Rules and Rain

I have a friend named Stephanie Jones who used to be in my Sunday School Class. She is an elementary school teacher and also a very good fiction writer. She also writes a blog called "Okay, Listen Here."

She wrote today about folks who don't follow the rules and yet still get ahead. Reminds me of Jesus words in Matthew 5:45

".....He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

Sometimes evil wins in this world. Sometime people who don't follow the rules will still get ahead in this world; by the standards of this fallen world. Still our treasure is to be found both in our time with God here on earth and our time to come for eternity.

I think I will try harder to follow his "big rule":

Luke 10:27

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Stephanie's post is here and copied below:

Yesterday I had a discussion with some teachers about following the rules. As many of you know, I am rule follower. Just give me a rule and get out of my way. I will follow the rules or die trying. It turns out that in much of America today, that makes me very special. Everyone seems to think they are special and that the rules don’t apply to them. Or as the Writing Playground’s Problem Child expresses it, “Everyone thinks they are a special snowflake.”

I was telling a story from my childhood yesterday about why I hate pears, when it was pointed out to me that I have always been a rule follower. It happened in kindergarten. Kim, a girl at my table, ate a pear every day for snack. I didn’t like pears but, hey, she didn’t try to make me eat it. Then one day they made us take our snack outside to eat. Now I was already unhappy about that. I am not a fan of dirt, bugs, or outside air but at five years old they don’t really let you be in charge. So there we were outside--Kim, me, AND her pear. I am not much of an athlete and I am very clumsy, so when Kim began to chase me with her pear it was just a few seconds until she had me on the ground grinding that half-eaten pear into my face. Since I am also not much of a fighter, I just had to lie there and take it until an adult pulled her off of me. I am, however, an excellent getter-evener. There was not a rule at my kindergarten that said you could not put crayons down the toilet. It also turns out that if you are only five, and during nap time you say you need to go to the bathroom, no one frisks you to make sure that you don’t have Kim’s 64 box of crayons with built in sharpener stuffed into your shorts. I NEEDED to get even with that Pear Welding Girl! After that day, there was a rule posted in my kindergarten's restroom that the staff referred to as the “Stephanie Rule.” It stated, “Do not put crayons down the toilet.” Oh, I got into some trouble for stealing her crayons. I had to apologize and replace them, but they weren’t able to make the crayons in the toilet charge stick due to the fact that there wasn’t a rule against it. It's hard to enforce a rule that doesn't yet exist. When I finished the story Barefoot Babe said, “You have always been you - having to follow the rules, even at five.”

It’s true. I always want to follow the rules. Good girls who follow the rules are supposed to be successes, who are rewarded. Bad girls who break the rules are supposed to be failures, who suffer. As an adult, I realize that isn’t always the case. Often, we see rule breakers rewarded with success, money, or fame. Sometimes one needs to break the rules in order to be true to oneself.

Have you ever broken a rule and had it turn out well?

Praying for Boldness, Not Deliverance

By Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

It’s striking to me how much of my prayer life is spent praying to get me out of uncomfortable situations. Whether at work, at church, financially, in health – I spend much time petitioning the Lord to change my circumstances. To make them more favorable. More profitable. More… comfortable, I guess.

Acts 4 hits me like a ballbat to the face.

Here’s the context: Peter and John, the two big dogs of the early church movement, have been put in jail. And though the authorities couldn’t punish them because of their popularity with the people, they threatened them. Alot. Then they let them go.

So off go Peter and John, back to the fledgling church, and they deliver a report about what the bad guys had said. Then they all started to pray with one voice. And I wonder what I might have prayed, had I been in that situation:

“God, deliver us from the hands of these oppressors.”

“Remove them from power, and put someone in who is more favorable to our position.”

“Change these threatening circumstances, and give us peace that we might meet freely.”

Now I’m not trying to evaluate the validity of any of those prayers. I believe God wants us to earnestly cry out to Him in honesty, and there are certainly examples all over the Bible of people asking for their circumstances to change.

But not here. Instead, this is what we get from the threatened crowd of believers:

“And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that Your slaves may speak Your message with complete boldness…”

Boldness, not deliverance. Extension of the gospel, not a change in circumstances. Courage, not comfort. Maybe I ought to spend a little more time praying for that type of thing rather than a band-aid for my perceived problems. Because if I did, it would show that I had a much more full grasp of how big and important the gospel really is.

That it’s bigger than me. And because it is, sometimes the best thing that can happen is for me to be uncomfortable.

So God likes to sing too!

From Heartlight Verse of the Day:

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

THOUGHT:
So God likes to sing too! He even likes to share his lullabies with those he loves. Not only is God Abba Father, he is also like a mother. He gently rocks and quiets his children with his affectionate care.

