February

February was a long month. It began with hospital visits, it ended with unrelated deaths and related depressions--and that was just what I saw--and it was full of the work of the Spirit of God revealing people's need for him to themselves. We will see if it continues, I pray that it will. Can I now say that revival means people being broken? Maybe not always, but perhaps usually? I do not want to say "this is what it would look like where you are," but I do want to say that, when you pray for revival at any cost, this is what "at any cost" may look like. Near the end of the month, I reached the point where I was just expecting--as if it were certain--something worse than what had just happened. Thus I came to the point where I needed God to make me willing to lose everything and everyone for the sake of his kingdom. I didn't lose everything, but I had to be willing to. I had to be willing to count everything else as loss for the sake of Christ. Even before this, I was made to know my weakness, that I did not know what to do in all that was happening.

And now, examining myself to see how I acted sinfully--selfishly, pridefully, by not speaking, by speaking too much, by speaking wrongly, by relying on humans rather than God, by neglecting to pray as much as I truly needed, by failing to truly immerse myself in scripture. Not that I have not grown through this, since in many of these places I was forced to see my sin, and therefore changed, and since I did pray and read the Bible more than before, for which I praise God, but it is not enough. Therefore I pray that the Spirit of God would work in me to seek God more and more, even when I would otherwise feel that it is unnecessary.

At the college I am at, there is a good deal of praying for revival. In the middle of March there will be another concentrated time of praying for revival. Do they know what they are asking for now? Do they know that was what February was? Would they keep praying for it if they did?

Do we trust God enough to let him break us, knowing that it is in order to renew us all the more in Christ?
Do we trust God enough to let him expose our sin, since it is there anyway, in order that we might see it and fight against it by the power of the Spirit?
Do we trust God enough that any pain will be worth the gain of knowing him?

Maybe not, in which case there is still no condemnation.
Do we trust God enough to ask him to break us, expose our sin, and put us through trials, knowing and even admitting that we will struggle against him, but trusting that he is good enough to remain with us through our struggling?

Maybe not, but there is still no condemnation.
Do we trust God enough that if he does break us, expose our sin, and put us through trials, and even if we do struggle against him, we will still trust him for our salvation? This is the promise of God, as it is written: "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39.

Relaxing

It is sometimes more, sometimes less obvious that there are things that we cannot do ourselves. This, on its own, doesn't stop us from trying. "Let go and let God," people say, and I am reminded of Kierkegaard, who compared telling people how simple it is to believe to telling someone sentenced to die how simple the process is. It's all very easy to tell me to relax, to "let go and let God," to "depend on Him," it's quite another to actually do so. It means dying, after all. It isn't necessarily that we don't trust God will do the job well. It's sometimes that we know what "the job" and "well" mean, and we don't want that job done well in that sense. To let God, we have to trust that his way is better than ours. We have to trust that his foolishness is higher than our wisdom.

So what, then? My point is certainly not that we should all buckle up and try harder to let go. That would be ridiculous. "Try harder to stop trying" is inconsistent when applied to itself. No, rather, we should be who we are before God. "Be still"--don't be other than you are, but be your stubborn, frightened selves. The command is "be still" not "don't be afraid." Yes, fear has no basis. And fear will leave when we understand that it has no basis. But don't lie to God! Don't tell him you aren't afraid when you really are totally terrified of what he's doing in you. Be still, though you want to run. To do what he wants, rather than what we want, is an admission that we are weak and foolish, but he is strong and wise.

