Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 35

May We Be Overwhelmed by the Goodness of God

A dear friend sent me this video. If you don’t have time to read the article below, just listen to the wonderful song on YouTube, which this little boy makes come alive.

What a powerful reminder that God is the Greatest Good and the source of all lesser goods: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). Wayne Grudem says in Systematic Theology, “The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval.”

Scripture contains many direct affirmations of God’s goodness, such as:

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. (Psalm 25:8)

You are good, and what you do is good;
teach me your decrees. (Psalm 119:68)

Give thanks to the LORD Almighty,
for the LORD is good;
his love endures forever. (Jeremiah 33:11)

The LORD is good,
a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him. (Nahum 1:7)

God extends His goodness to His people.

God’s goodness entails a number of His other attributes. Grudem also says in Systematic Theology, “God’s mercy is his goodness toward those in distress, his grace is his goodness toward those who deserve only punishment, and his patience is his goodness toward those who continue to sin over a period of time.”

God’s goodness is linked to His love: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6). His goodness also connects with His holiness: “We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple” (Psalm 65:4). “How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you” (Psalm 31:19). God has stored up His goodness for those who fear Him. That means in the future He plans to bestow upon us a storehouse full of goodness.

God manifests His goodness to all people.

God does not restrict His goodness to believers only. He is good to all His creatures: “The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:9); “He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17; see also Matthew 5:45).

God grants His goodness to humanity at large, manifested in both nature and culture, in such good things as animals, forests, rivers, music, art, and sports.

To say that God is good is not to say God will always appear to be good, or that when He is good we will always like Him for it.

Consider the anguished cry of Jeremiah: “He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship” (Lamentations 3:2–5).

This outcry doesn’t appear to affirm God’s goodness, does it? Jeremiah sounds like Epicurus or David Hume. It seems remarkable that God would include in His inspired Word such human displays of confusion and frustration.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan the Lion is safe. “Who said anything about safe?” Mr. Beaver answers. “’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

This is sound theology—God can be good without being safe; He can be loving without bowing to our every wish or desire.

All arguments to the contrary, God is utterly good and worthy to receive our worship.

In Deserted by God, Sinclair Ferguson tells the story of English missionary Allen Gardiner. In January 1852, a search party found Gardiner’s lifeless body. He and his companions had shipwrecked on Tierra del Fuego. Their provisions had run out. They starved to death.

Gardiner, at one point, felt desperate for water; his pangs of thirst, he wrote, were “almost intolerable.” Far from home and loved ones, he died alone, isolated, weakened, and physically broken.

Isn’t this one of those stories told to raise the problem of evil and suffering? Indeed, if the story ended like this, we would find it tragic beyond description.

Despite the wretched conditions of his death, Gardiner wrote out Scripture passages, including Psalm 34:10: “The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing” (KJV). Near death, his handwriting feeble, Gardiner managed to write one final entry into his journal: “I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God.”

This article was adapted from Randy’s book If God Is Good. Also see the devotional 90 Days of God’s Goodness, book The Goodness of God, and booklet If God Is Good, Why Do We Hurt?, which deals with the question and shares the gospel so that both unbelievers and believers can benefit.

Photo by Jamie Pilgrim on Unsplash

Money Makes a Horrible Master and a Valuable Servant

Money is more than just metal disks or colored paper. It is a tool that simplifies trade. A farmer needs lumber more than beef, milk, and eggs. He has plenty of those. A lumberman needs beef, milk, and eggs more than his many stacks of boards. By trading their goods, both get what they want.

Money is a tool that can expedite such a trade and widen its circle to include others. Rather than trading two pigs for a plow and three sacks of grain, one person can give another the agreed-upon worth of the two pigs in the form of money. This saves time and energy. Who wants to carry around pigs and plows?

God encouraged the people of Israel to take advantage of money’s convenience. He told them that if their place of worship was too far from their home, they should exchange the tithes of their crops and livestock for silver, then convert it back to the goods of their choice once they arrived (Deuteronomy 14:24-26).

Money is one person’s promise of goods or services, granted in return for actual goods or services. In a sense, money is no more than a widely recognized IOU. Realizing its convenience, people consent to participate in an economic system in which money is the transferable object that makes it all possible. Of course, it’s only the widespread participation of others in this same system that gives meaning to money (spent any Confederate Currency lately?).

Because money has no inherent value, only ascribed value, money is not wealth. It merely symbolizes wealth. You can’t eat money and you can’t plow a field with it. You can use a one hundred dollar bill to light a cigar or wad up your gum, but that’s about it. Practically speaking, gold is much less valuable than some other metals. In and of itself, it’s little more than a pretty paperweight or doorstop. Gold, silver, platinum, coins, and currency are only worth something in a society where other people have agreed to attach a certain value to them. That they do so is proven by their willingness to give goods and services in exchange for them.

Money is nothing more than a pledge of assets, a means of payment, a medium of exchange. It is morally neutral.

The Two Faces of Money

Money has social and economic benefits that can be used for the betterment of people. As a plow can be used for honest labor and a sack of grain for feeding a family, so money, which simply represents their value, can be used for good.

Christian compassion can accomplish great good through the giving of grain, lumber, or money to alleviate suffering. Money can be used to feed, clothe, and provide shelter. It can fund the translation and printing of Bibles, provide for missionaries, or build houses of worship. In this sense, money may appear to be good. But it’s really the giver who is doing good. People may be moral or immoral, but things are morally neutral. Money is no more responsible for doing good than a computer is responsible for writing a book or a baseball bat for hitting a home run.

Money can be used to buy a slave or a whip to be used on a slave. Money can purchase sex, bribe a judge, buy cocaine, and fund terrorist acts. But in each case the evil resides in people, not money. As is the case with fire, so it is with money: the greater a thing’s potential for good when used rightly, the greater its potential for harm when used wrongly. And money has great potential.

If this were a morally neutral world, we would expect money to be used in a morally neutral way. But the world is not neutral—it is sinful and under a curse (Romans 8:20-22). In a sinful world, money becomes something other than a neutral means of barter. It becomes an instrument of power. In the hands of sinful people, power is perverted. In rejecting a God they don’t wish to serve, sinful people serve themselves with the god of money.

Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with money, there’s something desperately wrong with devotion to money.

Since money can be used for either good or evil, if those using it are more evil than good, it will most often be used for evil. The problem is human sinfulness—and so it will be until Christ returns and we live on the New Earth, where there will be no more curse and no more evil (Revelation 21:1-5).

Keep Money on a Short Leash

Jesus said to His disciples, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).

In this saying, Jesus tells us to do something good with “worldly wealth” (literally, “the mammon of unrighteousness”). It’s as if He’s saying, “Take this thing that is commonly used for evil and use it for good. Look at this worn currency; smell in it the foul purposes for which it was used. It may have once been stolen, perhaps even killed for. But now that it’s in your hands, use it wisely and well; use it for eternal purposes.”

Jesus clearly taught that we can and should use money for good purposes, both for this life and the next. Human hearts can be redeemed by Christ, and in the hands of the redeemed, money can serve redemptive purposes.

