Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 182

The Panda, One of God’s Creatures

God says He reveals His attributes in His creation. Check out and enjoy just one of thousands of His creatures—the Panda. (I can’t find who to credit and link to for these photographs sent in a forward with the captions, but I enjoyed them and hope you do too!)

Mom? Can you come and get me down now? 

C'mon guys, you can do it, 1, 2, 3.... Lift! 

 

Peek-A-Boo.... 

 

It wasn't me! 
It was just sitting here, I swear it! 

 

Tell me where it is or I'll tickle you... 

          

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His Strength and Grace in Our Weakness

Through eternal perspective and faith we can see God’s goodness in our weaknesses and rejoice that our weakness provides a platform for showing his strength.

“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations,” Paul wrote, “there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

As a teenager who had just come to faith in Christ, I read this passage with perplexed interest. I believed it because it was God’s Word—but it made little sense to me. Now, forty years later, it makes a great deal of sense. As an insulin-dependent diabetic I have lain helpless, stiff as a board, not in my right mind, needing my wife to get sugar in my mouth. My once-strong body grows weak. Low blood sugar clouds my judgment and leaves me with a memory of having said stupid things, like a drunken man. Several times a year I have severe reactions in which I don’t know what’s happening to me.

This humbles me, but I can honestly say I am grateful for it; yes, I even delight in it, because I recognize the value of being humbled, for “when I am weak, then I am strong.” My weakness drives me to greater dependence upon Christ. I wouldn’t begin to trade the spiritual benefits I’ve received.

As a young pastor I loved God sincerely; but like my tavern-owner father, I was independent, self-sufficient, and prone to do things on my own. Christ’s words, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), rang true—but I did a lot of things without drawing on his strength. So from eternity’s viewpoint, those things amounted to nothing.

Seventeen years ago I sat in a courtroom and heard abortion-clinic employees tell lie after lie, all under oath. When I heard a judge tell the jury they must (it was a directed verdict) find us guilty and impose severe financial punishments on us—all for peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience—I knew I had no power to get what I wanted. None. Yet despite the difficulty and injustice, what God did in that situation was wonderful. I delighted in my weakness, for I found joy in depending on Christ.

During that thirty-day court trial, I often recited to myself God’s Word, including the assurance that the Judge of all the earth will do right (see Genesis 18:25). Like Jesus, I needed to entrust myself to a faithful Creator who will work all things together for good. (And I have subsequently seen amazing ways he has done just that, none of which I could see at the time.)

God uses my weakness and inadequacy not only to build my character, but also to manifest his strength and grace to me and through me. That’s why I see his goodness in giving this weakness to me to accomplish his good purposes. Not only will I celebrate those purposes in eternity, I am celebrating them now.

          

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Meteor Showers and the New Heavens

At 2:30 a.m., on November 19, 2002, I stood on our deck gazing up at the night sky. Above me was the Leonid meteor shower, the finest display of celestial fireworks until the year 2096. For someone who has enjoyed meteor showers since he was a kid, this was the celestial event of a lifetime.

There was only one problem: clouds covered the Oregon sky. Of the hundreds of streaking meteors above me, I couldn’t see a single one. I felt like a blind man being told, “You’re missing the most beautiful sunset of your lifetime. You’ll never be able to see another like it.”

Was I disappointed? Sure. After searching in vain for small cracks in the cloud cover, I went inside and wrote these paragraphs. I’m disappointed, but not disillusioned. Why? Because I did not miss the celestial event of my lifetime.

My lifetime is forever. My residence will be a new universe, with far more spectacular celestial wonders, and I’ll have the ability to look through the clouds or rise above them.

During a spectacular meteor shower a few years earlier, I had stood on our deck watching a clear sky. Part of the fun was hearing oohs and aahs in the distance, from neighbors looking upward. Multiply these oohs and aahs by ten thousand times ten thousand, and it’ll suggest our thunderous response to what our Father will do in the new heavens as we look upward from the New Earth.

Just as we are not past our prime, the earth and planets and stars and galaxies are not past their prime. They’re a dying phoenix that will rise again into something far greater—something that will never die.

I can’t wait to see the really great meteor showers and the truly spectacular comets and star systems and galaxies of the new universe. And I can’t wait to stand gazing at them alongside once-blind friends who lived their lives on Earth always hearing about what they were missing. Some believed they would never be able to see, regretting the images and events of a lifetime beyond their ability to perceive. The hidden beauties will be revealed to them, and to us.

