1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

It’s amazing but true that God’s grand plan for your life is far greater than you can imagine. In fact, this earth-bound existence has us so preoccupied with the demands of life that most of us give little thought to what it will mean to be completely sanctified.

In the Christian life, sanctification is a three-stage process. At the moment of salvation, God sets us apart for Himself. Then throughout the rest of our earthly life, He works to transform us into the image of His Son. One day, however, there will be a glorious culmination to our sanctification. Presently, we all struggle with sin, but when we die, our spirits and souls will ascend to heaven and be completely sinless. Then we’ll see our Savior face to face and experience unimaginable joy. No longer will we struggle with the pride of life or the lusts of the flesh and the eyes (1 John 2:16).

However, as great as this will be, it’s not yet the final step. Some day in the future, Jesus will descend from heaven, bringing with Him the souls of those who have died in Christ. They will be united with their resurrected bodies, and believers who are still alive on the earth will be changed (1 Thess. 4:14-17; 1 Cor. 15:51-54). Then sanctification will be complete–spirit, soul, and body.

This is not a fairy tale, but the believer appointed destiny. God Himself promises to bring it to pass. We’ll walk in His presence, spotless and without blame, for all eternity. Knowing this, how will you live today? The promise of salvation isn’t meant just to give hope, but to spur us on to holy living

Lamentation is not a word that is heard very often. Words like sadness, regret, sorrow, and mourning are far more common. But I believe something is lost in the dismissal of lament from our vocabulary.

The Christian hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” is for me a song of lament. Because of certain associations, it is a song that immediately evokes grief and sadness, and yet it is the sort of mourning that is both held and expressed in worship. Whether the Christian story is one you embrace or not, the connection of these two ideas—worship and lament—may seem even more foreign than the word itself. Nonetheless, lamentation asworship was once a significant element in the Judeo/Christian vision and experience of the world.

Worship leader and songwriter Matt Redman was in the United States shortly after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Leading worship in several churches in the weeks following, he was immediately struck by the powerful sermons that were being preached, eloquently expressing the love of Father, Son, and Spirit to a shocked and vulnerable people. He was also struck by the distinct lack of songs he had on hand for worship in the midst of suffering. Where were the songwriters for such a time as this? Where were the poets and prophets to help the people of God find a voice in worship? Writes Redman, “As songwriters and lead worshipers, we had a few expressions of hope at our disposal; but when it came to expressions of pain and lament, we had very little vocabulary to give voice to our heart cries.”(1)

Certainly hope is a needed expression, a gift not afforded by every worldview, and lamentation in this sense is similar. But more so, lamentation is a vital aspect of a life in relation with God. Seventy percent of the psalmist’s words are words of lament. “Hear my prayer, O LORD,” the psalmist pleads. “Let my cry for help come to you. Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly. For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers.” Sadly dissimilar to many public and private expressions of grief as well as many worship services today, the writers of Scripture identify with the pain of the world and do not hold back in addressing it before a God they believe needs to hear it. For these voices, lament is not a relinquishing of faith but a cry in worship to God who weeps with them.

I was at my father’s funeral when another mourner caught me with tears in my eyes and told me that neither God nor my dad would want me to cry. Her intentions were good; she meant to encourage me with the powerful hope of the Christian story, which holds at its center the resurrection of Christ. But I desperately needed permission to lament, permission to look up at the cross with the sorrow of Mary and the uncertainty of the centurion. I needed to be able to ask why with the force that was welling up inside me, even as I clung to hope in the Son, trust in the Father, and comfort in the Spirit.

The Christian season of Lent is a time to walk the labored steps of Jesus toward the agony of the cross, the reality of its injustice, and the despair of human death and suffering. This is a profound gift for a world in need of permission to ask why, to cry out in pain, and to know there is one hearing. While songs of hope are essential in a world that is not as it should be, lament is often the honest, needed pathway there, just as the iniquitous sufferings of the cross and the darkness of a cold tomb were the way to resurrection. Neither our worship nor our journeys can deny this if they are truly to lead us to hope.

The Christian story holds a unique capacity for tears because the story itself is filled with tears. And thus the Christian can sing through the disorienting sting of cancer and unemployment and injustice, even as it moves us to reach out to those who are suffering with the love of one who will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes. It is this God who gives us permission to utter the words in the pit of our stomach and the Spirit who helps us groan them, even as we follow the Son who uttered the words in his: “I am deeply grieved, even to death.”

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Matt and Beth Redman, Blessed Be Your Name: Worshipping God on the Road Marked with Suffering (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2005), 34

Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation!’

Psalms 35:3

What does this sweet prayer teach me? It shall be my evening’s petition; but first let it grant me an instructive meditation.

The text informs me first of all that David had his doubts; for why should he pray, “Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation'” if he were not sometimes exercised with doubts and fears? Let me, then, be encouraged that I am not the only saint who has to face such faltering faith. If David doubted, I need not conclude that I am not a Christian because I have doubts.

