an attitude grounded in faith

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land,  for we can certainly do it.”

Numbers 13

Chuck Swindoll is definitely one of my all time favorite evangelical preachers and writers. A breath of fresh air. Here is something he wrote which speaks needed wisdom to me:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. … The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it.

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One thing we can be certain of (click the link, “more”), we will face problems and adversity. That is a given. What isn’t certain is our response to them. Will we bail out? Will we endeavor to face them feeling overwhelmed and in the end completely worn out, so that we barely have enough to complete the task, or we do so gnashing our teeth in the process? Or do we acknowledge the reality, yet persist in the faith that God will be present, and will fulfill his promises to us in Jesus?

All Scripture is written for us (Romans 15:4). The account in Judges is challenging. Of the fourteen spies Moses sent in to give a report on the land, only Joshua and Caleb had faith in God and God’s word. The inhabitants there looked formidable, but their response was not to give into their fears, but press forward, and take the land, since God had both promised and commanded it.

What about us? What about me? Am I allowing myself to live overwhelmed over everything at hand, along with other looming issues, so that there’s barely enough strength, if that, to get through the course of a day? Or am I trusting in the God who fulfills all his promises to his people in and through Jesus, so that my main concern is holding on to faith, and being faithful?

Attitude. Not about believing in myself, but believing in the God who calls us, sends us, and equips us for the mission he gives us in and through Jesus.

the seeming uneven hand of God

There is no way you can live very long and thoughtfully, and not find the unevenness of life perplexing, even troubling. Why does life happen the way it does? In terms of circumstances, as well as in one’s lot. There are the crack cocaine babies, those born in places that have never heard the gospel, others having to flee their homes in war zones, not to mention atrocities from which people can never fully recover. That’s only the beginning of what we could say. I’m sure the list could go on and on.

Although we can’t say God caused these things—of course some would question whether God caused anything—the Hebrew Bible, First Testament attributes to God everything, since nothing can happen outside of his will. God could stop or prevent anything from happening. We could live in a different world. Everything would make sense to us in that world. No one would tell lies and mislead people. No one would harm people for their own self-interest, or who knows what for?

I have experienced plenty of blessing in my life, but like everyone else, I live under the curse (Genesis 3). The world is far from an agreeable place to live if one is going to take out the fairness, justice card. This is much more the case for some people other than myself, people whose progeny have suffered injustice over generations, and who still do to this day. And the syndrome that comes with that; there are some things most people never gets over at least in the way of shaping them, sometimes actually in good ways.

Turning to scripture can help us here. I think particularly of the story of Job. It is a great help in looking straight in the face the unevenness of the world, and the seeming unevenness of God. Life is messy at best, and traumatic or even catastrophic at worst.

This is where faith comes in. Do I believe in God, even in a good God in spite of the fallout of life? Do I hold on to that belief for dear life, in spite of my numbness, and even anger, in spite of unresolved questions and the reality which flies in the face of easy answers, and wooden empty platitudes? Yes, in the midst of it all, someone can say Romans 8:28 instead of simply being present with us and praying. A handy out for them, it would seem, even if they are completely sincere and only want to help.

But looking at life as it is, we do need to get back to the bedrock of our faith. We need to look both at the details of scripture, and to the gospel, the good news in Jesus. God’s ultimate answer is Jesus, and the cross. How everything shakes out in the end is with reference to that, and how God is at work in the present, as well. We do well to lay hold of the promises of God, like in Proverbs 3:5-6 with that in mind. And as Job would remind us, mystery is a major player, as well. Who can understand what only God can fully understand, if the God of the Bible exists?

Life is uneven now, but there is God in Jesus. We need to stop there, no matter what. That is where we need to take the broken, shattered pieces of our lives, our own brokenness, indeed, ourselves. And in prayer, others, as well.

We look toward an end when all will be grace, flourishing, shalom. When the end will make good sense, even if we never do understand fully what preceded that. All of this always in and through Jesus.

the Bible and the world (even the news)

John R. W. Stott wrote what in my lifetime was considered a classic, or at least a must read book for those training for the ministry, entitled, Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today. The idea, written in 1982, is something like for a pastor to be effective in his sermon preparation, he needs to have both a Bible (certainly with necessary helps when preparing the sermon) in hand, and a newspaper. Stott and colleagues used to go to landmark films together, and then discuss their meaning afterward.

I think Stott gets to a most important point. I may want to simply escape the world, and live in some kind of monastic order, thinking that I would actually do the world more good to do so. While there’s a grain of truth in that, there’s also, I think, some error. I live in the real world which has an overwhelming influence over all of us in all sorts of ways, most of which we take for granted, and are hardly even aware of. I think of the Modernist Enlightenment heritage of my own country, the United States. And just one result of that is an entrenched individualism which at best means we each take responsibility, and at worst that we’re not our brother’s keeper. Another strong emphasis coming out of that is the falsity which again has a grain of truth, but with what ends up a poisonous admixture of error, that all the world needs to overcome “evil” is simply knowledge. We need more education, another staple of the Enlightenment.

We don’t live in a vacuum in which it’s just us and God. We live in a real world, with definite issues, which can end up defining or at least impacting individuals and societies. And at the same time, we have a word from God, word meaning written scripture, and preeminently meaning the gospel pointing to God’s final Word, Jesus. That word speaks into our lives, but into them where we live, no less. The word is often called “timeless,” but a better word for it might be timely. It initially spoke into a specific time, place and culture. And it continues to speak to every generation and place. It is the ancient word, to be sure, but at the same time God’s word for the world.

