Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 111

The Problem with “Speak Your Truth”

My son-in-law Dan Franklin is teaching pastor at Life Bible Fellowship in Upland, California. Dan is married to my daughter Karina, and the father of three of my grandsons, but that’s not the main reason he’s one of my favorite teachers. He was one of our speaking pastors at my church for years, and I really miss his teaching. (But since he speaks more at the church he’s at now, I’m able to hear him more online, and that’s my consolation!) In this video (and the transcript below), Dan talks about the problems behind the phrase, “Speak your truth.”  

Listen to what Dan has to say. —Randy Alcorn

“Speak your truth.” That’s a phrase that has become common in popular culture over the past year. It was perhaps most popularized by Oprah Winfrey at the 2018 Golden Globes when she said, “Speaking your truth is the most powerful weapon we all have.”

I’ll let the cat out of the bag early on in this post. I don’t think this phrase is helpful. I don’t think Christians (or anyone, for that matter) should use it. But I don’t simply want to say, “Don’t say it!” I want to explore the assumptions that have made this phrase our culture’s calling card. By looking at two problems with the phrase, we can examine ourselves and see how much we have adopted these cultural assumptions, even if we don’t use the phrase, “Speak your truth.”

Problem #1:

This phrase tells us that we are our own source. To speak your truth is to assume that the there is some truth that you yourself possess. It assumes that each person is his or her own source for truth and authority. This leads us to believe that no one else has the right to correct us. No one can tell us what to think, what to believe, or what to say. After all, we’re just speaking our truth.

Those of us who are Christians believe that truth is not something within us, but something outside of us. We believe that there is objective reality and objective morality because there is a God who has set reality into motion. We believe that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life. We believe that there is truth out there, and the truth does not change based on our perception of reality.

In fact, we believe that the truth is something that confronts us. My perception of how safe it is to cross the street matters very little if a car that I didn’t see runs into me. My view of reality will not change the truth of the car’s presence. In a similar way, Christian belief is centered not on a subjective idea, but on a truth claim about an event. At the core, we believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. If he wasn’t, then our message is false. If he was, then we must take Jesus seriously. But either way, my belief (or disbelief) in the truth does not change reality.

Problem #2:

This phrase feeds our narcissistic idea that the world is anxiously waiting for us to weigh in. When Oprah Winfrey said, “Speaking your truth is the most powerful weapon we all have,” she was speaking in reference to women who tell their stories about sexual harassment and assault. To Oprah, these women are speaking their truth. I would argue that they are speaking the truth, not their truth.

It may be a truth that most others are not aware of, but it is an objective truth about something that actually happened (assuming that the story that they tell is true). Very few of us would say that these women should stay silent. We all should champion them exposing the truth so that evil actions are held accountable and so that future women don’t become victims of the same behavior. This “truth” is certainly worth being spoken.

But, for many, speaking their truth means speaking their opinion. It is not speaking truth to say, “I think we should abolish private property,” or “I believe every citizen should own a gun,” or “All Trump supporters are just secret racists.” Those are not truth statements. Those are opinions. Now, we all have a right to our opinions, and we have a right to provide support in order to convince others that our opinions are good. But voicing these opinions is not the same as contributing truth to a conversation.

Social media indulges the narcissism that dwells within each of us by telling us that the world is awaiting our opinions. We can begin to believe that it is our obligation to bring our voice into the nebulous space of Facebook and Twitter. We owe it to others to “speak our truth.” This feeds a dangerous delusion. Often, when I am considering weighing in on a hot topic on social media, I pause to ask myself, “Has anyone asked for my opinion on this subject?” If they haven’t, I then ask myself, “What will be contributed by these words that I want to say?” If I can’t see a good outcome, I opt to stay out of it.

Certainly, there are times when we need to speak up. But James 1:19 instructs us, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Instead, most of us speak quickly and angrily before taking the time to listen. As believers, our calling is to “not let any unwholesome word come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). Our calling is not to air our grievances whenever we feel like it but to weight our words carefully and speak up when it will be helpful.

And it is vital that we don’t waste our words by “speaking our truth,” because this often distracts from the world hearing the clear gospel message. If Christians are clogging the airwaves with constant opinions about guns and taxes and politicians and pop stars, people will have a hard time seeing that Jesus’ life and death and resurrection are our central message.

We believe that God not only spoke the world into existence but that he has provided redemption for the world and adoption for all who place their faith in Jesus. This message should be our calling card. And we should minimize other noise that distracts from this. If we embrace the idea that the world is waiting for our opinion on every subject, we feed our pride and we distract from our message.

As a final thought, our words matter. Some might be thinking, “Who cares if someone uses the phrase ‘Speak your truth’? They’re just words.” Words are how we communicate to the world and they are how we reinforce our view of reality to ourselves. This is why in James 4, James calls Christians not to say, “I am going to go to this city and do business,” but to say, “If the Lord wills I will live and go to this city and do business.”

James is not simply calling believers to use spiritual language. He is calling believers to embrace the truth in such a way that we speak with accuracy about the fact that our plans are utterly dependent on God’s providence. In the same way, “our truth” is not something that is real or important. Our opinion may or may not matter, depending on the situation. The truth, especially the central truth of the gospel, is the message that ought always to be on the forefront of our minds and our tongues.

For more on about truth, see Randy’s devotional Truth: A Bigger View of God's Word.

