Michael Kelley's Blog, page 26

3 Things You See Clearly When You Survey the Wondrous Cross

One of the most time-tested and well-known songs of the Christian faith is “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” by Isaac Watts. He’s the same man who wrote “Jesus Shall Reign Where’r the Sun”, “God, Our Help in Ages Past,”Alas and Did My Savior Bleed”, and even “Joy to the World”. When it was all said and done, Watts wrote over 700 hymns, and yet he grew up in a world where the music in every worship service consisted only of psalms or sections of Scripture put to music. Watts found the practice monotonous. 

To him, there was a lack of joy and emotion among the congregants as they sang. He once famously said, “To see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.”

Watts’s father issued a challenge. He told Watts that if he struggled with the songs they sang, then he ought to do something about it. Perhaps he should attempt to write something different. This moment set Watts on a lifelong pursuit to write lyrics that exalted Christ and reminded Christians of their hope in his saving work on the cross. So if we follow with Watts, and we too survey the wondrous cross, what will we see? We will see more clearly at least three things:

1. The cross brings clarity to the true problem.

We find ourselves living in an ironic time. Never before has the world seemed so convinced that people are basically good if we give them a chance, and yet never before have so many of been wondering what’s wrong with the world. The cross brings clarity to the true problem.

While the question of “what’s wrong with the world?” might have many potential answers, they are all really offshoots of the true answer. So what’s wrong with the world? Poverty? Homelessness? Violence? Dishonesty and lack of integrity? Yes, and yet the true problem is sin. Not just the acts of sin, but the state of sin in which we all live. We, and the rest of the world, are broken. And we see how severely at the cross. The cross shows us with stark clarity just how desperate the situation is – so desperate, so evil, so wrong that the perfect Son of God had to suffer and die.

2. The cross brings clarity to the character of God.

The cross also shows us clearly the character of God. We might look around the world, and even to the circumstances of our own personal lives, and have all sorts of questions about God. Where is He? What is He doing? What is He like? We ask these questions not in a vacuum, but against the backdrop of school shootings, cancer, and global threats. But the cross brings clarity to who God is.

At the cross, we see that God is committed to justice, for He is unwilling to compromise on the just punishment for sin. At the cross, we see that God is committed at the same time to love, for He is unwilling to allow sinful humanity to bear the price for that sin. The cross is the window through which we see the demonstrated character of God; it is a stake in the ground by which we can say, “This is who God is,” regardless of what other circumstances befall us.

3. The cross brings clarity to the future.

Finally, the cross brings clarity to the future. And that’s because the cross was not the end. Jesus died, and Jesus rose, and is gloriously alive today. In His life, we have life. It’s the cross and the resurrection that shows us exactly where we are headed.

Either we are headed to resurrection with Jesus, to reign with Him as forgiven, blood bought co-heirs, or we are headed to the ultimate and consequence of our cosmic rebellion.

Further, the cross and resurrection shows us that creation is bending toward the recognized rule and reign of Jesus. That there will come a day when every knee will indeed bow and every tongue will confess what the Christian already knows – that Jesus Christ is the resurrected Lord of all. This is the future.

Though we might still have questions about the days in which we live, of these things there is no doubt. The cross helps make them clear if we will survey it, again and again.

—

This post originally appeared at thinke.org.

Unity, Apart from the Gospel, is Self-Exaltation

God loves unity.

In John 17, Jesus’ high priestly prayer just before His death, He could have prayed many things for His followers, and He did. But one of the recurring themes in that passage of Scripture is unity:

“…protect them by Your name that You have given Me, so that they may be one as We are one” (v. 11).“May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You” (v. 21).“May they also be one in us, so the world may believe You sent Me” (v. 21).

But unity is not an end in itself. In fact unity, apart from the gospel, is self-exaltation.

There was another group of people, years and years earlier, who were unified, but they were unified around the wrong things:

“At one time the whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:1-4).

These people had all the ingredients any marketing consultant might tell you are essential for a group to accomplish great things together. They spoke the same language, they had a big goal, and they were motivated to take action. The problem was they were unified around the wrong thing, and when you unify around something other than the gospel the end result is always going to be self-exaltation.

