All We Need

Does God Really Supply All We Need? 
John Piper

What then does Jesus mean, “All these things–all your food and clothing–will be added to you when you seek the kingdom of God first”? He means the same thing he meant when he said, “Some of you they will put to death…But not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:16-18). He meant that you will have everything you need to do his will and be eternally and supremely happy in him. How much food and clothing are necessary? Necessary for what? we must ask. Necessary to be comfortable? No, Jesus did not promise comfort. Necessary to avoid shame? No, Jesus called us to bear shame for his name with joy. Necessary to stay alive? No, he did not promise to spare us death–of any kind. Persecution and plague consume the saints. Christians die on the scaffold, and Christians die of disease.  That’s why Paul wrote, “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). What Jesus meant was that our Father in heaven would never let us be tested beyond what we are able (1 Corinthians 10:13). If there is one scrap of bread that you need, as God’s child, in order to keep your faith in the dungeon of starvation, you will have it. God does not promise enough food for comfort or life–he promises enough so that you can trust him and do his will.

A Press Reality and a Past History of Suffering

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Eric Metaxas  

Bonhoeffer’s experiences with the African American community underscored an idea that was developing in his mind: the only real piety and power that he had seen in the American church seemed to be in the churches where there were a present reality and a past history of suffering. Somehow he had seen something more in those churches and in those Christians, something that the world of academic theology—even when it was at its best, as in Berlin—did not touch very much.

I Will Be With You

For the Love of God
D.A. Carson

Isaiah 43:2

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. (ESV)

In the first section (43:1-7), God tells Israel not to be afraid (43:1)—not because she will not go into exile, but because when she passes through the waters God will be with her, and when she passes through the fire the flames will not utterly destroy her (43:2).

Link: Complete Blog Post

Into the Mess of Life

John 5:5–7

[5] One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” [7] The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” (ESV)

In John 5 we’re introduced to a man who is an invalid. He has been disabled for 38 years. His one hope is a legend. Supposedly an angel sometimes comes to stir the pool near the Sheep Gate and whoever gets into the water first will be healed. His only hope is a myth and in his condition, he is unable to even get into the water first to see if the myth is true. He is helpless.

When our children are infants, they are helpless. Perhaps there is some kind of power associated with being cute, but essentially they are helpless. They can’t talk. They can’t get their own food or even move. But as we grow up, we imagine that we are no longer helpless. In some ways this is true, but how many of the most important things in life are outside of our control?

Life is often messy and unpredictable. And into the mess of life comes Jesus.

As It Turns Out (Judah Part 1)

Judah is part of the most famous family in the Bible. His great-grandfather is Abraham, his grandfather is Isaac, and his father is named Jacob. Judah is one of the 12 sons of Jacob. Jacob has had children by four different women. Judah’s mother Leah is one of them. Jacob had never wanted to be with Leah. The only reason he married her is because he was tricked into it. In Genesis 29:31 we read how “Leah was hated.” Jacob only loves his second wife, Leah’s younger, beautiful sister, Rachel. And Judah and everyone else know it.

When I was kid, I was short and unathletic. In team sports I was often picked last. That’s kind of sad, I guess. But it’s not the same thing as being picked last by your own husband. It’s not the same as being picked last by your own father.

Jacob does not love Leah and he does not love Judah. In Genesis 37:3 we hear how Jacob “loved Joseph more than any other of his sons.” Judah knows that his mom has been rejected. He knows that he is rejected. And Judah responds with a deep, abiding hatred and an awful selfishness. Later in Genesis 37, Judah and his brothers act on their hatred. They decide to kill Joseph but the eldest brother, Reuben, convinces them to throw him into a pit instead. Judah has a bright idea in v. 26 and the brothers decide to sell Joseph as a slave. Then their hated brother will not only die as a slave, but they can get some money out of it. Judah is responsible for Joseph being sold into slavery and then suffering for years in a prison in Egypt.

When Judah and his brothers return home, they lie to their father and make it seem like Joseph was killed by a wild beast. They break their father’s heart. Jacob mourns for Joseph and he refuses to be comforted by his other sons. This reinforces the fact that he loved Joseph and not Judah or any of his other children.

After this, in Genesis 38:1, Judah leaves. He is done with this family. He becomes friends with an Adullamite and marries a Canaanite woman. Abraham and Isaac’s greatest fear was that their children would marry among the people of the land of Canaan and abandon the Lord and His promise to bless the line of Abraham. In choosing Shua the Canaanite for himself, Judah is not just done with his family but with the God of his family.

