Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 15

The Faith-Based Response to Hurricane Helene

Note from Randy: Our hearts go out to the people of western North Carolina and in other communities who’ve suffered so much from the effects of Hurricane Helene. One of the ministries EPM supports and recommends is Samaritan’s Purse, which is based in Boone, North Carolina. It’s amazing that their organization, which is always responding to disasters around the world, is directly impacted by the disaster in this case. Franklin Graham, their president and CEO, has had wonderful opportunities to share with the media about their relief efforts, and also the hope found in Jesus. (See this video to get a glimpse into the devastation and the work Samaritan’s Purse is doing.) Pray for their staff and volunteers. Pray for open hearts in the people they minister to.

I was originally slated to speak at a retreat at the Cove, the Billy Graham Retreat Center in Asheville, North Carolina, later in October. Due to the disaster, they had to cancel all their October events. The staff member I spoke with told me they are making sack lunches daily for the state police whose usual places to eat have been destroyed or closed. It’s so sad, but I did tell the person who called me that we can get a small glimpse of Romans 8:28 by the fact that they are daily feeding the police, and that will not be forgotten when things return to normal. Some of the local skeptics will view them and the gospel differently after all the help they will receive from them.

In the following guest blog, Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch, shares about the faith-based response to Hurricane Helene. It’s a reminder that there’s a long track record of Christ-followers being the hands and feet of Jesus by serving the suffering, the needy, the poor. (Historically, what religions besides Christianity have established hospitals throughout the world, or networks of famine relief and development to help starving people, victims of disasters and refugees? Who has shown grace, bringing in tons of food, clothing, shelter, man-power, and medical supplies after every disaster?  It’s Christians. When Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus are suffering in far corners of the world, it’s Christians who come to help.)

May God’s people give generously and volunteer to help those in need. And may God use the church’s response to this terrible natural disaster to spread the knowledge of Him and to draw many hearts to Himself.

Helene Unleashed “Faith-Based FEMA”

Gov't has a role, but churches & Christian ministries are “new paradigm” for disaster relief

October 4, 2024

The whole world is now seeing what the people of western North Carolina have lived through this past week. Those sights are generating shock and awe. The strength of the storm and the magnitude of the destruction are stunning. The scale of the devastation is now becoming clear. Western North Carolina will not be back to normal for months, perhaps years. It is also clear that whatever “normal” looked like, the new normal will be different. This storm has recalibrated where and how thousands of people will live from now on.

I live in Charlotte, two hours east of Asheville. We were spared the worst effects of the storm, but even here we see ripple effects. With I-40 and I-26 closed through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, traffic has been diverted for hundreds of miles in all directions. Charlotte-area interstates are now clogged at most hours of the day or night. My own schedule has been altered. I planned to meet with MinistryWatch supporters in Asheville next week, but the restaurant in Biltmore Village where we planned to meet is now full of mud. That trip is now (obviously) not happening.

Tuesday night I sat outside with a friend, and our conversation was interrupted repeatedly by helicopters passing overhead, headed west with supplies. The shelves of the big-box stores here in Charlotte are mostly empty of bottled water and other essential items. These are, of course, minor inconveniences, mere trifles compared to what the people of western North Carolina are facing, but they have provided me with a reality check. It’s clear that Helene’s impact has been rippling out from western North Carolina.

There is also much heartache. This morning the death toll passed 200, most of them in North Carolina, and 72 in Buncombe County alone. That grim number will certainly increase. A childhood friend of my wife Missy has a second home near Saluda, N. C. Three people died on her street alone. I have heard stories from rescue workers who are recovering bodies, some of them ripped apart. The weeks ahead will be hard ones for police, fire, and rescue workers. It’s also important to note that in the rural communities affected, many of these first responders are volunteers. This is certainly not what they signed up for, but I have heard story after story of these men and women rushing in, not running away.

Indeed, the stories abound. A college friend, Paul Hanna, posted on Facebook the story of his son Ben. Let me share it with you:

My son, Ben Hanna and his wife, Mandy, live in Asheville. They have a natural gas generator. So they are the only ones with power in their area. He was able to borrow a StarLink setup from a neighbor with no power and set up an internet hotspot for his neighbors to communicate. They also hosted a street “eat your food before it spoils” party and hosted a movie night for the neighborhood in their front yard and driveway in between the downed trees.

Such grassroots efforts are springing up all round. Ed and Anne Stych are names that might be familiar to MinistryWatch readers. They are part of the team that posts stories to the MinistryWatch website, and Anne has written more than 100 stories for us over the past five years. They are a part of Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Cornelius, N.C., a northern suburb of Charlotte. This small church, working with others in the area, helped send more than 38 small aircraft loaded with supplies to western North Carolina – on Monday alone. Local businessmen Travis McVickers and Kevin Garrison organized these efforts. Garrison set up a GoFundMe page to finance the project. By Friday, he had raised more than $840,000 to pay for supplies, airplane fuel, hangar space, and airplane rentals.

Another member of Good Shepherd Anglican, Matt Creswell, drove up to Banner Elk on Tuesday with a 1,000-gallon tank of diesel. “This has turned into a three-day event,” Creswell texted Ed Stych. “On Wednesday we are cooking 1,000 hotdogs and hamburgers for a little hard-hit community about 45 minutes north of Boone. Sleep is overrated.”

The resourcefulness of some of these grassroots efforts are enough to bring a smile to your face. One example: A mule team hauled supplies to people in Black Mountain, N.C. who are completely cut off by severed roads. The supplies were purchased at Food Lion just outside the area affected, and the local Tractor Supply store donated feed for the mules.

