An extended quote

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

In my meditation and study of 1 John 3:1-3, I have read some pretty spectacular and thought provoking things. But what I read last night was so good, I just had to share. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is my new favorite author – I have learned so much from my reading of his works. I am currently reading through his book, Life in Christ: Studies in 1John, which is a collection of sermons he gave on the book of 1 John. I highly commend this book to you! You will be richly blessed by your reading.

I wanted to share one extended passage from his sermon on 1 John 3:3. In this sermon, Lloyd-Jones makes clear how the truth of verses 1 and 2 naturally flow to verse 3. If we believe all that has been presented by John about our blessed hope, the natural, reasonable response will be to purify ourselves, because He Himself is pure.

But I will let him speak, because I cannot say it any better than he has:

[W]e can put the teaching like this: If I really believe what the second verse has told me, if I really know that I am a child of God, with all that this means, if I believe and know that I am destined for eternal glory in the presence of God the Father, if I really believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return again, to be ‘manifested’ as John puts it, in this world as King of kings and Lord of lords, if I believe He is coming to judge the world and to destroy everything that is evil and vile out of the universe as a whole, if I believe that I am going to be with Him in glory, if furthermore I believe that I am going to see Him as He is, if I really believe that I am going to be like Him, that my very body shall be glorified and that I shall be faultless and blameless and spend eternity in His holy presence, if I really believe all that, says John, then of necessity, this must follow.

Amen.

Grace and peace…

Another topic switch…

Okay, back to my thoughts on “passionate pursuit”. I have been revisiting my meditation on 1 John 3:1-3, a passage the Lord has had on my heart for quite some time. I just finished reading D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ commentary about the first verse of chapter three, and a few thoughts come to mind.

 The first would be the distinction between calling us “children of God” versus “sons of God” in this passage. The term “son” refers more to a legal identity, whereas “child” carries a more familial, organic idea. He says, “We cannot be children of God if we are not like God; the child is like the parent, the offspring proclaims the parentage, and God in that way makes us His children. He puts His own nature into us, and we become His children, and that nature which is in God is in us, and it is acting and manifesting and expressing itself.”

 Our vision of salvation, I think, is too small.

 If our salvation means union with God through Christ, in which the very nature of God indwells us and changes us, we become something wholly different. The new creation that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 5 takes on greater meaning if we truly consider the ramifications of this. What Lloyd-Jones states earlier in this chapter captures this much better than I can: “Let us never again think of the Christian as just someone who is trying to live a good life, trying to be a little better than somebody else, a person with a belief in doing certain things, going through certain forms and ceremonials and keeping certain regulations dictated by the church. Christians do all that, but before all that is this vital fact that they are children of God.”

In other words, what we do comes forth from who we are. Our moral character is not the central point; our union with God in Christ is. This is the basis for everything else – including our character, our behavior, our practices, our deeds. We are like Him because we are born of Him; this is why James advances the idea that faith without works is dead. It is not that my works save me; but my works will show forth to Whom I belong. If I am truly born of God, my life with reflect this new reality. Albeit not perfectly, but the demeanor, the disposition of my heart – and by extension and in increasing measure my actions – will display the reality of this union.

To the extent that this truth becomes reality in my heart and mind, my life will reflect it. To the extent that I see the lavish nature of God’s love toward me, my heart will be melted with love and gratitude in return. We cannot fully understand our salvation until we understand our standing as children before God. And we cannot truly understand the enormity of this reality until we grasp the reality of our sin and the nature we possessed before Christ.

It is at this point where I am acutely aware that my words are too small. No words can capture this in all its richness. I pray the Lord’s help in illuminating my heart and mind that I might see it more clearly so that it will capture my very heart and captivate my soul. It is truly a marvel to consider how deep the Father’s love for us!

More later…

Grace and peace…

Here we go again…

I am truly in “random” mode right now, flitting from one topic to another. Forgive me for my lack of consistency! You are just getting a peek into my mind…yes, it can be scary at times…pray for me, would ya? :o)

Anyway, I don’t even know where to begin. This topic I am about to revisit is huge and personal and touchy and something that I would rather forget. But it is something I am continually brought back to, and I guess I will not escape as long as I live in this skin I’m in.

The issue is race.

I have talked about this many times before, and most of the time I would rather not. But it is a point of contention in my heart – it is a deep soul ache that I cannot seem to soothe away easily. And so, I must engage this topic yet again. Pray for me.

