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]

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]

God's Promises in Suffering

If you are looking for answers, Job is one of many places you can turn. Another is to God's promises. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (1 Corinthians 10:13). This is one of the better known promises, and it is one where God appears to have reneged, because suffering often feels like more than you can bear. Therefore, it is important to consider for two reasons. First, it is a great promise. Second, if you are starting to believe that it isn't always true, then you may start asking where else God's promises might have exceptions. Such doubts erode faith.


This passage is saying that you too will go through the desert, and when you do, the Spirit will strengthen you in such a way that you can avoid grumbling and idolatry. God's promise is that he will never put us in a situation where we have no choice but to sin. He either will relieve the intensity of the temptation or he will give use grace to trust and obey in the hardship.


[by Edward T. Welch from Heart of the Matter}

Life in the Middle

The problem with relationships is that they all take place right in the middle of the story of redemption - God's plan to turn everything in our lives into instruments of Christlike change and growth. Our relationships are lived between the already and the not yet.

Already Jesus has come to save us, but his saving work is not yet complete. Already the power of sin has been broken, but the presence of sin has not yet been eradicated. Already we have change in many ways, but we are not yet all we will be in Christ. Already we have learned many lessons of faith, but we don't yet trust God fully. Already God has established his kingdom in our hearts, but that kingdom has not yet fully come.

Our life with others is always life in the middle. We are always building the community in the tension between God's already-and-not-yet grace. And we have no more control over the not-yet than we have had over the already. The timetable is in the hands of the sovereign Lord of grace. Our job is to learn how to live in the middle. We live as broken people who are repaired, among neighbors in the same condition - always thankful for what has already been done, but ever aware of our need for what we have not yet been given.

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

When Life is Not Happy

God doesn't prescribe a happy life. Depression is a form of suffering that can't be reduced to one universal cause. This means that family and friends can't rush in armed with THE answer. Instead, they must be willing to postpone swearing allegiance to a particular theory, and take time to know the depressed person and work together with him or her. What we do know is that depression is painful, and, if you have never experienced it, hard to understand. Like most forms of suffering, it feels private and isolating.

It is common for spiritually mature men and women who feel depressed to think that they are doing something wrong. After all, Scripture is filled with words of joy and happy hearts. When they aren't feeling happy, they feel that they must be missing something or that God is punishing them until they learn some hidden lesson. On earth, however, God doesn't prescribe a happy life. He doesn't legislate emotions. Look as some of the Psalms. They are written by people of great faith, yet they run the emotional gamut. This one even ends with "darkness is my closest friend" (Psalm 88:18). When your emotions feel muted and always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is, "Where do you turn - or, to whom do you turn?"

- by Edward Welch, from Heart of the Matter

Forgiveness is a Heart Transaction

Because the people around you are (like you) still sinners, they will fail, they will sin against you, and they will disappoint you. That is when you can extend to them the same grace you have received. Our anger, irritation, impatience, condemnation, bitterness, and vengeance will never produce good things in their lives (or ours). But God can produce good things in them when we are willing to incarnate his grace. We become part of what he is doing in their lives, instead of standing in the way. So, what does it mean practically to let the cross shape your relationships?

It means being ready, willing and able to forgive. The decision to forgive is first a heart transaction between you and God. It is a willingness to give up your desire to hold onto (and in some way punish the person for) his offense against you. Instead, you entrust the person and the offense to God, believing that he is righteous and just. You make a decision to respond to this person with an attitude of grace and forgiveness. This vertical transaction (between you and God) prepares you for the horizontal transaction of forgiveness between you and the offending person, when you are given that opportunity. - Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Trip

The Stages of Temptatation

Temptations grow in stages (James 1:13-15).The first stage is seduction (being "dragged away and enticed"). Temptation begins with desires. You believe you need something in addition to Christ in order to be happy. It could be anything - someone's approval, a possession, a pleasure, a job, a family, etc. A temptation might be obviously sinful, but often it can be a good thing. Your greatest opportunity to triumph over sin is at this beginning stage of temptation. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see what you are drawn to besides Christ.

The second stage of temptation is conception ("after desire has conceived"). Now the initial desire is lodged deep in your heart and you start to plan how you can get it. What you want is becoming more important to you than God. You haven't committed the outward sin, yet your desires are sinful.

The final stage is birth ("birth to sin; and sin...gives birth to death"). The result of your desire for something besides Christ is being caught in full-blown sin. Notice that the birth is really a death - you are mastered by something other than Christ.

At any time during these different stages of temptation, you can run to Christ, repent of your sin, and learn from you failure how to withstand temptation. God can change your heart so that, instead of a particular sin dominating your life, bit by bit you will be tempted by it less and less.

- Timothy S. Lane in Heart of the Matter

Love is a Person

This is another devotional from The Heart of the Matter by Winston T. Smith. Read 1 Corinthians 13 first.

We know specific things about love. In 1 John 4:9-10, we learn that love became a human being named Jesus who lived among us. Ultimately, love is a person, not an experience. When you need help loving someone, you can look to Jesus and learn from him. Jesus, as love, took action. He spoke and acted in ways that made a difference, ways that made love visible among us. As we trust him and learn from him we can do love too.