Those of us who know Jesus will be there to behold an endless revelation of natural wonders—likely including spectacular meteor showers that display God’s glory—with nothing to block our view.

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17).

          

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The Law of Love

In Leviticus 19 the people of Israel are told to make provision for the poor and alien through leaving the gleanings of the field for them to harvest. God’s people are told to not steal, not deceive one another, defraud or rob our neighbor. We are not to withhold wages, and we are strictly told not to take advantage of the handicapped: “Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind” (Leviticus 19:14). We are not to pervert justice, show partiality, or do anything that endangers another’s life.

Go summarizes these commands in a single statement: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Here, buried in the midst of this series of commands, is what rises to be the second most important command in all of Scripture, inseparable from the first.

Jesus was asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” He replied, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37). But he did not stop there. He immediately added the quote from Leviticus 19, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:39-40).

While Scripture does not address every given situation in any place and time, Jesus does give us a twofold guiding ethical principle that can be applied in every situation. Love God with abandonment, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. That central principle is the very heart and soul of Scripture, so much so that all the rest of the Bible is said to orbit around it and be subordinate to it.

Jesus concurred with the statement that loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself “is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33). The law required offerings and sacrifices. Yet God places the law of love even above obeying other important commands.

What does it mean to love our neighbor as yourself? It means to show the same care for others as we show for yourself. A husband is to love his wife as he loves his own body (Ephesians 5:28). How do we love our body? Not by looking in a mirror and admiring it. Nor by making public statements about how wonderful our body is. We simply feed and care for it (Ephesians 5:29). To love ourselves is to take actions for our self-preservation. Because we love ourselves we jump out of the way of a speeding car. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we will also pull our neighbor out of the way of a speeding car.

James called this “the royal law” (James 2:8). It is the law that reigns over all laws. The golden rule is an extension of the same principle. It says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). Do for others the same you would do for yourself in their circumstances, and do for others the same you wish them to do for you in the same circumstances.

When we focus on this overriding ethical imperative, seemingly complex dilemmas suddenly become much more clear. “Should I tell this person everything that’s really wrong with this car I’m trying to sell him?” The answer becomes a simple matter of “if I was buying a car from someone, would I want him to tell me everything that was wrong with it before I decided whether to buy it?” The answer is “of course,” and so the answer to my ethical dilemma is surprisingly simple. “Of course I should tell him what’s wrong with the car.” The question is no longer gray, but black and white. The law of love cuts through the fog and shows me the right action to take.

          

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Living for What Will Matter Thirty Million Years from Now

 

When it comes to money, financial planners often tell us, “Don’t think just three months or three years ahead. Think thirty years ahead.” Christ, the ultimate investment counselor, takes it further. He says, “Don’t ask how your investment will be paying off in just thirty years. Ask how it will be paying off in thirty million years.” That’s not only true of how we invest our money, but every part of our lives, including our God-given resources of time and talents and possessions.

This life is the headwaters out of which life in heaven flows. Eternity will hold for us what we’ve poured into it during our lives here. When we view our short today in light of the long tomorrow of eternity, even the little choices we make become tremendously important. No wonder Scripture commands us, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2).

Your life on earth is a dot. From that dot extends a line that goes on for all eternity. Right now you’re living in the dot. But what are you living for? Are you living for the dot or for the line? Are you living for earth or for heaven? Are you living for the short today or the long tomorrow?

In this great 6-minute video, Francis Chan uses another illustration, somewhat similar, that demonstrates just how short-sighted living only for this present life is:

This is a great reminder to invest in what will last, and to center your life around God, His Place, His Word, His people, and those eternal souls who desperately long for His person and His place. Do this, and no matter what you do for a living, your days here will make a profound difference for eternity—and you will be living not for the dot but for the line (or in Chan’s case, the rope)!

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

          

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What about Life Insurance?

A reader recently asked on Twitter, “Based on The Treasure Principle, I wonder if you oppose life insurance that is greater than the amount needed to pay for a funeral?”

