Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 21

When God Grants Happiness to Us, He Reveals His Own Happiness

After the exiles had returned to Jerusalem and the wall had been rebuilt, Nehemiah told the people to feast and celebrate. He said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). The Good News Translation renders this verse, “The joy that the Lord gives you will make you strong.” The passage isn’t simply about our joy in God but about the way God imparts His joy to us.

Note the jubilant enthusiasm of God when He says of His children, “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:41). Imagine the warmth and gladness you feel when you do something special for someone you love deeply. Now magnify that feeling exponentially to appreciate God’s love and happiness toward us!

In 1754, Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity, based on a Persian fairy tale of the Middle Ages called “The Three Princes of Serendip.” Serendipity is defined as “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.”

Serendipity is a pleasure for anyone. But it should have special meaning for people who believe that those seemingly accidental delights are actually planned by the sovereign God, who purposefully interjects unexpected pleasures into our lives.

One of my Bible college professors often shared illustrations of Christ’s presence in the small events of his day. I asked myself why those things didn’t happen to me. As time passed, God showed me that they did—I just hadn’t noticed!

Since God is sovereign in even the smallest things of life, shouldn’t we think of the leaves falling from the trees, the rabbit bounding across the trail, the old friend we see in the store, or the unexpected word of encouragement as God sharing with us His happiness? The fact that God provides us with causes for happiness in our lives serves as further proof of His happy and pleasure-giving nature.

One day on the New Earth, when we see God’s face, our happiness will be direct (see Revelation 22:4). God will still give us happiness in secondary ways, such as through fellowship with other saints, heavenly creatures, natural wonders, and animals. But our blinders will be off—we’ll never again fail to see God as the chief happiness behind every lesser happiness.

On that day we’ll take a bite of great food and give praise to the Creator and Provider. We’ll laugh with others, never forgetting that God Himself is the source of laughter and delights to share in it. (And there’s every reason to believe that Jesus will have the most contagious laugh.) His delight will be our delight, and our delight will be His.

Only the God who is so vast as to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can conceive of and implement such good news of great joy, which is the foundation of our eternal happiness.

From Eternal Perspective Ministries: Randy’s book Happiness has been released in softcover. Same content; brand new cover! It's now available on our store for $11.99 (40% off $19.99 retail). Plus, get an extra 15% off your order with code SUMMER24.

A reader writes: "This book has been tremendously helpful for my relationship with God. As a young mom who has suffered with fibromyalgia, insomnia, and cancer, I found myself becoming jaded and struggling to view God as a loving God, and certainly struggling to view Him as a happy God! I was battling with depression and imagining that God would destroy my happiness if I ever found it again. What a horrible way to think! I am so thankful that God brought this book my way to help correct my view of Him. I am learning again to praise and trust God, seeking ways to find joy in Him daily. A big thanks to Randy for this book."

 

Why Do We Believe So Many Lies about Heaven?

“An overwhelming majority of Americans continue to believe that there is life after death and that heaven and hell exist,” according to a Barna Research Group poll. But what people actually believe about Heaven and Hell varies widely. A Barna spokesman said, “They’re cutting and pasting religious views from a variety of different sources—television, movies, conversations with their friends.” The result is a highly subjective theology of the afterlife, disconnected from the biblical doctrine of Heaven.

Our Radar Is Aimed Too Low

Heaven suffers as a subject precisely because it comes last, not only in theological works but in seminary and Bible college classrooms. I attended a fine Bible college and seminary, but I learned very little about Heaven. I don’t recall a single classroom discussion about the New Earth. In my Hebrews-to-Revelation class, we never made it to Revelation 21–22, the Bible’s most definitive passage on the eternal Heaven. In my eschatology class, I learned more about the strengths and weaknesses of belief in a mid-Tribulation Rapture than about Heaven and the New Earth combined.

Imagine you’re part of a NASA team preparing for a five-year mission to Mars. After a period of extensive training, the launch date finally arrives. As the rocket lifts off, one of your fellow astronauts asks you, “What do you know about Mars?”

Imagine shrugging your shoulders and saying, “Nothing. We never talked about it. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” It’s inconceivable that your training would not have included extensive study of and preparation for your ultimate destination. Yet in seminaries, Bible schools, and churches across the United States and around the world, there is very little teaching about our ultimate destination.

Many Christians who’ve gone to church all their adult lives (especially those under fifty) can’t recall having heard a single sermon on Heaven. It’s occasionally mentioned, but rarely emphasized, and almost never is it developed as a topic.

Pastors may not think it’s important to address the subject of Heaven because their seminary didn’t have a required course on it—or even an elective. Similarly, when pastors don’t preach on Heaven, their congregations assume that the Bible doesn’t say much about it.

In 1937, Scottish theologian John Baillie wrote, “I will not ask how often during the last twenty-five years you and I have listened to an old-style warning against the flames of hell. I will not even ask how many sermons have been preached in our hearing about a future day of reckoning when men shall reap according as they have sown. It will be enough to ask how many preachers, during these years, have dwelt on the joys of heavenly rest with anything like the old ardent love and impatient longing.”

If this was the case then, how much truer is it now? Heaven has fallen off our radar screens. How can we set our hearts on Heaven when we have an impoverished theology of Heaven? How can we expect our children to be excited about Heaven—or to stay excited about it when they grow up? Why do we talk so little about Heaven? And why is the little we have to say so vague and lifeless?

Where Do We Get Our Misconceptions?