Photo by Ilyass SEDDOUG on Unsplash

Grace Means Christians Should and Can Live Differently than the World

This article by Greg Morse is vitally important. Its message, which has been on my heart a long time, is this: on the one hand, it’s true that we are sinners saved by grace, meaning for now we are still sinners:  “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). On the other hand, when we talk about how normal sin is, suggesting it’s inevitable that we as Christians sin, we are really missing something vital about Christ’s empowering grace. I’m glad Greg addresses that here. —Randy Alcorn

Sinners, Saints, or Hypocrites: The Lies We Spread About Grace

Article by Greg Morse

“In my experience,” the cynic began, “I have found most Christians to be hypocrites who do not live up to their professions.”

“But certainly,” the pastor replied, “being a Christian does not mean we’re any better than unbelievers. We are still just as sick as anyone — we just have found the doctor. Remember, Christianity is not about morality. It’s about grace.”

And so it goes.

From Bible studies to personal evangelism to explaining the moral failures of our leaders, the indistinctness of the Christian is trending these days. How many of us have comforted our neighbor (or one another) with a reminder that the sinner in the church is little different than the sinner outside? “We are all broken,” it is assured. “We are all miserable failures,” is the refrain. To hear it from some, a mere profession of faith is the only real difference between the church and the world.

‘All About Grace’

In an effort to protect the grace of God from works righteousness, some tend to minimize talk of good works altogether. Christianity isn’t about morality. It’s about grace. Now, the gospel — and specifically justification by faith alone — is most certainly about grace and not works, lest grace no longer be grace (Romans 11:6). We love that we are saved by God’s grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Every saint in glory will sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

But this “it’s all about grace” talk goes wrong when we say that the amazing grace that saves the Christian doesn’t also make him distinct from the unbeliever in love, action, and speech. When we go out of our way to discount the grace of good works in the Christian life, we betray how little we really know of grace.

Nothing on this planet is like it. It is the most precious jewel we can receive. The sweetest thing our souls can taste. The loveliest lyric our mouths can sing. But it is never a powerless thing.

God does not have a type of saving grace that, once given, leaves its recipient unchanged. Saving grace not only justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5) but trains us “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:11–12). God himself is at work in us by his Spirit (Philippians 2:13). And this grace is a more effective teacher than Dr. Phil or Dr. Seuss or any other teacher in the world.

Same-as-the-World Christianity

But the doctrine of same-as-the-world Christianity tells us something different: that those who have found the doctor are no healthier than those who have not. Or, in the other rendition, that those beggars who have found the bread stay just as malnourished as the starving world. But patients who tell us that they have seen the medic, while also confessing they are still no different from those miserable souls in the waiting room, let us all in on the secret that they are either lying or need to find a new doctor.

The watching world makes this connection all the time. Our critics regularly tell us that they turn away because such and such professor is a hypocrite. What they mean cannot be missed: the Christian, who, like other acquaintances they have met, is a liar, a cheat, a drunk, a grouch, or a gossip, sullies their profession to have found the heavenly Doctor.

To even many skeptics, following Jesus entails honesty, integrity, love, goodness, kindness — which is more than our pastor was willing to confess. It is no wonder then, why, after trying to woo the sick man into the hospital wing by showing him patients just as infirmed as he, the onlooker passed without interest. The great Physician is blasphemed among unbelievers because of such hypocrisy (Romans 2:23–24).

Christians Will Be Different

“We are the same as the world” is not the Christian motto. We do not champion a powerless grace. To do so excuses the idle in the church to ignore holiness. It belittles the power of the gospel to save sinners from their sin. And it dismisses the work and power of the Holy Spirit to make us holy. It tempts us to take our lamps down from atop the hill, normalizes the loss of our saltiness, and removes shining stars from a morally vacuous sky. We do not need more wicked-as-the-world trophies of his pardon. We need men, women, and children who were wicked as the world but are now trophies of his power.

And why can we expect Christians to behave better than our seemingly upright neighbors?

1. We are born again.

“Born again” is not a brand name for Christians who take their faith a little more seriously than the mainstream; it is a God-wrought miracle in every true believer. In real time and space, God creates a new creature from the old (2 Corinthians 5:17), transfers us from the demonic realm to his Son’s kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13), and raises the spiritually dead to life (Romans 6:4). He gives new affections, new loves, new joys. Sin becomes odious. Holiness becomes attractive. We become servants of joy with a new mission and a new King.

No longer are we imprisoned in the line of Adam. No longer do we live according to the flesh and its desires. No longer are we bad trees bearing rotten fruit. We have traded sin’s harsh slavery for the freedom of bondage to Christ and righteousness (Romans 6:20–23). We are heirs of life, heirs of glory, heirs of the world to come.

2. We have the very power of God in us.

With new birth comes almighty power. Peter lets us in on one of the most scandalous truths for Christian living: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

Christians have all we need, in every circumstance, at every moment, to live a godly life. God himself dwells in us (Romans 8:9–11) and is at work in us (Philippians 2:13). In Christ, we are powerful. We are finally free to conquer pornography. Finally free to say, “No!” to lying, stealing, and laziness (Titus 2:11–13). We are not left helpless to lie around and booze all day — we have the might to renounce every and any temptation through the Spirit that dwells in us (Romans 8:13).

We have the very weapon of God in hand: his word. The very presence of God in us: his Spirit. And the very army of God to war with us: his church.