Federal, state, and local governments are involved, of course. They will have to play a major role in what will likely be a years-long recovery effort. But the real story of the first few days after this storm is the scope and scale of these spontaneous, grassroots efforts. They have undoubtedly saved the lives of some and have given hope to many. My friend and long-time journalist Bobby Ross, Jr., said he has seen this phenomenon repeatedly in the disasters he has covered over the years. In fact, he has even coined a term to describe these Christian first responders: “Faith-Based FEMA.” Indeed, as Ross reports, even when the government is involved, it often uses churches as command centers and staging facilities.

These ideas are not new to anyone who has been paying attention. Marvin Olasky is a veteran journalist and a historian of American charity and philanthropic efforts. He wrote after Hurricane Katrina, “Big government didn’t work. And a new paradigm for responding to national crisis has emerged. Private and faith-based organizations have stepped in, and politics will never be the same.”

That new paradigm is now on full display. Ed Stych summarized these grassroots rescue and relief efforts now springing up like a thousand flowers all around North Carolina: “I don’t know if the state and federal governments are doing a good job or a bad job. I just know that we ‘civilians’ need to do what we can immediately to help people in urgent need. We can’t wait for the government to save people.”

This article originally appeared on MinistryWatch and is used with permission of the author.

Header photo: Bill McMannis, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How Does Evil Differ from Suffering?

It’s bad enough to do evil and abstain from good. But God condemns the moral sleight of hand by which we confuse good and evil: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).

Paul built on this when he wrote, “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). Passages like Amos 5:14–15; Romans 16:19; 1 Peter 3:11 and 3 John 11 all presume we know the difference between good and evil. But in a culture that so often switches the price tags so what’s valuable looks worthless and what’s cheap demands a high price, this doesn’t come naturally. We must regularly withdraw to Scripture and ask God’s Spirit to train our minds and consciences to recognize what’s truly good and what’s truly evil.

Evil, in its essence, puts someone or something else in God’s place.

Most people today understand evil as anything that harms others. The more harm done, the more evil the action.

Evil is the fundamental and troubling departure from goodness. The Bible uses the word evil to describe that which violates God’s moral will. The first human evil occurred when Eve and Adam disobeyed God. From that original sin—a moral evil—came the consequence of suffering. Although suffering results from moral evil, it is distinguishable from it, just as an injury caused by drunken driving isn’t synonymous with the offense.

Evil could be defined as “the refusal to accept the true God as God.” For this very reason, the Bible treats idolatry as the ultimate sin.

Any attempt to liberate ourselves from God’s standards constitutes rebellion against God. In replacing His standards with our own, we not only deny God but affirm ourselves as God. Evil is always an attempted coup, an effort to usurp God’s throne.

Psalm 2 describes earthly kings standing against God and His anointed one and declaring, “Let us break their chains.” God scoffs at them and replies that He has installed His king on Zion—and they have no hope of conquering His Chosen One (see 2:2–6).

Evildoers not only reject God’s law and create their own; they attempt to take the moral high ground by calling God’s standards “unloving,” “intolerant,” and “evil.”

Moral evil comes in two forms—blatant evil that admits its hatred for goodness, and subtle evil that professes to love goodness while violating it.

Some view evil as the absence of good.

The logic goes like this: There is no such thing as cold, only lower degrees of heat (or the complete lack of it). Darkness is not the opposite of light, but the absence of light. Death is not the opposite of life, but its privation. A cloth can exist without a hole, but that hole cannot exist without the cloth. Good can, did, and will exist without evil. But evil cannot exist without the good it opposes. A shadow is nothing but the obstruction of light—no light, no shadow. Augustine said in The City of God, “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil.’”

New Testament vocabulary sometimes supports this concept. We see it in words such as unrighteous, unjust, ungodly, lawless, and godless. These suggest that we best understand evil as a departure from God’s goodness. However, while this definition contains helpful insights, it doesn’t go far enough.

More than merely the absence of good, evil is the corruption of good.

The Holocaust was not “nothing.” The Killing Fields were not “nothing.” The 9/11 attacks were not “nothing.” All were real horrors, down to every emaciated corpse, bullet-riddled body, and person jumping out a window.

Perhaps we could better conceive of evil as a parasite on God’s good creation, since a parasite is something substantial. Without the living organism it uses as a host, the parasite cannot exist. As metal does not need rust, but rust needs metal, so good does not need evil, but evil needs good.

Grace and forgiveness, both expressions of God’s eternal character, are moral goods, but without evil they wouldn’t have become clearly evident. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit don’t need compassion, mercy, grace, or forgiveness. These qualities could only be fully expressed to finite and fallen creatures.

Some of God’s virtues will forever capture the spotlight that, without evil and suffering’s temporary hold on us, never would have taken the stage.

Immoral acts are primary evils, while their consequences, including suffering, are secondary evils.

Scripture portrays moral evils of rebelling against God, and natural evils including disease and disasters.

Child abuse is evil, demonstrated by the harm it inflicts on the innocent victim. We consider cancer and earthquakes evils because they bring suffering. While the evils of cancer and earthquakes differ from the moral evil of rebellion against God, the two are related. Human rebellion led God to curse the earth, which brought severe physical consequences.

Diseases and disasters are in a sense unnatural because they result from evil, an unnatural condition.

