"Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation." John Piper May Have Written His Most Important Post This Year

Note: Yes, I have not posted here in quite a while. I've been using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to connect about Christ in real time. But there are moments like these where our need as Christians is so urgent, and someone speaks a message we need to hear and reflect upon, that I am compelled to share it. I hope it serves you well.

My friends who belong to Christ, I plead with you to quietly read and ponder this. We cannot deny or evade the harsh reality that we have no fellowship with either the Republican or Democrat candidate in this election. Yet our hopes and ambitions for what politics and government can do have gripped our hearts so tightly that we have been pulled into a sea of idols and we are in desperate danger of clinging to one to keep our heads above water. John Piper has written something I have longed to read from a sound teacher of the Scriptures for a long time. This is, above all, a heart check to test whether you really and truly are devoted to Christ above all. You may still vote either way, or vote a third way. But how you let it grip your heart, and how much you cling to the outcomes of this election, have an eternal influence on your soul. Be for Christ, all the time, all the way to the end. Elections will come and go. Governments will come and go. Christ is our Rock, now and forever.

John Piper is wrestling well with this reality:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/policies-persons-and-paths-to-ruin

Here are four reasons I am immensely grateful to John Piper for publicly sharing his heart about this election:

1. He makes it very clear at the beginning and further down that he isn’t insisting every Christian must reach the same conclusions he does. We need more of this: Romans 14-15 and 1 Corinthians 8 emphasize that the church cannot be healthy if we don’t love and support each other in spite of differing convictions and consciences. Christians can disagree about voting without treating each other as fools or traitors.
2. Piper gives so much encouragement here to Christians who are agonizing over feeling trapped into voting for one of two candidates, both of whom are fraught with moral problems. It is possible to choose not to vote for either of them because your conscience won’t let you, and still be a faithful Christian and citizen. I am grateful that Piper demonstrates how a Christian may honor God by choosing not to vote for either candidate. We hear too much simplistic pressure that we must vote for a candidate “who can win” no matter what. Brothers and sisters, if you use your chance to vote as a means to honor Christ by refusing to support candidates whose actions lead to spiritual ruin, that is also a faithful work of Christian citizenship.
3. What Piper has done here is to help us course-correct in our attitude about public sins. He is not saying President Trump’s sins are worse than those of Democrat candidates. He is saying sins on both sides are deadly and lead to cultural and spiritual death, so we should treat them all with gravity and avoid minimizing or excusing them.
4. Perhaps most importantly, he reminds us that our greatest priority is how we display and honor Christ and live out the gospel. This is supremely important compared to any political goal, but we easily compromise it when we are so urgent about winning an election. Politics is a riptide that snatches people and pulls them along even when they are careful and have the best of intentions. We need teachers who will help us step outside the frenzy of elections and political causes and remind us that these things are not the greatest priorities God has given to us. It does not all depend on the outcome of this or any election. God desires us to be faithful witnesses to our neighbors far more than he desires us to accomplish anything by voting. Be wise in how you conduct yourself in front of those around you, and ask yourself what they most need to see from you. Lord, help us here.

Here are two excerpts. Please read the whole thing.

"When I consider the remote possibility that I might do any good by endorsing the devastation already evident in the two choices before me, I am loath to undermine my calling (and the church’s mission) to stand for Christ-exalting faith and hope and love.

"I will be asked to give an account of my devotion to this life-giving calling. The world will ask. And the Lord of heaven will ask. And my conscience will ask. What will I say?

"With a cheerful smile, I will explain to my unbelieving neighbor why my allegiance to Jesus set me at odds with death — death by abortion and death by arrogance. I will take him to Psalm 139 and Romans 1. And if he is willing, I will show him how abortion and arrogance can be forgiven because of Christ (Ephesians 1:7). And I will invite him to become an exile — to have a kingdom that will never be shaken, not even when America is a footnote in the archives of the new creation."

On the dilemma of character versus policies, Piper has made a point we keep overlooking:

"Where does the wickedness of defending child-killing come from? It comes from hearts of self-absorbed arrogance and boasting (James 4:1–2). It comes from hearts that are insubordinate to God. In other words, it comes from the very character that so many Christian leaders are treating as comparatively innocuous, because they think Roe and SCOTUS and Planned Parenthood are more pivotal, more decisive, battlegrounds.

"I think Roe is an evil decision. I think Planned Parenthood is a code name for baby-killing and (historically at least) ethnic cleansing. And I think it is baffling and presumptuous to assume that pro-abortion policies kill more people than a culture-saturating, pro-self pride.

"When a leader models self-absorbed, self-exalting boastfulness, he models the most deadly behavior in the world. He points his nation to destruction. Destruction of more kinds than we can imagine.

"It is naive to think that a man can be effectively pro-life and manifest consistently the character traits that lead to death — temporal and eternal."

Lord, help us listen and cling to you. Please make our hearts wholly true to you, above all and through all. Amen.

Addiction: How to Help Each Other (Part II) - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame

Image from http://www.alcoholanddrugsrehab.com/

For Part I, click here.
For Part III, click here.

Addictions affect far more people than we realize. In the last 10 years, I have discovered so many types of addictive behavior affecting fellow Christians and others I come in contact with through criminal law that I wanted to make what I’ve learned available to help others care for people with addictions. We often miss the signs of addiction because many addictions don’t look like what we stereotypically think of as the behavior of “an addict.” Many people hide their addictions very well, and seem to function normally most of the time.