I believe there’s one central explanation for why so many of God’s children have such a vague, negative, and uninspired view of Heaven: the work of Satan. Our enemy slanders three things: God’s person, God’s people, and God’s place—namely, Heaven.

After being forcibly evicted from Heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15), the devil became bitter not only toward God, but toward mankind and toward Heaven itself, the place that was no longer his. What better way for the devil and his demons to attack us than to whisper lies about the very place on which God tells us to set our hearts and minds?

Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn’t exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. If we believe that lie, we’ll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we’ll set our minds on this life and not the next, and we won’t be motivated to share our faith. Why should we share the “good news” that people can spend eternity in a boring, ghostly place that even we’re not looking forward to?

In The Country of the Blind, H. G. Wells writes of a tribe in a remote valley deep in a towering mountain range. During a terrible epidemic, all the villagers lose their sight. Eventually, entire generations grow up having no awareness of sight or the world they’re unable to see. Because of their handicap, they do not know their true condition, nor can they understand what their world looks like. They cannot imagine what realms might lie beyond their valley.

Spiritually speaking, we live in the Country of the Blind. The disease of sin has blinded us to God and Heaven, which are real yet unseen. Fortunately, Jesus has come to our valley from Heaven to tell us about His Father, the world beyond, and the world to come. If we listen to Him—which will require a concerted effort not to listen to the lies of the devil—we will never be the same. Nor will we ever want to be.

Resisting Naturalism’s Spell

C. S. Lewis depicts another source of our misconceptions about Heaven: naturalism,the belief that the world can be understood in scientific terms, without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.

In The Silver Chair, Puddleglum, Jill, and Eustace are captured in a sunless underground world by an evil witch who calls herself the queen of the underworld. The witch claims that her prisoners’ memories of the overworld, Narnia, are but figments of their imagination. She laughs condescendingly at their child’s game of “pretending” that there’s a world above and a great ruler of that world.

When they speak of the sun that’s visible in the world above, she asks them what a sun is. Groping for words, they compare it to a giant lamp. She replies, “When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp.”

She says to them, hypnotically, “There never was any world but mine,” and they repeat after her, abandoning reason, parroting her deceptions.

Finally, when it appears they’ve succumbed to the queen’s lies, the marshwiggle, Puddleglum, breaks the spell and says to the enraged queen, “Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that . . . the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.”

The truth is exactly the opposite of naturalism’s premise—in fact, the dark world’s lamps are copies of the sun, and its cats are copies of Aslan. Heaven isn’t an extrapolation of earthly thinking; Earth is an extension of Heaven, made by the Creator King.

When the queen’s lies are exposed, she metamorphoses into the serpent she really is, whereupon Rilian, the human king and Aslan’s appointed ruler of Narnia, slays her. The despondent slaves who’d lived in darkness are delivered. Light floods in, and their home below becomes a joyous place again. They laugh and celebrate, turning cartwheels and popping firecrackers.

Sometimes we’re like Lewis’s characters. We succumb to naturalistic assumptions. God can’t be real, we conclude, because we can’t see Him. And Heaven can’t be real because we can’t see it.

We must work to resist the bewitching spell of naturalism. Sitting here in a dark world, we must remind ourselves what Scripture tells us about Heaven. We will one day be delivered from the blindness that separates us from the real world. We’ll realize then the stupefying bewitchment we’ve lived under. By God’s grace, may we stomp out the bewitching fires of naturalism so that we may clearly see the liberating truth about Christ the King and Heaven, His Kingdom.

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

Photo: Unsplash

How Reliable Are the Ancient Biblical Manuscripts in Our Possession?

There are vast numbers of biblical manuscript copies (non-originals) in existence today. Not surprisingly, given the long labors of thousands of scribes, there are variations in them. Mistakes happen today even when we have built in spell-checkers and teams of trained people combing through manuscripts searching for errors. (As an example, I remember a time we found a missing comma in one of my books, which actually changed the meaning of the sentence. It was corrected in the next printing.)

There were drowsy scribes, working by candlelight, who missed a line here or added a word there. It had to be a mind-numbing job at times! While we’re told God supernaturally protected the writers of Scripture from error, that promise was never made of everyone who copied it.

In fact, most scribes were extremely diligent, even meticulous in copying and checking and rechecking what they wrote. Sometimes they would count the number of words and even letters of the original and compare it to the copy, to make sure nothing had been added or left out.

The good news for us is that the scribal errors of spelling and inserted or omitted words are normally obvious and easy to spot. They take nothing away from the reliability of the original manuscripts or the basic message of the Bible. In fact, textual critics are certain of 99.5% of the biblical texts. The only uncertainties involve one half of one percent of all Scripture.

The earliest copies of Julius Caesar’s writings go back to 900 A.D.—about 950 years after they were penned. We have none of his originals, yet who questions whether they are accurate representations of what he wrote? There are only seven copies of Plato’s writings, the first of which was copied by a scribe 1,200 years after Plato died! Yet the vast majority of people are confident that what we have is what Plato wrote.

In contrast, there are about 5,686 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and over 19,000 in Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic. This makes nearly 25,000 manuscripts, and some of them date to within 100 years of the originals. One portion of the gospel of John, the Rylands fragment, dates back to A.D. 125, probably about 30 years after John wrote the book. This is unparalleled by any other ancient book. Daryl Witmer, executive director of AIIA Institute, calls these “virtual originals.” By all standards of ancient literature, this brief interval, coupled with the substantial numbers of copies, makes a powerful case for reliability.

