Just This Once?

"It is easy to tell a lie but hard to tell only one." ~ Sissela Bok, Lying

What a true statement. How easy is it for us to justify "white lies" by saying, "Just this once because I am afraid of what might happen" or "Just this once because I do not want to look bad"? The problem is that once we tell one lie (which is already pretty easy) it is a little easier to tell the next lie and then the next lie, so on and so forth. Soon our attitude snowballs and it is nearly impossible to stop.

Why do we lie? I would argue that we lie either our of fear or pride--fear of some type of consequence or pride in thinking that we deserve something be it an object or glory.

Fortunately the gospel offers a remedy. First, we are united to Christ and Christ is the truth (John 14:6). When you are united to the Truth and have His fullness that gives you "grace upon grace" it is impossible not to be changed by it. Second, when the King of the universe has set His intensive love upon you fear is driven out and pride is destroyed. How can we be prideful when we know who we are before God and what He had to do to bring us back to Him? How can we be afraid when the God of the universe has set His love upon us and promised to be with us always? This, of course, does not mean that the moment we become Christians we stop lying, not at all. I believe that successes and failures directly relate to how much or little we really believe the truth of the gospel. Some days it is in our hearts and in our minds and we can easily say, "I do not need to lie about this." Other days our belief falters and likewise go our actions. This is why Jonathan Edwards said, "The key to the Christian life is letting the gospel work its way down into our lives both rationally and experientially." Fortunately on all days we can always come to our Father and know that nothing can be done to make Him love us any more or any less. His love is constantly and infinitely intensive on His children.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Problem With a Good God

"The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed - might grow tired of his vile sport - might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re in for it.” ~ C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I think we often miss this when we consider what a "good God" would be like. We want to believe that a truly "good God" would not discipline us or allow us to take a path that will hurt us. We try to fit God into a box where His goodness is subject to our desires. Is that good though? Is a parent who does not discipline their child doing that child a favor? It is painful to have a broken bone set, but if the medic acquiesced to the pleas to stop before the bone was set would that be good? In each case the child or the injured individual may be thankful at the time, but in the long run they would be hurt a great deal more. Thankfully we have a wise and a good God who knows better than to stop before He is finished. Though it is also kind of frightening to believe in such a God because we then have to come to grips with the reality that He may do something for our good that is extremely unpleasant. There are times when we may wish that He would be subject to bribes like some kind of "Cosmic Sadist". Many of us have been through such times, however, and can now say, "While the cuts were deep and the wounds took a long time to heal, I would not go back and change it for God did use it for the good."

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Hunt

"Many Christians think of finding God's will as if it were an Easter egg hunt. God isn't in the business of keeping His will from you... The Bible is clear that some things are always God's will... and some things are never God's will... If you want to do God's will do what He says to do and don't do what He says not to do... Aside from that do whatever your hand finds to do with all of your might, that's Ecclesiastes 9:10. If He wants you to do something else He'll let you know through circumstance, through Bible study, through your brothers and sisters in Christ. The Bible says I Thessalonians 4:3 'For this is the will of God, your sanctification.' In other words God's perfectly capable of moving you anywhere He wants, of bringing forth any circumstances, of giving you any relationship, that's His business." ~ Steve Brown

I like this statement, especially the part about thinking of God's will like it is an Easter egg to be found. So often we fret over what "God's will for my life" is. We stress about whether or not we are making the "right decision" or if we are going to "mess up God's plan". We complicate things too much. First, we cannot mess up God's plan. God is sovereign and His plans are certain, there is nothing we can do to change that. Second, we worry so much about making the "right decisions" when really God's will for us as Christians is not as much about what we do specifically, but who we are as His children. As Steve quoted above, I Thessalonians 4:3 specifically states that the will of God is that we be sanctified in Him. Psalms 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart." How can God promise to give us the desires of our hearts? Well if we are delighting ourselves in Him, following Him, and making Him the center of our lives He will make His desires our desires as He sanctifies us. We are then free to follow those desires that He has given us.

How do we make this practical? A few things: First, to delight ourselves in God we have to know Him and what His general will for creation is. To do this we must study His Word, listen to it rightly preached, and commune with Him in prayer. Through this He becomes our joy and we begin to see what His plans (in general) for the Kingdom are. Second, God has given us community for many reasons and one is so we can draw from the wisdom of the collective body. We need to seek the advice of the friends that know us best and the older, wiser godly individuals in our lives. Finally, if we are doing all of the above we can follow our hearts' desires trusting that God will make His desires our desires.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Economical Numbers

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." ~ Richard Feynman

No real deep thoughts here though, this one is just for fun--a great quote from one of the most brilliant physicists of our time. Considering the recent spending this is even more true now than it was when Feynman penned these words about 30 years ago. The most recent bailout bill is 7.9 million times greater than the diameter of our galaxy (in light-years) or 315,000 times greater than the distance to the our neighbor galaxy Andromeda (in light-years). I think we should create a bailout scale. We could then say the known universe is only 0.2 bailout-light-years in diameter. Does not sound too big then...

By His Grace,
Taylor

His Heart

"If you can't trace God's hand trust His heart." ~ Charles Spurgeon

I was reminded of this quote recently and I thought it would be something relevant to share considering the times we are in. Many today are having a hard time finding a job, worried about keeping a job, worried about paying bills, worried about retirement, or at least know someone in one of these states. It is tough to be able to see any reasons for what is going on, especially when you are right in the middle of it. This is, of course, the point of what Spurgeon is saying here. We often cannot see the reasons for why God does what He does, but we can choose to say, "God, I do not know what You are doing, but I know Your love for me never changes so it must be good for me. Help me to trust that. Help me to believe that."

One more thing, saying the above does not mean we do not ask God why in the hopes that we will one day see the reasons. I get more than a little frustrated with the people who say, "I never ask God why." I sometimes want to smack them to bring them back to reality. Even Jesus asked God why! Sure He was in the darkest place one could ever be and it was His human frailty crying out, but if it was not a sin for His humanity to cry out to God then it is not a sin for us to do the same. God knows our frame and knows that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). He understands. There is nothing wrong with asking God why. We certainly cannot demand answers from Him, but we can humbly ask the question as a child would ask his father. The worst that can happen is He will respond, "My child, you would not understand. Just know that I love you and am carrying you the whole way."

By His Grace,
Taylor