The text reminds me that David was not content while he had doubts and fears, but he proceeded directly to the mercy-seat to pray for assurance, for he valued it as much as gold. I too must work to foster a continual sense of being accepted in the Beloved and must have no joy when His love is not shed abroad in my soul. When my Bridegroom is gone, my soul must long for Him.

I learn also that David knew where to obtain full assurance. He went to his God in prayer, crying, “Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.'” I need to be often alone with God if I am to enjoy a clear sense of Jesus’ love. When my prayers cease, my eye of faith will grow dim. Much in prayer, much in heaven; slow in prayer, slow in progress.

I notice that David would not be satisfied unless his assurance had a divine source. “Say to my soul . . .” Lord, speak to me! Nothing less than a divine testimony in the soul will ever content the true Christian.

Moreover, David could not rest unless his assurance had a vivid personality about it. “Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.'” Lord, if You said this to all the saints, it means little unless You should say it to me. Lord, I have sinned; I do not deserve Your smile; I scarcely dare to ask for it. But oh, say to my soul, even to my soul, “I am your salvation.” Let me have a present, personal, infallible, indisputable sense that I am Yours and that You are mine.

The family reading plan for March 5, 2012

Job 34 | 2 Corinthians 4

2 Timothy 2:20-21

Do you feel special, or does a sense of insignificance hang over you like a cloud? Maybe it seems as if God has wonderful plans for some Christians and is effectively using them in amazing ways, but you’re just an ordinary person living a mundane life. And you wonder, Why would He be interested in me?

The good news is that everyone is special in the Lord’s eyes, and He has an awesome plan for each one of us. When we accept Christ as our Savior, He sets us apart for a very sacred purpose. We now belong to Him, and that means we’re not here on this earth to live as we please. As God’s children, we exist to bring glory and honor to Him by becoming more and more like His Son in our character, conduct, and conversation. It’s not a matter of following a list of rules, but of letting Christ live His life through us.

The Bible calls this sanctification. It is a process whereby the Lord continually changes His followers through the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit. I’m not saying that we’ll become sinless, but the more we yield to the Spirit’s leadership, the more we will find ourselves victorious over sin. As our old attitudes and habits are replaced with godly ones, we’ll become useful servants in the household of God.

Being special to the Lord has nothing to do with what kind of work you do or how intelligent or successful you are. It’s based on whose you are. But are you living as if you belong to God? The wonderful plan He has for your life can be fully realized only when you walk in obedience to Him

He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.

Matthew 3:16

As the Spirit of God descended upon the Lord Jesus, the head, so He also, in measure, descends upon the members of the mystical body. His descent is to us after the same fashion as that in which it fell upon our Lord. There is often a sudden swiftness about it; before we are even aware of it, we are impelled onward and heavenward beyond all expectation. Yet there is none of the hurry of earthly haste, for the wings of the dove are as soft as they are swift.

Quietness seems essential to many spiritual operations; the Lord is in the still small voice, and like the dew, His grace is distilled in silence.

The dove has always been the chosen type of purity, and the Holy Spirit is holiness itself. Where He comes, everything that is pure and lovely and of good report is made to abound, and sin and uncleanness depart. Peace reigns also where the Holy Dove comes with power; He bears the olive branch, which shows that the waters of divine wrath are assuaged. Gentleness is a sure result of the Sacred Dove’s transforming power: Hearts touched by His benign influence are meek and lowly from that point and forever.

Harmlessness follows as a matter of course; eagles and ravens may hunt their prey–the turtledove can endure wrong but cannot inflict it. We must be harmless as doves. The dove is an apt picture of love; the voice of the turtle is full of affection. And so the soul visited by the blessed Spirit abounds in love to God, in love to the brethren, and in love to sinners, and above all, in love to Jesus. The brooding of the Spirit of God upon the face of the deep first produced order and life, and in our hearts He causes and fosters new life and light. Blessed Spirit, as You did rest upon our dear Redeemer, even so rest upon us from this time forward and forever.

The family reading plan for March 3, 2012

Job 32 | 2 Corinthians 2

Psalm 27:13-14

Are you currently waiting for the Lord to intervene in some way in your life or in the life of a loved one? One of the struggles we face as Christians is trying to understand why our heavenly Father sometimes delays over matters that are so urgent to us. Only the Lord knows all the reasons. However, there are several adjustments we can make in our attitude and mindset as we wait.

Determine your focus. In the urgency of the moment, it’s easy to center our attention on the need instead of on God. We may start out waiting for the Lord but end up waiting for the answer we want. Soon we’re more interested in what He can do for us than we are in Him. Sometimes God delays until we get our focus back on Him. He wants us to delight in Him, not just in what He gives us.

