Make Your Requests Known, Philippians 4:6-7

Posted on November 17, 2014 by droseland

One of my favorite promises in the Bible is offered as a consequence of two commands Paul issued the Philippians. I take these tandem commands as two non-negotiable prerequisites for God to do on your behalf what He really wants to do. Unmerited peace is ours when we remove the barriers and lay hold of our Heavenly Father.

6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Many of those closest to me know this passage really well. I have had it memorized since I was a young child. Of course what has always appealed to me was the “peace of God which surpasses all comprehension.” That sounds pretty good! This phrase is just the kind of thing one would expect from the hand of the God who has “demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Somewhere prominent in twelve of Paul’s thirteen letters we see this refrain: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” If you are a believer given to a naturally pessimistic frame of mind, you probably need to be reminded from time to time that God wants you to have the best and highest. Despite the trials and struggles in this life, the pain and hardship, the loss and trouble, God is ordering history on your behalf for your good. The Bible makes this point again and again.

This kind intention, in which all of history is organized to glorify Jesus Christ and thus His fellow-heirs (Rom 8:17), may not be our first thought when hard times come. When we suffer, we often switch to just the opposite rationale. It goes like this: 1) God is omnipotent, so He can do anything He wants! 2) I am hurting. 3) If God wanted me to have peace or joy or blessing, then He would take away this hurt. 4) Therefore I must conclude that God does not want me to have peace. 5) For the really self-deluded: therefore I conclude that God does not love me. This is of course man’s reasoning devoid of God’s revelation. This tendency in all of us was first suggested by God’s enemy in Genesis 3. The satanic narrative of our human condition is always that God is the cosmic torturer holding back the goodies in order to torment us.

From Noah's Ark by Tom Dooley and Bill Looney, p.44-45. Used with Permission

from Tom Dooley and Bill Looney’s Noah’s Ark

But the revelation of Scripture paints a different picture of suffering and peace. Peace is available in the storm, not only in its breaking. Suffering produces desirable effects in our character, not just pain and wear. Even our Lord was sanctified through suffering—the perfectly sinless humanity of Christ! Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” We are not given a merely static image of our suffering Savior; we are told repeatedly how He performed under the suffering. What did He do about it? He called out to His Father, for one thing. On the Cross, Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 and Ps 31:5, both prayers to God the Father. “My God, My God why have your forsaken Me?” is an appropriate lament for our Savior as He bore our sins on the cross. And “into Your hands I commit My spirit” is the fitting conclusion to the greatest life ever lived.

Paul’s instructions that remove all barriers to God’s gift of peace in the storm echo the Lord’s pattern in His suffering. They involve a mindset and prayer, our attitude and the communication that comes from it. Check out Philippians 4:6 in a little detail:

Command 1: “Be anxious for nothing.” I have discussed this command many times in many venues because it is such a surprising thing to read and process. How can we tell people not to worry? How can we just say “stop it” to anxiety? The Christian mindset assumes the command is binding and reasons that anxiety is a choice, the opposite of faith in God. Pagan thinking cannot accept the revelation of Scripture regarding our capabilities and responsibilities, so this command is ridiculed as wishful thinking. But here’s the question, Christian: if God Who made your mind tells you how to use it, do you believe He knows what you’re capable of? Do you think He knows how to handle anxiety? This command takes you from a focus on your troubles to occupation with your Savior, the only solution to all our troubles. He’s got it. Trust Him.

Mindset thus established, we move to action:

Command 2: “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” The main command here, as it is well-translated by the NASB, goes against our theological reasoning sometimes. Does God not already know my requests? The verse does not say, “Ask Him your requests,” even though that’s what it means. Notice it says “Let your requests be made known to God.” The way Paul says it matters because it tells us to stop reasoning God’s omniscience against prayers we should offer to Him. This point is important, so I won’t leave it subtly stated: It is true that God is omniscient (all-knowing) and it is still true that He commands your communication of requests to Him. Why? Isn’t that extra? I think we’re talking about the difference between a public notice in the newspaper and an invitation in the mail.

Us:       “Why didn’t you come to my party?”

God:    “You didn’t invite Me.”

Us:       “But You knew I was having it, and You knew that I wanted You to come.”

God:    “Yes, but I told you to invite Me.”

There’s something life-defining about the personal engagement of the God in His instructions to pray to Him. I believe that this personal contact in communications is the most important part of prayer, and this is why the all-knowing Creator wants you to “make your requests known to Him.”

Do not forget thanksgiving in bringing your requests. This element is part of our reasonable service of worship; since Romans 8:28 is in effect, we can be thankful even for the hardships that God is somehow working together for good.

My prayer for you is that you try obedience on this procedure for worshiping God through the storm. If Paul, a prisoner of Christ, could rejoice through his sufferings and have this beyond-comprehension peace, then so can we. God, apparently, is waiting to dispense His peace on those who draw near to Him with a right mindset and urgent, specific requests attended by thanksgiving.

