Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 162

Worldwide Theological Famine, and How You Can Make a Difference

Earlier this year, I learned about The Gospel Coalition’s International Outreach “Theological Famine Relief for the Global Church,” which has the goal of training pastors all over the world who haven’t had the advantages of theological education and access to great books. I’m really excited about this outreach.

Their “Packing Hope” project is a unique equipping strategy, involving getting quality theological books to pastors and others around the world by actually carrying over a box of books when traveling internationally. How cool is this?!

EPM has had the privilege of sponsoring several of their projects to print the books and make them available. However, many of these projects are already funded and the books are available to anyone willing to pay the shipping to receive the books, then transport them overseas themselves. I’m hoping some of our church’s summer missions teams, and those of other churches, can take books with them!

John Piper and I sat down together and discussed our support for the TGC International Outreach. We have the same heart for this, as you’ll see in the video.

Here’s more about the TGC International Outreach:

The Gospel Coalition is working to help pastors and elders in Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe get access to good theological resources, so that thousands of congregations will be strengthened. We are partnering with translators, publishers, and missions networks to provide new access to biblical materials in digital and physical formats. Our goal is to create, translate, and distribute materials in the context of our partners working in the field.

Our prayer is that church leaders will be personally affected by the power of the gospel and in turn, shepherd their congregations well—resulting in widespread gospel renewal.

Learn more about TGC International Outreach and how you can help alleviate theological famine. 

I can’t think of a more strategic venture in financing what will matter forever. Don’t let this eternal investment opportunity pass you by!

 

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Students for Life of America and Prolife Clubs

Students for Life of America is a great organization dedicated to training and equipping college, high school, medical, and law school students to defend the preborn and help their mothers on campus choose life for their children.

SFLA visited Biola University earlier this year, and worked with the Sanctity of Life club on campus to host an interactive prolife display. Biola student Erin Jeffries, daughter of our EPM office manager Linda Jeffries, writes:

I was able to overhear several of the conversations between a Student for Life volunteer and a Biola student, and while there was diversity in beliefs there was no judgement or forceful language present in their interactions. Rather, what I heard shared was well supported information, civil disagreement, and a witness of positive space for differing perspectives to be shared.

Jessica Schildt, the president and co-creator of the club, said, “Their display was thoughtful and thorough, and by using it on campus, we had fruitful conversations with Biola students about the value of human life. We are thankful to have worked with Students for Life!”

I’ve written before about the growing number of prolife young people. What an encouraging thing to see them rising to the occasion to defend the unborn. However, the enemy is alive and well and it’s not surprising that some prolife students are meeting with resistance on their campuses. For example, Isabell Akers, a senior at Hampton-Dumont High School, was told she couldn’t acquire school club status for her Students for Life club, as it was too “controversial.”  (Read more, including an update, on the SFLA site.)

May God raise up a growing number of young people who will stand up for the weak and most defenseless! 

 

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The Excellent Ministry of CCEF, and Their 2015 National Conference

I love the ministry of CCEF, the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation. I also deeply appreciate their faculty members David Powlison and Ed Welch (I highly recommend Ed’s books When People Are Big and God Is Small and Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave, and David’s Speaking Truth in Love and Breaking the Addictive Cycle).

Each year CCEF hosts a national conference, and this year’s theme is “Side by Side: How God Helps Us Help Each Other.” Chelsea Weber and Kathy Norquist, my assistants at EPM, had the opportunity to attend last year’s conference. Here are some thoughts from Kathy:

I’ve attended two of CCEF’s National Conferences and would highly recommend them to anyone. What I love about CCEF is how Scripture is the focus and foundation of their counseling principles and practices. You never have to wonder if you’re getting a biblical perspective on any given issue or problem. And the worship times are wonderfully God honoring and Christ centered. If you have any opportunity to attend one of these conferences, my word to you is, GO!