3. We gladly live for Another’s glory.

It is wrong to assume that only our failures can be the proper backdrop to highlight his grace. I struggle; he forgives. I screw up; his grace is exalted. I morally vomit on the floor; he cleans it up. Christ is glorified as the janitor.

To this, Paul asks, and answers, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (Romans 6:1–2). And Peter confronts it by saying, “The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry” (1 Peter 4:3). In other words, we have already sinned enough. Our backdrop is already plenty dark enough to showcase the diamond of his grace. Now we pay no more debts to our former lives but pick up our mats and walk in newness of life. Our fruit, not our failures, proves that we are his (John 15:8).

Saints on the Mend

Sickly saints that are on the mend give glory to the Doctor and instruct others to go to him. To profess to have found him, and bear no change, is to cast a shadow on the name of Christ and the power of his Spirit.

Christians should be distinct from the world in how we live. Yes, should is different than always are. We all have cause to sing, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Sanctification can be painfully slow. What we speak of is not perfection but a new power, a new purpose, and a new direction.

But even when the Christian stumbles, as we all do this side of glory, we are not content to make peace with belittling God. We do not settle at home in our sin. “We’re all human” is not our excuse. We are not satisfied to wander from our Savior. When we fall, we will roll to our knees, plead for grace’s pardon and power, get up, and continue on our way.

We have a mantle to carry. Our Savior has worked a mighty change in us. We are to be his hands and feet. We are to march together on the enemy’s gates. We are to bear witness to a watching world. We are a city on a hill to live as citizens of the world to come. Let’s embrace this, not explain it away. Celebrate this. Be jealous for it. Ask God to help us live more boldly, taste more salty, and shine more brightly.

This article originally appeared on Desiring God and is used by permission of the author.

For more on this subject, see Randy’s devotional Grace: A Bigger View of God’s Love.

Photo by Thomas Evans on Unsplash

Charles Spurgeon and the Importance of Consistency with Scripture in Theology

I think Charles Spurgeon comes as close as anyone I’ve read to articulating what Scripture as a whole reveals. Sadly, though I attended both a good Bible college and a good seminary, I never read Spurgeon or learned anything about him. I’d been a pastor for ten years before I discovered him, and then I couldn’t get enough of him. The Bible oozed out of his pores, and he let Scripture be Scripture, rarely twisting it to fit his theology. (One of my books on Heaven, We Shall See God, contains segments from his sermons on Heaven, so about 60% of the book is Spurgeon. It was one of my favorite books to work on, since I extracted my favorite portions from many of his messages. One day I’ll meet him and say, “Don’t know if you realized we were co-authors. There really wasn’t any way I could ask your permission!”)

Spurgeon demonstrated the importance of consistency with Scripture over consistency with one’s preferred theological leanings. He advised, “Brethren be willing to see both sides of the shield of truth. Rise above the babyhood which cannot believe two doctrines until it sees the connecting link. Have you not two eyes, man? Must you needs put one of them out in order to see clearly?” [1]

Spurgeon maintained that no man-made theological system is authoritative. He said, “My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God.” [2]

While the Bible is God breathed, theological systems are not. They are valid not to the extent that they’re self-consistent but to the degree they’re consistent with Scripture.

Spurgeon didn’t try to reconcile paradoxical doctrines (like the ones I write about in hand in Hand: The Beauty of God's Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice). He said, “That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other….These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity.” [3]

He warned against attempting to solve, by means of shortsighted logic, every apparent biblical problem: “Men who are morbidly anxious to possess a self-consistent creed,—a creed which they can put together, and form into a square, like a Chinese puzzle,—are very apt to narrow their souls.… Those who will only believe what they can reconcile will necessarily disbelieve much of Divine revelation.” [4]

Spurgeon never apologized for his Calvinism, but first and foremost he was about following Jesus and being faithful not to just some, but to all of God’s Word. He said, “I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it.” [5]  

I appreciate that he said “in the main,” meaning that he felt the freedom to disagree with Calvin when he believed God was saying something different in His Word. I have read Arminian theologians, including those I disagree with, who are equally devout and committed to Scripture. Spurgeon’s sentiments should be true of Calvinists and Arminians and every Jesus-follower. If we disagree in our theology, let us disagree with complete commitment to accepting all that Scripture says, not just the parts that best fit our backgrounds and preferred theology.

Notice what God says about HIS word that He does not say about my words or yours:

“Rain and snow fall from the sky.
But they don’t return
    without watering the earth
that produces seeds to plant
    and grain to eat.
That’s how it is with my words.
    They don’t return to me
without doing everything
    I send them to do.”

Isaiah 55:10-11, CEV

[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “Faith and Regeneration” (sermon 979, March 5, 1871, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington).

[2] C. H. Spurgeon, “Salvation by Knowing the Truth” (sermon 1516, January 16, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington).

[3] C. H. Spurgeon, “Sovereign Grace and Man’s Responsibility” (sermon 207, Royal Surrey Gardens, August 1, 1858).

[4] C. H. Spurgeon, “Faith,” in An All-Round Ministry: Addresses to Ministers and Students.

[5] C. H. Spurgeon, The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834–1854, comp. Susannah Spurgeon and Joseph Harrald (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1898), 1:176.

Cultural Relativism, Even in the Face of Human Sacrifice

Relativism dominates the thinking of most educated people (which means sometimes that uneducated people are morally smarter). The “it all depends” morality, controversial fifty years ago when called situational ethics, denies the existence of any objective standards of right and wrong. What’s wrong for one person, so it insists, may be right for another. One uses internal, not external, standards to judge morality.

