Matthew 5:14-15

Every Sunday countless people all over the world sit in church buildings with a false sense of security. They assume that their morality, lifelong church membership, or baptism will earn them a place in heaven. While many of these folks sincerely desire to please God, they are confused about what the Christian life is all about. They think in terms of doing rather than being. So they imitate the actions of good Christians: going to a weekly service, praying, reading the Bible, and trying to be decent people.

However, salvation is not the product of good works. We come into the world with a corrupt nature, and all our wrongdoing is born of a heart turned away from the Lord. Because we are sinful people, we sin. It’s that simple. The good news is that in the salvation experience, we are given a brand-new nature (2 Cor. 5:17). Our sin is wiped away because Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for us. From the moment we trust in Him, the Holy Spirit dwells in our heart so that we can live righteously.

The world values action, but the Father prioritizes relationship–specifically a right relationship with Him. People who scurry about flaunting religiosity are missing out on the deeply satisfying and joyous intimacy between a believer and the Lord.

We can help turn others’ tragic misunderstanding into triumph by being ready to explain why we have hope (1 Peter 3:15). Speak of the personal relationship with Christ that’s possible when a person admits his need and trusts in the Savior. If your light shines, it reflects well on the church.

Is the Christian faith intellectual nonsense? Does God really transform us?

“If God exists and takes an interest in the affairs of human beings, his will is not inscrutable,” writes Sam Harris about the 2004 tsunami in Letter to a Christian Nation. “The only thing inscrutable here is that so many otherwise rational men and women can deny the unmitigated horror of these events and think this is the height of moral wisdom.”(1) In his article “God’s Dupes,” Harris argues, “Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.”(2) Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins similarly suggests that the idea of God is a virus, and we need to find software to eradicate it. Somehow if we can expunge the virus that led us to think this way, we will be purified and rid of this bedeviling notion of God, good, and evil.(3) Along with a few others, these atheists call for the banishment of all religious belief. “Away with this nonsense” is their battle cry. In return, they promise a world of new hope and unlimited horizons once we have shed this delusion of God.

I have news for them, however—news to the contrary. The reality is that the emptiness that results from the loss of the transcendent is stark and devastating, philosophically and existentially. Indeed, the denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil itself. Furthermore, one would like to ask Dawkins: Are we morally bound to remove that virus? Somehow he himself is, of course, free from the virus and can therefore input our moral data.

In an attempt to escape what they call the contradiction between a good God and a world of evil, atheists try to dance around the reality of a moral law (and hence, a moral law giver) by introducing terms like “evolutionary ethics.”  The one who raises the question against God in effect plays God while denying God exists. Now one may wonder: Why do you actually need a moral law giver if you have a moral law? The answer is because the questioner and the issue he questions always involves the essential value of a person. You can never talk of morality in abstraction. Persons are implicit to the question and the object of the question. In a nutshell, positing a moral law without a moral law giver would be equivalent to raising the question of evil without a questioner. So you cannot have a moral law unless the moral law itself is intrinsically woven into personhood, which means it demands an intrinsically worthy person if the moral law itself is valued. And that person can only be God.

In reality, our inability to alter what is actual frustrates our grandiose delusions of being sovereign over everything. Yet the truth is we cannot escape the existential rub by running from a moral law. Objective moral values exist only if God exists. Is it all right, for example, to mutilate babies for entertainment? Every reasonable person will say “no.” We know that objective moral values do exist. Therefore, God must exist. Examining those premises and their validity presents a very strong argument.

Of course, the world does not understand what the absoluteness of the moral law is all about. Some get caught, some don’t get caught. Yet who of us would like our hearts exposed on the front page of the newspaper today?  Have there not been days and hours when like the apostle Paul, you’ve struggled within yourself, and said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15, 24). Each of us knows this tension and conflict within if we are honest with ourselves.

