Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 109

Thank You, Kathy Norquist, for Your 21 Years at EPM!

Kathy Norquist, who served with our ministry for over two decades, retired from Eternal Perspective Ministries this past September. Many of you who have been touched by EPM over the years have come to know and appreciate Kathy. Wherever I’ve gone and spoken, invariably someone says, “Your assistant Kathy is so great!” And I always told them they are absolutely right.

Kathy and her family are dear friends of Nanci’s and mine, and have been for forty years. She and her husband Ron, who also worked for EPM for some years, were the ones we asked to raise our children if we died. She also worked with me when I was a pastor. At the church and at EPM, she served Jesus with uncommon grace, wisdom, kindness, and patience.

Nanci and I thank God for the decades in which Kathy went above and beyond the call of duty to make our lives easier. Her devotion to Christ, love for people, and loyalty and ministry skills have all been extraordinary. We are so happy for her that she’s been able to retire, and we look forward to seeing what the Lord has for her in this next season of life!

God has graciously provided me with another wonderful assistant who took over for Kathy when she moved to another role at EPM three years ago. Chelsea Weber is also a true Jesus-follower, does a terrific job, and is endlessly helpful to me, and I think the world of her. I know those of you who have worked with her feel the same way! —Randy Alcorn

Here are EPM, we are grateful for Kathy’s faithful service to the Lord and will miss her in the office! We hope this Q&A will give you a look into her long relationship with EPM as well as her future plans.

Tell us a little about your history with Randy and EPM.

I first started working for Randy when he was one of the founding pastors at Good Shepherd Community Church. Seven years after he left GSCC to begin Eternal Perspective Ministries, I became his assistant. I was at EPM for the past 21 years, 17 as his assistant and four in a more part-time role in ministry development.

How has working for EPM impacted you personally?

It’s difficult to quantify the impact that Randy and EPM have had on my life and my family. Probably the biggest influence is in the area of giving. I’ve watched Randy and Nanci and their generous giving and seen how God has provided for them over and over again. It’s contagious, and Ron and I have been blessed by growing in the area of giving. It truly is more “happy making” to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).

What is your biggest take away from working with Randy?

What joy it’s been to be part of a ministry where you hear on a regular basis how Randy’s writings and giving have impacted lives for eternity.

It's been a privilege to work for a man who lives out what he writes about. He has been the best combination of friend, employer, counselor, servant, and giver.

What are some things you know from working with Randy that others might not know?

He will put people first before his own comfort. I recall many times when he had a pressing book deadline along with a speaking engagement or appointment and was also not feeling well (sickness is complicated because he’s an insulin-dependent diabetic). Yet if at all possible he would keep his commitment and others would never know how he was really feeling. He’s one of the most loyal people I know.

I remember a time when he was ill yet still delivered a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake to my home for my birthday since my hubby was away for an extended time and wasn’t able to celebrate with me.

He has a great sense of humor and has played many practical jokes on me. You also can never get the last word in when it comes to his sarcastic sense of humor! We’ve been known to go back and forth on emails and I finally give up because he never will! We’ve had a lot of fun over the years bantering back and forth. :)

Now that you’re retired, what are you doing with your time?

Ministry isn’t ending; it’s just being redirected. Ron and I are caregivers for our 19-year-old special-needs grandson as he attends a transitional high school program in our local area. Christian was adopted at a young age by our son and his wife after a tragic auto accident took the lives of his parents and left him with brain damage and other physical and emotional handicaps, even though he’s quite functional. If you’d like to read more of the story you can check out “A Tragedy and a Blessing.” I will also remain on the EPM board, so I plan on staying as connected as I can with this wonderful ministry.

Eventually Ron and I plan to do some traveling around the U.S. and look forward to celebrating 50 years of marriage next August.

Jesus Changes Everything

From childhood I’ve loved astronomy. I grew up in an unbelieving home. Night after night I’d gaze at the stars, clueless about a Creator, but yearning for something greater than myself.

One night, as I stared through my telescope at the great galaxy of Andromeda with its trillion stars 2.5 million light years away, I was filled with awe. I longed to explore its wonders and lose myself in its vastness.

I read fantasy and science fiction stories of other worlds, of great battles and causes. I knew that the universe was huge beyond comprehension. But my wonder was trumped by a sometimes unbearable sense of loneliness and separation. In retrospect, I think I wanted to worship, but I didn’t know what or who to worship. I wept not only because I felt so insignificant, but also because I felt so disconnected from the Significant One I did not know or know of.

Several years later, at age fifteen, after attending a church youth group, I opened a Bible and saw these words for the first time: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And then I read verse 14, the greatest understatement ever: “He made the stars also.” A universe one hundred billion light years across containing countless stars, and the Bible makes them sound like a casual add-on!

I quickly realized that this book was about the Person who made the universe, including Andromeda and Earth—and me.

I had no reference points when I read the Bible. All of it was new, intriguing, sometimes confusing, and utterly disorienting. But when I reached the Gospels, something changed. I was immediately fascinated by Jesus. I’d been an avid reader of fiction, but I knew this wasn’t fiction. I knew Jesus wasn’t just a character in a story. I soon came to believe that He not only lived two thousand years ago, but that He still lived. Everything about Jesus of Nazareth struck me as completely believable. And, somehow, I knew He was the One my heart had always longed for.

By a miracle of grace, Jesus touched me deeply, gave me a new heart, and utterly transformed my life. Forty-nine years later, He’s still unveiling Himself and changing me into His image and likeness. I couldn’t be happier that He’s every bit as real to me now as the moment I met Him—but now I know Him better, and therefore worship Him more deeply.

For me, Jesus didn’t just change everything back then. He still changes everything today.

Humble Savior

Having been raised with no knowledge of God, part of what drew me to Christ is how the Gospel accounts seemed so contrary to typical human reasoning. Yet I found them completely credible. No human would make up such a story! It had the ring of truth to me…and still has.

In the Old Testament, we read how God kept reaching down to His people: “The Lord…sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people…But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16, NIV).

The prophets foretold the coming of Messiah. Yet centuries of oppression and suffering passed, and many lost hope. In every generation there were people like Simeon and Anna who longed for and prayed for Messiah’s coming. And finally, when the Redeemer’s absence became unbearable, He came: “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4, NIV).

Jesus came to us in humility. He didn’t have the honor of being born to the house of a king. He wasn’t born in Rome, the world’s political capital, or Athens, the philosophical capital, or Alexandria, the intellectual capital, or even Jerusalem, the religious capital. He was born in tiny Bethlehem, which means simply “House of Bread.”

Jesus came in humiliation. Everyone who could count thought He was conceived out of wedlock, a shameful thing in that time and place. He grew up in a town of ill repute, where a Roman military outpost accounted for moral corruption: “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46, NIV).

Jesus worked as a humble carpenter, lived in relative poverty, and endured many indignities as He spent three years teaching and healing and speaking the good news of God’s Kingdom. And then, the eternal and infinitely holy Son of God chose to endure the most shameful death—crucifixion with its excruciating suffering—to take our sins on Himself. Not some, but all of them.

