Parchment of the Soul

I am reminded of the deep and throbbing need the soul has for the Word of God. Whenever we fail to give ourselves to the study of God's Word our spirit immediately seeks for wisdom in worldly sources.

Like a child whose ignorance drives his curiosity forward to explore and gather knowlege to improve his perception on life so our souls crave the nourishing need for wisdom. However - just as a child whose impressionable nature may gather insite from unreliable sources and perverted values, so our souls are prone to such corruption.

When we are exposed to the Word of God we find the ultimate trustworthy source of wisdom to help shape our understanding and disciplines according to Truth. As the psalmist says in Psalm 119:11 God's Word is to be hidden in our heart through regular habits of reading, application, teaching and meditation, so we might not sin against God.

When our spirit wanes from the convictions of Truth and we are caught up in the anxieties of life and find ourselves wrestling with our sins it is because we are not giving ourselves to the wisdom of God through the reading and application of His Holy Scriptures. It is through the Word that we primarily come into our knowlege and relationship with the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us (Jesus Christ- John 1:1). Give yourself to the Word and find your spirit made wholly alive in the power of God!

Election & Freewill

The old debate of election vs freewill seems, for many, to be a tirelessly divisive argument. I myself have been back and forth on this subject quite a few times, trying to find my place in understanding God's Word and will for my life. Many claim that scripture argues favorably for both views - that God has designed man with free-will (either to accept or reject God's grace) or that God is absolutely sovereign to the extent that man is not free - that His every choice is predetermined by the sovereign will of God. I believe what I'm about to share with you is the clearest understanding I have in regard to this subject. I have only the Lord to thank and the Scriptures as they have been my fuel for chasing after the answers to the questions I've had on this debate for years. 

On the subject of God's Will: - 2 Peter 3:9 tells us "God does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (yes the context supports the inference that anyone and everyone refers to all people over all the earth). - John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." - Most consistently as we look throughout all of Scripture and God's dealings with His "chosen" people - He pleaded with them countless times to abandon the idolatries of the foreign nations. Jesus said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." 

On the subject of Man's will: - Deuteronomy 28 tells us that humanity has the capacity to reap rewards for obedience and curses for disobedience (supporting the argument of freewill) - otherwise, what purpose does this conditional explanation serve? - The Bible tells the dynamic story of the Father's love for His creation (see Gen 15-22 & Luke 15:11-32); this is important because the purpose behind His creation of humanity is for worship - to love the LORD with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matt 22:37). If man is not free - then love is a meaningless term. Love demands freewill - otherwise it is not love at all (but only a code, a program, a preconditioned response). If love is merely a program or string of code it is reduced considerably to have any weight in value for the object which receives this love. - Consequently, if man is not free, then God's own Word proves Him a liar - for if love demands freewill and yet man is not free, then God's command and demonstration of love are vain and deceptive. Romans 9:22-24 reads: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?" - first note that Paul begins this statement with "what if" meaning this defense is not declarative, but a plausible (reasonable) solution to the question of God's judgment over those who are "destined for destruction". - second, it is important to understand we must read the rest of the Bible's authority and teaching into this passage if we are to interpret it correctly as Paul intended for his audience. This determines that we must read in the understanding that God has created human beings in His own image - with a free moral will as part of the package of the "Imagio Dei". - third, one of the notable defining attributes of God (other than His sovereignty) is that He is omniscient "all-knowing" and that He has a foreknowledge of all of time and space because He, as the divine Creator, transcends His creation (meaning He exists outside of time and space). God's foreknowledge coupled with the Biblical view of freewill helps us understand how to read Rom 9:22-24 with more clarity. - fourth, it is a strict rule of good hermeneutics to keep Scripture within the framework of the author's context. Paul is addressing his concern for the nation of Israel and the sovereign plan God has for the world (see Rom 9:1-5). (VERSE 22) Its no surprise that God has revealed His wrath to mankind because of its wickedness (see Gen 6-9 and Gen 19). This means that God is fully capable of unleashing His divine judgment upon His creation at His will. However, in the understanding of 2 Pet 3:9 we know that "it is not God's will that anyone should perish... but that everyone should come to repentance." Therefore, we know that God bears with great patience the objects of His wrath (i.e. He tolerates their temporary wickedness for the present time for an intended "sovereign" purpose). We know that God often has used the wicked to chastise the lives of His beloved children (those He knows will ultimately "choose" Him and inherit eternal life). Thus, "the objects of His wrath" are merely those wicked people God foreknew will ultimately reject Him - yet He tolerates their existence, even though He has the full right and ability to destroy them now, for a greater purpose to govern, direct, discipline, and even punish the lives of the righteous in accordance with His "sovereign" will. (VERSE 23) Again, "what if" is Paul's way of suggesting this is possibly the reason why God has permitted the wicked Gentile nations to survive all this time - because He had a greater purpose for them other than utter destruction. Something to consider here, the "objects of wrath" - could in-fact very well be the same subject as the "objects of His mercy". If the objects of His wrath, were the wicked gentile nations of the Old Testament - who have undergone the extension of God's favor, mercy, and grace to become the redeemed after the salvific work of Christ, there is no reason to deny the "plausiblility" that they have now become the "objects of His mercy". This is helpfully confirmed in the very next verse (24).