If you’re trying to help someone break out of a ‘bad habit’ or sinful pattern in life that is really an addiction, you can end up spinning your wheels and going nowhere if you aren’t prepared with an understanding of the mental maze that addicts live in. Addiction is a complex interplay of selfishness, shame, pride, denial, guilt, and fear. Most addicts actively work to conceal their addictive behavior. I have learned the hard way how easy it is to miss what's going on under the surface, and what it takes to get an addiction out in the open.

I posted Part I of this discussion last week, where I summarized what makes something an addiction, the risk-taking behavior that reveals someone has an addiction, and how addictions compare to idolatry. I also gave a breakdown of why people turn to addictive behavior, with a list of critical things to be aware of when trying to help someone with an addiction. Part II covers below why addicted people lie and conceal their behavior, why it takes so much careful work to get them to cooperate with their own healing, and the combination of pride and shame that trap people in addiction. Finally, in Part III I will give a detailed list of ways to recognize patterns of deception and concealment that addicts commonly use to keep their addiction secret or to resist help and accountability, and how to counter them.

There is enormously helpful biblical teaching on this subject from groups like CCEF. Although I am trying to give you the main insights and tips from 10 years of law practice dealing with addicted clients and addicted people in the church, I don’t have a counseling degree and I’m not a professional counselor. In many cases, your primary goal should be to get the help of a certified counselor, while using the type of information I have put together to support your friend and keep him or her accountable. Several quotes below are from Ed Welch, a CCEF counselor, and I encourage you to chase down more of his resources at CCEF.

Addiction Makes Liars Out of People: Deception and Concealment Come Naturally

I am not trying to be insulting or accusatory here. It simply has to be faced that one of the sad byproducts of addiction is that it nearly always turns the addicted person toward lying and deceiving the people around him, especially when people begin to confront the person about having an addiction. This is often a total shock to family and friends because it happens even to people who would never lie about anything else. Part of the difficulty in spotting an addiction can be that the person you're trying to help has always been honest and candid with you about everything, so it is disorienting and hard to grasp when you begin to realize they are deceiving you about their addiction. It's completely out of character.

1. Other People Just Don't Understand

Part of the problem is that addicts usually think they have things under control. They think their indulgence and vice is something they just choose to do, just something they use to take the edge off and relieve stress. You've heard the classic self-deception: "I can quit any time I want to." This is usually what they really believe - they never put it to the test because they don't want to quit. They want to keep using this to dull pain or relieve tension. So the first person an addict is lying to is herself. Ed Welch says: "All addicts lie. As idolaters they forge an alliance with the anti-god and his crumbling empire, and lying is one expression of this alliance. ... For addicts, this deception is not only what they speak, it is also what they believe. They also have been lied to and believe those lies—lies from family, friends and Satan himself."

You've probably heard pastors describe temptation to sin as a lie: what you expect a sin to give you and what you actually get are usually two different things. When you are tempted by a desire, sin looks appealing and satisfying and not too dangerous. If you give in, you realize afterward that the satisfaction was brief and the negative consequences are much bigger. (Just what James 1:14-15 describes.) Addiction functions this way too. A person's desire for the relief and comfort their addiction provides will blind them to how big the consequences are. In the last post I described how people take greater risks in order to satisfy an addiction than they ever normally would take. Their need has become so dominating that they rationalize away the consequences or sinfulness of their actions.

But while the addicted person is lying to herself about things being out of control, she usually has a perception of what other people will expect and accept. Addicted people often realize that others would question their choices or be concerned by their risks, and even though they won't admit to themselves that there's good reason for concern, they learn to conceal what they are doing in order to avoid the unpleasant confrontations. So they begin lying to others as well. There are plenty of excuses they can use for this: "I know it bothers him, so I just don't want him to worry needlessly," or "It's none of their business," or "We just have different beliefs about how to unwind, so there's no point in talking about it."

However, the deeper the addiction goes, the more lying becomes a means of self-preservation and a regular habit. Pride causes the addicted person to resist all efforts to question or intervene in the addictive behavior, and shame makes the person unwilling to confide in others or allow anyone to see how ugly the situation really has become.

2. Pride and Shame Gain Control

"cultivating and encouraging humility is crucial for helping someone overcome an addiction."

You can see the evidence of pride in what I just described: the addicted person thinks they have things very well in hand, thank you, and anyone who thinks differently just doesn't understand. It is likely that the addicted person has thoughts like: "Who are they to tell me what I can do?" Self-justification and defensiveness are common side-effects of addiction (and sometimes causes of it). I quoted a therapist in Part I who said addicts believe two lies: that they deserve relief, and that they should get to decide how and when they get it.

For many addicts, even when they know the problem is out of control, the hardest thing to get past is the pride of being able to do what they want to do. That is one reason many fail in treatment: I have seen a number of people over the years walk out on treatment not because they believed they were cured or that they didn't have a problem, but simply because they were tired of having to abide by someone else's rules. When life is spiraling out of control, desperation may drive them to treatment. But when things stabilize, they start to think it's unfair that they no longer get to decide for themselves when and how they find pleasure or comfort. As time goes on, they are tempted to find compromises to make their addiction "manageable" instead of cutting it off entirely. Sometimes the hardest part to accept is never again.

