God

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Christians, Facebook, and Politics


A friend posed this question to me a little while ago:

Someone asked me today how I could post praises to God, and then bash Obama. I was also asked how I thought God would feel about this. Question: How can we as Christians disagree with the policies of this administration that go against the word of God without sounding like “bashing”?

Sometimes I think the problem is that we pray in private and criticize in public. I was much too guilty of that at one point, so I’ve quit posting my opinion about politics. People know how I feel, so when I address issues now, I talk about issues, not people, and I post the truth of Scripture, not my opinion.

Romans 12 and 13 give great instruction on how to interact with those who oppose us and those who govern over us.

Romans 12:16-21:Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Many believers, myself included on occassion, have allowed the current political tone to divide the body of Christ. We have an “Us vs. Them”, “W vs. Obama” mentality. “We” don’t like it when “they” talk about “our man”. So why do “we” expect “them” to be ok with it when “we” talk about “their idiot”? Isn’t that the attitude most days? If you need to blow steam about a particular political official with whom you disagree, do so in a “safe” place with people who agree with you and not on your facebook page where your steam could burn someone else and cause them to stumble.

So what should we do when we morally disagree with the policies of a particular administration? Paul tells us in Romans 13:1-7, “1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.”

Speaking out against issues of morality is acceptable. For example, I have a real concern with some “Hate Crime” legislation that could be used to legal action against those who speak out against homosexuality. I believe that homosexuality is just one of many ways mankind has found to twist God’s good gift of sex, and in my ministry, I spend much time speaking and teaching about the truth of Scripture concerning sexual brokenness. If such legislation is passed, a time may come when I will have to choose whether to submit to the government who is asking me to be quiet on a subject about which God says I am to speak the truth or if I will practice civil disobedience, speak out and then accept the civil consequences of that civil disobedience.
But most political issues are not necessarily moral issues; we may think they are unwise, they are the result of past mistakes, they are detrimental and painful and appear asinine at times. But to bemoan the actions of any President as if the sky is falling after every speech he gives leaves the world to assume Christians are whiney hand-wringers who don’t really trust that God is sovereignly in control. President Bush is not the total idiot most Democrats make him out to be and President Obama is not the antichrist most Republicans assume him to be. Neither one is solely resposible for “where we are now” but I am certain that our current situation has not taken the God of the universe by surprise.
As far as disagreeing without bashing… I’ve learned that I can disagree without posting it on facebook. I’m learning that, as a believer, my status has a huge impact on people and I choose to use it now as a chance to speak hope and grace into the lives of others instead of using it as a megaphone for my unsolicited opinion. I don’t want the things I do or say to become a stumbling block for those who need the Gospel more than they need to see things my way concerning the American political system.
So as a believer, regardless of political affiliation, what are you doing to support our current civil servants? Do you pray for them? Do you send them notes of encouragement? Do you write in with ideas of how to change the things with which you disagree? Do you let them know your opinions? How do you keep yourself actively involved so that you don’t just become another all talk, no action complainer? After all, most of us complain that that is what “we” hate most about “them”. Turns out, we’re all “them” to someone.
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Of Joy and Desire, Part 3


Lewis’s point is that there are desires for many things in this world. In his apologetic works, he discusses at length man’s desire for food, for rest, for companionship, for beauty, for enlightenment. He says, however, that those desires do not function in and of themselves. Rather, they are used as proofs by God to ensure us that, just as we desire food and there is food to fulfill that desire, there is also a God with whom we long to unite that will, when we ask Him, come down and fellowship with us in a way that will meet our every longing for Him. “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food…. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Lewis, Mere Christianity). God created us with desires that can be fulfilled temporally in order to give us hope that those desires that cannot be fulfilled temporally will be fulfilled eternally. Our Creator desires for us to know that that we were not created with a desire that will not be fulfilled, and Lewis’s argument that since all temporal desires are fulfilled, then even those desires that we have not yet found fulfillment for will one day be fulfilled.