New Testament professor Kenneth Berding states, “…if someone wants to question the integrity of the Greek New Testament based upon manuscript evidence, that person ought to be ready to throw out everything he thinks he knows about ancient history, since we have so many more—and better-quality manuscripts—than any other document from ancient history… historians of other ancient documents find themselves wishing they had so many manuscripts to work with.”

Critics have argued that inerrancy became a belief only in the last two hundred years. Norman Geisler argues that a line of continuity can be established going back to the third century. Those throughout history who upheld inerrancy include Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Warfield, Hodge, Wesley, Spurgeon, and many more. Geisler says, “Inerrancy is neither a late nor a denominational doctrine. It is not provincial but universal. It is the foundation for every group that names the name of Christ. . .” (Dr. John Woodbridge carefully refutes the claim that inerrancy was a late developing doctrine in his book Biblical Authority.)

Recommended Reading

When I’ve been asked if I could recommend any good, readable (not too academic) books that deal with the authority and reliability of Scripture, the following have been my recommendations, picking up on the “readable, not too academic” aspect:

You Can Trust the Bible, by John Stott, 94 pages.

Why We Believe the Bible, by John Piper (DVD and study guide)

The Book of God graphic novel
 
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, by Josh and Sean McDowell, 880 pages, for someone wanting something thorough and detailed, yet still readable.

A unique treatment of this subject is Why You Can Have Confidence in the Bible by Harold Sala, different enough that I will comment on it. 

Instead of just writing about the value and importance of the Dead Sea scrolls in confirming the fidelity of ancient manuscripts, Sala tells the story of their discovery. He tells the story of Tischendorf, who rescued priceless findings when he found the monks at Saint Catherine's Monastery heating their room by burning the pages of some of the most ancient biblical manuscripts in existence.

Sala tells many more stories, ancient and modern. Some readers will think, “Why tell me these stories? I just want the facts.” But those who enjoy the stories will engage the facts (which are definitely included) with more interest. It is 272 pages, but they are very easy reading, and memorable.

You can preview the book on Amazon. There you will see his writing style. Now, I think there are too many stories in this early material. As interesting as Admiral Byrd’s story of the fixed reference point is, and Barna’s stats about how few people read the Bible, and the impact of the Da Vinci Code in undermining faith in Scripture, I found myself wanting to get more quickly to the main purpose of the book. However, Sala does get there, and most of the subsequent stories do serve a good purpose. It is certainly unique and would be a great fit for some readers.

Photo: Unsplash

What Does It Mean That Christ Ransomed Us?

Scripture says Christ gave “himself as a ransom for all people” (1 Timothy 2:6, NIV). We “were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Like many biblical terms, such as hope, love, and joy, we have to define what Scripture means by ransom. In most people’s understanding, ransoms are paid by good people, but demanded by horrible people—despicable criminals who are malicious, greedy, and abusive to the innocent. Webster defines ransom as “a sum of money or other payment demanded or paid for the release of a prisoner, e.g. ‘the kidnappers demanded a ransom.’”

God, who in His holiness required the ransom, is not malicious or despicable, and neither are sinners innocent, though of course, God loved us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). Jesus, who paid the ransom for us, did not have to do it because the Father victimized people—because He absolutely didn’t! In fact, the horrible thing was done by us as human sinners.

But that is not the way ransom is normally used in the human context, and therefore, we have to be careful lest it lead to confusion and wrong thinking about God’s character. Those who have grown up hearing that word in church songs likely have no problem understanding the Christian use, but many people didn’t grow up in the church. I didn’t, and the first time I heard ransom in a song, I thought what is this all about? Later I found out what the Bible means when it uses the word—for example, in Mark 10:45, which says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Some people hear the word ransom and think of Satan as the thief and deceiver, and like many kidnapers, enticing victims with lies and twisted truth. Much of that is true, yet the idea that Satan holds us for ransom is a common belief that Scripture never teaches. It’s absolutely correct that a price was paid by Jesus for people’s freedom. But WHO the ransom was paid to, WHY that person required that it be paid, and the CHARACTER of the one requiring the ransom is fundamentally different. 

In Scripture, it is God’s own righteous demand of holiness that must be paid in full, not Satan’s hateful demand as a malicious kidnapper. (As much as I love C. S. Lewis and the Narnia stories, the White Witch is portrayed as making the demand, though in the dialogue with Aslan, when he talks about the deeper magic that the White Witch knows nothing of, it becomes clear that the witch is not controlling the situation as it appears.) 

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seven-Day Adventists do teach that Christ paid a ransom to Satan for us. Bible-believing Protestants normally affirm penal substitutionary atonement, with Christ dying for us and satisfying God's wrath upon sin in order to redeem us.

This is from an AI summary of the Ransom Theory: 

The Ransom theory of atonement claims that Satan held humanity captive due to the original sin committed by Adam and Eve in Eden. In order to free humanity from Satan's grip, God offered Jesus as a ransom, satisfying the demands of justice. Jesus’ death on the cross was seen as the payment required by Satan to release humanity. The Ransom theory suggests that through Jesus’ sacrifice, humanity was redeemed and set free from the power of sin and Satan.

While the Ransom theory was influential in early Christian thought, it has been criticized by some theologians for its portrayal of Satan as having power over humanity and for its lack of scriptural support. Today, the Ransom theory of atonement is not as widely accepted as other theories such as the Penal Substitutionary theory.

This is back to me—Randy, not AI!