But lest we forget money’s dangers, Jesus also said, “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Luke 16:13).

Once we allow money to have lordship over our lives, it becomes Money with a capital M, a god that jealously dethrones all else. Money makes a terrible master, yet it makes a good servant to those who have the right master—God.

To regard money as evil, and therefore useless for purposes of righteousness, is foolish. To regard it as good and therefore overlook its potential for spiritual disaster is equally foolish.

The goal, then, is not that money be put to death, but that it be trained and handled with discipline, as a lion we are seeking to tame. Money may be temporarily under our control, but we must always regard it as a wild beast, with power to turn on us and others if we drop our guard.

Money must not call the shots. We may have plenty of money to buy a new car, but we must not take our direction from Money. If we serve God, we will buy the car only if we believe He wants us to—and we must base that belief on more than our preference.

Likewise, if we believe God is leading us to go to the mission field or to help a brother in need, we do not say, “There’s no money, so I can’t.” That also would be serving Money. If God is our master, all money is at His disposal and He promises to provide everything we need to do everything He’s called us to. We must concern ourselves not with what Money says, but with what God says. The need for money may be a factor in our decisions, but it is never the factor. God, not Money, is sovereign. Money—whether by its presence or absence—must never rule our lives.

Money is neither a disease nor a cure. It is a tool—nothing less and nothing more. We may use it well or poorly. Either way, how we use money is always of critical importance to our spiritual lives. It has a lasting impact on two worlds—this one and the next. Use it, Jesus said, but don’t serve it.

Adapted from Randy’s book  Money, Possessions, and Eternity .

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

Is There a Danger of Worshipping the Bible Instead of God?

Perhaps you’ve heard someone say something like, “My faith is in God, not the Bible” or “Be careful you’re not worshipping the Bible or making an idol out of it.” 

I agree that there is a danger of having our faith in the wrong object. And there have been some people who seemingly hold the Bible in higher esteem than they do Jesus. But seen properly, the Bible is not a competitor with God; on the contrary, it is our God-given means of knowing Him through His revealed truth.

God’s Word is the only trustworthy revelation of His character and will.

How can we know what God is really like? We can’t know without an authoritative revelation from God. Everything else is guesswork.

Anselm wrote, “Intelligent nature . . . finds its happiness, both now and forever, in the contemplation of God.” But we can only contemplate God with confidence if we have a source of information about God we can trust.

Scripture says this about its own nature:

Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16, NET)
No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Peter 1:20-21, NET)

The people in Berea were commended for subjecting the apostle Paul’s words to God’s Word: “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11, NASB).

Everything the Bible says about God is true; everything anyone says about God that contradicts the Bible is false. Apart from a belief in the authority of God’s Word—as well as a growing knowledge of what it says—we’ll be vulnerable to deception. This is why one of the greatest needs in churches today is the consistent teaching of sound doctrine. Without it, and without people reading good books that reinforce a biblical worldview, God’s people will drift along, swept away by the current of popular opinion.

Faith is not inherently virtuous. Its value depends on the worth of its object. The Bible, understood in context and given precedent over our own instincts and preferences, is our dependable guide for faith and practice. Only by learning what Scripture says about God can we know what’s true about Him.

When we delight in God’s Word, we are delighting in Him.

Imagine this scenario, from an age before e-mail, social media, and FaceTime: a young woman is in love with a soldier serving overseas. Every day she checks her mailbox. Whenever a letter arrives, she opens it and eagerly reads and rereads every word.

Wouldn’t it be accurate to say she delights in her fiancé’s love letters? Would anyone correct her, “No, you should only take delight in him, not his letters”? That would be a meaningless distinction. Why? Because his love letters are an extension of him.

Yet I’ve heard people say, “Don’t take pleasure in the Bible; take pleasure in God.” But to study God’s words is to take pleasure in God, because His Word is an expression of His very being.

Anyone who finds happiness in God must find happiness in God’s words:

In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. (Psalm 119:14)

I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. (Psalm 119:47)

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. (Psalm 119:97)

Notice such Scriptures demonstrate that to delight in and to meditate upon God’s Word is to delight in God Himself.

A woman self-consciously told one of our pastors that before going to sleep each night she reads her Bible, then hugs it as she falls asleep. “Is that weird?” she asked. While it may be unusual, it’s not weird. This woman has known suffering, and as she clings to His promises, she clings to God. Any father would be moved to hear that his daughter falls asleep with letters he wrote her held close to her. Surely God treasures such an act of childlike love.

The point of studying God’s Word is to know Him.

There is a danger of idolizing our own knowledge of the Bible rather than remembering the point is to know Him better. (If we fail to understand that, the problem is with us, not the Bible!) J. I. Packer, in the first chapter of his book Knowing God, says this:

To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it. …there can be no spiritual health without doctrinal knowledge; but it is equally true that there can be no spiritual health with it, if it is sought for the wrong purpose and valued by the wrong standard.

…Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of God’s attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are. As he is the subject of our study, and our helper in it, so he must himself be the end of it.

May we see Bible study and doctrine as a basis for humble worship of our King and Savior, not for prideful posturing.

God’s words have the power to bring heart-happiness.

As a new believer in Christ, I couldn’t get enough of God’s Word. At night I sometimes fell asleep with my face on an open Bible. Other times I would listen to Scripture on cassette tapes (if you’re 35 or younger you may need to Google that!). As I drifted off to sleep, my last waking memories were of God’s words.

When Jeremiah said that God’s Word “became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16), he was suggesting that Scripture has a cumulative effect that increases over time. Happily, by God’s grace, I can attest to this. As our dear sister Joni Eareckson Tada says:

If you want to increase your desire for God, then get to know Him in a deeper way. And there is no better way to know Him than through His Word. Get into God’s Word, and you will get a heart for Jesus. Get passionate about Scripture, and your passion for Him will increase. Feelings follow faith…and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

God promises that His Word “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). We live in a time where the Bible is increasingly minimized. Let’s be committed to doing everything we can to uplift and honor God’s Word, as a means of knowing and loving Him.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Biblical Hope Is a Solid Certainty

Referencing the coming resurrection, Paul wrote, “For in this hope [of the redemption of our bodies] we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:24–25).

To many of us, “hope” sounds wishful and tentative, but biblical hope means to anticipate with trust. We expect a sure thing, purchased on the cross, accomplished and promised by an all-knowing God. Scripture offers solid ground for our hope in Christ. 

At times I am troubled when I use the word hope in writing about Heaven, which is why I will sometimes use the phrase “blood-bought hope” or “certain hope.” Yet even then, “certain hope” sounds like I should be using a different word than hope, because if it’s certain, it might seem as if it’s not really hope. However, the word hope historically and biblically means far more than what it has been reduced to today. To use the same word of hoping it’s a sunny day or that our favorite team wins the game or that the meal we’re cooking turns out well just doesn’t seem like the right word to use of something God has promised to us and purchased for us.