When looking to the Bible for confirmation of Lewis’s argument, one can look to Hebrews 11:13-16 where the writer speaks of those in the Old Testament who were highly esteemed for their faith in an unseen fulfillment of their desires:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one (emphasis mine).

Even upon their death, these great men and women of faith had not received the things promised to them. Their desires had not been fulfilled. And rightly so, Lewis would argue, for who would want to place their faith for eternity in a longing fulfilled in this life? He, for one, did not. “Every step I had taken, from the Absolute to ‘Spirit’ and from ‘Spirit’ to ‘God,’ had been a step toward the more concrete, the more imminent, the more compulsive” (Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 237). When it comes right down to it, all anyone in this world is looking for is something sure in which to place their trust. What could be more trustworthy than a God who has ensured that everyday we will experience small confirmations of His constant presence both here and in the hereafter?

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Of Joy and Desire, Part 2


This is part two in a series on CS Lewis and his observations on desire and joy.

After spending years searching through literature, mythology, and relationships, Lewis came to a revolutionary conclusion that he states in his work Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” It was just after his conversion to Christianity that Lewis penned the following words that explain how he came to this conclusion: “It appeared to me… that if a man diligently followed this desire, pursuing the false objects until their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoning them, he must come out at last into the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given… in our subjective and spacio-temporal experience.” Of all of Lewis’s writings on the subject of sehnsucht and the quest for the fulfillment of this unknown desire, it is actually his friend Owen Barfield who most simply explained Lewis’s conclusion to the matter: “true longing is never fulfilled by anything in the earthly life, but… it’s always a disguised longing for God.”

God, says Lewis, is the object of our longing. This belief goes along with the words of Augustine when he wrote, “O, Lord, you have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” The great works of secular literature are often ascribed their greatness because of the eloquent manner in which this longing is described and personified. Even these works confirm the fact that the objects most desired, if they are of this world, do not, when they are attained, fulfill those longings.

This longing for the things of God is addressed at length in the Scriptures that were written on behalf of a people that God knew would be seeking something greater than themselves. The writer of the Psalms wrote at length about his desire for God, saying, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (63:1). The writer of the Psalms also stated, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (42:1-2). Someone with a thirsting in his soul, his body longing for something as though in a “dry and weary land” sounds like the descriptions of the characters in much of modern writing. But this writer is not thirsting for drink, hungering for food, or lusting for companionship. He is desperately searching for a way to meet with the One he has discovered will fulfill those longings. He desires God. “Like Augustine, Lewis believes that if there is a God, in whose image we are made and in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:23), then it would stand to reason that we would have a longing and a built-in craving for a Joy beyond all earthly satisfactions” (quoted from Dave Brown, “Real Joy and True Myth,” Real Joy and True Myth [1997] <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3505/LewisJoy.html>).

Testimonies like those from the Psalmist fill the Bible and confirm that Lewis’s thinking is a common thought among people. In fact, in the New Testament, the apostle Paul goes even a step further. He confirms not only that God will fulfill our longings; he also gives his personal conviction that the things of this world never will. “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8). All things that he once considered worthy of his time and attention, all the things man pursues daily in an attempt to fill that desire with temporal matter, Paul says here that once he met Christ, those things became to him like garbage.

“In great Lewis tradition, Alister McGrath describes the apologetic opportunity this (the realization that the things of this world are truly unfulfilling) presents us: ‘This feeling of dissatisfaction is one of the most important points of contact for the gospel proclamation. In the first place, that proclamation interprets this vague and unshaped feeling as longing for God. And second, it offers to fill it…” (Dave Brown). In the Scriptures, God essentially offers to fill that longing He placed within us with Himself.

The aforementioned argument begs the question, “What of those that do not believe in the existence of God?” How are they to explain this longing? Atheist Austin Cline has researched Lewis’s argument of desire at length, and he gives this rebuttal:
According to Lewis and other apologists, every desire is necessarily a desire for something, and every natural desire must have some object that will satisfy it. Since humans desire the joy and experience of God, therefore there must be a God that will satisfy our desires….It is true that every desire is a desire for something, but it does not automatically follow that every desire is a desire for something that actually exists…. [H]ow many people desire the ability to fly or the ability to read minds?