Who Is He?

Jesus made bold claims about His identity, which religious leaders of His day considered blasphemy. He claimed to be God’s only Son, one with the Father, descended from Heaven and destined to rule the universe as King. And what response was He met with? “For this reason they tried all the more to kill him” (John 5:18, NIV).

Many today try to reduce Jesus to the role of a good teacher, one good moral example, maybe the best among many. But His own claims about Himself in Scripture make that impossible. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis famously pointed out,

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic…or else he would be the Devil of Hell…but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

The battle for human souls pivots on the issue of Christ’s identity. He’s the watershed, the dividing line between Hell and Heaven. Jesus made that clear when He asked His disciples about His divinity: “‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’” (Matthew 16:15, NIV).

That question is the most important one we will ever answer. Our own eternity hangs in the balance. Who do you say Jesus is? Who do you believe, in your mind and deep in your heart, that He really is? Every person must give an answer—and whether our answer is right could not be more consequential.

Come and See

When Peter identified Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus said to Him, “Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:17, TJB).

Happy is the person who recognizes the real Jesus! It was true of His disciples then, and it’s true of us now.

Biblical Christianity is fundamentally not simply a religion about Christ, but a relationship with Christ. If we get it right about Jesus, we can afford to get some minor things wrong. But if we get it wrong about Jesus, it won’t matter in the end what else we get right.

The Bible reveals that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, in a supreme act of love became a man to deliver us from sin and suffering (John 3:16). Jesus lived a sinless life (Hebrews 2:17-18; 4:15-16). He died to pay the penalty for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, He took upon Himself the Hell we do deserve in order to purchase for us the Heaven we don’t deserve. At His death He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30), using the Greek word for canceling certificates of debt—meaning “paid in full.” Jesus then rose from the grave, defeating sin and conquering death (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 54-57).

Christ offers freely the gift of forgiveness and eternal life: “Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17, NIV).

Besides knowing His name, have you come to know Jesus as your Savior and Lord and best friend? “Come and see what God has done,” the psalmist says, “his awesome deeds for mankind!” (Psalm 66:5, NIV). “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).

Scripture gives us many invitations to come to God and personally experience Him. Open the Bible and learn about Jesus. Set aside all other arguments and study the person of Christ. Read of His life in the Gospels, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Listen to His words. Ask yourself who He is and whether you could believe in Him. If you hold Him at a distance, you will never see Him for who He is. Philip simply invited his friend Nathanael to “come and see” Jesus ( John 1:45-46).

Have you come? Have you seen Him? If not, brace yourself. Because once you see Jesus—I mean see Him as He really is—you, your worldview, goals, affections, and everything will change. And because He never gives up on us, the changes won’t stop. He’s about growth not death, sanctification not stagnation. That’s the key to a Christian life, and it’s not boring but adventurous. Jesus, who spun the galaxies into being, paints the sunsets, and taught the humpback whales to migrate, can be comforting and restgiving, but He is never boring!

Our Best Thought

Even if you have come and seen Jesus, accepted His invitation, and walked with Him for years, you can never exhaust His depths. Puritan John Flavel wrote, “The longer you know Christ, and the nearer you come to him, still the more do you see of his glory. Every farther prospect of Christ entertains the mind with a fresh delight. He is as it were a new Christ every day—and yet the same Christ still.”

There’s no more worthy subject to set our minds on than Jesus Himself. He is “the Alpha and the Omega…the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13). I thank God that today I don’t just know and love Jesus as much as I used to; I know and love Him more. That is to His credit, and I’m deeply grateful. He’s what makes life so exciting and so worthwhile. Like the apostle Paul, more than ever, I want to know Christ (Philippians 3:10). How about you?

This article is from the introduction to Randy’s new devotional, Face to Face with Jesus: Seeing Him as He Really Is, which includes 200 entries focused on the person and character of Jesus. Through December 13, Face to Face with Jesus is on sale for $7.99 (47% off $14.99 retail), PLUS you can receive free USPS Media Mail shipping when you use the code GRATEFUL18 at checkout. (Free shipping offer is valid for U.S. continental orders only, and expires Thursday, December 13 at 12 P.M. PT.)

This book makes a great Christmas gift, especially since it’s all about the Jesus whose birth we celebrate! Watch Randy share more about it:

Photo from Christianpics.co

How Going to Jail Gave Me a Heart for Prisoners, and How You Can Help EPM Reach Them Through Books

Over twenty-five years ago, on nine occasions I participated in peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience, briefly going to jail (my longest incarceration was only two days) for what was an extremely unpopular cause—speaking up for unborn children. I remember how during a one-hour release from the jail cell, I checked over the “bookshelf” and found pathetic offerings. I determined to do what I could to donate some decent books that could get the gospel in there.  

While in jail I shared the gospel with one inmate who “tried Christianity” but turned his back on it. I found myself praying that the Father would touch this needy man, and all those in prison who desperately needed Him. There were fewer insulating layers between them and their need for God than in the lives of many “free” people. They are hungry for hope and for purpose.

Even my brief time there gave me a much greater heart for prison ministries like Prison Fellowship. There is untold potential to minister to these men and women who are worthless in the eyes of the world, but who are so valuable to God that He shed His divine blood for them.

Ultimately, God really used that experience. What others intended for evil, God intended for good (Genesis 50:20). Shortly after we started Eternal Perspective Ministries, inmates began writing to request my books. Though it was part of our ministry I never really envisioned when we began, over the years we’ve given away thousands of books to prisoners in facilities across the U.S.

If you’d like to hear more about my jail experience, and how God used those circumstances to lead to our starting EPM, here’s a 15-minute video where I share the story.

These days, EPM does many eternity-impacting things, including giving away my book royalties to worthy ministries. But ministering to inmates through giving away books is a huge part of what we do, and over the last year, this part of our ministry has literally exploded. During just one week in October of 2018, we received 279 letters requesting material and mailed 275 packages of books. Of the 279 contacts, 223 were contacting us for the very first time. We recently reached a benchmark of having served 25,000 prisoners who have contacted our ministry requesting free books. Just a few short weeks later, that number is now up to nearly 26,000.

In 2017 we had 2,958 new prisoner contacts and averaged 358 letters a month. In the first eleven months of 2018, we have had 6,008 new contacts and averaged 755 letters a month. This is about a 100% increase from the previous year. At this rate, we can only imagine what God will do through this ministry in the coming years. In the picture is one day’s worth of book packages that we sent out! (Our wonderful staff member Sharon Misenhimer reads each letter we receive, and oversees addressing each request.)

We are convinced from many direct interactions with both prison chaplains and prisoners that books sent to prisoners are widely read and have a far reaching impact. While books bought by people who aren’t in prison often go unread, and may not be passed on to others that much, it is radically different for prisoners. They not only read books they have requested (and the great majority of my books are sent when prisoners themselves have requested them), but they also eagerly pass them on. It’s common to hear reports of books that have literally fallen apart, pages coming out, because they have been read and reread so many times, sometimes by dozens of prisoners. 

