"Good" Friday?

Most people would never choose the adjective "good" to refer to the day of someone's death ... let alone such a brutal and violent death such as the death Jesus Christ endured. Yet "good" is the adjective we use to refer to the day when Jesus died. Read the following Scripture and concluding prayer by John Piper ... and I believe you will see why the day Jesus died was indeed a GOOD day!

Romans 3:23 - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:23 - The wages of sin is death . . .

Mark 10:45 - The Son of Man came . . . to give His life a ransom for many.

1 Peter 2:24 - He himself bore our sins in His body on the cross.

Isaiah 53:6 - The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

1 Peter 3:18 - For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 - God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 6:23 - The wages of sin is death . . . BUT the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Father, what can we say? We feel utterly unworthy in the face of Christ's unspeakable sufferings. We are sorry. It was our sin that brought this to pass. It was we who struck him and spit on him and mocked him. O Father, we are so sorry. We bow ourselves to the dirt and shut the mouths of our small, dark, petty, sinful souls. O Father, touch us with fresh faith that we might believe the incredible. That the very pain of Christ that makes us despair is our salvation. Open our fearful hearts that cannot feel what must be felt - that we are loved with the deepest, strongest, purest love in the universe. Oh, grant us to have the power to comprehend with all the saints the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and may we be filled with all the fullness of God. Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity. O God, open our eyes to the vastness of the sufferings of Christ and what they mean for sin and holiness and hope and heaven. Make us awake to the weight of glory - the glory of Christ's incomparable sufferings. In his great and wonderful name, amen.
(John Piper from Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ)

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj

Spring Cleaning!

Now that spring is here (although the weather has been more like mid winter the last two days!), many of us have already gone through (or are planning to soon go through) the ritual known as "spring cleaning." Last Wednesday, our church staff took the morning and in place of our regular staff meeting, we cleaned our offices. My office was LOONNNGGG overdue for a thorough cleaning! And it took us ("us" because my wife graciously offered to come in and help me out) four hours of almost non-stop work! In that time I filled a box of books to be given away ... and hauled four large trash bags of "stuff" out to the dumpster.

Now did I enjoy the time of cleaning? Of going through shelves and shelves of books and deciding what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to give away? Of cleaning out drawers and sorting through piles of "stuff?" Absolutely NO!!! But am I enjoying the fruit of that labor? The labor that has left my office cleaner and more orderly than it has been in years? The effort that has even lead visitors to my office to comment on its more tidy appearance! Undoubtedly YES!!!

This reminds me somewhat of the Christian life. We need to regularly unplug from the world and take some time to do some "internal housekeeping" - even if this can be at times an unpleasant experience. Our hearts tend to grow cluttered with time. And if we don't make the time to do self evaluations (using the mirror of the Word as our guide), our hearts can very easily begin to drift from Christ. In one of the most compelling verses in the Old Testament (at least for me), we are urged to "Above all else, guard your heart for out of it are the issues of life"). Are YOU guarding your heart?

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj

Post-Christian America?

The cover of the April 13th edition of Newsweek Magazine struck me and left me wanting to read the cover article. The cover is black and contains in red print the title, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America" - and it is printed in the form of a cross.

The article is based on the results of a new survey that was recently published. The survey, the American Religious Identification Survey reveals a sobering trend in our country. According to this study, the percentage of self-identified Christians as fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86% to 76%. In addition, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about four-fold from 1990 to the present, from about 1 million to 3.6 million. Based on these statistics, the article goes on to claim that although Christianity is not dead in America, it's influence upon American culture is declining - and will most likely continue to do so well into the foreseeable future.

Now, I did not need a magazine article or a survey to tell me that. All I have to do is look around. In the past two weeks, for example, two state supreme courts have overturned their own state bans against homosexual marriage (and the Bible is clear that God's plan for marriage is one man, one woman, one flesh for life - see Matthew 19:4-6). The fact that one of these states was Vermont did not surprise me at all. But I was surprised that Iowa's supreme court did the same! Iowa is at America's heartland. But apparently, even in America's heartland, biblical values are on the wane.

So, am I discouraged by all this? Not really. I know that the God we serve is sovereign and all powerful. He has a plan and He is working that plan (just read the book of Revelation, for example). And I also know that where ever it is darkest, the light that is shining shines more brightly! So for us who are devoted followers of Jesus Christ all this means is that we must work intentionally at obeying our Lord's command given to us in Matthew 5:16, "In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj

A Difficult Question

Recently, I was asked a question that went like this: "If God is all powerful and heals people of cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc. . .why hasn't he ever healed an amputee by restoring his or her amputated limb?"