The fact that God lovingly paid and fulfilled His own righteous demand makes Him the grace-filled rescuer, and Satan has nothing to do with it. If Satan didn’t exist and humans were still sinners, Jesus would still have had to die to redeem us, making us right with God. Satan is not owed anything by God or by us.  

Here is an excellent, biblically-grounded audio answer by John Piper, on Ask Pastor John, to someone’s question about the meaning of Christ's ransom in the Bible. And this is a brief article about the same subject.

Photo: Unsplash

Oh, That We May Know Our God More Deeply

In her journal she kept during her cancer years, Nanci quoted Charles Spurgeon:

Oh, that we may know our God—His power, His faithfulness, His immutable love. He is one whose character excites our enthusiasm. Oh, that we may know our God by familiar fellowship with Him. He who comes out fresh from beholding the face of God will never fear.

Later she wrote her own reflections:

My deepened relationship with God after experiencing difficulties in life—most recently, cancer—can be illustrated this way:

I have gone from reading and studying about a perfect day at a Maui beach, from seeing pictures of that beach, from listening to other people’s stories about visiting that beach—to actually sitting on that beach, in a beach chair, on a perfect day, with my feet in the sand and the breeze in my hair, hearing the sounds of the waves, with my favorite drink in my hand.

Nanci truly lived this out. I saw up close her diligence in knowing God more by reading and meditating on His Word and reading great books about Him.

As Nanci found, suffering can bring us into deeper intimacy with God. It is often in the midst of our suffering that He makes some of His most profound and precious self-revelations.

"Let us know; let us press on to know Yahweh; his going out is sure as the dawn" (Hosea 6:3).

Happy 70th Birthday, Randy! Here’s How You’ve Pointed Us to Jesus

Note from Stephanie Anderson, EPM staff: An advantage of my job regularly scheduling Randy’s blog posts is that I could post this one, without his knowledge or permission! On June 23, Randy is turning 70. In light of this significant birthday, some of the Eternal Perspective Ministries staff and board wanted to honor him by sharing how he’s pointed us to Jesus.

One of the things that we appreciate most about Randy is that he doesn’t seek attention, so no doubt he’s cringing reading this! But we hope that by sharing how his life has helped us grow in our walk with God, it will be clear that the Lord has used Randy as a conduit of His grace. There’s no higher honor for any of us than to be a tool in our Savior’s hands. It’s all to His praise and glory!

Robin Green, EPM board:

I first knew Randy while we were both working at Good Shepherd Community Church. He started a staff prayer meeting every week and that really impacted my life. I began to see the work of prayer as the joy of conversation in the throne room of King Jesus. Rather than prayer lists and telling God opinions of what He should do, Randy spoke with the Lord. He didn’t know he was teaching the rest of us how to pray; he just invited us to join him. The kindness and compassion of Jesus shaped those precious hours and reaped results for His glory. 

Randy’s writings have greatly influenced how I think and understand the big picture of what God is doing. From his fiction works to his carefully researched non-fiction, my family and I have been enriched by reading his books. 

Something I have enjoyed so much about Randy is his sense of humor and spirit of fun. His writings are deep and thorough, but he’s no stick-in-the-mud. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, even as he takes the things of the Lord seriously. He demonstrates that knowing God leads to fullness of joy.

Amy Schafer, EPM staff:

I first met Randy as a young mom. I wasn’t sure what he would be like since he was a famous author! But it was wonderful to discover he was a perfectly normal man, who sincerely cared about encouraging and discussing hard topics with a group of young Christian moms at his church.

I love how he pours the gospel into his books; even in his novels, God’s truth is always present. I’ve been challenged to grow in my faith and to not be afraid to face any of life’s challenges… because we live for eternity!

Kathy Norquist, EPM board:

No other living Christian leader has had more eternal impact on my life than Randy. Though I met Randy when he was a teenager, it wasn’t until I was a church secretary while he was a pastor that I came to really know him. And then I had the privilege of working side by side with him at EPM for over 17 years and he became not just my employer but a dear friend and brother. Being challenged with the theme of living in light of eternity all the years I worked for Randy has been an incredible blessing.

And of all the topics he’s written about, experiencing the joy of giving has been one of the most impactful in my life. I’ve watched how Randy and Nanci lived out what Randy has written about money and giving. Randy has always said, “If you are going to err (related to giving), err on the side of generosity” and that has been the operating mode of the ministry. One of the joys of my job as Randy’s assistant was communicating with those whom EPM was supporting from the royalties of Randy’s books. He could have kept millions of book royalties for himself, but instead chose to give them away to other worthwhile organizations reaching the needy at home and around the world. What fun and happiness this has brought him!

Randy’s generosity with others of not just his treasures but also his time, and often with me personally, have shown me the heart of Jesus and has spurred my husband and me to grow in these same areas. Thank you, dear brother, for your eternal impact on my life and my family. And happy 70th birthday!

Christy Amadio, EPM staff:

It has been a blessing to me to work on staff at EPM and to work alongside Randy. My perspective on Heaven has grown as I’ve listened to Randy and read his thoughts on what the Bible tells us about it. I’ve always loved 1 Corinthians 4:16-18, and Randy’s teaching on living in light of eternity has really contributed to my increased joy in the Lord and His great love and friendship to me (and all of us as His children).

Kress Drew, EPM board:

In Hebrews 13:7, God instructs us to remember those who led us and spoke the Word of God to us, to consider the result of their conduct, and to imitate their faith. And so, I do.