This is a good caution for us. It’s good for us to remember that just because we all agree doesn’t mean we are right. That’s why our unity cannot be based on ourselves – our opinions, our preferences, our ideas. There must be something outside of us – something more reliable than us – that is driving our unity. We must, in that sense, come to unity by way of self-denial.

This is the way of following Jesus. It’s that we deny ourselves and our preferences, our aspirations and our dreams, and instead we adopt the posture of a grateful servant. This is where true unity is found. It’s found in the humility of those who are truly committed to doing the will of God, and committed to seeking it out together. If we don’t have that posture, then our unity is likely going to do more harm than good. So while it might be effective and pragmatic to simply find something – anything – to unify around, if that “thing” is not driven and founded in the gospel, then we will end up worshiping the goal itself:

“So from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city…” (Genesis 11:8).

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. Baseball and the Meaning of Life

This is a really great commentary on the pace of the game and the pace of life in general.

2. The Life and Death of an Ordinary Saint

Extraordinarily ordinary people like this are all around us if we just had eyes to see them.

3. Dear Nursery Worker

Much in the same regard as the link above, here too is.a great tribute to a quiet role in the church that can have a profound impact.

4. The 20 Best Family Board Games

This is a fun read, but one that I also would debate.

3 Ways to Trust God More

“Trust” is a rare thing in our day and time. There was, of course, a period of history in which we as a society seemed to be more trusting. We trusted institutions. We trusted authority. We trusted the media. We implicitly trusted all these entities and more, but those days are long gone.

Now we live in a time when we, frankly, don’t know who we can trust. We are increasingly jaded in this respect, and as a result, we tend to not trust anyone. And yet God is the same as He has ever been, and He is as trustworthy now as at any other point in time. That’s because God is faithful – He always keeps His Word, and because He does, we can always trust Him.

That’s easier said that done, because drawing in a sea of distrust, it’s very hard to muster up the kind of confidence that we ought to have when it comes to God. And yet we know we should. We may even want to trust God more. So how can we grow in our trust of Him? Let me suggest three ways:

1. Exercise the muscle.

If you want to be able to do more pushups, then there is really only one way to do it – it’s to do pushups. And though you might not be able to do very many at first, through persistence and discipline you will inevitably find that your muscles are growing and inevitably so is your pushup ability. 

The same thing is true spiritually. If we want to be able to meditate on God’s Word, then meditate on God’s Word. If we want to be able to fast, then we should fast. And if we want to be able to trust, then we should trust. We must exercise the muscle.

True enough, it might not be easy at first. But every time we choose to pray instead of worry; every time we choose to look to God’s promises rather than our circumstances; every time we turn to the Bible rather than to our own thoughts – these are all exercises that help our trust muscles.

2. Remember the past.

As we are exercising the muscle, we should also look backward. If we take a moment every now and then and look back over the course of our lives, we fill find that God has left us countless examples of just how trustworthy He is. How He has never abandoned us. How He has provided for us. It might not have been in the way and time we desired, but He has – over and over again. It reminds me of my favorite quote from the great man of faith, George Mueller:

“If God fails me this time, it will be the first time.”

Our lives, like the life of Mueller, are strewn with the faithfulness of God if we would only take the time to remember. So if we want to grow in our trust, instead of being overwhelmed by some circumstance big or small that is causing us a measure of anxiety, we should remember and let our trust be grown by the great acts of God in the past. Above all, let us call to mind that the One in whom we are trusting did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. Which, of course, is the third way to grow in trust…

3. Look to the cross.

Yes, God has provided for us in tangible ways. He has brought about jobs, relationships, opportunities, healing, and a host of other things in our lives. And yet there is no greater example of just how trustworthy God is than the cross of Jesus Christ.

We were dead in our sins and transgressions. We were helpless to do anything for ourselves. But God, in His great mercy, provided for us and turned us from enemies to children, from outcasts to adopted sons and daughters. If we ever find ourselves waning in trust, and if we want our trust to grow, then there is no better place to fix our eyes than the cross.

—

This post originally appeared at thinke.org.

A Little Story from the Idol Shop

The shop is hot today, but there is work to be done. No work, no food – so the man blows air into the flame and begins the hammering process. He continues until his right arm aches, and that’s how he knows it’s time to take a water break.