In that spirit, we ought to take time to reflect seriously upon the question, “Has God truly wrought a miracle in my life? Is my own heart proof of the supernatural intervention of God?” In the West where we go through seasons of new-fangled theologies, the whole question of “lordship” plagued our debates for some time as we asked, is there such a thing as a minimalist view of conversion?  “We said the prayer and that’s it.” Yet how can there be a minimalist view of conversion when conversion itself is a maximal work of God’s grace? “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In a strange way we have minimized every sacred commitment and made it the lowest common denominator. What might my new birth mean to me? That is a question we seldom ask. Who was I before God’s work in me, and who am I now?

The first entailment of coming to know the God of transformation is the new hungers and new pursuits that are planted within the human will. I well recall that dramatic change in my own way of thinking. There were new longings, new hopes, new dreams, new fulfillments, but most noticeably a new will to do what was God’s will. This new affection of heart—the love of God wrought in us through the Holy Spirit—expels all other old seductions and attractions. The one who knows Jesus Christ begins to see that her own misguided heart is impoverished and in need of constant submission to the will of the Lord—spiritual surrender. The hallmark of conversion is to see one’s own spiritual poverty. Arrogance and conceit ought to be inimical to the life of the believer. A deep awareness of one’s own new hungers and longings is a convincing witness both to God and God’s grace within.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

 (1) Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Knopf, 2006), 48.
(2) Sam Harris, “God’s Dupes,” The Los Angeles Times (March 15, 2007). Article available at http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/gods-dupes1/
(3) Richard Dawkins, “Viruses of the Mind,” 1992 Voltaire Lecture (London: British Humanist Association, 1993), 9.

Morning    “But now is Christ risen from the dead.”    1 Corinthians 15:20

The whole system of Christianity rests upon the fact that “Christ is risen from

the dead;” for, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your

faith is also vain: ye are yet in your sins.” The divinity of Christ finds its

surest proof in his resurrection, since he was “Declared to be the Son of God

with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the

dead.” It would not be unreasonable to doubt his deity if he had not risen.

Moreover, Christ’s sovereignty depends upon his resurrection, “For to this end

Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead

and living.” Again, our justification, that choice blessing of the

covenant, is linked with Christ’s triumphant victory over death and the grave;

for “He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our

justification.” Nay, more, our very regeneration is connected with his

resurrection, for we are “Begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection

of Jesus Christ from the dead.” And most certainly our ultimate resurrection

rests here, for, “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell

in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal

bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” If Christ be not risen, then shall

we not rise; but if he be risen then they who are asleep in Christ have not

perished,   but in their flesh shall surely behold their God. Thus, the silver thread of

resurrection runs through all the believer’s blessings, from his regeneration

onwards to his eternal glory, and binds them together. How important then will

this glorious fact be in his estimation, and how will he rejoice that beyond a

doubt it is established, that “now is Christ risen from the dead”!

“The promise is fulfill’d,

Redemption’s work is done,

Justice with mercy’s reconciled,

For God has raised his Son.”

 

Evening   “The only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”    John 1:14

Believer, you can bear your testimony that Christ is the only begotten of the

Father, as well as the first begotten from the dead. You can say, “He is divine

to me, if he be human to all the world beside. He has done that for me which

none but a God could do. He has subdued my stubborn will, melted a heart of

adamant, opened gates of brass, and snapped bars of iron. He hath turned for me

my mourning into laughter, and my desolation into joy; he hath led my captivity

captive, and made my heart rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Let

others think as they will of him, to me he must be the only begotten of the

Father: blessed be his name. And he is full of grace. Ah! had he not

been, I should never have been saved. He drew me when I struggled to escape

from his grace; and when at last I came all trembling like a condemned culprit

to his mercy-seat, he said, Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee: be of

good cheer.’ And he is full of truth. True have his promises been, not one has

failed. I bear witness that never servant had such a master as I have; never

brother such a kinsman as he has been to me; never spouse such a husband as

Christ has been to my soul; never sinner a better Saviour; never mourner a

better comforter than Christ hath been to my spirit. I want none beside him. In

life he is my life, and in death he shall be the death of death; in poverty

Christ is my riches; in sickness he makes my bed; in darkness he is my star,

and in brightness he is my sun; he is the manna of the camp in the wilderness,

and he shall be the new corn of the host when they come to Canaan. Jesus is to

me all grace and no wrath, all truth and no falsehood: and of truth and grace he

is full, infinitely full. My soul, this night, bless with all thy might the only

Begotten.'”