Disobeying God, inseparable from the failure to trust God, was the original evil. From that sin—a moral evil—came the consequence of suffering. So suffering follows evil as a caboose follows an engine. Scripture sometimes refers to calamities and tragic events as evils. To distinguish these, we can call moral evil primary evil, and suffering secondary evil.

“But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you” (Joshua 23:15). Note that the “evil” mentioned here is not moral evil. Rather, it’s a holy God bringing judgment upon guilty people.

In some cases God builds punishments into moral evils. Paul says of those committing sexual sins that they “received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (Romans 1:27).

Secondary evils provoke our indignation.

Why do innocent people suffer? Although many secondary evils befall us even when we have not directly committed a sin that causes them, we would not have to deal with secondary evils if we didn’t belong to a sinful race. Short-term suffering serves as a warning and foretaste of eternal suffering. Without a taste of Hell, we would neither see its horrors nor feel much motivation to do everything possible to avoid it. Hence, the secondary evil of suffering can get our attention and prompt us to repent of our primary moral evil.

God uses secondary evils as judgments that may produce ultimate good.

Jeremiah 11:17 uses the same Hebrew word for evil in both the primary sense (moral evil) and the secondary sense (adverse consequences of moral evil): “The LORD of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to pro­voke Me by offering up sacrifices to Baal” (NASB).

Because our English word has a narrower meaning, most translators normally choose “evil” when used of people disobeying God, but “disaster” or “calamity” when used of God bringing judgment on sinful people.

After promising judgment, God also promised He would bring good to His people—good that ultimately would outweigh the evil. Note the repetition of the word “good” in the following. God says,

They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul. (Jeremiah 32:38–41)

God’s people endure temporary judgments for their sin. But God makes an “everlasting covenant,” promising, “I will never stop doing good to them.”

Evils, whether moral or natural, will not have the final say. God will replace both with everlasting good.

The surgeon inflicts suffering on the patient and the parent disciplines the child, but they do good, not evil. Likewise, God can permit and even bring suffering upon His children without being morally evil. God hates moral evil and is committed to utterly destroying it. Yet for now He allows evil and suffering, and can providentially use them for His own good purposes.

Adapted from Randy’s book If God Is Good, Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil.

Photo: Unsplash

Ask, Admire, Admit: Divine Appointments and Starting Spiritual Conversations

Acts 17:26 says, “From one human being he created all races of people and made them live throughout the whole earth. He himself fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live” (GNT). Since God fixes the exact times and limits of where people live, doesn’t this suggest He also fixes the times and places we will be on any particular day? Sure, people have free will, but that doesn’t mean God can’t take into account your free will and mine (and everyone else’s), so He can schedule us for divine appointments with people at certain times and places.

The next verse tells us the beautiful purpose God has for fixing our exact times and places: “He did this so that they would look for him, and perhaps find him as they felt around for him. Yet God is actually not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27, GNT, emphasis added). Part of our role in divine appointments is helping people look for and find the grace of Jesus. Perhaps having His followers everywhere is part of the way God is not far even from unbelievers. He touches others through us.

Too many of us are bored with our Christian lives, and the reason for that is largely because we don’t see life in terms of the daily opportunities for adventure granted us by our sovereign God. My best friend and I had a divine appointment not long ago—through a series of unusual circumstances. I told the person we met, “This is no accident that we are here talking with you. God had this planned. He does things like that. This is what we call a divine appointment.”

I’m a firm believer that many of life’s inconveniences or unusual circumstances involve divine appointments with people the Lord brings into our lives—if only we open our eyes to see them.

Evangelist Greg Stier, Founder/Visionary of Dare2Share, shared some great thoughts about a divine appointment he had, and explained how asking questions can lead to spiritual conversations. I love Greg, and this is how he really lives:

Yesterday as I was renewing my daughter’s gym membership, I asked Steve, the guy who was helping me at the front desk, about his tattoos, and it led to a spiritual conversation. He told me that growing up both his parents were agnostic and so was he. But he had just recently started reading the Bible and was interested in knowing more about spiritual things, but he didn’t know where to go to church.

As I rattled off a few ideas (he lived far from our church) and began to share the Gospel with him, a pastor friend of mine who has a church that is closer to where he lives walked up to check into the gym and said hello to me. I introduced Pastor Joel to my new friend, and they made a connection. As I was leaving, I told Steve, “This was no accident. God sent Pastor Joel at just the right time to connect with you.” He smiled and nodded, knowing that God was up to something. Pray for Steve to fully understand the Gospel and put his faith in Jesus. Pray for Steve to get connected to a solid church. He’s heard the Gospel and now knows a pastor who works out at his gym.

Fellow believers, I find most people willing to engage in spiritual conversations if we ASK-ADMIRE-ADMIT:

ASK questions about them, their lives, jobs, (tattoos 😊), and spiritual journeys.

ADMIRE what you can about their beliefs, like Paul did with the philosophers at the Areopagus in Acts 17.

ADMIT the reason you need Jesus and then share your testimony and then the GOSPEL. That’s what I did in 10 minutes at the front desk of a fitness center yesterday. That’s what you can do today, any day and every day.

God gave a big exclamation point to His divine intervention when He sent Pastor Joel to the front desk of the gym at just the right time. And stop saying to yourself, “Well, this kind of stuff happens all the time to Greg because he’s an evangelist.” That’s Satan’s lie whispering in your ear, trying to convince you that you can’t do the same thing.

You have the same Holy Spirit I do (Ephesians 1:13,14.).

You have the same anointing I do (1 John 2:20).

