Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 99

Looking for the Good in a World of Bad News: God at Work through His Church

I appreciated this encouraging article by Daniel Ritchie about how God is at work through His church. As I shared in a blog post a few months back, God is doing great things worldwide using His people—but we won’t hear about them if we just keep watching the news or reading social media and don’t purposefully go to other and better sources, and if we don’t open our eyes to His work in local churches.

Having been part of the same local church for 42 years, trust me when I say I am not stranger to problems in the church! But I am also no stranger to the beauty and goodness and local and global fruit of church life—though I would be had we chosen to walk away from church the various times we were tempted to. (Of course, God can call people to leave a church and go to or even start another one, and that happened to us 42 years ago! My concern is with giving up on all churches, which is increasingly common.)

May we never forget that our God is present with us and the local church, and at work in the world every minute of every hour of every day! —Randy Alcorn

His Bride Is Still Beautiful

By Daniel Ritchie

We live in an age of constant bad news. Mass shootings, wildfires, hurricanes, social and political division, distrust in the highest levels of government—everywhere you look it seems the world is holding on by a thread.

Turning your gaze to the church doesn’t seem to make things better. You see stories of pastors falling into sin and disqualifying themselves from ministry. There are heaps of abuse allegations. More churches than ever focus on felt needs rather than gospel truth.

But what if the church isn’t as bad as we assume? When we dig deeper, we see that social media thrive on bad news and drama while shoving good news off to the side. Perhaps the problem isn’t the church so much as the platform where we get our news.

Healthy Churches Aren’t Newsworthy

Having spent the last year on the road as a speaker and evangelist, I have seen all sorts of churches from the East Coast to the West Coast. I’ve been in churches of 30 people and churches of 5,000. Traditional worship, contemporary worship, and everything in between. All sorts of backgrounds and demographics. Different places, different churches who worship the same God and share the same gospel.

These churches are witnessing lives pass from darkness to light. They’re meeting physical needs in their community. They’re raising a voice of change for people who don’t have the strength to muster a voice of their own.

Everywhere you look, the church is thriving. So why don’t you hear about it? It’s not sexy. No one will tweet about a church hosting an after-school program for at-risk elementary kids. Nobody wants to do a news story on the five people you baptized last week. Yet as Twitter is silent, heaven rejoices.

We don’t have to fall for the cultural narrative that the church is a lost cause. She certainly has her issues, and there is much work to be done, but the bride of Christ is still beautiful. She is clothed in splendor and is washed in the water of God’s Word. No matter where we worship, there are plenty of things we can thank God for.

As we discard the clickbait caricatures, may we thank God for three beautiful things we can see in his church today.

1. God’s Family

Through the work of the cross, God has adopted us as sons and daughters. He has given us relationships that are unbreakable and deep. We’re not bound by preference or personality; we’re brought together by grace and maintained in love.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph. 4:15–16)

Our relationship to the church is built and maintained by love: love of God and love of others. This global body is held together by God’s steady hand, that he may be glorified and his church may be edified.

2. God’s Mission

A God-centered church is a God-sent church. John 20:21 reminds us that just as the Father sent Jesus to the world, so he sends us. Every day and every relationship offers us the opportunity to share his gospel.

And just as God said, the gospel is spreading. Young and old. Rich and poor. The church is growing by leaps and bounds in places where you’d least expect it. He is calling dead men to life, and he’s using the church to do it. He’s using your church to do it. God has sovereignly placed your church so that it may be a light on a hill for all your town to see.

3. God’s Glory

Even as all of creation sings of God’s amazing attributes, his church doesn’t fail to tell of his works. Everywhere the body of Christ goes, it carries the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus can be clearly seen in his church.

God has given us a hope that doesn’t fade and a call that never grows old. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28). We received what we could never earn, which is why we sing of a hope that will never fail.

Though our local church may have issues, God still sees his bride. And so should we. May we give thanks for what the cross has won us: an unfailing hope and an unchanging purpose to see Jesus magnified in all the world.

Daniel Ritchie is a speaker and writer from Huntersville, North Carolina. He is a husband and father of two and the author of My Affliction for His Glory. He also writes at www.danielritchie.org, 

This article originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition and is used with permission of the author.

Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash

Did you know EPM sends out a free biannual magazine called Eternal Perspectives? It’s full of articles from Randy Alcorn and others, helping you to live in light of eternity. You’ll also get previews and news about Randy’s new and upcoming books. We would love to send you a copy of our latest spring/summer issue. Sign up here (check “Eternal Perspectives Magazine” under “Stay connected with our ministry,” then select “I would prefer to receive a copy by mail”). You’ll also be signed up to receive the next issue in the mail this fall. It’s a great way to keep in touch with our ministry and be encouraged in your walk with Christ!

Is an Unborn Child a Parasite, Living off Another Person’s Body without Permission?

Some abortion advocates argue that even if a “fetus” is actually a person, that doesn’t change the fact that one person does not have the right to use the body of another person against their will (in this case, against the mother’s will). Therefore, she should have the right to “evict” the fetus from her body.

In his book Abortion Practice, Warren Hern, one of the world’s most prominent abortionists, wrote that “the relationship between the [mother] and the [baby] can be understood best as one of host and parasite.” [1] He’s not alone in this view. One woman, referring to the twins she was pregnant with and later aborted, wrote, “Right now it’s just a parasite only living off of me. I would survive in this world without a host. The definition of a parasite.” [2]

In a recent article for The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino writes, “If the fetus is a person, it is a person who possesses, as Sally Rooney put it in the London Review of Books, ‘a vastly expanded set of legal rights, rights available to no other class of citizen’—the right to ‘make free, non-consensual use of another living person’s uterus and blood supply, and cause permanent, unwanted changes to another person’s body.’ In the relationship between woman and fetus, she wrote, the woman is ‘granted fewer rights than a corpse.’” [3]

“Kidnapped” for Nine Months?

Years ago, abortion-rights advocate Judith Jarvis Thomson invented an analogy that was widely quoted in prochoice literature and debates. She compares pregnancy to a situation in which someone wakes up strapped to a famous but unconscious violinist. Imagine, Thomson says, that some group called the Society of Music Lovers has “kidnapped” you because you have a certain blood type. Now you are being forced to stay “plugged in” to the violinist’s body for nine months until he is viable, or able to live on his own.