Therefore, cultivating and encouraging humility is crucial for helping someone overcome an addiction. The person has to be willing to admit they have a problem: in other words, they have to be able to admit they can't handle this. They have to admit weakness. Along with that, they must submit themselves to someone else's accountability in order to make sure the person doesn't return to the addiction or get close to temptations that would trigger it. They no longer get to do whatever they want. It is a basic element of original sin lodged in all our hearts that we chafe and bristle at not being able to do things our own way. This is one of the biggest battles of the will in overcoming an addiction. Pray for humility in the person you're helping. Pray for the grace to listen and receive instruction.

A person who isn't growing in humility as they come to terms with an addiction is not going to fare well in overcoming it. That's why many addicts have to suffer devastating consequences before they surrender their addiction and accept help. It's only when forced into a situation where they must quit or be destroyed that they finally realize what a hold it has over them, and how helpless they are to control it.

Along with pride, addicted people are crippled by pride's evil twin: shame. Sooner or later a person with an addiction that is getting out of control will realize, in spite of their self-justification, that the state of their life really looks disgraceful. The effort to put on an image for everyone else of appearing to have it all together just makes it that much more frightening and intimidating to think about the veil getting pulled away and people seeing what's really underneath. Ed Welch sums it up: "If they were not dominated by shame before they began their addiction, they certainly will be after. When you live for something that is ultimately worthless, you feel worthless. When you live for neither God nor people, you will hurt others and degrade yourself. Then the cycle continues—addiction leads to shameful consequences, which leads to more devoted addiction." (Welch)

3. Killing Shame with Humility, Encouragement, and the Love of Christ

The solution to shame is also rooted in humility. As John Piper points out in Battling Unbelief, shame is really just pride that is wounded because it isn't getting praise. A shame problem is a pride problem: we feel shame because we want people to think about us a certain way - we want to take pride in something - and we perceive that they don't. So although shame looks vulnerable and sympathetic, it is really a problem of taking too much pride in what others see; so much pride, in fact, that you can't bear to have them see the real truth. Part of humility is learning not to worry about what other people think. As it happens, one of Ed Welch's best and most well-known books tackles shame expertly: When People Are Big and God Is Small.

To combat shame, an addicted person also needs diligent and frequent encouragement. They have to be reassured that it's okay to be you. They have to be shown that people will love them and accept them even with the veil pulled away. They also have to discover what is good and valuable in themselves and begin to feel good about it again. This is why most treatment programs and support groups for addiction heavily rely on a group therapy environment which emphasizes positive reinforcement for each other. They pour on the encouragement: every step forward is a victory that deserves praise and approval. Every day of sobriety is a celebration, which is why people get cheered when they report how many days they have been sober, whether it's two or two hundred. In fact, I cannot think of a single program that is successful - for any type of addiction - that doesn't use this approach of mutual encouragement.

I have seen firsthand in addicted people that if they don't care about themselves, they will likely relapse into addiction. People that try to beat addiction just to save their marriage, or just to keep their job, or just to please family and friends, are at serious risk. The problem is that, if they still personally feel like they are worthless, then sooner or later they are going to lose hope and believe they can't win. They will expect failure. Or, the thing they're fighting for will collapse, and nothing will seem to matter anymore. When they get that low, they are likely to just revert to numbing their shame and fear with their addiction. The marriage, job, and family are all worthy things to fight for, but at bottom the person has to care about himself or herself. The person has to care what happens to them. So the person needs constant encouragement from others that he or she is valuable and important and has gifts, personality, and other qualities that make their life special and precious.

This is not inconsistent with dismantling the person's pride. Pride is about overvaluing yourself and being too obsessed with what people think of you. Being humble does not mean you think you're of little value or think there's nothing special about you. The Book of Proverbs is filled with lessons that humility is essential and pride is lethal, yet it is also filled with exhortations to value your life, preserve your life, care about the quality of your life, and protect your life. Both pride and shame can be fought by having a correct view of who you are and what makes you precious. And what makes us precious more than anything else is being loved and accepted by God.

As Ed Welch points out, we are reassured in our identity by the fact that Jesus reaches out to people regardless of what other people think. The Lord went out of His way to touch those others considered untouchable:

"So, if we are to help, we watch the life of Jesus. He was born into shame and his people are outcasts. Watch him eat with the shamed and touch the shamed. Watch him identify with them so they can identify by faith with him. At every point, we expect Jesus to turn away and not be sullied by the shamed. Instead, he always invites, always surprises, and offers a connection to himself in which we are given cleansing, covering and belonging. As we follow the story, our roles begin to change. No longer is there an addict and a helper. Now we are two people who are seeing beautiful realities that will take the rest of our lives to understand. " (Welch)

You can't get too shameful for Jesus. His power to cover over sins cannot be exhausted. Belonging to Him cancels out all human opinions about your worth. The addicted person can be comforted and encouraged that he is precious in God's sight, fully accepted as a child of God because of what Jesus has done. And Jesus does not just accept us, but transforms us and cleanses us as well. He gives us a new life, redeemed from sin. This is the best possible news for someone struggling under the shame of addiction. Jesus can make all things new. In Christ, your life is never a lost cause.

Next: Part III - Breaking Through Deception and Creating Openness and Honesty - How to Help People Through to Recovery

Get Started on Experiencing Your Greatest Joy Forever

I'm addicted to sugar. I eat or drink way too much sugar every day. This is not a good thing, but my appetite still craves it. When I'm tired, or just want to take a break to relax, or when I'm looking at the menu, my body is telling me that sugar is an essential element for being satisfied.
 
