A Marker of Healthy Theology

All too often those in the reformed circles get the reputation of the stuffy, stodgy, cantankerous curmudgeon who is chomping at the bit for any opportunity to beat people over the head with a doctrinal bat. Unfortunately, that reputation exists for a reason. I see that in myself as well as others. While robust doctrine is absolutely necessary to live lives pleasing to God, it derails when we use it to drive unnecessary wedges in the body of Christ.

In George Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards, he explains how Edwards (usually the Superman of the reformed circles) held tightly to particular and confessional convictions while simultaneously yearning for unity in thought and deed in the church.

This, I'm convinced, is a marker of healthy theology.

"Edwards' call for peace was so strong that he sounded almost like one of Boston's Calvinist moderates.

 'The gospel spirit is a catholic spirit, a noble and unconfined benevolence, like unto that of our Creator, not confined to any particular part of mankind exclusive of others...To make the wickedness of men the cause of contention and strife in us, is to make one sin the cause of another. We cannot please the devil better than by hating men's personals under pretense of duty.'

Even doctrinal differences are no excuse for hatred. People can not help what they believe.

'Tis as unreasonable to strive with others because they can't be in everything of our minds, as to quarrel with another because he differs in the color of his hair or the features of his face...However pernicious his tenets, yet we ought, as much as in us lies, to endeavor to live peaceably with him.'"

O the Deep Deep Love of Jesus

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free,

Rolling as a mighty ocean

In its fullness over me.

Underneath me, all around me, 

is the current of Thy love;

Leading onward, leading homeward

to my glorious rest above. 

O the deep, deep love of Jesus--

Spread His praise from shore to shore!

How He loveth, ever loveth,

Changeth never, nevermore;

How He watches o'er His loved ones,

Died to call them all His own; 

How for them He intercedeth,

Watcheth o'er them from the throne.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus

Love of ev'ry love the best!

'Tis an ocean vast of blessing;

'Tis a haven sweet of rest.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus--

'Tis a heav'n of heav'ns to me;

And it lifts me up to glory

For it lifts me up to Thee.

-Samuel Trevor Francis, 1890

Forever Forgiven

From Sam Storms' meditations on Colossians, The Hope of Glory...#20, p.72...

"God has taken your sin and placed it out of sight behind his back. All he sees now when he sees you is the blessed righteousness of his own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the love of forgiveness.

Still not good enough? Still not convinced? Still afraid that your sins will do you in? Then pay close attention to the word of the prophet Micah...He has something important to say about the kind of God we have:

 "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Mic. 7:18-19).

How much more graphic do you demand God to be before you enter into the joy of his forgiving love? All vestige of condemning guilt is gone. Again, "just as God said he put our sins behind his back, so here he says he will hurl them into the depths of the sea. They will not 'fall overboard' ; God will hurl them into the depths. he wants them to be lost forever, because he has fully dealt with them in his Son, Jesus Christ."

Beauty in Pursuit

From an anthropocentric standpoint, all of life is entirely comprised of man's unending pursuit of beauty. Now whatever one considers beautiful is the object, the goal, the practical fulfillment of the individual's conceptual notion of beauty. This repetitive pattern unswervingly climaxes with dissatisfaction. As descendants of Adam, we have the pestering propensity to satiate our demanding desire with anything and everything worldly.

Our problem is we don't dig deep enough. Our shallow surmisings fall drastically short of the Agent required to fulfill them. The objects we beautify are all but permanent and satisfactory. Nature, as we have recently seen, isn't always stagnant or yearning to be beheld. Love? I think we can all agree on this one. Love is not all you need. Success? hmmm... fill in the blank. The list goes on.

The familiar Lewis quote rings true...

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world"

So it seems as if we've been drinking out of sin-tainted stagnant waters, and expecting that algae bacteria ridden cesspool to provide life and fulfillment--when what we really need is the pure, enlivening, sustaining, invigorating, living water from the source. What if the Beauty--the true Beauty--the source of absolute fulfillment and Provider of soul-satisfying rest...pursued us?

From a theocentric standpoint, all of life is entirely comprised of enjoying God's relentless pursuit of rebels who insist on slurping from sediment-saturated streams. This is accomplished through Jesus--The author, very essence, and true satisfier of our deepest longings for beauty. Jesus wakes us from our deadness--lifts our head from the muddied waters--sometimes a tap on the shoulder, sometimes by the nape of the neck, and lovingly whisks us to the Father, the source of living water.

Psalm 42- "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

Hesed

Today we talked about a word. One word. Not for the whole eleven hours, but if we were to talk about it for eleven hours, I think I would remain interested. This word summarizes the character of God as demonstrated through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The word in Hebrew is Hesed. This word is commonly seen is the Psalms, as well as other Old Testament books. One example is seen in Psalm 48. “We have thought on your steadfast love, O God.” Our english translations use the phrase “steadfast love” to convey this Hebrew meaning of Hesed. As our professor noted, this translation serves its purpose, but we don’t capture the full meaning. It is better captured as the unfailing, unlimited, unbroken, committed covenantal faithfulness of God towards us that demands a response. 

