IT'S STILL A NEW YEAR

Many of us are so busy during December that we stumble into the New Year in survival mode. Rather than beginning the year with fresh vision and a sense of hope, purpose, and forward movement, we begin where we ended, at a frenetic pace and in a frustrated state, with little fruitfulness to show for it. This is a cycle that’s difficult, but necessary, to break. So, let me suggest that it’s still early enough in 2013 to get a clear vision, make a specific plan and narrow your focus for this year ahead. I want to give you permission to take a mulligan on the first week and challenge you to get a vision for this year during the second week.

You Are Probably Doing Too Much

You feel overwhelmed with how much you are doing and how much more you think you should be doing. Let’s start there. Take a deep breath. Look around you. Understand, you are in good company with the rest of us who live and breathe. Should is a tyrannical dictator that needs to be silenced. If you want 2013 to be different, think about doing less, not more. Doing fewer things all the way is far more fruitful and fulfilling than doing more things half way.

I volunteered for a position at our kids’ soccer club last year and somehow back-doored my way onto the board of directors. I also have some side work I’ve been doing outside of church ministry that brought in some extra cash for our family. In addition to home schooling our 11-year-old this year, Betsy took on a formal position with the PTA that has demanded considerable time outside the scope of her normal responsibilities. Opportunities abound to gain influence in the lives of people which can lead us down a self-destructive road of over extension. We have a tendency to want to pursue all of our potential rather than our particular calling. Pursuing potential results in an inward state of resltlessness and aimlessness which manifests outwardly in a flurry of activity and busyness. This is a chronic issue for me and our family. For me, it is birthed largely by the desire to be everyone's favorite person and a savior complex that leaves me believing if I don't step into every gap than God can't possibly save people. I like to believe He desperately needs me. 

Pursuing our calling and ignoring our potential narrows our focus, produces internal peace, and ultimately limits our activity, which paradoxically translates into productivity. This is rare in our current climate and I am convinced it is a signficant way that God's people can live in a compelling and counter-cultural way. I have repented of my sin and last week, producing fruit in keeping with repentance, I resigned from the BOD for the soccer club, put an end to my side work and Betsy stepped down from the PTA. I wonder how many of us need to lay some things down 

Time Is Money

As Christians, we all know we are called to be generous with our resources. You may tithe faithfully, support missionaries, or give to individuals and families as needs arise. We would encourage life style adjustments that cut unnecessary, frivolous spending in order to free us up to be more generous. But none of us would urge each other to give away what we do not have. Just as wisdom discourages spending on credit, wisdom prevents us from spending time we don't have.

While we all are entrusted with a different degree of wealth and material resources, God entrusts the same amount of time to each one of us. You and I both get 24 hours every day. We both get 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, and 12 months in a year. The truth is, time is a stewardship issue and we all have necessary expenses of our time if we want to be good stewards.

As a Christian, your first priority must be to cultivate a growing relationship with Jesus. This requires time - time in the Word, time in prayer, time in solitude, time reflecting, time repenting of sin, time giving thanks. If you don’t have time for these things, you are giving away time that you don’t have, and you would never do that with your money. 

Your other priorities include relationships, particularly with your family, both your biological and spiritual family. Your marriage requires significant time and so do your children. Your parents and siblings may require significant time depending on the nature and proximity of those relationships. Your brothers and sisters in Christ require time.

You will necessarily give a great deal of time to your vocation as well. For many of you, this priority takes the biggest chunk of your time, especially if you hope to do it well, as unto the Lord. The other priority, neglected by most of us, that demands our time daily, is rest. For a great many of us, we cheat every one of these priorities simply because we cheat rest, leaving us cranky, distracted and lethargic. Time isn't like money in that you can't store it or save it. All of your time will be spent on something, either wisely or wastefully. Free time gets wasted reactively on whatever pops up. Time for rest is intentional and fruitful, but too many of us won't spend time there even though you live in a perpetual state of buyer's remorse. Plan to rest and guard your rest like you would any other planned activity.  