Books and blogs, sermons and sentences, conversations and community: these are all vessels God has used through Randy to draw my heart closer to Jesus. Back in 1997, Deadline awakened my heart to his Bible-based descriptions of Heaven. Later, I wrestled with the words of Money, Possessions, and Eternity while watching how Randy and Nanci chose to live their lives together to the glory of God—longing for a similar experience in my own life and praying for the courage to act upon the longing. I’ve watched Randy across the years open up his well-worn Bible, chock-full of post-it notes and highlighted verses from years and years of study and deepening relationship with our Lord, to make application to life in the moment and into eternity. 

Our lives are marked by those we allow to influence our hearts, the center of our ourselves, and by God’s grace, Randy is certainly one who has impacted me. And in the doing—always driving me back to Scripture. Yes, always to Scripture, to make application to this life I have been given, for time and for eternity.

Thank you, Randy, for consistently honoring Christ, and for pointing my heart and those of so many others to Him. All glory to Jesus, and happy birthday to you!

Doreen Button, EPM staff:

Randy is possibly the humblest human I know. Because of that, he will no doubt cringe when he reads this, but when people ask what I “do,” I also tell them that Randy is for real. To use old, but still useful cliches, he practices what he preaches, and he walks the walk. I can’t think of another human I trust as much as I do Randy.

Working with millions of his words for over 15 years has changed me. It's been one of several experiences in my life that God has used to draw my focus away from myself and onto Jesus. His (and Nanci's) faithful witness to the faithfulness of their Savior has brought me to a point where I can honestly repeat Paul's words in Philippians 3:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, 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—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Amy Woodard, EPM staff:

The Lord used Randy’s books Deadline and Dominion when I was in my early 20s, encouraging me as I was coming back to the Lord. As I grew in the Lord, Safely Home, The Ishbane Conspiracy, and The Treasure Principle were all instrumental in various ways to point me in the right direction with my giving, in serving the Lord, and having a heart for the lost around me. Eight years ago, Heaven was especially meaningful as my mom transitioned to her new home with Jesus. Thank you, Randy, for pursuing the Lord through His Word, being shaped by it, and sharing your gift of writing.

Stephanie Anderson, EPM staff:

Years ago, Randy and his then assistant Kathy took a chance on hiring a young college student, giving me the opportunity to work for EPM. And my life has never been the same since! Few people have shaped me like Randy has, through his words and consistent example of following Jesus and loving Scripture. He writes, “I’m not pretending Jesus is with me at lunch or when I pray; I simply believe His promise that He really is with me, and I act in keeping with it.” Randy says Jesus is his best friend, and he 100% lives like it.

Randy has been a spiritual father to me, teaching me so much about what God is like. I see in him God’s generosity, happiness, kindness, humor, and love for fun. Randy’s writings on suffering shaped how I faced my cancer at 24 years old; and his writings on Heaven have bought great comfort through seasons of grief and loss. He has helped me to see and trust God’s goodness and faithfulness.

Our sovereign God appoints the times and places where we live (Acts 17:26). It brings tears to my eyes to think about how He, in His great kindness, has intersected my life with Randy’s ministry. My family and I are forever changed because of it.

Happy birthday, Randy. We love you and thank God for you. "Hallelujah! Happy is the man who fears Yahweh, taking great delight in His commands" (Psalm 112:1). 

Photo: Unsplash

The Cost of Discipleship Pales in Comparison to What We Gain in Following Jesus

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, they must deny themselves, and take up their cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for My sake, they are the ones who will save it. For what is anyone profited if they gain the whole world, and lose or forfeit themselves?” (Luke 9:23-25)

This is arguably the single greatest—and hardest—passage on self-denial in all of Scripture. Jesus tells us to lose our lives for His sake. He commands us to deny ourselves.

The Call to Carry Our Cross

And if self-denial and sacrifice aren’t enough, we’re to carry a cross—that dreaded instrument of execution. Carrying a cross represents walking the path to an excruciating death. The cross signifies the very sacrifices of Jesus Himself. In terms of costliness, could Jesus have painted a more dreadful picture?

And to top it off, our cross-carrying isn’t a once and done. Rather, we are to carry this cross daily—for the rest of our lives!

This seems impossible. It also sounds emphatically undesirable. Who but a masochist would want to do this? Who could get up in the morning looking forward to it, or go to bed at night looking back with pleasure at having done it?

Yet if we think this way, we let the words of self-sacrifice and self-denial—which are real, but only part of a larger picture—eclipse Jesus’ central meaning.

Jesus Promises Real Life

Take a closer look: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, they must deny themselves, and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Self-denial and cross-bearing are a means to, or part of, following Jesus. But what does Jesus offer to those who follow Him?

Matthew 11:28-30 says: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. You shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

So, once we actually follow Jesus, in this mode of self-denial, what do we find? Rest for our souls, not weariness. An easy yoke, not a hard one. And a light burden, not a heavy one. In other words, we do all this apparently heavy-duty self-denial with the promise of finding rest, ease, and lightness! As we abide in Jesus, as we enjoy His fellowship, as we find our joy in Him, He empowers and fulfills us. God’s glory comes out ahead in this—and so do we!

If I seem to be imposing Matthew 10 on Luke 9 to lighten it, consider just what Luke 9 says in the next verse: “For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for My sake, they are the ones who will save it.”

Our long-term goal should not be to lose our lives, but to save them. Losing our lives now, momentarily, is the divinely prescribed way to ultimately save them.