One prison chaplain shared with us how he asks inmates to memorize Psalm 23 before he gives them one of my graphic novels. The prize is the book, he says, but the real prize is their hiding God’s words in their hearts.

Here are a few other notes we’ve received this year:  

“I just paroled from a 3 1/2 year term my first time ever in trouble (I’m 53) and your books and magazine helped me tremendously, and I want to thank you. As a Christian for 40 years, who walked away and ended up in prison, your prison outreach along with God’s grace, His word, Christ’s sacrifice, and your ministry saved me.” —James from California

The book Edge of Eternity is not only a great book for reading as a time passer but also it teaches lessons and opens a person’s eyes to what’s important in life…Now I know that God has only placed me here to put me back on track and He used you and your book to help. God bless you and your family and your works forever.”  —Joshua

“I’ve been incarcerated for 17 years and never in my life would I ever read a comic book. I don’t know how to read. And thanks to your comic books, I am seeking the Lord now. I’m a gangster loving your comic books. Thank you, Randy, for showing me about the Lord. I don’t know much about the Lord now, but one thing I do know is that I’m going to heaven now to be with my Father.” —Ramon from New Mexico

“Thank you for sending me the Picturing Heaven coloring book. I love it!!! The devotionals go along with the coloring pages perfect. As I color the page, I think about what the scripture means. I share the pages with my daughter at home. It gives us a chance to talk about God when I call home.” —Rhonda from Missouri

“I send the coloring pages (Picturing Heaven) to my two little girls once a week. I color half and they finish the rest.” —Cirena from Missouri

“Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest” (John 4:35, CSB).

If you’d like to partner with us in reaching these men and women for Christ, we’d be honored if you’d prayerfully consider supporting Eternal Perspective Ministries with a year-end gift. Financial gifts to our General Fund support our operating expenses and staff, and allow us to continue giving away the royalties from my books. (You can also give to our Books for Prisoners Fund, if you’d like to directly support that part of our ministry.)

Your partnership through prayer, giving, or both, is making an eternal difference! With great gratitude to God and personal appreciation of you,

Randy Alcorn

If you'd like to make a year-end, tax-deductible donation to EPM, please note that donations postmarked no later than December 31, or received  online  by 11:59 p.m. PT on December 31, will be included on this year’s tax receipts.

Jackie Hill Perry’s “Gay Girl, Good God” Is a Book You Shouldn’t Miss

My last two blog posts have been centered on Christopher Yuan’s new book Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. In today’s post, I want to highlight Jackie Hill Perry’s book Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been (Amazon, Christianbook.com).

These books dovetail very beautifully. I believe reading both of them will give people a larger vision of Jesus and also provide vital perspectives related to the entire LGBT discussion. Both books are in harmony, yet each brings distinctives the other doesn’t. Either one is great, but together they are amazingly complete. Anything you wish one book would say, or put in a different tone, is exactly what the other one does.

(By the way, Christopher’s book has been the target of coordinated negative reviews on Amazon, with the same one-star review being posted by many who obviously haven’t read the book. I did read it and thought it was GREAT, but Amazon blocked my five-star review—probably because I endorsed the book. But I encourage you to read and review Holy Sexuality and the Gospel!)

Back to today’s blog: If you want a quick, less than three-minute intro to Jackie Hill Perry, this does it well, and you’ll hear powerful truth in the process.

I started reading Gay Girl, Good God on my Kindle earlier this month, and then also ordered the audiobook. The ebook is great, so honest and compelling, but Jackie’s voice and inflections and personality are so captivating that continued with the audio. It’s stunningly good.

I first heard Jackie Hill Perry at the Canvas Conference in Portland a few years ago, where we both spoke. Jackie writes like a word artist, which is exactly what she is. She does “spoken word,” as in the video above, where every word counts.

Her book is poetry of sorts, at times with a cadence, and I was almost spellbound listening to it. I couldn’t wait to finish, yet didn’t want to.

Jackie writes, and beautifully speaks in the audio, “What God has done to my soul is worth telling because He is worth knowing. Worth seeing. Worth hearing. Worth loving, and trusting, and exalting…To tell you about what God has done for my soul is to invite you into my worship.”

There is an amazingly powerful foreword to Jackie’s book by Nancy Leigh Demoss Wolgemuth (though it’s not in the audiobook). I was surprised to see Nancy’s name because of the contrasts between her and Jackie. And sure enough, that was the first thing Nancy pointed out in the foreword!

The fact that Jackie and Nancy would connect like this tells you a great deal about both of these women, but especially about Jackie. It is a model of the unity in Jesus that overcomes every cultural and personal and racial and economic barrier. Here’s Jackie’s intro from the book:

I wrote this book out of love—a common word used so out of context on most days. This work is not a miscommunication of my intentions; it is a direct product of it.

Before writing it, I lived out the words. A gay girl once? Yes. Now? I am what God’s goodness will do to a soul once grace gets to it.

In saying that, I know I’ve already offended someone. I don’t assume that every hand that holds this book will agree with every black letter on the pages. There are many who, while reading, won’t understand gayness as something possible of being in the past tense. It is either who you are, or what you have never been. To this, I disagree. The only constant in this world is God. Gayness, on the other hand, can be an immovable identity only when the heart is unwilling to bow. There is more complexity to this than my modest introduction will allow. I will only encourage those hesitant to turn the page because of my particular perspective on truth to keep reading. I’ll admit that I have much more to say about gayness and God that will be a bit countercultural, but I hope will also be intriguing to the point of consideration in the grand scheme of things.

There are others who only know of the hetero love that makes a book such as this one for studying the unknown. These are the Christians (the “I’ve always been straight Christians, that is”) for whom this book was also intended. I have not always loved how they’ve loved the gay community. Between the banner-painted hate and the interpersonal silence, my love for the church moved me to attempt to write something of balance—something that can make the love for which they are called to walk in, the tangible proof of what God is like.

This book, however, is not to be confused with the Scriptures themselves. It, God willing, will be of benefit to the church, but these words are not to be esteemed as being what is most important for the church. That is what the Word of God is for. This is not an appendix to the Scriptures; it is simply the telling of a story impacted by the Scriptures, with practical instruction gained by living out the Scriptures. My love for the LGBT community makes me desperate for them to know God. My love for the church makes me desperate for them to show the world God, as He is, and not as we would prefer for Him to be—this book being my efforts toward such an end. Coming out of the gay lifestyle and into a brand-new world of loving God His way is a wild life—a wildness so sufficient that it will either turn a new saint back or make them into someone better. If I were to call the experience by another adjective, I would call it “hard.” A hardness much like a mountain too beat-up by the sky to climb. But even they can be moved.

For those saints, my love is a gathering up of my life, failures, victories, and everything I’ve figured out about God, edited and made into text for them to read. As they do, a deep “She gets it” might well up. But even better would be a “God is good,” only to be followed by an “All the time!” from within. They are the demonstration of how often God saves. That there are more gay girls and boys that have been made new by a good God. For them, these words landed face-first that they may know that they are not alone.

