“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:24,25).

IF WE THOUGHT THAT “THEOLOGY” WAS AN INTELLECTUAL PURSUIT WITH NO PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCE, WE WOULD BE WRONG. Our theology is our view of God (His existence, His nature, His purposes, His will), and our ideas about God, whether true or false, are more powerful than any of our other ideas. What we think of our Creator is the main determinant of our character and our conduct.

We don’t use the word “idolatry” much anymore, but it is still a concept that needs to be considered. To worship an idol is to worship a god that does not exist. If a person bowed down before a physical object (perhaps one that he himself had made) and called it God, he would be engaging in idolatry. But if we conceive of God in ways that are false, even if it’s only in our minds, we are worshiping not God but an idol, created by our imagination. And that kind of idolatry is still very much a problem in the world.

In the text above, Paul spoke of certain ones who “exchanged the truth about God for a lie.” Tragically, our ignorance of God is often this very kind of willful ignorance, as the apostle indicated a few verses later when he said that “since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (v.28). In the final analysis, the person may not have been wrong who said that sin consists of having a wrong idea about God and deliberately acting as if that idea were true.

So out of all the subjects we think about, we should be the most careful when we are thinking about God. False notions about God will derail even the best of our thinking on other subjects, including morality and our treatment of other human beings. And most important of all, if we view God wrongly, we are going to have wrong beliefs about the reality of sin and the question of our fellowship with God. The gospel will mean little to us if our beliefs about God are such that we see no need for what Christ made possible at the cross. We need to be careful about our “theology.”

“The wrong concept of God leads to the wrong concept of sin, self, and salvation” (Richard Owen Roberts).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

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When it comes to money and material things, most of us understand that the Lord’s work can require sacrifice. If a thing needs doing and we lack the surplus cash to make it possible, many good brethren will dig down deeper and do without some things for themselves in order to get the Lord’s work done, perhaps selling off possessions to raise the necessary funds, as the early disciples did (Ac. 4:32-37). We don’t always give as we should, obviously — but most of us know what the word sacrifice should mean.

This week, however, let’s consider that we should be willing to sacrifice time as well as money for the Lord’s work. Money is valuable, of course, but time is in some ways an even more precious commodity. Philanthropic organizations say that the typical American would rather write a check to support a worthy cause (and be “done with it”) than donate even a little time. In spiritual matters, we may occasionally sacrifice the having of certain things, but very few of us will let the Lord stand in the way of doing something we want to do. If the Lord’s work conflicts with any of our activities (or even sometimes with rest from our activities), we will hardly consider giving up the activity as a sacrifice. Our rule seems to be that if anything has to “give,” it should be the Lord’s work. Scheduling conflicts are virtually always resolved at the expense of the Lord’s work. We do with our calendars and datebooks precisely what we have always said was sinful to do with our checkbooks: give the Lord nothing but what is left over. If the Lord needs an hour or two, that is fine, unless we have anything else we could be doing. It begins to look as if the Lord gets our time only when there is absolutely zero else going on.

But the real work of the Lord has always tended to encroach on busy schedules. If we do not get a fresh grip on the concept of sacrifice, we are going to lose our souls. Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25). By withholding our schedules from the Lord, are we not refusing to give up our lives for Him — one day at a time? Jesus was never involved in anything that He was not willing to lay aside in order to serve our needs (Phil. 2:5-8). We need to think as He thought.

Monday: Matthew 13:18-23

Key Idea: The cares of the world can choke God’s word so that we become unfruitful.

Questions for Family Growth: How might we describe the attitude of the person represented by “what was sown among the thorns” (v.22)? How can the “cares of the world” interfere with what God desires of us? How can we avoid this problem?

Wisdom for the Day: Proverbs 12:24.

Tuesday: Malachi 1:6-8

Key Idea: The Lord is dishonored when we offer to Him that which is of no value to us.

Questions for Family Growth: How had the people of Malachi’s day “despised” God’s name? Did they recognize the seriousness of what they had done? How had they offered less to God than they would offer to their governor?

Wisdom for the Day: Proverbs 12:25.

Wednesday: 2 Samuel 24:18-25

Key Idea: The Lord is honored when we offer to Him that which has “cost” us something.

Questions for Family Growth: What did David need to offer the Lord and why did he refuse the gift offered to him by Araunah? How does this principle apply to us today? How can time, as well as money and material things, be “costly” when we devote it to the Lord?

Wisdom for the Day: Proverbs 12:26.

Thursday: Matthew 16:24-26

Key Idea: If we desire to “save” our lives, we will “lose” them.

Questions for Family Growth: What did the Lord mean by saying that we will “lose” what we “save,” and that we will “find” what we “lose”? Do you agree with the statement that anything we are unwilling to give up for the Lord is an idol?

Wisdom for the Day: Proverbs 12:27.

Friday: Luke 10:25-37

Key Idea: We should be willing to be inconvenienced for the Lord’s work.

Questions for Family Growth: What might have been some of the reasons why the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side of the road rather than help the man in need? Is it likely that these men were any busier than the Samaritan who stopped to help?

Wisdom for the Day: Proverbs 12:28.

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
(Psalm 51:6)

IF WE DEAL WITH GOD AT ALL, WE MUST DEAL WITH HIM IN GOOD FAITH. Our approach to Him must be sincere and straightforward. To the best of our ability, we must really and truly want from God what our approach to Him seems to say that we want.

Most people are aware that the strongest language in the Scriptures is directed against hypocrisy. We recall, for example, Jesus’ exposé of the Pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27,28). Yet while we wince every time we read these words, we don’t normally see ourselves as being guilty of the sin they condemn. We’re not everything we should be, but we’re not guilty of such blatant deceit, at least not intentionally.

But hypocrisy wears many masks, and it can creep into our character quite subtly. If we say we seek God and we engage in outward actions that appear to be those of a seeker, the implication of all this is that we desire God — for His own sake, as He truly is, and on whatever terms He stipulates. Unfortunately, we often have something less in mind. All we really want from God, much of the time, is just a little help adjusting our outward lives to the prevailing social standards of goodness. What He desires, however, is to adjust our inward lives to His eternal standards of truth, which is a very different thing. If we really have no intention of going where we know God is headed, what does that say about our seeking of Him?

God is not to be mocked. He cannot be manipulated. There is no possibility of deceiving Him about our intentions when we come before Him. As “the God of truth” (Isaiah 65:16), He requires that our actions truthfully reflect our desire and that our true desire be nothing less than conformity — body, soul, and spirit — to the realities of His truth.

“Sincerity is the prime requisite in every approach to the God who requires ‘truth in the inward parts’ and who hates all hypocrisy, falsehood, and deceit” (Geoffrey B. Wilson).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

“‘Where there is a will, there is a way,’ says the proverb. That is not entirely true; but it is true that where there is no will, there is no way” (Thomas S. Szasz).

WITHOUT A SUFFICIENTLY STURDY WILL, WE CAN’T BE EFFECTIVE IN ANY WORTHWHILE ENDEAVOR. If our intellect and our emotions are the “legislative” parts of our minds, then our will is the “executive” part. It executes our decisions. It carries out the dictates of our conscience. It even brings into being the creations of our imagination. And if, for some reason, our will is lazy or not strong enough to do these things, then all the finest thinking, discerning, and desiring that we might do would amount to very little in the end.

We often speak of our will as being “free,” and there are some important senses in which that is true. In a strict sense, however, our will is not absolutely free. It is always attached to an object or purpose that is determined by the other parts of our minds. As Joyce Cary put it, our will “is simply the engine in the car — it can’t drive.” Or to go back to our government analogy, the will doesn’t make the laws; it just carries out the instructions that have been given to it. It should be obvious, then, that we need to be careful what instructions we give to our wills. If our thinking is carefully maintained, then our wills can serve us well. Otherwise, great damage is likely to be done.

Most of us know that the will doesn’t always come through for us. Yes, it can be very strong when the choice is “what I want vs. what you want,” but it can be amazingly weak when the choice is “what I ought to do vs. what I want to do.” When my alarm goes off at five in the morning, and it’s time to get up and write, I wonder where the strong will is that showed up so quickly when I “discussed” matters with the idiot who cut ahead of me in the line at Starbucks.

The fact is, if we don’t deliberately train our wills, they won’t be helpful. If undisciplined, our wills will be too strong in some areas and too weak in others. So training and conditioning our wills to help us is one of the most important parts of becoming mature, and Anatole France was certainly right when he wrote, “An education that does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.”

“The will to do, the soul to dare” (Sir Walter Scott).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1).

NOTHING TESTS OUR CHARACTER ANY MORE THAN HAVING TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MOTIVES. When there is a good deed to be done, for example, our character is tested: will we do it simply to glorify God or will we do it “to be seen by men”? That is a hard choice — much harder than most of us are willing to admit.

Praise itself is not evil, of course, but there’s no denying that it has the potential to hurt us. Indeed, it’s a rare person who can receive more than a moderate amount of recognition and not have his or her attitude marred by it. That doesn’t stop us from wanting it, however. As Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Most of us would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

As for our motives, it’s hard to be honest as to what they really are. The desire to be noticed and recognized as having done something good can be so subtle that it can be our real motive at times when we would say that it isn’t. In a given situation, it’s difficult to see when the thing we really want is to be praised.