Here’s more about this year’s conference:

A ���vibrant ���church ���community ���is ���dependent ���on ���us ���being ���both ���needy ���and ���needed. ���So ���we ���want ���to ���grow ���in ���how ���we ���ask ���for ���help ���and ���how ���we ���give ���help. ���This ���conference ���is ���designed ���to ���guide ���us ���in ���those ���skills, ���with ���a ���focus ���on ���how ���these ���work ���in ���everyday ���friendships. ���Even ���in ���our ���professional ���culture, ���God ���is ���pleased ���to ���use ���needy ���people ���and ���ordinary ���conversations ���to ���do ���most ���of ���the ���heavy ���lifting ���in ���his ���kingdom. ���It’s ���the ���perfect ���system. ���If ���God ���used ���only ���experts ���and ���people ���of ���renown, ���some ���could ���boast ���in ���their ���own ���wisdom, ���but ���God’s ���way ���of ���doing ���things ���is ���not ���the ���same ���as ���our ���own. ���This ���conference ���is ���for ���ordinary ���people ���who ���need ���help ���and ���want ���to ���grow ���in ���giving ���help, ���and, ���as ���we ���grow, ���we ���hope ���to ���contribute ���to ���the ���ongoing ���transformation ���in ���our ���local ���churches.

2015 CCEF National Conference - October 16-18, 2015 from CCEF on Vimeo.

Learn more and register at CCEF.

If you’d like to explore some more resources from CCEF, check out these excellent short videos:

David Powlison on “Is Depression Purely Biological?”
David Powlison on “Is God Disappointed in Us When We Disbelieve or Disobey?”
Ed Welch on “How Do I Deal with Shame From My Past?”
Ed Welch on “Dealing with Irrational Fears”

Eternity Set in Our Hearts

Thornton Wilder, the late great American playwright and novelist, wrote the play "Our Town" in 1937, which won a 1938 Pulitzer Prize.  In the play, a character says, “I don’t care what they say with their mouths—everybody knows that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses, and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even stars...everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings...There’s something way down deep that’s eternal in every human being.”

This corresponds with what Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us: that God “has also set eternity in the human heart.” Look around you at all those people walking the streets, working in offices, standing in lines, sitting in restaurants. Their eyes are filled with needs, hopes, longings. The world tells them they’re just molecules and DNA, time plus chance. But their hearts cry out for eternal realities, for what will last, what really matters.

They search for something, anything, to fill the raging emptiness within. Satan offers them anesthetics that temporarily dull the pain, but they wear off. The promise of fulfillment is always broken. So they go right on searching in all the wrong places. They turn to drugs, sex, money, and power for the same reason they turn to religion and self-help seminars. Their instincts tell them “something’s missing, there has to be more.”

And they’re absolutely right. Something is missing.

The first thing missing is the person we were made for—Jesus. Haggai 2:7 refers to Messiah as “the desired of all nations,” the Person that all people of all cultures long for.

But there’s something else missing. Every human heart yearns not only for a person, but a place. The place we were made for. The place made for us.

In Revelation 7:12, Jesus makes a great promise to those who obey him: “I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem which is coming down out of heaven from God, and I will also write on him my new name.” Jesus says he will put on us the name of the person and the name of the place (heaven) for which we were made.

We spend our lives longing for this person and this place. Just as people restlessly move from relationship to relationship seeking the person they were made for, they move from location to location seeking the place they were made for. Somewhere new and better. A bigger house. A different city. The suburbs. A new neighborhood—safer, nicer, with better schools. That dream house in the country. That idyllic mountain chalet. That perfect beach cottage.

People are made for the eternal and therefore cannot be ultimately satisfied by the temporal. We long for a future world of justice, purity and joy—and a King who will bring all of those. We therefore cannot be happy with the present world of injustice, impurity and suffering.

True joy comes in anticipating, and living now in light of, the world yet to come and that world’s King, who made us for Himself. 

 

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How Can Millions of People All Be with Jesus in Heaven and Receive Personal Attention?

After the first edition of my book Heaven, this question was one of the most frequently asked. It’s worth considering.

Though it’s possible we may cover vast distances at immense speeds in God’s new universe, I don’t believe we’ll be capable of being two places at once. Why? Because we’ll still be finite. Only God is infinite.

Because the resurrected Christ is both man and God, the issue of whether He can be in more than one place at the same time involves a paradox not only in the future, but also in the present.