 

 

Posted in Apologetics, Christ as Example, Christian Suffering, New Testament Commands, Paul, Prayer, Theological Overview, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Veterans’ Day 2014: The Key to Courage Under Fire

Posted on November 11, 2014 by droseland

Today we honor our Veterans who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom. We honor those who were willing to do so and were not called to make that ultimate sacrifice. Many have come back home wounded; none are completely unscathed. Here is a reason for patriotism in these days: we nationally celebrate a tiny minority of our populace in that only 6.5% or 19.6 million Americans today are veterans of the United States Armed Forces as of 2013. We love the military; we rightfully see the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardsmen as the best we have to offer. When we think of them we think of our freedom. We are reminded of all that is worth protecting with the precious lives of our greatest national resource. When we see their sacrifice squandered by the wickedness of self-serving parasites dressed as statesmen who are in a position to know and do better, we gnash our teeth. Our passion for the United States of America is matched by our commitment to see the lives of our heroes truly be honored. This is their home, for they are the brave.

Pray for the United States of America

OId Glory in Eastern Connecticut

For Veterans’ Day I want to share the greatest Hero, our Lord, Who in Matthew 26:36-41 provides an example of real courage under fire and then commands His subordinates to prepare to do likewise. The sacrifices of our best and brightest are always a reminder of Calvary. They died so that we could live in a free country. Christ died to secure for us eternal life and make us citizens of Heaven.

Let me set the story up briefly: It was the last night of Jesus’ earthly ministry before going to war and winning our salvation at the Cross. He had conducted final preparations for His disciples prior to being arrested, tried, falsely convicted, tortured, crucified, and most importantly judged for our sins by His righteous and loving Father. The disciples had just been informed concerning Jesus’ impending suffering and departure, but as usual they were slow to catch on. They were worn-out after a long series of ministry events, concluding with the Upper Room Discourse, an all-evening block of instruction in which Jesus prepared them for what would happen after His Resurrection.

Our passage finds Jesus making His final preparations for Himself. As was His custom, no matter how tired He ministry demands might leave Him, Jesus is going to spend some much-needed time alone with His Father. At various points in the ministry of Jesus, we see this habit: Jesus considered prayer to His Father as essential to His earthly ministry, and He protected intentional, devoted time to this, often at the end of His day. If He was devoting time in Matthew 14 to prayer—after that long day of ministry—then we may conclude that this was his non-negotiable priority for his day. There are many ways He could spend His last few hours before His arrest, but Jesus commits that prime time to pouring out His heart to God the Father.

Intimacy and Priority, vv36-38

Matthew 26:36Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” Here Jesus does what we have seen Him do before. He intentionally separates from His disciples to have some private prayer time. But there is a greater intimacy which eight of the eleven disciples do not have with Christ:

Matthew 26:37And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. 38Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” This is the same crew that Jesus specially invited to the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9, Luke 9), another event in which we see the relationship between Jesus and His Father.

Everyone who has gone into combat knows that feeling of impending mortality. When you know you may die, there is a cause for trepidation. Not the whole-sale destruction of our souls through crippling fear, but still the apprehension that “today may be the day.” Jesus did not think He might die; He knew it was certain. Only His blood would pay the price for our sins. Only His separation from His Father as He was crushed for our sins would satisfy the righteousness of God.

Notice Jesus’ instructions in v38: “Remain here and keep watch with Me.” This is a military term, GREGOREO, which means to remain alert, to keep a guarding posture of vigilance. The exact opposite of this term is to go do sleep! Jesus is not asking for a guard detail to protect Him from physical attack but a spiritual concern for the coming storm. This is time for mental and spiritual preparation for what will follow.

Our Model in Prayer, v39

In v39 Jesus prays a beautiful prayer. 39And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Let me paraphrase the motivation a bit here: “I do not want to be separated from You, Father. If it were up to Me, and no other concerns were involved, I’d rather maintain our fellowship and rapport. However, since this is Your plan, and since I am Your Son, I gladly defer to Your will.” No one should think that the Father was any more willing for the Son to be crushed than that the Son wanted to be crushed by His Father. This is unthinkable. Rather, we are to see how Jesus treasures His life, which is His loving rapport with God the Father. Of course there is more involved than the Father’s relationship with His Son. There is the issue of you and me and our hopelessness in sin. Perhaps this verse more than any other shows us what was involved in Christ going to the Cross on our behalf. Both God the Father and God the Son wanted us, and the only way they could accomplish our reconciliation was through the Cross—the cup of God’s wrath on sin, His death on our behalf.

We learn to pray in accordance with God’s will in Jesus’ prayers. We are to ask what we want, but we are to submit our preferences to His. Very often we do not know what God is doing with a specific circumstance. We will not until we see Him. Yet, we commit our trials and triumphs to Him and trust Him to bring forth His glory through His will in all things. Like Jesus, we should feel free to express our preferences as we see things, and then we should also include the needed caveat that “not as I will but Thy will be done.”

Accountability and Training—vv40-41

40And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?” Jesus’ rhetorical question immediately calls for self-evaluation by Peter, James, and John. They blew it. They were tired, and they had no real grasp of what was coming. Of course they could have stayed alert and awake, but they did not. Jesus, the ultimate leader, has no problem issuing commands and inspecting for performance. Yet the real power in His leadership style comes from our desire not to disappoint Him. He is the demanding trainer whose very Person draws our best according to our consuming passion: 2Cor5:9Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. We see this effect in Peter earlier in Mt 26, when he tries to profess his faithfulness despite Jesus’ prophecy to the contrary.