He steps outside and mops his brow and waves at the passersby. It’s much cooler outside, and as much as he would like to linger, there’s no time to waste. He has an order to fill.

So he goes back inside and the relentless hammering continues. He pounds away until the metal starts to take a rough kind of shape. One he goes, and finally, the dull iron has been forged into something resembling its final form. It’s dunked in the cauldron to cool, then heated again. Now comes the detail work. Still in the heat of the shop as the fire smolders, the skilled craftsman sets to work again. The hammering is more subdued now. A little tap here; a little tap there.

This is the part of the job he likes the most; it’s when the brute strength gives way to creativity. He checks his notes to make sure he can picture the final product in his mind’s eye; it’s important, he knows, that it looks like what the customer wants. More than once he’s made a delivery only to have it pushed back on him with the claim that there was just something a little out of place. Amazing, he thinks, how specific people like to be about these things. Even so, he enjoys the process of making something that looks like nothing into something that a human being has in their mind.

And finally, after a long day’s work, it’s ready for delivery. And with no time to waste. His patron was specific. He needed to take possession this evening.

The blacksmith steps outside and relishes the cool breeze of the late afternoon. His creation is heavy in his right hand, now fully cooled and fully formed. He looks down at what he has made, and he can’t help but shake his head and smile. Soon, he will have a pocket full of money. And a wealthy neighbor will have a brand new god to worship.

A god that he had made according to specifications. A made to order deity, just as requested. The irony was as thick as the air inside his shop…

The blacksmith takes a tool
    and works with it in the coals;
he shapes an idol with hammers,
    he forges it with the might of his arm.
He gets hungry and loses his strength;
    he drinks no water and grows faint.
The carpenter measures with a line
    and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
    and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human form,
    human form in all its glory,
    that it may dwell in a shrine.
He cut down cedars,
    or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
    or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
It is used as fuel for burning;
    some of it he takes and warms himself,
    he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
    he makes an idol and bows down to it.
Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
    over it he prepares his meal,
    he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
    “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
    he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
    “Save me! You are my god!”
They know nothing, they understand nothing;
    their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
    and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
No one stops to think,
    no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
    I even baked bread over its coals,
    I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
    Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him;
    he cannot save himself, or say,
    “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?” (Isaiah 44:12-20).

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. 5 Things to Know About the Doctrine of the Trinity

Very helpful article here about one of the most difficult doctrines to both understand and to explain.

2. Parkinson’s – The Gift I Didn’t Want

I did not know until I read this that Philip Yancey had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. What a reflection on the way he is handling this situation.

3. Kept

As the article says, “kept” is a beautiful word both for the one who has endured, or even caused, much pain.

4. How a High School Math Teacher Saved the NBA All-Star Game

I didn’t watch this, but I really might in the future given how they have changed the game.

Be Sure You’re Asking the Right Question

Joshua was, no doubt, keyed up for battle.

As the book of Joshua opens, an entire generation of Israelites had died off. That generation had come to the brink of the promised land only to turn away from taking possession of it. Rather than moving forward in faith, they had shrunk back in fear and wandered for forty years. But this was a new day.

Joshua had risen to power in the place of Moses. God has commanded him over and over again to be strong and courageous, and the people were willing to follow him. Rather than turning back, they followed Joshua into the promised land this time. In fact, God miraculously paved the way for them because they had to cross a flooded Jordan River just to get into it. And as they stepped out into the flowing waters the Lord split the waters in front of them, just as He had done a generation earlier at the Red Sea.

So they were in. In the Promised Land. Let’s remember, too, that Joshua was a military tactician. And as such, he understood that the land he was going into was a hilly country, and the major passage through it was a connecting road that runs from south to north through the highest portions of the land. Joshua’s strategy was to drive hard westward from the Jordan Valley to that high road and by doing that he would divide the country. When he divided the country the forces of the enemy would also be divided and much easier to conquer. Joshua planned to go after the opposition to the south and then the opposition to the north. There was a big obstacle in the way though:

Jericho.

Jericho was a military fortress that was set up to defend the approach of an army to the east. Israel could have gone around it, but if they did, it would mean leaving a huge army behind them that could easily creep up on them. So the option was to attack. Jericho had to be dealt with if the people were going to make any progress into the land.