Thomson then asks what if it were not just nine months, but nine years or considerably longer? (Apparently this is a comparison to having to raise a child once he is born.) Thomson assumes that readers would find such a situation “outrageous” and would not consider it their obligation to be subjected to nine months—at least—of bondage and misery for the sake of the violinist, who is little more than a human parasite. [4]

This analogy is worth a closer examination, because it is typical of the way the abortion issue is framed by prochoice advo­cates and by many young people in our society. I’ll address four fallacies of this argument that cut to the heart of the abortion debate.

1. Over 99 percent of all pregnancies are the result of sexual relations in which both partners have willingly participated. One is rarely coerced into pregnancy. Though prolifers may be in Thomson’s mind, neither they nor anyone else is parallel to the Society of Music Lovers. No one is going around forcing people to get pregnant. The outrage the reader feels at the idea of being kidnapped and coerced is an effective emotional device, but it is a distortion of reality.

2. In this scenario, mother and child are pitted against each other as enemies. The mother is at best merely a life-support system and at worst the victim of a crime. The child is a leech, a parasite unfairly taking advantage of the mother. Love, compassion, and care are nowhere present. The bonding between mother and child is totally ignored. The picture of a woman waking up in a bed, strapped to a strange unconscious man is bizarre and degrading to women, whose preg­nancy and motherhood are natural. “The violinist is artificially attached to the woman,” Greg Koukl writes. “A mother’s unborn baby, however, is not surgically connected, nor was it ever ‘attached’ to her. Instead, the baby is being produced by the mother’s own body by the natural process of reproduction.” [5]

3. The child’s presence during pregnancy is rarely more inconvenient than his presence after birth. The burden of a born child is usually greater on a woman than the burden of an unborn. Yet if a parent of a two-year-old decides that she is tired of being a parent and that no one has the right to expect her to be one any longer, society nonetheless recognizes that she has certain responsibilities toward that child. She can surrender him for foster care or adoption, but she cannot abuse, neglect, or kill the child. If the solution to the stresses of pregnancy is killing the preborn child, is killing not also the solution to the stresses of par­enting the preschooler?

Greg Koukl says, “What if the mother woke up from an accident to find herself surgically connected to her own child? What kind of mother would willingly cut the life-support system to her two-year-old in a situation like that? And what would we think of her if she did?” [6]

4. Even when there is no felt obligation, there is sometimes real obligation. If a woman is being raped or murdered, what do we think of those who make no effort to rescue the woman? Don’t we recognize that there is moral responsibility toward saving a life, even if it involves an inconvenience or risk we did not ask for or want? Scott Klusendorf writes, “We may not have the obligation to sustain strangers who are unnaturally plugged into us, but we do have a duty to sustain our own offspring.” [7]

For the woman carrying a child, isn’t it a significant consideration that her own mother made the same sacrifice for her? Can we forget that every one of us was once that “leech,” that “parasite,” that “violinist” dependent on our mothers in order to live? Aren’t you glad your mother looked at pregnancy—and looked at you—differently than portrayed by this prochoice analogy?

A Symptom of a Broken Society

This argument for abortion is based in utilitarianism, the idea that whatever brings a person momentary happiness or relief is the right course of action. This is a shaky foundation for any society that hopes to be moral and just in its treatment of the weak and needy.

As Michael Spielman, the founder and director of Abort73, says, “The absolute dependence of unborn children has become the rationale, not for their protection, but for their destruction! The fact that so many mothers think of their child as a parasite is a scary indictment of our society.” [8]  (On the issue of an unborn child’s dependency, don’t miss this recent post with a great video answer from Kirsten Watson, wife of Ben Watson, a highly respected veteran tight end in the NFL.)

Browse more prolife articles and resources, as well as see Randy’s books Why ProLife? and ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments.

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

[1] Warren M. Hern, Abortion Practice (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1990), 14.

[2] Michael Spielman, “Publicly Aborting Twins on Instagram,” Abort73, September 12, 2014, http://abort73.com/blog/publicly_aborting_twins_on_instagram/.

[3] Jia Tolentino, “The Messiness of Reproduction and the Dishonesty of Anti-Abortion Propaganda,” The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-messiness-of-reproduction-and-the-dishonesty-of-anti-abortion-propaganda.

[4] Judith Jarvis Thomson, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1971): 47–66.

[5] Greg Koukl, “Unstringing the Violinist,” Stand to Reason, http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5689.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Scott Klusendorf, “My Body, My Choice? How to Defeat Bodily Autonomy Claims,” Life Training Institute, https://prolifetraining.com/resources/five-minute-12/.

[8] John W. Kennedy, “The Hidden Holocaust,” Power for Living (January 18, 2009): 7.

Let’s Anticipate the Incredible Experience of Worshipping in Heaven with All God’s People

Most people know that we’ll worship God in Heaven. But they don’t grasp how thrilling that will be. Multitudes of God’s people—of every nation, tribe, people, and language—will gather to sing praise to God for His greatness, wisdom, power, grace, and mighty work of redemption (Revelation 5:13-14). Overwhelmed by His magnificence, we will fall on our faces in unrestrained happiness and say, “Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” (Revelation 7:9-12).

Will we always be on our faces at Christ’s feet, worshiping Him? No, because Scripture says we’ll be doing many other things—living in dwelling places, eating and drinking, reigning with Christ, and working for Him. Scripture depicts people standing, walking, traveling in and out of the city, and gathering at feasts. When doing these things, we won’t be on our faces before Christ. Nevertheless, all that we do will be an act of worship. We’ll enjoy full and unbroken fellowship with Christ. At times this will crescendo into greater heights of praise as we assemble with the multitudes who are also worshiping Him.

So the next time you’re singing in church, expand your mind to anticipate worshiping with the entire assembled body of Christ. Imagine it now, with the following scene from my novel Edge of Eternity spurring on your thoughts. The scene occurs on the day Nick observes— and joins—Heaven’s army in its final cosmic campaign against the forces of darkness:

We rejoined our comrades in the great camp of Charis, embracing and shedding tears and slapping each other on the back. Then warriors around me turned toward the masses of untold millions gathered in Charis. The army began to sing, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million.

I added my voice to theirs and sang the unchained praises of the King. Only for a moment did I hear my own voice, amazed to detect the increased intensity of the whole. One voice, even mine, made a measurable difference. But from then on I was lost in the choir, hardly hearing my voice and not needing to.