Release your expectations into His hands. The Lord is working on our behalf, but sometimes we cling so tightly to a desired outcome that He must wait until we open our hands and let go of our expectations. Holding onto your own assumptions about how the Lord should intervene is emotionally exhausting. But peace awaits those who trust that He will do what is in our best interests–in every situation we encounter.

We need to remember that while we are waiting, God is working. He sees the entire picture and is active behind the scenes, arranging everything according to His will. But perhaps His most important work is the deepening of our relationship with Him as we learn to love and trust Him in the wait.

“God is dead,” declares Nietzsche’s madman in his oft-quoted passage from The Gay Science. Though not the first to make the declaration, Nietzsche’s philosophical candor and desperate rhetoric unquestionably attribute to its familiarity. In graphic brushstrokes, the parable describes a crime scene:

“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God,’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I! All of us are his murderers…Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder?…Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.'”(1)

Nietzsche’s atheism, unlike recent atheistic mantras, was more than rhetoric and angry words. He recognized that the death of God, even if only the death of an idol, introduced a significant crisis. He understood the critical role of the Christian story to the very underpinnings of European philosophy, history, and culture, and so understood that God’s death meant that a total—and painful—transformation of reality must occur. If God has died, if God is dead in the sense that he is no longer of use to us, then ours is a world in peril, he reasoned, for everything must change. Our typical means of thought and life no longer make sense; the very structures for evaluating everything have become unhinged. For Nietzsche, a world that considers itself free from God is a world that must suffer the disruptive effects of that iconoclasm.

Herein, I believe Nietzsche’s atheistic tale tells a story beneficial no matter the creed or conviction of those who hear it:  Gods, too, decompose. Within Nietzsche’s bold atheism is the intellectual integrity that refused to make it sound easy to live with a dead God—a conclusion the self-deemed new atheists are determined to undermine. Moreover, his dogged exposure of idolatrous conceptions of God wherever they exist and honest articulation of the crises that comes in the crashing of such idols is universal in its bearing. Whether atheist or theist, Muslim or Christian, the death of the God we thought we knew is disruptive, excruciating, tragic—and quite often, as Nietzsche attests, necessary.

Yet for Nietzsche and the new atheists, the shattering of religious imagery and concepts is simply deconstruction for the sake of deconstruction. Their iconoclasm ultimately seeks to reveal towers of belief as houses of cards best left in piles at our feet. On the contrary, for the theist iconoclasm remains the breaking of false and idolatrous conceptions of God, humanity, and the cosmos. But added to this is the exposing of counterfeit motivations for faith, when fear or self-interest lead a person deeper into religion as opposed to love or truth, or when the source of all knowledge becomes something finite rather than the eternal God. While this destruction certainly remains the painful event Nietzsche foretold, God’s death turns out to be one more sign of God’s presence. As C.S. Lewis observed through his own pain at the death of the God he knew:

“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of his presence? The incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not.”(2)

For Lewis, it was the death of his wife that brought about the decomposition of his God. For others, it is the prevalence of suffering or the haunt of God’s silence that begets the troubling sense that our God is dying. At some profound level, the Christian season of Lent takes us to God’s death as well, perhaps for some in more ways than one. Like the Incarnation, the crucifixion leaves most of our ideas in ruins at the foot of the cross. The journey to death and Golgotha is an offensive journey to take with God. But blessed are those who take it. Blessed are those in pain over the death of their Gods. Blessed are those who mourn at the tombs and take in the sorrow of the crime scenes. For theirs is somehow the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom somehow able to hold Golgotha, a kingdom able to hold death itself.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (New York: Vintage, 1974), 181-182.
(2) C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 66.

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Ephesians 3:8

The apostle Paul felt it a great privilege to be allowed to preach the Gospel. He did not look upon his calling as a drudgery, but he entered upon it with intense delight. Although Paul was thankful for his calling, his success in it greatly humbled him.

The fuller a ship becomes, the deeper it sinks in the water. Idlers may indulge a fond conceit of their abilities, because they are untried; but the earnest worker soon learns his own weakness. If you seek humility, try hard work; if you would know your nothingness, attempt some great thing for Jesus. If you want to feel how utterly powerless you are apart from the living God, attempt especially the great work of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ, and you will know, as you never knew before, what a weak, unworthy thing you are.

Although the apostle thus knew and confessed his weakness, he was never perplexed as to the subject of his ministry. From his first sermon to his last, Paul preached Christ, and nothing but Christ. He lifted up the cross and extolled the Son of God who bled on it. Follow his example in all your personal efforts to spread the glad tidings of salvation, and let “Christ and him crucified” be your ever-recurring theme.

The Christian should be like those lovely spring flowers that, when the sun is shining, open their golden cups, as if saying, “Fill us with your beams!” But when the sun is hidden behind a cloud, they close their cups and droop their heads. So should the Christian feel the sweet influence of Jesus. Jesus must be his sun, and He must be the flower that yields itself to the Sun of Righteousness.

