Receiving God's Grace in Vain

"Worthing together with [Christ], then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain." 2 Corinthians 6:1

I read this today, and it hit me from a hard and unexpected direction. I think the way I have always taken this verse would be the "don't use grace as a license to sin." And that certainly is one point made by the verse, since Paul has been exhorting the Corinthians to be obedient -

"So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." 2 Corinthians 5:9-10

But I don't think that's the main point however. The balance of Chapter 5, and the beginning of Chapter 6, describe the glory of belonging to Christ -

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." [5:17]

"For our sake [God] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God." [5:21]

"Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." [6:2b]

In other words, the way in which we can receive the grace of God in vain, is to receive it as a slave, but not as a son. I do this left right and center. How many days have I tried to start from my own obedience instead of Christs?!?! How many days have I feared death, and worried about my health, because I convinced myself that I was no son of His because of my sin?!?! In the blackness of my depression this scripture shone like a beacon.

Shall we grieve over our sin? Yes! But with a Godly grief - and what is a Godly grief? Paul tells us later on -

"For Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."

So yes! Let me grieve for my sin; but also let me repent - let me turn my back on it, let me see God nail it to the cross (Colossians 2:14), let me rise with eagerness and joy and zeal to become what I already am in Christ - a son of the living God. To anyone reading this, I plead with you - repent, don't regret. Every minute we allow regret and un-godly sorrow to control us is a minute yielded to the lies of Satan. If we fail to repent and then move on as sons and daughters, we spit on the cross and behave as if the holy and perfect sacrifice of our Lord and Savior just wasn't quite enough to cover what happened yesterday. Don't receive grace in vain - don't spit on the cross. Weep, then repent, and then start rejoicing and get on with it!

Thinking about Matthew

Lately I've been reading a great book about the Old Testament, written by Christopher J.H. Wright, called "Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament." In the book, Wright does a great job of showing Jesus' identity to be completely consistent with, and the fulfillment of, God's plans in the Old Testament. I always find thinking about the OT refreshing, since so much of the time it gets neglected by modern Christians. What really stuck out to me though was the way Wright explains the OT quotes in the first few chapters of Matthew's gospel. Matthew quotes the OT five times, using the words "This was to fulfill what was written in . . . ". By doing so, Matthew takes a sweep of the OT and its promises, and shows Christ in them, making Matthew one of the greatest OT theologians of all time (though certainly Paul and the author of Hebrews would also be in the running). Now who is Matthew? He is a tax collector. We therefore know that he was, at the very least, a collaborator with the Roman occupiers. He was also quite possibly corrupt, as his wages were gotten by taking 'extra' taxes on top of whatever the authorities wanted. He was in fact such an unsavory character that more 'respectable' people (read: religious authorities) took offense at Jesus dining with him and his friends. In a world where groups of people spent their lives studying, memorizing, and understanding (or so they thought) the Old Testament, the guy who would understand what the OT was really about, and apply it correctly, was Matthew. Of course, a renowned OT scholar also 'got the message' and truly understood it - Paul. But even here we see that the 'religious' man had to be struck blind and receive revelation before he could be turned, whilst the ordinary bureaucrat got up and left everything at Jesus' word. This is both a great encouragement to all of us who yearn to know God's Word, and a terrible warning, lest we EVER think that our own scholarship, or religiosity, could ever bring us true knowledge of God. Let us always praise, submit to, and depend on the Holy Spirit, that same Spirit who opened the eyes of bureaucrat and Pharisee alike. As we read our Bibles, that is the only ground worth standing on.

God's Pleasurable Mercy

I am a huge fan of the writing of John Piper, mainly because he combines a great deal of passion with sound theology (thus showing that the two are not opposed to one another!). In fact, one of Piper's central points (also developed quite extensively by Jonathan Edwards) is that sound theology (that is, a proper view of God and His character) requires passion. But I digress.

One of Piper's great books is called The Pleasures of God. And in it, he points out a fact which I suppose I know in my mind, but which has only recently begun to enter into my heart - the fact that God delights in showing us mercy (ibid, p303-312). Piper exegetes Luke 12:32 to make his point:

"Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's pleasure to give you the kingdom." (ESV)

To put this into context, Jesus says this in the midst of exhorting his disciples to let go of the cares of this world:

"And he said to his dsciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Bit if God so clothes the grass, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Luke 12:22-34, ESV, emphasis added).