As we sang to the gathered throngs of Charis, the sheer power of their voices, our voices, nearly bowled me over.

Then suddenly the multitudes before us sang back to us, and our voices were drowned by theirs. We who a moment earlier seemed the largest choir ever assembled now proved to be only the small worship ensemble that led the full choir of untold millions, now lost to themselves. We sang together in full voice, “To him who made the galaxies, who became the Lamb, who stretched out on the tree, who crossed the chasm, who returned the Lion! Forever!”

The song’s harmonies reached out and grabbed my body and my soul. I became the music’s willing captive.

The galaxies and nebulae sang with us the royal song. It echoed off a trillion planets and reverberated in a quadrillion places in every nook and cranny of the universe. The song generated the light of a billion burning supernovae. It blotted out all lesser lights and brought a startling clarity to the way things really were. It didn’t blind, it illuminated, and I saw as never before.

Our voices broke into thirty-two distinct parts, and instinctively I knew which of them I was made to sing. “We sing for joy at the work of your hands…we stand in awe of you.” It felt indescribably wonderful to be lost in something so much greater than myself.

There was no audience, I thought for a moment, for audience and orchestra and choir all blended into one great symphony, one grand cantata of rhapsodic melodies and powerful sustaining harmonies.

No, wait, there was an audience. An audience so vast and all-encompassing that for a moment I’d been no more aware of it than a fish is aware of water.

I looked at the great throne, and upon it sat the King…the Audience of One.

The smile of His approval swept through the choir like fire across dry wheat fields.

When we completed our song, the one on the throne stood and raised His great arms and clapped His scarred hands together in thunderous applause, shaking ground and sky, jarring every corner of the cosmos. His applause went on and on, unstopping and unstoppable.

And in that moment I knew, with unwavering clarity, that the King’s approval was all that mattered—and ever would.

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

Photo by Rachel Lynette French on Unsplash

Remembering David Powlison, a Faithful, Jesus-Loving, and Gospel-Centered Brother

Last Friday, author and psychologist David Powlison went to be with Jesus. I love this brother. I met and talked with him only once, but I will never forget the sweetness of his spirit, and how I saw Jesus in him. His books (a few of which he asked me to endorse) and his articles made a difference in my life, and the lives of countless others. And the updates he shared after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September are gold.

Over the years I’ve read and recommended several of David’s books, including Speaking Truth in Love, God’s Grace in Your Suffering, and Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness, as well as his booklets Stress: Peace Amid Pressure and Breaking the Addictive Cycle. I also quoted from him in some of my own books. His insights were penetrating and gospel-centered:

“Don’t ever degenerate into giving good advice unconnected with the good news of Jesus crucified, alive, present, at work, and returning.”

“God does not accept me just as I am; he loves me despite how I am…He loves me enough to devote my life to renewing me in the image of Jesus.”

“Are you too bad to receive grace? How could you be too bad to receive what is for the bad?”

“Jesus’ death is your guarantee that when you come to God and confess your sins to him, you will receive mercy.”

Thank you, David, for honoring King Jesus with your life. I’m sad for your loved ones, but glad for you that you are enjoying His presence. I can’t wait to see you again. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

There have already been a number of wonderful tributes to David, including this one from John Piper and this one from Kevin DeYoung (as well as this great overview of David’s life, from Justin Taylor). But I’m focusing on the following article by Ray Ortlund because not only is it a tribute to David, it is also a powerful and practical help and challenge for all our lives. Let Ray’s wonderful story be a conduit by which David Powlison, who “being dead still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4), speaks to you, realizing he is more alive than ever in the presence of Jesus.

How God-honoring if people will be able to say such things of us before and after we die! (And if they couldn’t if we died today, why not call upon God’s grace and power and make conscious efforts to spend the rest of our lives becoming the kind of people others could honestly tell such stories about?)

Thank you, David Powlison

By Ray Ortlund

Remembering David Powlison moves me deeply. When everything was on the line for Jani and me, David and Nan were there for us.

We spent a day together in 2007—for Jani and me, a catastrophic disaster of a year. David was an oasis of calm, gentleness, and reasonableness amid a swirl of accusations, loss, and heartbreak. David, with Nan, kept our hope alive.

One suggestion David made became so significant that I have passed it along to many others since then. I can’t remember his exact words. But it went something like this: “Ray and Jani, you are suffering. And it isn’t going to get better any time soon. So here is an idea. Ask the Lord for a verse of Scripture, a promise in the Bible, to help you get through this. And when that verse jumps off the page into your heart, make it the theme of your life while you slog your way forward. However dark the nighttime sky might be, you can always look up at that North Star promise, get your bearings again, and keep going. But wallpaper your reality with the Word of God.”

So we did. We asked the Lord to personalize to us some biblical encouragement of his own choosing. And he did. Jani was reading 1 Peter 5 soon thereafter, and verse 10 was a direct hit—in the best of ways: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” We seized that verse.

We memorized 1 Peter 5:10, discussed it, prayed over it. Jani wrote it out on 3×5 cards and taped them to the inside of the kitchen cupboards, so that every time she went to get a glass or a plate, there was 1 Peter 5:10. I wrote it out and stuck it to the visor in my truck so that, at a red light, I could look up and be strengthened by 1 Peter 5:10. We never let that verse out of our sight. And in ways we could not have imagined, God has proved faithful to his promise. To this day, whenever Jani and I experience some restoring, confirming, strengthening, or establishing mercy, we look at one another and say, “1 Peter 5:10!” In fact, we did so just yesterday. That word from above didn’t merely help us cope. It redefined how we experience reality. It kept me in the ministry.

David Powlison understood human despair. He understood how God helps sufferers. He understood that what we need is a hope dependent on nothing in this world but grounded in God alone. The word himself in 1 Peter 5:10 has become, to me, one of the most precious words in all the Bible—God, not delegating the task to any angel, but God himself getting personally and directly involved with us in our real need. How glorious.

At the time, I have to admit that, though my heart resonated with 1 Peter 5:10, I struggled to believe it. Jani believed it more than I could. But David was right. And thanks to his wise counsel, I turned toward the Lord with the weak faith I had. And gradually I was enabled to believe it more and more. And now I know, at a deep and personal level, that God himself restores, confirms, strengthens, and establishes us, when we have nothing to offer him but our sorrow and need.