And so we need to be those who major on listening to God through his word. And that word will speak into the world in which we live. Even as it spoke into the world of its original recipients. God’s word in Jesus bringing in God’s grace and kingdom in him, yes right into the world in which we live. Living in “this present evil age” as we look forward to the world to come when Jesus returns and heaven and earth are made one.

getting uncluttered in life

The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Matthew 13

When you get older you start to think about getting rid of all the things in your house or garage that you haven’t used for years and years. Paring down, before others end up having to do that for you, or after you’re gone. I think something similar applies for all of us as followers of Jesus. We need to be unencumbered, free from what can weigh us down, and essentially knock us out, or at least greatly impair and hinder our walk in Jesus.

For me more than anything else, this involves the spiritual discipline if you want to call it that, of being in the word regularly. I feel it if for a prolonged time I’m not in the word, in scripture. And being in the word is nothing scintillating or entertaining, as a rule. Actually it goes much deeper than that, right to the heart, to the very core of one’s being, and out of that forming one’s character and what one does, over time.

There are any number of things, indeed no shortage of them, which can very much distract and burden us, yes, unnecessarily. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of responsibilities in place and challenges that come our way that we can simply ignore and forget about. It’s more like how we address those issues, what we do when we’re doing so. Are we endeavoring to walk with Jesus, to be in scripture in whatever situation we’re in? Are we active in the fellowship of the church, in a Jesus community? This is all an essential part of us being those who hear the word, understand it, and find God at work in our lives for ourselves and others in and through Jesus.

life in the pressure cooker

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

Have you ever noticed how through the difficulties and pressures of life you grow, but when things are easy, you can flounder? I speak for myself in saying that I readily identify with that thought.

Fortunately life is quite full in terms of both challenges and responsibilities. It is good to learn how to rest well, even to relax and enjoy, in fact probably more vitally important than what we think. I remember our Lord’s words to his disciples, “Come apart, and rest awhile.” They weren’t able to rest for long, though, with the clamoring crowds all around them.

I turn again and again to scripture, to God’s word especially when I feel under siege, but I want to do so through thick and thin. We can do that no matter what we’re facing, certain of God’s faithfulness through it all. Even in the trials, that God is at work for good. Therefore we need to hang in there, hang tough even in our weakness through the difficulties. Confident of a good outcome in and through Jesus.

when down, or in the ordinary circumstances of life: turning to scripture

There are a good number of reasons beyond the most obvious one, to turn again and again to the pages of the Bible. Besides the obvious, that scripture claims to somehow be God’s word written pointing us to God’s final Word, Jesus, there are reasons within the text itself, which stands to reason, if this is a text from God.

Humans wrote it, but it is somehow God-breathed, and reaches right into the depths of where we live. Therefore, if we give it sufficient time, it will resonate with us. That has been true in some measure, to some extent, even with those who didn’t have faith at the time of their reading. But since it purports to somehow be a word from God–now in many places that’s obvious on the face of it, while in many others, it is not, or at least we’re left with questions–we need God to help us understand it. Scripture itself tells us that only the Spirit of God knows and understands God, and apart from that, it will at best be guess work for us, and at worst, just plain ordinary foolishness.

Maybe the key to my life as far as what I do is my constant turning to scripture to be informed, formed, and indeed transformed by the words in it. This happens in many ways through its reading, and of course I’m referring to all 66 books of it. We turn to it again and again, and we do so looking to God, breathing prayers as we do so. Logically the prayers following, as we respond with our words to God’s word.

And so, we have that word from God which will help us through the good times, as well as the bad times, through every season and circumstance of life. In and through Jesus.

 

a passion to write Biblically

In a recent post (which I hope to edit later) I referred to something in a way which is never done in scripture, though one might argue from one passage that it’s apt, though not directly so. In the passage I had in mind, there is plenty said, and one does well to stick to the thoughts in the passage instead of adding something extra, which ends up not being helpful at all.

You can see I have a passion to write Biblically, that is according to the words of the Bible, holy scripture, the written word of God, and the basis of our faith. Although the church by the Spirit has an important say in all of this as well, the church itself always has to go back to scripture.

The Bible is utterly amazing. It is a writing over an extended period of time beginning in the Ancient Near East up to and a generation past the time of Jesus. It would be an amazing education for anyone to simply become well versed in the Bible itself; there is so much more there than meets the eye, or what people imagine.

But more than that, much more, the Bible makes claims which God seems to back up in spades, beginning with the teaching that it is God’s word. Just how it’s God’s word is interesting, another education by itself, one involving hermeneutics, the art of interpretation. By faith God seems to back his word, and draws us into the beginning of depths yet to come. There is no end to that, more than a lifetime of delving in and growing, because it is more than a book.

And most important of all, the central point of scripture to which we’re drawn is the Word himself, Jesus, and the gospel, the good news in him. That ends up being the focal point, Jesus and his fulfillment of it all, a dynamic which is very much at the heart of what is going on today in the true witness of the faith worldwide in the church and out from the church through the gospel.

And so I don’t care to share my own thoughts, or thoughts elsewhere at least not as a part of my faith. Such can have value depending, actually fitting within the Biblical classification of general wisdom which arguably (again, according to scripture) God gives to all humankind. Instead I want everything to be framed and written according to the very words of scripture, Biblically no less. In the witness of the church pointing to Jesus and the good news in him.