PRAYER:
O God, I pray that when the storms of life rage against me, I will remember these words and find refuge, comfort and peace in your sheltering care. Make me aware, O God, of your singing in my life as you make your salvation clearer to me each day. Through my Savior Jesus I pray. Amen.

How do we feel guilty? Let me count the ways.

Powerful thoughts from Kevin DeYoung:

I imagine there are plenty of Christians who rarely feel the sting of conscience or the pangs of regret. But I also know many, many Christians (including the one I see in the mirror) who easily feel bad for all the things they are not doing or are doing less than perfectly. In fact, I’m convinced most serious Christians live their lives with an almost constant low-level sense of guilt.

How do we feel guilty? Let me count the ways.

• We could pray more.
• We aren’t bold enough in evangelism.
• We like sports too much.
• We watch movies and television too often.
• Our quiet times are too short or too sporadic.
• We don’t give enough.
• We bought a new couch.
• We don’t read to our kids enough.
• Our kids eat Cheetos and french fries.
• We don’t recycle enough.
• We need to lost 20 pounds.
• We could use our time better.
• We could live some place harder or in something smaller.

What do we do with all this behind the scenes guilt? We don’t feel stop-dead-in-our-tracks kind of remorse for these things. But these shortcomings can have a cumulative effect whereby even the mature Christian can feel like he’s rather disappointing to God, maybe just barely Christian.

Here’s the tricky part: we should feel guilty sometimes, because sometimes we are guilty of sin. Moreover, complacency as Christians is a real danger, especially in America.

But yet, I don’t believe God redeemed us through the blood of his Son that we might feel like constant failures. Do Peter and John post-Pentecost seemed racked with self-loathing and introspective fear? Does Paul seem constantly concerned that he could be doing more? Amazingly enough, Paul actually says at one point “I am not aware of anything against myself” (1 Cor. 4:4). He’s quick to add, “I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” But it sure seems like Paul put his head on the pillow at night with a clean conscience. So why do so many Christian feel guilty all the time?

1. We don’t fully embrace the good news of the gospel.

We forget that we have been made alive together with Christ. We have been raised with him. We have been saved through faith alone. And this is the gift of God, not a result of works (Eph. 2:4-8). We can be so scared of antinomianism, which is a legitimate danger, that we are afraid to speak too lavishly of God’s grace. But if we’ve never been charged with being antinomian, we probably haven’t presented the gospel in all it’s scandalous glory (Rom. 6:1).

2. Christians tend to motivate each other by guilt rather than grace.

Instead of urging our fellow believers to be who they are in Christ, we command them to do more for Christ (see Rom. 6:5-14 for the proper motivation). So we see Christlikeness as something we are royally screwing up, when we should it as something we already possess but need to grow into.

3. Most of our low-level guilt falls under the ambiguous category of “not doing enough.”

Look at the list above. None one of the items are necessarily sinful. They all deal with possible infractions, perceptions, and ways in which we’d like to do more. These are the hardest areas to deal with because no Christian, for example, will ever confess to praying enough. So it is always easy to feel terrible about prayer (or evangelism or giving or any number of disciplines). We must be careful that we don’t insist on a certain standard of practice when the Bible merely insists on a general principle.

Let me give another example. Every Christian must give generously and contribute to the needs of the saints (2 Cor. 9:6-11; Rom. 12:13). This we can insist on with absolute certainty. But what this generosity looks like–how much we give, how much we retain–is not bound by any formula, nor can it be exacted by compulsion (2 Cor. 9:7). So if we want people to be more generous we would do well to follow Paul’s example in 2 Corinthians and emphasize the blessings of generosity and the gospel rooted motivation for generosity as opposed to shaming those who don’t give us much.

4. When we are truly guilty of sin it is imperative we repent and receive God’s mercy.

Paul had a clean conscience, not because he never sinned, but, I imagine, because he quickly went to the Lord when he knew he was wrong and rested in the “no condemnation” of the gospel (Rom. 8:1). If we confess our sins, John says, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We aren’t meant to feel borderline miserable all the time. We are meant to live in the joy of our salvation. So when we sin–and we’ll all sin (1 Kings 8:46; 1 John 1:8)–we confess it, get cleansed, and move on.

This underlines one of the great dangers with constant guilt: we learn to ignore our consciences. If we are truly sinning, we need to repent and implore the Lord to help us change. But if we aren’t sinning, if we are perhaps not as mature as we could be, or are not as disciplined as some believers, or we are making different choices that may be acceptable but not extraordinary, then we should not be made to feel guilty. Challenged, stirred, inspired, but not guilty.