Life insurance is actually death insurance, because it’s payable upon the death of the insured. The major purpose of life insurance is to replace the provider’s income. If you’ve ever sat through an insurance sales presentation, you know that the agent will explain how you must have a certain amount of insurance in order for your dependents to be taken care of at your present standard of living (allowing for inflation) for another five, ten, or twenty years after your death. Typically, the agent will summarize the results on a computer printout, suggesting a huge amount of coverage requiring large insurance premiums.

But where does God fit into all this? If a man dies tomorrow, it seems reasonable in this economy to have a moderate amount of funds designated to care for many of his family’s basic needs. On the other hand, to supply them with a huge chunk of money to be appropriated over the next fifteen years until his children are grown, and another thirty years until his wife may die, seems like too much. If life insurance is appropriate, its purpose should be to provide for a family for a season, not to protect them against any and every eventuality, and certainly not to profit them by their loved one’s departure.

I’ve had distraught unemployed men tell me that due to their large life insurance policies they’re worth more to their family dead than alive. One of them seriously contemplated suicide for this exact reason. Something’s terribly wrong when a man’s most effective avenue of material provision for his family is his own death.

When I die, I don’t want our church to say, “Randy was a good provider—all his wife’s needs are taken care of.” I want them to realize that my wife does have needs and will continue to have them. Yes, I may have seen to some of her ongoing material needs through a house, some savings, some retirement funds, and a modest life insurance policy. But she’ll need the ongoing help and support and wisdom and counsel and encouragement of the church, just as my children would have when they were younger. In fact, at some point my loved ones might need material help as well. Would that be so terrible? Isn’t it OK to sometimes need help from others in Christ’s body?

Time and time again, I’ve seen Christians keep their distance from hurting brothers and sisters because they believe the insurance company, government, hospice, or some benevolence organization is taking care of them. When it comes to caring for their needy, even some of the pseudo-Christian cults put evangelicals to shame.

Life insurance agents don’t account for many things that could and probably will happen over the next five, ten, or twenty years. Not the least of these, I hope, would be my wife’s remarriage. Of course, this isn’t certain, and it might take several years. (And I’m grateful she hasn’t already picked someone out!) I believe it’s often unhealthy for a woman to bring a large amount of money into a second marriage. Although many men have failed to provide life insurance that would have been a big help to their wives, many others have provided so much that it actually works against them. (For instance, children can be hurt when they are lavished with many possessions and vacations that the family couldn’t afford when Dad was alive.)

Our children need to know that God is the One who will meet their needs. Having enough insurance to be responsible is one thing. But playing God by factoring in every conceivable future scenario, and thereby over insuring, is another.

Because no parallels to the kinds of insurance policies we buy today are mentioned in Scripture, it’s impossible to prove that life insurance is right or wrong. Some would consider insurance as a legitimate way of providing for their family. Others see it as a lack of dependence on God. The sin of presumption could be committed in either case.

Our own choice has been to use insurance sparingly. Naturally, Nanci and I buy insurance when it’s legally required. We’ve never had disability or mortgage insurance. Our ministry provides a life insurance policy. (Normally, with a few exceptions, term insurance makes more financial sense than whole life.)

In short, we do have insurance—more than some, less than others. We want to be responsible, yet leave plenty of room for God. We also want to be able to use the money for God’s kingdom that would otherwise go to pay additional premiums.

I’m not trying to set a standard for others to follow. Everyone must measure his or her own situation and convictions, following Christ’s lead as best they can discern it.

          

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Shaping Our Words after His

The power of the words we speak is far greater than we realize. “Life and death is in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).

God gives me no task except that which requires my dependence on Him to do it. Therefore, there is nothing I should regard as automatic. No conversation should be on auto-pilot. I need to ask for His guidance, His wisdom and His empowerment so my words please Him; so I will not have to account for careless words on the Day of Judgment.

If we want our words to have lasting value and impact, they need to be touched and shaped by God’s words. That will happen as we make an ongoing daily choice to expose our minds to Scripture, to meet with Christ, and let Him rub off on us.

Perspectives from God’s Word

“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36).

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

Perspectives from God’s People

“An unbridled tongue is the chariot of the devil, wherein he rides in triumph.” —Edward Reyner

“God has given us two ears, but one tongue, to show that we should be swift to hear, but slow to speak. God has set a double fence before the tongue, the teeth and the lips, to teach us to be wary that we offend not with our tongue.” —Thomas Watson

          

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The Greatest Redemptive Story Ever Told

Why do we love great stories? Because they are pictures of the greatest story. There hasn’t ever been a story yet with people living happily ever after, since people die. But one story will come out that way. It’s a true story, and you and I are part of it.