What does this have to do with the image at the right? It's a bit of a testimony. Although my mind and body are convinced that sugar is necessary for me to enjoy my day, they're deceived. It's just not true. What's more, the things that really would make my body feel better and more energetic don't usually appeal to my appetite. My body isn't just mistaken about sugar; it's got the whole order of what's good for it and not so good flipped backwards.
 
I still remember the point in life where I discovered I was doing the same thing with my relationship with God. I had been worshiping God and learning the Bible and a lot about Christian faith and doctrine for years, but there was a point where I realized I was trying to be Christian but still find my satisfaction in the typical things most people think make for a good life: having a good marriage, enjoying time with friends, doing productive things, and hoping that the coming days of your life will be more and more successful and filled with fulfilling achievements as they go along. And like most people, I often felt empty and unsatisfied, and I would gravitate to things that promised immediate satisfaction. All of this got turned upside down when I read through John Piper's book Desiring God. For the first time, the central truth that being Christian meant treasuring God Himself as your greatest joy and pleasure was demonstrated for me.
 
Piper convinced me from the Bible and from quoting the experiences of dozens of Christians over the centuries like C.S. Lewis, Jonathan Edwards, Blaise Pascal, Augustine, George Muller, Charles Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor, and dozens of other missionaries, teachers, authors, and philosophers that the point of Christianity is to enjoy God and treasure Him above everything else. Just as important, he convinced me that this works. That may sound silly, but I know it is all too common for people to hear and be persuaded that we are supposed to love and enjoy God, but to have no idea how to do it and to find the effort disappointing. It isn't enough to be told you need to be satisfied by the experience of God Himself. We have to be shown that this really will satisfy us, so that we don't get discouraged and quit before we experience it. We also have to discover what it is about God that brings us joy.
 
This is primarily because, just like my sugar cravings, we are very used to finding comfort and satisfaction in small things that provide some immediate pleasure. We become dependent on that habit and cycle, so dependent that changing our habits to seek our satisfaction in something else at first feels like self-denial and a loss of pleasure. It has taken me a long time to find satisfaction in eating real fruit instead of sugary foods and drinks. I had to stick with it in order to change my tastes and appetite and to convince my body that this really was more satisfying. In the same way, it took time and patience in sitting and reading the Word of God alone and praying for God to make my soul delight in Him before I really began to experience it. I had to establish a new diet, and I had to feed myself by reading the Scriptures just for enjoyment and closeness to God, as well as praying just in order to be near God more often than praying to get needs met. The more I practiced this and consistently sought God Himself rather than turning to something lesser to get comfort, the more I received satisfaction and comfort from God. 

"One of our obstacles to enjoying God is that we don't really have a good idea of what that means."

I have shared much more about this journey on this blog under the tag Finding Joy. You can find a lot more detail there if you're interested. The main purpose of this post today is to illustrate that one of our obstacles to enjoying God is that we don't really have a good idea of what that means. This is where the book shown above may be a blessing. The Scriptures tell us over and over that what we will enjoy for all eternity is God's glory. Glory is often referred to as the reward in heaven, both beholding the glory of God and receiving glory ourselves. Yet we tend to have a very vague idea of what that means, and so we don't have a real vision of how that will satisfy us. We understand it must be good, but it is hard to have your appetite whetted for something you haven't tasted. God's Glory Alone: The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life (David VanDrunen) is a book that promises to give us not just a taste, but a feast of glory. If you want to truly enjoy God, learn as much about His glory as you can. The more you train yourself to desire and look forward to that which will bring you your greatest possible joy, the more you will enjoy it now. I hope this book helps many Christians discover the depth and potency of being satisfied in God.
 
There is an excellent and detailed review of the book up at The Gospel Coalition. It sounds like some people may find more immediate application in the book if they start with the second section first. Read on and see for yourself! "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!" Psalm 34:8

Why Christians Need Heroes to Imitate

The point of the Christian life is to become like Jesus. Paul said that the "work of ministry" is "for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ... we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ[.]" (Ephesians 4:12-15). God's plan from eternity was to prepare for every Christian "to be conformed to the image of his Son[.]” (Romans 8:29).

So as far as who we should admire and imitate, the obvious answer is Jesus Himself. Why should we imitate anyone else? Our goal according to God's Word is to follow Jesus step for step. “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:6). There is no one more important to imitate than Jesus Christ. But then no less a preacher than Paul the Apostle himself told his flock: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." (1 Cor. 11:1). Why not simply say imitate Christ? In the same letter he said:

For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. (1 Cor. 4:15-17)

This is so important to Paul that he sent Timothy to them just for that reason, so that they would be reminded of Paul's ways in Christ and imitate them - not simply to remember and imitate Christ. Paul isn't alone. The author of Hebrews says the same about other leaders of the church. "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith." (Heb. 13:7).

 

The Scriptures actually urge us to observe faithful Christian leaders and imitate the pattern of their behavior and faith. We are supposed to find heroes to admire. John Piper, a man who certainly goes to great pains to focus on exalting God and drawing our attention to Jesus, still suggests that if more of us picked heroes to follow, we may be more bold and serious about our faith: "I think one reason we settle for such ordinary 'soap opera' lives is because we have no heroes. Nobody’s picture is pinned on our wall to spur us on to greatness. The Bible teaches us to have heroes." (Every Hero Gets Hiccups). Piper has invested in this by researching and preaching biographical messages of 27 great Christians you can watch or listen to here for free. This is one way I discovered some of my heroes of the faith.