While this point should be considered and respected, one should also be quick to notice that one can very readily argue the fact that there is a tremendous difference between desiring the ability to read minds so that one may sneak into the mind of his or her nosy neighbor, and desiring an object that will cause us to feel complete as entities within the universe. If the point is looked at on the truly grand scale of finding one’s identity in the cosmos, the ability to read another’s mind is really inconsequential. This is a point that C.S. Lewis understood well. As a former atheist who journeyed through the progression of all false objects until they proved their falsity, he knew that the closer one got to finding the One to whom we are all drawn, the farther one moves from all other aspects of existence.

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A New Sexual Ethic? Part 5


This is part 5 in a 5 part series of a response to Carter Heyward’s essay “Notes on Historical Grounding: Beyond Sexual Essentialism,” which can be found in Sexuality and the Sacred:Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by James B. Nelson and Sandra P. Longfellow.

Heyward concludes her argument with a rallying cry for change. As is the case throughout her article, her call to change is correct, but the direction in which she desires to enact this change is deadly. The following is Heyward’s proposed solution to the issue of a misunderstanding of sexuality in the church:

If we are to live with our feet on the ground, in touch with reality, we must help one another accept the fact that we who are christian are heirs to a body-despising, woman-fearing, sexually repressive religious tradition. If we are to continue being members of the church, we must challenge and transform it at the root. What is required is more than simply a “reformation.” I am speaking of revolutionary transformation. Nothing less will do (Heyward, 16).

Heyward’s call to recognize the past sins of the church is valid. Only when sins are acknowledged and repented of can true healing take place and forgiveness be granted. A vast number of problems within the Church today would be resolved literally overnight if believers were willing to repent and humbly seek forgiveness from their God and from their fellow believers. God confirms this promise in 2 Chronicles 7.14: “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” True change occurs not through bitter retribution, as Heyward suggests, but through humble repentance and forgiveness.

This issue of creating idols out of sex and self ultimately stems from a misunderstanding of the person, nature, and work of God. Most claim that their disdain for God’s moral law has little to do with their “personal” relationship with God. They claim to love God. Their problems is with Scripture. Some may think that this type of thinking is extreme and could never be found in the mind of the average church member. But it is creeping into the pews and can be heard in excuses given concerning sexual immorality, divorce, exorbitant debt and a host of other self-gratifying sins. When people make statements like, “I know the Bible says it’s wrong, but God wants me to be happy,” they are judging Scripture through the lens of personal experience—the exact thing sexual pagans do to justify the worship of sex and self.

This idolatrous thinking has made its way into the local church, and it will not be corrected through a “revolutionary transformation,” but only through a humble reformation, by a return to the recognition that the God worthy of service and worship is powerful and sovereign, and He alone ensures that His will and ways have been communicated to His people without error or confusion. Those who think that Scripture is irrelevant today because it has been corrupted throughout time do not have a low view of man or of Scripture. They have a low view of God and his ability to maintain His promise that “the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Is 40.8).

Carter Heyward has so much right in her argument: sexuality can be seen as an aspect of humanity that is fluid and changing. While people (with very rare, medical exceptions) are born biologically heterosexual, through the influence of man’s sinful heart and the impact of the sinful choices of others, some go against the loving and unchanging one, right way of the loving Father and go astray, seeking to do things their own way (Is 53.6). Choosing to follow the sinful desires of the heart is not a liberating way of finding oneself and realizing one’s full potential, as a loving bodyself like Heyward tries so hard to claim. Rather, when man chooses to go his own way, his iniquities are not laid upon the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah 53. By going one’s own way, one is committing to pay the price for sins committed against an infinitely holy God.

