Author Archives: Jeff

Courage: providing for us what we cannot.

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We often think of giving and provision as an element of generosity. Giving says something about the recipient (“you’re valued”), and when this giving costs us something it also says something about the giver (“I trust God”). When one gives up what they need in order to provide for others, that person demonstrates their faith (really courage) that God will then provide in the future, satisfying all needs.

Consider the ultimate sacrifice, where love motivated the deepest kindness, most costly generosity, embodied by the most courageous One:

“God takes action in Christ against sin, death, and the devil. The doctrine of justification is not about the workings of impersonal law in the universe, or about manipulating its outcomes, but it is about God. The moral law is simply the reflection of the character of God, and when God acts to address the outcomes of the broken moral law, he addresses these himself, himself taking the burden of his own wrath, himself absorbing in the person of Christ the judgment his righteous character cannot but demand, himself providing what no sinner can give, himself absorbing the punishment no sinner can bear and live.”1

How does God provide for us? Through His relentless courage.

Why does God provide for us? Because He loves us.

Why are we moved to provide for others? Because we love them and trust God. Generosity and courage are relational. They’re easy to show in any language.

  1. David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2008), 201. ↩
 

Who can outrank an ‘ordinary’ Christian?

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THEOLOGY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS: the general authority of every believer to minister

Every believer is a prophet, a priest, and a king.

We are all prophets (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 1:24). Every believer is to exhort (Heb.3:13), counsel (Rom. 15:14), evangelize (Acts 8:4) and teach (Col. 3:16) with the word ‘dwelling richly’ within. Believer, you must speak!

Every believer is a priest (I Pet.2:9). We all have access to the presence of God, as did the priests of old (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 4:14-16), and have the responsibility to offer spiritual sacrifices and deeds of mercy (Rom. 12:1-2; Heb. 13:12,16). Believer, you must serve!

Every believer is also a king (Rev. 1:5,6). We all have authority over the world (1 John 5:4), over the flesh (Rom.6:14ff), and over the devil (Luke 10:20). We all have divine weapons to demolish strongholds and obstacles to the kingdom of Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5). Believer you must take charge!

This doctrine is called the ‘universal office’ of believer, and it is nothing short of revolutionary. A layperson ministers in word (as a prophet) and deed (as a priest), and need not wait for a pastor to request it (because he is a king). Jesus himself said that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist (Matt.11:9-11). Who can outrank an ‘ordinary’ Christian? No one! So we see that every lay person1 has the responsibility to initiate, to plan, to guide and to manage ministries of both word and deed. Lay people must not be passive.”2

Tim Brister3 provides a related visual on loving God and others with our head, hearts and hands (corresponding to prophets-priests-kings, respectively:

  1. “Lay person” is shorthand for those who are not “clergy,” that is are not the paid professional ministers Ie.g., pastors) in the local church. Almost everyone is a “layman” or “lay person,” and they the high calling of serving and even leading in the church and the world. ↩
  2. Tim Keller, “THEOLOGY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS: the general authority of every believer to minister,” in ROMANS Leaders Guide (thanks to my friend Kent Blair for sharing this quote) ↩
  3. “Why I Employ the Triperspectival Framework for Gospel-Centered Spiritual Formation” ↩
 

How much do we value hope & healing?

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“… the church is called to be for the world what Jesus was for Israel: not just a moral lecturer, nor even a moral example, but the people who, in obedience to God’s strange vocation, learn to suffer and pray at the place where the world is in pain, so that the world may be healed.” 1

We will value hope and healing for others as far as we value these truths for ourselves. That is why rehearsing the Gospel every day is vital. We begin each day voicing our greatest needs, far deeper than financial concerns or relational strife — we are estranged from God until He mercifully brings us back to His table to enjoy the life of His Son.

When He invites us back day after day, we develop an appetite for the nourishment He offers, and cannot go on without inviting others to the table as well. Yet, if we think we’re better than others, we’ll live that way. (E.g., it’s impossible to really forgive someone if you think you are better than him or her.) People who think of others as more important than themselves — like Jesus lived and why He died — people like Him find opportunities to set aside their personal comforts to bring comfort to others. I dare say this is part of the vision Jesus has for our lives. I tend to think many of His so-called followers fail to grasp this and thus fail to become who He rescued us to be.

Grasping the Gospel of hope & healing: If we are convinced all the time that we are worse off and undeserving than we ever realized before, and at the same time more loved than we ever dared to dream, we will be on the right track. Our hearts will be renewed with compassion as we hear Jesus invite us again to His gracious table – just as He invites the lame, sick, and outcasts to dine with Him (yes, you and I are two of them). Furthermore, we’ll pull out a chair for another whom Jesus is also waving into His banquet.