 

Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields . . . Let us . . . See whether the vines have budded.   Song of Songs 7:11

The bride was about to engage in hard work and desired her beloved’s company in it. She does not say, “I will go,” but “let us go.” In like fashion, it is a blessing to work when Jesus is at our side! It is the business of God’s people to be trimmers of God’s vines. Like our first parents, we are put into the garden of the Lord for usefulness; let us then go out into the fields.

When God’s people are thinking properly, they desire to enjoy communion with Christ. Some may imagine that they cannot serve Christ actively and still have fellowship with Him; they are mistaken. There is no doubt that we may easily neglect our inward life in outward exercises and be forced to say, “They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept!”1 There is no reason why this should be the case except for our own foolishness and neglect. It is certain that a professing Christian may do nothing and end up just as lifeless in spiritual things as those who are most busy.

Mary was not praised for sitting still, but for her sitting at Jesus’ feet. Even so, Christians are not to be praised for neglecting duties under the pretense of having secret fellowship with Jesus: It is not sitting, but sitting at Jesus’ feet that is commendable. Do not think that activity is in itself an evil: It is a great blessing and a means of grace to us. Paul called it a grace given to him to be allowed to preach; and every form of Christian service may become a personal blessing to those engaged in it. Those who have most fellowship with Christ are not recluses or hermits, who have time on their hands, but tireless workers who are toiling for Jesus and who, in their endeavor, have Him side by side with them, so that they are workers together with God.

Let us remember then, in anything we have to do for Jesus, we can do it and should do it in close communion with Him.

1Song of Solomon 1:6

The family reading plan for May 9, 2012

Isaiah 7 | James 1

1 Corinthians 12:18-26

When I talk about serving the church with God-given talents and gifts, people oftentimes think too small. They picture the choir singer or the Sunday school teacher. But if they don’t happen to be naturallly adept at singing or teaching, they give up.

It’s time we stop thinking in terms of a “Sunday only” establishment. The church is not a place or a time; it is a body of believers, each one uniquely gifted by God to guide, help, challenge, and support the rest. In fact, most service to the Lord doesn’t take place inside the church building. It happens out in the world, where we do all the things that Scripture commands.

Most believers are not in a position to influence a lot of people. When we act or speak, only those closest to us notice, but a chain reaction ripples outward to affect an entire community. Paul’s metaphor of body parts working together harmoniously is a helpful description of how one small action can have a widespread impact. Consider the way tensing your big toe keeps your foot stable and thereby steadies your whole body. In the same way, a gentle rebuke, a listening ear, or a loving deed benefits the church by strengthening one brother or sister, who then supports another…

We are on this earth to serve the kingdom of God and His church. And we do that by ministering to each other in small ways that steady the whole body as we give extra support to one member. In talking about such service, I am challenging you to find a need that God can meet through you.

“Do not be afraid,” my instructor encouraged me as my horse continued to back up, getting closer and closer to the edge of the trail. Once crossed, the “edge” would certainly mean that horse and rider would tumble down an eight foot embankment. Do not be afraid sounded silly and naïve to me as my horse continued to ignore my increasingly anxious prodding with my arms and legs. “Watch out, beware, don’t ever ride a horse” would have sounded more apropos given these circumstances. I was afraid, terrified even, as my horse backed right over the edge.