Oh, to speak of Christ alone–this is the subject that is both “seed to the sower and bread to the eater.”1 This is the live coal for the lip of the speaker, and the master-key to the heart of the hearer.

1 Isaiah 55:10

The family reading plan for March 2, 2012

Job 31 | 2 Corinthians 1

Proverbs 16:9

No one likes to wait, but have you ever wondered why? It’s because delays show us that we are not in control. Someone or something else is calling the shots. Although we may be able to identify the immediate cause–like a traffic light or the long checkout line–ultimately the One who controls all our delays is the Lord. Since He is sovereign over everything in heaven and on earth, even our time and schedules are in His hands.

This means that in every delay, we are actually waiting for God in one way or another. You might have thought that the expression “waiting upon the Lord” applies only to seeking guidance from Him or an answer to prayer. But it can mean so much more when you remember that He controls all your day-to-day inconveniences and frustrations.

In the Christian life, learning to wait is vitally important because until you do, you’ll never be able to walk in obedience to God, have an effective prayer life, or experience the peace of resting in His loving sovereignty. We must learn to trust His judgment–about not just the big events in our lives, but also the trivial ones which cause us to become irritated, impatient, or even angry. If we’re sensitive to His instruction, each delay has a lesson.

The next time you face an unexpected or unwanted wait, remember that it comes as no surprise to God. He wants to teach you patience and increase your faith. He’s more interested in developing godly character than He is in making sure your schedule runs according to your plans.

The difficult question of pain forms a thorny question on which volumes have been written. Why do the innocent suffer? Why do we face all these diseases? Why the suffering of millions because of natural disasters or the tyranny of demagogues? I do not pretend to have all the answers, but one thing I know: pain is a universal fact of life. Likewise, there are moral dimensions in the way we phrase our questions concerning pain, and every religion explicitly or implicitly attempts to explain pain.

But why do we even ask these questions about suffering within the context of morality? Why have we blended the fact of physical pain with the demand for a moral explanation? Who decided that pain is immoral? Indeed, almost every atheist or skeptic you read names this as the main reason for his or her denial of God’s existence.

In the Judeo-Christian framework, pain is connected to the reality of evil and to the choices made by humanity at the beginning of time. The problem of pain and the problem of evil are inextricably bound. So when we assume evil, we assume good. When we assume good, we assume a moral law. And when we assume a moral law, we assume a moral law-giver.

You may ask, Why does assuming a moral law necessitate a moral lawgiver? Because every time the question of evil is raised, it is either by a person or about a person—and that implicitly assumes that the question is a worthy one. But it is a worthy question only if people have intrinsic worth, and the only reason people have intrinsic worth is that they are the creations of One who is of ultimate worth. That person is God. So the question self-destructs for the naturalist or the pantheist. The question of the morality of evil or pain is valid only for a theist.

And only in Christian theism is love preexistent within the Trinity, which means that love precedes human life and becomes the absolute value for us. This absolute is ultimately found only in God, and in knowing and loving God we work our way through the struggles of pain, knowing of its ultimate connection to evil and its ultimate destruction by the One who is all-good and all-loving; who in fact has given us the very basis for the words good and love both in concept and in language.

Not far from my home lives a young woman who was born with a very rare disease called CIPA, congenital insensitivity to pain with anhydrosis. Imagine having a body that looks normal and acts normally, except for one thing: You cannot feel physical pain. That sounds as if it would be a blessing. But the reason it’s a problem is that she lives under the constant threat of injuring herself without knowing it. If she steps on a rusty nail that could infect her bloodstream, she wouldn’t even realize it by sensation. If she placed her hand on a burning stove, she would not know she had just burned her hand except by looking at it. She needs constant vigilance because she could sustain an injury that could take her life or cause serious debilitation. When her family was interviewed some years ago, the line I most remember is the closing statement by her mother. She said, “I pray every night for my daughter, that God would give her a sense of pain.”

If that statement were read in a vacuum, we would wonder what sort of mother she is. But because more than anyone else she understands the risks of this strange disease, there is no greater prayer she can pray than that her daughter feel pain and be able to recognize what it portends.

I ask you this simple question: If, in our finitude, we can appreciate the value of pain in even one single life, is it that difficult to grant the possibility that an infinite God can use pain to point us to a greater malady? We see through a glass darkly because all we want is to be comfortable. We cannot understand the great plan of an all-knowing God who brings us near through the value of pain—or of disappointment with pleasure.

And yet the very thing that enslaves and traps us becomes the indicator of our need for God and the means to draw us to the recognition of our own finitude and to the rescuing grace of God. The pain of pain clasps the lifesaving hand of God and draws us into God’s arms.

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

Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious.

1 Peter 2:6

As all the rivers run into the sea, so all delights center in the Lord Jesus. The glances of His eyes outshine the sun: the beauties of His face are fairer than the choicest flowers; no fragrance is like the breath of His mouth. Gems of the mine and pearls from the sea are worthless things when measured by His preciousness.