You have the same Gospel I do (Romans 1:16).

You have the same mission I do (Matthew 28:18-20).

So go for it!

Check out some of the great resources from Dare2Share, including an evangelism app and free ebooks.

Photo: Unsplash

5 Reasons to Obey What God Commands

There are many reasons to obey what God commands us in Scripture. Here are five of them I’ve reminded myself of over the years:

1) God said it.

2) God knows better than I do.

3) God is in charge, and I am not.

4) Whenever I have obeyed God, I and my family have ultimately benefited.

5) Whenever I have done it my way instead of God’s, with all my rationalizations and excuses that I’ve considered sound reasoning, it hasn’t been for His glory, for my good, or the good of others. To obey God is always in our ultimate self-interest. In a universe where God sets up the rules, what is right is also smart.

The living God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). He offers us true life and, with it, blessing. But He warns us against sin and the curse that always comes with it. Just as He did in the Garden, God offers us the quality of life that comes from obeying Him. God says, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live” (Proverbs 4:4).

Finally, we would do well to remember that God gives us the power and strength to obey Him. Scripture says that the grace of God “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12). God’s grace is not only for forgiveness of sin, but empowerment to live in holiness.

Photo: Pexels

Atheist or Christian, We All Choose Our Miracle

My book It’s All About Jesus includes this great quote from Glen Scrivener, a British minister and evangelist: “Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.”

Glen directs the evangelistic ministry Speak Life. He responded to an interview with atheist Richard Dawkins, and mentioned some similar things to the quote above:

Christians believe that Jesus emerged, alive again, from the tomb. But Richard Dawkins believes that *all* life emerged from non-life—and without a God of resurrection to work the wonder.

Choose your miracle.

Watch the full video: https://t.co/oer8Iq2uPc pic.twitter.com/GKygHJuTFk

— Speak Life (@SpeakLifeUK) April 2, 2024

Here’s the full video of Glen responding to Richard’s interview and declaration that he is a “cultural Christian”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzxBoMDNFng?si=U4VI1UcakVIyfzkf

Dawkins makes some moral judgments about Islam and its treatment of certain people groups. He, like all atheists in the Western world, lives in a culture influenced by a historic belief in God and the morality revealed in Scripture. This provides a residual basis for believing that moral categories are important, while the atheist worldview doesn’t.

Dawkins, Hitchens, and other atheists have emphasized the evils done in religion’s name. But they say virtually nothing about how modern education, science, and health care all emerged out of Christianity.

Atheists who have thought through the implications of their worldview occasionally admit its utter moral emptiness. Unbeliever William Provine put it this way in a debate: “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear.... There are no gods, no purposes.... There is no life after death.... There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans.”

Notice his admission that there is no ultimate foundation for ethics. The naturalistic worldview has no basis for declaring some things good and others evil.

But surely something within Dr. Provine can look at good and rejoice, then look at evil and cry out, “This is wrong!” What is it that cries out? The Bible calls it the conscience, God’s law written on our hearts (see Romans 2:15). We have a moral code, a natural law built into us. That’s what allows us to step outside of what we see around us and call it good or evil.

William Lane Craig says, “If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends that life has meaning.... In a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say that you are right and I am wrong.”

Even those who reject the claims of the Christian worldview should acknowledge that it does in fact offer a moral foundation upon which to discern good and evil. And they should ask themselves whether, without realizing it, they sometimes borrow from the Christian worldview because their own worldview cannot provide a foundation on which to judge good and evil.

Photo: Unsplash

How Can I Approach a Political Election in the Right Way, and Have Christ-Honoring Conversations with Others?

Note from Randy: This is a great answer from Doreen Button, part of our EPM staff, in response to some questions about politics. Like many of you, I do not enjoy the political turmoil, including in the church, that will only get worse as the presidential election gets closer. On the one hand, there is much at stake and some issues are extremely important, not the least of them the right to life of unborn children. However, we should be trusting God no matter what happens. As Psalm 25:15 says, “My eyes are continually toward Yahweh.” May this be true of God’s people!

Question from a reader:

What advice does your ministry and Randy have at this time of political chaos with a major election coming up? I am trying to stay on point with issues as I talk with family and friends, but I can’t even have a conversation with them because they disagree with candidates I am choosing to vote for. I am looking for advice for me to stay calm and look at this upcoming election in the right way. How can I have the right approach?

Answer from Doreen Button, EPM staff:

The ways people handle election cycles is a great reminder of how fallen we are and how deeply we need God’s grace. I applaud your desire to converse calmly about things you seem to care deeply about. It can be discouraging when people you love don’t want to listen. And, as with any relationship, you are only responsible for your actions and reactions and cannot control outcomes involving other people and their choices.

My short answer to your question is to keep an eternal perspective and keep Jesus’ words about what’s most important always foremost in your thoughts. This is an important habit to build no matter what the circumstances and will serve to keep God first, and to promote servant-hearted love toward others as an outflow of God’s love working in and through you.

By eternal perspective I mean focusing on what lasts. You’re probably familiar with Randy’s example of our present lives as a tiny dot on eternity’s endless timeline. This election will certainly encompass important issues, but since God always has been and always will be sovereign over all He’s created, we neither need to worry about the outcome (in fact that would go directly against His stated will) nor risk disrupting the unity Jesus prayed so earnestly to the Father for us.

His Kingdom has and will come and His will is being done, because of and in spite of us and our stand on any given issue or candidate. (Meditate on 1 Timothy 2:1-6 and Titus chapters 2 and 3.) “It is better to take refuge in Yahweh than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:9).