41“Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Here is some instruction we desperately need. In our flesh we are weak and need spiritual discernment and energy. The command for today is prayer, and the reason for the command is presented here: “keep watching and praying in order that you may not enter into temptation.” Spiritual alertness as a general orientation, combined with prayer—personal engagement of our Heavenly Father—are by God’s design and revelation a preventative against the power of temptation. These men needed the protection Jesus offered, but they did not avail themselves of it. Indeed, Jesus gave them the instruction before they needed it. He set them up for success so that they would be spiritually strong before the temptation to fear and denial came.

As we celebrate the courage and sacrifice of our great American heroes, let’s remember the preparation our Lord suggested to His disciples on the eve of their great struggle with cowardice: “keep watching and praying so that you may not enter into temptation.”

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Thank you for your response. ✨

 

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Mission Priority in Paul’s Prayer: 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2

Posted on November 3, 2014 by droseland

When you are focused on someone you really love, a project you really believe in, a passion that easily consumes you, you tend to connect everything to that one object of your vision. Sometimes other people may have trouble matching your enthusiasm for your driving passion when you try to share it. They may just smile and nod, hoping the conversation will move on to matters you have in common. As you grow in your faith, you will develop a greater and greater focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. That life-focus will make you want to share Him, and learning to negotiate the conflict between social awkwardness and compassion for the lost is part of growing up.

It can be a challenge at times to remember that not every believer with whom you seek fellowship has developed an evident passion for Christ yet. At the same time none of us has fully “arrived.” Until we are face to face with Him we will be growing “in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Regardless of where we are in our individual walk with Christ, in the Bible we find that an ever-growing hunger for the things of God is the norm for believers. In 2 Thes 3:1-2, Paul demonstrates his life-consuming passion: making disciples through teaching God’s word. This is the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ (Mt 28:19-20), and Paul’s life was completely committed to the mission.

If I said, “What can I pray for on your behalf?” what would you say? If you had only one summary request to make, what would it be? Paul’s answer should set the trajectory for our lives:

1Finally, brethren, pray for us

that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as   it did also with you;

2and that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men; for not all have the* faith.

According to Paul’s scale of values and priorities, a prayer on his behalf is a prayer for his life’s mission—the spread of God’s word. His prayer request is for the advance of the Word: “that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified…” yet he says “pray for us.” It is an inescapable conclusion from the apostle’s words that he equated a prayer for his interests as a prayer for God’s mission. He wanted his life to count, and he hung all his ambitions on a successful expansion of God’s priorities.

Sometimes we find significance in what is not said. Paul does not ask for:

  • Prayer for him to have fun, ease, rest, etc.
  • Prayer for him to have health
  • Prayer for God to “expand his boundaries” = wealth
  • Prayer for him to find a wife
  • Prayer for him to have peace, joy, hope, satisfaction, _________.

All these desires are legitimate and the common experience of universal human longing. Yet Paul goes beyond the merely temporal and mundane to embrace eternal significance. The second request, for protection of his person from violence or oppression, is only offered in support of the first request. If Paul will be used by God to spread the word he will need protection. Notice that even the request Paul makes on his own behalf is really in logistical support of the mission. Do your requests for your real and present needs serve the higher goal of God’s mission in the world? If we get first things first our prayers will become more effective.

As a former tanker, I think of the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank as an illustration of protection in support of the mission. You don’t build seventy tons of armor around an anti-armor gun for just the sheer coolness of it. You don’t match a massive, fuel-guzzling turbine engine to a ridiculously heavy-duty drive-train to show off at monster truck rallies. That tank with its anti-tank gun has a mission: primarily killing other tanks. The armor protects the tank crew from enemy fire so they can accomplish their mission. The engine makes the seventy-ton monster nimble enough to maneuver quickly behind protective terrain, the most important protection in a fire fight. These features, which account for a massive investment of defense dollars in equipment and training of a tank crew are not an end in themselves. These systems enable the crew to accomplish the mission. So it is with Paul’s request, “that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men….”

Anything that serves Paul’s wants or needs as an end in itself is beyond the scope of his highest priority or apparently of his prayer life. The request Paul makes of the Thessalonians begins with his purpose for living. In imitation of Paul we can find purpose in our mission: that the word will spread rapidly and be glorified!

“Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart”—PS 37:4

 

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Unexpected Responsibilities: Exploring God’s Commands to Pray

Posted on October 27, 2014 by droseland

Sometimes God tells us to do things that we find surprising.   In Genesis 12 He told Abraham to leave everyone and everything he knew, everything that defined him, so that God could redefine him and start the long march to Messiah, “the Seed…to Whom the promise had been made.” I imagine that God’s command to leave family and homeland came as a shock, given Abraham’s limited, human perspective. Yet through God’s eternal vision, this command and Abraham’s response made him the “father of many nations” and more importantly the ancestor of the humanity of our Lord.

I think our limited perspective makes some of God’s commands seem surprising. Maybe this is because we don’t see where our obedience will take us, like with Abraham.  These kinds of commands really call out our faith in the God Who issues them.  Sometimes, though, the surprise is in the nature of the command itself. One feature of the Bible that might be surprising to you is the frequency of commands God issues regarding prayer. The Bible commands prayer quite a bit. It’s like God is saying, “Talk to me” all through the Scriptures.