People who say they believe in such a shifting ethic, however, constantly make moral judgments. They may defend abortion or euthanasia or homosexual marriage, but they decry rape, environmental exploitation, genocide, and child abuse. Why? On what basis? Which of those issues, given enough time, will they also change their minds about?

How ironic that the September 11, 2001 attacks came when American moral relativism had reached a peak. Some people, who on one day emphatically denied the existence of moral absolutes, on the next day spoke against those “absolutely hideous evils.”

Twenty years ago, while teaching a college ethics course, I read an account of a university professor who’d discovered that half of his students had received photocopies of the final exam and cheated on the test. Ironically, the professor was an outspoken advocate of moral relativism. The professor felt outraged at his students’ behavior. But why? Shouldn’t he have congratulated them for living out the very moral framework he had taught them?

This man, like all of us, innately recognized moral absolutes. The fact that his worldview couldn’t account for them should have prompted him to seek an alternative.

This commentary on Breakpoint reminds us that cultural relativism is still alive and well:

A Tower of Skulls: Cultural Relativism Meets Human Sacrifice

By  Eric Metaxas & G. Shane Morris

“Hey, don’t judge.” We hear those words a lot. But it takes real commitment to say them while staring at 130 thousand murder victims.

Imagine walking into the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan in the year 1519. Situated on an island in the middle of an ancient lake where Mexico City now stands, Tenochtitlan was spectacular, even in a region known for its pyramids and plazas.

But what really caught the attention of the Spanish conquistadors was the tower of human skulls that stood in front of the temple of the Aztec gods. Known as Tzompantli, this gruesome structure reportedly contained the skulls of some 130 thousand victims of human sacrifice, performed to ensure that the sun would continue to rise and rain would continue to fall.

For many years, historians considered Spanish tales of the Aztec tower of skulls exaggerations or fabrications, invented to justify the conquest of Tenochtitlan two years later. That is until 2015, when archaeologists began finding skull fragments under a Colonial-era house in Mexico City.

They have now uncovered hundreds of intact skulls of people who were neatly defleshed and decapitated. Archaeologists are piecing together a picture of a city built around ritual slaughter on an unimaginable scale. They estimate the Tzompantli was over a hundred feet long, forty feet wide, and fifteen feet tall. And as new victims were sacrificed regularly, it was always freshly-stocked. If anything, the old stories fell short of just how monstrous this monument to Aztec religion was.

Now, you’d think we could all agree that human sacrifice is a horrific evil. But the author of the Science Magazine article about this tower of skulls begs to differ. Lizzie Wade took to Twitter to chide her readers for not seeing things from the Aztecs’ perspective!

The people who built the Tzompantli, she writes, saw the skulls of their victims as “seeds they planted to insure the existence of future generations of people.” She continues, writing that human sacrifice may seem “weird and violent and gruesome to our Western colonial gaze. But don’t for a second think that’s the only way to see it, or the ‘right’ way to see it.” What’s so fun about archaeology, she concludes, is “trying to understand a worldview that is fundamentally, deeply different than the one we have been trained to think is natural and right. Try it sometime.”

Wade’s tweet storm should help us understand a worldview that is fundamentally, deeply different, but it’s not the worldview of the Aztecs. It’s the worldview of cultural relativism, which rejects ultimate claims about right and wrong, good and evil, and insists that everything—even the immorality of human sacrifice—is culturally relative. Those from one culture shouldn’t condemn those from another culture where right and wrong are different. Or that’s the idea.

The problem is Wade doesn’t seem to believe it herself. Her tweets are peppered with remarks about “colonial oppression and destruction,” giving the impression that she won’t judge Mesoamerican human sacrifice, but she’s perfectly willing to judge the Europeans who put an end to it.

Now obviously, the behavior of Spanish conquistadors was indefensible. That’s not the point. The point is it’s impossible to live as a consistent cultural or moral relativist.

We know there’s absolute and universal right and wrong. The Bible says it’s written on our hearts. It is the basis of all just laws, and the reason why we rightly condemn everything from the ritual burning of Indian widows on their husband’s funeral pyres, to the Holocaust. Evil is evil, no matter which culture it comes from.

More than this, when Christians look at a tower of skulls, we don’t have to pretend to see the “seeds life.” We know the One behind universal right and wrong, who chose to become a victim and sacrificed His own life, once for all, in answer to the towering and universal problem of human evil.

Copyright 2018 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission

For more on this subject, see Randy’s devotional Truth: A Bigger View of God's Word and book If God Is Good.

Image: John Carter Brown Library [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Will We Work and Have Jobs in Heaven?

Genesis 2:15 tells us, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Work wasn’t part of the Curse. The Curse, rather, made work menial, tedious, and frustrating (Genesis 3:17-19). Because work began before sin and the Curse, and because God, who is without sin, is a worker, we should assume human beings will work on the New Earth. We’ll have satisfying and enriching work that we can’t wait to get back to, work that’ll never be drudgery.

God is the primary worker, and as His image bearers, we’re made to work. Jesus found great satisfaction in His work. He said, “My Father is always working, and so am I” (John 5:17). We create, accomplish, set goals, and fulfill them—to God’s glory. Our work will be joyful and fulfilling, giving glory to God. “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him” (Revelation 22:3). (Work will be refreshing on the New Earth, yet regular rest will be built into our lives.)