But we so often don't want to do what he wants. Fine, then pray. It is not as if we can change ourselves, or make ourselves trust him more. How should we pray? Asking him to change us, allowing him to use whatever means he deems necessary to change us into the image of his Son, knowing that it may hurt. If you want peace, that is only found in Christ. If you do not see this with your heart, but do see it with your mind, ask God to reveal it to you by his Spirit, who alone can join you to that peace. If you do not see it with your mind, even, then ask God, and he will reveal it to you. If you do not believe that God is wise to know where you may find peace, then pray that he would reveal his nature to you. If you do not believe that God exists, but want to, then ask God. If it is God who grants salvation, why do you try to achieve it by works? It is finished, through and through, it is all accomplished, even, if you will, your belief, your trust in him. It is not you who works faith or trust or belief, but all of that was accomplished by Christ's perfectly faithful, trusting, and believing life and death, even death on a cross, to which we are joined by faith--this faith being a gift of God--and therefore, being joined to him in his resurrection, we have life in Christ, and that is how we have any capacity to trust God, yet this is still a trust which is accomplished, not by ourselves, but by Christ. To try to relax is to try to add to the work of Christ. To add our own work of trying to let go and let God is to deny that we have Christ's perfect letting go of his own life and letting God take it, such that nothing more needs to be added. This is not to say "don't let go, don't let God," but to say "let your letting go be that of Christ, not your own."

It is not as if good works are bad, it is that they aren't good works if they are from ourselves. We are incapable, in and of ourselves, to do good. "Be still," but not by your own strength. The whole point is that you do not act, the work is not done by your strength, but by God's. Therefore, since it has all been accomplished by Christ, since it is his work and not ours, since he has accomplished salvation, now we ought to live in it, if we are truly in it, for who can resist the will of God? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is an awesome and powerful God working in and through you, and if it is just you working, then you are working in death. How can you resist? What do you have to lose? Christ has accomplished it, now show that it has been accomplished. If Christ lives in you, your life (though it is no longer yours, but Christ's) ought to look like it is being lived by Christ, and more and more as you come to know him and what he has done for you more and more.

And this is why fear no longer has a basis. You are saved, no one can touch you. Do you fear what humans will do to you? They cannot cut you off from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Do you fear what God will do in your life? It is for your eternal good--it will be worth it. Do you fear that you will fail? You have Christ's perfect success. What is left to fear? God's wrath has been poured out on your sinful nature in the body of Christ, to whom you are joined. "Go, do God's will" is now both blessing and command. It is command in that we ought to do it, but it is blessing in that we are empowered to do it, impelled even, by the Spirit of God with in us. God commands what he wills, but, thanks be to God, who in Christ Jesus--even in us--has willed what he commands.

We still fail in ourselves, but this is no longer our own failure, it has been taken by Christ. Yet even here, we are being made into the image of Christ more and more, by the scriptures, by prayer, by preaching, by singing, by suffering, we are built up into the body of Christ to his glory. We are his children, he will not let us remain in our sins, but, even if it takes great suffering, he will draw us into what is better. Do you wish to avoid suffering? Be perfect. But you will not be perfect until you are made so when Christ returns or calls you home. Therefore rejoice in your suffering, as it is for your instruction in holiness. Be thankful in suffering, therefore, in so far as it makes you seek God, and makes you search your heart. Even that righteous man, Job, grew in holiness through his suffering. I do not say that you are suffering because of sin, though that is true, in a sense, but that you are suffering because God wants you to be holy. Would you be pleased if God left you half-done? If not, then be glad, for God is perfecting patience in you, if nothing else, by your suffering. Even apart from what God does in you, there is what God is doing through you. Even if you were perfect (and only Christ is), in your suffering Christ ought to be revealed. Is this not the highest good? That Christ would be made visible in your life? That is why you are! To image God and thereby glorify God. And since that is why you are, to do so is to be fulfilled, in that is our joy. Therefore, rejoice in your sufferings, since in your sufferings those of Christ are revealed.

To not rejoice in our suffering--to not rejoice in all things--denies the goodness of God, and denies his redemptive power. I do not say that we should rejoice that bad things happen, but we ought to rejoice in that God has wrought them for our good and his glory.