Over the next few weeks I want to explore some of the Bible’s commands to prprayer manay. Doing so breaks me out of the “cultural Christianity” notion that prayer is merely a desirable option taken up in earnest by the most spiritually-minded among us. Taking my cues from the crowd might leave me with that impression, but then I would be misguided. We have to stop looking around at what everyone is doing and look at what God calls us to do in His Word regarding communication back to Him.

As I make that transition from cultural assimilation to real obedience I find spiritual wealth I never imagined was there. When I invest myself in obedience to the Scripture’s commands to pray, I find that I have a real, vibrant relationship with the God of all peace. I grow with respect to what God has taught me in His Word as I reflect on it and take it back to Him. Prayer is the labor of our first love, the effort we invest in a growing relationship with our God Who has spoken so clearly in the Bible.

But how do we do it?  Some believers are old hands at prayer, while others are daunted by the prospect of addressing Someone they cannot see or hear directly from.  Do we repeat the prayers of others? Do we wait around for that “prayer feeling” to take us into an emotional flood of entreaty so poignant the very earnestness of our tone seems, in our imaginations, to shake the shutters barring our view through the windows of Heaven? Should we seek to emulate the super spiritual pray-ers around us and “sound the part” until we learn how to do it? Pagans notoriously cast about in the seemingly infinite dither of superstition to find the right spell, the right sacrifice, the right rite that will get the attention of sleeping Baal. Should we borrow from their playbook, or is there a better way?

I think the Bible tells us how to do what God wants us to do. Once we have exhausted the biblical record on prayer we will be trained to respond to God’s call to fellowship with Him intelligently, knowing what He wants from us.

God commands prayer through the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2, where Paul demonstrates the priority of Christian mission.  Jesus commands prayer from His disciples on His last night of ministry before the Crucifixion in Matthew 26:41 and Mark 14:38, giving us needed insight into one purpose of prayer.  Paul teaches a priceless formula for peace beyond our understanding in Philippians 4:6-7, where he commands believers to make their requests known to the Lord.  He also repeats the requirement that believers express their gratitude to God all the time in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and Ephesians 5:20.

I invite you to join me as I explore these wonderful blocks of instruction from our Savior.

 

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Thanking Our Veterans Part I

Posted on November 11, 2013 by droseland

Today is Veterans’ Day 2013.  So much of what we enjoy has come to us because of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have given all their tomorrows in our nation’s wars.  The feeling we all have of gratitude for their sacrifice and pride in their accomplishment must these days be tinged with a greater-than-usual sense of regret on their behalf.  As our people abuse their freedoms in either wanton licentiousness or sell them cheaply by becoming dependent on the central government in increasing numbers, Veterans’ Day always accentuates my sense of legitimate national guilt.  Do we not owe them a better showing for what they purchased for us with their blood?

Many people have thanked me today for my service. I have always been a bit dumbstruck when this happens. I know that when someone says “Thank you”  you are supposed to say “you’re welcome.” That is just good manners.  And to be sure I thank veterans for their service all the time.  But as a veteran, I have to say that when I am thanked I immediately think of those we can’t thank in person because they died on the field.  I’m with Hal Moore, who in an interview years ago said that coming home alive from war makes commanders feel guilty because of the men who did not make it.  They are what Veterans’ Day is really about to me.  They actually did something that every vet is willing to do.

To those who would thank me for the paltry service I rendered as an officer in the U.S  Army, I say that it truly was my pleasure and privilege to contribute to our national defense.  I always want to say thank you back to Americans for giving me that privilege. In  my short five years of active duty service I received more in training and character development than I could hope to pay back in good decision-making and hard work in a forty-year career. Maybe two careers.  Being an Army officer during a vital portion of my life as a young man meant growing up and working in the real world on things that really mattered, and I really needed that if I was going to be a pastor. I truly benefited from learning how to lead with others’ lives on the line, knowing I was called lead in the affairs of spiritual life.

Those men who as my superior officers trained me have my humble gratitude and affection, though I could not always say it back then.  Those men who worked with me as peers were my trainers as well, for the Army is a profession that polices its own ranks.  Those men who worked as my subordinates perhaps trained me the most. That is the way of the junior officer in the military of a free nation.  These all by their commitment to the mission and the men made me successful, if I ever enjoyed any success, and they still motivate me to cultivate my new skills and constantly improve my work today.  I miss them all daily, and I miss the service that brought us together.  They are in my prayers of thanksgiving and intercession.

The men I trained and fought alongside who did not come home, or who came home maimed for life always remind me of what it takes to maintain the fragile gift of American freedom.  For life their families will bear the weight of loss that others can only imagine, though with tears.  I salute these men and their families who understand better than most what we mean when we thank our vets for their service.

I thank God for the United States of America, for Americans who understand what this great experiment in human freedom  is all about, and for our troops, past, present, and future.  What a blessing to be able to say publicly among men that in presence of the Lord Jesus Christ I honor our defenders to His Father.  For now I am free to speak in this Name without threat of censure.  For now.  We have God and our vets to thank for this precious liberty.