Thank you, David. Thank you.

This post originally appeared on Ray’s blog and is used by permission.

4 Lies That Give Us an Unbalanced View of Singleness

Today’s blog post, on the subject of singleness, is a helpful one by Elizabeth Woodson. She’s a passionate Bible teacher who serves on staff at The Village Church writing curriculum, teaching, and developing leaders. She’s also a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary with a master’s in Christian education. 

And by the way, let me again recommend Christopher Yuan’s excellent book Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. His chapters on singleness, and the church as spiritual family, are a wakeup call for local churches to rethink our unwitting assumption that marriage is God’s calling for everyone. Scripture emphatically tells us otherwise, and demonstrates it in the singleness of Jesus who was not only God, but also the most well-adjusted human being who ever lived. —Randy Alcorn

Many unmarried people in the church struggle to accept the label “single,” since churches can treat singles as second-class citizens. This treatment rests on wrong teaching about singleness. Simply put, the church can idolize marriage and make it the ultimate goal for maturity in Christ, relegating singles—no matter how old—to perpetual immaturity until they find someone to marry.

Confusing marriage with maturity has always been wrong, but it was easy when marriage was a cultural norm for the American church. At the turn of the century a large majority of the general population was married; in the 1970s the marriage rate had dropped to 70 percent; and by 2014 it had dropped to 50 percent. The inescapable reality is that countless congregations include singles of all ages. The church needs to learn how to love singles better—and the first step is repairing broken theology.

While this list isn’t exhaustive, here are four major lies that contribute to an unbalanced theology of singleness. By correcting these misguided interpretations of Scripture, we’ll be better equipped to love and serve the unmarried people in our congregations.

Lie 1: Single = Alone

“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’” (Gen. 2:18).

Outside the companionship of animals and God, Adam was functionally alone. By default, he was also single. God declared that being on mission alone is problematic, and so he gave Adam a wife to help him.

We tend to approach Genesis 2:18 as a prescriptive text, concluding that God’s solution for lack of companionship is marriage. Yet if this is true, what does it imply about being single? It would mean God doesn’t think singleness is good. But if that were true, why were some of the major characters in Scripture single, including John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul?

To understand this text we need to widen our lens. I believe Genesis 2:18 is a descriptive text from which we can extract the prescriptive truth that living outside of community isn’t good. God created us to live in the context of relationships, and those relationships look different for different people.

For some of us, community will take the form of a spouse and kids. For others, it will look like a good network of friends and extended family members. For all of us, it will mean belonging to a local church.

Lie 2: Your Value Is in a Role

“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels” (Prov. 31:10).

I’m particularly sensitive about the messages we send single women regarding their value and significance in God’s kingdom. One phrase I’ve heard consistently is that a woman’s greatest fulfillment comes from being a wife and a mother. And for many of us, Proverbs 31is the passage that springs to mind when we ponder what it means to be the epitome of a godly woman.

Yes, the Proverbs 31 woman is an example of spiritual maturity, but not simply because she was managing her home and providing for her family. It was because she embodied godly character.

Temporary life roles—like wife or mother—aren’t the ultimate markers of godliness. We should most strongly accent the godly character that will help a believer glorify God in anyseason of life. There is nothing special you need to be successful in marriage that you don’t need in singleness. No matter our marital status, we still need to confess and forgive, communicate well, and die to self every day. Let’s encourage singles to place their value not in what is temporary, but in what is ultimate: godliness.

Lie 3: Marriage Is Guaranteed

“Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).

Context is crucial here. When we don’t read Scripture in context, we can make God responsible for promises he never made. David wrote Psalm 37 to remind God’s discouraged people that God would bring justice and bless their faithfulness. David wasn’t giving a blanket guarantee that whatever they desired God would grant, simply because the desire was good.

Sometimes people conscript this verse to teach about marriage, leaving many singles angry and bitter toward a God who never promised them marriage in the first place.

Not all godly people get married.

The truth is, not all godly people get married. We need to embrace this, preach this, and celebrate this! God’s best for many will include a life without a spouse and biological children. These people will know him more deeply, serve him more powerfully, and experience greater joy than they could as a married person. Not because singleness is better, but because marriage wasn’t part of God’s perfect will for their life.

No matter how deeply we desire it, Scripture never guarantees marriage. But it does teach us to “not be anxious for anything, but with prayer, supplication, and with thanksgiving make [our] requests known to God and the peace of God will guard [our] hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6–7).

Scripture also teaches that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isa. 55:9). We can ask God for whatever we desire—but he reserves the right to decide what’s best for us. And his “best” is never a consolation prize.

Lie 4: Marriage = Happiness

One common perception of marriage is that it’s near-perfect bliss. Social media, movies, TV shows, and books communicate that all our “single problems” will be solved when Prince Charming swoops in on his white horse and rescues us. In reality, marriage is two deeply broken people joining their deeply broken lives to become one.

Wherever we’ve believed one of these lies, our theology of singleness needs to be revised. We need to dethrone our idol of marriage and learn to define our identity the way God does. He views singleness and marriage as equally blessed gifts to be stewarded for his glory (1 Cor. 7:7). Do we share his vision?

This article originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition and is used by permission of the author.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

My Concerns about the Responses to David Platt and Sunday’s Visit by President Trump; and a Call to Repentance

In my previous blog post, I shared a letter from Pastor David Platt, who publicly prayed for President Trump when he came unannounced to McLean Bible Church last Sunday. When we posted a link to the article on my Facebook page, there were a lot of comments, many of which were bewildering and saddening to me.

I’m not talking about mere disagreement, which is normal and which I welcome; this was something far deeper than differing opinions. This will be a longer blog than normal, because I believe there is much to be said, and it’s important.

One commenter wrote, “I am having a hard time figuring out how the act of prayer ‘hurt’ people in the congregation. There are very hard things that require preaching, this pastor probably avoids them. Sad.”

Another wrote, “He was doing what God biblically instructed and his church members are complaining and whining!!!! Whaaat??? THIS is what’s wrong with the church. Follow the Bible NOT your members. Extremely disappointed in this pastor.”

Yet another said, “Sensitivities??? Church members who in any way objected should be admonished, not appeased.”