When Scripture speaks of peace, hope, justice, and love, it routinely attaches deeper and more Christ-centered meanings to those words than our culture does. For example, love is commonly used in superficial ways, as popular music has long demonstrated. People say they love hamburgers, hairstyles, and YouTube. They “make love” to someone they barely know. This means we must take pains to clarify what Scripture actually means by love, holiness, hope, peace, pleasure, and happiness. We should contrast the meaning in Scripture with our culture’s superficial and sometimes sinful connotations.

Got Questions explains the difference between the English use of “hope” and the words used in Scripture that are translated as hope:

The word hope in English often conveys doubt. For instance, “I hope it will not rain tomorrow.” In addition, the word hope is often followed by the word so. This is the answer that some may give when asked if they think that they will go to Heaven when they die. They say, “I hope so.” However, that is not the meaning of the words usually translated “hope” in the Bible.

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word batah and its cognates has the meaning of confidence, security, and being without care; therefore, the concept of doubt is not part of this word. We find that meaning in Job 6:20; Psalm 16:9; Psalm 22:9; and Ecclesiastes 9:4. In most instances in the New Testament, the word hope is the Greek elpis/elpizo. Again, there is no doubt attached to this word. Therefore, biblical hope is a confident expectation or assurance based upon a sure foundation for which we wait with joy and full confidence. In other words, “There is no doubt about it!”

The Christian worldview doesn’t offer some vague, tenuous hope that there might be eternal life and happiness. It offers the solid promise of an eternal relationship with a happy God whose love is so great it sent Him to the Cross to secure our eternal righteousness and thus our never-ending happiness. Knowing His redemptive design, God assures His children, “I know the plans I have for you . . . plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Paul writes in Titus 2:13, “As we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (NET). Again, hope means not a wish, but a certain promise. Got Questions explains, “Biblical hope carries no doubt. Biblical hope is a sure foundation upon which we base our lives, believing that God always keeps His promises.”

Such solid hope is the light at the end of life’s tunnel. Not only does it make the tunnel endurable, it fills the heart with anticipation of the world into which we will one day emerge. Not just a better world, but a new and perfect world. A world alive, fresh, beautiful, and devoid of pain, suffering, and war; a world without disease, accident, and tragedy; a world without dictators and madmen. A world ruled by the only one worthy of ruling.

This hope isn’t an unrealistic dream or fantasy. Rather, it’s a solid expectation secured by the blood-bought promises of our Savior and King. After making the pledge that He will end all suffering and death, Christ, “who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelation 21:5, NIV).

Jesus was saying, “That’s my promise, permanently inscribed in the scars on my hands and feet.” In a world where little seems certain, this is a promise we can take to the bank!

Is resurrected living in a resurrected world with the resurrected Christ and His resurrected people your daily longing and solid hope? Is it part of the gospel you share with others? It will be the glorious climax of God’s saving work that began at our regeneration, and will mark the final end of any and all sin that separates us from God. In liberating us from sin and all its consequences, the resurrection will free us to live with God, gaze on Him, and enjoy His uninterrupted fellowship forever, with no threat that anything will ever again come between us and Him.

May God preserve us from embracing anything other than a biblical definition of our hope. May we rejoice as we anticipate the height, depth, length, and breadth of our redemption!

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

Photo by Omer Salom on Unsplash

What Forgiveness Is and Isn’t

Note from Randy: Dan Darling has a new book out titled Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loved. I deeply appreciate Dan and wholeheartedly concur with his call for greater love and grace among Bible-believing Christians.

Like many, I watched Dan go through his public ordeal that in my opinion never should have happened in a Christian ministry. Dan's experience brought back memories of the criticism I received from many believers when over thirty years ago I did what I believed to be right in God's sight, through intervention to save the lives of the unborn. “Friendly fire” doesn't seem very friendly when it leaves casualties in its wake.

This book is about our need to love God and in the process learn to love our fellow believers, including those we disagree with in secondary areas. I highly recommend Agents of Grace as a tool for fostering a more conciliatory spirit, and I hope you find this excerpt from the book helpful.

I often talk about the importance of forgiveness in my own life, and over the deep hurts I’ve endured. But inevitable questions about biblical forgiveness arise. Does forgiveness imply we ignore issues of justice and restitution? Does forgiveness absolve the guilt of the perpetrator? Does forgiveness imply reconciliation?

It’s important for us to understand what is demanded of us in forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation, which requires two parties willing to come together.

Consider the story of Joseph. For a long time, when I read the narrative in Genesis, I could never understand why Joseph, as prime minister, put his brothers through what often seems a cruel series of tests. If, as he says in Genesis 50:20, he held no bitterness against them, why make them go through the paces of going back and forth from Egypt to Canaan? Why hide the cup in the brother’s bag? Why hold one of the brothers back as collateral? What is going on here?

In this example, I think we see in Joseph the difference between forgiveness—which releases our own souls from bitterness—and reconciliation. Before Joseph could truly be reconciled with his brothers, he had to see that they had shed the petty jealousies and rage that had motivated them to commit their heinous acts of violence in the first place.

Were his brothers remorseful for their treatment? Listen to the way they talk amongst themselves, with Joseph overhearing:

They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.” Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter (Genesis 42:21-23).

Clearly, the guilt they had carried for decades, the dirty secret that had hung over their hearts like a weighted blanket, was now being exposed in the light of day. They understood that God was forcing them to confront their sin and appeal for forgiveness and grace. Here are the seeds of reconciliation.

And yet Joseph had to continue to test them, to see if their remorse would lead to repentance and new patterns. Clearly it did. Instead of being brothers who cared only for their welfare, these men now plead on behalf of their youngest brother Benjamin. These were changed men to whom Joseph could trust his heart.

It’s important for us to understand there are levels of engagement when we’ve been seriously hurt, not all of which are possible to achieve in this life. Forgiveness is the first and most basic. Forgiveness is the act of being released from the bitterness of our pain and entrusting payback and vengeance to the one who fights for us. “Vengeance is mine” God tells us (Deuteronomy 32:25; Romans 12:17-19). James reminds us that the “wrath of man doesn’t bring about the righteousness God desires” (James 1:20).

Forgiveness means we refuse to let that other person live in our heads rent-free. Forgiveness means we refuse to work our hurt into every single conversation. Forgiveness means we don’t let bitterness cloud our judgement. This is why my friend Rich told me I had to forgive. He was telling me this for my own spiritual and physical health.

I’ve seen too many people destroyed by bitterness. And here’s the thing: unforgiveness not only affects our own souls, its acid also splashes onto our families, our friends, and our coworkers. Years ago, I had to make a decision. Would I model forgiveness for my family and for the small church I was called to lead, or would I let bitterness color my life? I’ve been up close and personal with too many leaders—powerful, gifted, brilliant leaders—who never got over their hurts. It hamstrung their leadership, making them fearful, isolated, and untrusting. Then they unwittingly inflicted it on others.

And yet, forgiveness is only the first level of engagement with those who have hurt us. The next level, I believe, is reconciliation. But this is often more complicated. In Joseph’s case, it happened because his brothers also engaged and were willing to embrace repentance and restitution. This is not always possible. Romans 12:18 says “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” If it is possible, as far as it depends on you.