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God Tells Us What to Think

Posted on May 14, 2013 by droseland

We tend to be suspicious by nature when we get the idea that someone is telling us what our opinion should be. Sometimes we adopt the frame of mind of the scientist, where we insist that we will observe only the factual data. “Just the facts, ma’am.” We will see the evidence for ourselves, thank you very much. As seemingly noble and objective as this sounds, the observation of objective facts can and does grow tiresome. Sometimes we feel more like drawing conclusions from the objective facts once they have been established. After all, that’s what the facts are for! Reasoning to conclusions from the data is the “SO WHAT?” factor. Collecting specimens and samples and measurements is all well and good if there’s a point. Otherwise it starts to feel like busy work. The observation of data and reasoning about the data are two different but related thought processes, and thinking people often believe that this is all there is to life. I will observe and/or reason for myself, and that is that.

Not so fast: Enter marketing, rhetoric, political grandstanding, etc. If we are really independent observers and reasoners, then why do businesses spend so much money in advertising? Why does the industry of persuasion work? Why do political slogans capture the imaginations of the electorate? Why can a good rhetorician convince his audience of his position regardless of his topic or the position he takes? It’s simple. We were made with the capacity to believe. When you cannot observe the data for yourself due to lack of necessary expertise or equipment, you have to take someone’s word for it—or not. But the reasoning process gets laborious as well. When you cannot process the data because it is beyond your mental grasp, you have to take someone’s word for it—or not. We are constantly bombarded with “someone’s word for it” regarding pretty much every aspect of life. We even pay for it.

Yes we pay people to tell us what to think. We pay fashion designers big bucks to tell us what looks good. Since the inception of mass radio and television, we have been bombarded with a two-step process of being told what to think. The television program tells you what to think about the topic at hand, and the commercial break tells you what to think about the product being advertised. The free exchange of ideas is full of this kind of persuasive content-sharing. With thinking people, the really successful persuasion happens when the objective data are presented and the conclusions are suggested—all for the receiver to evaluate for himself. But even this approach to rhetoric involves selecting which data to present and emphasize. The element of faith is still present, at least in part, because the receiver has to believe that the presentation is telling the whole story.

All this is to say that so many of us tend to think we are objective and logical when we are actually just taking what someone else says on faith. We all do it. Those who rail against religious faith the most stridently are expressing their faith positions and pleading for others to adopt their same conclusions. That’s a great deal of what pastors do on Sunday morning. So why should we listen to the anti-religious zealot or the pastor? You should not unless he is telling you the truth. On what basis is he making his claim? What exactly is the object of his faith, and is that object worthy of your faith as well?

One intriguing aspect of the Bible and biblical Christian faith is that God actually tells us what to think. The caricature of Christianity or “religion” is that the zealot tells you what to do. In truth, the Bible has plenty of instructions that address our personal behavior. But unlike the behavioral psychology theorists, the Bible paints a picture of man that includes much more than the stimulus-response feedback loop of external behavior. The Bible does not only say “Thou shalt not murder,” but also, “You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart.” The Bible commands love throughout its pages, for example, and biblical love is a system of thinking that produces behavior and usually an emotional response.

Recently I was asked about a very helpful command in Scripture, and I thought I would share it with you. It is a specific piece of instruction that tells us how we should think about suffering in this life as believers. In this little introductory discussion, I have tried to set the stage for understanding God’s prescription for our thinking in times of correction or intensive training. I am captivated by the Bible’s ability to address the whole human being for his whole life. By God’s design we are observers and reasoners, but we must use faith where our observation and reasoning fall short. As the Word of our Creator, the Bible gives us that sufficient object for our faith, and if we learn to think as God prescribes, we will be pleased with the outcome of our behavior in time and our experience of reward in eternity.

The Command: Hebrews 12:4–5 (NASB95)

4You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;

5and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;

In the next few entries, I will delve into the exegesis of this passage (Hebrews 12:4-11), its theological ramifications in the Christian’s walk, and the Biblical view of child training.

Posted in Apologetics, Bible Study Helps, Christian Suffering, Hermeneutics, New Testament Commands, Old Testament Commands, Proverbs, Theological Overview, Writer of Hebrews | 2 Comments

Rejoice Always

Posted on November 4, 2011 by droseland

Life is about attitude, and attitude is a matter of perspective. I propose a radical way of life for anyone who has accepted the radical offer of eternal life in Christ. Radical claim: Christians are people who actually believe that they will rise from the dead in glorious refashioned bodies in an “end-times” event called the Resurrection. We believe this because God has promised it, and we have read that promise in the Bible.

Colossians 3:3–4 says, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” This is one reference to the Resurrection, described as the “revelation of Christ.” We find another more explicit statement in Philippians 3:20–21: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

The all-powerful Christ will conform our bodies to the likeness of His glorious body. It’s a promise. We need to think on it and claim it. You will never grow spiritually beyond the applicability of this promise. It is our Hope.

This radical belief is foolishness, of course, to those who reject Christianity. Notice that I did not say, “to those who have not heard.” I mean those who reject the offer of eternal life in Christ. Those who have been invited and turned it down. Yes, the world considers this message to be total foolishness.  Advancing something so barbaric and embarrassing as the Cross of Christ as the only path to eternal life is just absurd (1 Cor 1:18). But Christians should build their whole day on this idea. Every day. Every hour. Every minute.

We should regularly think these thoughts: when we die, our soul and spirit will be separated from our body, which is the only part of us that actually dies. Then WE will be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Face to face. Forever.

