The idolatry of missions

( Notes from John Miller at Next Steps )

My bitterness came from thinking I was at least slightly better than others.

Our soul-tattoo had become “missionary,” and God became a means to the ultimate ends – missions.

Guard against the idolatry of missions. Be careful – steps are something “I do.” You can take all the “next steps” you want, but if your heart is empty…

I can “rat-a-tat-tat” on my get-it-right Christianity, but we weren’t made to march. We were made to dance.

Missions didn’t die for me. Christar won’t be in heaven.

“Devotions” and “quiet time” are not in the Bible – they smack of “a chapter a day keeps the devil away.” What is in the Bible? Revel. Dance. Enjoy.

If you put Jesus first, you will never not have time for Him.

If we were to ask Jesus “How arre you doing today?” I can’t see him saying, “I’m busy.” But we wear “busy” like a badge of honor.

You don’t have to do this. The pressure’s off. God will be exalted, with or without you.

Is God’s desire for adoration selfish?

The question has been posed by my heart and by friends, “Since God is ultimately concerned with bringing glory and praise to himself, doesn’t this make him selfish?” A little too dependent on praise, like a clingy wife? The question is well answered by Sam Storms:

“I assume you will agree that your greatest good consists of enjoying the most excellent Being in the universe. That Being, of course, is God. Therefore, the most loving and kind thing that God can do for you is to devote all his energy and effort to elicit from your heart praise of himself. Why? Because praise is the consummation of enjoyment. All enjoyment tends towards praise and adoration as its appointed end. In this way, God’s seeking his own glory and God’s seeking your good converge.

“Listen again. Your greatest good is in the enjoyment of God. God’s greatest glory is in being enjoyed. So, for God to seek his glory in your worship of him is the most loving thing he can do for you. Only by seeking his glory pre-eminently can God seek your good passionately.

“For God to work for your enjoyment of him (that’s his love for you) and for his glory in being enjoyed (that’s his love for himself) are not properly distinct.

“So, God comes to you in his Word and says: ‘Here I am in all my glory: incomparable, infinite, immeasurable, unsurpassed. See me! Be satisfied with me! Enjoy me! Celebrate who I am! Experience the height and depth and width and breadth of savoring and relishing me!’

“Does that sound like God pursuing his own glory? Yes.

“But it also sounds like God loving you and me perfectly and passionately. The only way it is not real love is if there is something for us better than God: something more beautiful than God that he can show us, something more pleasing and satisfying than God with which he can fill our hearts, something more glorious and majestic than God with which we can occupy ourselves for eternity. But there is no such thing! Anywhere! Ever!”

Alan Chambers on homosexuality

“The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality – it is holiness. Wholeness.”

“Straight people go to hell too.”

“It’s not whether you are gay or straight; it’s whether you’ve given your heart and mind to Jesus Christ.”

“Jesus loves gays just as much as he would if they weren’t gay.”

“If God doesn’t love gays, he doesn’t love any of us.”

“When you look at what’s missing in the body of Christ, often times, it’s a mirror image of what’s found in the homosexual community.”

“Do you realize that God is in love with the homosexual?…He loves us too much to leave us the way we are.”

“I will never go back. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to.”

The peace of being known

Spirit of the Living God, you have searched me and you know me. You know what I want, and things I’m not aware that I want, and what I don’t want that I think I do. You know what I ought to want that I don’t, and what I want that I ought not to want. You are what I want, and I want to want you. I want all that pleases you for me to want. You know my heart better than I do, and you know me better than my heart does.

You know what’s good for me, and you will work it for me even despite my requests for my own detriment. You are beneficent and merciful. You hold my world in your hands. You have set your intentions upon my heart, and when you intend, it will come to pass, for you are the All-mighty, the Author of my story.

You are telling a great story with my life. The pages seem dark with problems now, but of course they do, for the flow of every good story is problem—worse—solved. Therefore I will wait on you with confidence that you know me and that your intentions to bless me are wise and well-informed, strategic and sublime.