In writing this book, I did it as myself. Meaning, I am as honest as I know how to be. I have never been one for pretense. When, as a new Christian, I was introduced to the typical nature in which some Christians speak of their lives in the loveliest terms, I refused to give in to the convenient misery of being ambiguous about the truth. If the truth is what sets us free, then why not walk in it at all times? With wisdom and love, of course, but also with the reality that truth is where freedom begins.

Finally, in this book you’re holding, every sentence is the pursuit of showing off God. Leaving this word-filled place with a developed understanding of me and a shallow revelation of God would make all of my efforts worthless. This is a book with a lot of me in it but with a whole lot more of God. He is what the soul needs for rest and what the mind needs for peace. He is the Creator God, the King of Glory, the one who, in love, sent the Christ to pay the penalty for and become the sin that we are all born with. It is the words from and about this resurrected Lamb of God that I hope will lift off the page and into the heart. This book is a lifted hand, a glad praise, a necessary hymn, a hallelujah overheard and not kept quiet. This work is my worship unto God that, with prayer, I hope will leave you saying, “God is so good!” —Jackie Hill Perry

Thank you, Jackie, dear sister, for sharing your story, and for your contagious love for Jesus and God’s Word.

I encourage you to watch this six-minute video in which Jackie talks about her book.

Finally, here’s a great review of the book, written by Kristen Wetherell for The Gospel Coalition:

I saw them as I drove up our street. Both girls had beautiful, long hair and were about 16 years old. Then I noticed they were holding hands and sharing intimate embraces. Just friends? Maybe. But probably not.

This scene is common nowadays. Christians can’t ignore the subject of homosexuality, as it’s so interwoven with our culture. We need to know how to engage with it, following the example of our Lord Jesus who was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And this requires us to pull up a chair and listen well to those who’ve walked its road.

Full of Worship

Jackie Hill Perry is one such woman. Growing up in a broken home, she had an absent father and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a friend’s older brother. Her first book, Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been, recounts these circumstances that shaped her gay identity, but in Perry’s words, “Sexual abuse is not what made me gay. Nor did fatherlessness. They only exaggerated and helped direct the path for what was already there––which is sin” (37).

Having struggled with same-sex attraction (SSA) for as long as she can remember, Perry recounts her story with humility, pointing us ultimately to her good God.

Read the rest.

Christopher Yuan on Living Holy in the Midst of Temptations

As I shared in my last blog, I deeply appreciate Christopher Yuan’s excellent new book Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story.

This blog will be followed by one centered on another amazing and powerful book, Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry. These two books work together to give a remarkable picture of the power of God’s redemptive grace, the clarity of His Word, and His calling to live in sexual purity. I would recommend that every Christ-follower read and take to heart both of them. They are not just for people who have same-sex desires, but for all who seek to understand LGBT issues.

In the last decade there has been increasing confusion among evangelical Christians on the subject of sexual identity. One example is God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships. This book, printed and sold by a Christian publisher, tries to persuade God’s people the homosexual lifestyle is compatible with Scripture and the Christian life.  

I first became familiar with Christopher Yuan when he wrote a Christianity Today review of God and the Gay Christian. I found his insights to be profoundly biblical and personal. If you want to hear Vines’s arguments and Yuan’s counter-arguments, I highly recommend reading this book review: Why God and the Gay Christian is Wrong.

Christopher’s chapters in Holy Sexuality and the Gospel on singleness, and the church as spiritual family, are a wakeup call for local churches to rethink our unwitting assumption that marriage is God’s calling for everyone. Scripture emphatically tells us otherwise, and demonstrates it in the singleness of Jesus who was not only God, but also the most well-adjusted human being who ever lived.

In our culture, sexual confusion and immorality is as rampant among people who’ve never had a homosexual temptation as those who have. What’s wrong with us that in some Christian circles it’s considered healthier to say yes to heterosexual lust than to say no to homosexual temptation?

Christopher Yuan is that rare individual who has personally grappled with these issues in the crucible of life. Instead of reinventing theology or engaging in creative interpretation, he lives consistently with biblical beliefs even when it’s personally difficult or unpopular. In that respect, he is God’s gift to us, and I for one am profoundly grateful. (Here are Christopher’s parents, two of the dearest people I have ever met, with his book. Christopher wrote on Twitter, “Beyond grateful for my parents for their support. p.s. The last time they were this excited was when they became grandparents!”)

Here’s an excerpt from Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, where Christopher writes about holiness and temptation:

God exhorts us in the Old Testament, and again in the New, “Be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44–45; 1 Peter 1:16). Holiness is the goal, and sanctification is the process.

Unfortunately, many Christians have envisioned an incorrect goal and a faulty process for those of us with same-sex attractions. I’ve explained in this book how everyone’s goal in regard to sexuality should be holy sexuality—chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage.

For too many and for too long, holy sexuality has not been the goal, and singleness has been deprecated. Unmarried Christians are projects to be “fixed,” so we try to “fix” them up with someone. Think about it. Although there has been some progress in recognizing that the correct objective is “holy sexuality” not “heterosexuality,” many still embrace the wrong process by continuing to use “sexual orientation change” therapy as their main methodology.

I’m often asked, “Do you still have same-sex attractions?” Sometimes people ask it in a different way: “Have you been fully delivered?” Queries like these stem from a sincere desire to better understand me and my journey of coming to faith and of following Jesus on a daily basis. I love helping a fellow brother or sister better understand the topic of sexuality. Yet behind these questions is a misunderstanding of what the process of sanctification looks like.

After Paul’s listing of vices in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, which includes same-sex sexual behavior, he says this: “Such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Later, Paul makes a stark distinction between the believer’s pre-conversion and post-conversion realities: “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

But if a Christian—who is a new creation—is still tempted with same-sex sexual desires, does this mean there has been no true transformation, no real healing, and no complete deliverance? Does conversion mean that same-sex attractions should be a thing of the past? Or more generally, is the Christian’s goal, while here on earth, the eradication of trials and temptations?

Let me offer an illustration. Beau was a drunk. But by God’s saving grace, he has become a Christian and stopped drinking. Yet even after years of sobriety, he admits that he still has urges to drink—but he doesn’t. Would we therefore question Beau’s transformation? Would we doubt that he’s been healed? Does Beau need further deliverance? Does Beau need the demon of alcoholism cast out of him? No! In fact, the manifestation of God’s grace is more evident in his life, because he says no to his flesh and says yes to Christ! It’s when we live holy—even in the midst of temptations—that God is glorified. In an earlier chapter, I discussed temptation’s reality. How temptations are not sinful per se, but can certainly lead to sin. Then, what does daily life look like for the ordinary Christian who is tempted? From the point of our conversion until at last we enter the presence of the Lord, what’s the process for our pursuit of holiness?

And in particular—because of this book’s focus on holy sexuality—what does it mean to be holy and to become holy for people like myself who may experience same-sex attractions? Let’s begin by further exploring the doctrine of sanctification, and by dispelling certain myths about it.