Randy has written several blogs which I believe can be applied to your situation. Here are links to two of my favorites: Are We Careful to Speak Words of Mercy and Grace, Especially When We Disagree? and Outrage Is Not a Fruit of the Spirit. Randy seeks to consistently blend both biblical truth and Christ-honoring grace. It’s one of many traits our EPM staff appreciate about him.

One last thought you might want to ponder. People are made in God’s image (even when we reflect that image poorly) and our relationships with each other are far more important—and among believers, far longer lasting—than being “right” (or even being heard). Jesus tells us to “Seek God’s Kingdom first, and His righteousness…” That’s our job. His job? “At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).

We have to be far more passionate about Jesus, and our unbelieving loved ones knowing Him, than we are about any political candidate. Before initiating or engaging in political conversations, particularly with those who don’t see things your way, pray! Then, ask yourself if you are fighting for your own ideals or are you genuinely interested in loving the other person well.

If and when a conversation happens, it may also help to diffuse strong feelings if you acknowledge their concerns over the candidate you are choosing to support and try to be understanding about them.  Your choice to share in a spirit of kindness and love will stand out in a culture of accusations and name calling.

In his article “Mercy Would Make America Great,” Vince Miller writes:

In conversations about candidates, policies, and platforms, we should follow Jesus’s example, and ask good questions to try and understand the reasons for our neighbors’ deeply held beliefs. Make an effort to understand how they came to their conclusions and convictions, and then reason with a respectful attitude.

…This political season is not about us. We kneel before the throne and submit our preferences, opinions, and purposes to Almighty God. It is all about him. Keep your focus on Christ because there is ultimately only one King and one kingdom.

God bless you as you make your way through this quagmire called politics. May you come out the other side looking more like Jesus!

Photo: Unsplash

There Is a God-Given Happiness That Honors Him

The Puritans, Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley and a host of others constantly spoke of a God-made happiness. As I have traveled the world, I’ve met more suffering people who are happy in Jesus than I have ever found in America!

This is exactly what I talk about in my book Happiness, as I go through over twenty Hebrew words and fifteen Greek words used in Scripture that are part of the same semantic domain. They are happiness synonyms and can be readily translated not only joyful, but also glad, merry, happy, delighted, etc. For example, take any Hebrew dictionary and look up asher, or a Greek dictionary and look up makarios (both are translated as “blessed” in our Bible versions), and you will find that they mean happy.

Of course there is a false and godless happiness, just as there is a false and godless holiness! There is also godless “love” and “hope” and “holiness” (in religions that try to work their way to God). But the solution is not abandoning those words; rather, we can show how the biblical versions differ from the culture’s view of them. Since God has wired all people to want the happiness of Eden and the New Earth, and since He intended humans to be happy and secured His children’s eternal happiness on the cross, telling the world (and our children) to stop wanting happiness and that it is sinful to want to be happy is both futile and counterproductive! What we need to tell them is that they can find happiness/joy/gladness in Jesus.

Will they still suffer in this life? Of course! But the gladness and joy of God’s people has always been a happiness in Him that infuses them with hope and perspective in the midst of suffering. Trust me—countless Jesus-followers in prisons and hospitals all over the world experience this happiness in God in ways that we should learn from. May we follow their example and do the same!  

Sadly, the church's false and unbiblical distinctions between happiness and holiness, and between happiness and joy, contradict the “good news of happiness” we’re promised in the Messiah (see Isaiah 52:7, ESV and NASB, two of the most literal translations)!

Here’s my answer when I was asked, “Is it wrong to want to be happy?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcS4cQxOAkA?si=dUPsDLJcdw0hMBxe

Browse more resources on the topic of happiness, and see Randy's books, including Happiness and Does God Want Us to Be Happy?

Photo: Unsplash

Abortion Isn’t Just a Political Issue—It’s About the Dignity and Sanctity of Human Life

Many today claim that abortion is just a political issue. But the abortion issue, at its core, is apolitical. It has everything to do with the worth of a human child. If I were to jump today in front of a car to rescue a child, it would not be to lodge a political protest against reckless driving. It would be to save the life of an innocent child. Abortion became “political” when the law was changed to justify the killing of children.

Long before it was ever a divisive political issue in our country, abortion was a moral issue, and one which God has a clear and emphatic position on. I encourage you to consider what God’s Word says about unborn children, and what the people of God throughout history have said about abortion.

Personhood in the Bible

Some maintain that “nowhere does the Bible prohibit abortion.” [1] Yet the Bible clearly prohibits the killing of innocent people (Exodus 20:13). All that is necessary to prove a biblical prohibition of abortion is to demonstrate that the Bible considers the unborn to be human beings.

A number of ancient societies opposed abortion, [2] but ancient Hebrew society had the clearest reasons for doing so because of its scriptural foundation. The Bible gives theological certainty to the biological evidence. It teaches that men and women are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Throughout Scripture, personhood is never measured by age, stage of development, or mental, physical, or social skills. Personhood is endowed by God at the moment of creation. That moment of creation can be nothing other than the moment of conception.

The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament to refer to the unborn (Exodus 21:22–25) is yeled, a word that “generally indicates young children, but may refer to teens or even young adults.” [3] The Hebrews did not have or need a separate word for unborn children. They were just like any other children, only younger. In the Bible there are references to born children and unborn children, but there is no such thing as “potential,” “incipient,” or “almost” children.