Peter tells us that Jesus is precious, but he did not and could not tell us how precious, nor could any of us compute the value of God’s unspeakable gift. Words cannot convey the preciousness of the Lord Jesus to His people, nor fully tell how essential He is to their satisfaction and happiness.

Believer, have you not found in the occasion of plenty a sore famine if your Lord has been absent? The sun was shining, but Christ had hidden Himself, and all the world was dark to you; or it was night, and since the bright and morning star was gone, no other star could yield you so much as a ray of light. What a howling wilderness is this world without our Lord! If once He hides Himself from us, withered are the flowers of our garden; our pleasant fruits decay; the birds suspend their songs, and a tempest overturns our hopes. All earth’s candles cannot make daylight if the Sun of Righteousness be eclipsed. He is the soul of our soul, the light of our light, the life of our life.

Dear reader, what would you do in the world without Him when you wake up and look ahead to the day’s battle? What would you do at night when you come home jaded and weary if there were no door of fellowship between you and Christ? Blessed be His name, He will not leave us to face the struggle without Him, for Jesus never forsakes His own. Yet, let the thought of what life would be without Him enhance His preciousness.

The family reading plan for March 1, 2012

Job 30 | 1 Corinthians 16

John 4:34-38

Think about everything that contributed to the story of how you came to know Christ as your Lord and Savior. It’s probably not possible to fully count all those spiritual seeds that God used to draw you to Him. And not all the people who sowed good seed into your life knew what the outcome would be.

We also have the opportunity and privilege–every single day–of sowing seeds into the lives of others, such as our friends, co-workers, children, grandchildren, or even strangers. God takes what you plant and adds to it. He leads others to sow further seed or “water” the ground. Little by little, truth gets cultivated in their lives. What greater thing could you do?

Conversely, you might focus on providing your kids with plenty of material security and send them to the best schools and colleges–and yet it would count nothing for eternity. But when you sow into their lives the things of God and the qualities of Jesus, you’re feeding their spirits. The seeds that affect their hearts, view of God, and desire to make a difference for Him in the world are what will produce genuine, lasting fruit and a great harvest in their lives. Whether or not you ever see the results, the Lord is using you profoundly when you sow this kind of crop.

God sees all the little things you do; He’s interested in more than just “big” things. The fruit of His Spirit–such as kindness, patience, and self-control–often manifests itself in quiet ways that others may never give you credit for. But such spiritual seeds accomplish powerful work in His kingdom.

The Christian Vision Project was an initiative that began each of three consecutive years with a question. The aim was to stir thought, creativity, and faithfulness within the Christian church around the subjects of culture, mission, and gospel. In 2006, project leaders asked a group of Christian thinkers how followers of Christ could be countercultural for the common good. Their answers ranged from becoming our own fiercest critics to experiencing life at the margins, from choosing wisely what to overlook and what to belabor to packing up and moving into the city.

But today one answer in particular comes to mind. To the question of counterculturalism for the common good, professor and author Lauren Winner proposed: More sleep. She quickly admitted the curious nature of her retort. “Surely one could come up with something more other-directed, more sacrificial, less self-serving,” she wrote.  Still, she carefully reasoned through the forces of culture that insist we give up an hour of sleep here, or two hours there–the grinding schedules, the unnerving stock piles of e-mail in need of responses, the early-taught/early-learned push for more and more productivity. Thus, Winner concluded, “It’s not just that a countercultural embrace of sleep bears witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.’ A night of good sleep—a week, or month, or year of good sleep—also testifies to the basic Christian story of Creation. We are creatures, with bodies that are finite and contingent.”(1) We are also bodies living within a culture generally terrified of aging, uncomfortable with death, and desperate for our accomplishments to distract us. “The unarguable demands that our bodies make for sleep are a good reminder that we are mere creatures,” Winner concludes. “[I]t is God and God alone who ‘neither slumbers nor sleeps.'”(2)

Last week the Christian church celebrated Ash Wednesday, the day on the Christian calendar that urges humanity to remember its condition with countercultural audacity. The season of Lent, the forty days in which Christians prepare to encounter the events of Easter, begins by proclaiming the humble beginnings of creatureliness. The ashes of Ash Wednesday starkly remind us of the dust we came from and the dust to which we will return. On this day, foreheads are marked with a bold and ashen cross of dust, recalling both our history and our future, invoking repentance, inciting stares. Marked with his cross, we are Christ’s own: pilgrims on a journey that proclaims death and suffering, life and resurrection all at once. The journey through Lent into the light and darkness of Holy Week is for those made in dust who will return to dust, those willing to trace the breath that began all of life to the place where Christ breathed his last. It is a journey that expends everything within us. To pick up the cross and follow him is to be reminded at every step that we are mere creatures, and he has come near our humanity to show us what that word originally meant.