In Conclusion: God is sovereign - He has full right to do as He pleases without any question. We as creatures, in relationship to His sovereignty, correctly should understand we have no right to question how or why He chooses to do things the way He does. However, we must be careful so as not to contradict what His Word reveals of His nature and purpose for all nations (Gen 15); as we gain knowledge of God and draw nearer to Him in the appreciation of His chief divine attribute of LOVE (1 John 4:7-21), we learn His will seeks to restore the world (John 3:17). A picture of a God who creates for the sole purpose of destroying them is not consistent with the Biblical view of God's justice - even going so far as to force human behavior, their choices, their responses to His law and His will - is something far from the picture of God's character and His sovereignty. A God who creates creatures with no will but the will He should impose upon them is hardly a God of Love, much less a God of sovereignty (a being who determines the set path of everything renders everything powerless - which means his power is no more worth reckoning than a child with a room full of lifeless toys). Quite frankly - if this is the understanding we have of sovereignty, then we have reduced God to a pathetic puppet master whose loneliness is His own prison. A God who fears to create a being with a will to either choose or reject Him is hardly sovereign, hardly admirable, hardly holy - but rather sinister, manipulative, deceitful, and hypocritical. I only say this to challenge those who claim this misled view of sovereignty in order to search the Scriptures more thoroughly to understand that human freewill does not belittle God's sovereignty - but rather confirms it. For only a sovereign God has the capacity to create a free-moral agent with the gift of His own image in order that it might love Him in return with praise and worship that has any true sense of worth. Only a sovereign God has the power to permit a free-moral agent to reject Him and have the authority to judge Him justly. Only a sovereign God has the benevolence to award such privileges of heaven to those who rightly choose Him. Only a sovereign God has the sure confidence and majesty to create a being with such freedom and not allow it to interfere with His ultimate plan for the world He's created. God has no need to manipulate every person for the sake of His intended pleasure – He has the capacity to move and influence the decisions of His creation – in order that He should accomplish His purposes indefinitely (with or without human compliance)! Man’s freewill is not so powerful so as to overthrow God’s sovereign plan – however his freewill does provide a greater value in praise and glory from a free-moral agent who is not reduced to an otherwise limp and lifeless marionette. The Calvinist, although claims to uphold sovereignty as the chief defining attribute in relationship between God and humanity, actually fails to reveal the value in a person’s exercises of prayer, praise, obedience, sacrifice, and consecration. If God performs all these actions for the human will – then is not God merely applauding Himself through a pathetic performance only He participates in? Praise from a puppet is hardly anything of substance – but praise from one who has the choice to love or reject something actually means something. We can learn a lot about God simply by observing His creation in the behavior of humanity. What's more, yes salvation is not a merited work of human freewill but only the work of God. However, man has responsibility in this gift - to receive it and surrender his life to the will of God in order that His Spirit might bring him unto everlasting life! This enabling power (or gift of prevenient grace) is only made possible by the Holy Spirit and the conviction He brings upon the world. Calvinists need not fear that the support of freewill threatens a proper view of God - if anything, freewill supports the sovereign will of God in the fact that God uses those who surrender to His will - to accomplish His sovereign plan. Election - is not arbitrary either (though this is something I may discuss at greater length later) - it is decided beforehand on account that God's foreknowledge of man's freewill is considered in this process - lest freewill be defeated, love destroyed and God's sovereignty collapses from the true picture we should revere it to be. God elects from the basis of His sovereign will and foreknowledge of His freewill creatures. Like a master chess player - God knows the power and position of His pieces and the anticipation of His obstacles and moves of the enemy in order that He should secure His victory and glory in the end!

The Epiphany of Sin

Have you ever experienced the epiphany of sin's reach? Its that fatal detonation of a massive conviction that your goodness is nothing but a perverted facade of the reality God sees plainly by His eyes of Holy justice. When He can't bare to look upon your "goodness" because He knows that His holiness would consume your counterfeit character in an instant.

Its that moment where your motives to pray are pure enough to ask God to reveal what has remained hidden deep within; the startling impression that all your good intentions are brought into questioned because of the inconsistencies and dis-connectivity of your actions. Its that moment where suddenly words fail you and your expressions of confession become crippled with an interminable fear; a clash between flesh and spirit where evil bubbles and boils over the surface of your life you believed was once forgiven and forgotten.