Even under the Curse, we catch glimpses of how work can be enriching, how it can build relationships, and how it can help us to improve. Work stretches us in ways that make us smarter, wiser, and more fulfilled. Work in Heaven won’t be frustrating or fruitless; instead, it will involve lasting accomplishment, unhindered by decay and fatigue, enhanced by unlimited resources. Our best workdays on the present Earth—those days when everything turns out better than we planned, when we get everything done on time, and when everyone on the team pulls together and enjoys one another—are just a small foretaste of the joy our work will bring us on the New Earth.

Because there will be continuity from the old Earth to the new, it’s possible we’ll continue some of the work we started on the old Earth. We’ll pursue some of the same things we were doing, or dreamed of doing, before our deaths. Of course, some people’s jobs won’t exist on the New Earth, among them dentists, police officers, funeral directors, and insurance salespeople. What are now their interests or hobbies may become their main vocations. Others might continue working as they do now, as gardeners, engineers, builders, artists, animal trainers, musicians, scientists, craftspeople, or hundreds of other vocations. A significant difference will be that they’ll work without the hindrances of toil, pain, corruption, sin, and exhaustion. It will be the best we have experienced in our most fulfilling work, without any of the worst.

I share some related thoughts in this video, an excerpt from the Eternity 101 DVD series:

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash

On Choosing Wisely When to Say No and When to Say Yes

When we’re asked to do worthless or unprofitable things, it doesn’t take much wisdom to say no, does it? Especially not when you do one of those things and think, “Okay, that was a waste…I’m never doing that again.”  

The real problem is all the good things we’re asked to do. I don’t pray over every speaking request, because years ago I sensed God telling me that my default answer has to be no, and He will make it clear when it should be yes. So I do pray over every request where I sense God might be in it, but I don’t know for sure.

Ten years ago I realized my life was out of control, because even though I was saying no to 95%of requests, I needed to increase that ratio to something more like 99%. And as a lot of you know, that can really make you feel guilty. But it shouldn’t if we have our eyes on the prize—God, and our families, then our churches and ministry platforms, and sometimes the individual kid or family we know where we can make a difference.  

If you also struggle with knowing what to say yes to and what to say no to, maybe one of the three articles I link to below will be a help to you—if you can make time to read one!

This is an article I wrote in 2008, and by God’s grace I’ve lived by it pretty consistently since then. I think I’m still sensitive to God’s leading and people’s needs, yet I’m also sensitive to needing to prioritize because if I don’t I will neglect my time with Jesus and my family, and have very little to offer anyone else: Planned Neglect: Saying No to Good Things So We Can Say Yes to the Best

Four years ago I wrote a related but not redundant blog: A Lesson Hard Learned: Being Content with Saying No to Truly Good Opportunities

Since Nanci was diagnosed with cancer in January I’ve not only been saying “no” to new opportunities, but also I’ve been cancelling the ones I said “yes” to in the first place. I’m still serving God, both by serving my wife and trying to fit in book projects and other ministry obligations, but I’m content with doing far less than others want me to. He is, after all, the Audience of One—in the end, His opinion will matter far more than anyone else’s—infinitely more.

Finally, here’s a short article on understanding the difference between the urgent and the important. I’ve learned, though often the hard way, that God uses our failures to teach and guide us.

May we learn to think strategically and choose wisely, not poorly, like that guy in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!

Photo by MorganK on Pixabay

Our Problem, God’s Solution

The problem of how we could possibly be reconciled with a God who hates evil is the greatest problem of history. Before we can see God in Heaven, something must radically change. This calls for no less than the greatest solution ever devised.

Here is what we need to know:

1. “God created mankind in his own image...God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31).

God made human beings with personal and relational qualities like His own (Genesis 1:26) and desired to have a delightful relationship with them. But something went terribly wrong. When Adam and Eve chose to follow Satan’s advice in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), sin poisoned the world and now we are all born with the desire to do things our own way, not God’s.

2. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

Our sins against a good and holy God have distanced us from Him (see Isaiah 59:2). God “cannot tolerate wrongdoing” (Habakkuk 1:12). Through sin we forfeit a relationship with God, and along with it our happiness.  The result of all this is death. Spiritual death is separation from God in a very real place called Hell. Physical death marks the end of our opportunity to enter into a relationship with God and avoid eternal condemnation (Hebrews 9:27).

3. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

There is absolutely nothing we can do to restore ourselves to God. He is holy, we are not. In fact, He says even our good deeds are like filthy rags (see Isaiah 64:6). But God loved us so much He sent us His Son Jesus, fully God and fully man, to deliver us from death and give us life (John 3:16).  Jesus said of lost sinners, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10)."God demonstrates His own love toward us…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Jesus went to the cross to pay the price for our sins. He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. When Jesus died for us, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek word translated “it is finished” was written across certificates of debt when they were canceled. It meant “paid in full.” Jesus then rose from the grave, conquering sin and death (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

4. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

God’s greatest gift is a restored relationship with Himself, delivering us from Hell and granting us entry into Heaven (John 3:36). This gift depends not on our merit but solely on Christ’s work of grace for us on the cross (see Titus 3:5). He is the one and only way to God. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

5. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).

To be right with God, we must admit our sinful hearts and actions, and ask God’s forgiveness. If we do, He graciously promises full forgiveness: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Then we are to affirm to others that the resurrected Jesus is our Lord.