 

We often don't see Jesus clearly, even when we set our hearts to follow Him. We have difficulty relating to His perfection across the canyon of our imperfections. Finding someone who has seen Jesus more clearly than you do is a way to connect to Jesus. We do this all the time with pastors, following where they have gone ahead in the Scriptures or their faith. The same encouragement comes from seeing how other imperfect people gained confidence in God and discovered intimate communion with Him. Experiencing how they grew into the stature of Christ in spite of fears, doubts, mistakes, sins, and confusion gives us courage and hope. It helps show us the way ahead.

 

I have been massively supported and strengthened in my faith by how C.S. Lewis wrestled with the perplexities and pain of life and made sense of them in Christ. I have seen more glorious and beautiful truths about the sheer logic and common sense of Christianity because of the brilliance and wit of G.K. Chesterton than I could have ever understood on my own. Our eyes should always be fixed ahead, looking intently for Jesus Himself, but our own Hebrews 11 hall of heroes spurs us on and guards us against getting lost.

 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

Is Happiness a Vain and Worldly Thing or a Christian Thing?

Randy Alcorn has written the essay I have been waiting for someone to write. This is an important thing to get clear. We see so many people wrecking their lives and their souls by pursuing "happiness" in all the wrong places that we can become skeptical and critical of the idea of happiness itself.

Some Christians have dismissed happiness as a worldly and self-centered idea that is different from Christian joy and satisfaction. They try to explain Christian joy as something different and spiritual, and they treat happiness as a self-indulgent desire. This is very confusing to our hearts, especially to those who struggle for joy, because it makes us feel criticized for some of our legitimate efforts to be happy. And yet we cannot get away from them. As Christian philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal famously said: "All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end." (Pensées, #425).

This has been one of my first priorities in writing a blog, and I've tackled the search for joy a number of times from the very early posts to If You Struggle With Joy You're Not Alone and a string of posts here from 2013 on C.S. Lewis (including Don't Let Being Unhappy Make You Feel Guilty).

But for the present, I just encourage you to read Randy Alcorn's post. Here's a preview:

An ungrounded, dangerous separation of joy from happiness has infiltrated the Christian community. The following is typical of the artificial distinctions made by modern Christians:

Joy is something entirely different from happiness. Joy, in the Biblical context, is not an emotion. . . . There is a big difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is an emotion and temporary; joy is an attitude of the heart.

Judging from such articles (and there are hundreds more out there), you’d think the distinction between joy and happiness is biblical. It’s not.

John Piper writes, “If you have nice little categories for ‘joy is what Christians have’ and ‘happiness is what the world has,’ you can scrap those when you go to the Bible, because the Bible is indiscriminate in its uses of the language of happiness and joy and contentment and satisfaction.”

Here’s a sampling of the more than one hundred Bible verses in various translations that use joy and happiness together:

• For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor. (Esther 8:16, NIV)
• I will turn their mourning into joy. . . and bring happiness out of grief. (Jeremiah 31:13, HCSB)
• Give your father and mother joy! May she who gave you birth be happy. (Proverbs 23:25, NLT)

The relationship between joy and happiness in these passages refutes two common claims: (1) that the Bible doesn’t talk about happiness, and (2) that joy and happiness have contrasting meanings. In fact, the Bible overflows with accounts of God’s people being happy in him.

More...

What a Transformationist Model Looks Like in Culture: Showing God Is Great

Having summarized in my last post what H. Richard Niebuhr described as the Conversionist (or Transformationist) model of Christians interacting with the culture, I wanted to give a good example of what that looks like. Here is the beginning of a recent message John Piper gave in which he described how our transformed lives as Christians affect what people around us see about God. The full video is embedded at the end.

John Piper on Romans 12:1-2: 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2

We are going to look at the first two verses in Romans 12 and talk about the will of God, what it means, how to find it, and what it means to have your mind renewed to find it.

As you know, chapter 12 follows the first eleven chapters. And it begins with a glorious “therefore” (“I appeal to you therefore”). The wonders that he is calling us into in walking with Christ in a renewed way are built on massive theology in chapters 1-11. It doesn’t get any bigger than Romans 1-11. It doesn’t get any deeper than Romans 1-11. And this is what it was all building towards: new minds discerning the will of God and lives of worship.

“I appeal to you, therefore brothers [on the basis of Romans 1-11 and all the glories there and the pillars that suck down into the bottomless foundations] by those mercies [the mercies of God that I have unfolded for 11 chapters] present your bodies [that is, your whole bodily life, what you are everywhere you go including everything you do] as a living sacrifice. Your bodily existence is not going to die. It goes up on the altar, but it won’t die so that it ceases to live. It dies so that it lives a different way. As a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

It is possible, Christian, to live pleasing to God. Don’t overstate the doctrine of the justification of the ungodly. Don’t make it cancel other Scriptures. People are doing that today by taking the doctrine of justification of the ungodly, a beautiful, Romans-taught doctrine, and extrapolating from it that you can’t please God, that you can’t be acceptable to God day by day. All you can do is confess that you are ungodly and bank on the righteousness of Jesus. That is false.

You are now called — built on justification by faith alone and accepted on the basis of the righteousness of Christ alone — to offer sacrifices to God in your body that please him, sacrifices that he smiles upon. This afternoon you can do something that pleases God. You can make a phone call that pleases God. You can speak a word of sweetness and kindness to your spouse that pleases God.