“Given the iterative weakness of our surrender to Jesus’ authority and the frequent frailty of our resolve to follow Him, our lives of discipleship must regularly be punctuated by intentional pauses at the feet of the Servant, not only remembering His grace, but thoughtfully receiving it. In this way, the Spirit will bring the grace of Jesus to bear on our hearts, softening them, inclining them toward God, and enabling them to respond to the virtuous demands of our King.” 2

Will I value hope and healing enough to daily remember, daily receive, and daily respond? If so, I won’t go it alone.

  1. N.T. Wright, “The Truth of the Gospel and Christian Living,” in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (ed. Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright; New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 224. ↩
  2. Jonathan Lunde, Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), 286. ↩
 

Good reads | John Stott: The Humble Leader.

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“When you read the end of this book, you will know quote a lot about John Stott. You will see why he was in the ‘Top 100’ list of influential people [TIME magazine, 2005]. He was driven by a passion for Jesus Christ’s name to be honoured around the world.”
—Julia Cameron, biographer, in John Stott: The Humble Leader (Christian Focus, 2012), 15. [Kindle]

20120627-060050.jpgYou may not have heard about John Stott, though you certainly have felt the influence of his great life. He never married, through the world was his family, all the nations his parish (church family). As a pastor in London (All Souls Church), The Right Reverend Dr. John Stott was truly a “global Christian,” a voice for the furthering of the Gospel, and an advocate for the poor and marginalized for most of his nine decades (1921-2011).

Stott’s words and writings shaped worldwide politics, a faithful voice for the cause of Christ and the implications of making the world a better, safer place: see the Lausanne Movement, with the Lausanne Covenant (1974), the Manilla Manifesto (1989), and the Cape Town Commitment (2011). Stott’s fingerprints are all over each of these, for the marks of his godly life shaped for decades the leaders in the worldwide Evangelical Christian movement.

I want to encourage you to read about his life, and dive into his prolific writings (some listed at the bottom). In this post I am reviewing John Stott: The Humble Leader, a new biography send to me by the publisher Christian Focus (paperback, 114 pages; e-book versions as well). They’ve asked me to write a review, and while it’s not required to be positive I could not be more enthusiastic about this brief biography.

Pastor John Robert Walmsley (R.W.) Stott lived an understated life, embodying a lifestyle of simplicity and joy — and others-centered service — that has been used by God to spread the Gospel to the nations. His greatness can be directly contributed to his daily humility and dependence upon Jesus. It’s not so much that humility made him great; his humility was his greatness.

In our society, here in the affluent West, we often talk about “making an impact,” wanting our lives to be influential in our spheres of influence and in the world. This pursuit is noble when we link to the cause of Christ, getting caught up in His Mission. Yet I dare say we get caught up with a bigger-is-better mentality, wanting to be so successful that we adopt the world’s standards of success, clamoring for approval by others more than the smile of God. Subtly we think that Jesus will help us achieve our potential for greatness, championing our talents and causes. Dr. Stott showed the opposite is true: when we are minor characters in God’s Story, where Jesus is the Hero, His message flows supernaturally from our lives. He became famous by trying to make Someone else famous.

Before I dive into a review of this book — given to me by the publisher for that purpose, let me give some qualifying remarks.

I’m encouraged by a new trend: noted megachurch pastors are returning to simpler ways of embodying the life of Jesus while preaching His message — see Craig Groeschel’s WEIRD: Because Normal Isn’t Working, and Shaun Lovejoy’s newest book, The Measure of Our Success: A Passionate Plea to Pastors, added to the groundbreaking no-holds barred approach of Francis Chan (Crazy Love, and The Big Red Tractor and the Little Village [video]), and David Platt (Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream and Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God). Somehow talented leaders get tricked into believing that God wants to leverage their positions for influence, by magnifying their personalities and highlighting their preferences.

Dr. Stott’s life and legacy give us a glimpse of hope, a reversal of that recent trend of how we define “greatness.”

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Spiritual experience.

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Do you know anyone who lives in their head? As if every emotion is secondary to just ‘figuring it all out’? How about someone who seems to respond emotionally but not logically to trouble and personal challenges.

I love thinking about the connect of head and heart, and how Christ refuses to let our faith reside in either/or (it’s both/and). Why does He do that? Because we’re whole people, though many lack wholeness — okay, we all lack wholeness — in our fallen human condition. So the connection of our beliefs (head) and emotions (heart) is closer than we realize. And the disconnect is more real than we imagined.

We see this when a friend is depressed. And when we have no words to describe how we feel; we just have to return to the Gospel and sing it back into our souls. And connect our deepest passions to God’s good gifts. This is where we begin to truly experience the Spirit.

So what makes for true spiritual experience?

