Addressing Our Word Problems

Word problems are heart problems. Christ said, "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Our problem with words is not primarily a matter of vocabulary, skill, or timing. Have you ever said, "Oops, I didn't mean to say that!" Often it would be more accurate to say, "I'm sorry I said what I meant!" If the thought, attitude, desire, emotion, or purpose hadn't been in your heart, it wouldn't have come out of your mouth. Christ isn't saying that people never put their feet in their mouth and say something stupid. We all have. But he is asking us to own the connection between our thoughts, desires, and words. The real problem with your communication is what you want to say and why you want to say it, which ultimately has nothing to do with your language skills. Christ reveals that the what and the why are shaped by the heart. Therefore, if we hope to transform the way we talk with one another, the heart must change first.

[by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp from Heart of the Matter]

The Flipside of Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving approaching, we should try to position our hearts towards gratitude. But there are forces that keep us from being grateful, one of them is a sense of entitlement.

The following is a quote from Julie Lowe from her blogpost:

Discontentment is easily triggered in us because we have an underlying sense of entitlement. We believe that we are inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. I deserve that new electronic device, or that vacation, or peace and quiet when I come home after working all day. Entitlement justifies whatever self-focused response pours out of my mouth or actions. Entitled desires quickly become demands that excuse putting myself first and the needs of others last (if at all). These things, no matter how much I desire them, are not innate human rights but wants that have risen to a level of necessity in our hearts and minds. In contrast, Scripture tells us that our goal is not to look for what we deserve but to be poured out as an offering to others (Philippians 2:17). We are to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).

In order to be grateful, we have to rid ourselves of the sense that we deserve a bunch of stuff. Humility puts us in a position to be thankful for what God has given us.

What Has God Called Me to Do?

Each day we should remind ourselves of the utter simplicity of God's comfort and call. First, God comforts us with his presence and power and calls us to trust him. We are to entrust to God the things we cannot control. Second, God calls us to obey, and promises to bless us as we do. In good and bad circumstances, we must ask, "What has God called me to do and what has he provided in Christ to enable me to do it?"

I can admit my faults with no need to minimize, hide, or give way to paralyzing guilt. I can confess that I need to grow without beating myself up. I can cry out when life is hard but accept responsibility for the way I deal with it. I don't have to cover my sin, polish my reputation, and keep a record of my successes. I can look at my tomorrows with enthusiasm and hope. Yes, I am still a flawed person in a broken world. But my view of myself is not dark and depressed because the gospel has infused it with hope. Christ is with me and in me, and I will never be in a situation where he isn't redemptively active. Though change is needed in many ways, I am not discouraged. I am in the middle of a work of personal transformation. This process is often painful, but always beneficial.

[by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp from Heart of the Matter]

What Else Do We Really Need?

Jesus was being accosted by the Tempter - Satan himself - when he cited [Psalm 63](in Matthew 4:4). Fittingly, Jesus hadn't eaten for forty days. No doubt, food was his primary need. But in the midst of near starvation, he said that there was something more important than food: to be strengthened by the Spirit of God as he rested on the very words of the Father. Spiritual food can seem unsatisfying at first, but have you ever had someone say to you, "I love you?" Wouldn't you gladly pass on a buffet in order to hear such words? In Jesus' case this spiritual food was more important than physical life itself. Now we begin to understand how God remains faithful to his promises even when his people go hungry. The physical food points to something better.

The apostle Paul often went hungry but he saw absolutely no contradiction between that and God's generous care for this truest needs. Paul knew that, no matter how well fed, the physical body was inevitably going to die. But a fed spirit is satisfied for this life and the life to come. To make it more personal, if Paul had God, what else did he really need?

[by Edward T. Welch in Heart of the Matter]

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

What's Wrong with SpongeBob Squarepants?

After a 25 year hiatus, I now have a subscription to National Review again. The magazine formed my conservatism back in the 80's and early 90's - I owe the writers a great debt.

While "God Before Midnight" is not a political blog, sometimes political stories can be encouraging and even funny. I found this story to be both: encouraging because this is the kind of nonsense that believers don't have to get tangle up in, and funny because, well, it's fun when other people do. The "you're a racist" trend is hopefully running its course. Articles like this show the desperation of it and how ridiculous it can be. Where racism exists, it needs to be addressed. Trying to find it under every rock, river, and...sea, undermines its seriousness.

This is from the November 11, 2019 issue.

**********************

The latest entry in the ever-lengthening list of Things You Never Knew Were Racist is none other than SpongeBob Squarepants. His animated antics with Patrick Star, Pearl Krabs, Squidward Tentacles, and the other Sponge worthies may seem innocent but in fact, says University of Washington anthropology professor Holly M. Barker, suppress "public discourse about the whitewashing of violent American military activities" by "normalizing the settler colonial takings of Indigenous lands" and "maintaining American military hegemonies in Oceania." How so? The series is set in Bikini Bottom, a seafloor community assumed to be underneath Bikini Atoll, the site of a 1946 U.S. nuclear test for which the indigenous population was permanently removed from the atoll. That action was arrogant, to be sure, but blaming "the cartoon's appropriation of [the islanders'] homelands" for the indigenous population's current troubles is problematic because (a) the show's characters don't live on Bikini Atoll, but miles beneath it, (b) they are a wide variety of diverse colors, so it makes no sense to call them racist, (c) they're sea creatures, and (d) did we mention that it's a cartoon?

Get Over Yourself!

Navel-gazing refers to the excessive focus and concentration on the self. Call it "the belly button generation." Like infants who have just discovered their belly buttons, we are captivated by ourselves. It might be OK for infants to not be much aware of the world beyond their own selves, but as we grow up we need to see that there's a world around us, or we will lead rather shallow lives. At some point, we must outgrow our fascination with ourselves. This is yet another reason to study church history. We need to know that we are not the center of the universe. More importantly, we need to be reminded of what matters most. In this regard, we can receive guidance from one of the towering figures in church history: Augustine of Hippo.

....From the very first word of The Confessions, Augustine wants his readers to know what's important. The first word in the Latin is magnus. It is usually translated "great," and one recent translation refers to it as "vast." Augustine uses the word to refer to God. The first word and the truth it represents control Augustine's great book. There is something and someone far greater than us. The Greatest, in fact. After Augustine calls God the Greatest, he refers to himself as a mere segment, a dot. Now that's perspective. Rather than starting with our own belly button, we start with eyes upward, enthralled and awed by the transcendent greatness, magnitude, and vastness of God....While we are in this world, with its mixed-up perspective that sees people as big and God as small, we can magnify the greatness of God in our hearts and minds.

[excerpt from 5 Minutes in Church History by Stephen J. Nichols]

Is Confronting Unloving?

No biblical writer wrote more about love than the Apostle John, who is known for this reason as the "Apostle of love." However, this is what the apostle of love said about church leaders who had left the path of truth:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the anti-Christ, he who denies the Father and the Son. (v.22)

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil. (3:10)

Could we accuse John of lack of love for the firmness with which he resists theological error? Biblical love disciplines, corrects, reprehends, and tells the truth. And when it sees error that is followed by repentance and contrition, it forgives, forgets, and supports.

Therefore, the love that is practiced by those who get offended by the defense of the faith, the exposing of error, and the confrontation of untruths is not biblical love. Lack of love would be letting people continue to be tricked without at least trying to show them their errors.

[excerpt from "Is Confronting Unloving" by Augustus Lopes in TableTalk, November 2019]

Hebrews 5:8-9

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.