Just Don't Do It

Most of us spend a great deal of time on a great many additional things that I’ve not even mentioned. There is much to do and most of us come to the conclusion week after week, year after year, that there is simply “not enough time.” But let me offer a corrective here: God, in his mercy and sovereignty has made the day 24-hours, the week 7 days, the month 4 weeks, and the year 12 months. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that, “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” This means that God has given each and every one of us enough time to accomplish and do all that He has called us to do. You do have enough time. But in order for you to do what you are called to do, you must stop doing all that you think you should do.

Saying “yes” to anything always means saying “no” to something else. Part of your vision for this year may be learning to say “No.” Some of you need to learn to say “No” a lot. Being freed from slavery to sin means being freed from sinful impulses to justify ourselves and liberated from the tyranny of what others expect of us. We free to focus on what God has called us, and let his grace fuel our efforts. Take this week to ask, “what am I doing that I am not called to do?” and “what am I neglecting that I can’t afford to neglect?” Busyness is a devil that over-promises, under-delivers, and erodes at your soul. Make some adjustments. Disappoint some people. Put your own expectations of yourself to death. You are free so stop living like a slave. 

Discipleship is about trajectory, forward movement, and incremental growth. You won’t grow healthy this year in every dysfunctional area of your life. You won’t be just like Jesus this year, but you can be more like Jesus this year. Ask God for a vision for how He wants you to pursue growth and in what area of your life. Narrow your focus. Do less so you can do it better. Slow down so Jesus isn’t a blur. Stop giving away time that you neither have nor can get refunded. Accept God’s precious gift of time and the limitations he builds into that, which are for your good. To do that, you’ll need to think less about what you should do, and focus more on what Christ has already done. Rather than telling yourself, “get to work”, hear Jesus say, “It is finished.”

CONSIDER IT PURE CRAZY part 3

We continue to look at 10 biblical truths to encourage and equip you to both endure afflictions, and to offer comfort to those around you who are persevering through difficult times and experiences. In the last post, we covered that:

1) God is Sovereign

2) God's aim in everything is His own glory

3) God has compassion on the afflicted

4) Affliction is always the result of sin

5) Your understanding of affliction is always distorted by sin

Today, we look at 5 more important truths that will serve us well in the midst of pain.

6) Your Affliction is not God’s Punishment

I talk to so many people who question if God is punishing their past sin with current heartache and difficulties. This line of thinking is a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel. God is absolutely angry at sin. The penalty for sin is death and God, in his justice, punishes all sin. At the cross, Jesus satisfied God’s wrath against the sin by paying the penalty that sin demands. He took upon himself the punishment that our sin deserves. Therefore, for all who receive forgiveness of sin through repentance and faith in Christ, and who receive his perfect record of righteousness, no further punishment is forthcoming. Our identification and union with Christ includes our identification with him in his death and resurrection. (Rom. 6:5-7) For God to punish a Christian for their sin would violate His justice because Christ has already received that punishment. God is not a petty father who punishes our every mistake, he is a loving Father who disciplines us as His sons. While there may natural consequences for ongoing sin in the life of a believer, God is not out to make His children pay. If you are in Christ, whatever affliction you may encounter you can be sure that it is not punitive.

7) Affliction is Sometimes the Right Response to Sin and its Effects

James tells us, “Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.” When you survey the landscape of the world and see the effects of the sinfulness of humanity, it should arrest us and afflict us. When we confront our own sin which grieves the heart of God and harms others, we should be afflicted. We live in a world that foolishly seeks to avoid “feeling bad” at all costs. We use a range of things such as alcohol, illegal narcotics, prescription drugs, pornography, video games, movies and television, clinical counselors and self-help books all to numb our emotions, lift our spirits, escape our reality, feel good about ourselves and medicate our pain. Solomon in all his wisdom said that, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.” Nothing makes you appreciate life and puts things in perspective like being confronted with death. Nothing makes you appreciate health like being sick. No Christian should be in a perpetual state of affliction but all Christians should experience a measure of affliction when they are faced with both the general and particular effects of sin. Ecclesiastes and Lamentations are both biblical books dedicated to honest assessments of life in a fallen world. All is not right in us or in the world and while we should never give way to hopelessness, neither should we ever hide from reality.