6. "Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).

The life we long for is freely offered to us in Christ. We can believe His promise and call on Him to save us, humbly accepting His gift of eternal life: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). God’s Holy Spirit indwells us and helps us obey Him (see 2 Timothy 1:14). 

The gospel is called the “good news of happiness” (Isaiah 52:7). Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). God offers us in Christ the life and happiness we crave and He wants us to enjoy forever. Here’s a prayer that may help you affirm your faith in Jesus. There’s no magic in just saying the words, but they may help you genuinely express to God what’s in your heart:

God, I believe you sent your Son Jesus to die on the cross to pay the price for all my sins. I believe Jesus conquered sin and death through His resurrection from the dead. To the degree I find any of this difficult to believe, I ask that you work in my heart and mind to overcome my unbelief. Help me to trust what the Bible says—that you, Jesus, are the God-man who came to rescue me from sin and death and to restore me to the Father.

I am sorry for and want to repent of my sins, including my self-centeredness. I confess my sins, realizing I’m not yet aware of all of them, but I ask you to make me more aware. With your strength I want to turn away from doing wrong, and give up every part of my life that doesn’t please you—not just my actions but my attitudes. I want to experience the joy of being a new person and living a new life. I surrender myself to you.

I gratefully receive your forgiveness and ask you to be my Savior and Lord and King. Please come to indwell me and empower me to live a new life. Fill me with your love. Help me to learn from your Word and your followers how to live as a transformed person who loves and forgives others as you love and forgive me. Thank you.

I ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Once you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior, one of the most important things you need to do is become part of a family of Christians called a church.  A good church will teach God’s Word and provide love, help, and support. If you have further questions about Jesus, you can find answers there. Seek out people who know God’s Word and can help you grow in your relationship with Jesus! Read the Bible, pray, share your faith, and gather regularly with God’s people. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:13).

See also:  Can You Know You’re Going to Heaven?  and  Can EPM Recommend Any Churches Near Me?

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God’s Happiness Is Good News for Our Eternal Future

Nearly all Christians believe that God is good, but it seems that many don’t believe that He’s good natured. Does it really matter whether we believe that God is happy? Yes—it matters more than anything has ever mattered, or ever will. Upon it hinges, for instance, whether or not we can believe God’s promises, like those found in Romans 8.

If God is not happy, then He cannot be our source of happiness. He cannot give us what He does not have. An unhappy God would never value the happiness of His creatures. And we would have no reason to believe we would enjoy everlasting happiness in His presence.

Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Blaise Pascal said that all people seek happiness, and that only God is the ultimate source of happiness. If He is to keep His promise of granting us eternal happiness, God must not only be happy, but also exceedingly and overflowingly happy, with a happiness that spills over into creation in general and His image-bearers in particular. For surely no “mostly unhappy” being is capable of dispensing and maintaining happiness in any deep and lasting form.

Paul says the good news we bring to the world is "the glorious gospel of the blessed [happy] God” (1 Timothy 1:11). At the end of the same letter, perhaps to encourage Timothy who is dealing with countless problems in the churches that could make him unhappy, Paul speaks of the return of Christ and says, “which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed [happy] and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15).

In the message we speak to our churches and to the world, do we portray God as happy? If not, we seriously undermine the good news of Christ’s redemptive work. Indeed, if God is not happy, the “good news” of living with Him for all eternity would not be good news at all!

God’s happiness is an essential part of the gospel, and the promise of eternal happiness is contingent upon God’s happiness. To be told you can have an eternal relationship with an unhappy being is bad news, not good! How soon before an unhappy God tires of us and decides to bring up our past offenses or resents us for the shed blood we cost Him? Annihilation would surely be better than living with an omnipotent being whose mood tomorrow may change to unhappiness, with depressive and terrifying (ETERNALLY terrifying) consequences to His creatures.

But that’s not what Scripture portrays. Consider Matthew 25:23: “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”

“Come and share [or “enter into”] your master’s happiness” is a profound statement. It is not “Bring me your happiness” or “Come to Heaven where you will find things to make you happy.” Rather, God essentially says here, “Enter into a happiness that preceded the dawn of time, a delight of Father and Son and Spirit in each other, that we now extend to you. This is OUR happiness, and we happily invite you to share it with us. We have done so at unfathomable cost, in the shed blood of God Almighty, because we knew from the before the beginning that the payoff of our eternal happiness, and yours in us, would be worth it. Hence the sufferings of this present time cannot be compared to the glory we will reveal to you and in you—and never stop revealing (Ephesians 2:7).”

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down [with his joy realized] at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

For more on God’s happiness, see Randy’s books Happiness and God’s Promise of Happiness, the devotional 60 Days of Happiness, and his DVD series Happiness 101. 

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Five Things to Let Go of So You Can Embrace Contentment and Simplicity

I’ve shared before my appreciation for Joy Hlavka Forney, who along with her husband Dave and their children, serves with Mission Aviation Fellowship in Uganda, East Africa. Joy grew up at our church, Good Shepherd Community Church, along with her sisters and our daughters. I served for years with Joy’s dad Alan, who is still one of our pastors. (Our daughters Karina and Angela carpooled with Joy and her sister Heather when they attended our church’s grade school!)

I really appreciate what Joy has to say in this video about contentment and simplicity, and what we need to let go of in order to experience them. (If you enjoy this one, be sure to check out her channel for more videos.)