For too long the church has silently sat back and uncomfortably watched society claim sex as its own. Before it is too late for the next generation of believers, the church must heed the warning of those who seek to take the good gift of God and further corrupt it in sexual paganism: “Our silence will not protect us…. We are shaping history with our words. Either we speak as best we can or our power… will slip away like a thief in the night” (Heyward, 16). Unlike Heyward, who believes that humanity’s power comes in unity with one’s self and with one another, Christians must remember that God’s grace is sufficient in whatever battle may be faced when standing in the truth of the Word. Christians are called to speak out against those who claim to speak for God but spread lies. Silence will not protect us, but it will most certainly condemn us if we remain silent concerning the increasing attack on biblical sexual morality.

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Satisfaction, Security, and Priority


Haggai 1:2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.

3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?

5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.

Reading this passage this morning brought to mind the current economic and spiritual depression that is occurring around us these days. It seemed as if this passage, in which God speaks with the Israelites about their priorities and dissatisfaction, could have been written to me on a lot of days. This message is being delivered to the Israelites who have returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian Captivity, where they had spent 70 years living in relative prosperity. Upon their return to Jerusalem, they did not make God and their relationship with him their first priority. While the Temple laid in ruins, they were focused on building their own homes and securing their own prosperity.

But God observes of them what can be observed in our own time—the more they made their own comfort and security their priority, the less satisfied and secure they actually became. Jesus addressed this very issue in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:19 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

In America today, even in the midst of this current economic crisis, we are more prosperous than any other civilization in history. Our treasure is firmly on this earth, our heart has followed, and our discontent is evident. We pour our time and money into our own personal happiness, security, and satisfaction and then wonder why we are more miserable than ever before. We spend our time and money building our own home while the work of the Lord is left undone. We are expending ourselves on a product that will not last, so are working in vain. Our hearts were created to work for the glory of God, and when we spend our time working for things other than His glory, we will be inherently dissatisfied.

Sometimes, we even do this under the guise of building the Lord’s house. Take a look at your church’s budget: where is the majority of your money spent? Is it on outreach? Evangelism? Church planting? Missions? Take a look at your church’s calendar: how does your congregation spend the majority of its time? Is it in visitation, counseling, evangelism? Don’t misunderstand my point: buildings and technology and discipleship are vital aspects of ministry. But when our focus is self-comfort, self-improvement and self-entertainment, when we spend more time in fellowship than service, then even serving the Lord becomes unsatisfactory. It’s unsatisfactory because we are really serving ourselves instead of truly serving Him.

I have learned the last few months that when I face times of frustration, of dissatisfaction, I can usually trace it back to somehow being disappointed with my circumstances. When I take my focus off of the Lord, when the building of His kingdom is no longer my desire, when I make my treasure here my priority, I work and find no satisfaction. I lay my heart on the alter of worldly prosperity and it is sacrificed there every time.

So what are we to do to rid ourselves of the attitude of discontentment that so easily springs up in all aspects of life? God tells the Israelites to “Consider your ways.” God tells His people that they will work but gain no prosperity, security or satisfaction as long as they work to secure those things for themselves in their own way. He is our portion and our provider. Our contentment and security are found in Him alone.

The Psalmist Asaph wrote of this problem of discontentment in Psalm 73. Asaph quit looking at the goodness of the Lord and began seeing the perceived prosperity of the wicked around him. He viewed them as healthy, happy, successful, prosperous, and this led him to ask of God, “Where’s mine?” Asaph laments that he has kept his way pure for no reason; after all, what good has clean living done for him if it is only the wicked who prosper? He says that he continued in this thinking until, “I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” (v. 17). When Asaph returned his focus to eternal, kingdom matters, he remembered that while the wicked seem to prosper in this life, they will spend an eternity separated from God. Asaph remembered that the treasure that matters is the treasure of a regenerate heart, fully focused on service for God.

I pray that I will remember these instructions from God. The next time I am frustrated with the success of the wicked, when I begin to question the payout for living faithfully before the Father, when I work hard but achieve no satisfaction, I pray that the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit will being this to mind: “Consider your ways.”