8) God Uses Afflictions to Reveal our Affections

John Piper is known for his often repeated statement “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” The unfortunate truth is that most of us struggle to be satisfied in Christ alone. Instead, we seek to be satisfied by the approval of man, the accumulation of wealth, the attainment of status or the acquisition of influence. We are more satisfied by worldly comfort than our union with Christ and that becomes obvious when we despair in losing comforts even though we gain Christ. When Paul considers having gained Christ, he all of his massive worldly successes are rubbish, trash and dung. For some of us, our afflictions reveal that we have been satisfied with rolling around in the manure. That’s why C.S. Lewis rightly says that “we are far too easily pleased.” God’s goal is that He would be uppermost in our affections and he uses our afflictions  to show the futility of hoping in anything else.

It’s worth noting that in Hosea 6:1-3, referenced earlier, God is said to have “torn” his people that He might heal them; He has struck them down that He might bind them up. This idea is like medical surgery, when a doctor might cut open your chest cavity, which hurts you, but he is doing so to remove a deadly disease, which would kill you. God’s expressed intention for us in our injured state, is that we would “press on to know the Lord.” God is drawing us to Himself through our afflictions. J.I. Packer writes that "He seeks the fellowship of His people and sends them both sorrows and joys to detach their love from other things and attach it to Himself."  God deeply desires for the longings of our hearts to be met. As our Creator, those desires were placed there by Him to point us to Him because they can only ultimately be satisfied in Him.

9) Afflictions Conform us into the Image of Christ

Romans 8:29 says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son...” All Christians are somewhere on the continuum between being made alive in Christ and being conformed into the image of Christ. As we consider our own afflictions it’s important to remember the most afflicted of all men was the man we trust in as Savior, submit to as Lord and worship as God. To be his disciples we must take seriously his invitation. “If any one would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Affliction is in the job description. The Apostle Peter heard that invitation in person and accepted it with the same naivete that many of us do. He later wrote to scattered Christians who were afflicted on account of their faith in Christ, saying “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings...” (1 Pet. 3:12-13). He knew that ultimate joy was in union with Christ and that union with Christ meant sharing in Christ’s afflictions. 

10) Afflictions Do Not Get the Last Word

Romans 6:5 says “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Our union with Christ may take us on a road of affliction but the destination is glorification. How can a God of love let so much pain and suffering and affliction endure? How can God stand by and not deal with all the chaos and turmoil around us? The answer is clear, simple and certain. He will. The day is coming very soon when sin and unrepentant sinners will be judged, when God will put all things right, when everything sad comes untrue. On that day all forms of affliction will suffocate, breathe their last and the resurrected and ascended Lord will return “with healing in His wings,” to remove the sting of sin and death once and for all. We find our hope and our rest in the promise of God that He will get the last word. Affliction will be swallowed up by joy. Isolation will be swallowed up by intimacy. Brokenness will be swallowed up by restoration. Pain will be swallowed up by peace. The old will give way to the new and death will be swallowed up by life.

In conclusion, Romans 5 says that, “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” It’s only after that that Paul declares “we also rejoice in our sufferings.” That’s because joy amidst suffering is only possible if we leave the shallow wells of worldly wisdom and drink deeply from the reservoirs of grace made available through the gospel and fix our gaze on the glory of God which will one day fill the whole earth like the waters cover the sea. There is no joy in afflictions apart from seeing through the lens of eternity. Church, we must recover the eternal perspective of the early church in order to recover our joy. Until He returns, may you know and experience intimately “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

CONSIDER IT PURE CRAZY part 2

In yesterday's introduction, we established the "afflictions" is a biblical term that refers to pain of various degrees and kinds that are caused by external circumstances that are beyond our control. We further illustrated how afflictions significantly marked the lives of God's people through the pages of the Bible, and we acknowledged that no degree of righteousness or maturity in Christ can insulate you from the reality of afflictions in a fallen world. In other words, nobody escapes afflictions in this life. My hope is to help biblically orient our perspective of pain so that we might find hope amid our afflictions and offer hope to others we influence. Here are 10 truths to form your understanding of pain and transform how you endure pain.