Based on dozens of comments that were made defending praying for the president, I followed up to clarify that no one’s objection was to praying for President Trump! Like many churches, McLean regularly obeys the command of 1 Timothy 2:2, to pray for those in authority, as Platt clearly stated. We should pray for every president. That is not even slightly controversial. I suggested that I thought the issue of discomfort of some in the church was not about praying for the president, but about the possibility that a political leader showed up to be prayed for publicly rather than privately as an attempt to use the church and the pastor for political purposes.

I don’t know the president’s heart in why he asked to be prayed for publicly rather than privately. God knows, but we don’t. It might reflect a sincere spiritual desire, and I certainly hope it does. But I was defending Platt’s choice to honor his request for public prayer, and take advantage of the opportunity to privately share gospel truth with him as well.

A Double Standard?

As I said in my first post, I believe David Platt, under exactly the same circumstances, would have done the same for President Obama. Had he done so, I suspect some who are saying no one should oppose prayer for the president might have said, “David Platt and his church and its platform were used to promote a liberal president with this contrived photo-op. As a pastor he should be ashamed of himself. If Obama wanted prayer, why didn’t be come to the pastor privately? Why make a big show of it? And why didn’t he show up to hear the sermon from God’s Word?”

Had David Platt then written a letter saying he didn’t mean to cause disunity in the body by having President Obama on the platform, would that letter have been viewed differently by those of different political persuasions? I think so.

The hot-button nature of politics in our country is exactly why I came to the defense of David Platt, who managed to offend people simultaneously on both sides of the political aisle. With the high profile pastors who have been exposed for sexual immorality, financial impropriety, and bullying their churches, I want to stand with the many good-hearted, Bible-believing, Christ-centered, grace-and-truth filled pastors out there. I don’t put David Platt on a pedestal; of course he makes mistakes, just like I do. But in this situation I believe he did it right—especially since he had no time to call for a meeting of leaders or congregation to discuss what to do.

In other words I disagree with both the liberals and the conservatives who have been roasting, belittling, and demeaning Platt for just being a pastor seeking to honor Jesus, respecting the biblical call to pray for leaders, and caring for his church flock with a commendable sensitivity in keeping with 1 Peter 5 and other passages.

I was struck by the scores of commenters saying that we should not apologize for praying for a president. But I have never heard any Christian say we shouldn’t pray for a president! Acting like some believers are against prayer for our leaders is a straw man argument against people who don’t exist.  This obscures the real issue, which is much more difficult: do we believe we should welcome any president who requests standing on a church platform to be prayed for, and then to shake the pastor’s hand, knowing this will result in major news coverage?

Personally, I think the answer is yes! If the president, or any future president, shows up in your church, I hope your pastor will do what David Platt did. Now, if you have advance notice and can request a private meeting, sure, that’s better. And if he shows up in a public meeting, I don’t think he should speak, since a church platform is for worshipping God and preaching His Word, not for the promotion of personal or political agendas.

I think what I’m suggesting is a helpful question for both those who are outraged about President Trump being on the church platform and those others who are outraged that some in the church didn’t like or understand what happened. The question for both sides is this: Would you have viewed it differently—either negatively or positively—if it had been President Obama instead of President Trump?

If so, does that mean 1 Timothy 2:2 should be obeyed only when we like someone and not when we don’t? Isn’t this a double standard that shows a serious disregard for the meaning of that passage? Don’t brush this off. I think we all need to examine our hearts in this.

I’m grateful for a couple of conservative commenters who thought this through and realized they would have responded much differently to President Obama appearing on a church platform than President Trump doing so—just as many liberals who opposed what happened would have been happy with it had it been President Obama. The lesson is that even when we quote Scripture, we tend to apply it differently when we like or dislike the particular political leader.

Not an Apology

Despite it being repeatedly said (and reported) that he did so, in his letter of explanation, Platt did NOT apologize or say he was sorry he had prayed for the president. Rather he tried to clarify what happened and why, while showing understanding for his people who didn’t agree. Still, the Facebook comments about my blog were filled with those who insisted he apologized for praying for President Trump:

“I just read that your Pastor Platt apologized for praying for Trump?! That breaks my heart as I’m Christian and we should NEVER apologize for our prayers!”

“No Christian, and certainly no pastor, should ever regret and then apologize for praying for anyone in public, especially for the President of the United States who came to his church as a guest of his own accord. I am appalled that David Platt would do so. This is a big issue, giant actually, and the wicked liberals are dancing in delight at what Platt did.”

“Why would ANY pastor feel the need to justify a public prayer for any government leader? The tone of this blog saddens me and demonstrates the extremely weak condition of many churches in America today.”

“There was no need to justify praying for the President. President Trump is our President. Being sensitive or whatever the politically correct word is these days to non-Trump supporters is ridiculous.”

What does it say about our culture (and our church culture) that merely explaining something to your church with a display of kindness is perceived as apologizing (which is seen as weakness)?

I continue to support Pastor Platt both for praying for our president and sharing the gospel with him, AND for being sensitive to the fact that there are some in his multicultural church who were hurt by what was interpreted by them as an endorsement of a political agenda, some of which they consider hostile and threatening to people like themselves and their families. This pastor loves his WHOLE church and is concerned to shepherd them tenderly and to teach them to follow Jesus, and become Christ’s disciples. This is his primary goal, not to make people into good conservatives or good independents or good liberals.

I am grateful for the many pastors like David Platt who put Jesus and His church before any political agenda, and who say to His people with the apostle Paul, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). I truly love my earthly country, the U.S.A., but I love God’s Kingdom more. Pastors and believers who get this backwards end up undermining the Gospel and committing idolatry by putting their political agendas in the place of God. While I am theologically conservative and prolife and more often politically conservative than liberal, I am very aware Jesus did not say “Follow Conservatism” or “Follow Liberalism.” He said, “Follow me.”

God’s Word and Our Words

As I read through the 330 or so Facebook comments on Wednesday’s blog, I was particularly troubled by the mischaracterizations of and harsh accusations against David Platt made by people who clearly know nothing about him. He is a Christ-centered, Bible-based, and humble brother. We all know pastors aren’t perfect, but a number of things that were said about David in the comments do not reflect an accurate understanding of what actually happened and what David Platt said, and who he is. In fact, a number of these things are just plain false. What people said about me bothers me far less than what they said about him:  

“Can’t stand David Platt and respect him less now. I actually thought he did an amazing job with his prayer, but then after finding out he apologized to his congregation later made me disgusted. He’s pandering to his liberal membership and he himself is a social justice warrior.”