On the one hand, Jesus is a man, and man is finite and limited to one location. On the other hand, Jesus is God, and God is infinite and omnipresent. In a sense, then, one of these truths has to yield somewhat to the other. I suggest that perhaps Christ’s humanity defined the extent of His presence in His first coming and life on Earth (humanity thereby trumping deity by limiting omnipresence). But Christ’s deity may well define the extent of His presence in His second coming and life on the New Earth (deity thereby trumping the normal human inability to be in two places at once). Jesus has and always will have a single resurrected body, in keeping with His humanity. Yet that body glorified may allow Him a far greater expression of His divine attributes than during His life and ministry here on Earth.

Since we can accurately say that Jesus’ functioning as a man does not prohibit Him from being God, we must also say that Jesus’ functioning as God does not prohibit Him from being a man. So, although we cannot conceive exactly how it could happen, I believe it’s entirely possible that Jesus could in the future remaina man while fully exercising the attributes of God, including, at least in some sense, omnipresence. 

Don't we already see that now? Where is Christ? At the right hand of God (Hebrews 12:2). Just before dying, Stephen saw Him there (Acts 7:55). Jesus will remain there until He returns to the earth. In terms of His human body, Christ is in one location, and only one.

But despite His fixed location at God’s right hand, Jesus is here now, with each of us, just as He promised to be (Matthew 28:20). He dwells in our hearts, living within us (Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 2:20). If even now, in this sin-stained world, He indwells those who are saints and yet sinners, how much more will He be able to indwell us in the world to come when no sin shall separate us from him? That indwelling will in no way be obscured by sin.

On the New Earth, isn’t it likely we might regularly hear Him speak to us directly as He dwells in and with us, wherever we are? Prayer might be an unhindered two-way conversation, whether we are hundreds of miles away in another part of the New Jerusalem, thousands of miles away on another part of the New Earth, or thousands of light years away in the new universe.

Consider the promise that when Christ returns “every eye will see him” (Revelation 1:7). How is that physically possible? By the projection of His image? But every eye will see Him, not merely His image. Will He be in more than one place at one time?

If God took on human form any number of times, as recorded in Scripture, couldn’t Christ choose to take on a form to manifest Himself to us at a distant place? If He did that, might He not take on a temporary form very similar in appearance to His actual physical form, which may at that moment be sitting on the throne in the New Jerusalem? Might Jesus appear to us and walk with us in a temporary but tangible form that is an expression of His real body? Or might the one body of Jesus be simultaneously present with His people in a million places?

Might we walk with Jesus (not just spiritually, but also physically) while millions of others are also walking with Him? Might we not be able to touch His hand or embrace Him or spend a long afternoon privately conversing with Him—not just with His spirit, but His whole person?

It may defy our logic, but God is capable of doing far more than we imagine. Being with Christ is the very heart of Heaven, so we should be confident that we will have unhindered access to Him. 

 

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Finding Forgiveness and Freedom after Abortion

Millions of women and men, both in society and in the church, are suffering under the guilt of abortion. If you’re a woman who’s had an abortion, or advised another to have one, this blog is for you. If you’re a man who’s been involved in an abortion decision—whether it concerned your girlfriend, wife, daughter, or anyone—it’s also for you.

It’s counterproductive to try to eliminate guilt feelings without dealing with guilt’s cause. Only by denying reality can you avoid guilt feelings. You need a permanent solution to your guilt problem, a solution based on reality, not pretense.

The good news is that God loves you and desires to forgive you for your abortion, whether or not you knew what you were doing. But before the good news can be appreciated, we must know the bad news. The bad news is that there’s true moral guilt, and all of us are guilty of many moral offenses against God, of which abortion is only one. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Sin is falling short of God’s holy standards. It separates us from a relationship with God (Isaiah 59:2). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Jesus died on the cross as the only one worthy to pay the penalty for our sins demanded by God’s holiness (2 Corinthians 5:21). He rose from the grave, defeating sin and conquering death (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 54-57).

When Christ died on the cross 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.”

Because of Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf, God freely offers us forgiveness.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

“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).