Fear is an entirely appropriate and indeed necessary emotion when facing danger. Proper fear ignites the “fight or flight” response in the animal world. And for human beings, we experience a “fight or flight” response because we fear losing that which we love. Author Scott Bader-Saye argues: “We fear evil because it threatens the things we love—family, friends, community, peace, and life itself.  The only sure way to avoid fear, then, is to love less or not at all. If we loved nothing, we would have no fear, but this would hardly be considered a good thing.”(1)

Interestingly enough, more than any other command in Christian Bible, Christians are commanded to “fear not,” and to “not be afraid.”(2) In fact, the admonition to not be afraid is offered up 366 times (one for every day of the year and for Leap Year). And just like my instructor uttered those words right in the middle of a crisis, so too, the writers of Scripture record these words in the midst of a crisis or prior to one’s life being turned upside down. In the birth narratives of both John the Baptist and Jesus, for example, Zechariah and Mary are told to not be afraid even though they are being visited by an angelic being, not likely a typical visitor. Furthermore, Mary is unmarried, just a young girl. Surely, she must have feared the repercussions of an unplanned pregnancy, including the possibility of her betrothed, Joseph, rejecting her. In the very midst of their worst fears, these and other biblical figures are told not to be afraid.

For many living in today’s world, do not be afraid evokes images of ostriches with their heads in the sand as the world collapses around them. It sounds just as naïve and perplexing as my instructor’s words to me right as my horse backed me off the eight-foot embankment. We have many, many reasons to feel afraid largely because we feel we have so much to lose. Whether or not we claim Christian faith, do not be afraid echoes in our heads, and we wonder how to live courageously in a world filled with jagged edges and eight-foot embankments that would seek to claim all that is near and dear to us.

While there are no explicit references to hope in the teaching of Jesus, he too encouraged his followers to “not be anxious” but to trust in the God who could be trusted even in the face of our anxieties. Hope, contrary to what many of us might believe, is not the absence of fear but often arises in the midst of fear. It is both that which anchors us in the midst of the storm, and that which compels us to move forward—however ploddingly—towards goals, others, and the God whom the apostle Paul names the “God of hope” in his letter to the Romans. We hold on to hope, just as I held on while my horse slid backwards with me on her back, down the embankment that seemed without bottom, down to what I feared would end her life and my life. It is a desperate clinging to the God who is mysterious, and of whom we do not have control. There is a mystery in hope because we do not know how God will intervene.

I lived to tell about my horse-riding adventure without even a broken bone—not my own bones, or the bones of my horse. I couldn’t see the wide trail below me that would hold me, and would offer sure footing for my wayward steed. Our lives are often this way; we are often afraid because we cannot see where we will land. But hope longs to hold us and to ground us in the midst of our fears. Hope is the broad place, the wide trail underneath us. And though we know of those who fell and were not caught, though we often fear a world destroying itself, the God of hope raises the dead to life. Do not be afraid.

Margaret Manning is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Scott Bader-Saye, Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2007), 39-40.
(2) Lloyd Ogilvie cited in John Ortberg, If You Want To Walk on Water You Have to Get Out of The Boat (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 118.

 

Morning   “Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings.”   Ephesians 1:3

All the goodness of the past, the present, and the future, Christ bestows upon

his people. In the mysterious ages of the past the Lord Jesus was his Father’s

first elect, and in his election he gave us an interest, for we were chosen in

him from before the foundation of the world. He had from all eternity the

prerogatives of Sonship, as his Father’s only-begotten and well-beloved Son, and

he has, in the riches of his grace, by adoption and regeneration, elevated us to

sonship also, so that to us he has given “power to become the sons of God.” The

eternal covenant, based upon suretiship and confirmed by oath, is ours, for our

strong consolation and security. In the everlasting settlements of

predestinating wisdom and omnipotent decree, the eye of the Lord Jesus was ever

fixed on us; and we may rest assured that in the whole roll of destiny there is

not a line which militates against the interests of his redeemed. The great

betrothal of the Prince of Glory is ours, for it is to us that he is affianced,

as the sacred nuptials shall ere long declare to an assembled universe. The

marvellous incarnation of the God of heaven, with all the amazing condescension

and humiliation which attended it, is ours. The bloody sweat, the scourge, the

cross, are ours forever. Whatever blissful consequences flow from perfect

obedience, finished atonement, resurrection, ascension, or intercession,

all are ours by his own gift. Upon his breastplate he is now bearing our names;