A Life of Worship

Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing that you may prove [or discern] what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfected and, thus, thus, live a life of worship.

The aim of these two verses is that all of life becomes worship. "Present your bodies, your bodily life as living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship." In other words, the aim of all human life is that God in Christ be displayed as infinitely valuable. That is what life is for, to live your life in such a way that by what you say, what you think, what you feel, what you do with your arms and your lips and your eyes and your legs and your hands, all will show he is more valuable than anything.

That is what worship is: showing God’s value, supreme value over all other things. So if you have a job, do your job in a way that shows that Christ is supremely valuable. And if you can’t do that at your job, either change jobs or do verse two better.

When your life becomes worship, God begins to look valuable to other people. God looks infinitely worthy when others look at you. When they look at you, it looks like you value God more than money. It looks like you value God more than power. It looks like you value God more than illicit sex. So what is with you? They want to know the reason for the hope that is in you.

You probably don’t have to change jobs. That would probably be a mistake. That is not going to solve the problem. But verse two will solve it. And that is what we are going to think about for a while here.

You Are New, Now Get New!

Verse two is Paul’s answer to the question: How all of life becomes worship (from verse one). It doesn’t call for mere change your external behavior. It says, “Be renewed in your minds.” Now I have got to step back and get a little Pauline theology in here so that “being renewed” is understood in the context of what has really happened to you, Christians.

For the rest, see the video below.

To Know You Are Loved By God Is Essential for Performance

The "performance trap" I described last time is what happens when we go off the road halfway through the Gospel and start thinking that Christ saved us from our sins (and thus punishment), but now we need to achieve the kind of personal holiness that will give us confidence to stand before God. We can easily develop a perception that our prayers to God must be made when we are flourishing in holy living and excelling in sanctified behavior if we want to be heard. In other words, our faulty idea of progression of faith looks like this:

     faith >> salvation >> obedience and sanctification >> increasing acceptance by God (justification)

What I want to emphasize here is that it is essential to our productivity and obedience for us to believe we are accepted apart from our productivity and obedience. Believing we must labor and purify ourselves with all our might in order to gain favor with God doesn't make us more faithful and productive. It makes us legalistic, and eventually leads many Christians to a sort of hopelessness and apathy as they realize they can never meet the standards they've aimed at. The Scriptures tell us the having assurance of our acceptance actually keeps us fruitful: "And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." (Hebrews 6:11-12).

In the last post I unpacked Jerry Bridges and The Discipline of Grace to show that salvation and justification (acceptance by God) are inseparably linked. They both occur immediately when faith is placed in Our Savior Jesus Christ and God's promise of life and salvation to all who believe in Him. Every ounce of performance, every good work of obedience, all come after we are justified by faith.

The progression of Christian faith actually looks like this:
     faith >> salvation and complete acceptance by God (justification) >> obedience and sanctification

Here's a good summary: "The connection between the sinner and the Savior is trust, not improvement of behavior. That comes later. It’s this order that gives hope. "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:28). The basis of this wild and wonderful hope (the ungodly justified) is "Christ for righteousness to everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4, literal translation). Through faith alone God counts the ungodly as righteous because of Christ. "For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Let all who are paralyzed by the weight of sin and the powerlessness to change turn in here." John Piper, Justification By Faith: The Remedy for Paralyzed Sinners

Basically, performance happens because we have been given a new heart and spirit upon believing by faith. But God, having enabled us now to do good works and love righteousness, doesn't wait for us to get a proven track record before fully accepting us. He does it immediately. The joyful and liberating truth that our acceptance actually comes before our performance is scattered throughout the Bible, such as Titus 3:4-8, where Paul grounds the reason that people should devote themselves to good works in the fact that they have already been saved apart from works and justified by grace. Or Ephesians 2:8-10, where Paul declares we were saved by grace, not as a result of any works, but as a free gift - so that we could then do the good works God created us to do. The good news of acceptance is so essential to our being motivated to do good works that we are assured in numerous places of our acceptance by God before being urged to go on and do good works. So get as confident as you can that God loves you and accepts you completely in Christ.  It's good for you.

Soak In the Wisdom and Joy of C.S. Lewis This Weekend

I hope the last few posts have persuaded you that you need to read The Weight of Glory. The full insights of Lewis's sermon can't be appreciated just from the parts I have quoted. The flow of his argument is brilliant and reading the 10 pages all the way through is an experience of wonder.

There is another feast available this weekend for those who have delighted in the wisdom and the brilliance of C.S. Lewis's thinking. The Desiring God conference for 2013 is entitled: The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis. From Friday, September 27 through Sunday, September 29, desiringgod.org will be live-streaming the talks and messages from the conference for anyone who wants to watch them for free. After the conference, usually within a week or less, they will all be available online at desiringgod.org to watch or download (still for free).

In advance of the conference, John Piper has put together a free e-book summarizing the influence C.S. Lewis has had on his life and Christian thinking, including helping him behold the wonder of God in Creation and the romance and poetry of life. The title is Alive to Wonder. You can download it here as a PDF or for Kindle, Nook, etc.

Happiness Is Limited in This Life So You'll Enjoy It Forever

I want to make sure that I am clear in what I mean when I say God wants us to be happy. I do not at all mean that God promises we will be happy all of the time in this life, or that we will mostly have joy and very little pain. Joy is not a constant thing. If you have many seasons where you must struggle to find joy, you're normal. God does provide joy, and God is the only one you can rely on to provide everlasting joy. But He deliberately limits our experience of it in this life, and I think C.S. Lewis understood why.