1) God is Sovereign

You are not in control and that in no way means that things are out of control. God is sovereign over all things, even over your affliction. Hosea 6:1-3 goes so far as to say that God has “torn” and “struck down” his people. There is some debate about weather God actively causes or passively allows affliction, but that God is neither surprised nor overwhelmed by our afflictions is certain. Weather it is a physiological condition, relational conflict, financial difficulty, emotional turmoil, or spiritual oppression your particular form of affliction is not above God’s pay grade. You are not in control. God is absolutely in control. And that’s good news.

2) God's Aim is His Own Glory

Jesus speaks in John 9 about a blind man whose blindness came neither from his own sin nor from the sin of his parents. Instead, Jesus says blindness afflicted this man in order that the glory of God might be displayed in him. Similarly, we see Jesus delay going to minister to a dying Lazarus and interrupted en route to healing a dying little girl. In both cases Jesus was motivated by His love and the desire for those he loved to see the glory of God.

John the Baptist is another example of someone who endured great hardship, yet his affliction ended in execution rather than resurrection. Having prepared the way for Jesus' ministry, he was so confounded by his imprisonment and impending death that he began to question if Jesus was the Messiah like he had thought. Jesus confirmed his identity to John as the Messiah but rather than freeing him or saving him, he told him "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me." While John's head ended up ingloriously on a platter, his life and testimony bear witness to this day to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And Jesus' testimony about his cousin is that he is the greatest man to ever live this side of Jesus himself (Matt. 11:11). There is no indication that John understood God would be glorified by his affliction and death. He struggled, as we do, to make sense of how God can gain glory through his affliction. But on the other side of eternity, John knows it is far better to endure affliction and bask in the glory of God than to be spared pain and remain ignorant of God’s glory.

3) God Has Compassion on the Afflicted

While God’s aim is His own glory and not your comfort, he is still a God of compassion who comforts us in our affliction. Exodus 2 tells of a people who cried out to God for rescue from their slavery. And we are told that, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant... God saw the people of Israel—and God knew” (Ex. 2:23-25). When you cry out to God in your affliction, He hears you. He knows you and every detail of your situation. He knows your pains and your fears. He knows what has caused them and what will alleviate them. He loves you and his own heart is afflicted by your affliction. Hebrews 4:15 says, "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with ourweaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." God's compassion runs so deep that he entered human history and endured affliction at the hands of sinful men. He identified with us and our afflictions so that, through his affliction, we could be identified with him.

4) Affliction is Always the Result of Sin 

Don’t get mad. I don’t mean that your affliction has been caused by your sin. What I am saying is that sin entered the world through Adam and it effected everything. All pain, suffering, fear, sickness, tragedy, pain and death itself are caused by sin. Most Christians are familiar with 1 Corinthians 15:55 which says “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Many use this Scripture as a sort of taunt toward death as if it does not sting at all. But it’s not as if the sting of death can’t be felt. The sting of death is all around us. The odds are you have been stung by sin and death this week. In Christ and through his resurrection, death is definitively defeated but it has not been done away with just yet. Jesus will destroy death finally and fully upon his return but for now, even though we have eternal life in Christ, we live with the effects of sin and death all around us and until Christ's triumphant return the effects of sin will remain. Furthermore, we have each personally contributed to the brokenness in this world through our own sin. None of us are innocent and all of us are effected.

5) Your Understanding of Affliction is Distorted by Sin

Because sin has corrupted everything, we must recognize that how we see our own affliction is distorted and corrupted. You may see it as unfair and undeserved. You may see it as punishment for something you have done. You may not see how anything good could possibly come from your situation. You may think you have a right to revenge, unforgiveness, bitterness or a better reward. It’s important to understand in the midst of adversity that your perspective is limited and God’s is limitless. You see things only for how they are affecting you in the moment while God sees them for what they are producing in you personally and in others through you (Rom. 8:18, 28, 2 Cor. 1:3-12). God does not promise that we will fully understand HOW our afflictions will result in His glory, he only promises THAT they will. The question is will trust your affliction and pain to make sense of God or will you trust God - His word, character, power and promises - to make sense of your affliction? Will you trust that God is good only when life is good? V. Raymond Edmond wisely says, "Don't question in the dark what God showed you in the light."

We will conclude with 5 more important truths to form how we think about afflictions and transform how we walk through them.