This sentence is the lynchpin on which the whole thing turns. All of these worldly worries, which we are told over and over again to put down, depend on our belief in one word: pleasure. God actually wants to save me. He's really happy about it. It was his pleasure, involving every bit of pain and suffering endured by His own Son on the cross, to grant me (and everyone else who believes) the kingdom. I have read these words certainly dozens of times, but it feels as if it's never quite gotten through to me. Somewhere, deep down inside, I feel as if God is willing to show me mercy, but He's not happy about it. I beat myself up, feeling as if I've never done what I was supposed to do with the gifts that God has given me. I twist the scriptures which tell us that from those to whom much has been given, much shall be expected (cf Luke 12:48). In my version, the 'much' that has been given is my talent, and the 'much' that is expected, is at least a little bit more than anything I've ever done. Not only does this manifest itself as fear that I've failed on God's standards, but even the World's standards worm their way in! So I've been doubly bruised. I never can make the connection between properly fearing God's judgment and holiness (which leads to my guilt and anxiety), and God's grace and His mercy. As much as I know one (fear/holiness) is meant to lead us to Christ, through Whom we have grace and mercy, I never can seem to let it go. All I can ask for, and hope and pray for, is the ability to impress this truth on my heart. I feel so strongly the impulse, the voice inside, saying 'Let Go!'

'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.' (John 7:37b, ESV)

I want so much to drink, and be done with it. Father, please grant me the strength to do so. I haven't got it.

The Valley of Love

"It is for discipline the you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons." Hebrews 13:7-8 (ESV)

"From the place of our woundedness we construct a false self. We find a few gifts that work for us, and we try to live off of them . . . I became a hard-charging perfectionist; there, in my perfectionism, I found safety and recognition . . . So God must take it all away . . . He must shatter the false self." (John Eldredge, Wild at Heart, p107)

As I write this, I am filled with joy. But the last two months have been a valley, one of the greatest valleys of my life. And from the depths of my soul, I thank and praise God for it.

I hear so much of myself in what Eldredge says. All my life, perfection has driven me. Deep down inside, a message has dwelled - a lie from the pit of hell. The lie is the same one heard by men and women around the world as the deceiver does his best to blind us:

You're not good enough to deserve love from anyone.

I am indebted to Eldredge for setting this out so well (Wild at Heart means a great deal to me). The result of the lie is we each find ways of hiding - of trying to convince ourselves that we are in fact worthy of love. In my case, I was blessed by God with scholastic ability and musical talent. As a young boy, these things defined me. I wanted to be the prodigy. Sometimes someone would even tell me that I was. But perfection was always there. Every time I fell short of that 'perfection' - a measurement which was generally arbitrary, ridiculous, and existed only in my mind - I felt like a failure. Over the years, I added measurements other than school and music to the list - social popularity, appearance, women, even spiritual gifts all became part of the 'image' I had to have. In the end, I aspired to be James Bond, except that I would marry the gorgeous girl and lead Bible Studies instead of sleeping around and shooting up terrorists. It's like carrying around a mountain - but once the first lie causes us to hide behind an image, the second lie follows swiftly after:

People (including God!) love your image, not you. If they knew you, their love would cease.

And so we lumber on. As Eldredge and so many others have told us, it's all a scam to keep us from the one thing that can save us - the love of God.

For two months, God has chipped away at my mountain. He could have torn it down much more than He did. My health, my advancement in my job, my relationship with AL, all became uncertain. All of a sudden, the stuff I had called "faith" was revealed for what it really was: the intellectual calculation that I would most likely get what I wanted, or at least something I could deal with. This sort of thinking is straight from the devil - offering us just enough false comfort to trick us into carrying the mountain a bit further. Over a period of weeks, I went from healthy, in a relationship with a beautiful girl, and moving ahead at work - a picture of the things a successful young man should be - to physically sick, emotionally wrecked, uncertain about my career, and alone - alone by MY hand, not hers, I might add. Now the mountain was just too heavy, and my arms were breaking. Instead of propping up my image, my intellect now turned on it. I would quite possibly NOT get what I wanted, my 'image' really WOULD suffer, and certainty of any sort of comfort was straight out the window. Into that, a voice could quietly be heard. . .

"You are my son, and I love you. Trust me!"

Did I really hear that? Was it God's voice? Well, yes I think it was. Whether He spoke audibly in my mind or brought the His Word out from my memory (cf. Rom 8:28, John 1:12) isn't really an important distinction to me. In the end, God in His mercy placed a core within me, a core that cannot be shaken or taken away. And in the valley, I saw it. God is the ONLY object of our love which can never be taken from us, because He Himself is eternal, and guarantees our love through His grace and mercy. In a way I had never known before in my life, I knew I belonged to Him. I don't mean to say that I had some epiphany and then felt great. Not at all. With a nod to Robert Jordan for the expression, this was neither the beginning nor the end . . . because God's grace has neither. But it was a beginning. And so I put the mountain down, and the light yoke, the easy burden sat before me. Just as it sits in front of all of us.