Sometimes, many times, reconciliation is not available. I’ve had relationships where I’ve forgiven and there is a measure of peace that God has brought to my heart and soul over time, but full reconciliation was not yet possible because there was not a reciprocal effort to make peace.

Sometimes forgiveness is used as a weapon, for instance, to force victims to drop criminal charges against their abusers. But this isn’t what forgiveness is at all. Forgiveness doesn’t erase the demands of justice, it merely takes the instruments of vengeance out of our hands and releases our perpetrators to “the judge of the earth who deals justly” (Genesis 18:25).

I also believe there is a third level of engagement beyond reconciliation that is even harder to achieve. This is trust. You can forgive and even be reconciled in the relationship, but it takes a lot to earn back trust. This happens in broken marriages, where one partner has violated the marriage covenant. The offended spouse should forgive her husband, she might even be reconciled, after counseling and repentance on his part. But trust—the ability to know that you won’t be hurt again by the one who hurt you—that takes a lot of years and patience.

Consider when Joseph’s brothers addressed him in Genesis 50. This was decades after he’d forgiven them, after they were reconciled and living side-by-side in Egypt. Yet they still wondered if, after their father Jacob died, he was just waiting to enact his vengeance on them. They repeated their father’s deathbed wish, that Joseph would forgive them of their sins against him.  In response, Joseph not only promised he would not take action against them, he also pledged to take care of them financially and materially. He even entrusted them to carry out his dying wish: to take his bones back to the land of his father.

This level of trust, beyond forgiveness, beyond reconciliation, is the fruit of years of faithful actions by both parties to restore confidence. Too often we collapse these three concepts into one. But while forgiveness can happen in any situation, we can’t force reconciliation where it’s not possible, and we should be wise with whom we place our trust.

If the church treasurer steals money from the church coffers, the church should forgive him.  That doesn’t mean he should be restored to his former position when he hasn’t yet earned the trust to handle the people’s money again. Forgiveness also doesn’t mean people who have abused authority or committed moral failures should automatically be restored to their former positions. Sometimes, after years of restitution, people deserve a second chance. But we should be careful who we put in positions of power again. Again, God’s grace is free and unlimited for our failures, but God never guarantees a return to the stage.

I can say today that I’ve forgiven and am at peace with those in my life who have deeply hurt me. That is the fruit of God’s gracious work in my heart. I carry no bitterness or ill will. And I can say that almost all of my relationships are restored. But there are some folks whom I still have a hard time trusting….and that’s OK.

Photo by Bro Takes Photos on Unsplash

The Image of God, Race, Ethnicity, and Future Nations on the New Earth

A reader responded to a blog post we shared several years ago by one of our EPM staff members, who encouraged readers to look for opportunities to love and serve people from other cultures. This person’s comments touched on the image of God, race, and the future of nations and ethnicities in eternity. I’m sharing my thoughts in response, as I think they may have a wider application to other readers.

“The image of God is not a corporate reality, but an individual reality. Otherwise, you can’t say that an individual is totally made in the image of God.”

The commenter is referring to my quoting Richard Mouw, who said:

“There is no one human individual or group who can fully bear or manifest all that is involved in the image of God, so that there is a sense in which that image is collectively possessed. …By looking at different individuals and groups we get glimpses of different aspects of the full image of God.” 

Of course, we all know that each individual is made in God’s image. Mouw, and other biblical scholars, hold the same position that says the infinite character of God is more fully represented in a number and variety of His image bearers than in just one.

Adam and Eve were both made in God’s image, but more of God could be seen in the two of them than in Adam alone. This is one of the reasons it wasn’t good for man to be alone. So we are fully made in God’s image, but being finite, the fullness of God’s image is more fully seen in a community of image bearers, who can together give a larger picture of who God is. We may see God’s grace more evident in one person, His justice in another, His mercy in yet another.

Can’t we sometimes see aspects of God in men that we don’t always see in women? Can’t we sometimes see aspects of God in women that we don’t always see in men? Or can’t we see them in children more than adults? Having worshipped with Kenyan, Egyptian, Greek, Hungarian, German, Swiss, Chinese, Cambodian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish (and others) believers in their countries, my awe and worship of God, and understanding of Him, did not contract but expand.

“Experiencing other cultures is not like experiencing Heaven. Last I checked, the reason we have different cultures and nations and ethnicities and languages is because we are cursed. That’s right, all those things that you’re reveling in are results of sin (Tower of Babel). Heaven undoes all of those things by uniting people from different cultures, languages, ethnicities, and nations into one people with one language with one culture in one kingdom that does not recognize ethnicity.”

In Genesis 11:4 we read of the sin surrounding the building of Babel: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” The thing they were trying to avoid is exactly what God had commanded—to spread out over the earth.

By gathering together in one location, people were opposing God’s mandate to multiply and have dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28), which implied expansion, not a centralized existence in one location.

In fact, after the flood God repeated this to Noah and his family, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1). So when God gave them different languages to spread them out, He helped facilitate His original design.

Babel was not “the curse.” The curse happened with the first sin, in Genesis 3. What God did to Babel in Genesis 11 was a judgment. But the judgment had a sovereign purpose, and ultimately a redemptive one. The results were primarily good, since it stopped, or at least thwarted, the prideful human desire to centralize and exalt ourselves.

Also, this objection assumes that ethnicities came about as a direct result of God’s judgment at Babel. But the biblical text doesn’t say that. Genesis 11, the Babel passage, deals only with languages. There are different theories that suggest that the different language groups, spreading out to different places, naturally interbred and over time their limited gene pools developed distinctives, some of which might have been influenced by their environments.

But this is hypothetical. In any case, there is no statement in Scripture that God changed people’s skin colors when he gave them different languages. However and whenever those skin colors came about, God as the Creator governed them in the same way He did the different languages. So we should not view skin colors as the result of the curse. God designed human DNA and built into our genes the capacities for skin color differences. (This article presents different theories of how this all happened.)

I am concerned that if someone believes that ethnicity is the result of a curse, it’s a quick movement to thinking some races are more or less cursed than others, which sadly has happened in church history. Furthermore, are we to consider different languages as sinful? Obviously not. There is no single good language, nor are there any inherently bad ones.

We shouldn’t dismiss God’s design and glory that’s evident in different ethnicities. This implies that nothing under the curse can reflect God’s design or sovereign purpose. Biblically that’s not the case. Was God glorified by the redemption of Jesus that could only occur in a fallen world? Is He glorified by the redemption of people of every tribe and nation and language that all developed in a cursed world? Of course. The curse did not tie our Creator and Redeemer’s hands.  

Paul said of God, “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26). Since God is God over all, including the fallen world, ultimately He—not the Curse—made all the nations. He is intimately involved in ethnicity and nations and even locations.

As Creator, doesn’t God put together the fine details of every person’s identity, not just David’s (Psalm 139:13-14)? The fact that I may be a different color than you does not mean that one of us is more or less made in God’s image than the other. We are equal in our humanity; equal in the fact that we are all sinners, living in a world under the curse; and equal that Jesus came to die for us and offer us eternal life.

