"The Secret Will of God"

I think many Christians make the mistake of acting on what they can never be sure of rather than relying on what they can know for sure. In other words, Christians confuse God's secret will with his revealed will. - Paul Tripp

That quote is from a helpful article by Paul Tripp on the issue of God's will. I encourage you to read the whole thing.

If you are interested in more on this topic, check Kevin DeYoung's helpful (short) book called "Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will."

Evangelicals and Hollywood

There seems to be in our day, a growing fascination among Christians with not being seen as prudish. This is especially true in the realm of entertainment. We want to "engage the culture" and affirm common ground with unbelievers around us. And these desires can be biblically thought out and useful. But it is also the case that in the name of such things we begin to confuse worldliness with the biblical worldview. Trevin Waxin has a thoughtful article at the gospel coalition's site on the issue of Christians and entertainment. It is worth a read. Below are a few quotes highlighting his main point:

I never subscribed to the fundamentalist vision that saw holiness in terms of cultural retreat or worldliness as anything that smacked of cultural engagement. I don’t subscribe to that position today.

But sometimes I wonder if evangelicals have swung the pendulum too far to the other side, to the point where all sorts of entertainment choices are validated in the name of cultural engagement.

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I am concerned that many evangelicals may be expending more energy in avoiding the appearance of being “holier-than-thou” than we do in avoiding evil itself.

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At what point does our cultural engagement become just a sophisticated way of being worldly?

Let's start thinking and talking to one another more about our entertainment choices. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Meditation is Required for Christian Growth

Last night, I spoke on the topic of meditation (and how it can be used in discipleship) from Psalm 119:97-104. I came across a great quote on the topic of meditation from Oliver Heywood (quoted by Lou Priolo in his booklet "Selfishness"). Writing 300 years ago he said, Christian meditation is the

...solemn endeavor of the soul to bring home to itself divine things; and so to resolve, ponder, and digest them, as to work their transforming power into every element and faculty of its being...It is the digestive process, by which spiritual food nourishes the soul and promotes its growth in holiness.

Lack of meditation is the primary reason that so many professing Christians, in spite of exposure to the most excellent teaching, still remain ignorant, unstable, and unfruitful; "ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Instruction flows in upon them from all sides; but their hearts and minds are like sieves, out of which everything runs as fast as it is poured in. The impressions which truth makes on their minds, are as temporary as characters traced on the sands of the sea-shore, which the next wave erases forever. But meditation imprints truth deeply on the conscience, and engraves it on the tablets of "the inner man," "as with the point of a diamond laser beam." It thus becomes incorporated into the soul; and forms, as it were, a part of it; and it is ever present, to regulate the heart's affections and to control and guide all of its movements.

We are blessed to have much great teaching at our church. The danger is that we become hearers and not doers. The potential disaster is that we might hear the word, be responsible before God for it, and not have it affect our will, thinking, desires, and behavior. You will not grow in the faith if you do not think about and apply God's Word. The Spirit of God works through the Word of God rightly understood and meditated on.

Take some time to meditate on God's Word. If you don't know how, check out this resource from Don Whitney to help you get some ideas.

Struggling with Singleness

Here is a short video by David Powlison on the issue of struggling with singleness.

"What Macklemore Got Wrong...and Right"

I didn't watch the Grammys. Actually, I didn't even know they were on. But, in case you or your friends did, here are some helpful thoughts from Denny Burk on the performance of "Same Love" by Macklemore. Below is an excerpt

The lyrics to Macklemore’s song took aim at Christians and their views on marriage. To be more precise, it takes aim at the God that Christians worship and offers another god in His place—a god that bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible. Nevertheless, these performers were obviously grasping for divine approval. All of the trappings of Christianity were invoked to bless “same love”—a stage decorated to look like a church, a “minister” presiding, and a gospel choir singing the words of 1 Corinthians 13. You might say that it had the form of godliness while denying its power (2 Tim. 3:5).

What struck me about the performance, however, was not what Macklemore got wrong but the one thing that he got ironically right. In one line from “same love,” Macklemore says this:

Whatever god you believe in
We come from the same one

This statement is profoundly true, although Macklemore is probably not aware of its true implication. We all really do come from one creator God. From one man, God made every nation of mankind (Acts 17:25). As the Psalmist writes,

Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves. – Psalm 100:3

God made us. Every single one of us. And that is true whether or not you believe it. It is true even if you believe in a false god. But that truth does not imply that God approves of everything that His creatures do (as Macklemore appears to believe). It does imply that God is God. And He is not accountable to us, but we to Him (Heb. 9:27).

Are Religious Views Merely Private?

I found this quote from Darrell Bock's commentary and thought it was insightful.

It is popular in our day to be neutral. In a culture where tolerance is highly valued, nonpartisianship is attractive. In religious discussions we try to avoid stepping on toes, for in Western cultures religious views are generally considered private. We want to avoid offending others in a culture that is diverse. But neutrality is not always a good thing, and neither is polite disengagement. Some issues are important enough to require our considered choices...

If God exists, should we think of him as having a liaise-faire attitude, not interested in how we relate to him? Jesus argues that is not the case. Religion by its very nature is a public affair, since it deals with how people relate to reality and to others. Though religious coercion such as marred European history in the Crusades and the Thirty Years War is wrong, so is our culture's tendency to relegate religious concerns to the fringe world of private reflection. The issues are too important to be kept peripheral. Ultimately we must ask each other, What centers our lives, what do we accept as truth, what defines our character? (Luke, Vol. 3 of the IVP New Testament Commentary Series, pg. 212, emphasis added by me).

Religious views are not private no matter how much our culture tries to pretend they are. A person's views of ultimate reality, purpose, morality, the existence of God (or lack thereof), and his character shape our everyday decisions. This is true of everyone from stay at home moms to politicians. Saying religion has no place in the public sphere is simply a way of saying, "As long as what makes you tick is something other than the God of the Bible you may speak." While this foolishness is lamentable, it is not my main concern. My hope is that we will love God and others enough to speak the truth of the gospel to our friends and neighbors even if our culture (or those to whom we speak) label us as intolerant. May God give us wisdom and courage to speak the most important truths often and without fearing man.

"Extinguish This Bloody Traffic"

Sanctity of Life Sunday is coming up. It has been 41 years since the horror of abortion became legally permitted in our nation. Since then it has gone from permitted to celebrated. I found the opening paragraph of an article by Mike Riccardi at the Cripplegate blog a great way to rekindle our zeal in this battle to protect the weakest in our society. I hope you'll read the entire article.

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“Never, never will we desist till we . . . extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country.”

These words were spoken by William Wilberforce, the British politician who worked tirelessly to end the slave trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Though Wilberforce penned those words in reference to the centuries-old and universally-condemned practice of slavery, they very well could have been written today in reference to our own national “disgrace and dishonor.” I am speaking, of course, of abortion. The constitutionally protected right to murder one’s own unborn child is the preeminent social injustice of our day. Should the Lord Jesus choose to patiently prolong His coming, the history books will surely regard such a moral atrocity with the same shame and outrage that we experience as we read about the African slave trade or Hitler’s Holocaust, bewildered that such miscarriages of justice could have been allowed to persist in a civilized and educated society for so long.