I have written all of this in order that I may plead with anyone who reads it - put down your mountain! Whatever image you're living for, drop it! Let it go! If you are in Christ, then God loves you as His child and will gladly remove it from your shoulders. For me, pain was the method. I had to lose many things, including perhaps the greatest gift God has given me in this world, the love of the greatest, most God-honoring woman I have ever known, in order to finally see myself as I was. I don't want to overstate the case - my sufferings are miniscule compared to what so many have gone through. But for me it felt like a searing fire. It is my prayer that someone may read this and hear Him speaking to them (for His glory, not mine). Lose an image-loving life that will kill you and save the life that Christ will joyfully give.

Father,
I am not good enough, and I never will be. But your Son is, and in His arms I want to rest. Take all of my burdens from me, by any means necessary, that Your name may be glorified in the life that comes only from you. Amen.

Why Blog?

My illustrious girlfriend felt like my first post was a wee bit 'truncated' - i.e., it seems like it just abruptly ends without me giving an explanation for why I'm blogging. She was right - I didn't really finish because I was tired and wanted to get some sleep - so here goes. My purpose for blogging is simple - though I think it will be fairly difficult in practice. As I aluded to above, I think we are all theologians - in other words, we all think about God and relate to Him in one way or another. If God exists (and I believe He does), then how we relate to Him is the most important thing about us, since we owe our creation and existence to Him. I myself am a Christian - I believe the God of the Bible is in fact the one actual God who created this whole shooting match. However, there are two pervasive ideas about Christianity which seem quite common at present, but which really bother me.

First, I dislike the idea that Christianity is somehow an unintelligent thing to believe. A lot of non-Christians seem to think that being a Christian means that at some point you check your brain at the door. Some Christians don't really help matters by either resisting honest (and loving! see 1 Cor 13:1) debate and claiming such things as 'well you just have to have faith' - or by presenting overly simplified ideas and claiming them to be 'proof' that Christianity is true. This is to me completely wrong - even absurd. Such a view implies that faith and intellect are somehow incompatible - that a conflict between the two is inevitable and you must choose one or the other. I have two responses to this, first to Non-Christians, then to Christians:

To a non-Christian, I would ask - How much have you actually researched Christianity? There is a wealth of literature out there from leading intellectual minds who believe that Christianity is in fact true - have you ever considered reading them? (two recommended titles - "Can Man Live Without God?" by Ravi Zacharias, and "Reasonable Faith" by William Lane Craig). Do you really not believe because you have researched this and don't think there is sufficient evidence for Christianity, or is there something else that makes you not want to believe? If Christianity is true, your life (not just here, but in eternity) depends on what you believe. Are you gambling your eternal existence because you think Christianity sounds far-fetched, or you talked to a Christian once and they sounded ignorant, or you had a bad experience at a Church once? All of the items I just listed have one thing in common - none of them have anything to do with whether or not Christianity is actually true. Let me use an extreme example. Let's say that you were living in the year 1000 B.C. and believed that the earth was flat. A man walks up to you and tells you that the earth is in fact round. He then beats you up and steals your money. Now, the fact that (a) he harmed you, (b) he's clearly not a nice guy, and (c) you didn't have a good experience with him are irrelevant with regard to the earth's shape. Despite being a punk, what he said was objectively true. Bottom line - don't gamble your existence on irrelevant people. If you do some genuine investigation and try to let go of whatever preconceived ideas you have, you can at least feel like you have made a genuine effort. And since I believe God does exist, I think that if you do try and find Him, you will.

Now, to the Christian - don't belittle our faith by dumbing it down. Acting as if Christianity is not intellectually rigorous belittles God and is not consistent with Scripture. Do you really want a God whose existence and nature you think you can 'prove' with three bullet points? Is that really the God whose ways are above our ways and whose thoughts are above our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9)? The Bible shows us clearly that the inability of men to believe in God has nothing to do with our minds - God's revelations to us in creation (Romans 1:19-20) and conscience (Romans 2:14-15) show that intellectually we should see God as He is and Him His due (thanks, praise, and obedience) - it is our hearts which are sinful, darkened (Romans 1:21), and blinded by Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4). Please note that I am NOT saying that you can 'prove' your way to God or convert anyone solely through debate or other intellectual means. I'm actually trying to say just the opposite - we've got a heart problem, not a head problem. Christianity can therefore be shown to be perfectly reasonable intellectually, and God can use this fact to help bring people to faith in Christ. All of the other aspects of evangelism (most notably genuine love for non-Christians and a life that truly reflects God's goodness) are of equal or greater importance - I'm only saying that intellect is a tool which can be used by God in our favor - don't surrender this ground to the enemy!

Bottom Line - a genuinely faithful and humble heart is strengthened, not opposed, by a curious, dynamic, and engaging intellect.