So in Joshua 5, this new leader was indeed keyed up. He knew battle was coming, and though he had not yet received instruction from the Lord as to the strange way this battle would be fought and won, he knew confrontation was inevitable. When his nerves were already on edge, he came upon a man:

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” (Josh. 5:13).

A reasonable question, don’t you think? War was at hand. The sword was drawn. So Joshua wanted to know whose side this man was on.

A reasonable question based on the circumstances. And like Joshua, we might ask similar questions of God. We see obstacles in our path, be they relational or vocational or financial so we formulate our own plan. We do a SWOT analysis of the situation and start to move pieces into place. And then at some point, it occurs to us that perhaps things would work better if God blessed this plan we already made. So we ask Him a very reasonable question:

“Are You with me in this?”

Again, a reasonable question given our circumstances, but the wrong one entirely. And in Joshua’s case, the man with the drawn sword let him know:

“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come” (v. 14). 

Against the backdrop of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was once asked whether he thought God was on the side of the Union Army. Lincoln is said to have responded, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Yes. That’s right. It’s not to us to make our plans and then ask if God is on our side. But such is the presumptuousness and hubris of man. It is to us to pray. To trust. To wait. And to align ourselves with what we know to be true of God rather than hoping He will bend Himself to our designs and plans.

Joshua knew it immediately, and so he asked a second question. A better question:

Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” (v. 14).

Like Joshua, like Lincoln, we must make sure we are asking the right question. And the right question is not, “Whose side are you on?” The right question, from the right posture of humility, is more like this: “What has God said?”

The Essence of Real Friendship

“Friend” is a common word. It’s almost, at this point in history, a throw away term. We use it to talk about acquaintances, those we have casual relationships with – many whom we’ve never met in person but share some common affinity with and have therefore been paired with on a social networking site. 

But isn’t there more to it than that? Isn’t there a longing inside of us for something more? Better? Deeper? Affinities and common interests are fine – better than fine – they’re great. And fun. And helpful when developing friendships. And yet there has to be something more, doesn’t there?

When we turn to the Bible, we find that something more. Case in point is the description of two friends found in 1 Samuel: 

“Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as much as himself. Then Jonathan removed the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his military tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt” (1 Sam. 18:3-4).

There’s something more there, though we have to dig for it a bit, for in this relationship we find great depth, sacrifice, and love, one that would stretch even beyond death. David and Jonathan were friends, but that friendship did not come without cost. Jonathan was the heir to the throne of Israel. As Saul’s son, he stood to be next in line as the king, and based on what we know of him, a fine king at that. Remarkably, though, Jonathan befriended David. 

David, the one who was anointed to be the next king. David, the one who would receive what was presumed to belong to Jonathan. David, who might logically be seen as the furthest thing from a friend – a threat.

That friendship meant more than just a casual relationship – it meant that Jonathan was willing to put aside his own self-interests and self-preservation to see his friend become all that God had intended.

In 1 Samuel 18, Jonathan gave David some weighty gifts that symbolized that David, not Jonathan, was God’s choice to become the next king. With these gifts, Jonathan was not only willingly giving over what would have been considered his own rights and privileges; he was truly and freely rejoicing with another even if doing so came at great personal cost. Lest we think this was just a momentary lapse in judgment by Jonathan, he again confirmed his commitment to David in 1 Samuel 20 by helping him escape from the wrath of Jonathan’s father, Saul. In both these instances, Jonathan shows us what it means to truly be a friend to another.

To be a friend means, ultimately, that we want the best for another person. It means we are willing to put aside our selfish ambition and vain conceit and consider another better than ourselves. It means we do not feel threatened by the advancement of another. It means we refuse to use other people for our own gain. This kind of friendship is rare – so rare, in fact, that it only comes through faith.

More specifically, when we truly and deeply believe the gospel.

When we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are free to let go of what we perceive to be our own rights and privileges. We are free to truly rejoice with others and to do all in our power to see them become everything God intends for them to be. We drop the chains of our own insecurity and need for self-justification. We do all this because we believe that God has fully and completely loved and accepted us in Christ, and therefore we can fully and completely love another. Not for what we can get out of it, but because we have all we need in Christ.