I have been helped and encouraged immensely by C.S. Lewis when I have been struggling to find joy and happiness (as you can see from the link). Lewis has made more sense out of why we long so much for satisfaction that seems elusive, and why we suffer so much, than just about anyone else outside the Scriptures. The only other Christian author that has helped me this much is John Piper, and I suspect that is in no small part because Piper himself has been richly helped by Lewis. Piper titled his biographical sketch of Lewis "Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul" (a title that will be explained by the next post). It summarizes well how much Lewis thought about joy and satisfaction and the longing to find them.

Lewis's conclusion about why happiness is limited in this life was simply this: God gives us as much happiness in life as is good for us, but not so much that we miss out on everlasting joy.

"The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacles to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home." C.S Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Or, as the Scriptures put it: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17.

And not only that, but their joy abides forever too.

Why We Need to Think

I've been working my way through messages from this year's Desiring God Conference, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God. One of the sanctified uses of an Mp3 player is filling your mind with edifying and wise thoughts while in the car, or when you're exercising, or when you're walking from point A to point B - time when you would otherwise just be daydreaming or obsessing about all the things you need to do. I've learned that my attitude in life is far more healthy if I redeem some time in this way each week. The craziness of the average day is not likely to produce much encouragement in my heart, so I need to deliberately feed myself with something encouraging that lifts my spirit or helps teach me more about how to fight the daily battle effectively.

To that end, part of what I love about this year's DG Conference is that it is not aimed directly at intellectuals or students. It is intended, like John Piper's book of the same name, to encourage all Christians to think and to use our minds to the glory of God. We aren't all called to be scholars, but every one of us does need to make use of our minds in living the life of faith.

As I was listening to Al Mohler's message, he made this point: "We as Christians must recognize that there is a crucial distinction between the regenerate mind and the unregenerate mind. ... [T]here once was a way we thought that we can no longer think." (See Romans 1:21)

In other words, we as Christians have learned something earthshaking that changes everything about life. We can't afford to act as if things haven't changed. We are aware now of a whole new dimension to life - the spiritual dimension - that changes why we live, how we treat people, and where we find strength and hope. If we don't consciously change the way we think so that we plan and decide and act based on this new understanding, then for all our spiritual rebirth we will be ineffective and frustrated. We will fail to embrace the tools God has given us to flourish in our Christian life, and we will continue to pursue a mindset that invites temptation and leaves us vulnerable to the life-destroying effects of sin. Christians must consciously think like Christians in order to thrive. I highly recommend Mohler's message and Piper's book as good ways to encourage that in ourselves.

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2

How to Confront and Avoid Anxiety

As the last post explained, Battling Unbelief taught me to start focusing on God's promises and to put my trust in Him to keep them. If you want to overcome anxiety, you can't start by trying to ignore problems or by exerting "self-control" to stop being anxious. You have to find your peace by knowing the problem is being taken care of. You will always have problems and uncertainties to deal with in life, but anxiety comes from thinking we have to deal with them ourselves. God has promised us we don't have to. Jesus specifically said we shouldn't be anxious about tomorrow or about our needs, because our Father in heaven will take care of it all. (Matthew 6:25-33).

The first step is to believe God means what He says, and reject any feelings to the contrary. If you had a friend you deeply trusted, you would believe his or her word over the word of someone less reliable. Faith means showing God the same trust. We need to remember that our feelings and the circumstances around us are not in any way as reliable as the God who created us and who upholds the universe. I gradually began to respond to situations that made me anxious by resisting the anxiety and directing my thoughts to God's promises instead. I would focus on God's words instead of my thoughts and feelings, and on remembering that the fulfillment of these promises depends on God, not on me. Instead of driving faster or sitting up at night worrying over the next day's work, I needed to trust that things were in God's hands and He would take care of them.

I struggled with applying this because it seemed too easy - it seemed like I was just being lazy and putting off my own responsibilities onto God. Part of the deception of anxiety is the idea that everything really depends on what we do. But that is not a life of faith. The life of faith acknowledges that we are dependent on God, and that we can't succeed without Him. Jesus told His disciples: "...apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5). Paul tells us that our very salvation "depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." (Romans 9:16). And he told the Galatian church that if they received the Holy Spirit by faith, it was foolish for them to think that having begun by faith, they were now being perfected by their own work. (Galatians 3:1-7). The Christian life is a practice of depending on God by faith from beginning to end. We trust Him, and He shows His glory and faithfulness by always giving us what we need.

The more I practiced this, the more I discovered that I wasn't slipping in my responsibilities just because I was depending on God instead of my own anxious efforts. On the contrary, I began to be more faithful and more productive, and God proved His words true time and again by causing things to turn out well even when the circumstances looked anxious. My faith was strengthened by trusting God to keep His word, and I had a lot of freedom from the stress and tension I had carried around before. It wasn't a one-time cure; I still had to remember to practice this the next time a new anxiety came up. But living by faith has made me more productive and given me more peace of mind than ever before.

Anxiety Is Dangerous - And Avoidable

After somehow managing to successfully not post during the whole month of September, I want to jump back in by following up on the last post on how Martin Luther addressed anxiety. Since anxiety saps the joy out of many Christians, I want to share two realizations that have changed my life and explain how they helped: 1) anxiety comes from wrong thinking about God; and 2) anxiety is optional - it isn't a normal and necessary part of human life.