My second pet peeve is the idea that Theology is some sort or arcane, academic concept that has nothing to do with real life. Again, this is total bunk. Theology is real - that is, it is for real people and should affect how we live our daily lives. Knowing who God is and how He relates to us is not just some pie-in-the-sky theory. You can make it that, but then you're not trying to really relate to God - you're just trying to be smart and cool. In other words, you don't want a relationship, you want an ego-stroke. It's like when you see some old rich guy walking down the street with his 20 year old trophy girlfriend. Someone who talks all day about God's attributes without actually relating to Him in life is basically walking down the street with an intellectual God idea on their arm, dressed up with fancy words and impressive jargon rather than a Louis Vuitton bag or Prada heels. Both Old Rich Guy and Captain Jargon just want to be the coolest guy in the room. I'm as guilty as anyone. If you're a Christian sinlge guy, you've probably had that moment when you were at Starbucks and someone (usually the quiet guy with the quirky, casual style who plays acoustic guitar) said something that sounded deeply profound, complete with memorized Bible Verse or C.S. Lewis quote, and you really wished you had said that. Not because you really wanted to relate to God better, but because every girl there gave Quirky Guy that longing look - that "Wow, he's really spiritual and I really wish he'd ask me out on a date that we won't call a date because dating is sinful" . . . " I didn't want to know theology so that God could transform my life for His glory and my ultimate benefit - I wanted to know theology so everyone would find me deep. And my point is that real theology is not meant to be like this. It's not about winning the Jeopardy Theology Challenge - it's about having a relationship with God. This sort of theology has to do with how you eat your cereal in the morning and what you think about that guy who just bumped into you because he was yakking on his cell phone and the amount of ime you spend checking your Hotmail at work. Our ideas about God, i.e. our theology, is not to be ignored and left for some guys at a seminary somewhere, and it's not there to give you or me some idle coffeehouse chatter. Why? We need to know theology in a personal and real way because we need to know God in a personal and real way. To use another analogy - I want to know my girlfriend because I love her, not because I want to convince anyone else that I'm smart enough to know what she's like. Conversely, how much do I really love my girlfriend if I claim to have warm feelings for her but I don't really want to know very much about her? How far would that get you on a date? God is a lot more important than my girlfriend.

To summarize: Theology is not about ideas traded by a few intellectuals somewhere to make themselves feel cool - theology is something that we all need to know and that we all need to live, so that by so doing we may have life, and have it to the full.

These are the two basic ideas I want to discuss. They are not novel, but are near and dear to my heart. Now, off to bed again . . .

Why Cowboy Theology?

So why on earth have a blog entitled 'Cowboy Theology?' I'm not a cowboy - the closest I've been to the 'Prairie' is a bank called 'Bank of the Prairie' that sits next to a burger joint I frequent in my hometown. The last time I rode a horse I was eight years old, and it was a pony named Trixie whose top speed approached 4 miles per day or so. I'm also not a theologian - I've never formally studied theology - though I am a big fan of the Bible and enjoy reading it, thinking about it, and debating it (lovingly of course) with friend and foe. But I wanted to call this blog Cowboy Theology simply because I think we're all theologians, whether we admit it or not. Everybody from a cowboy on a horse in Wyoming smoking a Marlboro, to a stockbrocker in New York, to some American guy living in London with nothing better to do than write this (me), is a theologian. This goes against our usual image I think - I doubt anybody thinks theology and the first thing that comes to their mind is Clint Eastwood with that "I'm going to show you my cast-iron testicles before I beat you to death with them" look on his face. We generally think of old men with trimmed beards and pipes debating archaic ideas that no one cares about in a dusty bookshop somewhere. But here's the thing. Consider this definition for theology (per Dictionary.com):


"The field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity."


In other words, the study of God, what He's like, and how He relates to the universe. Since the vast majority of people believe in some form or concept of God (no matter how varied - and don't worry, we'll get to the atheists in a minute), this would make all of us, to some extent, theologians - we've all amassed some amount of infomation regarding God's existence, what He's like, and how He relates to the universe, and formed a system of beliefs.


Now one might counter that this is contingent on God's existence - in other words, you don't have an opinion on what God's like if you don't think He exists. But we can't escape that way either. Why? Well, if one does not believe in God, one is saying something about what God's like (non-existent) and concluding then that no relationship is necessary (talking to God is about as productive as talking to an orange if one is atheistic). In other words, even if you are an Atheist, you are still taking a theological view. Many athiestic philosophers disagree with me on this point (that atheism is an affirmative belief), but others have argued that one out so I'll leave it alone at present.


The bottom line is, we need to think about what God is like, how He relates to the universe, particularly ourselves - because that will determine how we relate to Him. Here's hoping a crackpot like me has something to contribute!