If you have time to do just one thing, be sure you watch Joy’s video above. That’s the most important part. Only keep reading if you want some of my thoughts connected to what Joy says.

Here are Joy’s five excellent points, followed by my own reflections and some links below each:

1. Stop comparing.

Comparison is deadly. Believing that other people are happier than we are, because of what they have or how they look or what they can do, is unproductive and unrealistic. We don’t know their struggles, private pains, and secrets.

Early in our marriage, Nanci suffered guilt feelings when we visited friends and saw how neat and clean everything was, even though they, too, had young children. One night when our friends spent the evening with us, we realized how neat and clean we’d made our house by throwing debris into our bedroom closet. We didn’t let them see our messes, just as they didn’t let us see theirs. So the answer to “How does she do it?” is often, “She doesn’t. She shoves it into a closet!”

May we remember that God calls us to contentment, and not comparison: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6) and “Be content with what you have” (Hebrews 13:5). Contentment means being happy with what God has given us and who He has made us to be.

See Jon Bloom’s article Lay Aside the Weight of Prideful Comparison.

2. Be thankful; stop complaining.

Pride is the master sin, and it’s manifested in our complaints. When we complain about circumstances beyond our control, we’re telling God, “You don’t know what you’re doing; I know better than you.”

Proud, presumptuous people always think they deserve better. But Scripture calls upon us to grow in thankfulness:

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever! (Psalm 30:12)
I will thank you in the great congregation; in the mighty throng I will praise you. (Psalm 35:18)
Do all things without grumbling or disputing. . . . I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (Philippians 2:14, 17-18)

See The Blessing of Gratitude, the Curse of Complaining and Gratitude: God’s Will for Us, as well as my book Happiness.

3. Stop saying, “I need…”

Advertising is seductive and manipulative. It programs us, enlarging our wants. Its goal is to create an illusion of need, to stimulate desire, to make us dissatisfied with what God has already provided. Advertising lies. If we’d think it through, we’d see the truth, but our thinking gets cloudy.

Good stewards of God’s money think before they make a purchase. We must consciously reject advertising’s claims and counter them with God’s Word, which instructs us about what we really do need…and what we really don’t. (We have far fewer needs than we believe!)

Often we define our wants as needs. Has God promised to give us all we want? No. Has He promised to meet all our true needs? Yes. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

See Six Reasons to Live More Simply—and Give More Generously and Ten Practical Ways to Control Spending and Wisely Manage God’s Money, as well as my book Managing God’s Money.

4. Let go of saying “yes” to everything.

I learned years ago that I have to say no to the great majority of things I’m asked to do, so I’m available to say yes to those few God wants me to do. Jesus calls upon us to carry our crosses yet paradoxically promises a light burden and rest for our souls. If the burden feels heavy and our souls aren’t at rest, maybe we’ve picked up more than He intended us to carry or we haven’t fully come to Him.

Many think they hear God say, “Do more” and “Do better.” But not, “I’ve done it for you—rest.” Yet this is what Jesus meant when He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.… Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

See Planned Neglect: Saying No to Good Things So We Can Say Yes to the Best and Being Content with Saying No to Truly Good Opportunities.

5. Stop thinking about the “what if’s.”

Ironically, much of our worry is unrealistic. We “catastrophize” by making the worst of situations and anticipating the worst possible outcome. Montaigne, the French philosopher, put it this way: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes—most of which have never happened.”

Jesus assures us that if we put God and His kingdom first, in His sovereignty He will take care of us (Matthew 6:33). In the next verse He says, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Much worry comes from carrying today the burdens of yesterday and the dreads of tomorrow. This is unnecessary and unhealthy. Lessons from the past can be learned without living in it. We can plan for the future without dwelling on it. Now is all we have. Let’s invest it, enjoy it, profit from it. Let’s not lose it to worry.

See 5 Reasons to Rejoice, Not Worry and John Piper on Your Greatest Reason Not to Worry.

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The Sacred Trust of Pastors and Christian Leaders: Accountability and Consequences for Sexual Abuse

Recently a well-known writer and speaker at writer’s conferences, who was also a long-time Christian university professor, was found to have had a decades-long history of attempting to seduce young women. Over twenty-some women have come forward, independently telling similar tales. The university has now dismissed him, admitting there were three cases reported to them for which he was warned and disciplined. Sadly, however, he remained a professor and continued to speak at conferences, where he also continued his immoral behavior.

One of the most prominent pastors in the country, from one of the most prominent churches has had numerous women come forward accusing him of sexual advances going back many years. The entire board and most of the pastoral staff have resigned, some of them due to realizing they had defended the pastor and discredited the victims and hence disqualified themselves. Last I heard the pastor was still denying he’d done anything wrong, despite the testimonies of all the women, including highly credible people in the church ministry. If these things had been taken seriously and investigated from the beginning, the outcome could have been very different, and a great deal of the harm to victims could have been prevented.

Tragically, this is nothing new. The evangelical landscape is littered with the carcasses of lives and ministries decimated by sexual sin. For every well-known Christian television personality or evangelical leader who commits sexual immorality, there are any number of lesser-known local pastors, Bible teachers, and parachurch workers who quietly resign or are fired for the same. Most of us can name several, some dozens, and some many more. Three Christian leaders I know of sat down together and between them came up with a list of 250 names.