Judah is done with this God who allowed his father to hate his mother and who gave him a father who does not love him. But as it turns out God is not done with Judah.

Come Quickly

A Praying Life
Paul Miller

Look how God used the [Babylonian] captivity, this seemingly unfinished story, to prepare for the coming of his Son and the birth of the church: [during the 500 years of silence between the OT and NT]

• God used the destruction of the temple and the removal of the Israelites to Babylon to create the synagogue structure, a precursor to the local church. If temple worship had continued uninterrupted, the early church would not have had a model for local congregations. They learned to worship God without a temple.
• The Old Testament canon was organized during this time. Severed from their land in a virtual spiritual desert, the Israelites clung to their scrolls. That gave the early church the category of Old Testament, which in turn created the New Testament. God purified Israel of mixing with other religions.
• The dispersion of the Jewish people provided a base from which Paul and others could easily spread the gospel.
• Israel was forever purified of outward idolatry. Never again would the Jewish people worship idols. Monotheism became permanently central to Israel. This is the foundation of Christian thought and Western civilization. Because the Jews became devout monotheists, they got upset when Jesus claimed to be God. When Jesus claimed to be the unique Son of God, the high priest tore his robe and delivered Jesus up to be crucified.  

God was weaving a spectacular tapestry through the suffering of Israel. Without the Babylonian captivity there would be no Israel, no cross, no Christianity, and no Western civilization. Haggai was right. The glory of the new temple was greater than Solomon’s.

But the Jewish poet who wept by the rivers of Babylon never saw the end of the story.  Like all the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, he lived with the story unfinished in his lifetime.  He lived by faith…

The first time I took Kim with me on a speaking retreat, a little girl came up to her as we were finishing dinner and asked, “Why don’t you speak?” Kim leaned over her speech computer, which was propped on the table, and typed, “I will have a beautiful voice in heaven.” We walked away with tears in our eyes.

Some stories aren’t tied up until heaven. Because of Kim, Jill longs for heaven. This desire permeates her conversation. Jill doesn’t say, “It’s a beautiful day outside.” She says, “This would be a good day for Jesus to come back. Everyone can see him.” Jill wants to go home.

Living in unfinished stories draws us into God’s final act, the return of Jesus. While we wait for his return, it is easy to predict the pattern of the last days. The book of Revelation pictures a suffering church, dying as creation itself is unraveling. Through suffering God will finally make his church beautiful and reveal his glory. In the desert you see his glory. In the last days the bride will be made beautiful, pure, waiting for her lover. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

The Desert

A Praying Life
Paul Miller

The hardest part of being in the desert is that there is no way out. You don’t know when it will end. There is no relief in sight. A desert can be almost anything. It can be a child who has gone astray, a difficult boss, or even your own sin and foolishness. Maybe you married your desert. God customizes deserts for each of us. Joseph’s desert is being betrayed and forgotten in an Egyptian jail. Moses lives in the Midian desert as an outcast for forty years. The Israelites live in the desert for forty years. David runs from Saul in the desert. All of them hold on to the hope of God’s Word yet face the reality of their situations.

The theme of the desert is so strong in Scripture that Jesus reenacts the desert journey at the beginning of his ministry by fasting for forty days in a desert while facing Satan’s temptation. His desert is living with the hope of resurrection yet facing the reality of his Father’s face turned against him at the cross. The Father turning his face against you is the heart of the desert experience. Life has ended. It no longer has any point. You might not want to commit suicide, but death would be a relief. It’s very tempting to survive the desert by taking the bread of bitterness offered by Satan–to maintain a wry, cynical detachment from life, finding a perverse enjoyment in mocking those who still hope.

God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden. Here’s how it works. The first thing that happens is we slowly give up the fight. Our wills are broken by the reality of our circumstances. The things that brought us life gradually die. Our idols die for lack of food. That is what happened to Emily in Guatemala. That is what happened to Jill with Kim. The still, dry air of the desert brings the sense of helplessness that is so crucial to the spirit of prayer. You come face-to-face with your inability to live, to have joy, to do anything of lasting worth. Life is crushing you. Suffering burns away the false selves created by cynicism or pride or lust. You stop caring about what people think of you. The desert is God’s best hope for the creation of an authentic self. Desert life sanctifies you. You have no idea you are changing. You simply notice after you’ve been in the desert awhile that you are different.