As a pastor this means I don’t expect that everyone in my congregation should feel awful about everything I ever preach on. It is ok, after all, for people to actually be obedient to God’s commands. Not perfectly, not without some mixed motives, not as fully as they could be, but still faithfully, God-pleasingly obedient. Faithful preaching does not require that sincere Christians feel miserable all the time. In fact, the best preaching ought to make sincere Christians see more of Christ and experience more of his grace.

Deeper grace will produce better gratitude, which means less guilt. And that’ s a good thing all the way around.

My Neighbor is Invisible

Good post by Dr. Russell Moore:

It’s easy for me to love my neighbor. It’s easy, that is, as long as my neighbor is invisible.

By that I mean to ask, have you noticed how abstract and ethereal so much of our Christian rhetoric is on virtually every topic?

Some Christians rattle on and on about “The Family” while neglecting their kids. Some Christians “fight” for “social justice” by “raising consciousness” about “The Poor” while judging their friends on how trendy their clothes are. Some Christians pontificate about “The Church” while rolling their eyes at the people in their actual congregations. Some Christians are dogmatic about “The Truth” while they’re self-deceived about their own slavery to sin.

I think that’s a tendency for most of us, in some way or another. We affirm all the right things, whether in Christian doctrine or Christian practice, even fight with one another about them. But it’s all just up there in the abstract. These things are “issues,” not persons.

“The Family” never shows up unexpected for Thanksgiving or criticizes your spouse or spills chocolate milk all over your carpet; only real families can do that. “The Poor” don’t show up drunk for the job interview you’ve scheduled or spend the money you’ve given them on lottery tickets or tell you they hate you; only real poor people can do that. “The Church” never votes down my position in a congregational business meeting or puts on an embarrassingly bad Easter musical or asks me to help clean toilets for Vacation Bible School next week; only real churches can do that. “The Truth” never overturns my ideas and expectations; only the revelation of God in Christ does that.

As long as “The Family” or “The Poor” or “The Church” or “The Truth” are abstract concepts, as long as my interaction is as distant as an argument or as policy, then they can be whoever I want them to be.

The Spirit warns us about this. Jesus lit into the Pharisees for “fighting for” the Law of God while ignoring their financial obligations to their parents, all under the guise of their religious advocacy (Mark 7:10-12).

And James, particularly, shows us the difference between “fighting” for a cause, and loving people. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15-16). “Be warmed and filled” is advocacy; “get in here” is love.

If our love is for invisible people, is it any wonder they’re dismissing an incredible gospel?

Drawn Water Out of These Wells of Salvation

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4

I love Matthew Henry's introduction of Romans Chapter 8 from his commentary published in 1706:

Chapter 8

The apostle, having fully explained the doctrine of justification, and pressed the necessity of sanctification, in this chapter applies himself to the consolation of the Lord’s people. Ministers are helpers of the joy of the saints. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,’’ so runs our commission, Isa. 40:1. It is the will of God that his people should be a comforted people. And we have here such a draught of the gospel charter, such a display of the unspeakable privileges of true believers, as may furnish us with abundant matter for joy and peace in believing, that by all these immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. Many of the people of God have, accordingly, found this chapter a well-spring of comfort to their souls, living and dying, and have sucked and been satisfied from these breasts of consolation, and with joy drawn water out of these wells of salvation.

Too Terrifically Terrifying to Answer

From David Mathis at Desiring God Blog:

Why were Jesus' disciples so wigged out when he stilled the sea? Already afraid of the great storm, you'd think they might have been calmed by Jesus' calming of the waves. But it seemed to have the opposite effect. Mark 4:41: "And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?'"

The disciples now seem to be perplexed about their master's identity. "Who then is this . . . ?" Stilling the sea is such a show-stopping demonstration of power that flooding their souls isn't the happy realization that their buddy Jesus has more power than they had estimated, but the unnerving new awareness that they may have misunderstood his very identity.

Knowing the Psalms, they must have known who it is that stills the seas.

• Psalm 65:7 identifies God as the one "who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves."
• In Psalm 89:9, the psalmist ascribes this praise to Yahweh: "You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them."
• Psalm 93:4 asserts, "Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty!"
• And Psalm 107:29 claims of Yahweh, "He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed."

The disciples are dreadfully disoriented because they are aware that the one who stills the seas is Yahweh himself. Stilling the seas doesn't reveal Jesus to be a mere miracle-worker with extraordinary powers, but Yahweh himself come in the flesh. God is in the dinghy with them.

"Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?" The undeniable response is too unspeakably great, too wonderfully strange, too pleasantly confusing to utter. Being filled with fear is a fitting response, as is marveling (Matthew 8:27). Their Jesus is Yahweh himself, the one who still the seas.

The God-man is their fellow seafarer, and their who-question is yet too terrifically terrifying to answer.

Providence Prayer

Providence Prayer by Trevin Wax (adapted from the Heidelberg Catechism):

Faithful Father,
We praise you for your almighty and ever present power.
We trust in the power of your hand,
which upholds heaven and earth and all creatures.
We trust in the goodness of your rule
over leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
prosperity and poverty
knowing that all things come to us
not by chance but from your fatherly hand.

Help us to be patient when things go against us,
thankful when things go well,
and confident for the future,
knowing that nothing will separate us from your love.

All this, and Christ too?

This is from a new blog I found called "The Gospel Filled Wallet."

“I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water, and lifting up her hands, she said, as a blessing, ‘What! all this, and Christ too?’ …To many men it is given to have all that heart can wish, and yet not to have what their heart does wish. They have everything except contentment.”

- C.H. Spurgeon

Our response to Satan’s accusations

I like this new blog called "Of First Importance" that is compiled by Josh Etter, Fred Eaton and Bart Byl.

Our response to Satan’s accusations

“Satan accuses Christians day and night. It is not just that he will work on our conscience to make us feel as dirty, guilty, defeated, destroyed, weak, and ugly as he possibly can; it is something worse: his entire play in the past is to accuse us before God day and night, bringing charges against us that we know we can never answer before the majesty of God’s holiness.

What can we say in response? Will our defense be, ‘Oh, I’m not that bad?’ You will never beat Satan that way. Never. What you must say is, ‘Satan, I’m even worse than you think, but God loves me anyway. He has accepted me because of the blood of the Lamb.”

—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 98-99

They look innocent enough, but they are still sinners.

by Bishop William H. Willimon

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick….For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Matthew 9:9-13

I stand at the front door of the church. It is Sunday. I like to stand here and watch people entering the church. What unites them?

Sinners come in the church. Some are still in their mother's arms. Sleeping, they come, but not of their own volition. They look innocent enough, but they are still sinners.

Though outwardly, cuddly and cute, they are among the most narcissistic and self-centered in the congregation. When they wake up, they will cry out, not caring that the rest of us are about important religious business. When they are hungry, they will demand to be fed, now. Cute, bundled up, placidly sleeping or peevishly screaming. Sinners.

Sinners come to church. They are being led by the hand. They do not come willingly. Though they put up a fight an hour ago, a rule is a rule, and there they are. They have said that they hate church. They have said things about church that you wouldn't be allowed to have published in the local newspaper, if you were older. Ten years old they are, and they lack experience and expertise but not in one area: they are sinners.

Sinners come in the church. Sullen, slouched, downcast eyes. Out with friends last night to a late hour, the incongruity between here in the morning, and there last night, is striking. They know it and it is only one of the reasons why they do not want to be here. Dirty thoughts. Desire. Things you are not supposed to think about. These thoughts make these sinners very uncomfortable at church.

Sinners come to church, and they have put on some weight, middle-aged, receding hairlines, "showing some age." They are holding on tight. Well-dressed, attempting to look very respectable, proper. Youthful indiscretions tucked away, put behind them, does anybody here know? A couple of things tucked away from the gaze of the IRS. And a night that wasn't supposed to happen two conventions ago. These sinners are looking over their shoulders. They are having trouble keeping things together. Maybe that is why there are so many of these sinners here, coming in the door of the church.

Sinners come in the church, doors at last are closed. The last of them scurry to their appointed seats. The organ begins to play, played by an extremely talented, incredibly gifted artist, who is also a sinner. And the first hymn begins. Something about, "Amazing Grace," sung, appropriately, by those who really need it, need it in the worst way. They sing in the singular, but it ought to be in the plural. “Amazing grace that saved wretches like us.”

Sinners come into church. And now for the chief of them all, the one most richly dressed, most covered up, the one who leads, and does most of the talking. Some call him pastor. Down deep, his primary designation is none other than those whom he serves. Sinners come into the church, and now their pastor welcomes them, their pastor, the one who on a regular basis presumes to speak up for God, making him the “chief of sinners.”

Sinners, come to church, all decked out, all dressed up, all clean and hopeful. Sinners, sinners hear the good news, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Jesus called as his disciples, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Mary and Mary Magdalene. Sinners. Only sinners. And Jesus got into the worst sort of trouble for eating and drinking with sinners. Only sinners. Sinners.

Jesus saves sinners. Thank God. Only sinners. We sinners.