Jesus Appeals to Our True Self-Interest

If at first this sounds contradictory to the passage, look again. Jesus appeals to our desire to save our lives. He points out that the means to save our life permanently (which we want to do) is to lose it temporarily by acting as Christ’s disciple. On the other hand, the way to lose our life permanently (which we don’t want to do) is to “save it” temporarily by doing whatever we feel like, while failing to follow Jesus.

Though this passage seems saturated by the abandonment of self-interest, it in fact appeals to our true self-interest. It tells us, “Abandon what seems to be in your short-term self-interest, and embrace what is in fact in your long-term self-interest.” Apparent self-interest is not true self-interest. Things are not as they appear.

The word “apparent” is key. When we act in self-preservation rather than obeying Christ’s command to love our neighbors, to speak His name before men, to abide in Him and His word, do we actually bring ourselves lasting satisfaction? True, there are the “passing pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). Yes, there are the passing costs of righteousness (1 Peter 4:12-19). But long-term satisfaction can never be found apart from reflecting Jesus.

God created us in such a way that He is our greatest pleasure and the deepest desire of our heart. Therefore, any pleasures found apart from Him will only satisfy us in very brief and shallow ways (followed by guilt and numbness and deeper dissatisfaction). And every command of Scripture to rejoice in following Christ, even in the midst of sacrifice, affirms that obedience not only works for our eternal self-interest, but also even in our temporal self-interest. (The joy of believers in prison, in contrast to the angry misery of their jailors, is an example of this.)

The passage offers us gain instead of loss. Life instead of death. We fail to see it because of the weight of cross-carrying and self-denial, which seem antithetical to gain and life. But in verse 25 Jesus asks, “For what is anyone profited if they gain the whole world, and lose or forfeit themselves?”

Note that Jesus directly appeals to our human desire for profit. He wants us to want gain, and He wants us not to want loss. In fact, He’s appealing to the very way He made us.

Gaining What We Can’t Lose

Jim Elliot’s words make this precise point, though just like Christ’s words, they are typically misunderstood: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Elliot—and the four other men who died in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956 bringing the gospel to the Auca Indians—sacrificed, carried their cross, denied themselves, and lost their lives (figuratively and literally). But why?

Read it again: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

This statement is all about gain! Jim Elliot was a profit-seeker. The men who died on that beach chose both sacrifice and riches. Even in the short-run, they would have been miserable and unfulfilled by not giving their all. And in addition, they would have forfeited incalculable gain. As Dallas Willard says, the cost of their non-discipleship would have been far greater than the cost of their discipleship. They would have been fools not to follow Jesus, and they didn’t want to be fools. Neither should we.

We mistakenly associate Elliot’s famous statement, just as we do Christ’s, with self-sacrificial altruism, stripped of any self-interest or gain. But in fact, gain was the whole point of his statement. Jim Elliot was an excellent wrestler at Wheaton. He knew about winning and losing. He wanted to win. And he was right to want gain rather than loss! The difference between him and so many Christians is not that he didn’t want gain—all of us want gain—it was that he realized what gain would last and what gain wouldn’t. He chose well.

For Jim Elliot, as for all of us, discipleship wasn’t just the right choice. It was the smart choice. It is the choice that we would be fools not to make!

The Best Investment

We’re to count the cost of discipleship, and also the cost of non-discipleship. The alternative to following Christ wholeheartedly and abiding in Him and obeying Him even when it’s uncomfortable is to not follow and obey Him. There is no third alternative. When we choose our own path, we forfeit joy, fulfillment, and eternal gain.

Taking up our cross to follow Christ is truly in our best interest. Losing our lives in obedience to Christ will result in finding our lives. The passing cost of discipleship, real though it is, pales in comparison to the lasting cost of non-discipleship.

Photo: Unsplash

What You Read Builds Who You Are

In God’s common grace, He shares insights even with those who don’t know or trust Him. For example, Oscar Wilde was not a good role model (to say the least). But he spoke these amazingly true words that I have seen confirmed in my life, and Nanci’s, and in the lives of many others: “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” 

Sending Our Roots Deep

Every morning during her cancer battle, Nanci read Scripture, Spurgeon, The Valley of Vision (a book of Puritan prayers), Paul Tripp’s New Morning Mercies, and books by J. I. Packer, A. W. Tozer, and John Piper. She placed herself by the stream of God’s Word and great books, and she sent her roots deep by contemplating His holiness, grace, justice, mercy, and every facet of His being revealed in Scripture. As we discussed what we were learning and prayed together, I saw in her a profound “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” that “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

Isn’t there room in life for movies and TV and kicking back and enjoying a lightweight novel? Sure, I enjoy these things myself, and Nanci and I certainly had fun watching movies together (while exercising wisdom about what to watch, and using VidAngel to filter out what’s objectionable). But I believe in an era dominated by superficial popular culture, there’s real value in expanding our thinking to God’s glory, and not just going broad but going deep. Deep is where the roots are, and they’re what keeps the tree or vine standing during storms that would otherwise erode and topple it. Likewise, deeply rooted beliefs—specifically a worldview grounded in Scripture—will allow us to persevere and hold on to a faith built on the solid rock of God’s truth.

What We Read Matters

Jon Bloom writes, “What you read will shape you. It will shape not only what you think, but how you think. Your life is short. You can only read a relatively small amount in the time you have.”

Bad books are poor companions; good books are great friends. The fact is, we will inevitably adopt the morality of the books we read (as well as the magazines, music, Internet sites, and conversations we consume). GIGO—garbage in, garbage out; or godliness in, godliness out. We become what we choose to feed our minds on:

Sow a thought, reap an action;

Sow an action, reap a habit.