Regarding the first, I used to beat myself up when I was running late or when I didn't think I had put enough effort into something. I would pummel myself with thoughts about what was going to happen if I didn't pull out all the stops and somehow redeem the situation. This tended to put me in a high-stress, anxious state of mind that bordered on panic. Mercifully, a couple of years ago I began to realize that this practice of anxious self-reproach was accomplishing nothing. It wasn't helping me change my behavior. All it was doing was making me stressed and tense. I didn't know how to break out of the pattern, though, because it seemed irresponsible and apathetic to not be anxious and worked up when I was in a bad situation.

Part of the problem was that I had been unconsciously trying to use anxiety as a motivator - if I worked up enough stress and worry over something, hopefully it would push me into giving everything I had. By God's grace, I started to realize this and how useless it was. It was more than useless, too, because it left me stressed and irritable. In fact, Jesus warned that the cares of this world can choke out the Word of God and keep us from being fruitful. (Matthew 13:22-23). Anxiety is actually counterproductive. So instead, I started working on applying some things I learned from reading Battling Unbelief, a book by John Piper (you can also read the sermons he preached on this).

Piper introduced me to the surprising concept that anxiety was not just bothersome, but actually a form of distrust in God. Anxiety comes from not believing that God will faithfully watch over us and provide for us. It comes from believing that we have to take care of things ourselves or they won't get taken care of. So Piper calls anxiety a form of unbelief, a lack of faith in God's character. The cure for unbelief is faith - putting your trust in God to do what He has promised. This brought me to the second revelation: anxiety is unnatural for a Christian. It's a weakness of faith, and if we focus on building our faith, anxiety can be dispelled. Here's what happened when I tried applying this.

Sunday Salt: C.S. Lewis Exposes Our Legalistic Thinking

After this week's discussion of legalism, this quote from C.S. Lewis seems appropriate. Lewis hardly needs an introduction to many, but his life and his conversion are fascinating and well worth examining. A brief overview can be found here. Also, John Piper delivered this winter a thought-provoking and insightful analysis of the tremendous value of Lewis's thought as well as some important cautions about how we allow it to influence us. Piper's tribute to Lewis and his observations on some of the weak points in the way Lewis went about his work struck me as incredibly brilliant in the way they summed up the works of Lewis I have cherished over the past 14 years. The message will make you love Lewis more but also think more clearly about him.

Now, Lewis himself on how people go astray over setting up rules of behavior that go beyond the actual commandments about sin (although it is good for us to make personal decisions to stay away from some things if they tend to undermine our faith - see this earlier Sunday Salt):

"One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning."
- Mere Christianity, p. 76 (Touchstone edition; 1996).

Romans 14:1-6:
"As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God."

Sunday Salt: Charles Simeon's Comfort in Suffering

Charles Simeon was the pastor of Trinity Church in Cambridge, England for 54 years (from 1782 until his death in 1836). John Piper has a very good biographical message about him that you can read, listen to, or download the audio for here. This quote is taken from Piper's message. It made a large impact on me when I read it, and the impact grew the more I learned about the kind of suffering and opposition Simeon faced during his 54 years of preaching and ministry. These words would not have nearly the same weight if they came from someone who had not experienced great struggle and suffering and difficulty. The encouragement in these words is that they come from a man who faced challenges and discouragements at least as difficult as anything most of us ever will, and he could still be content in the knowledge that His soul was secure in Christ. Piper's message has many more examples of how Simeon's faith and practices of devotion to God's Word and prayer kept him encouraged, and I commend it as very worthwhile reading.

A friend had asked Simeon how he had endured the opposition and strife in all his years of ministry. Simeon's reply:

"My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory" (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.).

Scriptures that come to mind: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; Romans 8:16-18.

Why Does Life Often Seem to Get Harder?

John Piper began his eight-month leave of absence on May 1st. He and the other pastors and elders have been encouraging us to pray faithfully for the church during this time. One of the things that has been on my heart to pray for has been deep and lasting application. We have been blessed with extraordinary teaching and preaching over the years. But listening is one thing, and applying the teaching is another, as James points out: "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like." (James 1:22-24.) Or in other words, he forgets the teaching and does nothing with it.

It seems that it is all too easy to just enjoy the experience of hearing great teaching and to end up taking a lot of the instruction for granted. So I have been praying that this season for our church would be one of application, where we take what we've heard and learned and experienced and concentrate on practicing it. At the same time, I have found that the past month has been one of the hardest I've ever experienced, and I am seeing a lot of suffering and struggling around me in my church. As I was wrestling with this today, the thought was laid on me that this may be exactly what the answer to my prayer looks like. If we pray for application, we should expect circumstances to come up that will challenge us and require us to apply what we've learned. God doesn't strengthen us for no purpose. He strengthens us to bear one another's burdens. Application has a goal, and the goal is to be more Christlike - and thus more generous in serving others.

If we want to grow, then we need to be willing to take on bigger responsibilities with the growth God gives us. This quote captures it beautifully: "Pray not for a lighter load but for stronger shoulders." (from Margie Miguel). When the trials seem greater, we should take it as evidence that God is making us stronger, and we should rejoice that He is entrusting us with more grace and more faith that will enable us to more deeply love and strengthen those around us.

I am taking comfort that this striving is not in vain, but is a labor that will produce greater blessing in the lives of those around us. "But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." (James 1:25.)