“Your view, Randy Alcorn, makes me wonder about you. Yes, I am disappointed in you. What David Platt did has damaged him in the eyes of Bible-believing Christians but now he will be elevated by the political leftists. Who does he serve?”

“I totally disagree. He did nothing to apologize for. Just yielded to pressure. Shame on you David.”

“Mr. Platt should resign and take the malcontents with him. What a disgrace.”

“Weak and pathetic excuse for a ‘pastor.’ He obviously cares more about the $$ that is funneled into his wallet from his so called Christian congregation than he cares about doing what the Bible instructs us to do......pray for our leaders, pray for one another! I’m so mad I could spit!”

I do not know the hearts of all the people I’ve quoted in this blog. I am not their judge. I have not cited anyone’s names, because I have no desire to belittle them, and in some cases I may be misreading them.

It is painful to say this, but whenever things like this happen, it seems to show that Christians are often just as prone as unbelievers to fail to read, understand, pay attention, listen, or even to think. We draw hasty and often wrong conclusions, jump on bandwagons without an accurate understanding, take offense easily, and lash out quickly. I believe it saddens Jesus to see us trash-talk and ignore and violate a host of biblical passages about misjudging people and being held accountable at the judgment seat for careless words. We seem to have a great eagerness to condemn others.  

I say this not with glee, but with a true sense of grief, yet I think Jesus wants me to say it anyway: God’s people are not to be a bickering, angry mob. We are not to be a herd of online bullies, rushing to judgment and egging each other on to defame our brothers and sisters. (Some of whom may well be more faithful and honorable in God’s sight than we are.)

My heart cries out to the Lord to do a transforming work in all of our hearts and lives, beginning with mine. For God’s glory, our good, and the good of a desperate world that needs to know Jesus, may we stop this relentless sniping at each other and become in actual thought and practice what He went to the cross to make us—His pure and spotless bride: “...just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

I believe at the core of our quickness to demean and vilify others, including our Christian brothers and sisters, is plain old pride. We trust our own judgment too much, we draw condemning conclusions about others too quickly, and we are way too eager to share our grievances and belittle others. We are in great danger when we do this. God warns us, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

He calls upon us to repent of our pride. He says, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:5–6).

I say this to myself first, and to readers second: could we please stop exalting ourselves and instead be quick to repent and humble ourselves before Him?

I encourage us all to ponder these Scripture passages, several of them spoken by Jesus, before making ill-informed judgments and speaking untrue words about others:

“I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Jesus, Matthew 12:36-37)

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Jesus, Luke 6:37)

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” (Jesus, Luke 6:37-42)

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (Jesus, John 7:24)

“Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:11-12)

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:1-3)

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)

 “Be QUICK to LISTEN, SLOW to speak, SLOW to become angry.” (James 1:19)

“Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.” (Romans 14:4)

Only One Judgment Seat

Finally, to the commenters who said they can no longer read or recommend my books because of my position in Wednesday’s blog: I believe I should live my life before the Audience of One. Just as you will not stand before my judgment seat, I won’t stand before yours. We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for all our words and actions (2 Corinthians 5:10).

My goal is not to sell more books, nor to be popular with certain demographics, nor to get as many likes on Facebook as I can. My goal is to try to follow biblical principles and faithfully represent my Lord Jesus. Sometimes I fail miserably. In this particular case, having thought it through both before and after reading the comments, I believe I have honored Christ in the position I’ve taken. If that means you can’t read my books or support our ministry, I can live with that.

I hope that more of us will learn in this life, not just after we die, to be better citizens of God’s kingdom. May we see ourselves as part of that magnificent kingdom already in Heaven and growing steadily every day, awaiting God’s New Earth. Those in Heaven are saying this to King Jesus: “Your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become a kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10, NLT).

God’s people have lived in various countries at various times, but they set an example for us by seeing themselves first and foremost as God’s children and citizens of His country, which is not yet on earth but will one day fill the earth:

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them” (Hebrews 11:13-16, NIV).

Randy has several books related to many of the issues in this blog: Grace, Truth, and The Grace and Truth Paradox.

Image: Christianpics.co

Pastor David Platt’s Reflections on Praying for the President During His Surprise Visit to McLean Bible Church

Last Sunday, June 2, President Trump showed up unannounced to McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia, which is pastored by David Platt. A White House spokesperson said the president was there to “visit with the pastor and pray for the victims and community of Virginia Beach.”

Joe Carter sets up what happened next:

“The president arrived at 2:25 pm during a musical performance and wore khakis and a jacket over a polo shirt. He held a golf hat. During the 15-minute visit to one of the D.C. metro area’s largest churches, the president made no remarks while on stage. But Platt noted there had been calls to pray for the president on this day. ‘Many of you may have seen that there were calls to, particularly on this Sunday, pray for our president,’ Platt said. “We don’t want to do that just on this Sunday. We want to do that continually, day in and day out. So I want to ask us to bow our heads together now and pray for our president.”

David has gotten some criticism from both political liberals and conservatives: some liberals who didn’t approve of allowing the president to be on the platform (for perceived photo op reasons), and some conservatives who didn’t appreciate the “apologetic” tone of the letter he wrote to his church afterward, in which he acknowledged people’s sensitivities to this situation. Personally, I really appreciated the balanced and biblical way David handled this, and I told him so.

I’m going to include the transcript of what David prayed, or you can watch the video below. But please keep reading beyond that to see more reflections from David on this event, as well as some thoughts from our friend and EPM board member Robin Green, that I think are very helpful.

O God, we praise you as the one universal king over all. You are our leader and our Lord and we worship you. There is one God and one Savior—and it’s you, and your name is Jesus. And we exalt you, Jesus. We know we need your mercy. We need your grace. We need your help. We need your wisdom in our country. And so we stand right now on behalf of our president, and we pray for your grace and your mercy and your wisdom upon him.

God, we pray that he would know how much you love him—so much that you sent Jesus to die for his sins, our sins—so we pray that he would look to you. That he would trust in you, that he would lean on you. That he would govern and make decisions in ways that are good for justice, and good for righteousness, and good for equity, every good path.