In fact, in the season that marches the church toward the vast and terrible events of Holy Week, there are times when we may justifiably feel like the disciples, weary with sorrow, our own eyes heavy with sleep. Current world events and worn-out cries of anguish only deepen this wearied exhaustion. Arguably, this innate instinct is fitting. “[T]o sleep, long and soundly,” says Winner, “is to place our trust not in our own strength and hard work, but in him without whom we labor in vain.”(3) We cannot carry all that Christ carried anymore than we can carry the sorrows we now see all around us. Yet, where we are prone to exchange sound and trusting sleep for fretful slumber, helpless sorrow, or apathetic fatigue, Christ emerges through his own weariness to wake us. “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand” (Matthew 26:45).

The journey toward the Cross is one that will show both the Christian and a world of contrasting beliefs that we are all finite, fragile creatures in need of a guide, in need of sleep, in need of one who can bear far more than we are able. The Cross will also show that the one we need truly exists. While his friends slept, Jesus stepped closer toward betrayal and agony, going all the way to his death, so that one day he could wake us for good:  “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). The journey from dust to dust and back to the Father’s house would be far too great without him.

 Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Lauren Winner, Books & Culture, January/February 2006, Vol. 12, No. 1, Page 7.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.

Now we have received . . . The spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

1 Corinthians 2:12

Dear reader, have you received the Spirit who is from God? The necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart may be clearly seen from this fact, that all which has been done by God the Father and by God the Son will be ineffectual to us unless the Spirit reveals these things to our souls. What effect does the doctrine of election have upon any man until the Spirit of God enters into him?

Election is a dead letter in my consciousness until the Spirit of God calls me out of darkness into marvelous light. Then through my calling, I see my election, and knowing myself to be called of God, I know myself to have been chosen in the eternal purpose. A covenant was made with the Lord Jesus Christ by His Father; but what good is that covenant to us until the Holy Spirit brings us its blessings and opens our hearts to receive them? These blessings in Christ Jesus are beyond our reach, but the Spirit of God takes them down and hands them to us, and so they actually become ours.

Covenant blessings in themselves are like bread in heaven, far out of mortal reach, but the Spirit of God opens the windows of heaven and scatters the living bread around the camp of the redeemed. Christ’s finished work is like wine stored in the wine-vat; through unbelief we can neither draw nor drink. The Holy Spirit dips our vessel into this precious wine, and then we drink; but without the Spirit we are as truly dead in sin as though the Father never had elected, and though the Son had never bought us with His blood. The Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to our well-being. Let us walk lovingly toward Him and tremble at the thought of grieving Him.

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

The apostle Paul often wrote about perseverance. He urged believers not to tire of following Christ and doing good, even when persecuted. The reason was that in time, their faithfulness to plant seeds would produce an amazing harvest.

If anyone had a right to say that, it was Paul. He’d been beaten, stoned, whipped, and driven out of town. He’d survived riots, shipwrecks, illness, and abandonment. He had a thousand reasons to be disheartened and want to give up, yet he knew his obedience to God wasn’t in vain. Some might surmise, Well, it doesn’t look as if he reaped much: he was persecuted, moved from prison to prison, and eventually executed. But if we assume that rewards come only in material terms, we miss a powerful truth.

Consider the awesome harvest that actually resulted from the apostle’s faithfulness. For one thing, the gospel spread across the Roman Empire, and the early church grew far beyond the Jewish world. And the seeds Paul planted by writing his epistles resulted in billions of lives being radically changed. Any strength we draw from these letters is fruit of the hardships he endured. Yet when he urged believers never to tire of obeying the Lord, he didn’t know the full extent of the impact his life would have. He just believed in the power of faith.

Do you realize how impactful your life is? Don’t be deceived by Satan’s lie that your suffering or obedience will amount to nothing. Here’s the truth: Your faithfulness to God never goes to waste–it’s making an eternal difference in someone’s life, whether you know it or not

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” was a slogan I heard over and over again as I grew up. As a young person, this slogan meant that all my plans would be wonderful because God loved me. Now that I am older, I understand that this slogan had more to do with the Christian gospel’s understanding of salvation than it did with guiding me down the primrose path of life. Yet, it still reverberates in my head when I experience hardship, pain, and loss. How does one square a belief in the love of God with a series of professional and personal failures and hardships?

The seeming contradictions between stated beliefs and life experience make faith complicated. For me, many of the cherished beliefs I held imploded, and what was once a fortress came crashing down as life experience smashed up against them like a battering ram. In the aftermath, the alternative shelters of cynical doubt or blind faith beckon. For many in this predicament, we run perilously between both extremes, without a strong sense of security that the fortress once provided.