Its the paradox of comfort and terror in the blink of an eye - the moment where truth and fallacy are the blades that scream against one another on the battlefield of judgement. When all you have are tears for words and that disturbing tremor as you catch the glimpse of standing before the Holy One Whose name is eternally unknown and is infinitely greater than all of creation and beyond. It is that moment where soul-stricken sorrow is your only refuge and the path of deliverance comes to the place where you understand you are nothing and He is your everything - stammering the one word of plea your soul can manifest in an audible tongue... "mercy"

When the words fail you and your soul has finally managed to find the greatest mortal effort of repentance - let your heart speak and your mouth be kept silent before the LORD of Hosts - for He already knows. Be still... and know He is God!

Resisting the Gardener

A certain rose bush is witheringly naked and empty among its bountiful family of flowering foliage. Its leaves smaller and crumpling with a sickening presence of aged paper. Its roses barely present and noticeable as its fading context. On the ground lay its abandoned fruit of beauty turning the ground below into a mulch-like texture. In its own mind it feels as typical as ever; perhaps it has never known a healthy and fruitful state. Tragic that it never cares to look upon its brothers and sisters in full and vigorous bloom - drawing the gaze of the public with awe and praise to their loving gardener. If only it would allow the Him to do his work upon it, permitting him to trim and prune its branches in order that it might flourish in glory as with the rest of the garden.

It is a sad truth the story of this dying rose bush - fading into the shadow because it resists the necessary pain to make it beautiful by its master. Pruning, in the life of a Christian is an altogether necessary practice if the blooming effect of holiness to be made visible to the world. Only when its branches of dead weight and wicked practices are trimmed from him will the anointing power flow for the process of new life and fruit to appear. If the Christian so desires the power of new life to flow as the expression of God's amazing grace, he must be willing to endure the pain of pruning - cutting off and out the evil that drains the crippled life from him. Only by the removal of carnal practices and worldly indoctrination will he feel his new power rise up within him; participating in the glory and honor brought to his gardener.

Opportunities for Victory

When I consider the variety of challenges I may face on any given day, my flesh is often ready to tremble at the sight of their approach. The weakness of my humanity is constantly nagging my spirit; pointing out all the reasons why I should fail with epic proportions. In addition to all this I'm plagued with accusations of all my frailty and failures of the past by the crooked tongue of my adversary-the devil!

Yet... I am victorious because my Savior has already won! What then is there to bring against me? Afterall, "if God is for me then who can be against me?" (Rom 8:31).

The Valleys of Shaddow

There are days when I wonder if I will be able to last through the challenges I face day after day. Then suddenly I am reminded of the reality that I cannot last them... in fact the only reason I have managed to last this long is because of God's abundant mercy and grace at work in my life. Who am I without my Lord? I am nothing without Him; nay I do not exist without His will for me to be anything at all!

Something for us to think about as the craziest time of year is upon us: today is just as much a part of the plans He has for us as yesterday and the day before. Why should I fret because of my trivial limited perspective? God is God afterall and I am not. That is assurance enough for me. May the name of the Lord be praised in the good times as well as the bad. Hallelujah!

Legitimate Witness

The dictionary defines a witness as one who (1) attests to a fact or event; (2)who gives evidence; (3) confirms facts of the past to have taken place; (4) who has personal knowledge of something; (5) public affirmation by word or example. (see Merriam-Webster's)

According to our understanding of this term's etymology, the term "witness" as it is described in the New Testament refers to those who bear evident proof of their knowledge by their modeling of convictions their faith has in-fact transformed in their inner being.

For instance, if a witness were to claim that a certain company's products contain deadly poison in their bottled beverage products. It would appear consistent that this witness would not purchase or drink any product manufactured by this company if their claims were something they have actually witnessed. Otherwise, they would be considered a 'false witness'; destroying their credibility to the public and the courts.

For those who bear the name "Christian", whom are as Christ presents to the world as his witnesses (Acts 1:8), these should understand that in order to 'witness' of whom Christ is to the world, they must believe and model in their knowledge of the person and teachings of Christ.

Why then do we entertain ourselves with trivial and misplaced worldly desires? Why do we pretend to represent our Holy maker while we live unholy lives? Why do we waste the precious life we have on amusements and fleshly pleasure while we neglect our spiritual duties to pray, fast, serve and witness the gospel to every soul as if God has in-fact called them unto salvation? Where is our 'witness' of Christ?

How are we to convince the courts of the world that our witness is true of Christ if we indulge in the sinful appetites of all that is diametrically opposed to everything that we hold to be consistent in the identity of Christ?

When we only pretend to bear witness of the truth, while still holding on to all our idolatries, we are blasphemies to Christ; because we fail to represent him in his true identity to those who must see him as their hope of salvation.

If you claim to be saved, ask yourself, how am I offering evidence of my salvation to the world. I pray this blog is a challenge to wear your Christian Faith publicly without fear and shame.