I would have despaired unless I believed I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Now my heart takes heart in knowing that it rests in your heart.

“There is a faith proved of more worth than gold, so refine me Lord through the flames.”

“I will wait for you, Jesus, you’re the sun on my horizon. All my hope’s in you, Jesus, I can see you now arising.”

“The Lord is gracious, slow to anger, rich in love and good to all who call upon him.”

Do not accept the glory due to God

When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” (Acts 10: 25-26)

On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. (Acts 12:21-23)

“Worship not your fellow man, for you are as great as he.” – Pete Tzerzak

“You shall worship GOD alone – do not associate anything with Him.” Qur’an 4:36

“I am not the Christ.” – John the Baptist

When people try to glorify you, eschew it like the plague, blessing loudly the name of the Lord Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ. There is one God, and one mediator, and we are all equals.

If we would, he would

There is a longing in the heart of God which defies his sovereign will somehow. God thinks in the subjunctive case. “If only…!” he says, urging his people to do what they refuse to do. O God, I will! I want! Let my stubbornness not keep me from blessings withheld, honey and wheat reserved in your heart for the moment when I would choose you. You will not open my mouth for me, Lord, but I open it now and beg like a baby chick for your food!

Psalm 81

Hear, O my people, and I will warn you—
if you would but listen to me, O Israel!
9 You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not bow down to an alien god.
10 I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
11 “But my people would not listen to me;
Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
to follow their own devices.
13 “If my people would but listen to me,
if Israel would follow my ways,
14 how quickly would I subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes!
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last forever.
16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;
with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

New colors

Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders. – Isaiah 24:23

The sun will be ashamed at the glory of the Lord, so marvelous will it be. Is the sun not that which illumines and colors everything we see? So then will everything on which our eyes fall not be a thousand times more beautiful in the light of God’s glory – will there not be myriad pleasures and discoveries and little marvels everywhere in Zion, each one giving glory to God through its very visibility and vibrancy? Sight itself will be remade, for there will be a new and greater “electromagnetic spectrum” there, which would make ours here seem like black and white – or perhaps just black. I think if we say that we will all be only staring at the Throne for eternity is quite a narrow view of the beauty of the Lord. He makes everything glorious. Oh I long for that day, when my eyes will at last be opened to gasp and stagger and laugh and shout in the streets of Zion, “the perfection of beauty,” where the Beautiful One reigns!

Amillenialism

After a some research and hearing a symposium of pre-, post- and amillenialistic opinions (hosted by John Piper), I’m leaning toward amillenialism. This will surely come as a shock to the Liberty folk. It seems a more unified interpretation that best captures the weight of the impending return of Christ. And I agree with the heavily symbolic interpretation of Revelation 20, based upon, among other things, a sort of parallelism with Genesis 1-2.

Forgetting regret

This life is filled with messed-up chances
Regrets and many backward glances
Passed-up opportunities
No going back on history
What has already come
Now cannot be undone

(chorus)
Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these, “It might have been”
But one day, if only’s
Will be no more

New creation, new birth
New heavens and new earth
The old has gone
The new has come

We’ll forget all we regret (refrain)

Proverbs 27 selections “in other words”

1Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.
Life is unstable – don’t be complacent in your plans.

2Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips.
Don’t compliment yourself.

4Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, But who can stand before jealousy?
To woo the heart that belongs to another is theft.

5Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
Honesty is love, flattery is hate.

7A sated man loathes honey, But to a famished man any bitter thing is sweet.
When there is food to be had, it is better to be hungry than full.

10Do not forsake your own friend or your father’s friend, And do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away.
It is fitting to rely on your friends and confide in them.

14He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning, It will be reckoned a curse to him.
God hates morning people.

17Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.
1+1=3

22Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, Yet his foolishness will not depart from him.
No amount of punishment will cure foolishness.

23Know well the condition of your flocks, And pay attention to your herds; For riches are not forever, Nor does a crown endure to all generations.
You must be consistently analyzing and monitoring your assets if you want future security.