To learn the vital truths Christopher deals with next, get the book, read it cover to cover, and let it help you develop a true biblical theology of human sexuality. (It’s available from both Amazon and Christianbook.com.)

And also read Jackie Hill Perry’s new book Gay Girl, Good God (Amazon, Christianbook.com). It’s stunningly good too, and will be the subject of my next blog.

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

Christopher Yuan’s New Book “Holy Sexuality and the Gospel,” and How It Can Help Our Discussions of LGBT issues

I read a lot of books, and Christopher Yuan’s Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story is on the shortlist of most important books I’ve read in the last decade.

This extraordinary book (available from both Amazon and Christianbook.com) is written by a uniquely qualified brother in Christ. The foreword by Rosaria Butterfield is itself a masterpiece, and from beginning to end this is simply a great book.

I’ve shared more about Christopher’s testimony in this past blog, but here’s a brief synopsis: Christopher once lived as an openly gay young man. But after being sentenced for drug dealing and finding he had HIV, he had a powerful conversion experience through reading the Bible in prison. He was not transformed into someone with heterosexual desires, but after growing as a Christian and searching God’s Word, he concluded that he could not follow Christ while submitting his thoughts and actions to same-sex desires. 

A serious and careful student of God’s Word, Christopher is now a Bible professor at Moody Bible Institute. He writes, “Unfortunately, many Christians have envisioned an incorrect goal and a faulty process for those of us with same-sex attractions. I’ve explained in this book how everyone’s goal in regard to sexuality should be holy sexuality—chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage.”

Both book and author are Jesus-centered and Gospel-centered, full of grace and truth. When it comes to these heart-wrenching issues of personal identity, this is what we all should long for.

Too many discussions of LGBT issues, both outside and inside the church, and from people on different sides, assume matters to be true that have not been proven or even carefully examined. This has created lines of thinking and beliefs that are rigid and unyielding, more slogan-based than truth-based. One of these false and unbiblical beliefs is that our sexual desires are at the core of our personal identities—that they define who we really are.

In many circles, from college campuses to coffee shops to work places to churches, there are new rules of discourse, spoken and unspoken, about homosexuality. These rules demand certain questions not be raised, and certain observations not be made, and certain things be said that are neither accurate nor helpful.

On the one hand, some Christians display a profound lack of love, compassion, and understanding toward those struggling with LGBT issues. I don’t deny this—I have seen it firsthand.  

On the other hand, in the name of love, many sincere people, including some Christians, now consider it their calling to enable confused young people and friends to embrace false and faddish ideas—including that what you desire sexually is who you are and what you should act in accordance with. These believers, offering either indifference or tolerance while withholding God’s offer of redeeming grace, end up effectively encouraging people to live in a way that will inevitably, according to God’s Word, bring them great personal harm.

In contrast to both of these approaches, Yuan’s is a knowledgeable, wise, and measured voice, with a rare breadth and depth of understanding. He is one of a relatively small number of voices who has seen up close and lived with daily homosexual desires, while opening the Bible and studying earnestly to find anything justifying his right to act on those desires, only to come to a place of admitting there are no such passages. Hence, he has chosen to live a life of celibacy, abstaining from sexual acts. This brother is not a casual Christian. He has earned the right to be listened to. He will never be the loudest voice, but rarely are the loudest voices the wisest.

Today’s pervasive ground rules in discussions of sexuality, which demand you dare not say certain things and must say others, often make true dialogue, and therefore true understanding, impossible. Either that, or so exhausting and frustrating that people of all persuasions stop talking to each other and head off to wave their torches on social media where they can get a lot of likes without having to go through the torture of actual face-to-face interaction.  

Consequently, our “dialogue” is not only disrespectful, but also selective, superficial, and scattershot, and often alarmingly ignorant. Sometimes our conversations end up as dialogues of the deaf (using two different sign languages, no less). They are characterized more by well-intentioned cluelessness and robotic repetition of catch-phrases than informed reasoning.  

Even educated people, sometimes especially educated people, now lack a basic understanding about what it is—and is not—that makes us human. In this book, Christopher Yuan breaks through the confusing smokescreen of the current terminology and understanding of sexual identity.

What determines our true identities? Is sexuality primary or is it secondary? What role has the Fall and Curse played in matters of gender? Is our understanding of sexual orientation something that needs more critical analysis? All these questions are skillfully addressed in Holy Sexuality.

Having read this book in prepublication form, I’ve been eagerly waiting for it to come out.  Among other things, it will help some genuine believers to advocate abstinence without denying their true identity, but affirming it. Christopher also challenges brothers and sisters in Christ to stop using the sometimes well-meaning but misguided label “gay Christian.”

I pray and anticipate that God will use this book far and wide, and through it touch countless lives for eternity.

In my next blog, I’ll share an excerpt from Christopher’s book. Then, in the subsequent blog, I’ll talk about a second book that recently came out, Jackie Hill Perry’s Gay Girl, Good God.

Christopher’s and Jackie’s books are very different in form and style, but they speak in concert about God’s power to change lives. Both of them know firsthand what it is to have strong homosexual desires, and to live a life of submission to God and His Word in the power of the Holy Spirit, saying yes to Jesus and no to sin. Neither advocates denying homosexual orientations and temptations, but both encourage us to see our creation in God’s image and Christ’s redemptive work as the source of our true identities—not our sexual desires.

I encourage you to watch Christopher’s story, as told by him and his parents. I had listened to it before and recommended it in a previous blog, but I really enjoyed hearing his story again. It will help you to get to know him before the next blog, or before you plunge right into his book.

Is It Blasphemous for Us to Study, Discuss, and Try to Envision Heaven?

Some of you may be familiar with my book Picturing Heaven, which is an adult coloring book with devotional reflections about our eternal home. The illustrator, Lizzie Preston, and the team at Tyndale House did a great job with it. (Here’s an excerpt. This sample picture was colored beautifully by reader Sherry Maxwell, who won a coloring contest our ministry put on last year.)

When we shared about Picturing Heaven on Facebook, someone commented that it is blasphemous because it attempts to picture God’s dwelling place. I respectfully disagree.

It’s true it is possible to blaspheme Heaven. In Revelation 13:6, we’re told that the satanic beast “opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.” Our enemy slanders three things: God’s person, God’s people, and God’s place—namely, Heaven. Because Satan hates us, he’s determined to rob us of the joy we’d have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent world to come. He’s the one who doesn’t want us to envision how beautiful and wonderful Heaven will be.

But is it appropriate for us to discuss and even try to picture what Heaven will be like, based on what Scripture tells us? Yes, because what we otherwise could not have known about Heaven, since we’re unable to see it, God says He has revealed to us through His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10). This means that God has explained to us what Heaven is like. Not exhaustively, but accurately. God tells us about Heaven in His Word, not so we can shrug our shoulders and remain ignorant, but because He wants us to understand and anticipate what awaits us.

