Our Way

One of the most common objections to Christianity is that elements of the faith do not please us. The objections rarely come in such a simplistic and honest form, but many objections if inquired further boil down to "I do not like a God who would ask this of me."

It is most common to believe what we like. It takes great fortitude to believe something to be true that we do not like. And this is the issue with faith in Jesus.

For all the attractive and compelling reasons to have faith in Jesus we do not like what he has to say about or lives. To accept the good news of the gospel we must first accept the bad news about ourselves.

It is abundantly apparent that we need the gospel. We are all fallen and sinful, but we do not like to accept our nature.

We always like to push things off and ignore the reality of things. It is easier to say that God is wrong about the nature of people than it is to deal with the fact that God is right about our nature and we have a lot to fix.

The gospel is abundantly good news. We are welcomed into eternal fellowship with God. But we first have to accept that God is right about our nature and that we are in need. The good news is only good once we accept the fact of our need.

The Story Is Not about Us

Often we think the story of the world is about us.  Maybe we take a step back and say that the story of the world is about each and every individual person equally.

In the moment that we feel the story is about each person equally we are far closer to the truth than when we feel the story of the world is about us.  But we need to take another step back.

The story of the world is more about God than it is about us.  It may seem strange at first thought, but ultimately God created us and sustains us.  You see that in the beginning of the world and at the end of the world is God.

At the height of the story of the world we find God taking on flesh and living among us to save us from ourselves.  Theologians often talk about God entering into history.  It is certainly a true statement with a lot to think about.  But really we often get carried away and feel that history has its own life.

Really all of history is linked to God's story.  It is about how people respond or do not respond to God and the consequences of fallen man's disobedience and rejection of God's plan in the world.  Always the main character in the story is God and we find it easy to forget this fact.

The Messiness of Life

Post by
Michelle Dowell
Co-Contributor

A theology that is missing an acknowledgement of the messiness of life is deficient. I heard a pastor say once "God is a God of order." That is absolutely true, but I am more encouraged to know that God is a God who, in his mercy, allows people in a messy world with a messy nature to still take part in serving him.

This fallen condition of the world and humans is a hard reality, but the fact that we are allowed to participate in God's work of loving and helping people and honoring him in the midst of it all--that is what is encouraging. It's broken, but we're called to work with that brokenness, to help when we can to put pieces back together if it's possible. Let's focus on that, but also not forget the state of everything being tainted by the Fall. It's discouraging to always try to grasp for the impossible of perfection in this life.

It's sad to see so many Christians try so hard to always force a smile. It's as if they feel if they don't appear that everything is perfect and in order in their life and if they aren't happy in that moment, something is missing. They may feel that their smile doesn't look forced, but often it's easy to see if a person is forcing it if a person is really wanting to know.

I'm not saying that Christians should grumpily walk around. Christians should show more genuine emotions. They should trust that it's okay to not feel happy every moment of the day, and to allow others to see that. It may mean not having much of an expression but it's honest and frees others of the pressure to pretend to be what one is not.


It's not one or the other: Not happy or sad all the time. But a variety of emotions at different times. This is life. It is an adventure, a calling, a journey.

John Piper Quote on "God's Unwavering Commitment to Uphold and Display His Glory and His Name"

Here is another bit from John Piper.  I hope you all will take the time to read it.  I try to distill the best of Piper in short bits that you can enjoy. Considering that Piper is one of the best of the reformed preachers and places heavy emphasis on the best and most beautiful thing in the universe, God you can see that I am trying to do you a favor. I’m trying to let you look at what I see as the “best of the best about the Best,” which I hope you will appreciate.

Piper:

Yes. One place to see this is Romans 3:23-25. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Notice that sin is defined in relation to the glory of God. Sin belittles the glory of God. It makes God look less valuable by desiring something else more. Then Paul describes God's remedy for that derision of his glory. Verse 24: ". . . and [they] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins."

What we see here is that God sent Jesus to die ("by his blood"), and that by dying the righteousness of God could be vindicated and his anger could be propitiated and sinners who had belittled God's glory could be justified by faith alone. Why did God's righteousness need to be vindicated in this way? Because (v. 25b) he had passed over sins. That is, he had acted as though the derision of his glory didn't matter, and thus his righteousness, his allegiance to that glory, is called into question. He acted as though his glory was of little worth. But it is of infinite worth. And God would be untrue, he would be unrighteous, not to uphold and display the true value of his glory. Therefore, in order to justify sinners (like us!) who belittle his glory, and yet not himself belittle his own glory (in acting as though it didn't matter), he shows the infinite value of his glory by vindicating it with the death of his own Son who died for his Father's glory (John 12:27-28).

Therefore, what Romans 3:23-25 shows (as well as 3:1-8 and other places) is that God's righteousness is, at its essence, God's unswerving allegiance to the infinite value of his own glory - his own name. It's his unwavering commitment to uphold and display his glory and his name.

The Difficulties of Getting Seriously Excited About God

The difficulties of getting seriously excited about God:

Getting excited about God has several difficulties for fallen man.  First we have a nature bent toward sin.  Sin not only makes it difficult for us to desire to behold the most beautiful thing in the universe it also makes us rebellious against God. Sin also tries to scrape our enjoyment out of our worship.  May it be wondering thoughts, hearts that aren't really as interested in worship as other things, or the difficulty of getting really excited about someone you barely know. Sin tries to tell us that worship and learning about God is a ho-hum experience just because it is that way now. It tries to deceive us that we can never find worship as delightful as videogames, sports, TV, movies, friends, and significant others.  This is a very deceptive lie because in our current experience these things may well be more enjoyable than serious a serious study of God and his promises, but it doesn't have to be that way.  If we take seriously that God created us for the purpose of seeing, savoring, and making much of God then we will realize that doing these things we should be most happy.  If that is not the case now it is something that needs to be fixed as to begin the process toward which it is the thing that makes us most happy.  It isn't us just making God happy that is what seeing, savoring and making much of God is about, it is about finding our deepest and most ultimate satisfaction and joy in life.