Sow a habit, reap a character.

Sow a character, reap a destiny.

"Above all else, guard your heart [mind, inner being], for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23). If someone wants to pollute water, he pollutes it at its source. If he wants to purify water, he purifies it at its source. Our thoughts are the source of our lives. All our lives flow from our mind, and through the choices we make every day we program our minds, either for godliness or ungodliness. Suffering will come; we owe it to God, ourselves, and those around us to prepare well for it.

As part of my research for my book If God Is Good, I interviewed and exchanged correspondence with many people who shared their stories and perspectives. One of those people was Darrell Scott, whose daughter Rachel Joy Scott was the first person killed at Columbine High School in the 1999 shooting.

When Darrell looked back at his daughter’s murder, he said that years before, God had prepared him. He’d read Norman Grubb’s writings about the eye of faith that allows us to see through our worst circumstances to God’s purpose.

Because Darrell had learned to think this way, he could, despite his incredible pain, see through Rachel’s death to a sovereign, purposeful God. Darrell’s view of God already had a firm place in his heart when Rachel died. He trusted from the first that God had a purpose in her death. While this did not remove his pain, it did provide solid footing from which he could move forward, trusting God instead of resenting Him.

I asked Darrell what we should do to prepare for trials. Without hesitation he said, “Become a student of God’s Word.” He added, “Don’t be content to be hand-fed by others. Do your own reading and study, devour good books, talk about the things of God.”

When suffering comes our way, it’ll exert a force that either pushes us away from God or pulls us toward Him. The perspectives we’ve cultivated between now and then will determine our direction.

Sit at the Feet of the Wise

A great way to endure in the Christian life is to study and pattern your life after followers of Jesus who have lived a long obedience in the same direction. To do this, we can read history and biographies and take our cues from dead people who still live rather than the living who are dead. Compare reading a biography of William Wilberforce or Amy Carmichael to watching a sitcom or spending half an hour on social media. Which will help you grow in Christlikeness?

You needn’t read just about pastors or theologians. Stanley Tam is a businessman who declared God to be the owner of his company, U.S. Plastic. R.G. Letourneau, the inventor of earth-moving machines, gave 90% of his salary to God. God has also placed in your church examples of a long obedience in the same direction. Find them and spend time with them. Sit at the feet of the wise, not fools.

And of course, no book is more important than the Bible, God’s own words. Richard Baxter advised, “Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the Holy Scriptures ever have the preeminence. Let Scripture be first and most in your hearts and hands and other books be used as subservient to it.” Likewise, Charles Spurgeon said, “Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”

Let’s Choose Wisely

Over the years I’ve bought and read thousands of good books. I cannot divorce God’s works of grace in my life from great books. I love a good movie, but I find that for me television is incapable of having the deep and profound positive effect on my spiritual life that books do.

Joni Eareckson Tada, no stranger to suffering and pain, writes, “If a story does not convey moral virtue or truth that points to God, it will dull my heart before the first commercial. Why yield the precious real estate of my brain to that which flattens my spirit? Instead, I busy my heart with good books and videos, art, memorizing Scripture and poetry, and pursuing uplifting friendships that nourish my soul.”

Television and reading both put us in someone’s company, and remove us from someone else’s company. You decide: will you be different because you put yourself in the company of Spurgeon rather than a sitcom? Over the long haul, will you grow closer to God and your family and your neighbor by watching television or scrolling your phone, or by limiting screentime and doing something that has lasting value, something that’s an investment in eternity?

As we read, and encourage others to do so, including our children, may God help us to renew our minds, set our minds on things above, and love God with all our hearts and minds. May we put our roots down deep, and experience the joy of discovery and the satisfaction of mental and spiritual growth that prepares us for times of suffering. 

Photo: Pexels

Response to a Reader Concerned My Novels Include Some Disrespectful Uses of God’s Name

Note from Randy: This is a great and important response to a reader who sent us a question about my novels, concerned about some of the language I chose to include in character dialogue. I appreciate the answer that Stephanie Anderson, one of our EPM staff, gave in understanding and sympathizing with this reader’s concerns.

A reader wrote us:

I have read your books as a teenager, and they have benefitted me much. A few years ago, I rediscovered them (in audiobook-format). However, since then I have stopped reading some of your books. Some of your books contain parts that, in my opinion, are against the third commandment. Most of them are non-Christian characters, that use the Name of our God without good cause.

I was very surprised to see this and feel sad that I have to skip these books, that teach me so much about God. Therefore, I am curious why you made these choices. If I know why you did it, and you can convince me that it is not an idle use of God's Name, or if you acknowledge that it was wrong, my conscience is free to cut them out of my audiobooks, and once again enjoy the spiritual lessons that you give. Also, I hope that in future books, you won’t use God's name in this way.

In the novel The Ishbane Conspiracy, it says the character Ian doesn’t want “to hear anything more about Slopainia, or whatever the heck that God-forsaken place was.”

I hope that you will be able to reply, and I wish you God’s blessing in all of your works.

Deadline, chapter 12:

Another tombstone caught his eye… Jake read it, his eyes suddenly large and his heart pounding. “Oh, my God,” he cried aloud. It said, “Jake Woods.”

Deadline, chapter 25:

Jake picked up the contraceptive tray with all the samples, holding it out as evidence toward Ms. Beal. “I suppose you’re offering these kids clean needles and teaching them how to take safe drug injections? After all, they’re going to do drugs anyway, so it’s your job to teach them how to do it safely. God knows their parents are too stupid to teach them how to do drugs the right way.”