The Secret Things Are Ours

We should accept that many things about Heaven are secret and that God has countless surprises in store for us. But as for the things God has revealed to us about Heaven, these things belong to us and to our children (Deuteronomy 29:29). It’s critically important that we study and understand them. That is precisely why God revealed them to us!

Second Corinthians 12:2-4 is sometimes used as a “silencer” to discussions about Heaven. Paul says that fourteen years earlier he was “caught up to paradise,” where he “heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” Some people use this verse to say we should not discuss what Heaven will be like. But all it says is that God didn’t permit Paul to talk about his visit to Heaven. In contrast, God commanded the apostle John to talk about his prolonged visit to Heaven, which he did in detail in the book of Revelation. Likewise, Isaiah and Ezekiel wrote about what they saw in Heaven.

Although it’s inappropriate for us to speculate on what Paul might have seen in Heaven, it’s certainly appropriate to discuss what John saw, because God chose to reveal it to us. If He didn’t intend for us to understand it, why would He bother telling us about it? (When was the last time you wrote someone a letter using words you didn’t expect them to comprehend?) So, we should study, teach, and discuss God’s revelation about Heaven given to us in His Word.

Certainly, not everything the Bible says about Heaven is easily envisioned. Consider Ezekiel’s description of the living creatures and their wheels, and the manifestation of God’s glory that leaves the prophet groping for words (Ezekiel 1:4-28). Still, many other passages concerning Heaven are much easier to grasp.

God-Given Glimpses

We cannot anticipate or desire what we cannot imagine. That’s why, I believe, God has given us glimpses of Heaven in the Bible—to fire up our imagination and kindle a desire for Heaven in our hearts. And that’s why Satan will always discourage our imagination—or misdirect it to ethereal notions that violate Scripture. As long as the resurrected universe remains either undesirable or unimaginable, Satan succeeds in sabotaging our love for Heaven.

After reading my novels that portray Heaven, people often tell me, “These pictures of Heaven are exciting. But are they based on Scripture?” The answer, to the best of my understanding, is yes. Scripture provides us with a substantial amount of information, direct and indirect, about the world to come, with enough detail to help us envision it, but not so much as to make us think we can completely wrap our minds around it. I believe that God expects us to use our imagination, even as we recognize its limitations and flaws. If God didn’t want us to imagine what Heaven will be like, He wouldn’t have told us as much about it as He has. (Certainly whatever God has for us in Heaven will be far better, never worse, than what we can imagine!)

Rather than ignore our imagination, I believe we should fuel it with Scripture, allowing it to step through the doors that Scripture opens. I did not come to the Bible with the same view of Heaven that I came away with. On the contrary, as a young Christian, and even as a young pastor, I viewed Heaven in the same stereotypical ways I now reject. It was only through years of scriptural study, meditation, and research on the subject that I came to the view of Heaven I now embrace.

Pieces of a Beautiful Picture

Scripture gives us images full of hints and implications about Heaven. Put them together, and these jigsaw pieces form a beautiful picture. For example, we’re told that Heaven is a city (Hebrews 11:10; 13:14). When we hear the word city, we shouldn’t scratch our heads and think, “I wonder what that means?” We understand cities. Cities have buildings, culture, art, music, athletics, goods and services, events of all kinds. And, of course, cities have people engaged in activities, gatherings, conversations, and work.

Heaven is also described as a country (Hebrews11:16). We know about countries. They have territories, rulers, national interests, pride in their identity, and citizens who are both diverse and unified.

If we can’t imagine our present Earth without rivers, mountains, trees, and flowers, then why would we try to imagine the New Earth without these features? We wouldn’t expect a non-Earth to have mountains and rivers. But God doesn’t promise us a non-Earth. He promises us a New Earth. If the word Earth in this phrase means anything, it means that we can expect to find earthly things there—including atmosphere, mountains, water, trees, people, houses—even cities, buildings, and streets. (These familiar features are specifically mentioned in Revelation 21–22.)

We’re told we’ll have resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 15:40-44). When God speaks of us having these bodies, do we shrug our shoulders and say, “I can’t imagine what a new body would be like”? No, of course we can imagine it. We know what a body is—we’ve had one all our lives! (And we can remember when ours looked better, can’t we?) So we can imagine a new body.

In Heaven, we’ll rest (Revelation 14:13). We know what it means to rest. And to want to rest (Hebrews4:10-11).

We’re told we will serve Christ on the New Earth, working for His glory (Revelation 22:3). We know what it means to work. And to want to work.

Scripture speaks of a New Jerusalem made of precious stones. Some of the jewels listed in Revelation 21:19-21 are among the hardest substances known. They indicate the material solidity of the New Earth.

The problem is not that the Bible doesn’t tell us much about Heaven. It’s that we don’t pay attention to what it tells us.

Some of the best portrayals I’ve seen of the eternal Heaven are in children’s books. Why? Because they depict earthly scenes, with animals and people playing, and joyful activities. The books for adults, on the other hand, often try to be philosophical, profound, ethereal, and otherworldly. But that kind of Heaven is precisely what the Bible doesn’t portray as the place where we’ll live forever.

John Eldredge says, “We can only hope for what we desire.”To this I would add a corollary: We can only desire what we can imagine. If you think you can’t imagine Heaven—or if you imagine it as something drab and unappealing—you can’t get excited about it. You can’t come with the childlike eagerness that God so highly values (Mark10:15).

(A similar question to the one addressed in this blog is whether it’s appropriate for artists to make pictures of Jesus, as is done in Picturing Heaven and also in my graphic novels Eternity and The Apostle. Here’s an answer from Got Questions, and here are John Piper’s thoughts.)

Note from EPM

Right now, you can purchase Randy Alcorn’s Picturing Heaven: 40 Hope-Filled Devotions with Coloring Pages for just $8 (47% off $14.99 retail). This book makes a beautiful Christmas gift!

Plus you can receive FREE USPS media mail shipping on every item in our online store when you enter the code GRATEFUL18 at checkout.

Free shipping offer is valid for U.S. continental orders only and expires Thursday, December 13 at 12 P.M. PT. Picturing Heaven offer ends Tuesday, November 27 at 12 P.M. PT. 

Photo by Tim Peterson on Unsplash

A Q&A with C. S. Lewis

Note from Randy: Tomorrow, November 22, 2018, is the 55th anniversary of the death not only of John F. Kennedy, but also of C. S. Lewis. If someone asked me which historical figures I’d like to hear answer questions, one of them would be C. S. Lewis. Providentially, he had such a session on April 18, 1944 and it was transcribed by shorthand and corrected and added to by Lewis before going to print. Though the questions were asked nearly 75 years ago during World War II, I think they carry over very well to the modern world. The original gathering where he fielded the questions was the Head Office of Electric and Musical Industries Ltd., Hayes, Middlesex, England. 

Many people present were believers, many others unbelievers. I’m struck with how many things Lewis said “in passing” in this Q&A that are notable or amusing. In the middle of one of his answers not included in this blog he said, “As you perhaps know, I haven’t always been a Christian. I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

I have picked out six of the seventeen questions and answers as recorded originally in an article called “ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON CHRISTIANITY” and reprinted in God in the Dock (available on Christianbook.com and Amazon).