It is incorrect that Heaven does not recognize ethnicity. (Wasn’t the risen Jesus still genetically a Jew? Or was His DNA altered to become a non-ethnic entity?) In Revelation 7:9-10, John says this about what he saw in Heaven: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Something similar is said in Revelation 5:9.

These are not people who were once of or formerly of different tribes, nations, and languages, but people who John could clearly identify as such. Not only visually, but perhaps he heard them praising God in these different languages.

“Tribe” is an ethnic term. The beauty is not that Heaven doesn’t recognize ethnicity—it clearly does—but that people of all ethnicities are among the redeemed, and they are one in Christ and worship Him in concert! Heaven is NOT based on uniformity, but on a Christ-centered unity that embraces and celebrates differences.

When we gather with God’s redeemed from other cultures we receive a sneak-peak of Heaven. I have experienced this often as I’ve joined believers around the world in worship, even when I didn’t know their language. People of different ethnicities and languages and nations bring something to the table that those of a single culture do not.

I appreciated these thoughts that another commenter, Kristen, left on Facebook:

Shouting praises to God with one voice/tongue doesn’t mean we will lose our other languages any more than I lose my English language skills when I worship in other countries but use their local language, singing and praying in unison. It just means that we will have the ability to sing in a unity we’ve never experienced on Earth. God is so much bigger than we can grasp and Heaven will contain so much more than we can imagine! I get thrilled when I think of what we will learn in Heaven, but that doesn’t mean we will lose any element of what we’ve learned here on Earth. 

“There is only one human race, so can we please stop saying there are multiple races? Christians need to use precise language.”

First, our staff member’s article didn’t use the word “race.” It was about people of different cultures. I used the word in my introduction to her article. Obviously we’re all aware there is only one human race. But the word “race,” like most terms, means different things in different contexts. The English term “races” still exists, and finding a substitute isn’t always easy. Ethnicity? Color? Geographic region of origin? One can be nationally or ethnically English, but black or white, with ancestors from various parts of the world. Terms such as Mexican-American combine ethnicity and nationality. It’s fine to prefer other synonyms to the word “race,” but we should realize the word has a long and established history and people will still talk about “race relations,” “racial unity,” “racial prejudice,” “racial reconciliation,” etc.

Again, my thanks to commenter Kristen for her thoughts on this:

…to ignore the commonly accepted usage of the word “race”—and risk the appearance of ignoring the serious problems associated with it—is neither wise nor healthy. Promoting racial peace has been an issue long before our time because people see differences, label them and then spew hate in regards to them. We can’t demand “precise language” without acknowledging the reality of what “imprecise language” does to our world.

“Ethnicity and background should never even cross our minds when we meet another believer. Unfortunately, we’re being told that the first thing we need to notice about someone in a local church is their skin color.”

I disagree. First of all, it obviously does and will cross our mind, and it’s silly to think we can or should close our eyes to differences.

Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). What he’s saying is that we are all equal and should be in unity with each other. He doesn’t mean racial identity and gender and slavery do not exist. The same Paul speaks openly of Jewish and Gentile believers (Romans 2:10; 9:3-4), slaves and free believers (Philemon is free, Onesimus is a slave), and male and female believers (Ephesians 5:22, 25).

The notion of being “colorblind” doesn’t lend itself to oneness but to blindness. It suggests that if we recognize or admit differences we would be forced to say some are better than others. No, we should recognize the differences and celebrate that God’s image-bearers come in all shapes and sizes and colors, and we are the beneficiaries of His providence in creating us this way. (See Trillia Newbell’s excellent article 4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Colorblind.)

Saying someone’s skin color shouldn’t even cross our minds is like saying I shouldn’t notice whether I’m talking to a man or a woman, or that it’s somehow wrong to notice a man is 6’8” or 4’8”. What is wrong is when I judge or stereotype or think less of him, or more of him, because of a physical attribute. I can certainly thank God for creating diversity.

What about noticing someone is disabled, and looking for a way to assist them if needed? What about noticing someone is young or old, and they too may need my help? If I see someone of a different skin color at a store, staring at American money the same way I stared at Chinese money when I was in China, I should offer help. But I won’t if I fail to notice them.

To say that we are all image-bearers is NOT to deny we have differences. It is to say we who are different are all human, and we who are believers are, as Paul puts it, one in Christ. Not ceasing to be male or female, or ceasing to be whatever race we were created as, but fully united regardless of our differences. The glory of God is greater because people of different tribes, nations, and languages of different times and places will be forever united in Jesus.

“Scripture does plainly show that cultures, nations, languages, and ethnicities are A. a result of sin (Tower of Babel), and B. going to be undone in eternity. Yes, in eternity there will be people ‘from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation,’ but these people have been united as one people making up one nation with one language.”

How are we to be united into one family? Through the obliteration of our differences? The elimination of our uniquenesses? All skin colors blended into one so we all look the same?

No. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut…” (Revelation 21:23-25). The nations, with their different ethnicities and languages, regardless of their origins under the curse of Babel, are the creation of God Himself. In their redeemed versions it appears they will forever continue.

I share some more thoughts about nations on the New Earth in this video:

Photo by Anna Nekrashevich

If a Vacation Is Worth Planning and Anticipating, How Much More Should We Anticipate Life in Heaven?

In his early twenties, Jonathan Edwards composed a set of life resolutions. One read, “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can.”

Some may think it odd and inappropriate that Edwards was so committed to pursuing happiness for himself in Heaven. But Pascal was right when he said, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.” And if we all seek happiness, why not do as Edwards did and seek it where it can actually be found—in the person of Jesus and the place called Heaven?

Tragically, however, most people do not find their joy in Christ and Heaven. In fact, many people find no joy at all when they think about Heaven.

A pastor once confessed to me, “Whenever I think about Heaven, it makes me depressed. I’d rather just cease to exist when I die.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I can’t stand the thought of that endless tedium. To float around in the clouds with nothing to do but strum a harp . . . it’s all so terribly boring. Heaven doesn’t sound much better than Hell. I’d rather be annihilated than spend eternity in a place like that.”

Where did this Bible-believing, seminary-educated pastor get such a view of Heaven? Certainly not from Scripture, where Paul said to depart and be with Christ was far better than staying on a sin-cursed Earth (Philippians 1:23). My friend was more honest about it than most, yet I’ve found that many Christians share the same misconceptions about Heaven.

After reading my novel Deadline, which portrays Heaven as a real and exciting place, a woman wrote me, “I’ve been a Christian since I was five. I’m married to a youth pastor. When I was seven, a teacher at my Christian school told me that when I got to Heaven, I wouldn’t know anyone or anything from earth. I was terrified of dying. I was never told any different by anyone. . . . It’s been really hard for me to advance in my Christian walk because of this fear of Heaven and eternal life.”

Let those words sink in: “This fear of heaven and eternal life.” Referring to her recently transformed perspective, she said, “You don’t know the weight that’s been lifted off of me. . . . Now I can’t wait to get to Heaven.”

Our Unbiblical View of Heaven

There’s a great deal I don’t know, but one thing I do know is what people think about Heaven. And frankly, I’m alarmed.