Our Redeemer is our King, who took on death and hell, and defeated them. The first three chapters of God’s story, as told in the Bible, set up the unfolding drama of redemption. The last three chapters show how God will judge evil, reward good, and come down to the New Earth to live with His children forever. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more suffering and evil.

This is the greatest story ever told. Secular reviewers often say of a book, “This is a powerful redemptive story.” The very concept of a redemptive story flows from the Bible’s story of redemption. It’s the prototype of all great stories.

As a young Christian, I lost myself in the fiction of C. S. Lewis and J.R. R. Tolkien because they reflected a drama with eternal stakes. Though they were fiction, they were filled with far more truth than the world’s nonfiction. Tolkien and Lewis spoke of “true myth”, describing how the real epics of God’s creation and redemption are the substance that casts the shadows of the world’s myths. The myths are signposts pointing to truths far greater and truer than themselves.

People long for stories that give their lives meaning. You couldn’t make up a better story than the truth of God’s unfolding drama of redemption. You can’t find a greater hero than Jesus. The climax will be the return of the King and the establishing of His kingdom.

          

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The Art of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the ultimate pain reliever. In forgiving others we unclench our fists and get off the offensive.

Jesus taught that forgiving others is part and parcel of our own forgiveness:

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.… For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.… (Matthew 6:12, 14–15, ESV)

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21–22, NASB)

Christ goes on to tell the story of a servant who owes his master a huge amount, yet whose master forgives him for it. But that servant refuses to forgive the debt of a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller amount. When the King discovers this he says,

“You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. (Matthew 18:32–35, ESV)

This forceful language proves that God takes our failure to forgive seriously!

Forgiveness is clearly a matter of choice, not feelings. Yes, we may remember the facts of someone’s offense, but we must not allow ourselves to dwell on them. We cannot change the past but we can and must change our present attitude toward the past. It is possible to “forgive and forget” if we truly do forgive. But we will never forget what we choose to brood over. And if we allow ourselves to brood, we have not truly forgiven.

Time does not heal all wounds. Time alone will only allow the cancer of bitterness to grow. When we refuse to cater to our emotions and refuse to indulge our fatal tendency toward bitterness, only then will time bring healing.

“How will I know if I really haven’t forgiven someone?” Do you often think about his offense? Do you throw his sin back in his face from time to time? Do you take opportunities to bring up his offense to others? Do you give him darting glances, or a cold shoulder? Then you haven’t forgiven him. And until you do, you won’t be free. It is the unforgiving person—not the unforgiven one—who is truly in bondage. An unforgiving person is invariably a stress-filled person. In your desire to punish someone else, you punish yourself. As the saying goes, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Forgiveness is not unrealistic. The woman whose husband continues in unrepentant adultery shouldn’t pretend nothing is going on. She must exercise tough love and take corrective steps that may include separating herself and the children from him. Certainly she must let him see that continued sin of this sort is unacceptable and is bringing great harm to her and the children, as well as to him. She should forgive him “seventy times seven,” but that does not mean that when he continually rips apart the very fabric of their marriage she will be a party to his sin by keeping up the front of an unbroken home.

It does mean that she will pray for his repentance and offer restoration if it comes. It also means that—realizing she cannot control him and he will answer not to her but to God—she will surrender to God her claim on his life. She will refuse to rehearse and dwell on his abuses. Even if he never repents and she never lives with him again, she is called upon to offer him forgiveness.

There is no sin Christ didn’t die for, no sin He cannot forgive, and therefore no sin that we, in His strength, cannot forgive.

We must bury the sins of others as God has buried our own: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). And we must commit ourselves never to dig them back up and chew on them, wave them in front of others as gossip, or use them as weapons of revenge or tools to barter and manipulate. If we do, we show we are preoccupied with sin instead of the Savior, and give more credit to its power than to His.

Paul said, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14). He knew that the only experience comparable to the freedom of being forgiven is the freedom of forgiving.

          

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When the Dog Stays at Home Alone...

Our dear friend Diane Meyer, always alert to dog videos, passed this one on to us, and we enjoyed it. Also for cat lovers, though the cat has only one action scene:

          

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