2 Corinthians 5:6–8 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

The Command

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

Of course I agree that joy is an emotion derived from a state of mind. I believe that joy is actually the appropriate response of the heart’s emotions when the thinking of part our heart encounters favorable information. Think of the joy of a young child who finds out for the first time that Grandma and Grandpa are on their way over for a visit. The facts have been evaluated and have produced an appropriate emotional response. There are differing levels of joy, just like there are differing levels of sadness or any other emotion. The key point about joy is the thinking of the heart that produces it.

What favorable information can a believer rely on in the throes of great personal crisis and trouble? I suggest that this is a matter of perspective or viewpoint. Better yet, let’s say it’s a matter of focus. When you are overcome with troubles–real, horrific, overwhelming, even excruciating troubles–it is always true that you are not rejoicing. Your focus is on the source of the trouble and not the great solution to ALL your troubles. Troubles will come; You do not have to be overcome by them.  And be certain that you never will have justification for disobeying God because of your troubles.  Ours is a life of suffering in obedience, just like our Savior.

For you to “rejoice in the Lord always” you need favorable facts in the thinking of your heart which will always be true. Permanent good news. Otherwise you have no right to “rejoice always.” Paul’s command is not to fake rejoicing and “put on happy face.”  Pretending to rejoice is not actually doing it.  But he wrote this command from prison while being treated like a criminal. His offense? Living a life of selfless devotion to God’s mission of advancing of the Gospel and the spiritual growth of His vast flock. Loving Christ and His sheep.

The Questions

0. What is Biblical eschatology? Answer:  the biblical doctrine of “last things” or the “end-times.”  Every worldview has an eschatology, including the Christian worldview.

1. What is the day-to-day impact of Biblical eschatology on your Christian walk?

2. What should be the day-to-day impact of Biblical eschatology on your Christian walk?

Passage to Pray

1 Corinthians 15:50–57 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Praying the Scriptures

Posted on May 24, 2011 by droseland

In the months since writing for “Attention to Orders,” an experiment in daily devotion writing that was well-received and short-lived due to the realities of life and ministry, I have always wanted to pick it back up on a weekly basis.

In this modest beginning I propose to clarify what I mean by “Passage to Pray” at the end of each entry. Praying the Scriptures was introduced to me by two men in my theological training who team-taught the same course at Dallas Theological Seminary. The first was Dr. Howard Hendricks, beloved far and wide for more than fifty years as a Bible expositor; revered by thousands of pastors and seminary graduates for introducing them to methodical Bible study. In his book, Living By the Book, which he co-authored with his son, “Prof” teaches the reader to read the Bible “prayerfully.” It was his teaching partner in the team-taught “BE101: Bible Study Methods and Hermeneutics” who demonstrated this remarkable and obvious approach to enriching your prayerful relationship with God. Prof Hendricks’ teaching partner was Dr. Mark Bailey, currently the president of Dallas Theological Seminary and also a distinguished professor of Bible Exposition.

Dr. Bailey took the class to a Psalm, perhaps like Psalm 8 in a good English Bible (word-for-word translation) like the KJV, NKJV, NASB, etc, and he just prayed through it. It was remarkable how simple and–as I stated before–obvious this was as I prayed along with him, listening to his praise of our God using the Word of God. Try reading the following passage, observing the pronouns:

Psalm 8:1–2 (NASB95)

    1    O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

    2    From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,

To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

To read these words aloud is to pray to the God of David with the words of David. Actually, most of the Psalms are prayers, if you define prayer as personal communication from man back to God. This is the part this is so obvious, just in terms of literary genre. The Scriptures are designed specifically to enable us to glorify God in prayer.

Praising God according to His Word, describing Him as He truly is in a loving and exalting way is a skill that takes practice and often seems impossible to do at first. Think of the most skilled musicians or craftsmen. Genius is almost always innovation that builds upon existing techniques. Yes, there are the game-changing geniuses that define entirely new structures, like Isaac Newton or J. S. Bach. But the Mozarts and Beethovens come along only by building on their forebears’ genius. To pray well, I suggest that the best starting point is to copy from the pros in the Psalms.

My friend and one of several pastoral mentors, Charles Clough, mentioned praying the Scriptures back to the Father the other day in his latest Framework course for Chafer Seminary. I was reminded of this very helpful technique that few seem to know about, and it spurred me on to re-start “Attention to Orders.” Praying this way really unlocks the Psalms and parts of the Prophets so that the Spirit can use their content to saturate our souls with Truth.  Focusing on these passages and allowing them to direct our thinking causes our communication to follow suit.  Skillful prayer is really a matter of imitation.

May you be encouraged and proficient in worshiping our Creator, Savior, and Judge as you address Him with His thinking in His Spirit through His Son.

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23 November 2010: Give Thanks

Posted on November 23, 2010 by droseland

Why are we attracted to people who are genuinely grateful? Why are ingrates so repellent? In short, it is because we recognize our purpose and design when we see it shine in the lives and attitudes of other people. Most humans have no idea why these virtues instinctively resonate with us, but the Bible has the unequivocal answer.  This week we celebrate Thanksgiving, and the holiday itself is another reason to thank God for the United States of America. Why should we be thankful for the day on which “We the People” give thanks?