I agree with this statement by John Eldredge in The Journey of Desire: “Nearly every Christian I have spoken with has some idea that eternity is an unending church service. . . . We have settled on an image of the never-ending sing-along in the sky, one great hymn after another, forever and ever, amen. And our heart sinks. Forever and ever? That’s it? That’s the good news? And then we sigh and feel guilty that we are not more ‘spiritual.’ We lose heart, and we turn once more to the present to find what life we can.”

Gary Larson captured a common misperception of Heaven in one of his Far Side cartoons. In it a man with angel wings and a halo sits on a cloud, doing nothing, with no one nearby. He has the expression of someone marooned on a desert island with absolutely nothing to do. A caption shows his inner thoughts: “Wish I’d brought a magazine.”

What a contrast to the perspective Charles Spurgeon had on death: “To come to Thee is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labour, to come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes.”

Trying to develop an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what He promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth. Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plans. It’s not that we want something, so we engage in wishful thinking that what we want exists. It’s the opposite—the reason we want it is precisely because God has planned for it to exist. Resurrected people living in a resurrected universe isn’t our idea—it’s God’s.

An Eternal Destination beyond Compare

Louis Berkhof’s classic Systematic Theology devotes thirty-eight pages to creation, forty pages to baptism and communion, and fifteen pages to what theologians call “the intermediate state” (where people abide between death and resurrection).  Yet it contains only two pages on Hell and one page on the eternal state.

When all that’s said about the eternal Heaven is limited to page 737 of a 737-page systematic theology like Berkhof’s, it raises a question: Does Scripture really have so little to say? Are there so few theological implications to this subject? The biblical answer, I believe, is an emphatic no!

In The Eclipse of Heaven, theology professor A. J. Conyers writes, “Even to one without religious commitment and theological convictions, it should be an unsettling thought that this world is attempting to chart its way through some of the most perilous waters in history, having now decided to ignore what was for nearly two millennia its fixed point of reference—its North Star. The certainty of judgment, the longing for heaven, the dread of hell: these are not prominent considerations in our modern discourse about the important matters of life. But they once were.”

Conyers argues that until recently the doctrine of Heaven was enormously important to the church. Belief in Heaven was not just a nice auxiliary sentiment. It was a central, life-sustaining conviction.

Sadly, even for countless Christians, that is no longer true.

We’re told how to get to Heaven, and that it’s a better destination than Hell, but we’re taught remarkably little about Heaven itself. Let’s change that! If a trip to Hawaii (or any other location that makes you smile) is worth planning and anticipating and ultimately enjoying, how much more should we plan for, anticipate, and ultimately enjoy Heaven?

J. C. Ryle wrote, “It would be strange indeed if you did not desire information about your new abode. Now surely, if we hope to dwell for ever in that ‘better country, even a heavenly one,’ we ought to seek all the knowledge we can get about it. Before we go to our eternal home we should try to become acquainted with it.”

“I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29, NIV). That’s worth looking forward to!

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

Photo by Joshua Humpfer on Unsplash

If There Is No God, Why Is There So Much Good in the World?

I first posted about “the problem of goodness” on my blog 14 years ago, but it is still relevant to conversations I’m having today with others (nothing has changed other than the fact that I am 14 years older!). People always talk about the problem of evil, and how it threatens the Christian worldview, but they almost never talk about the problem of goodness and how it threatens non-Christian worldviews, including the evolutionary framework, survival of the fittest, materialism, and naturalism. That people would sacrificially do great good for the benefit of others —who naturalism sees as weak links in the chain that deserve to cease to exist—is absolutely extraordinary and cries out for an explanation. —Randy

While atheists routinely speak of the problem of evil, they usually don’t raise the problem of goodness. But if evil provides evidence against God, then shouldn’t goodness count as evidence for Him? And wouldn’t that be evidence against atheism? 

From a non-theistic viewpoint, what is evil? Isn’t it just nature at work? In a strictly natural, physical world, shouldn’t everything be neither good nor evil? Good and evil imply an “ought” and an “ought not” that nature is incapable of producing.

Augustine summarized the argument in two great questions: “If there is no God, why is there so much good? If there is a God, why is there so much evil?” To many, only the second question occurs. But the first is just as important. If a good God doesn’t exist, what is goodness’s source?

We have no logical reason to take good for granted; its existence demands an explanation. Much of the good of this world, such as the beauty of a flower or the grandeur of a waterfall or the joy of an otter at play, serves no more practical purpose than great art. It does, however, serve a high purpose of filling us with delight, wonder, and gratitude.

Why does anyone feel gratitude? And why do people, even irreligious survivors of a plane crash, so often thank God? Do people thank time, chance, and natural selection for the good they experience? No, because innately we see life as a gift from God.

People speak of gratuitous evil. But what about gratuitous good—purely impractical, over-the-top good that seems to have no explanation?

That we don’t question good’s existence affirms we consider good the norm and evil the exception.

Don’t evil and suffering grab our attention precisely because they are not the norm in our lives? We “get the flu” because we normally don’t have it. We break an arm that normally remains unbroken. Our shock at evil testifies to the predominance of good. Headlines we consider terrible wouldn’t be headlines if they described usual events. At any given time, fewer people are at war than at peace. Even in the bloody twentieth century, a person had less than a 2 percent chance of dying from war or violent civil strife.

The atheist who points out the horrors of evil unwittingly testifies to good as the norm. When we speak of children dying, we acknowledge they usually don’t. When a natural disaster hits, 99 percent of the world remains untouched. Most people in the world go through a lifetime without personally experiencing a devastating natural disaster. Fatal car accidents and murder are rare, relatively speaking. Though fallen, nature still contains more beauty than ugliness.

Without God, the world would be amoral, with no objective goodness or evil.

I heard Christopher Hitchens say in a debate, “The world looks as it would if there were no God.” But if there were no God, would you really expect this world to look just as it does? I don’t think so.

Where does goodness come from? How could it come from nothing? Why would people have such a strong sense of right and wrong? Why would the powerful sometimes sacrifice their lives to save the weak, handicapped, and dying?

Evolution can explain greed, selfishness, insensitivity, survival-preoccupation, and even a certain amount of ruthlessness; but does anything in the blind evolutionary process explain demonstrating kindness, putting other people first, and even risking your life to help a stranger? If so, what? How much good should we expect to see in an impersonal, self-generated world of mere molecules, chemicals, and natural forces?

A system that operates on brute strength, genetic superiority, and the survival of the fittest can explain and justify racism, sexism, and oppression. But it cannot explain goodness, humility, kindness, compassion, and mercy, especially when exercised on behalf of the weak and dying. What should surprise atheists is not that powerful people crush those weaker than themselves—that would be entirely natural. The surprise is that powerful people would sacrifice their welfare to aid the weak. And yet, that very thing often happens. Why?

Despite its current flaws, the world’s beauty and goodness testify to a Creator who designed it with order and purpose.

Adapted from Randy’s book If God Is Good.

Photo by Jess Loiterton

 

What Are Common Objections to the Idea That God Wants Christians to Experience Happiness in Him?