Recently a Portland church issued a statement about their senior pastor being dismissed for adultery, and when confronted, he admitted there had been previous adulterous relationships. I appreciate the final sentence from this church’s elders: “We grieve the shame this brings to the Gospel and the sorrow it brings to God’s people.”

I’m personally glad for the women standing up against abuse in Hollywood. It is also desperately needed in the church, which should be leading the way in helping and protecting the vulnerable and abused. Before the Church can say anything to the world, she who is intended to be the spotless bride of Christ must look to herself. “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

Ministry is not just a task. It is a sacred trust between the under-shepherd and the flock that has been entrusted to him by God. To misuse and violate that trust to achieve sexual conquest, or even emotional dependence, is a particularly deplorable behavior. Every time a Christian leader’s sexual sin is passed off as “an unfortunate indiscretion that came at a vulnerable point in his life,” responsibility is avoided or denied, and others—especially the members in the local church—are taught that emotional needs and inadequacies justify immoral entanglement.

Even the secular counseling profession considers it the highest breach of ethics to enter into a romantic and/or sexual relationship with a client. Indeed, sexual involvement with one who has come to seek emotional help or spiritual guidance should not only be considered fornication or adultery—it should be considered sexual abuse.

Sexual activity that comes out of a ministry context is comparable to child sexual abuse, where the supposedly mature and stable adult figure takes advantage of his or her authority and credibility to initiate or allow a sexual encounter with the immature and vulnerable. In such cases, the person in ministry is not a victim but a predator. And it is all the worse because we are trusted representatives of Christ.

Pastors desperately need clear guidelines when it comes to purity and integrity. (My booklet Sexual Temptation was specifically written to help those in ministry to avoid and resist sexual temptation.) I believe that if we would rehearse in advance the ugly and overwhelming consequences of immorality, we would be far more prone to avoid it. (See my blog post on Counting the Cost of Sexual Immorality.)

If Abuse Does Occur

When abuse happens or is revealed, there needs to be a clear, deliberate response. When children are involved, this must include reporting to the appropriate authorities.

I know of pastors guilty of immorality who’ve been quietly dismissed or who have resigned from one church (everyone wanted to avoid a scandal), only to reappear at another church that was totally ignorant of their previous track record. Too often they repeat their sins, largely because they’ve been protected from sin’s full consequences and never been helped to overcome their problem.

Such an attempt to guard a leader’s reputation amounts to an irresponsible endorsement of a man whose moral vulnerability should have required his stepping down from ministry, at least for a significant season, and in many cases permanently, when the underlying issues have not been sufficiently acknowledged and repented of, and the damage is such that people’s trust cannot be regained. The leader, his family, his church, and his Lord’s reputation all suffer when sin is covered up.

Many churches have been guilty of not doing due diligence by hiring a pastor without thoroughly interviewing those in authority over that person in their previous ministry. If the only references consulted are those a candidate lists, who typically will be ignorant of or unwilling to divulge his moral track record, then church leadership fails both Christ and their congregation. It is unconscionable to hire a man without first diligently investigating his past, interviewing knowledgeable people with direct and pointed questions about any history of accusations of sexual impropriety. These conversations should always take place with those he worked with and under in his previous church.

Countless churches have hired a pastor who ends up in immorality, only to find out that he had been guilty of the same in his previous church, which they had failed to ask about his character, morality and reputation.  To not do so in our current moral climate is irresponsible in the extreme.

Those in positions of leadership are particularly subject to public discipline: “Those, [elders] who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning” (1 Timothy 5:20). The goal of all Church discipline is always restoration, not reprisal. But as I’ve blogged about before, that certainly does not automatically mean restoration to a position of authority. Jonathan Leeman says this in his article Why repentant pastors should be forgiven but not restored to the pulpit:

To “forgive” a pastor means we don’t personally hold his sin against him and that we restore him to his office of church member. If he is repentant, he meets the qualification of membership.

That doesn’t mean we should restore him to the office of pastor. Our forgiveness does not mean he magically meets those qualifications. His life, quite simply, is not above reproach.

Church members inevitably begin to think that sexually immoral acts must not be a big deal if a “man of God” can be restored to his position of leadership without much more than a slap of the hand (and in some cases, a paid leave of absence). This only perpetuates the problem, and makes people laugh at the church for its hypocrisy in claiming a higher standard than the world (whereas a public school teacher dismissed for sexual impropriety is unlikely to ever be given a second chance). 

The church needs to discover ways to demonstrate greater grace and forgiveness than the world, and also a higher commitment to truth and the sort of integrity that engenders trust in its leaders. (See also Ed Stetzer’s article The Moral of Moral Failings of Christian Leaders, and David Murray’s article Why Do Churches Cover Up Sin?)

One reminder: we who are not directly involved in abuse situations must be careful in not assuming that everyone accused is automatically guilty, as I share in this blog post. It’s true there is always danger of false accusations being made. However, accusations should never be automatically dismissed. Rather, they should be carefully investigated with fairness and integrity. We should be quick to speak up for children and innocent people.

In cases of adultery, the primary responsibility and consequences should be placed on the Christian leader, the one in the power position, while never condoning the sin of their partners in adultery. The misuse of the leader’s power is always, to one degree or another, a form of sexual abuse.

For more on purity, see Randy's book The Purity Principle and his booklet Sexual Temptation: Establishing Guardrails and Winning the Battle.

See also EPM's free resources on purity.

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