Lord we pray, we pray, that you would give him all the grace he needs to govern in ways that we just saw in 1 Timothy 2 that lead to peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way. God we pray for your blessing in that way upon his family. We pray that you would give them strength. We pray that you would give them clarity. Wisdom, wisdom, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Please, O God, give him wisdom and help him to lead our country alongside other leaders. We pray today for leaders in Congress. We pray for leaders in courts. We pray for leaders in national and state levels. Please, O God, help us to look to you, help us to trust in your Word, help us to seek your wisdom, and live in ways that reflect your love and your grace, your righteousness and your justice. We pray for your blessings on our president toward that end.

In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.

Later that day, David posted a letter to his church, explaining why he chose to pray for President Trump on stage. I love David Platt, and I believe he did the right thing in the right way. And I appreciate his sensitivities to his church:

Dear MBC Family,

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we didn’t see coming, and we’re faced with a decision in a moment when we don’t have the liberty of deliberation, so we do our best to glorify God. Today, I found myself in one of those situations.

At the end of my sermon at the 1:00 worship gathering, I stepped to the side for what I thought would be a couple of moments in quiet reflection as we prepared to take the Lord’s Supper. But I was immediately called backstage and told that the President of the United States was on his way to the church, would be there in a matter of minutes, and would like for us to pray for him. I immediately thought about my longing to guard the integrity of the gospel in our church. As I said in the sermon today, Christ alone unites us. I love that we have over 100 nations represented in our church family, including all kinds of people with varied personal histories and political opinions from varied socioeconomic situations. It’s clear in our church that the only reason we’re together is because we have the same King we adore, worship, fear, and follow with supreme love and absolute loyalty, and His name is Jesus.

That’s why, as soon as I heard this request backstage, the passage from God’s Word that came to my mind was 1 Timothy 2:1-6:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”

Based on this text, I know that it is good, and pleasing in the sight of God, to pray for the president. So in that moment, I decided to take this unique opportunity for us as a church to pray over him together. My aim was in no way to endorse the president, his policies, or his party, but to obey God’s command to pray for our president and other leaders to govern in the way this passage portrays.

I went back out to lead the Lord’s Supper and then walked off stage, where the president was soon to arrive. In that brief moment, I prayed specifically for an opportunity to speak the gospel to him, and for faithfulness to pray the gospel over him.

While I won’t go into the details of our conversation backstage, one of our other pastors and I spoke the gospel in a way that I pray was clear, forthright, and compassionate. Then I walked back out on stage, read 1 Timothy 2:1-6, and sought to pray the Word of God over the president, other leaders, and our country. … After I prayed, the president walked off stage without comment, and we closed our gathering by celebrating heroes among us, a couple who has spent the last 48 years spreading the gospel in remote places where it had never gone before they came. We then recited the Great Commission as we always do, sending one another out into the city for the glory of our King.

I wanted to share all of this with you in part because I know that some within our church, for a variety of valid reasons, are hurt that I made this decision. This weighs heavy on my heart. I love every member of this church, and I only want to lead us with God’s Word in a way that transcends political party and position, heals the hurts of racial division and injustice, and honors every man and woman made in the image of God. So while I am thankful that we had an opportunity to obey 1 Timothy 2 in a unique way today, I don’t want to purposely ever do anything that undermines the unity we have in Christ.

In the end, would you pray with me for gospel seed that was sown today to bear fruit in the president’s heart? Would you also pray with me that God will help us to guard the gospel in every way as we spread the gospel everywhere? And finally, I’m guessing that all of us will face other decisions this week where we don’t have time to deliberate on what to do. I’m praying now for grace and wisdom for all of us to do exactly what we talked about in the Word today: aim for God’s glory, align with God’s purpose, and yield to God’s sovereignty.

I love you, church.

Your Pastor,

David

I assume that David Platt would have done exactly the same thing had President Obama come to his church. We are commanded to pray for those in authority, and why would you say no to someone who comes and asks for prayer? Now, if they ask to speak from the pulpit to share their viewpoints, that’s something else. The church’s job is not to turn itself over to be a mouthpiece for politicians, but its job certainly includes interceding for them and sharing the gospel with them.

It’s one thing for presidents to have had Billy Graham come to the Oval Office, but this was more surprising, since it was on the church’s and pastor’s turf. And anyone who thought David Platt would not be faithful to the Gospel and the Word doesn’t know him. If I was asked for a short list of pastors I’d want this to happen with, Platt would have quickly come to mind. (One reason I wanted to post this is to help pastors address what they would have said and done and prayed had this happened to them—and what they would have said afterward to their churches.)

When I shared David’s letter with a few of our ministry board members, Robin Green wrote the following. I wholeheartedly agree:

My thought is that all of us need the gospel at all times and in all places. Speak the gospel over me, please! It doesn’t matter that I already know about it, or have heard it before, or have already opened my heart to Jesus. My second thought is that the President came to a church asking for prayer. He appeared humble and quiet. We don’t know his heart (thankfully), but David was very right to pray for him.

I’m glad David didn’t turn away the President of the United States because people might think he is a Trump supporter. There are Trump supporters out there, including some Christians. But I don’t have to be a Trump supporter to think that Almighty God could have a thing or two to point out and clarify for Donald, that Donald Trump might be in an enormous spiritual battle our country is affected by, and that grace and mercy are in abundance at the foot of the cross. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the scales fell off of his eyes as a result of this prayer? If he saw things from a Kingdom perspective because God answered a prayer asking for wisdom for the president? 

Thank you, David Platt, for not allowing the fear of man to stop you from an opportunity to approach the Throne of Grace in obedience to Scripture and on behalf of a man in enormous need of God’s love, forgiveness, wisdom, insight, direction. Donald Trump and I share that enormous need.

For more about the need to simultaneous display both grace and truth, see Randy’s book The Grace and Truth Paradox.

Because of Jesus, We Will See God…and Live

As I write this, I’m thinking about Jesus, as I seek to do every day. For sure, there’s nothing or no one who deserves to be thought about more than Him!

I grew up in an unbelieving home. My dad, a tavern owner, was totally hostile to Jesus. (He remained so until he was 85 and appeared to be dying, when I had the privilege of leading him to Jesus; he lived four more years.)

When I was in high school, God drew me to Himself, and Jesus changed everything for me. God’s Son gave me my first glimpses of the Creator.  

When Moses said to God, “Show me your glory,” God responded, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you… but you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:18-20, NIV).

Moses saw God, but not God’s face, yet in another sense “the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11, NASB).