“Spiritual experience that does not arise from God’s word is not Christian experience. Other religions offer spiritual experiences. Concerts and therapy sessions can affect our emotions. Not all that passes for Christian experience is genuine. An authentic experience of the Spirit is an experience in response to the gospel. Through the Spirit the truth touches our hearts, and that truth moves our emotions and affects our wills.
This also means that Bible study and theology that do not lead to love for God and a desire to do His will—to worship, tears, laughter, excitement, or sorrow—have gone terribly wrong. True theology leads to love, mission, and doxology (1 Timothy 1:5, 7, 17). We should not expect an adrenaline rush every time we study God’s word. We all express our emotions in different ways. But when we study God’s word we should pray that the spirit of God will not only inform our hearts but also inspire our hearts.”
—Tim Chester & Steve Timmis, Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community, 31.

Do you agree? How does engaging God in His Word really change you?

 

Gratefulness: small is actually big.

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“Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things.

We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.

We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious.

We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.

How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

[Via Ann Voskamp]

 

Friday (kinda) Fun | Rear Window.

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For fans of Rear Window (1954) directed by Alfred Hitchcock: here’s a 3-minute timelapse, featuring all original footage, with events in roughly same order as the movie.

(I say ‘kinda’ fun because if you know the plotline of the movie, and Hitchcock’s directorial tastes, ‘fun’ doesn’t quite encapsulate it.)

Rear Window Timelapse from Jeff Desom on Vimeo.

Music: Hungarian Dance No. 5composed by Johannes Brahms, arranged for easy listening by Hugo Winterhalter

Via Ben Arment:

You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘neighbor.’

Neighbors like each other.

Speak to each other.

Care if anybody lives or dies.

But none of you do.

But I couldn’t imagine any of you bein’ so low that you’d kill a little helpless, friendly dog…

The only thing in this whole neighborhood who liked anybody.

Did ya kill him because he liked ya?

Just because he liked ya?

 

Blessed self-forgetfulness & the desire to change.

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What are the marks of a super-naturally changed heart?

This is one of the questions the apostle Paul address as he writes to the church in Corinth. He takes aim at the blessings of self-forgetfulness in 1st Corinthians 3:21-4:7. He’s after a deep-rooted, life-altering change on the inside, that brings about much greater joy than some superficial outward tinkering will (as our best self-help efforts can only hope for).

In an age were people-pleasing, puffing up your ego, and building your resume are seen as the methods to ‘make it,’ the apostle Paul calls us to find true rest in God, through blessed self-forgetfulness.

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“The more we get to understand the Gospel, the more we want to change. Friends, wouldn’t you want to be a person who does not need honor — nor is afraid of it? Someone who does not lost for recognition — nor, on the other hand, is frightened to death of it? Don’t you want to be the kind of person who, when they see themselves in a mirror or reflected in a shop window, does not cringe either? Wouldn’t you like to be the type of person who, in their imaginary life, does not sit around fantasizing about hitting self-esteem home-runs, daydreaming about successes that gives them the edge over others? Or perhaps you tend to beat yourself up and to be tormented by regrets. Wouldn’t you like to be free from them? …
You will probably say that you do not know anybody like that. But that is the possibility for you and me if we keep on going where Paul is going [in 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7]. I can start to enjoy things that are not about me…
This is gospel-humility, blessed self-forgetfulness. Not thinking more of myself as in modern cultures, or less of myself as in traditional cultures. Simply thinking of myself less.”
—Tim Keller, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy, pp. 34-36.

 

25 years ago today: Tear down this wall!

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U.S. President Ronald Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate at the Berlin Wall

25 years ago today: “Tear down this wall!” was the challenge issued by United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin.

Remember what Reagan said on his second visit to Berlin?

“We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. [applause]

Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Reagan challenged Gorbachev, who was then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear it down as an emblem of Gorbachev’s desire to increase freedom in the Eastern Bloc through glasnost (“transparency”) and perestroika (“restructuring”).

Later in the speech Reagan added, “The wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.”

Peter Robinson, the White House wordsmith who drafted the address, said its most famous line was inspired by a conversation with Ingeborg Elz of West Berlin who had remarked in a conversation with him, “If this man Gorbachev is serious with his talk of Glasnost and perestroika he can prove it by getting rid of this wall.”

Built in 1961, the Berlin Wall became known as a symbol of communist oppression.

Twenty-nine months after Reagan’s speech, on November 9, 1989, after increasing public unrest, East Germany finally opened the Berlin Wall. By the end of the year, official operations to dismantle the wall began. With the collapse of the Communist governments of Eastern Europe and, eventually, the Soviet Union itself, the tearing down of the wall epitomized the collapse for history. In September 1990, Reagan, no longer President, returned to Berlin, where he personally took a few symbolic hammer swings at a remnant of the Berlin Wall.

Source: Wikipedia; thanks to my friend Malcolm for reminding me of this great day.

 

 

All their Good.

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Many people love Jesus for what He can do for them. The Redeemed learn to love Jesus for Who He is.

“The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God Himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; He is the portion of their souls.
God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honor and glory. they have none in heaven but God; He is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world.”
—Jonathan Edwards

Are you in love with the idea of a better life … or are you in love with Jesus?

Quoted by Pastor Joel Dombrow, “Jesus Life”
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