character as much as you focus on your message.

Ambrose further believes that it is essential for leaders to “despise riches” and be liberal givers. However, giving should be handled methodically so that it never becomes a show of piety, and so that we don’t so drain our funds that we have nothing left to give if other true needs arise. As he stated in Book I, Ambrose says leaders should be known for their mercy and generosity.

Chapter XX is an inspiring take on discipleship and mentorship. As many of you know, Ambrose played a key role in leading Augustine to faith and then growing his faith, so he speaks from experience when he urges younger leaders to seek out wise and virtuous older leaders. “It is a very good thing to unite oneself to a good man. It is also very useful for the young to follow the guidance of great and wise men. For he who lives in company with wise men is wise himself.” (Ambrose is writing from the fourth century, and to clergy, so of course he uses only male pronouns. It is not my intention to exclude women from applying these words about the importance of mentoring and being mentored.)

It’s the duty of older leaders to advise the young, and the duty of younger leaders to seek out the old. “Beautiful, therefore, is the union between old and young. The one to give witness, the other to give comfort; the one to give guidance, the other to give pleasure…. The elders took the lead in giving counsel, the younger in showing activity.”

By following the example of godly elders, younger leaders can develop the proper spirit (not just gifts!) for ministry, which is the opposite of ambition. “He ought to avoid disputes, to hate quarrels. He ought to restore unity and the grace of quietness.” Some try to sell their books today by purposefully generating controversy, a strategy Ambrose would vigorously denounce. He does leave space for calling out those who must be called out, but is gracious and even-handed as he does so: “Never protect a wicked man, nor allow the sacred things to be given over to an unworthy one; on the other hand, do not harass and press hard on a man whose fault is not clearly proved.” Those of us who don’t like to play the “prophetic role” need to be careful that our reluctance is based on character rather than weakness: “In the cause of God, where there is danger to the whole church, it is no small sin to act as though one saw nothing.”

Rivalry and personal ambition have no place in Ambrose’s view of church life. He warns that we should never seek advancement at the cost of someone else. And he vehemently warns against the love of money. Among the early church fathers, he is one who speaks against the love of money more than he does against lust.

Ambrose ends Book II by encouraging a practical and thoughtful approach to ministry: being neither too flippant and cavalier, nor too fearful to act: “My sons, think before you act, and when you have thought long then do what you consider right.” In other words, don’t be hasty to jump to conclusions, but after due diligence, don’t be a coward with what you know.

That’s a sermon in itself!

Next week, we’ll summarize Ambrose’s Book III. In the meantime, if you want a step-by-step approach to growing Christian character, consider The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created You to Be, HERE  If you’d like a summary of other teaching on the Christian classics, check out Thirsting For God, HERE.

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