Historically, we are a people who place a high premium on real virtue, which is nothing less than God’s character reflected in man’s thinking. Thanksgiving would never have caught on if we had called it “Feast and Football Day.” While humans tend to look for any excuse to throw a party or indulge in all sorts of gratifying pursuits, we still sense fragments of that national gratitude which produced our day of Thanksgiving, an American original.

Thankfully, this American cultural expression stands as a stark, historical reminder to our founding Virtue, the “fear of the Lord.” Sure, many men and women today would strangle our national, unifying Virtue in the service of its antithesis. They will doubtless continue to do so, but think on this: the scoffer will have to scoff while acknowledging that we as a nation take off work and travel to be with family on November 25th this year.

The Command

“In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NAS)

Context is always important, especially for commands that assign responsibility to those who would serve the Lord. Fearing the Lord means taking care to behave in a way that pleases Him. Of course. However this command is clear and stands alone as a one-verse requirement for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. The broad context: this is Paul’s second earliest epistle in the Bible to a spiritually young audience of believers in the Roman province of Macedonia. We find the fundamentals of the Christian Faith in First Thessalonians, and this is a great example of the basic attitude and action of an advancing believer.

The command itself needs some close attention. In Greek it reads like this:

ἐν παντὶ εὐχαριστεῖτε· τοῦτο γὰρ θέλημα θεοῦ ἐν χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς.

“In everything be giving thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

In Everything

Paul makes a sweeping summary statement in this closing section of short, summary commands. The phrase “in everything” bears some thoughtful reflection. Here’s a valuable test on whether we’re really humbling ourselves before the Living God. Is it ALL about Him? Can you thank Him for everything? This command gets at what I and others observe to be the counter-intuitive nature of the Faith. When we hurt we so often think something other than “Thank God for the opportunity to glorify Him despite the suffering.”

Our typical response to suffering is “incurvature.” When pressure mounts from without, the response of the sin nature within is to focus on ourselves and what we want or prefer. Too much attention to self usually draws us into irrationality and thoughts about what we “deserve,” with never the slightest thought to what we actually do deserve as sinners before our Righteous Creator.

After some reflection, I think believers can agree that the big picture is the solution to our suffering-inflamed myopia. Bible Doctrine, the teaching of the Lord Jesus, the Word of God gives us the perspective that makes rejoicing in all things an absolute necessity. When you “consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart,” it is easy to give thanks even when you hurt. It takes some direct revelation from God, which we find in the Bible, mixed with some faith from us–faith both in God who said the words and then in the very words He said. So yes it hurts. But no, it is nothing compared to the suffering of the Cross. So the setback disappoints and somehow frustrates our plans; there is no disappointment or frustration of God’s perfect, eternal plan for us in Christ Jesus. By adopting an eternal perspective about ourselves and our relationship with God, we not only can weather the storm, we can give thanks for it.

There is even more here about our motivation to be thankful for suffering. We can give thanks for suffering particularly because it becomes a source of blessing and communion with Jesus Christ. He tells us to leap for joy over suffering for the sake of righteousness because it means great reward in Heaven (Mt 5:11-12). Jesus told the first leaders of the Church (before there was the Church) that worthiness of Him meant a willingness to suffer in His pattern (Mt 10:38, Lk 9:23, 14:27).

For this is the Will of God

In our command we have a great blessing that few seem to appreciate: clarity on what God expects. The straining and second-guessing are over in the quest to find God’s Will. He wants you to be thankful in everything. The crowning motivation of the Christian life is what Paul provides here: God wants it, so we should want it. The scoffer revolts precisely at this point. We were made for a personal relationship with our Creator, and the relationship was never about peers on equal footing. God is God, man is His creature. There is an infinite gap between us, and we are in the infinitely subordinate position. A little child’s loving father wants him to think rightly, to correspond to the truth, to be careful around traffic and have a healthy respect for things that are dangerous. So it is with God’s will for us.  Because He loves us He tells us what He wants us to do. Give thanks, for the search for the will of God is over.

In Christ Jesus

This phrase should always shock us back into recognition of our identity before God. We are “in Christ Jesus,” the highest possible calling. With our identity in Christ comes the highest privileges, the greatest hopes, and consequently the weightiest expectations. Because of Christ we can say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which is to be revealed to us.”

Such was the attitude of the people of the United States in the generations prior to and for awhile after the ratification of our Constitution.

Three Thoughts

1. We are commanded to constant giving of thanks to God for all things.

2. This is God’s will for us; to reject the command is to miss the blessing for which we were designed.

3. The best motivation we will ever know is personal relationship with God. If He wants it, we want it.

Passage to Pray

2 Samuel 22

Memory Verse

“In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NAS)

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16 November 2010: Broad Perspective on God, Commands, and the Bible

Posted on November 16, 2010 by droseland

Like it or not we read the Bible through the grid of our preconceptions. As we submit them to the Text, they gradually, bit-by-bit conform to it, to God and His preferences and prerogatives. So the usefulness of pastors and teachers, vocational theologians, is that they should have their preconceptions better conformed to the Bible than those whom they are shepherding. Or better, as a friend would say, we should at least strive for “parity.” Being Christian is not about conforming to the world. Quite the opposite, we are to be conformed to the Word, to the very character of Christ. The peril of our times in Christendom is a world-driven church. The simple antidote to the poison is Word-driven believers.