Yet there are so many, past and present, who have experienced the difficult conflict between what was held to be the truth and what was experienced in life. Knowing this gives me comfort that I am not alone. I am reminded of the biblical narrative of Joseph as one example. He was told by God through a sequence of dreams that he would be great one day—so great, in fact that his own brothers would come and bow down in reverence for him. He had been given a glimpse of his destiny as God’s dearly loved child, and perhaps he believed his path to that destiny would be paved with gold. Instead, his gilded trip to glory turned into an attempted murder by his own brothers, his enslavement, and spending a portion of his life in prison having been falsely accused of various crimes he did not commit. How could this be the path to glory God supposedly promised to provide for Joseph?

Joseph’s trust in a God who loved him and had compassion on him was now being challenged by this confusing demonstration of divine care. Sitting in his jail cell, I’m sure Joseph wondered about his dreams of glory as he grappled with his nightmarish existence. How could things go so badly for one who put his trust in a loving God?

The story of Joseph’s life ends up in glory. Made second in command of all of Egypt, his position ultimately saves his family and the people of Israel from famine and starvation. Despite the contradiction between his life experience and what he thought he knew about God, Joseph came to affirm that God is good and trustworthy. How did he arrive at this conclusion?

Even though the narrative doesn’t state this explicitly, it is hard to imagine that Joseph didn’t wrestle with God during all that time in prison. Like his father Jacob, Joseph wrestled with God in the seemingly contradictory details of his life experience. In the process of this wrestling, God gave him a new perspective and a deeper understanding. But that new perspective is not lightly gained. Noted author and pastor Craig Barnes poignantly describes the emergence of new perspectives as the very process of total conversion:

“The deep fear behind every loss is that we have been abandoned by the God who should have saved us. The transforming moment in Christian conversion comes when we realize that even God has left us. We then discover it was not God, but our image of God that abandoned us…. Only then is change possible.”(1)

Indeed, Joseph reveals his new perspective to his brothers who betrayed him: “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20). This is no biblical cliche. Joseph did witness God’s intervention and care. But not in the way he expected. If we know intuitively that life doesn’t always go as planned, perhaps we too can gain a new perspective and a new vision as a result of wrestling through the contradictions and conundrums. Perhaps as we realize that though our image of God has abandoned us, the real God will yet be revealed. It is a perspective not easily gained and it may not come from our eyes, but from God’s eyes.

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

 (1) M. Craig Barnes, When God Interrupts: Finding New Life Through Unwanted Change. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 123.

The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

1 Kings 17:16

Consider the faithfulness of divine love. It is clear that this woman had daily necessities. She had to feed her son and herself in a time of famine; and now, in addition, the prophet Elijah was also to be fed. But though the need was threefold, the supply was not spent, for it was constant. Each day she made withdrawals from the jar, but each day it remained the same.

You, dear reader, have daily necessities, and because they come so frequently, you are apt to fear that the jar of flour will one day be empty, and the jug of oil will fail you. Rest assured that, according to the Word of God, this shall not be the case. Each day, though it bring its trouble, it shall also bring its help; and though you should live longer than Methuselah, and your needs should be as many as the sands of the seashore, yet God’s grace and mercy will last through all your necessities, and you will never know a real lack.

For three long years, in this widow’s days, the heavens never saw a cloud, and the stars never wept a holy tear of dew upon the wicked earth: famine and desolation and death made the land a howling wilderness, but this woman was never hungry but always joyful in abundance. So it will be with you. You will see the sinner’s hope perish, for he trusts in himself; you will see the proud Pharisee’s confidence crumble, for he builds his hope upon the sand; you will even see your own plans blown apart, but you will discover that your daily needs are amply supplied. Better to have God for your guardian than the Bank of England for your possession. You might spend the wealth of the nations, but you can never exhaust the infinite mercies of God.

The family reading plan for February 28, 2012

Job 29 | 1 Corinthians 15

James 3:9-18

In all our daily choices, we either “sow to the flesh” or “sow to the Spirit” (Gal. 6:8). With our actions and thoughts, we plant seeds that affect what kind of person we’re growing into and the level of impact our lives will have for God.

“The flesh” is the part of us that wants to live and act independently of the Lord. As humans, all of us have to deal with the pull of this attitude; we don’t lose it automatically when we’re saved. However, the Holy Spirit frees us from slavery to the flesh. He begins to change us so we can turn from the deceptive lure of living for self and instead start to live according to the truth. The choices we make contribute to the process of transformation, and when they’re in alignment with the Spirit’s work, they plant good seed that results in even more new growth.

When you’re sowing to the Spirit, you’re accepting God’s truth into your mind and heart. Then you’ll begin to experience eternal life, which comes from truly knowing the Lord (John 17:3). The fruit of the Spirit grows naturally from these seeds of godly truth and influences every aspect of your life. When you feed your spirit with the things of God, you’re going to become stronger, more Christlike, and more full of His life in your thoughts and actions.