Hmm. Good question! Here is how I answered this difficult question (difficult because of the deep emotional pain behind it):

We live in a fallen broken world .. a world marked by pain and sorrow. This is due to humanity's rebellion against God. Because the world in which we live is "temporarily out of order" (it will be one day be made right again - see Revelation 21-22 for the details), physical illness, disease and injury occur. In the midst of all this brokenness, God has graciously given to man the medical knowledge to bring healing to many (though not all). In the case of an amputee - the cost of his or her healing is quite high compared to the cost of other "healings" (for example surgery to repair a hernia or a cataract of the eye). Could God restore an amputated limb? Certainly! But He has chosen to work through medical science to bring about healing for the sick - and I as I mentioned earlier, the cost of healing for the amputee is quite high indeed. Yet, many amputees do move on to live full lives as they learn to adjust to their disability.

In addition, we can never forget that the only thing we deserve from God is death and judgment. Any physical healing we experience is a gift of his grace!

Finally, as important as physical healing is ... spiritual healing is even more crucial. For physical healing is all about this life --- spiritual healing is about FOREVER. If YOU are not certain about your own spiritual healing, I invite you to visit the following web site: http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl.

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj

Some Thoughts on The Shack

Many have asked me recently about my view of the book, The Shack. I posted these thoughts back in August of 2008. What I said then I still believe now. Blessings!! - pj



Recently a friend passed on a copy of the bestselling book, The Shack (by William P. Young) to my wife. The book tells the story of a man (Mack) whose young daughter was brutally murdered. After several years of grieving her death, Mack receives a mysterious note from "Papa" (the book's name for God the Father), inviting him to the shack where his daughter was killed to spend some time together. Mack ends up going and once there he is surprised to find the Father, Son and Holy Spirit waiting for him.

I just finished the book on Sunday night. I must say that the ending did make my eyes perspire a little bit. Would I recommend the book for others to read? I don't think so. I found the writing to be good at points and not so good at other points. But what concerns me most is that Christians are reading the book and claiming that it has changed how they view God. And that disturbs me. Why? Because I found the God of The Shack to be a very different God from the God of the Bible. Now it is not my purpose to give you a complete review of the book and show you where the book falls short. I will leave that to others who have done a far better job than I could ever do (for an excellent review on the Shack see Tim Challies' review found at this link: http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/a-review-of-the-shack-download-it-here.php).

So ... let me give you just one thought. When I consider how the people in Scripture reacted when they came face-to-face with God (for example Isaiah, Moses, Ezekiel, John the Apostle), their response was far, far different than how Mack responds when he meets "God." The Shack emphasizes God's love and immanence (the fact that God is near). And it is very true that God is love ... and God is near. But I believe the qualifying attribute of God (i.e. the attribute that qualifies all of his attributes) is not love but holiness. God's holiness is the only attribute mentioned in Scripture that is taken to the superlative (in both Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4 God's holiness is so much on the minds of the heavenly beings that they shout out the fact that God is "holy, holy, holy!"). So in effect, God's love is a holy love. God's grace is a holy grace. God's wisdom is a holy wisdom. And that is not what I saw in The Shack.

So bottom line (I don't want to get too long on my thoughts - you can read Tim Challies' review for more insights) - if you feel that you have to read the book, please read it as FICTION - for that is truly what it is. And get your theology from the Word of God.


Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj

Shaped to Serve!

When we make the decision to follow Jesus Christ, God does an amazing thing. The Apostle Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" You see, by a work of God's grace, we become HIS “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which HE prepared in advance for us to do”(Ephesians 2:10). Now due to life’s busyness, we can easily lose sight of this truth. That is why we must from time to time renew our commitment to serve our Lord. If we don't, we can all too easily slide into the mode of serving Me, Myself, and I! SOOOO .... all this to remind you of this glorious truth: serving Jesus is one of the highest privileges of life! So let's all determine to use our God-given SHAPE to serve our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!!!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj

What Are You Exporting?

Spam. We all know what it is and we all have grown to hate it (and I am not talking about the canned variety of SPAM that you can purchase at the grocery store)! I am referring to the very annoying (and even sometimes malicious) unsolicited junk mail that shows up in our email in boxes! In fact, we go to great lengths to limit the amount of incoming spam through the use of various spam filters that are on the market today. If it were not for these spam filters ... I think all we would do in the course of a day is deleting spam!

Did you ever wonder where all this spam comes from? I noted in yesterday's paper a list of the top countries when it comes to the origin of spam. Guess what country tops the list? If you guessed the good old U.S. of A. - you got it right! The U.S. comes in on top with 17.5% of all spam originating right here at home! And when you consider that second place Russia originates only 7.8% -- you can see that the U. S. is not in any danger of losing this distinction of being the number one exporter of spam!

This got me thinking about what we as Christians should be exporting. Yesterday I blogged about choosing to give thanks when tempted to grumble and complain. So how are you doing with that? Are you exporting more thanks than complaints? How about acts of kindness? Have you exported any of them lately? And of course, there's the gospel message. How have you been at exported the good news of Jesus Christ? Take a moment and evaluate what you are exporting to those around you. You may just find out that what you are exporting is no more beneficial than spam!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj