This Is Only A Test

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Life/Youth/Age/Death

by Dusty White

It seems like there have been a lot of funerals at my church lately. People are always passing away—into Heaven or Hell. This past Friday afternoon I slid into a funeral service for a gentleman that had suffered from a severe heart attack a week ago. If there is such a thing, it was “an upbeat funeral” because He lived his life in a godly way. Two Thursdays ago I was in a meeting with some other pastors and teachers and around the circle it went…people sharing about people that they know dying or battling with cancer, disease, or freak accidents. Just two nights ago my wife and I received a phone call from a friend informing us of another friend that had been in a major car accident.

These things are all around me. They are all around you. It is life and death around this earthly world. I guess that is why the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the church at Ephesus, “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:15).”

Last week I spent a few days with high school teenagers at a camp. Teenagers have a lot of energy as it is. Throw "camp" into the mix, and... They jump around a lot and they talk with a lot of energy and they don’t sleep much. It is a very interesting stage of life.

Today I went and saw Elisa. Elisa is my new Scripture reading friend. She is suffering from stomach cancer and is the dear mother and grandmother of some friends of ours. Elisa and I don’t spend a lot of time together, maybe an hour a week if you total up all the times that I visit her. But the time spent is precious and has a rare feeling to it. It is always sincere. She is suffering severely from this cancer that has swept through her body. Today she told me that she is losing strength in her eyesight and she complained between breaths of some strong back pains. Due to her fatigue my visit at her bedside was about 20 minutes.

One minute I’m talking to over-energized, sugar-hyped teenagers that are on a camp high, and the next I’m listening real closely to Elisa’s struggling and soft voice. Between these two different moments I played trucks with my son and held my daughter in my arms because she can’t even walk yet. I’m telling you folks—life on Earth, by God’s design, is a very complex and interesting thing.

For me, it puts a serious twist on Ephesians 5:15. Do I really make the most of my opportunities? Do you? I mean really, some of the things that surround me have nothing to do with God and His fame on this Earth that is plagued with the fall.

These recent happenings make me think of Psalm 119:128, “and because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path.”

I want to develop a healthy hate for all of the things that have nothing to do with God and his glory. I want to make the most of my opportunities. I don’t have time for any wrong paths or side-tracked energy. Tomorrow isn’t promised. Funerals, car accidents, cancer, and heart attacks have a good track-record around here.

Either A Baptism, Or a Drowning...

Does Theology Matter?

We live in an age when theology is devalued. At best, it is seen as an academic hobby for the religious intelligentsia. At worst, it is perceived to be downright divisive - an encumbrance that causes godly Christians to debate each other (gasp!). When it really comes down to the nitty gritty details of life, does it matter what you think about predestination or election or providence? Most would say no. My time in a hospital room yesterday suggests otherwise.

The hospital room belongs to Mike, a founding father of Coram Deo who is in critical condition in a Denver hospital after a life-threatening car accident. I spent the day there yesterday. Mike and his wife Brenda share a deep love for the soft and strong theology of the Reformation that undergirds Coram Deo. They actually believe the biblical truth that you are saved because God chose you, not because you chose him. They actually believe that God rules the universe in glorious sovereignty and that nothing happens outside of his design. They actually believe that God's irresistible grace is strong enough to soften even the hardest heart and secure the salvation of his elect people. I say "actually believe" because Mike and Brenda have done the biblical and spiritual work to hold these convictions as their own. They didn't just hear a sermon or read a book.

I know lots of people who can win an argument with their theological convictions. And I say: so what? The question is: does your theology anchor you when it really matters? Can it?

I have been in a lot of hospital rooms. I have talked with a lot of people who believe in "the sovereignty of God" in a vague, amorphous way - as in, "God exists, so there must be some reason for this tragedy." Yesterday, I had the privilege of worshipping God with a family who believes in the sovereignty of God the way the Bible declares it. I sat next to a wife who said, "Bob, this is God's plan, and we receive it with joy." I spoke with a son whose first words to his mom were, "Mom, God is sovereign and good, no matter what happens." I prayed over a man, immobile in a hospital bed, whose first words upon awakening will not be, "Why, God?" but rather, "Hallowed be Thy name."

I walked into a situation of tragedy, and I worshipped. We worshipped. That is why theology matters! Because God must be worshipped in all things! "I am the Lord, that is my name; I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven images" (Isaiah 42:8). If your theology leaves any situation where God cannot be worshipped and adored and trusted, then it is not the theology of the Bible. On the other hand, if your theology causes you to delight in Christ even in pain and tragedy and confusion... then I daresay it is beautiful and biblical.

Brenda reminded me of a phrase that a mutual friend of ours likes to say: "Our theology is all we have." And Brenda's strength today comes not from the pious platitudes of gift-shop Christianity, but from the deep truths of the Reformation. She called just a few minutes ago to share the hymn she's singing tonight:

Whate'er my God ordains is right,
Here shall my stand be taken
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken
My Father's care is round me there
He holds me that I shall not fall
And so to Him I leave it all

(Whate'er My God Ordains is Right, Samuel Rodigast, 1676)

Transforming the Feelings

To follow up our conversation yesterday about how spiritual formation in Christ affects our feelings, I thought I'd post a number of quotes and thoughts from wise authors about our feelings/affections. Hopefully these spur some deeper reflection. Feel free to offer your comments...

No one can succeed in mastering feelings in his or her life who tries to simply take them head-on and resist or redirect them by "willpower" in the moment of choice... Those who let God be God get off the conveyer belt of emotion and desire when it first starts to move toward the buzz saw of sin. They do not wait until it is moving so fast they cannot get off of it. Their aim is not to avoid sin, but to avoid temptation - the inclination to sin.
- Dallas Willard

Love for God is the mark of the truly called person – all the time. Of course, our love for God has moments of intensity and moments of weakness – just like every other love relationship we have. But in those who are called, love for God is what defines them. It’s the abiding condition of our hearts – whether strong or weak. ...Let me grasp for the kinds of words that I think will help us know if we love God. Loving God is desiring God himself beyond his gifts. Loving God is treasuring God himself beyond his gifts. Love for God is delighting in God himself beyond his gifts… Love for God is valuing God and prizing God and revering God and admiring God beyond his gifts. All these words are grasping for that essential response of the heart to the revelation of the glory of God, especially in Christ through the gospel. It is a glad reflex of the heart to all that God is for us in Christ.
- John Piper

Real worship is, among other things, a feeling about the Lord our God... If you do not know Him and worship Him, if you do not long to reside where He is, if you have never known wonder and ecstasy in your soul because of His crucifixion and resurrection, your claim of Christianity is unfounded. It cannot be related to the true Christian life and experience at all.
- AW Tozer

Though true grace has various degrees, and there are some that are but babes in Christ… yet everyone that has the power of godliness in his heart, has his inclinations and heart exercised towards God and divine things, with such strength and vigor that these holy exercises do prevail in him above all carnal or natural affections, and are effectual to overcome them: for every true disciple of Christ "loves him above father or mother, wife and children, brethren and sisters, houses and lands: yea, than his own life."
- Jonathan Edwards

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
-John Donne

Christians Who Love Baseball

Today when I was driving home from the Coram Deo gathering, I saw a pickup truck with a magnetic sign on the door that read:

9th Inning Ministry

Christians Who Love Baseball

No disrespect to these people... I'm sure they're fine, Christ-loving folks. But is this where the Christian subculture has gotten us? It's not enough to be a baseball fan who happens to be a Christian, or a Christian who desires to see baseball players come to know Christ... we have to have a ministry for Christians who love baseball?

I fear that this is the inevitable result when evangelicalism loses sight of mission and of the necessity of living Coram Deo.

Transforming the Mind

My dear friends, I am sorry for the blog silence. I have been bending every effort to finish my final seminary course. I am now officially a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary! Woo hoo!!! 7 long years is all it took.

I wanted to post, tardily, some additional thoughts related to last week's message. We spoke about renewing the mind, based on Romans 12:2. Dallas Willard suggests that spiritual formation requires intentional work on 3 different aspects of our mental life: ideas, images, and information.

Ideas are very general models of or assumptions about reality... [they] are never capable of definition or precise specification... Therefore, it is extremely difficult for most people to recognize which ideas are governing their life and how those ideas are governing their life.

Christian spiritual formation... is very largely a matter of replacing in ourselves those idea systems of evil with the idea system that Jesus Christ embodied and taught.

Images are always concrete or specific, as opposed to the abstractness of ideas, and are heavily laden with feeling... Every idea system is present among us as a life force through a small number of powerful images... To manipulate images - and thereby people - is the work of the propagandist and the advertiser... By contrast, to loosen the grip of fallen imagery and its underlying idea structure is a fundamental part of what mental health professionals must do to aid their patients. It is also essential to the Christian ministries of inner healing and evangelism.

We must take care that we are nourished constantly on good and godly [images]. We need to be in the presence of images, both visual and auditory... [that] can constantly direct and redirect our minds toward God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and the church (people of God).

Without correct information, our ability to think has nothing to work on. Failure to know what God is really like and what his law requires destroys the soul, ruins society, and leaves people to eternal ruin. This is the tragic condition of Western culture today, which has put away the information about God that God himself has made available.

We must seek the Lord by devoting our powers of thinking to understanding the facts and information of the gospel. This is the primary way of focusing our mind on him, setting him before us. (Might we call this "gospel transformation?")

Mountainous Reading

The books I recommend aren't always "light reading." So those of you who find my usual literary suggestions a little heady will find this one a breath of fresh air.

Last night I finished Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains. (Thanks very much to my dear friend Dave J. for the gift). It's a biography of Paul Farmer, a Harvard-educated doctor who works among the poorest of the poor in rural Haiti. This is a book anyone can read and enjoy. Then again... if you want to stay inside your comfortable American bubble, you'd best stay away from it.

Mountains is not a "Christian" book. It contains profanity and various other less-than-edifying references. Discerning readers will note some character weaknesses in Farmer himself. But it is a stimulating read, especially for those who would seek to make an impact in the world in the name of Christ. Reading it - and catching Farmer's vision to create "a preferential option for the poor" - will help you see why world missions as we have traditionally thought of it needs to be revisited.

For the last couple of years, God has been birthing in me a vision of a 'rifle bullet' approach to Christian global missions. Instead of sending missionaries all over the place, what if we concentrated on one location, one people group, one village, and tried to holistically meet all their needs in the name of Christ? Not just church planting, but also clean water and sanitation and literacy and education and medical care? What if people in one corner of the world could say, "Because of some Americans and their love for Jesus, everything about my life is better?" Until now, that vision has been a pencil sketch in my mind. Mountains gave it form and substance.

Those of you who are med students: this should be mandatory reading. For the rest of you, if you need some good summer reading, or if you want to follow up on our recent conversations about global mission... pick up this book. May God use it to birth a new paradigm in us for exalting His name in the world!