and in his authoritative pleadings at the throne he remembers our persons and

pleads our cause. His dominion over principalities and powers, and his absolute

majesty in heaven, he employs for the benefit of them who trust in him. His high

estate is as much at our service as was his condition of abasement. He who gave

himself for us in the depths of woe and death, doth not withdraw the grant now

that he is enthroned in the highest heavens.

 

Evening   “Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field … let us see if the vine   flourish.”   Song of Solomon 7:11-12

The church was about to engage in earnest labour, and desired her Lord’s company

in it. She does not say, “I will go,” but “let us go.” It is blessed working

when Jesus is at our side! It is the business of God’s people to be trimmers of

God’s vines. Like our first parents, we are put into the garden of the Lord for

usefulness; let us therefore go forth into the field. Observe that the church,

when she is in her right mind, in all her many labours desires to enjoy

communion with Christ. Some imagine that they cannot serve Christ actively, and

yet have fellowship with him: they are mistaken. Doubtless it is very easy to

fritter away our inward life in outward exercises, and come to complain

with the spouse, “They made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard

have I not kept;” but there is no reason why this should be the case except our

own folly and neglect. Certain is it that a professor may do nothing, and yet

grow quite as lifeless in spiritual things as those who are most busy. Mary was

not praised for sitting still; but for her sitting at Jesus’ feet. Even so,

Christians are not to be praised for neglecting duties under the pretence of

having secret fellowship with Jesus: it is not sitting, but sitting at Jesus’

feet which is commendable. Do not think that activity is in itself an evil: it

is a great blessing, and a means of grace to us. Paul called it a grace

given to him to be allowed to preach; and every form of Christian service may

become a personal blessing to those engaged in it. Those who have most

fellowship with Christ are not recluses or hermits, who have much time to spare,

but indefatigable labourers who are toiling for Jesus, and who, in their toil,

have him side by side with them, so that they are workers together with God. Let

us remember then, in anything we have to do for Jesus, that we can do it, and

should do it in close communion with him.

 

Agree with God, and be at peace.   Job 22:21

In order to properly “agree with God, and be at peace,” we must know Him as He has revealed Himself, not only in the unity of His essence and subsistence, but also in the plurality of His persons. God said, “Let us make man in our image”1—man must not be content until he knows something of the “us” from whom his being was derived.

Endeavor to know the Father. Approach Him in deep repentance, and confess that you are not worthy to be called His son; receive the kiss of His love; let the ring that is the token of His eternal faithfulness be on your finger; sit at His table and let your heart rejoice in His grace.

Then press forward and seek to know much of the Son of God who although He is the brightness of His Father’s glory humbled Himself and became man for our sakes. Know Him in the singular complexity of His nature: eternal God, and yet suffering, finite man; follow Him as He walks the waters with the tread of deity, and as He sits down at the well tired in the weariness of humanity. Do not be satisfied unless you know much of Jesus Christ as your Friend, your Brother, your Husband, your all.

Do not forget the Holy Spirit. Endeavor to obtain a clear view of His nature and character, His attributes, and His works. Behold the Spirit of the Lord, who first of all moved upon chaos and brought forth order, who now visits the chaos of your soul and creates the order of holiness. Behold Him as the Lord and giver of spiritual life, the Illuminator, the Instructor, the Comforter, and the Sanctifier. Behold Him as He descends upon the head of Jesus, and then as He rests upon you.

Such an intelligent, scriptural, and experiential belief in the Trinity is yours if you truly know God; and such knowledge brings peace indeed.

1Genesis 1:26

The family reading plan for May 8, 2012

Isaiah 6 | Hebrews 13