Deadline chapter 27:

Jake sat in perplexed silence. After ten seconds he said in a shaky voice, “Clarence. All that about my daughter? It was all off the record, every word. …I’ve betrayed my daughter. My God, Clarence, she was suicidal about this thing. Now it’s all out in the Times. What am I going to do?”

Deadline chapter 32:

“This is the real thing, an FBI badge, confiscated from a man in the line of duty, God rest his soul.”

Deception chapter 1:

I smiled and waved to the camera and said, “I want to thank you newspaper and TV folks for showing your support by coming to our little crime scene. God bless you, every one. I only wish I had time for tea and cookies.”

Dominion chapter 16:

Winston: “Yeah, that’s true, I don’t deny it. And something would be wrong if everybody did like them. I’m not telling you anything official. God knows I don’t have any control over this paper, I’m just an editor.”

Dominion chapter 37:

“Gracie? Her type’s always expendable. Like the girls that go to L.A. to become movie stars. Most of them end up hookers, beaten up by their pimps and their johns, dying from bad needles and God knows what diseases. Gracie died in Portland. Saved her the drive to Hollywood.” Ollie looked at the floor. “Yeah. I feel bad for her too.”

Answer from Stephanie Anderson, EPM staff:

I appreciate your sensitivity and desire to honor Jesus with the things you read and listen to. That’s a wonderful goal, in keeping with Philippians 4:8, which says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

As you noted in your email, the characters in Randy’s books that use this language like “Oh my God,” which doesn’t revere Him as the Holy God, are non-Christians. Randy absolutely agrees that as believers, we should be set apart by our use of language, and by honoring God’s name and character through our words and actions. ( from John Piper about how we take God’s name in vain—which includes the use of such terms as “Oh my God” but also goes far, far beyond it.)

The challenge of how to portray realistic characters, without using unnecessary language (like curse words) and scenes which would cause temptation, unnecessarily offend, or lead readers into sin, is a very real one for a Christian author like Randy. He wants to realistically show that people are very lost without Jesus, and far from understanding who God really is. He also wants to have a book be believable.

If you’ve ever tried to read a book that comes across as naive and unbelievable, then you can probably understand that concern. It’s hard to keep reading when you know a book isn’t well researched, and the author clearly has no idea what they’re actually writing about. As a reader, it’s almost impossible to take the book seriously.

Therefore, as I’m sure you know from reading his novels, people are depicted as doing drugs, having sex outside marriage, getting an abortion, being racist, committing violent acts, and other crimes against others, etc. All these things break God’s commandments and laws. (One area where Randy struggled with this was whether to include the word “nigger” in his novel Dominion. He writes, “I made the difficult decision to actually include the word, because most every black person has been called that name, and it’s continuously used on the streets.”)

In his writing and research, Randy felt that including those lines, as well as other realistic things that unbelievers do, portrays someone’s distance from God, and was worthy of inclusion. He’s not saying that we should emulate that language or use it. We should be offended by it, just as we are offended by the other sins depicted in the books. Hopefully, through Randy’s writing, it is clear what is sin, and we see it for what it is—awful, separating us from God, leading only to unhappiness and misery.

I noted that some of the quotes you shared are where characters say, “God only knows…” I did want to share a different perspective on those quotes. Surely, if we can’t say that about God, we can’t say anything about Him. For example, someone might say, “God knows I love this church, but my heart is still broken.” In that case, it’s affirming the omniscience of God. Certainly, it’s possible for someone to use that wording in a sarcastic or otherwise inappropriate way, but that wasn’t Randy’s intent when he had his characters make those statements. 

Bottom line, if you are tempted to refer to God in disrespectful ways after listening to Randy’s books, then I would certainly never encourage you to keep listening. But if you are able to keep in perspective why Randy included those lines, and see what is being portrayed as sin vs. what is being encouraged as righteous, then I think there might well be a place to keep listening and reading. (And we hope that might be the case!) But either way, keep seeking Jesus and being sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading in your life.

We wish you all the best as you follow Him.

Refined by Fire, for God’s Good Purposes

God tells us that trials in which evil and suffering come upon us “have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7).

God refines us in our suffering and graciously explains why: “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this” (Isaiah 48:10). For emphasis, God repeats the reason.

In my novel Safely Home, set in China, Li Quan voices what some Chinese Christians actually say: True gold does not fear the fire.

Job says of God, “He knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10). Fire strengthens those it refines. They do not seek the fire, but neither do they shrink from it. 

In the journal she kept during her cancer years, Nanci recorded these verses and quotes:

“And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines sliver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘the LORD is my God’” (Zechariah13:9).

“The fire only refines; it does not destroy. We are to be brought through the fire, not left in it. The Lord values his people as silver, and therefore he is at pains to purge away their dross. If we are wise, we will welcome the refining process rather than decline it. Our prayer will be that our alloy may be taken from us rather than that we should be withdrawn from the crucible. Oh Lord, you test us indeed…still this is your way, and your way is best.” —Charles Spurgeon

“If God intended for all the days of your life to be easy, they would be. No, in grace, he intends for your days to be his tools of refinement.” —Paul David Tripp

Then Nanci wrote:

I love you, Lord. I trust you. I thank you for your tender mercies in all that you do. Wrap my heart in your sovereign grace and love.

Thank you, Lord, for valuing our faith in you so much that you test and strengthen it through adversity.

Photo: Unsplash