Job graphically described the way God created him before he was born (Job 10:8–12). The person in the womb was not something that might become Job, but someone who was Job, just younger and smaller. God identifies Himself to Isaiah as, “he who made you, who formed you in the womb” (Isaiah 44:2). What each person is, not merely what he might become, was present in his mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:13–16 paints an intimate picture of God’s involvement with a preborn person. David says to his Creator, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Each person has been personally knitted together by God. “All the days of his life have been planned out by God before any have come to be” (v. 16).

As a member of the human race that has rejected God, each person sinned “in Adam,” and is therefore a sinner from his very beginning (Romans 5:12–19). David says, “Surely I was sinful at birth.” Then he goes back even before birth to the actual beginning of his life, saying he was “sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). Each person has a sin nature from the point of conception. Who but an actual person can have a moral nature? Rocks and trees and animals and human organs do not have moral natures, good or bad.

When Rebekah was pregnant with Jacob and Esau, Scripture says, “The babies jostled each other within her” (Genesis 25:22). The unborn are regarded as “babies” in the full sense of the term. God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). He could not know Jeremiah in his mother’s womb unless Jeremiah, the person, was present there.

In Luke 1:41 and 44 there are references to the unborn John the Baptist. The Greek word translated as “baby” in these verses is the word brephos. It is the same word used for the already born baby Jesus (Luke 2:12, 16) and for the babies brought to Jesus to receive His blessing (Luke 18:15–17). It is also the same word used in Acts 7:19 for the newborn babies killed by Pharaoh. To the writers of the New Testament, like the Old, a baby is simply a baby, whether born or unborn.

The angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be “with child and give birth to a son” (Luke 1:31). In the first century, and in every century, to be pregnant is to be with child, not with that which might become a child.

Child Sacrifice

Child sacrifice is condemned throughout Scripture. Only the most degraded societies tolerated such evil. Ancient dumping grounds have been found filled with the bones of hundreds of dismembered infants. This is strikingly similar to discoveries of thousands of dead babies discarded by modern abortion clinics. One scholar of the ancient Near East refers to infant sacrifice as “the Canaanite counterpart to abortion.” [4]

Scripture condemns the shedding of innocent blood (Deuteronomy 19:10; Proverbs 6:17; Isaiah 1:15; Jeremiah 22:17). While the killing of all innocent human beings is detestable, the Bible regards the killing of children as particularly heinous (Leviticus 18:21; 20:1–5; Deuteronomy 12:31).

Abortion and Church History

Christians throughout church history have affirmed with a united voice the humanity of the preborn child. [5] The second-century Epistle of Barnabas speaks of “killers of the child, who abort the mold of God.” It treats the unborn child as any other human “neighbor” by saying, “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay a child by abortion. You shall not kill that which has already been generated” (19.5).

The Didache, a second-century catechism for young converts, states, “Do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant” (2.2). Clement of Alexandria maintained that “those who use abortifacient medicines to hide their fornication cause not only the outright murder of the fetus, but of the whole human race as well” (Paedagogus 2.10.96.1).

Defending Christians before Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 177, Athenagoras argued, “What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers, and will have to give account of it to God? . . . The fetus in the womb is a living being and therefore the object of God’s care” (A Plea for the Christians 35.137–138).

Tertullian said, “It does not matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. In both instances, destruction is murder” (Apology 9.4). Basil the Great affirmed, “Those who give abortifacients for the destruction of a child conceived in the womb are murderers themselves, along with those receiving the poisons” (Canons 188.2). Jerome called abortion “the murder of an unborn child” (Letter to Eustochium 22.13).

Augustine warned against the terrible crime of “the murder of an unborn child” (On Marriage 1.17.15). Origen, Cyprian, and Chrysostom were among the many other prominent theologians and church leaders who condemned abortion as the killing of children. New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger comments, “It is really remarkable how uniform and how pronounced was the early Christian opposition to abortion.” [6]

Throughout the centuries, Roman Catholic leaders have consistently upheld the sanctity of human life. Likewise, Protestant reformer John Calvin followed both the Scriptures and the historical position of the church when he affirmed:

The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a most monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light. [7]

Modern theologians with a strong biblical orientation have normally agreed that abortion causes the death of a child. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lost his life standing against Hitler’s murder of the innocent in Germany, argued that abortion is “nothing but murder.” [8]

Theologian Karl Barth stated, “The unborn child is from the very first a child . . . it is a man and not a thing, not a mere part of the mother’s body. . . . Those who live by mercy will always be disposed to practice mercy, especially to a human being which is so dependent on the mercy of others as the unborn child.” [9]

The Bible and Children

The Bible is clear that every child in the womb is created by God. Furthermore, Christ loves that child and proved it by becoming like him—He spent nine months in His mother’s womb. Finally, Christ died for that child, showing how precious He considers him to be.

The biblical view of children is that they are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3–5). Yet society treats children more and more as liabilities. We must learn to see them as God does, and to act toward them as God commands us to act: “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3–4).

Abortion and end-of-life issues aren’t “merely” about politics. They’re about the dignity and sanctity of human life.

I share more on the question of “Is abortion just a political issue?” in this video filmed many years ago, yet every bit as true now as it was then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyA8zmT0CKs?si=FRkSWNFvZnpiZAyJ

[1] Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, “Reproductive Choice: Basic to Justice for Women,” Christian Scholar’s Review, March 1988, 291.