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Salvation is a gift: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). This gift is not dependent on our merit or effort, but solely on Christ’s sacrifice for us. God offers us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life, but it’s not automatically ours. In order to have the gift, we must choose to accept it.

You may think, “But I don’t deserve forgiveness after all I’ve done.” That’s exactly right. None of us deserves forgiveness. If we deserved it, we wouldn’t need it. That’s the point of grace.

Once forgiven, we can look forward to spending eternity with Christ and our spiritual family (John 14:1-3; Revelation 20:11-22:6). You can look forward to being reunited in Heaven with your loved ones covered by Christ’s blood, including the child you lost through abortion (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

God doesn’t want you to go through life punishing yourself for your abortion or for any other wrong you have done. Your part is to accept Christ’s atonement, not to repeat it. No matter what you’ve done, no sin is beyond the reach of God’s grace. He has seen us at our worst and still loves us. There are no limits to His forgiving grace. And there is no freedom like the freedom of forgiveness.

Joining a group for post-abortion healing can help you immensely. You may have bitterness toward men who used and abused you and forgiveness issues towards those who helped you with your abortion decision (see Matthew 6:14-15). There are post-abortion Bible studies designed for women, and others for men. Many online resources can help you find the support group you need. (See www.healinghearts.org and http://afterabortion.org/help-healing/; call 1-888-486-HOPE for free confidential advice.)

You need to become part of a therapeutic community, a family of Christians called a church. (If you’re already in a church, share your abortion experience with someone to get the specific help you need.) You may feel self-conscious around Christians because of your past. You shouldn’t. A true Christ-centered church isn’t a showcase for saints but a hospital for sinners. The people you’re joining are just as human and imperfect as you. Most church people aren’t self-righteous. Those who are should be pitied because they don’t understand God’s grace.

A good church will teach the truths of the Bible, and will provide love, acceptance, and support for you. If you cannot find such a church in your area, contact EPM and we’ll gladly do what we can to help you.

A healthy step you can take is to reach out to women experiencing unwelcome pregnancies. God can eventually use your experience to equip you to help others and to share with them God’s love. My wife and I have a number of good friends who’ve had abortions. Through their caring prolife efforts they’ve given to other women the help they wish someone had given them. Telling their stories has not only saved children’s lives, and mothers from the pain of abortion, but has helped bring healing to them. It can do the same for you.

 

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Are All Sins Equal?

When I first became a Christian I was repeatedly taught “All sins are alike to God.” While there is some truth in this, there is also much untruth. All sin is bad, of course—all sin crucified Jesus. But is all sin the same to God?

In her latest video, EPM’s Julia Stager offers a very balanced and biblical perspective on whether or not the Bible presents all sins as equal. In my opinion, her insights are on target. I think we can all benefit from them.

On a related subject, in this blog I address the question of whether sexual sins in general, or homosexual sins in particular, are worse than other sins.

I want to say a heartfelt thanks to Julia for saying “yes” when I asked her to start recording these videos. I think she has done an amazing job. Check out the videos she’s already done. You could base a series of discussions and Bible studies around these videos, or show them in a church or small group. I think they’re outstanding. (Thanks, Julia, for being a faithful student of God’s Word!)

 

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For the follower of Jesus, is generosity optional or mandatory?

Generosity is optional in the sense that God gives us the freedom to choose, to do as we wish. It’s mandatory in that Jesus commands it and expects it of us. But I think it’s best to have a paradigm shift, to think of it as pure privilege with incredible rewards, both now and later. It’s less a “have to” than a “get to.” The benefits so far outweigh the costs that it’s a no-brainer. Jesus said “it is more blessed [makarios, ‘happy-making’] to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Once you’ve tasted the pure waters of a mountain stream you won’t want to go back to drinking from a mud puddle. Nobody says on a mountain hike, “Okay, you have to drink now; it’s mandatory.” Nobody says when you get to Niagara Falls or stand in front of Michelangelo’s statue of David in Florence, “You have to look at it”—where else would you look? Nobody says when they open the doors to Disneyland, “Okay, kids, brace yourselves, we have to walk in now.” After praying at a Thanksgiving meal, the host never says, “Okay, it’s mandatory that you eat now.”