Are you feeding your spirit and the wellspring of your life, or are you feeding the part of you that wants to act independently of God? Do your choices sow seeds that are building you up, making you different, and letting streams of living water flow from you to nourish others (John 7:37-39)

A classic vaudeville routine begins with a pitch-black theater except for a large circle of light coming from a street lamp. In the spotlight, a man is on his knees, crawling with his hands in front of him, carefully probing the lighted circle. After a few moments a policeman walks on stage. Seeing the man on all fours, he poses the obvious question: “Did you lose some­thing?”

“Yes,” the man replies. “I have lost my keys.”

Kindly, the police officer joins the man’s search, and two figures now circle the lighted area on hands and knees.  After some time, the officer stops. “Are you absolutely certain this is where you lost your keys?  We’ve covered every inch.”

“Why no,” the man replies matter-of-factly, pointing to a darkened corner. “I lost them over there.”

Visibly shaken, the policeman exclaims, “Well, then why in the name of all heaven are we looking for them over here?”

The man responds with equal annoyance: “Isn’t that obvious?  The light is better over here!”

The classic comedy enacts a subtle point. It is far easier to limit our examining of life’s missing keys to easy, comfortable places. Like a modern parable, the story registers an illogic common to most. Searching dark and difficult corners—where the keys may have in fact been lost—is far less desirable.

Somewhere between reading belittling headlines of a once-popular celebrity and hearing an open invitation to weigh-in on the latest political scandal, I wondered if the drama didn’t register something more. It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the signs that we, particularly in the west, live in a world of criticism. We are encouraged by all facets of the media to examine the flaws of everyone, to search for the scandal in every story, and to pour over everything that divides us, offends us, or otherwise differs from us in any way.

But more than this, we are encouraged to opine and criticize regardless of whether we know anything about the subject or person whatsoever. Online news articles have a section for comments where readers are invited to put their own remarks in writing. And comment they do. The long list of critics offers thoughts on anything from the topic, to the author, to things completely unrelated. Carrying this one step further, Amazon not only invites anyone to be an official book reviewer; they also invite anyone to comment on these comments, to vote on whether or not the reviewers themselves need to be critiqued. While I appreciate some of these services, the attitude they endorse seems so pervasive. Everyone is now a critic and an expert at once.

And this is where the man in the drama seems unquestionably familiar. How easy is it to search where the light is strong, to examine the faults and scandals of others as if it were the best place to logically spend our time? As the light of the media shines on an individual or the light of gossip draws our attention like searchlights to a grand opening, how easy is it to declare this particular spot the place we will fully scrutinize? How readily do we prefer to be critics of those in the spotlight rather than fumble over our own flaws in the dark?

In the Christian season of Lent, where some attempt the darkened option of self-examination, it is helpful to know that Jesus was aware just how tempting is the option of the easier route. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own? … You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-4). The flaws we see in pop-stars, politicians, and co-workers may seem so startlingly clear to us. The critiques and opinions we can so readily offer about books and public scandal, internal gossip and things about which we actually know little all may seem innocent enough. But might there not be a better place to spend our energy searching? Maybe we are looking where the light is strong, but not where keys are really lost.

An old proverb explains, “The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.” Perhaps this is true because the mocker spends his time searching the comfortable places of life, the easy targets where light and company will always be found. The difficult, dimly-lighted places require much more of us, and often we are left to search on our own. But the discerning know that wisdom comes with the kind of seeking that pulls us inward, into places where there is actually something to find, and before a throne that compels transparency. Here, everyone who seeks finds, the lost themselves are discovered, and once dark corners of the soul are changed by the light of Christ.  

. . . Whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.

Micah 5:2

The Lord Jesus had purposes for His people as their representative before the throne, long before they appeared upon the stage of time. It was “from ancient days” that He signed the contract with His Father that He would pay blood for blood, suffering for suffering, agony for agony, and death for death on behalf of His people; it was “from ancient days” that He gave Himself up without a murmuring word.

From the crown of His head to the sole of His foot, He sweat great drops of blood; He was spat upon, pierced, mocked, torn, and crushed beneath the pains of death. All of this was “from ancient days.” Let our souls pause in wonder at God’s purposes from of old. Not only when you were born into the world did Christ love you, but His delights were with the sons of men before there were any sons of men! He often thought of them; from everlasting to everlasting He had set His affection upon them.

Since He has been so long about your salvation, will not He accomplish it? Has He from everlasting been going forth to save me, and will He lose me now? It is inconceivable that having carried me in His hand, as His precious jewel, He would let me now slip from between His fingers. Did He choose me before the mountains were brought forth or the channels of the ocean were formed, and will He reject me now? Impossible! I am sure He would not have loved me for so long if He had not been a faithful Lover. If He could grow weary of me, He would have been tired of me long before now. If He had not loved me with a love as deep as hell and as strong as death, He would have turned from me long ago. What joy above all joys to know that I am His everlasting and inalienable inheritance, given to Him by His Father before the earth was formed! Everlasting love shall be the pillow on which I rest my head tonight.

The family reading plan for February 27, 2012

Job 28 | 1 Corinthians 14