This is the essence of Hesed that is extended towards us. How do we know this? How can we be sure that this is the type of love our Heavenly Father extends towards us? We look to the cross. In Jesus, we see the perfect picture of Hesed. We see God, in his abundant mercy, accomplishing for sinners what we can’t accomplish for ourselves. We see Jesus, the great friend of sinners, God with us, living the life we should have lived, dying the death we deserve to die, and giving the gift of righteousness we cannot earn. How magnificent it is, that because of this great savior Jesus, we may now forever dwell in the resplendent Hesed of God.

Gospel Community

In moving my books back from school to home, I began flipping through some of them, remembering which ones were gifts from friends. It brought me so much joy to read the personal notes jotted on the inside covers. Here are a few I came across...

"Always remember that the gospel is the beautiful news that 'It is finished!' It is not primarily about doing (morality); Rather, it is about what has been done by Jesus for a helpless sinner like you and me. We love you brother."

"I hope you enjoy this book and it blesses your life like it has mine. How sweet it is to be received and kept by Jesus. Can't wait to see how God continues to display his wondrous grace. Keep walking pilgrim."

"Remember that NOTHING can stop God's furious love and delight of you because of Christ's work on your behalf. In Him you have all things you could want and need."

Who cares what the actual books are about!

Psalm 133, Brotherhood

Psalm 133 "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore."


Very thankful for brothers to dwell in unity with on this particular day. Thankful for their laughter, joy, perseverance, love of the gospel, stressing of sound doctrine leading to love of people and acts of justice, extensions of grace, personal rebukes, stoicism at some points--emotional at others, constantly pointing fellow brothers back towards the gospel, obsession with Christ crucified, humility, boasting in the gospel, submission to scripture, care for daughters of Christ, determination to fricken grow up into gospel driven men (ya trackin with me?), and the unceasing desire to interweave the truth and love of the gospel of Jesus Christ into the very fabric of their beings, just to name a few among many.

Radiant Promise of Ephesians 2

Ephesians 2:4-8 - "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God"


What a potent injection of the gospel! Straight into the bloodstream!

Our utter depravity--our deadness. Due to our trespass. But! God, rich in mercy and love, creates a means by which he shows us the immeasurable riches of his grace, namely through Christ. Raised us up with him. Seated us with him. And best of all, it is not our doing. God fulfills the covenant through Christ. Really?! because of his great love towards me, through the death of his beloved son, the infinite omnipotent God will show me the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness?

It is the gift of God....I mean I just got a pretty sick authentic throwback Hester jersey...but uh, I'll take Ephesians 2 please.

Wonderful Promise of Psalm 40

"As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!"


What a wonder this is. What a delight! Despite my incessant proclivity to dwell in the pit of destruction, to wallow in the miry bogs of idolatry, I will forever remain steadfastly locked in the firm, graceful grip of Christ.

Counterfeit Love

Some random quotes from the chapter entitled "Love is Not All You Need" from Keller's Counterfeit Gods

"She had come to look to men for the kind of deep affirmation and acceptance that only God can provide. As a result, she became a slave to love."

"We know a good thing has become a counterfeit god when its demands on you exceed proper boundaries."

"An idolatrous attachment can lead you to break any promise, rationalize any indiscretion, or betray any other allegiance, in order to hold on to it...to practice idolatry is to be a slave."

"We look to sex and romance to give us the transcendence and sense of meaning we used to get from faith in God."

"We maintain the fantasy that if we find our one true soul mate, everything wrong with us will be healed. But when our expectations and hopes reach that magnitude, 'the love object is God.' No lover, no human being, is qualified for that role. No one can live up to that. The inevitable result is bitter disillusionment."

"If you are too afraid of love or too enamored by it, it has assumed godlike power, distorting your perceptions and your life."

"Our fears and inner barrenness make love a narcotic, a way to medicate ourselves, and addicts always make foolish, destructive choices."

In the midst of rampant idolatry of love and relationships, I desperately pray that my heart would be utterly overtaken by the following joy-giving, everlasting, exuberant, sufficient truth

"The God of the Bible is the one who comes down into this world to accomplish a salvation and give us a grace we could never attain ourselves. He loves the unwanted, the weak and unloved. He is not just a king and we are the subjects; he is not just a shepherd and we are the sheep. He is a husband and we are his spouse. He is ravished with us."

"Why did he become the man nobody wanted? For you and for me. He took upon himself our sins and died in our place. If we are deeply moved by the sight of his love for us, it detaches our hearts from other would-be saviors. We stop trying to redeem ourselves through our pursuits and relationships, because we are already redeemed. We stop trying to make others into saviors, because we have a Savior."

Colossians 3:1-4 - Your life is hidden with Christ in God... and when Christ who is your life appears, you will appear with him in glory."


"Thou art my loveliness, my life, my light, Beauty alone to me."