The Age of Grace Still Has Law

Reading the Text in a straightforward way lends a clear observation that the Law of Moses is not the Law of the Church, God’s out-called collection of human beings in this age called “the Bride of Christ (Eph 5:25-27, 2 Cor 11:2)” and the “Body of Christ (Eph 4:12).” This is an application of Paul’s argument in Galatians 3-4. Yet to say that Christ fulfilled the death-dealing Law of Moses and freed those under it from enslavement to sin is not to say that Christians are without God’s Law.

Nine of the Ten Commandments are restated in the New Testament as binding on us. It still contradicts God’s character to have other gods before Him, or to murder, or to steal, or to covet the property or spouse of another. The ritual and shadow-imagery aspects of the Law have been fulfilled, along with the final and complete sacrifice for sin. So wear polyester if you like, but don’t think for a minute that sin is irrelevant to your post-justification experience!

We should recognize a subtle misunderstanding in the hearts of many concerning the nature of sanctification this side of the Cross. Grace does not mean the absence of law; it means the Divine capacity to comply with the very character of God. We are, for certain, in the “Age of Grace” as Scofield and Chafer put it, but no one seriously thinks that there was no grace in the “Age of Law.” The Law of Moses was God’s gracious provision for Israel and the watching world. Think of Elijah on Mt. Carmel in 1 Kings 18. He knew exactly what his God wanted. In strong relief, the priests of Baal had no clue what would stir their imaginary deity to reveal himself, and so to anyone who reads the account they look forevermore like rioting idiots around their sacrifice, shouting themselves hoarse, cutting themselves, and so on. (1)

People of my theological bent are often mis-characterized as believing in a legalistic way of justification during the tenure of the Mosaic Law and a grace way of justification now that Christ has come. No true Bible-student who can read English with moderate comprehension would think this way, including the great and godly men of my dispensational heritage. This system is an effort to submit to the Bible, nothing more or less. Of course salvation is, has been, will always be “by grace through faith.” So we should be clear about the unchanging expression of God’s loving character in this word grace. Grace has and will always be with us. In this age it is more focal than in the previous one.

We in this age need to remember that God’s grace must correspond perfectly to His righteous character. We should, therefore, not be surprised to find an extension of that righteousness in God’s instructions for us in the New Testament. Many of the commands for believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit are of a different nature than those commanded at Mt. Sinai. Of course you are not to commit murder! Of course idolatry is out-of-bounds of the Bible’s prescriptive spiritual life for Church saints. But the power in which we fulfill our responsibilities is completely different in this age from what God made available to saints before the coming of the Messiah.

What Makes it the “Age of Grace”

The main distinction between the Age of Law and the Age of Grace is the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in all the saints of this age. This means new power–by the grace of God–to do all that we are called to do (Eph 2:10, Phil 2:13). Galatians 5:16 is a very truly a command in the imperative mood to “walk by the Spirit.” Recognizing this directive as a command which we are responsible to God to obey is not legalism; these are our marching orders. Literally. In the same context, Paul lists the fruit that the Spirit of God produces in us when we walk by Him, vv22-23. Verse 23b highlights the difference between Sinai and Pentecost: “Against such things (the fruit of the Spirit) there is no Law.”

To be sure we have prohibitions that are binding on us now, but their observance is the basement of the believer’s experience of the walk that is “by faith, not by sight.” We’re supposed to live in the president’s suite on the top floor through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus very clearly taught that the Law of Moses and the Prophets who called Israel back to it were not fomenting legalism. God never approves of hypocrisy and pseudo-righteousness. Man saying evil is good and good is evil is always under condemnation from God; for doing so denies the truth. Sinful man always takes God’s instructions and distorts them into a self-worship of idolatrous pseudo-righteousness. This happened to the Law under the Pharisees, and it has happened to Jesus’ correction of that misinterpretation, the Sermon on the Mount, by liberal theologians. “Transgressions,” the product of man’s sinful nature in the face of a righteous standard, were exactly what the Law was designed to demonstrate, according to Galatians 3:19. These would include the subtle source-sins of hypocrisy-inducing arrogance and self-righteousness.

Four Thoughts

1. To the extent that we think God ever advocated or even condoned legalism in the lives of His people, we need to be corrected and conformed to what the Scriptures actually teach. The Law of Sinai was not legalistic.

2. God is always gracious when it comes to the salvation of sinners. There is no other way man can receive eternal life than the all-sufficient grace of God. This is how it has always been since man needed to be justified after the Fall of Genesis 3.

3. All the commands binding on Church age believers directly correspond in some way to the Righteous character of Christ. Sanctification, the Christian’s spiritual life after initial justifying faith in Christ, is a process of growing in our character and actions to conform to that righteousness which is our birthright by God’s gracious imputation. Our salvation is just like Abraham’s, except we look back to the saving Work of Messiah. But our sanctification must be radically different from his, for we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

4. An unchanging God with a multi-phased plan that will perfectly achieve His purposes through and despite imperfect persons is exactly the Biblical presentation. Welcome to real dispensationalism or Biblical-systematic theology.

Passage to Pray

Galatians 5

Memory Verse

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. ” (Galatians 5:16, NAS)

(1) F0r this insight, my thanks go to Dr. Brian Webster, professor of Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary and author of The Cambridge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, my go-to first-year Hebrew text.

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