I recently listened to a message that was first introduced to me about a year ago. It is a message that Thabiti Anyabwile gave at a T4G conference (for my summary and initial thoughts on this message, click here; for the message itself, click here). I won’t go into the reasons I searched out this message again; but I will walk through some of my thoughts, some of the things that this new hearing of the message has caused me to ponder.

Anyabwile’s primary thesis is this: the foundation of our worldview in terms of how we see ourselves and other people is deeply flawed and inadequate. Specifically speaking, the idea of race as biological difference does not in reality exist. Please hear clearly what he is not saying: he is not saying that the differences do not exist, but that our explanation of those differences doesn’t exist. And, most importantly for Christians, this foundation is built on an unbiblical set of assumptions that undermine the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, and could very well undermine the Gospel itself. For these reasons, we need to completely remove this rubric of race from our thinking and replace it with a more biblical set of assumptions about identity. The rubric he embraces is ethnicity, which includes such things as “language, nationality, citizenship, culture and perhaps religion”.  As I said the first time I talked about this message, I highly commend it to you – there is so much to this message I would be hard pressed to do it justice in this entry.

In his message, he expounds on the truth that our biological identity is rooted in Adam – we all share biological solidarity with Adam and Eve, our first parents. This reality is not rooted in the Fall, but in the creation of man, male and female, in the image of God. This is the foundation upon which our identity must be grounded. Because, although there are indeed difference across ethnicities, our shared identity as human beings made in the image of God is our unifying truth. For the Christian, this is more deeply expressed in our union in Christ, where God has created a new man, breaking down the wall between Jew and Gentile (of which all non-Jewish ethnicities belong by the way) and becoming our peace. The cultural identity of this new man is one of holiness and righteousness in Christ, as God works to conform us to the image of His Son. This is the basis of our unity, and our identity, and should determine and inform how we view our earthly identities of ethnicity/race.

I explain this at length because this message has had a profound effect on the way I think about race – and how much I desire to remove this distinction from my vocabulary and the way I see myself and others. As Anyabwile puts it, the “trajectory of race” does not lead to unity, because it exalts our differences instead of focusing on our common humanity. Race as biology is deeply personal, and any discussion or racial distinctions can be heard as an ad hominem attack on the person, leading to division.

I would have to say that I am a living example about how physical difference cannot be used to determine racial identity. Those who know me know that I am very fair-skinned. It’s not always evident what “race” I belong to just by looking at me. My biological makeup would include a host of difference “races”, although I am forced to identify with only one. What determines which is dominant? Cultural forces demand that I identify myself as Black, and I would never back away from that identity (and not for biological reasons, but cultural ones; I will discuss that in a later post). But is it a “racial” distinction? Is marking my identity in this very narrow view of race really helpful?

The bottom line? This idea of race as we understand it is distinctly American. It is completely foreign to biblical thought, and woefully inadequate in engaging all the different cultures and ethnicities that are represented in America today. Historically, race has been about Black and White – but more and more the ethnic makeup of America makes these categories way too constricting. Not to mention they leave no room to engage people of Native American, Hispanic or Asian descent, except to assign them their own “color” – Brown, Red, or Yellow and so forth. Trying to fit people in neat categories of racial distinction denies the richness of ethnic identity. I need to be clear here that I am not an advocate of “multiculturalism” as it is so popularly espoused on many liberal university campuses today. What I am trying to demonstrate is that this rubric of race is woefully inadequate in explaining the differences that are real across, and even within, ”races” as we commonly understand them – and it serves more as dividing lines than a point of unity.

Bringing this into the context of the body of Christ, what shall be our governing principle in defining who we are? I argue that our identity in Christ should trump our ethnic identity. Notice I did not say it should remove it – but it should govern how we view it. The way that race is defined creates a barrier for that. Because race is so rooted in personhood, the idea of asking a person to subordinate their racial identity to their identity in Christ can sound or feel like an attack on the individual, a swallowing or taking away of personhood instead of a liberating invitation into the new reality of who we are in Christ. How do we move past that?

I will not pretend to hold the keys to this aspect of the kingdom if you will, but I constantly wrestle with these thoughts, and they needed an outlet…so, here we go again… 

More to come…maybe on this topic, maybe something else. Who knows but the Lord…(sly grin)…

Grace and peace…

Am I my brother’s keeper?