Things that used to be important no longer matter. For instance, before Kim was born, we used to have one of the kids comb the fringes of the living-room rug so it was perfect. Now we are lucky to find a comb for our hair. After a while you notice your real thirsts. While in the desert David writes, O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1) The desert becomes a window to the heart of God. He finally gets your attention because he’s the only game in town. You cry out to God so long and so often that a channel begins to open up between you and God. When driving, you turn off the radio just to be with God. At night you drift in and out of prayer when you are sleeping. Without realizing it, you have learned to pray continuously. The clear, fresh water of God’s presence that you discover in the desert becomes a well inside your own heart.

The best gift of the desert is God’s presence. We see this in Psalm 23. In the beginning of the psalm, the Shepherd is in front of me–“he leads me beside still waters” (verse 2); at the end he is behind me–“goodness and love will pursue me” (verse 6, NIV); but in the middle, as I go through “the valley of the shadow of death,” he is next to me–“I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (verse 4). The protective love of the Shepherd gives me the courage to face the interior journey.

Enduring Peace

John 20:21

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

When Jesus declares His peace over His disciples, He means it. Jesus is risen! Yet, the Jewish leaders are still violently against them. The devil still seeks to devour them. The disciples will still be persecuted, arrested, and possibly murdered. And Jesus declares that He will give them a peace that can endure in the real world.

To teenagers in violent, inner city neighborhoods, Jesus offers His peace. To Muslim international students whose nations consider conversion illegal, Jesus offers His peace. To us as He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him, Jesus offers His peace.

When we say yes to God, there is always risk. But the Father is not indifferent to our suffering. He does not enjoy our trials. He calls us and sends us out into a dangerous world because He knows that as we follow Him we will have His enduring peace.

The Advance of the Gospel

Philippians 1:12–26

[12] I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, [13] so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. [14] And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

[15] Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. [16] The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. [17] The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. [18] What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice, [19] for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, [20] as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. [21] For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (ESV)

We live in time when being part of a movement is trendy, whether it is a political, social justice, or spiritual movement. And we tend to assume that Christianity works just like any other movement. According to Wikipedia, the growth of a movement depends on things like communication, making it easy to join the movement, and connecting the movement to things people already like such as children or cute animals. This passage says something very different about the way the gospel grows. According to Paul, suffering advances the gospel, enemies advance the gospel, and both life and death advance the gospel.

Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary in the early 1900s. She intended to be a preacher and evangelist in Japan and sacrificed a great deal to do so. However, due to her health, she was forced to leave Japan and moved first to Sri Lanka and then to India. In India, her main ministry was not as an evangelist. She could not find open doors to share Jesus among the Hindus. Instead, the Lord sent her children, girls fleeing from temple prostitution. So Amy started an orphanage. She ended up spending over 50 years doing mundane tasks like cooking and cleaning up after children. This was not the life she envisioned but she served hundreds of children and Jesus got His glory. Sickness, opposition, failed plans, and disappointments could not stop the gospel but instead advanced it.

Unexplainable Joy

Acts 16:25

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them…

Paul and Silas have been beaten, thrown in jail, and had their feet fastened in the stocks, which is very painful. They do not know what will happen to them. So what are they doing at midnight? Singing.

They are singing and the other prisoners are listening. If I was in prison and another prisoner was singing at midnight, I would ask them to stop so I could get some sleep. But the other prisoners are just listening. They are in awe of a joy they cannot understand. How can there be a joy that suffering cannot destroy?

Suffering often reveals what we truly rejoice in. We get irritable when we fast because food and being comfortable is our joy. If a parking ticket or a cracked phone can ruin our entire day, it’s because our joy is wrapped up in money and possessions. If a coworker ignores our ideas or an acquaintance gossips about us, we tend to think about it over and over because we love the respect and praises of men. But none of these things can give us lasting joy.

Paul and Silas’s joy cannot be taken away by one circumstance or person. Pain, suffering, and even the threat of death are not able to take their joy because their joy and trust is in the Lord.

At midnight, they are praying and singing because the Roman government is not in control. The jailer is not in control. The devil is not in control. No, the Risen Son of God is in control, and His good and sovereign purpose will be accomplished. And so they are singing hymns because this world can kill the body but it cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Their suffering is real but it is not arbitrary or meaningless. God is working all things for their good.