You’d be foolish not to do what will bring you delight. The trick is that those who’ve not known the joy of giving believe Satan’s lie that giving means parting with happiness, rather than finding it. They’re like the kid who won’t gaze into the Grand Canyon because he’s playing a video game or seeing what his friends are doing on Facebook. Veteran givers know that the joys of investing in God’s work to reach others for Christ and care for the needy brings a purity of joy and satisfaction that nothing you can order on Amazon or buy at the car lot possibly can.

C. S. Lewis said, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

 

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Will There Be Sex in Heaven?

Sexual relations existed before the Fall and were not the product of sin and the Curse; they were God’s original and perfect design. Because the lifting of the Curse will normally restore what God originally made, we would expect sex to be part of that. However, Christ appears to have made it clear that people in Heaven wouldn’t be married to each other (though some claim it only means there won’t be new marriages, while old marriages will continue):

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven. (Matthew 22:30)

Because sex was designed to be part of a marriage relationship, marriage and sex logically belong together. Because we’re told that humans won’t be married to each other, and sex is intended for marriage, then logically, it seems to me, it means we won’t be engaging in sex.

There’s a different sort of continuity between earthly marriage and the marriage of Christ to his church, so there may also be some way in which the intimacy and pleasure we now know as sex will be fulfilled in some higher form we don’t now understand. If we won’t have sex and if in Heaven there’s no frustration of desire, then obviously we won’t desire sex. What we will desire and always enjoy is the best part of sex—what sex was always pointing to—deep and transcendent relational intimacy.

“When that day comes,” says the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.’ . . . I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord.” (Hosea 2:16, 19-20)

His unfailing love . . . is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. (Psalm 103:11)

In an interview with Pastor Todd Wagner, I share more thoughts related to this question.

 

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Atheism���s Foundation for Morality Is Built on Culture���s Shifting Sands

Many years ago I took a sequence of college philosophy classes from a likable atheist. I found the ethics course most interesting. Every time it came to the question of why the professor believed something to be right or wrong, he could say only that it “seemed” to him to be best, it “seemed” to him to help the most people. In other words, it always boiled down to his personal preference. Thirty of us sat in that ethics class, all with our own personal preferences, many fluxing with the current of popular culture.

I have talked with individuals whose ethics have evolved over time, who now believe that any consensual sex between adults is moral. Adultery is consensual sex. So is it moral? Well, yes, some convince themselves, so long as they commit adultery with a person they genuinely love. But how moral is this same adultery in the eyes of the betrayed spouse? Such hopeless subjectivity is no moral framework at all.

Choosing moral behaviors because they make you feel happy can make sense, in a Bertrand Russell/Sam Harris sort of way, but what if it makes you feel happy to torture animals or kill Jews or steal from your employer?

“You misunderstand,” someone says. “We atheists do not base our morality on personal preferences, but on the judgments of society as a whole, on what benefits the most people.” But how does this help the argument? What if in our class of thirty students, sixteen of us really wanted to kill the professor? Would that be good? Or what if the majority of an entire nation thought it best to liquidate one portion of that population—would that be good? Or what if 51 percent of the world’s population decided to obliterate the continent of North America? Would that be good?

Nor does it help to claim the authority of some group of “elites” who supposedly have a finer moral sense. History teaches us that elite groups tend to call good whatever it is they’re inclined to do.

If there is no God who created us for an eternal purpose, and no God who will judge us; if there is no God who has revealed his standards and no God who informs our consciences—then surely any morality we forge on our own will ultimately amount to a mirror image of our own subjective opinions that will change with the times.

To say that the Holocaust or child abuse is wrong is a moral judgment. But such a judgment has no meaning without a standard to measure it against. Why are the Holocaust and child abuse wrong? Because they involve suffering? Because other people have said they are wrong? Feeling it or saying it doesn’t make it so.

William Lane Craig says in Reasonable Faith, “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.”

We have only one basis for good moral judgments: the existence of objective standards based on unchanging reference points outside ourselves. Personal opinion falls far short.

After all, Nazis and rapists have their opinions too.

 

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