—

This post originally appeared at thinke.org. 

3 Prayers to Pray When All You Want is to Escape

“Deliver us.”

Here is a prayer the people of God have prayed, in different contexts, for a long, long time. During their days in Egypt, they prayed, “Deliver us.” During the days of exile, they prayed, “Deliver us.” During the days of Roman rule, they prayed, “Deliver us.” It’s a prayer forged from the desire to escape. To get out. To have some terrible circumstance in your life changed.

And though we likely don’t know what it’s like to pray “deliver us” in the same way that these people of the Bible did, we are all well familiar with the desire to escape. In fact, that’s usually the first thing we pray when we are in an uncomfortable situation. When your job isn’t what you want it to be. When your relationship, or lack thereof, isn’t the best. When your finances are struggling or even when you’re in the midst of an uncomfortable conversation – our inclination is to get away, and to ask God to take action to make it happen. Our prayer lives reverberate with that desire for relief. For change. For deliverance.

Now hear me clearly – that’s a fine thing to pray. We can and we should bear our hearts before the Lord. And when we are in a painful season of life, it’s a good and right thing to pray and ask for God to intervene somehow. But maybe – just maybe – there are other prayers to pray alongside that one. And the reason why there might be others is based in the recognition that perhaps God has some intention for us in the middle of that circumstance. What might some of those other prayers be? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Boldness.

“And now, Lord, consider their threats, and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness…” (Acts 4:29).

Peter and John had been arrested, threatened, and eventually released because they were preaching the gospel and had even healed a man in Jesus’ name. When the two reported all that had happened to the young church, the church did not pray for escape and deliverance from the threats; they prayed for boldness.

Extension of the gospel, not a change in circumstances. Courage, not comfort. When we pray this prayer, even alongside the prayer of escape, we are demonstrating our understanding that the way a Christian walks through difficulty is a powerful display of the work of the gospel in his or her life. In the end, this is what we are in this world for – it’s not to bide our time until we receive the inheritance of another one, but to live and speak faithfully. Even – and perhaps most especially so – in the midst of difficulty.

2. Maturity.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4).

What is the pathway to spiritual maturity in these verses? Well, maturity comes from the finished work of perseverance which comes from the testing of our faith which finds its origin in trials of many kinds. That’s the beginning of the chain. So apparently, there is a level of maturity we will not reach in our spiritual lives unless we persevere through the testing of our faith, and that doesn’t happen without these trying circumstances.

As uncomfortable as these trials are, and as confused as we may be as to why they have come into our lives, we can rest assured that God is at work in the midst of them to make us more like Jesus. That’s what spiritual maturity is. And we can pray for that, even while we are asking for escape, and know what the answer will be.

3. Wisdom

 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do (James 1:5-8).

James 1:5 is a verse that’s well worn in our prayers as we ask God for wisdom. But it’s important to note that these verses come directly after verses 2-4 (see above), which means they are in the same context of facing the trials and difficulties. James is telling us that we should boldly and assuredly ask God for wisdom in the midst of trials. Now why would we need wisdom in those trials?

For all kinds of reasons. We need wisdom to know how to respond when we are at the end of our ropes and our frustration level is high. We need wisdom to be able to objectively look at our situation and make good decisions instead of purely emotional ones. We need wisdom to see the bigger work of God through these circumstances. We need wisdom for all these things and more especially during seasons of difficulty. And here, too, we can pray with confidence because we know God loves to answer this prayer.

In the midst of whatever trial you find yourself, by all means pray for God to heal. To change it. To deliver. To provide a way of escape. But even as you do, remember that it’s not the only prayer to pray.

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. How Can We Make Decisions and Know God’s Will?

This article is designed around a series of helpful questions that serve as a helpful decision-making grid.

2. How Unanswered Prayers Have Shaped My Faith

It is often through prayers that seem unanswered that we get the clearest glimpses and revelation of God’s character.

3. Don’t Reap to the Edges of Your Life

Here’s a good application of a seemingly obscure Old Testament command. And as a bonus, an illustration from Jayber Crow.

4. What Toy Did the NSA Ban?

Funny little factoid here in this article.