Perhaps it is stating it too strongly to say that we want “to be seen by men.” But what about that word “recognized”? A little appreciative attention is an intoxicating thing. Once we’ve experienced it, even as children, it’s easy for that to become the payoff that we seek (be truthful now) in every transaction thereafter.

The needs of self, including the need to be appreciated, are not unimportant, of course. But God has set up reality such that self’s needs are satisfied most fully when we put our priorities elsewhere. Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

So let’s be very honest. Why do we do what we do for God? Do we serve Him as faithfully in private as in public? If no one ever noticed or thanked us, would we be content simply to know that God had been glorified? And if so, would we then avoid the opposite sin: being privately smug, knowing that we are big enough to do what’s right even though nobody appreciates us?

“I cannot say ‘Thine is the glory’ if I am seeking my own glory first” (Anonymous).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

“Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured” (J. R. R. Tolkien).

IT IS TOO BAD THAT “FANTASY” IS SO OFTEN USED AS A DEROGATORY TERM. As a category of literature, it is looked down upon and considered unworthy of the effort of any truly gifted writer. And as an intellectual activity, it is almost laughed at, as if those who enjoy fantasy (whether of someone else’s making or their own) are somehow suffering from a case of arrested development. Yet fantasy is not only a legitimate intellectual and artistic endeavor, the ability to enjoy it is one of the most delightful of our human endowments. It’s one of the channels through which joy comes to us: joy in the high, pure, otherworldly sense. Those who’ve never had their hearts pierced by the sharp, sweet joy of the “perilous realm,” have missed one of life’s most ennobling pleasures, and one of its most refreshing experiences.

Eudora Welty made a helpful observation about fantasy when she said, “Fantasy is no good unless the seed it springs from is a truth, a truth about human beings.” Those who say they prefer stories that are “true,” need to understand that the power of fantasy comes from nothing less than its truth. For all its strangeness and wonder, the genuinely fantastic rings true — exactly true — to what we know is in our hearts, both the good and the bad. But it does not stop at the truth of what is; it beckons us to believe in the bright truths of what can be. It suggests that what we experience in the mundane world is not all that will ever be, and it’s not all there is to reality even now!

Of the many gifts that have been given to us, fantasy is one of the greatest. That it’s not always used well or wisely is obvious, but that is no more than can be said about any of our powers. Rather than relegate fantasy to the nursery, we would do better to honor it as adults and school ourselves in the wisdom of its joy. Like education, fantasy is much too good to limit to the young.

“I now enjoy the fairy tales better than I did in childhood: being now able to put more in, of course, I get more out” (C. S. Lewis).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8).

WE ARE CONSTANTLY REMINDED IN THE SCRIPTURES TO KEEP OUR SEARCH FOR GOD CONNECTED TO OUR DAILY INTERACTION WITH THE PEOPLE AROUND US. Confident answers to our questions about God can’t always be found by philosophical inquiry alone. We have to take our meditations to work with us and weave them into our dealings with other human beings. It is in the giving and receiving of love that truth has its best chance to come to the surface and win our conviction.

In matters that relate to God, there is an interesting “back and forth” that takes place between our thinking and our doing. Proper thinking is necessary for proper doing, of course, and we must never forget the primacy of God’s word in determining right conduct. But there is also a sense in which proper doing is necessary for proper thinking. Our thinking and our doing need each other.

Having lives that are a bit more concrete, common people seem to find God more easily than do those who’re more sophisticated (Mark 12:37; 1 Corinthians 1:26). They may lack philosophical acuity, but down-to-earth people do know about one thing: they know about real, practical, everyday love. They know how to love a God whom they’ve not seen because they know how to love other folks whom they have seen. And this is consistent with John’s statement, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20).

Suppose that I have been agonizing privately over some dark question concerning God. It is entirely appropriate — indeed it is essential — that I search the Scriptures carefully and that I spend much time meditating on the matter. But suppose that after long labor in the realm of study, thought, and even prayer, I am still perplexed. My neighbor cannot cut his grass because he is needed at the bedside of his wife who is dying of cancer. There is at least some likelihood that the answers that have eluded me in the library will come to me in the toolshed as I prepare to do for my neighbor what he needs me to do for him.

“He who desires to see the living God face to face should not seek Him in the empty firmament of his mind, but in human love” (Feodor Dostoevsky).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Timothy 2:5,6).

BETWEEN GOD AND MANKIND THERE IS A GREAT SEPARATION. We are cut off from our Creator by our sins. And this alienation is a problem we can’t solve by our own wisdom or human effort.

Mediator. Paul states that Jesus Christ is able to serve as a “mediator” between God and us. This does not mean that Jesus serves as an arbiter to work out a compromise between God’s position and ours. It means that He is a “go-between” enabling God to have a relationship with us that would be impossible otherwise.

Ransom. Jesus makes possible our reconciliation with God because he “gave himself as a ransom for all.” In other words, He paid the price for us to be released from our condemnation, dying in our place and thereby atoning for our sins. So God is now able to forgive us without violating the integrity of His own law. As Paul wrote to the Romans, God is able at once to be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

On one occasion, John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Freely and voluntarily, He “gave himself” as our ransom. In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter put it this way: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

But notice in our beginning text what Paul said about Jesus. Just as there is one God, there is only one mediator between God and men. Without Him, our sins will kill us. And this is exactly what Jesus said: “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).

In this life, we can improve ourselves a little bit, but we can’t save ourselves from sin. We may be able to elevate ourselves, but we can’t grasp eternal life. And even when we come to Christ, we can’t have the life He offers except by dying with Him in baptism and accepting the kind of life He has for us in the here and now.

“The death of Jesus is the only entrance into the life he lived. We cannot get into his life by admiring him, or by saying what a beautiful life his was, so pure and holy. To dwell only on his life would drive us to despair. We enter into his life by means of his death” (Oswald Chambers).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

Those who sow in tears
Shall reap in joy.
He who continually goes forth weeping,
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
Bringing his sheaves with him.
(Psalm 126:5,6)

INTO EVERY LIFE SOME RAIN MUST FALL, AND EACH OF US HAS “SOWN” HIS SHARE OF TEARS. But God has made it possible that those who “sow in tears shall reap in joy.” We might wish the harvest time were already here, but that time is not yet. For all we know, it may be very near, and in fact, we are taught to live each day in the expectation of Christ’s return. But for now anyway, the harvest is still future. Rather than speculate or worry about the reasons for God’s delay of the harvest, we should enter willingly into these days of sowing, even if it is tears that must be sown. In the words of John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, “Thine is the seed time: God alone / Beholds the end of what is sown; / Beyond our vision weak and dim / The harvest time is hid with him.”

It takes faith, of course, to hold on to the confidence that the sowing of tears will be followed by a reaping in joy. On many days, it certainly doesn’t seem like things are going to work out that way. But we must choose to have the attitude of Paul: “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

If we’re “reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Philippians 3:13), that means we’re “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12). For a while yet, this is the world where our work must be done and where, yes, our tears must be sown. But this world is not all there is. If we’ve obeyed the gospel of Christ and are living our lives in Him, then we’re moving toward a realm where our tears will give way to utter joy. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above
Unmeasured by the flight of years
And all that life is love.
(James Montgomery)

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

     

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

IT IS FASCINATING TO CONTEMPLATE WHAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE FOR ADAM AND EVE TO KNOW GOD. Prior to their tragic decision to rebel against His will, they would have had a perfect relationship with their Creator: knowing Him, revering Him, and loving Him. But once that relationship was broken, the knowledge of God would have become an increasingly distant memory.

In John’s record of Jesus’ prayer on the night of His betrayal, we hear the Son of God praying: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (John 17:1,2). And then we have this remarkable statement: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (v.3).

To “know” God means more than knowing about God. The devil has a good bit of information concerning God, but that doesn’t mean he knows God. And it means more than having feelings of closeness to God, for many people feel that way, even quite passionately, while still being outside of Christ and lost in their sins.

One thing is for sure: there is no knowing God apart from the knowledge of Him made possible by Jesus Christ. In Jesus alone is the truth about God made accessible to mankind (John 14:6). But God cannot be known apart from the Scriptures, even if we seek Him through Jesus Christ. The Scriptures contain the only objective information we have about Jesus’ revelation of the Father.

Obeying the gospel, then, we begin to partake more and more of God’s true nature, anticipating the time when we will meet Him face to face (Revelation 22:4). In Christ, we have what might be considered a foretaste of eternal life — or a down payment on it (Ephesians 1:14) — but the fullness of that life is something that will be ours only in eternity (Titus 1:2; 1 Peter 1:3,4). When it is finally ours, however, it won’t be eternal just in duration — it will be a quality of life no one has ever known before except Jesus, the Son of God, who will graciously share with us the life He has always had.

“[Christianity] is a revelation of the true way of living, the way to know God, the way to live life of eternal quality” (J. B. Phillips).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com