God in the Dock contains many of Lewis’s essays on a wide variety of interesting subjects. Depending on the individual, some of the essays will resonate more and some less. But I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to hear from C. S. Lewis.

Question 3. Will you please say how you would define a practicing Christian? Are there any other varieties?

Lewis: Certainly there are a great many other varieties. It depends, of course, on what you mean by ‘practicing Christian’. If you mean one who has practiced Christianity in every respect at every moment of his life, then there is only One on record—Christ Himself. In that sense there are no practicing Christians, but only Christians who, in varying degrees, try to practice it and fail in varying degrees and then start again.

A perfect practice of Christianity would, of course, consist in a perfect imitation of the life of Christ—I mean, in so far as it was applicable in one’s own particular circumstances. Not in an idiotic sense—it doesn’t mean that every Christian should grow a beard, or be a bachelor, or become a travelling preacher. It means that every single act and feeling, every experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, must be referred to God. It means looking at everything as something that comes from Him, and always looking to Him and asking His will first, and saying: ‘How would He wish me to deal with this?’

A kind of picture or pattern (in a very remote way) of the relation between the perfect Christian and his God, would be the relation of the good dog to its master. This is only a very imperfect picture, though, because the dog hasn’t reason like its master: whereas we do share in God’s reason, even if in an imperfect and interrupted way (‘interrupted’ because we don’t think rationally for very long at a time—it’s too tiring—and we haven’t information to understand things fully, and our intelligence itself has certain limitations). In that way we are more like God than the dog is like us, though, of course, there are other ways in which the dog is more like us than we are like God. It is only an illustration. [1]

Question 5. Many people feel resentful or unhappy because they think they are the target of unjust fate. These feelings are stimulated by bereavement, illness, deranged domestic or working conditions, or the observation of suffering in others. What is the Christian view of this problem?

Lewis: The Christian view is that men were created to be in a certain relationship to God (if we are in that relation to Him, the right relation to one another will follow inevitably). Christ said it was difficult for ‘the rich’ to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, referring, no doubt, to ‘riches’ in the ordinary sense. But I think it really covers riches in every sense—good fortune, health, popularity, and all the things one wants to have. All these things tend—just as money tends—to make you feel independent of God, because if you have them you are happy already and contented in this life. You don’t want to turn away to anything more, and so you try to rest in a shadowy happiness as if it could last forever. But God wants to give you a real and eternal happiness. Consequently He may have to take all these ‘riches’ away from you: if He doesn’t, you will go on relying on them.

It sounds cruel, doesn’t it? But I am beginning to find out that what people call the cruel doctrines are really the kindest ones in the long run. …If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.

Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.

Question 6. Materialists and some astronomers suggest that the solar planetary system and life as we know it was brought about by an accidental stellar collision. What is the Christian view of this theory?

Lewis: If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset. [2]

Question 9. Would the application of Christian standards bring to an end or greatly reduce scientific and material progress? In other words, is it wrong for a Christian to be ambitious and strive for personal success?

Lewis: It is easiest to think of a simplified example. How would the application of Christianity affect anyone on a desert island? Would he be less likely to build a comfortable hut? The answer is ‘No.’ There might come a particular moment, of course, when Christianity would tell him to bother less about the hut, i.e., if he were in danger of coming to think that the hut was the most important thing in the universe. But there is no evidence that Christianity would prevent him from building it.

Ambition! We must be careful what we mean by it. If it means the desire to get ahead of other people—which is what I think it does mean—then it is bad. If it means simply wanting to do a thing well, then it is good. It isn’t wrong for an actor to want to act his part as well as it can possibly be acted, but the wish to have his name in bigger type than the other actors is a bad one. [3]

Question 15. In the past the Church used various kinds of compulsion in attempts to force a particular brand of Christianity on the community. Given sufficient power, is there not a danger of this sort of thing happening again?

Lewis: …Persecution is a temptation to which all men are exposed. I had a postcard signed ‘M.D.’ saying that anyone who expressed and published his belief in the Virgin Birth should be stripped and flogged. That shows you how easily persecution of Christians by the non-Christians might come back. Of course, they wouldn’t call it Persecution: they’d call it ‘Compulsory re-education of the ideologically unfit’, or something like that. But, of course, I have to admit that Christians themselves have been persecutors in the past. It was worse of them, because they ought to have known better: they weren’t worse in any other way. I detest every kind of religious compulsion: only the other day I was writing an angry letter to The Spectator about Church Parades in the Home Guard!

Question 16. Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?

Lewis: …My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying your flag; and, of course, I found that this meant being a target.

It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to Church. It doesn’t matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to Church it’s very selfish of you and you upset the house.

…I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.

It is not for me to lay down laws, as I am only a layman, and I don’t know much. [4]

Note from Randy: I deliberately ended with that question and Lewis’s answer because I thought not only what he said about church and humility, but also the final line was particularly great. I thank God for how much I and millions of people have learned from this brother who said he was “only a layman” and “I don’t know much.” :)

If you'd like to read more by and about Lewis, here are 30-some of my blog posts related to him, including part 1 and part 2 about his influence on my life and writing. 

See also The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of C. S. Lewis, which includes a chapter by Randy titled, “C. S. Lewis on Heaven and the New Earth: God’s Eternal Remedy to the Problem of Evil and Suffering,” as well as an appendix by Randy on “C. S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Hell.”

[1] Lewis, C. S. (1994). God in the Dock. (W. Hooper, Ed.) (pp. 38–39). HarperOne.

[2] Lewis, C. S. (1994). God in the Dock. (W. Hooper, Ed.) (pp. 39–42). HarperOne.

[3] Lewis, C. S. (1994). God in the Dock. (W. Hooper, Ed.) (pp. 44–45). HarperOne.

[4] Lewis, C. S. (1994). God in the Dock. (W. Hooper, Ed.) (pp. 51–52). HarperOne.

Positive News We All Need to Hear about What God Is Doing Around the World

These days, it’s easy to become obsessed with everything that’s wrong with the world. We’re continually bombarded by “news” (which is sometimes more sensational than informative) that dwells on the sufferings and tragedies of life. This unceasing avalanche of bad news, as well as rampant political tribalism, suspicion, and critical opinions, can quickly bury what Scripture calls “the good news of happiness” (Isaiah 52:7) and “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10). Sadly, what many people of differing worldviews in our culture have in common is extreme negativity!

In her article “A Big Bright Side,” Janie B. Cheaney writes:

Bad news is wide-screen. It manifests itself in trends, factions, wars, rising rates of … (drug abuse, dropouts, STDs, etc.). It wears big clumsy boots that stomp all over reasonable argument and heartfelt protest. The effects of bad news are immediate and obvious, even if we disagree about causes. …Good news is personal, small scale, and easy to overlook. The effects are slow and cumulative. …Good news may be lurking under our very noses while the smell of the bad overpowers us.

