Happiness in God Alone Spares us Much Anxiety

Spare yourself some anxiety and believe that God is able to make you happy without anything but himself:

O what a blessed thing it is to lose one's will. Since I have lost my will I have found happiness. There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, for I have no desires but that God's will might be accomplished. Christians might avoid much trouble if they would only believe what they profess, viz., that God is able to make them happy without anything but Himself. They imagine that if is such a dear friend were to die, or such and such a blessing removed, they should be miserable, whereas God can make them a thousand times happier without them. To mention my own case, God has been depriving me of one blessing after another, but as every one was removed He has come in and filled up its place, and now, when I am a cripple and unable to move, I am happier than ever I was in my life before or expected to be, and if I had believe this twenty years ago I might have been spared much anxiety.

--Edward Payson, quoted in More Love to Thee by Sharon James

This is not the end of desires as a means to avoid anxiety. It is not the mystical thought of killing wants and desires. No, it is actually finding our full desire met in God as our ultimate joy. If he is the best Being the universe then the best gift he can give is himself. In believing that, and delighting in him through Jesus Christ, we find unshakable happiness.

Don't Date a Fool

Here is an article that looks at some Proverbs to help you evaluate if you are dating a fool (or a fool who is dating). Don't date a fool.

"Biblical Theology and the Sexuality Crisis"

Al Mohler has a great article over at 9Marks on how understanding the big picture of the Bible is key in understanding human life and sexuality (and in turn dealing with the modern push to normalize all sorts of sexual immorality). Here is a teaser:

As the church responds to this [moral and sexual] revolution, we must remember that current debates on sexuality present to the church a crisis that is irreducibly and inescapably theological. This crisis is tantamount to the type of theological crisis that Gnosticism presented to the early church or that Pelagianism presented to the church in the time of Augustine. In other words, the crisis of sexuality challenges the church’s understanding of the gospel, sin, salvation, and sanctification. Advocates of the new sexuality demand a complete rewriting of Scripture’s metanarrative, a complete reordering of theology, and a fundamental change to how we think about the church’s ministry.

 I hope you'll read the whole thing. 

What the Supreme Court Ruling on Hobby Lobby Means

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, giving an affirmation of religious liberty (in a narrow 5-4 victory). Al Mohler has some good thoughts on the case and what it means. Here is an excerpt (if you are unfamiliar with the details, he gives them at the beginning of the article).

...the lead dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals a massive ideological divide on the Court that mirrors the divide within the nation at large. Her dissent leads with concerns about the need for contraception and birth control for women and proceeds to dismiss the Christian convictions of the Green and Hahn families as “too attenuated to rank as substantial.” She ignored the fact that the Obama Administration’s policy required the families to facilitate what they believed to be morally wrong, when the government could have accomplished the same result without this requirement.

In one of the most important passages in Justice Alito’s majority opinion, he sets the issue very well:

“The Hahns and Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulations is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage. This belief implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another. Arrogating the authority to provide a binding national answer to this religious and philosophical question, HHS and the principle dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed.”

That is a stunning rebuke and a much-needed clarification. Justice Alito defended religious liberty and revealed the deep divide on the Court and in the nation — a divide in which some Americans are willing to trample religious liberty under the boot of sexual liberty, and to dismiss all arguments to the contrary as “too attenuated to rank as substantial.”

Also, some good thoughts on the decision from Russell Moore

This is not just a political issue. The Apostle Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship when he was charged with disrupting the peace. All the way through the appeals process, he not only plead for his freedom, but he also preached the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 25-26). We should do so as well. But that means teaching the next generation that following Christ will be costly, and that they will be often viewed as strange and even subversive by a culture in which sexual liberation is the highest god in the pantheon. A discount-rate prosperity gospel will not supply such grit. The gospel of Jesus Christ will. [emphasis added]

So let’s celebrate today. And then let’s remember that we prize religious liberty not preeminently because it keeps us out of jail. We prize religious liberty because we believe there is a court higher than the Supreme Court. No government bureaucrat will stand with us before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and thus no bureaucrat should seek to lord over the conscience.

"Why Making Decisions is So Hard"

Tim Challies has a good article on why it is hard to make decisions. I encourage you to read the whole thing (it is very short so it is not a tough decision of whether or not to read it). In the article he points out how we often want to know what the results of our decisions will be ahead of time and this is information that God, in his wisdom, does not give us. Instead, God calls us to trust him as we make decisions. Below is Challies' conclusion:

Decisions are difficult simply because we do not trust God with the results of our decisions. Decisions are difficult only because we are prone to misplace our comfort, to find our hope in a vision of the future more than in the one who holds the future. Your confidence in making decisions is directly related to your confidence in God himself.

How to Confess When You Sin against Someone

Confessing sin to someone you've wronged is a hard thing to do well, but it is an important part of our relationships in this fallen world. And it is a great picture of the gospel when done well. If you are looking for some help in this area, you might want to check out Peacemaker ministries.

I really appreciate their ministry (their book Peacemaking for Families is great- we use it in premarital counseling). Below is "The seven "A's" of Confession" that they have put together.  Maybe you'll find it helpful.

1. Address everyone involved (All those whom you affected) 
2. Avoid, "if," "but," and "maybe" (Do not try to excuse your wrongs) 
3. Admit specifically (Both attitudes and actions) 
4. Acknowledge the hurt (Express sorrow for hurting someone) 
5. Accept the consequences (Such as making restitution) 
6. Alter your behavior (Change your attitudes and actions) 
7. Ask for forgiveness 

See Matthew 7:3-5; 1 John 1:8-9; Proverbs 28:13. 

See more at: http://www.peacemaker.net/site/c.aqKFLTOBIpH/b.958153/k.7417/Seven_As_of_Confession.htm#sthash.wiUzkGwb.dpuf

Are There Degrees of Sin?

At book club, as we discussed chapter 8 in The Holiness of God, we spent some time on the question, "Are there degrees of sin?". I tried to show from Scripture that there are different degrees of sin and yet all sin is equal in the sense that it leads to death. Here is a good video from Piper summarizing this too.