Or is the suffering of Christ to no effect? Are we not joined in his body, that he might bear our suffering? Are we not, then, sharing his suffering when we suffer? And he shares in ours. And we suffer innocently, since it is the suffering of Christ on the cross which we suffer, and we have no guilt, since Christ payed for that guilt on the cross. So our sins are payed for, though, for our training, for our benefit, our Father may still chastise us as his children, that we might learn who he is better, and thus image him better, and thereby enjoy him more. It is for our pleasure that God chastises us, not our pain. Though we experience suffering for a time, it is in order that we might be made more like Jesus Christ who lives in us as our life. Therefore our suffering produces Christ-likeness, and our being Christ-like, since it is our purpose, produces pleasure in us, which is, again, to the glory of God. Indeed, in this is a picture of the redemption wrought on the cross: we are brought from death to life, by the suffering of Christ.

John Piper says that "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him," and he is right, but also, we are most satisfied in God when he is most glorified in us. And he is glorified in us when we are Christ-like, and our suffering is intended to produce that, and thus is intended to produce our satisfaction in him.

Guilt Versus Sorrow

Because Christ has taken our guilt on himself and payed for it, we no longer have any guilt to feel guilty about. If we have been saved, then, to call ourselves guilty is to stand over ourselves as judge, rather than to allow God to do so and say "forgiven." For a Christian, to say "I am guilty" is lying, since God has judged us to have the righteousness of Christ. It is not, however, therefore wrong to mourn, to be grieved, by our sins. Sin remains bad, though God reveals his glory by judging sin. Indeed, our opinion of sin ought to be the same as God's: we ought to hate it, because it is evil, and thus we ought to consider it worthy of judgment. This is our sorrow: that something which speaks against God came to be. This, then, our comfort: that our sin has been judged by God in the body of Christ who took the sin on himself of those joined into his body by the Holy Spirit, to save us to himself.

Worry Versus Sorrow

Do not worry about anything. Weep with those who weep.

God does not worry, since he is in control, thus we need not worry, since he is good. God does weep for the wrongs of the world, indeed, he rights wrongs, because they displease him. Our reactions to the wrong of the world, then, ought to be sorrow, even anguish, because this is not how things ought to be.

To worry is to doubt the sovereignty of God. To not feel sorrow is to act as if it is not wrong. To feel glad is to act as if it is right. Rejoice in the Lord always, he is right. Weep for the evils of the world, with sorrow and even anguish, because those evils, those wrongs, speak against the glory of God, and rejoice, for God will set all things right, judging the evil and healing the broken. Glory be to God.

Work and Grace

One of the hardest thing to phrase is the distinction between law-doing and grace-doing. It is so easy to say "try," but try is so often heard as law, not gospel. What is the difference between them? How does one say "you should do this," without bringing law down on them? Even more practically, how does one act in grace? If I say "I should do this," how do I do so in the law of grace, and not the law of works?

We are saved, and so live, by the power of the Holy Spirit. If our life is because of the Spirit, then all that we do should be impelled, propelled, by the Spirit. How do I live like this? I pray for the Spirit to indwell me more and more, to impel and propel me to good works more and more. How do I pray? By the Spirit, who, even if we do not know how to pray, intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Thus, in all that we do, it is no longer we who do, but Christ who does in us. To respond to questions with "I'm trying," is good in the willingness to be unfinished, but all our trying must be God working in us. It is not that I am still trying to do this thing, since it is impossible for me, but it is God who is still working on, even in me, since all things are possible for, and thus with, him. Depend, therefore, on God, who raises the dead, to enliven you to good works, not done by yourself, but done as a gift from God, that is, good works given by God, which he has prepared for us, to give them to us to walk in. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10. This verse is not a command that we ought to do, but a promise that God has set us to do, by his power, that is, by our being created in Christ Jesus. "That we should walk in them" not that it is dependent on our will, but that, because we walk in Christ, we will walk into, through, in, the good work which have been prepared for us--not in a way that removes our responsibility, but in a way that makes us able, indeed, unable not to do the good which has been set in our way to do because of our being in Christ and thus walking by the Spirit, which we do by the will of the Father who set us apart for salvation.