I don’t favor living in a cave, blissfully ignorant of the world’s woes and the suffering and difficulties around us. But Scripture tells us in Philippians 4:8, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Each of these qualities is true of Jesus. To purposely look for things that fit these qualifications, and think about them, is to recognize the Source of them and to be determined to give Jesus first place in our lives.

Along those same lines, I think this is a powerful letter from my friend Jim Green and his wife Nan. Jim is former executive director of the Jesus Film Project (I traveled with him in China while researching my novel Safely Home). This is an example of one of countless ministries that are doing great things for God worldwide—but that believers will not hear about if we just keep watching the news and don’t purposefully go to other and better sources.

Incredible things that God is doing!

By Jim and Nan Green

Today many American believers are at risk of being Fox News/CNN Christians. We tend to only hear bad news and have the impression that God is not doing anything.

But God is at work around the world building His Kingdom in incredible ways!

“The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him. All the families of the nations will bow down before him. For royal power belongs to the LORD. He rules all the nations” (Psalms 22:27-28, NLT).

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9-10, NIV).

 “What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do” (Isaiah 46:11, NIV).

Here are just a few things that God is doing—which doesn’t begin to cover all that He is doing through the body of Christ around the world.

The Jesus Film has just been translated into the 1,700th language! At least 1,500+ missions and denominations use the film in ministry. There have been more than:

7.7 billion viewings of the film (many have seen it multiple times)
530 million indicated decisions
225 countries where the film has been shown
An estimated 1.5 to 2 million churches planted through the Jesus Film

107 million were exposed to Jesus via digital in 2017. Already in the first half of this year, there were 80 million digital exposures, not including Facebook or YouTube. 293,000 people per day in 230 countries are watching the Jesus Film library of films.

In 2017 there were 374,667,806 viewings of all Jesus Film tools, 42,118,303 indicated decisions for Christ, and 432,076 multiplying churches or groups started.

The Jesus Film is Partnering with 72 entities in the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication (GACX). The Goal: plant 5 million multiplying churches by 2020, 1 church for every 1,000 people in the world.

To date, 1,600,000+ churches have been planted through the 72 GACX partners.

Muslims are coming to Christ as never before:

5,000 Sheiks and Imams have come to Christ in one country
10 churches have seen 60,000 come to Christ
225 refugees watched Magdalena and all came to Christ
Many are having dreams and visions of Jesus
Radicals have come to Christ, are sharing Jesus, and planting churches
One area: 129 million online watching the Jesus Film

The number of unengaged people groups is rapidly diminishing as the body of Christ is taking seriously Jesus’ command to go everywhere. Never before in modern history has the body of Christ actually mobilized and planned to reach the last unengaged people groups of the world.

In Africa, workers are showing the Jesus Film one night and then showing one of the 5 segments of Walking With Jesus Africa the next 5 nights, and the seventh night planting a church. In one country, over 250+ churches have been planted.

Today we are seeing the prophecy in Isaiah come true: “In that day you will say: ‘Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world’” (Isaiah 12:4-5).

But there is still much to do! There are 5 billion people who yet need to hear about Jesus and how to know Him, and 964 people groups yet to be engaged and reached for Christ.

“He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field’” (Luke 10:2).

Need more ideas of places to look for positive news and stories? I recommend starting with Ann Voskamp’s weekly feature on her blog called “Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend.” (Check out this recent one, which includes a touching video of a young girl receiving the news she’s been adopted.)

I also suggest connecting with some Christ-centered ministries and following their updates. (Our ministry recommends some excellent ones here.) To get you started, check out these encouraging stories from Prison Fellowship, a ministry working to bring hope and restoration to prisoners and their families. Or see these stories from Mercy Ships, a group that provides free lifesaving surgeries. I also encourage you to consider supporting and following your local pregnancy resource center. For example, here’s some stories and updates from First Image Portland, our local PRC. (You can find one in your area here.)

Let’s be encouraged about what God is doing in us and in the lives of our loved ones and friends, and around the world! And let’s share these positive things we hear about with others.

“A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones” (Proverbs 15:30, NIV).

Photo by TambiraPhotography on Pixabay

Husbands, We’re Called to Help Our Wives Grow in Christ

Today’s blog will have applications for everyone, but I’ve written it specifically for guys who are husbands (and also fathers).

Men, one of the best possible things we can do for our wives and children (and ourselves!) is to share with them great resources to help them grow in Christ.

There’s a lot of stuff out there that isn’t going to draw you or your wife’s mind and heart toward God. Part of loving and leading her is pointing her toward things that will. The payoff is huge for her, you, your kids, and everyone her life touches.

Where I’m writing this in our living room, I see a stack of books by my wife’s chair, each of which she has recently read and has had a profound impact on her. The books include Knowing God, Trusting God, and The Joy of Fearing God. I gave or recommended each of these to Nanci (I’ve read them all, and that helps too). These books are arguably some the best gifts I’ve ever given her, and I also get to enter into the joy of her spiritual growth and her ever-growing excitement about her Lord.

Speaking of Nanci, and I will tie this into the subject of this post, thank you to everyone who has been praying for her as she has gone through cancer treatments. (She had her last round of chemotherapy a couple of weeks ago and now we’re awaiting test results; see her CaringBridge page for the latest updates.) Chemo’s not for sissies, and Nanci isn’t one, but she has needed me more than ever and it’s been my privilege to serve her.

Nanci and I had a great time in Psalm 16 recently, concerning verse 8, which says “I have set the LORD always before me” (ESV) or “I keep my eyes always on the Lord” (NIV). That’s followed by “With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” We dialogued for forty minutes about the implications of our responsibility to set the Lord in front of our eyes by seeing Him in His Word, His creation, and people we connect with during the day. Only then will we experience the blessings and comfort and assurance of His loving presence.

So here I am writing about Bible study and our wives, and I saw God, in a powerful way, calm and strengthen and infuse my wife with joy from His Word in the midst of tough times. And I had the honor of speaking God’s Word into her life.  I believe this is what we see in Ephesians 5:25-26: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word…”

So we husbands are to not stand back and wish our wives were more godly. Rather, we are to assume responsibility to step forward and lead our wives by sharing God’s Word with them. (Similarly, we don't bemoan that a houseplant has shriveled leaves and consider it a failure; instead, we regularly water the plant and expose it to the right light to help it thrive.)

What follows in Ephesians 5:27-28 is that we are to do as Jesus does, and “to present her [his bride] to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.”

Guys, this is what we are made for. I didn’t stand at an altar and vow to my publishers or my church “till death do us part.” And you didn’t make your vows to your boss or your buddies, but to your wife. So let’s follow the command in Ephesians 5 to love and care for our wives, including by getting good resources into their hands.

Here are some good places to check for Christ-honoring things to share with your wife:

- Revive Our Hearts

- She Reads Truth

- Desiring God

- The Gospel Coalition

- FamilyLife

- Focus on the Family

- And here’s a list I put together of recommended books, blogs, websites, and software, with ideas for both men and women.

See also Randy's novel Courageous and the book The Resolution for Men. 

Photo by Cassidy Rowell on Unsplash