In “Should Christians Desire to Be Happy?”, I shared that the belief that Christ is the answer to our deep longing for happiness can be credited to scholars, preachers, and teachers from every generation and from all denominational backgrounds. Despite being from different theological persuasions, they have generally agreed with these ideas:

All people desire happiness.
The gospel of Jesus Christ offers people both eternal happiness and present happiness.
God’s glory and our happiness are inextricably linked—both are parts of His design and plan.
God is glorified when we are happy in Him, so our happiness shouldn’t be compared to or weighed against His glory but seen as part of it.
God desires our happiness—He’s the source of it and went to inconceivable lengths to bring His happiness to us.

I’m used to pushback since writing my books on happiness, as this topic is rife with misunderstandings and half-truths. Not surprisingly, several commenters on Facebook mentioned some common objections, including that God calls us to joy, not to happiness; that happiness is fickle and fleeting; and that wanting to be happy leads us into sin, etc. One of our EPM staff responded to the comments and questions by sharing links to past articles we’ve done. I appreciate all the effort made in responding, and I feel these answers deserve a wider audience.

As always, we welcome comments and feedback from readers, including those who disagree with my blogs! But I wanted to share these comments anonymously because they represent many who are struggling with this way of thinking, which is common.

Should We Seek Joy, Not Happiness?

One commenter said, “Happiness is a feeling that is fickle. Joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit and stays.” Another said, “There is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness depends on outside circumstances. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Joy comes from that deep relationship with Jesus Christ. There should be no issue with being joyful.”

The EPM staff wrote, “That’s definitely one of the misconceptions in modern Christianity that Randy addressed in his book on this topic. See Is There a Difference Between Happiness and Joy?”

This is probably the number one response I hear related to happiness. The Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology defines joy as “happiness over an unanticipated or present good.” The Dictionary of Bible Themes defines happiness as “a state of pleasure or joy experienced both by people and by God.” Happiness is joy. Joy is happiness. Virtually all dictionaries, whether secular or Christian, recognize this.

John Piper writes, “If you have nice little categories—joy is what Christians have and happiness is what the world has—you can scrap those when you go to the Bible because the Bible is indiscriminate in its uses of the language of happiness and joy and contentment and satisfaction.” And Joni Eareckson Tada says something similar. She writes, “Scripture uses the terms interchangeably along with words like ‘delight,’ ‘gladness,’ ‘blessed.’ There is no scale of relative spiritual values applied to any of these.”

Is Happiness Fleeting?

Along the same lines, another commenter wrote, “…happiness is fleeting. We should appreciate the times when we are happy, but life is full of different emotions, and we can be at peace knowing that God is with us in the midst of each of them.”

Our staff wrote, “That idea of a God-given peace and contentment reflects the deeper kind of happiness Randy is talking about here, as opposed to happiness as the world defines and experiences it. He shares some thoughts here about the contrast in Four Reasons Christians Distinguish Between Happiness and Joy.”

Does Promoting Happiness Run the Risk of Promoting Sin?

This one isn’t so much an objection, but a legitimate point worth addressing: “One thing to watch for, and I’ve seen people actually advocate it, is, ‘God wants me to be happy, therefore I can justify any sin.’ Of course, the piece isn’t saying this, but it’s related.”

Our staff responded:

Yes, for sure. A parallel example is how our culture defines love in ways that are contrary to God's design. But the problem isn't love, which is a gift from God; it's how our culture has redefined it in sinful ways.

Randy writes, “As a young pastor, I preached, as others still do, ‘God calls us to holiness, not happiness.’ There’s a half-truth in this. I saw Christians pursue what they thought would make them happy, falling headlong into sexual immorality, alcoholism, materialism, and obsession with success. I was attempting to oppose our human tendency to put preferences and convenience before obedience to Christ. It all sounded so spiritual, and I could quote countless authors and preachers who agreed with me. I’m now convinced we were all dead wrong. There were several flaws in my thinking, including inconsistency with my own experience. I’d found profound happiness in Christ; wasn’t that from God? Furthermore, calling people to reject happiness in favor of holiness was ineffective. It might work for a while but not in the long run. Tony Reinke gets it right: ‘Sin is joy poisoned. Holiness is joy postponed and pursued.’”

And as Randy put it in his blog: “Being happy in God and living righteously tastes far better for far longer than sin does. When my hunger and thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to immorality not because I hate pleasure but because I want the enduring pleasure found in Christ.”

And I would add that when we chose to walk in holiness, at times we postpone immediate happiness for a greater and more lasting happiness—for instance, by abstaining from sex before marriage. But if chose sin and reject holiness, any joy or happiness or satisfaction will quickly fade and will ultimately not bring us joy but rob us of it. This is the “fleeting pleasures of sin” Scripture speaks of (Hebrews 11:25).

Also see Sin Brings Unhappiness, Righteousness Brings Happiness.

Should Our Focus Only Be on Holiness?

Similarly, another commenter said, “I’ve been taught that we’re here to live to work towards being holy, not happy, although happiness can be a side effect of knowing and following Christ.”

Our EPM staff said, “Randy writes here about true holiness and true happiness in Christ are intertwined: Why We Don't Need to Choose Between Happiness and Holiness.”

Too often our message to the world becomes a false gospel that lays upon people an impossible burden: to be a Christian, you must give up wanting to be happy and instead choose to be holy. If given a choice, people will predictably choose what appears to be the delightful happiness of the world over the dutiful holiness of church. Satan tries to rig the game by leading us to believe we can’t have both happiness and holiness. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, happiness and holiness are inseparable. “Give up happiness; choose holiness instead” is not good news, and therefore it is not the “good news of happiness” spoken of in Scripture (Isaiah 52:7)!

Are We Supposed to Bubble over with Happiness, Even in Suffering?

This subject didn’t come up in the discussion on Facebook, but one objection I’ve also heard is that sharing about happiness is insensitive, not taking into consideration the pain of living in a fallen world. The assumption seems to be that the kind of happiness I’m talking about is some bubbly, Pollyanna-ish state that ignores or minimizes suffering.

On the contrary, Christ-followers don’t preach the flimsy kind of happiness that’s built on wishful thinking. Instead, our basis for happiness remains true—and sometimes becomes clearer—in suffering. Until Christ cures this world, our happiness in Christ will be punctuated by sorrow. Yet somehow an abiding joy is possible even in suffering. Christians are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Rejoicing always in the Lord (see Philippians 4:4) may seem unrealistic at times. But we must remember that this rejoicing is centered not in a passing circumstance but in a constant reality—God Himself, and His Son, Jesus, who died for us and rose again. Nothing about the biblical call to rejoice in the Lord always, and rejoice in all circumstances, denies the reality of pain and grief. God understands it, and in fact, God endured it more than any other person in human history in the person of Christ on the cross.

See Is It Possible to Be Happy in Christ Despite Suffering? and The Early Christians Experienced Happiness in Christ Despite Suffering; So Can We.

The Good News: in Jesus, We Are Offered Eternal Happiness

It was great to read this person’s insights:

I was raised to believe happiness was worldly. Stripping away “the world” was obedience and holiness. Those were the respected believers in the church. Wow! God wasn’t much fun. Years later, God peels away my actions and hardness of heart to reveal His awesome love towards me. Nothing I do has anything to do with this mind-bending love. It’s unearned, and Jesus’s blood sealed it and covered me. Now all happiness and joy [are] from His hand and I worship Him for [that] daily. I serve a GOOD God!