Brokenness and Gospel-Revival

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/scottysmith/2013/02/12/a-prayer-about-our-victorious-christ-and-a-fleeing-devil/

I have said before that when I hear people pray for revival, I often think they don't know what they are praying for. Revival looks like broken people seeing their brokenness and turning in repentance to our Savior, Christ Jesus.

Just as the prophets bounce back and forth between condemning God's people and promising God's grace to them, so, in lives, when God tears people's lives down, and apart, so that they have nothing to stand on, he so often follows it by setting them on Christ as the rock and foundation of their lives. Yes, there are times when people's lives fall apart and they reject Christ, but then it is not our Christ they reject, but a false Christ. Or why do they expect an easy life? We are saved by a suffering king, one who took on himself our pain. Do we expect to be greater than our savior? So we rely on him, the powerful and good God of the universe. Because he is powerful and good, we need not fear when evil surrounds us, for he is with us. Therefore, depend on him when evil does surround you, for he is there. Not because you will see him act--praise God if you do--but because he will act. Therefore we act in faith, assuming that God works in that, not that we will necessarily see it, but because we will praise God for it because he has told us that he works in and through us. Indeed, to see God work in us is for God to work through us in those who see God's great power work to miraculously change lives.

When people pray for revival, they expect changed lives. When there appears to be satanic attacks, praise God that we have been counted worthy to suffer for him, and that we are such an affront to the Enemy as to warrant it. And have hope: our Enemy is an idiot, when he most won, in killing the messiah, he killed himself. It is no different any other time. The great force of such attacks will press us to lean upon and rely on and worship and glorify our king. He may make us know our sin and death. That will cause us to realize our need of Christ's righteousness and life. And that will cause us to praise our great High Priest who intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father, and to rely on the Spirit who empowers us to act according to his will, and glory in our redeemer.

Why the Via Negativa Irritates Me

The Via Negativa or "Negative Way" is a way of speaking about God which limits itself to negative statements. The assumption is that we cannot say who God is, only what he is not. Thus, anything we can say about God is more wrong than right. Whatever similarity there may be between something we say and how God is, there is a much greater dissimilarity.

To show why I really hate much of any emphasis on this method of theology, let me point to a test case: God is love. The Bible has a huge number of positive statements about who God is, and only negatively in order to correct misunderstandings. The negative statements are often there to emphasize the positive ones. To follow the Via Negativa I would have to say that, when I say "God is love" I am speaking by analogy, that I mean that the closest I can come to expressing this emotion of God's is to call it love. What then? Are we not to love as he loved? Do not the Scriptures themselves define what we are to understand by this word "love"? I do say that God's love is greater than any mere human love can be, but I most definitely assert that it is of the same sort, but purer, greater, stronger, unflinching. So great that, even while we were yet sinners, he died for us.

This is a God we can know, not merely by the shadows he casts on the world, but by his entrance into the world. Yes he is greater than we are, but we are made in his image. We have, by the Spirit of God, the mind of God, to know God. Is God too weak to be able to communicate himself accurately in human language? Is he unable to lift us up by his Spirit to know him? Indeed, we will know him fully one day, just as we are fully known, but that is not to say that we do not know him now, we are in Christ, we see with his eyes. Whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father, and we who are saved by Christ have been made able to see Christ, the Son.

It may be appropriate to say that what we say may not communicate fully what we mean. We may find ourselves unable to quite articulate what we mean by what we say, but to infer from this that we ought to settle for this in any degree is to give up at some point. Rather, though we admit that we do not always succeed in saying fully who God is, yet we have tools given by God which we ought to therefore use to speak about God as much as possible. It may take a book to articulate to some degree of accuracy one point of one doctrine of some aspect of God, but the length does not mean it is impossible. If saying that God is such-and-such is so inaccurate, then write more, tell me in what ways it is inaccurate, or you have told me nothing useful. How can I worship a God for what I know he is not? That would be only to worship a lack of evil, not a fullness of God.