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“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” The woman was convinced.
She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her.
[Genesis 3:4-6 NLT]
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Self-absorbed
Self-absorption is a tragic watermark on the human spirit since Eve first tried to be her own god. We make terrible gods, something each generation reveals with heartbreaking regularity. As Jillian Kay Melchior recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, this current era is obsessed with the thoughts of Audre Lorde. Her essays have become the underpinning philosophy for much of the current university protest movement, especially Lourde’s rejection of any truth or god beyond self. As Ms. Melchior notes in her article (wittily titled “Lourde of the Flies”):
[Lourde] asserts, “Beyond the superficial, the considered phrase, ‘It feels right to me,’ acknowledges the strength of the erotic into a true knowledge, for what that means is the first and most powerful guiding light toward any understanding.” She defines the erotic as “a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feelings.” If student activists seem irrational, they’re actually deliberately antirational, rejecting reason as “white” and “male.”
Salvation
Of course, the one true Lord will use this nonsense to His glory and for the blessing of people. As thinkers from Moses to Socrates to Jesus to Marcus Aurelius have proved, such self-righteous foolishness eventually collapses under its own weight. In the detritus of that collapse, there exists a great godsend: the inevitable recognition that we are not in fact able to craft our own reality. When the veneer of sophistry is thus stripped away, one recognizes the abject and immediate need for a savior. And the one who searches honestly learns that the only one who can actually save is Messiah Jesus. As the angel declared to Joseph 2000 years ago:
She [Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
See, the virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will name Him Immanuel,
which is translated “God is with us.”
[Matthew 1:21-23 HCSB]
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December 14, 2017 | From Self-Absorption To Salvation
December 7, 2017 | Finish Well
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“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me in the future the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved His appearing.”
[2 Timothy 4:6-8 HCSB]
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Finish well
I write this week’s note having just completed the memorial service for my great and good friend Rev. Daniel Southern. We closed that marvelous celebration of Dan’s amazing life well-lived with the paragraph below. It was written by Dan and sent not long ago to one of the pastors he was mentoring:
I am approaching the last lap of my life’s race. No, I don’t expect to go any time soon, but I think about it a lot more than I used to. As I look around the landscape I see a lot of wrecked lives. Many of them started out well but then something happened along the way and they finished poorly. That may be because we can only cover up our mistakes for so long before they eventually reveal themselves or it may be that some of us let our guard down as time passes. This one thing I know for sure; you don’t get any prizes of starting out great but only for ending well. What would finishing well look like in your life?
– Dan
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November 13, 2017 | Flowing Beauty of S.D.G.
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“Don’t you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.”
[1 Corinthians 7:19-20 HCSB]
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S.D.G.
While in Russia recently I was teaching on the solas of the Reformation. The wonderful group of pastors blessed me in many ways, but this was likely the most moving:
When I completed a message on the powerful biblical ideal of soli Deo gloria (giving glory to God alone), a pastor approached. Thinking through the concept, he had sketched out this gift – a picture designed to capture the flowing beauty of a life lived unto God.
 May our lives be so beautiful as we live S.D.G.
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November 2, 2017 | The Best
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“For I didn’t think it was a good idea to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
[1 Corinthians 2:2 HCSB]
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The best
God guided Paul to stay focused on the core issue – the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as atonement for sin. That is the foundation upon which Paul built that church, and it’s the message he keeps focusing on again and again and again.
John Fowler wrote a wonderful poem inspired by these verses. It has been recorded by a few different artists, and has helped me keep the main thing the main thing.
I’d like to write the songs of songs
Convince you all that you should come along
But I’ll probably never live that long
Still Jesus died for you
I sit around and make up clever lines
And toss them out as they dance through my mind
A sweeter love than His you’ll never find
‘Cause Jesus died for you
The best thing I can tell you is
God loves you
I can say that from my heart, I know it’s truth
The best thing I can tell you is God loves you
And He sent his only Son as living proof
Now I can talk all night till I’m blue in the face
Present my argument and state my case
But I’d rather tell you of His wondrous grace
‘Cause Jesus died for you
Now I can talk about theology
Or dabble in some deep philosophy
But it all comes down to what was done on Calvary
When Jesus died for you
John Fowler, The Best
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October 26, 2017 | The REAL Force
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“Now I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding
and the same conviction.”
[1 Corinthians 1:10 HCSB]
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The real force
Why do divisions occur in churches? Because we lose sight of “in Jesus’ name.” We stop thinking and acting according to the Lord’s ethos and commands. In physical science terms, we fight against our real force.
Have you ever ridden a roller-coaster or spinning ride? Did you feel that outward “push” when you rounded a corner or spun? That is what physicists call centrifugal force (Latin for “center fleeing”). But it’s not really a force. Seriously. It is merely a feeling, while another force we don’t usually sense is actually at work.
Centrifugal “force” not really a force; it results from inertia – the tendency of an object to resist any change in its state of rest or motion. Centripetal force is a realforce that counteracts the centrifugal force and prevents the object from “flying out,” keeping it moving instead with a uniform speed along a circular path.
Jesus is our centripetal force. When we forget Him, we panic because of what we “feel” – the center fleeing. But our real force – in theology as in physics – keeps us moving together on the path.
That’s what our American forebears tried to capture on a national scale in the country’s motto: e pluribus unum. “Out of many, one.”
It’s also what John Donne was experiencing in his Holy Sonnet #14. The great Christian poet recognized that his sight must get off of self and onto Jesus if he is to survive the centrifugal pull of life. He must be humbled so he can enjoy the centripetal force of Jesus.
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
-John Donne, Holy Sonnets (Westmoreland Manuscript #14)
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October 19, 2017 | All For One & One For All
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God is faithful; you were called by Him into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
[1 Corinthians 1:9 HCSB]
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Study Notes
I am starting to teach the book of 1st Corinthians. In case they can be of use to you, our team has made my overview notes available. You can find them through this link.
Feel free to write me back with your thoughts as well.
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