And this one: “Mind boggling that our Great Savior is concerned that much with our welfare that He would go to such great lengths to ensure His children are happy. It is still just hard for me to believe about Him. Mind blowing.”

Mind-blowing indeed. And such good news. I believe many of our misconceptions about happiness come from a misunderstanding God’s character. If God is not happy, then He cannot be our source of happiness. He cannot give us what He does not have. An unhappy God would never value the happiness of His creatures. And we would have no reason to believe we would enjoy everlasting happiness in His presence.

This is why I give considerable attention to the biblical teaching that God is happy in my books Happiness and Does God Want Us to Be Happy? Only when we understand this can we believe that God wants us to be happy. For more, see: Exploring the Happiness of Jesus and Christ, the Wisdom of God.

May we today, in our own lives and families and churches, add our names to the list of Christ-followers throughout the ages who believed that God is happy, that Jesus His Son is happy, and that the gospel we believe and embrace and share with others is a happy one.

Photo by Irina Iriser on Unsplash

God Is Sovereign Whether We Choose to Believe It or Not

I don’t know whether the builder of the Titanic really said, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship,” but I do know that human arrogance daily makes foolish claims that beg to be disproven. Many centuries before Napoleon’s conquest of Britain was thwarted by a providentially timed rainstorm, another arrogant ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, made a humbling discovery. God promised to take Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom from him for a time, and told him, “Your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules” (Daniel 4:26). That’s exactly what happened, and the truly humbled king afterward insisted that God “does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:35).

Our God is sovereign.

One helpful definition of God’s sovereignty affirms that everything is under God’s rule and that nothing in the universe happens unless He either causes or permits it.

Theologian Abraham Kuyper explained, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine’!”

“Dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:28). Because God has absolute power, no one—including demons and humans who choose to violate His moral will—can thwart His ultimate purpose.

Paul wrote, “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). What does “everything” not include?

Even what appears random is not: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from Yahweh” (Proverbs 16:33). If we believe this, our reaction to many of the difficulties we face will change. Problems will seem smaller, for although we can’t control them, we know God can—and that everything will work out for His glory and our good.

God is sovereign over evil and disaster.

Though evil had no part in God’s original creation, it was part of His original plan, because redemption from evil was part of His plan. Therefore, Scripture doesn’t distance God from disasters and secondary evils the way His children often do. Amos 3:6 says, “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” A description of natural disasters follows in Amos 4:6–12, where God says He intended these not only as punishment but also as discipline designed to draw His people back to Himself. (These passages have specific contexts in which God is bringing judgment on His people; they do not prove that all disasters are God’s judgment.)

Satan may bring about a “natural” disaster, but the book of Job makes clear that God continues to reign, even while selectively allowing Satan to do evil things.

Evil never takes God by surprise, nor makes Him helpless.

God isn’t the author of evil, but He is the author of a story that includes evil. In His sovereignty, He intended from the beginning to permit evil, then to turn evil on its head and use it for a redemptive good. God didn’t devise His redemptive plan on the fly, simply making the best of events that spiraled out of His control.

God is sovereign in the outworking of historical events.

Jesus declared that some events “must” happen, in line with Scripture and God’s sovereign will, among them, “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Matthew 16:21).

Because of what the triune God knew and decided in eternity past, Jesus not only might or could go to the cross, but had to. God chose.

Peter, speaking to a Jerusalem crowd, said of Christ, “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). God planned His redemptive work and did what was necessary to make it happen.

God is sovereign over disabilities and diseases.

Every day since 1985 I’ve had to deal with the implications of my insulin-dependent diabetes. As a result, I recognize my absolute dependence on God. This has drawn me closer to Him, and I’m deeply grateful.

Some Christians try to distance God from disabilities, arguing that if we attribute them to the sovereign hand of God, we’re making Him out to be a monster. This argument doesn’t change what Exodus 4:11 actually says with startling clarity, that God directly claims to give people their disabilities: “Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?’”

I may fail to understand it, but if the Bible is my authority, don’t I have to believe it? I’ve spoken with many disabled people who didn’t find comfort until they came to believe God made them as they are.

My brilliant friend David O’Brien lived with a severe form of cerebral palsy since birth, and yet he demonstrated joy that transcended his body’s bondage.

At a conference for the disabled, David commented, “If Christ had to suffer to be made complete, how can we expect not to have some form of suffering?” Then he said something unforgettable: “God tailors a package of suffering best suited for each of his own.”

David spoke the following, in words difficult to understand, yet prophetically clear: “Dare I question God’s wisdom in making me the way I am?”

Skeptics may say of disabled believers, “They’re denying reality and finding false comfort. If there’s a God who loves them, he wouldn’t treat them like this.”

David’s audience found better reasons to believe and worship the sovereign God who purchased their resurrection with His blood—and who offers them comfort and perspective—than to believe the skeptics who’ve purchased nothing for them and offer only hopelessness.

We can trust God’s loving sovereignty in every hardship.

Benjamin B. Warfield taught at Princeton Seminary for thirty-four years until his death in 1921. Students still read his books today yet few know his story. On their honeymoon, lightning struck his wife, Annie, permanently paralyzing her. Warfield cared for her until she died. Because of her extreme needs, Warfield seldom left his home for more than two hours at a time during thirty-nine years of marriage.

Warfield viewed his personal trials through the lens of Romans 8:28–29 and wrote this:

The fundamental thought is the universal government of God. …If He governs all, then nothing but good can befall those to whom He would do good.… And He will so govern all things that we shall reap only good from all that befalls us.

Really, Dr. Warfield? Only good from all that befalls us? Warfield spoke from the playing field of suffering, answering an emphatic yes to the loving sovereignty of God.

Our state of mind determines whether the doctrine of God’s sovereignty comforts or threatens us.

Charles Spurgeon wrote, “There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty.…On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings.”

Imagining that God should let us run life our way sets us up to resent God and even “lose our faith” when our lives don’t go as we want. However, that’s a faith we should lose—to be replaced with faith in the God of sovereign grace who doesn’t keep us from all difficulties but promises to be with us in all difficulties.

God has a way of making what seems worst into the very best.

Nancy Guthrie writes of a speaker asking people to fold a paper in half. She then instructed them to write on the top half the worst things that had happened to them, and on the bottom half the best things.

Invariably, you’ll find things at the top of the page that are also at the bottom. Experiences labeled as the worst things that had ever happened, will, over time, give birth to some of the best things.

It’s the same with my own list. If enough time has passed since some of those “worst things” have happened, then almost certainly we’ll find an overlap.

Our lists provide persuasive proof that while evil and suffering are not good, God can use them to accomplish immeasurable good. Knowing this should give us great confidence that even when we don’t see any redemptive meaning in our present suffering, God can see it…and one day so will we.

Adapted from Randy's book  hand in Hand: The Beauty of God's Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice .

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