I just read a wonderful message on Revive our Hearts about womanhood and modesty. Here is a clip from the transcript:

A young girl walked past, and she was dressed very, very seductively. She was spilling out everywhere. She walked past, and it wasn’t just what she was wearing, it was the way she was walking. She kind of gave my son the eye. So I asked him, “What do you think, and what do you feel? Like, what do you think when you see a woman like that?” That’s a pretty daring question. I thought he might avoid it. And he said to me, “Mom, to be perfectly honest, she arouses the male in me, but she does not appeal to the man in me.” “That’s a good answer, sweetheart.”

Did you catch that? Do you see the difference? The “male” and the “man” are two different things. This young man set a distinction between being “male” and being a “man”…and the alluring appearance arouses one but not necessarily the other…interesting thought. It seems to me that it is quite easy to arouse the “male”, but appealing to the “man” is something totally different and much deeper.

Now, I’m not going to go about trying to tell men how to be men, for obvious reasons. I am not a man. But I do want to say something to my fellow women folk…we need to listen to what this young man is saying and think it through. Do I want to arouse a “male”, or do I want to appeal to a “man”? Before I go any further, I do need to state at the outset that my ultimate purpose is to live for Christ, not for man. But in the course of things, and in the context of male/female relationships, I need to ask myself that question. As a single woman relating to men – both single and married – what message am I seeking to convey? Am I being respectful to the man I am interacting with by being careful to not unnecessarily arouse the male in that man.

Please hear me clearly: I am not responsible for whatever a man chooses to do; but I am responsible for what I can do as far as it depends on me to encourage my brothers in Christ. And it is really not a matter of “limiting” my freedom in Christ; it is a call to love my brothers by doing what I can to not put a stumbling block in their path.

Too often when we as women read these kinds of things, we grate against them as if they are implying that we somehow are the keepers of men’s moral compass and are responsible for their moral behavior. Again, we are not. But we are responsible for our own. And there are too many mandates in scripture about modesty; about removing even the hint of sexual immorality; about purity for us to use this objection as our excuse. We are called to purity – irrespective of the response of anyone else. But in our seeking purity, we are called to care for the purity of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And let’s be honest ladies…sometimes we can complain and dog out a man for being “male”, when in actuality, that is all that we have really tapped into in the way we interact with them. Men are sinners (clue in: so are we…), and sometimes, it doesn’t really matter what we do or don’t do; they are just not going to act correctly. But, there are other cases where we can do things that encourage a wrong response, and if what we are doing appeals to that base nature the response will be sinful. But if we are seeking to honor that man as a human made in God’s image; and then, if that man is our brother in Christ as a fellow co-heir in Christ, the response will be much different.

Just something to think about…more later…

Grace and peace…

The pursuit of happiness…

Okay, here the overarching idea that is flowing through my mind right now: The pursuit of holiness is the ultimate source of happiness in this life. I may tweak the way I word that thesis, but that is the main idea of what I’m working through in my heart right now. Our culture, even in the church, is all about finding what makes us “happy”…and usually it is the pursuit of things. We say to ourselves, “If I only had this”; or “If I could only achieve this goal”. The acquisition of the things we want are what we think will make us happy. But for the most part, even after we have acquired these things, we find that we want more. Whatever it is we are pursuing is never enough. Because it can never be enough.

The quote I shared on Friday from C.S. Lewis is the springboard of this thought. I read through the entire sermon that this quote comes from and his main idea is that we are made for an eternal destiny – we will be with Christ. This is the goal of our lives. To see Christ. All other desires are rivals to this ultimate desire, this ultimate goal to which our entire life should point.

We all want peace and joy in our lives. And the Lord gives us both of these things. But we must be careful to consider the true nature of that peace and joy.  A White Horse Inn program gave me this great insight, something I always knew but somehow forget: The peace given to us is an objective peace. The joy given to us is an objective joy. It is all grounded God’s work on our behalf through Jesus Christ – not something that I feel in my heart. I will not always feel the peace or joy – but it is mine in Christ because it comes from Him and He has given it to me.

The joy and peace that Christ gives us is not in things – it is in Him. He is our joy and our peace. To the extent that we focus on Him, we will see the joy and peace that He provides far surpasses any joy and peace our temporal circumstances can give us. We are changed and transformed – we begin to move toward that for which we were redeemed. To be conformed into His image. If our ultimate destiny as believers is to see Him as He really is, then our pursuit of Him and that holiness without which no one shall see God (Hebrews 12:14) will draw us closer and closer to the one thing that will truly make us “happy”.

Happiness is not in things; it is in a Person. Christ Jesus our Lord. May we dwell on the richness of His grace and find joy and peace in His love this day.

More later…

Grace and peace…