God “lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16, NIV). Sinful humans were rightly terrified by the prospect of seeing God. Samson’s father, Manoah, who after seeing the angel of the Lord, told his wife, “We are doomed to die!  We have seen God!” (Judges 13:22, NIV).

Yet—and this is really striking to me—Job cried out with this ancient hope, and solid confidence: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27, NIV).

To actually see God and not be struck dead? Job was given a promise of something that, before the incarnation of Jesus, was unthinkable!

The God who lives in unapproachable light became approachable in the person of Jesus (John 1:14). In fact, it was Jesus Himself who made God visible to us: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18).

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father.” Jesus answered: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9, NIV).­ Jesus also said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8, NIV).

This anticipated what God promises we’ll experience after the resurrection, on the New Earth: “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face” (Revelation 22:3-4, NIV).

“Without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14, NIV). For us to see God would require us to undergo radical transformation between now and then. And that’s exactly what will happen.

By faith in Christ, God’s children already have His righteousness, which will allow us into Heaven (see Romans 3:22; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Because we stand completely righteous before God in Christ, once we’re glorified and forever made sinless, we’ll be able to see God and live!

Incredible. Yet absolutely true!

For more on Jesus, see Randy’s book Face to Face with Jesus: Seeing Him as He Really Is.

Photo by Ben Klea on Unsplash

God Invites You to Delight Yourself in Him

Psalm 37:4 is a great but often misunderstood verse: “Delight yourselves in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Some people take this to mean that God will give us whatever we think we want. But the key part is “delight yourself in God.” When we delight in the Lord He often changes our heart’s desires to what most honors Him, then grants them to us. It’s not that we always get what we want, but that He teaches us to value and even want what He—in His sovereign and loving plan—gives us.

As we contemplate God, and ponder who He is, we will want what He wants. The desire of our hearts will be to hear Him say to us, “Well done.” And when that day comes, He will flood us with more joy than we can imagine. He will say, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, 23).

But we don’t have to wait until we die to know how He wants us to live! He commands us, for His glory and our good, to delight in Him not just in Heaven forever, but also on this present earth, here and now. 

To delight in God is to be happy with Him and in Him. To do that, we must cultivate our relationship with Him just as we do with other people by spending time with Him, bowing our knee before Him as our Lord, and also spending time with Him as our friend. That’s how we get to know Him, by learning and meditating daily on what’s true about Him. (I recommend these great books: Knowing God by J. I. Packer,  The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer, and Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.) 

In Bible study it’s always helpful to think about what the text says in contrast to what it does not say. It says, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” It doesn’t say, “Sit there and wait for the Lord to come and delight you.”

It’s active, not passive.  God doesn’t spoon-feed us His pleasures; we need to go to His banquet, reach out our hands, and select that delicious cuisine. As surely as it’s our responsibility to put good food in our mouths, it’s our responsibility to move our bodies to open His Word and move our minds toward God, and to seek to delight in Him!

While it’s true that God and His Word are nourishing, just knowing that won’t bring us to the table. We need to turn from our self-preoccupied thoughts and instead seek to cultivate our appetite for God: “Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!”(Psalm 34:8, HCSB).

When I contemplate Christ—when I meditate on His unfathomable love and grace—I lose myself in Him instead of in my hurts and disappointments and fears. When He’s the center of my thinking, before I know it, I’m happy.

Here’s the Good News Translation’s rendering of Psalm 37:4: “Seek your happiness in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire.” This corresponds to the words of Jesus: “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33, NLT).

Augustine said, “Love God and do as you please.” At first this sounds shocking, but it fits perfectly with “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will grant you the desires of your heart.” When we find our happiness in God, we will naturally want to do what pleases Him. But it’s up to us to go to Him and ask for His help and empowerment to delight in Him.

God placed just one restriction on Adam and Eve in Eden, and when they disregarded it, the universe unraveled. On the New Earth, that test will no longer be before us. God’s law, the expression of His attributes, will be written on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10). No rules will be needed, for our hearts will be given over to God. We will always delight ourselves in the Lord and He will always give us the desires of our hearts.

Whatever we want will be exactly what He wants for us. What we should do will at last be identical with what we want to do. On God’s New Earth there will never by any difference between duty and delight!

But we don’t have to wait, and we dare not, to discover this. Let’s delight ourselves in Him so that we can enter into His happiness now, not just after we die.

Browse more resources on the topic of happiness, and see Randy’s related books, including Happiness.

Photo: Christianpics.co

Kirsten Watson Responds to the Question, “Does an Unborn Child’s Dependence on a Woman’s Body Make Abortion Permissible?"

Benjamin Watson is a highly respected veteran tight end in the NFL. He retired for a few months then recently came back to the game, signing with the New England Patriots, the team that drafted him in the first round back in 2004. 

Ben and his wife Kirsten are committed followers of Jesus. Nanci and I deeply appreciate both of them. Listen to what Kirsten has to say, as she speaks up for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31:8-9):

Is abortion okay because a child is dependent on the mother for survival?

Kirsten Watson, wife of NFL champion @BenjaminSWatson, shreds this prevalent argument for abortion.

Full video ➡️ https://t.co/M1JDtVu2pL pic.twitter.com/pPMeAimB2e

— Live Action (@LiveAction) May 15, 2019

As Kirsten says, someone’s helplessness or dependency should motivate us to protect her, not to destroy her. Some years ago the attention of our entire nation turned to Baby Jessica, the little girl trapped at the bottom of a deep well. The amount of human resources poured into saving her was vast, but no one doubted whether she was worth it. What touched our hearts more than anything was her helplessness and vulnerability.

When we are thinking accurately, we realize that a helpless person deserves help precisely because she is helpless. It is a sad commentary on society when a child’s helplessness and dependence on another is used as an argument against her right to live.

I encourage you to watch the entire 4-minute video of Kirsten, where she responds to the pro-choice slogan, “My Body, My Choice”:

By the way, Kirsten and Ben hosted the wonderful Football Sunday video this year. Watch the video here. Finally, if you want to watch a wonderful video of the Watson family made my NFL Films in January, see here. The film concludes with Ben’s retirement, but a few months later he came back to pro football for what might—or might not—be his final season. Regardless, the Watsons are all about living their lives and raising their children for God’s glory. 

Browse more prolife articles and resources, as well as see Randy’s books Why ProLife? and ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments.