Beyond Corruption?

The main problem with politics today, as I see it, and this goes for the entire political scene, both the left and right, is that we believe that we have come beyond the place where the main issue for society is human corruption. We have had it so good in America for so long that we think the only problem left to work out is how to properly distribute all we have gained.

I think this explains why, as many people are now pointing out, both candidates seem small and not sufficient to deal with the world as it is currently situated. There can never be a greater problem in the world than human sin, yet both candidates are in the mode of just wanting everything to be "fair" among essentially good people and neither want to see "justice" for those who do real harm to society. Either that, or the only person that seems to them in need of punishment is their opponent in the race. Consequently, they seem silly.

I think this mentality could really be illustrated in any issue, but the current financial crisis is as good example as any. The financial crisis reveals a moral breakdown at many levels of society. At the level of a homeowner's personal responsibility over himself and his family. At the level of sales people who would sell loans to people in full knowledge that it might ultimately be detrimental to the homeowner. At the level of those who bundle these loans and sell them all together without providing sufficient information as to the quality of this commodity. At the level of those who gave these bundles of loans the highest quality rating without actually knowing the quality of the loans. And I could go on much, much more concerning the moral failings of people involved in the crisis, but you get the idea.

Thus the main problem in this economic crisis, as in almost all economic crises, is human sin. And the reason, since time immemorial, that humans have established governments is to restrain sin, at least insofar as it harms society in general (i.e the common good).

So here we have a problem that causes significant harm to society at large and is the result of corruption and immorality at multiple levels. It would seem this is the type of problem that government is perfectly suited to resolve. What do you do? Bring to justice those whose actions injured society.

But neither candidate has talked about justice for anyone. McCain has talked about justice for one or two in the senate who took money from home mortgage giants in return for turning a blind eye to their economic threat, thus ignoring not only the other side in this transaction but also the hundreds of other people who acted corruptly in this chain of events. Obama has talked about justice for President Bush, who he apparently believes is the one responsible for not regulating the mortgage giants, despite the fact that President Bush isn't even in a legislative position, as is Obama. And Obama has also talked about justice for the executives that get away with millions despite the gross mismanagement of their companies, although it is not entirely clear to me exactly how guilty they are in all this, and that they will not be punished anyway.

But even more than this, the call for justice in America today would strike most as absurd. Even if the many people who are responsible for this meltdown were prosecuted, it would take a couple years to get to trial, then it would take many more months to get a verdict. Then even if found guilty, they would go to jail for two to sixth months in a prison that could only minimally qualify as punishment. And all of this would be done without the American public even knowing about the destruction that these people caused to the US economy.

Hence, instead of hearing talk of justice and defending the common good, we hear both sides yammer on about how much money should go where to liquidate what. Meanwhile, since justice is so little attended to in the US today, the seeds are sown for the next crisis in the economy as those losing their jobs as mortgage bundlers and assessors spread out to find the next half-legit operation that promises over $10,000 a month.

Scripture says little about government, and appropriately so since the good government can do in a world that abandons God is minimal. But Scripture does make plain at least one purpose of government, "he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer" (Rom 13:4). And I think this purpose is good for everyone. So why is it that those who govern us will argue and debate about everything except this. Do they think we "wonderful Americans" have somehow progressed beyond corruption? If so, we'll only see more corruption from here on out.

Why is the Gospel Good News?

The ultimate point of the gospel is that, "we are already righteous before God," Yet to many, such a proclamation is entirely foreign and nonsensical. They don't know what being "righteous" means nor do they care that God perceives them that way. What most people want is money, fame, sex, etc. And indeed, wouldn't it be good news if one was able to offer all these things to people? Perhaps in an easy, five-step plan? Most would say yes...

Therefore the gospel can only be good news if the vast majority of people in the world are entirely missing the boat when it comes to what is good and bad in the world. In biblical terms, the gospel can only be good news if the vast the majority of people are fully-fledged idolaters in thought and in deed.

So what's good about the gospel? It doesn't give people what they want, how is it good news?

I believe that the gospel is good news in a deeper and more profound way than any message of worldly gain possibly could be because I believe that even those blissfully idolatrous out there are lacking what is necessary to make them "fully complete," for lack of a better expression. In other words, most people find things that make them "happy enough" and proceed to give their life to those things. Meanwhile, the gospel tells them, "what I offer won't make you 'happy enough' but it will make you whole, and joyful, and deeply satisfied, in a way you've never felt before, but in a way that, if you examined your heart of hearts, you've always known was your ultimate desire.

In other words, things like "righteousness," and "holiness," aren't totally extraneous goods to the life of a idolater. If the idolater saw what kind of pleasure holiness could bring to their lives, he would surely drop his unholy habits. The fight in communicating the gospel and getting people to give up their "happy enough" is the fight to make them see the emptiness of worldly gain and realize that the deepest satisfaction lies in enjoying the love of Yahweh.

O What the Lord Has Done

O what the Lord has done
To take my sin upon his Son.
And there destroy it with all rage.
Nothing left to be appraised.
Now a free man do I go;
Utter rest in his great love

My Life is Living Me

"Be killing sin or sin will be killing you"
-John Owen

My interpretation: If you don't live your life then your life will live you.


I have come to painful realization (for the nth time!) that if I do not intentionally make appointments to do those things which I need to do then I will not do them. If I do not have a plan for an hour then that hour will pass me by and will be wasted on something not worth that segment of time. Why is this? It kills me.

Therefore if I am to keep from sin and live my life as I want (and ought!) to live I must do my utmost to plan my day. When I do have free time that is unplanned, I must consciously consider all that needs to be done and ensure I am doing what is most profitable. Of one thing can I be assured: if I do not do this; my time will be wasted.

Faith

As Christians, we are saved through faith. It is an interesting thing that we are saved through faith, because we are saved by grace. How are we to make sense of this?

On the one hand, grace, by definition, is completely free. It means we don't have to work for it, we don't have to do anything - it is a gift of God. But on the other hand we have this faith that is required of us if we are to be saved. Is this not putting a stipulation on what is supposed to be pure grace?

The answer to this question is crucial, and it is crucial to keep the answer ever-before us as Christians, lest we allow the gospel to become a gospel of works and deny the sufficiency of Christ.

The answer is that faith is not a positive work of ourselves at all. Rather, faith is a negative work by which we renounce all of our own attempts at living by our own wisdom.

Faith can be pictured like falling, because that is what it is. It is the recognition that prior to this point we have been living life in our own strength and we have messed up badly and are therefore desiring to fall into the support of another. That's what it means to put our faith in someone - to trust them with something by letting it out of our own control.

But again it must be reiterated that trust is not a positive act - we do not go about trying to build up confidence in this person that we have just entrusted something to. In fact, if you are going about trying to work up confidence, that shows a lack of trust, or a lack of faith. True trust, and true faith is completely releasing whatever it is you were holding into another's hands and not thinking twice.

Can you see how that is consistent with grace? God has not said, "now go out and try to work up some confidence in me and I will give you grace." He has said, "realize that your own efforts are futile and you need me - that's all it takes - and my grace will be there for you."

So faith is purely a receiving act of the soul. And if we are to walk in our full inheritance as Christians we must learn to receive from God and cast off all notions of working or earning. God is ready to give. The question is, do we have the humility to give up on ourselves and just receive?

The Christian Life is Supernatural

I was made to know and enjoy God. I was freed by the doctrine of Christian Hedonism to pursue that knowledge and that joy with all my heart. And then, to my dismay, I discovered that it is not an easy doctrine. Christian Hedonism is not a lowering of the bar. Out of the blue, as it were, I realized that the bar had been raised. Manageable, duty-defined, decision-oriented, willpower Christianity now seemed easy, and real Christianity had become impossible. The emotions—or affections, as former generations called them— which I was now free to enjoy, proved to be beyond my reach. The Christian life became impossible. That is, it became supernatural.

Now there was only one hope, the sovereign grace of God. God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God.

-John Piper, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (2004), p. 14

Life, Time, and Desires

Life is measured by time and time, at the bottom of it all, is measured by desire.

Why do I say this? And what do I mean when I do?

The fact that life is measured by time should be fairly plain. When one day goes by, one day of life has gone by. And therefore when one day has been wasted, a day of life has been wasted. In the end, what we did with our life and what the impact of our life is will be a simple matter of how we spent our time.

But what could I mean when I say time is measured by desire? For me, this has been a hard-won, and often not-so-clear truth. The point of the statement is this: that how an hour is spent, or how a day is spent, is dependent upon what desire is burning in your heart - nothing more, nothing less.

I will illustrate this in two ways.

First, consider a Christian who genuinely loves the Lord and has taken the message of Eph 5:15-16 and 1 Cor 9:24-27 to heart. He has scheduled out every minute of his day so as to ensure that he will spend enough time in prayer, reading, and memorization. Yet one day he wakes up and he feels more tired than usual and feels that he must sleep. When he wakes, he knows that he has missed his morning time of devotion but decides that he will make it up before bed. When he returns from work, he wants to catch up on email and the news, which he spends a little longer on than anticipated. He then eats dinner and spends some time with his family and bed time is near. He knows that he does not have ample time to complete his Bible reading for the day so he decides to postpone it to the excess days that he scheduled in. He does have time, however, to read a little more about the background of the latest international conflict. After he has read a few articles, it is time to sleep. He wakes up the next morning, again finds himself too tired to get up, and so this cycle continues for weeks on end. He is a sincere Christian, mind you, so he feels regret for neglecting time with the Lord, but he just can't seem to find the time.

Now consider a person who has never been very religious but while at lunch one day overhears a conversation about spiritual things in which one individual mentioned several teachings of the Bible that this irreligious person had never heard before. These ideas spark a light within him and all afternoon he finds himself mulling over these new and peculiar teachings. He gets home that evening and has actually planned to go see a movie with friends then go to a bar afterwards and finish off the night with a little video game competition at one of his friend's houses. But when he gets home he feels compelled to find that dusty old Bible and read the portion that those people had been discussing over lunch. He tells his friends to go to the movie without him and that he will meet them after the movie at the bar for dinner. He spends the next two hours in earnest searching of the Scripture before he goes to the bar. He also participates in the video game competition but leaves as soon as he can to get back into the Bible. The next morning he is even up a half hour early because he has not yet found all that he was looking for. And this pattern continues for several weeks as he makes discovery after discovery.

Notice that even though the Christian recognized the need to use his time wisely and desired, in a general way, to do so, he ultimately wasted several weeks of life. Why? Not because he did not plan appropriately nor because he did not have the time, but simply because his desire was not earnest enough and his zeal not hot enough. Whereas the one who could've cared less about God, even though he did not plan nor did he have the time, found time to spend with God.

The story is meant to show that even though we often like to think that we have allocated our time well and we like to think we can measure our future time by our planning or by our free periods, this simply is not true. We will do what we delight in no matter what it takes.

So next time you think of your time and all that you would like to accomplish, be convinced that the accomplishment of those tasks is dependent on no other factor than your desire to see them accomplished. And generally, if you lack the desire to see those tasks through at the present, waiting a day or a week will not change that.

Resolve that whatever you desire your life to be known for - that thing you will do now For your life is nothing but time, and your time is nothing but your desires, and your desires are at war within you.

P.S. I feel compelled to add, since so many minds will distort what I have just written, that God is equally pleased with both people. Your standing with God is not dependent in any way on how much time you spend reading your Bible. I write this simply because I know that many people are like myself in that I desire to spend more time with my Savior yet often struggle to make it happen for one reason or another, and hope that such teaching will help focus your efforts once again to abandon the distractions and get hard on yourself. Only don't do it because you want to please God - do it because you are weary and desire rest. (More to come on that.) God loves you because of who he is - not because of what you've done.

A Disciplining Desktop

I just thought I'd post this desktop wallpaper I typed some words onto in case any of you suffer from a similar problem as I do. The original image is from desktopography.


I didn't make great contrast when I made it, so in case you can't read it, it says, "I will not give my life to blogs. I will give my life to God."

Lloyd-Jones on the Baptism of the Spirit

Jesse Phillips over at Resurgence has an excellent quote from the good doctor to start off my post(s) about the baptism of the Spirit.

"Christ tells even those trained apostles, his disciples who had been with him throughout his earthly ministry and had seen his death and burial, and were witnesses of his resurrection with their naked eyes, he tells them: 'Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high' (Lk 24:49). And on the day of Pentecost he sent that power upon them in a baptism of the Holy Spirit. And so we are trying to show that the central, main objective of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is to enable us with the power to be witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ, to his person, and to his work. And therefore there is nothing more important at the present hour than that we should understand this teaching.

-Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sovereign Spirit, p. 16-17

Jonathan Edwards Loves the Gospel

"I have loved the doctines of the gospel; the have been to my soul like green pastures. The gospel has seemed to me the richest treasure; the treasure that I have most desired, and longed that it might dwell richly in me. The way of salvation by Christ has appeared, in a general way, glorious and excellent, most pleasant and most beautiful. It has often seemed to me, that it would, in a great measure, spoil heaven, to receive it in any other way. That text has often been affecting and delightful to me, Isa. xxxii. 2. 'A man shall be an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest,' &c

-Jonathan Edwards, Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards, p. lxxxix