[2] James Hoffmeier, Abortion: A Christian Understanding and Response (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 46, 50; Eugene Quay, “Abortion: Medical and Legal Foundations,” Georgetown Law Review, 1967, 395, 420; Meredith G. Kline, “Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, September 1977, 200–201.

[3] Lawrence O. Richards, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1985), 156–57.

[4] James Hoffmeier, Abortion, A Christian Understanding and Response (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 53.

[5] See George Grant, Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1988), 190–91.

[6] Quoted in Michael Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1982), 9.

[7] John Calvin, Commentary on Pentateuch, cited in Crisis Pregnancy Center Volunteer Training Manual (Washington, DC: Christian Action Council, 1984), 7.

[8] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 131.

[9] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961), 3:415, 3:418.

Photo: Pexels

God’s Promises about Heaven

Scripture commands us to set our hearts on Heaven: “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). And to make sure we don’t miss the importance of a Heaven-centered life, the next verse says, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things [alone].”

We cannot anticipate, or set our minds on, 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. 

When you’re wondering if there really is a Heaven . . .

God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

When you’re wondering what Heaven will be like . . .

We know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

The sovereignty, power, and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be given to the holy people of the Most High. (Daniel 7:27)

I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. And all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city. (Revelation 21:22-26)

When you’re wondering if there’s a place for you in Heaven . . .

There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2)

We have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. (1 Peter 1:4-5)

When you’re wondering if you will go to Heaven and how to get there . . .

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

[Jesus said,] “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.” (John 6:47)

Jesus [said], “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. (Galatians 6:8)

Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

When you’re afraid of dying . . .

I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. (John 11:25-26)

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

Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. (1 Corinthians 15:43-44)

When you doubt there is life after death . . .

Those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead! (Isaiah 26:19)

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Jesus [said], “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

When you’re searching for happiness that lasts . . .

You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. (Psalm 16:11)

When the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor. (1 Peter 5:4)

When you long for something more than this world . . .

They were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:16)

This world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. (Hebrews 13:14)

Browse more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including Heaven and The Promise of the New Earth.

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John Piper on Brokenhearted Boldness: A Christian Alternative to Outrage Culture

Note from Randy Alcorn: This article addresses some of what I’ve been struggling with over the last several years: a new wave of evangelical outspokenness that considers itself courageous and bold, but is often just self-obsessed, proud, entitled, boastful, whiny, and quick to take offense and cast blame (e.g. everyone who doesn’t agree with me is an insensitive fool, a coward, or a liberal).

My concern really goes back to the onset of COVID in 2020, where evangelical bickering became so toxic and antithetical to the Gospel. There seems to be an ongoing certainty that we are always right, and others are always wrong. There appears to be an increasing lack of graduated and balanced thinking and reason, where people who disagree can have productive interaction. It’s mostly just dialogues of the deaf.

You see it in social media, where tribalism prevails, and Christian humility is increasingly rare. True humility can be quickly dismissed by proud bold evangelicals as weakness, fear, or indecision. Some Christian Facebook and X accounts are just arrogant and mean, and bring out the worst in people, making meanness seem the Christian norm, which undermines the very gospel of grace and truth we profess to believe. (See Outrage Is Not a Fruit of the Spirit.)

This article from John Piper speaks to me, and I hope its message speaks to you, too.

Brokenhearted Boldness: A Christian Alternative to Outrage Culture

By John Piper

Seventeen years ago, I wrote an article titled “Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence.” I used the word swagger to describe a distortion of Christian boldness I was noticing at the time — the kind that struts into the public square, demanding to have our America back from secular hijacking.

Today, the need I see for Christian boldness is a little different. It’s not so much that evangelicals are grasping for so-called “Christian America.” Rather, it’s our being drawn into the callout culture, the outrage culture, the cancel culture, the coddled culture. However you name it, it is very angry. And behind the relative safety of social media, it is very bold.

This boldness is seldom beautiful. But some Christian culture warriors are drawn into it and shaped by it, with the result that their boldness is distorted toward the brash, angry, contentious, coarse, snide, and obnoxious. What is needed is not less boldness. No. The world is not suffering from too much boldness in the cause of truth. Rather, what’s missing is the beauty of brokenhearted boldness.

Here at Desiring God, we believe that this brokenhearted boldness is not a personality trait, but a miracle of God’s Spirit. Christian boldness is a gift of God (Ephesians 6:19–20). Christian brokenheartedness is a gift of God (Psalm 51:10–17). And the counterintuitive combination of the two is one of God’s most beautiful works.

This is one of our aims and prayers, because we are Bible people. What the Bible presents as good and beautiful we pursue. But we have found over many years that our sinful hearts tend to distort the very beauties we pursue unless they are mingled with other beauties — especially the ones that lean against our most subtle distortions.

Beauty of Boldness

Boldness is a highly prized biblical beauty. Consider a few of the Bible’s presentations.

Bold in approaching God.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. (Hebrews 4:16; see also Ephesians 3:12)

Bold before mere man.

We can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6)

Bold in righteousness.

The righteous are bold as a lion. (Proverbs 28:1)

Bold in new conquests.

Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them. (Deuteronomy 31:7–8; see also Joshua 1:9)

Bold before enemy kings.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him. (2 Chronicles 32:7)

Bold before a new task.

David said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed . . . until all the work for . . . the house of the Lord is finished.” (1 Chronicles 28:20)

Bold for the sake of ministry.

I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish . . . the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus. (Acts 20:24)

Bold in speaking the truth.

Now, Lord, . . . grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness. (Acts 4:29; see also Ephesians 6:20)

Bold for the gospel.

Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, . . . not frightened in anything by your opponents. (Philippians 1:27–28)

Bold to risk your life for the good.

I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. (Esther 4:16)

Bold at the second coming.

Abide in [Christ], so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. (1 John 2:28)

Reasons for Boldness

Not only does the Bible present boldness as beautiful, but it gives even more beautiful reasons for being bold. Biblical boldness is not a genetic disposition. It is the work of God enabling unworthy sinners to be transformed by reasons the Bible gives us to be bold. The reasons are breathtaking. And it is no wonder that boldness is a fitting and beautiful response. Consider some of the reasons the Bible gives for us to be bold.

Our condemnation for sin was endured by Christ.

By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh. (Romans 8:3; see also Isaiah 53:5)

Our sins are forgiven.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. (Ephesians 1:7; see also 1 Peter 2:24)

We are righteous in the righteousness of faith.

. . . not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. (Philippians 3:9)

In Christ, we are the children of God.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3:1)

We have eternal life.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. (John 3:36)

As God’s heirs, we possess everything.

All things are yours, whether . . . the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23; see also Romans 8:32)

Everything will work for our good.

We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

We will never be put to shame.

It stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (1 Peter 2:6)

God will never leave us nor forsake us.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10; see also Hebrews 13:5)

God will keep us from falling into unbelief.

[He] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9)

God governs the fall of sparrows, and we are more precious than they.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29–31)

When hated and killed, we are not defeated.

Some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. (Luke 21:16–18)

We are more than conquerors at the moment the worst happens to us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:35–37)

If the devil kills us, God gives us a crown of life.

Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison. . . . Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)

How can we not be bold if these are true! And they are true. If Christ is real, these glorious reasons to be bold are real. And nothing is more real than Christ. So, we find in ourselves a stirring of boldness. The more clearly we see these biblical beauties, and the more heartily we embrace them, the more boldness grows in our souls.

Beauty of Brokenheartedness

But one of the great sorrows of the Christian life is that our remaining sinfulness threatens to distort the beauty of every holy pursuit. What Paul calls “sin that dwells within me” (Romans 7:17) takes hold of a biblical beauty and distorts it — sometimes blatantly so that the distortion is obvious, and sometimes subtly so that the distortion is oh so defensible.

Boldness can become brash, harsh, severe, cruel, angry, impatient, contentious, belligerent, coarse, crude, snarky, snide, loud, garish, obnoxious — all in the name of Christian courage. Or more subtly, boldness in the cause of truth can become, even if less brash and severe, more all-consuming. It can become such a fixation that all other beautiful affections and dispositions are eaten away from within. The soul loses its ability of see and savor and celebrate the good in others and in the world.

We have found that God’s remedy for such distortions of biblical beauties is to provide other moral beauties which are meant to mingle with boldness and prevent it from being ruined by sin. One of the beauties of the Bible that leans against our blatant and subtle distortions of boldness is brokenheartedness. We have discovered that biblical brokenheartedness is beautifully designed by God to preserve biblical boldness in all its power but none of its distortions. Consider the basis and beauty of brokenheartedness in a few biblical presentations.

The Lord is near the brokenhearted.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

A broken and contrite heart is a pleasing sacrifice to God.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)

God dwells with and revives the lowly and contrite.

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

God attends to those who tremble at his word.

This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)

The humble, mourning, and meek are blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:3–5)

Those who despair of self are justified.

The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. (Luke 18:13–14)

The godly obedient confess unworthiness.

When you have done all that you were commanded, say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.” (Luke 17:10)

The reverent rejoice with trembling.

Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. (Psalm 2:11)

We work out our salvation with trembling.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

God’s might and care make us glad and lowly.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)

Even what we know truly, we know partly.

Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

We resist revenge, self-pity, and ultimatums.

When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. (1 Corinthians 4:12–13)

We share the burden of the entire groaning creation.

Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23)

We live with the anguish of unsaved loved ones.

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart . . . for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9:2–3)

We never get beyond the burden of sinning and the need of confession in this life.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Such brokenheartedness — contrition, lowliness, humility, trembling, meekness, anguish — is fitting in a fallen, and only partially saved, world. Yes, even fitting for saints — who are not yet perfect (Philippians 3:12) but “are being saved” (2 Corinthians 2:15). The very fitness of it is its beauty.

More Beautiful Than Boldness

If it were our purpose here to speak of bold brokenheartedness (which it isn’t), we could linger over God’s wisdom in the way that the beauty of boldness is designed conversely to protect the beauty of brokenheartedness from being distorted into fear, self-pity, passivity, joylessness, hopelessness, cowardice, self-absorption, and fruitlessness.

But the point here is that God intends for the beauty of brokenheartedness to mingle with the beauty of boldness so that a new reality emerges even more beautiful than the sum of both — a new reality called brokenhearted boldness. It is one of God’s most beautiful works. And it is one of the most needed in our day.

We hope that at Desiring God we will not fail in the call to be bold for the truth. Please pray for us. We aspire by the Spirit to joyfully endure the cost of speaking biblical truth boldly. Should we ever suffer in some small way, we would like it to be said of us what was said of the apostles: “They left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:41).

But we know something of our own sinfulness and how quickly we can strike back in the name of boldness. Our prayer is that God would spare us from the distortion of the courage he made to be beautiful, by creating something even more beautiful: brokenhearted boldness.

By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source:  desiringGod.org

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