There are two critical ingredients to loving in a Christlike way. The first ingredient is connecting with and depending on Christ, not as a religious man who lived two thousand years ago, but as God's own Son who is with you and able to help you. The second ingredient is knowing what love looks like in the details of the moment. Jesus does not just motivate us to love; he teaches how to love in the moment - what it looks like and how to do it. Remember that faith is only a prelude to action. You need faith that Jesus will help you every step of the way, but you also need to take concrete action.

Lovingkindness and Faithfulness

Here is another devotional from the Heart of the Matterbook. Read Psalm 86 first.

Share God's steadfast love and faithfulness. In the Old Testament two Hebrew words are often used to describe God: chesed and emet. Chesed is translated in the Old Testament as "lovingkindness," or "steadfast love." It means committed kindness, a chosen generosity, a resolution to do good to another person no matter what. Emet is translated as "faithfulness" or "truth." When we say of someone, "She was a true friend," we're using the word true in the sense that the Bible uses the word emet. It's someone who's looking out for your well-being, who is genuinely concerned for your welfare (Philippians 2:20). God is full of chesed and emet - steadfast love and faithfulness - toward you. Chesed and emet are also used in the Bible to describe human relationships. Most people seek their own interests, and instinctively do things that create distance and destroy intimacy in their close relationships. But when you are committed to treat someone with kindness, when you are genuinely concerned for someone else's welfare, you will start to be and do the kinds of things that actually build trust, intimacy, and companionship. Chesed and emet are what God is fundamentally like toward us. He is a God who keeps his promises, a God of kindness, a God who forgives. And chesed and emet are also the attributes you need to make your closest relationships deeply joyous and intimate.

Anxiety is Full of Lies

The following is a devotional from David Powlison in the book, Heart of the Matter. Read Psalm 26 first.

Park your mind on what is true (Philippians 4:8). Anxiety is full of lies. What are some of them? First, you believe the world needs to be under your control. Second, you think it is out of control. And third, you imagine that your worry will get it under control. But the truth is that this is God's world. He controls it, and your worry will not change a thing. So when you are tempted to worry, reject the lie that it is up to keep yourself and those you love safe. Especially, reject all lies that contain the word more. For example, "I would be safe if I had more friends, more money, more time, and more respect." Also reject all the lies containing the word different: "I would be safe if I had a different spouse, different family, different job, different house, and different church." These statements are all fundamentally false. Ask God to help you anchor your mind on what is true, and then you will be able to tackle your real problems in the right way.

Worship

This devotional is from Winston T. Smith as part of The Heart of the Matter volume. It is based on Mark 12:28-34 and Christ's admonition to love the Lord completely.

Heart, mind, soul, and strength obviously overlap. God uses these overlapping terms so that there can be no mistaking that he requires from us an all-consuming love. Is there any part of life that falls outside of your heart, mind, soul, and strength? We're accustomed to dividing life into the spiritual and nonspiritual, handing the spiritual things over to God and managing the rest by ourselves. There are certain areas that we like to consider outside God's control. But this command makes clear that God should be at the center of it all. All barriers between the spiritual and nonspiritual are broken down.

The Bible has a word for this kind of all-consuming love, a devotion that shapes and directs every area of life: Worship. That may surprise you since we often use the word worship in a very limited sense. We think of worship as a set of specific activities that we perform on one day of the week. We go to a special place, sing songs, pray, listen to a message, stand, kneel, etc. We then leave that special place and worship is over. It is true that God tells us to worship him that way, but the command to love God with our whole being teaches that every aspect of our lives is an act of worship. Everything we do is guided by our love or God, our every act one of devotion to him.

Your Proper Identity

No human being was ever meant to be the source of personal joy and contentment for someone else. Your spouse, your friends, and your children cannot be the sources of your identity. When you seek to define who you are through those relationships, you are asking another sinner to be your personal messiah, to give you the inward rest of soul that only God can give. Only when I have sought my identity in the proper place (in my relationship with God) am I able to put you in the proper place as well. When I relate to you knowing that I am God's child and the recipient of his grace, I am able to serve and love you.

However, if I am seeking to get identity from you, I will watch you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner, but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity.

When I remember that Christ has given me everything I need to be the person he has designed me to be, I am free to serve and love you. When I know who I am, I am free to be humble, gentle, patient, forbearing, and loving as we navigate the inevitable messiness of relationships. - Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

Love of the World

Our fickle hearts wander away and so easily give our affection to another. The Bible calls this "love of the world." And the Bible tells us that if we love the world, the love of the father is not in us. James says that we get angry with one another because we are spiritual adulterers, and the person next to us gets in the way of what we love (James 4:1-4). The world is so attractive to our eyes and so seductive to our hearts. The creation can seem so much more real than the Creator. The sights, sounds, touches, and tastes of the world can seem to make us more alive than the purposes, promises, presence, and provisions of a God who can neither be seen or heard. This is a battle you do not win once. It is a battle that you must face every day. You must tell yourself that in this world you are surrounded by other lovers who will seek to woo you away from the one grand romance that is to be the core of your existence. You must prepare for this seduction and you must steel yourself against the temptation to spiritual adultery. And you must do it again and again and again, or your heart will be stolen away.
-Paul David Tripp

Note: This marks post number 300 for "God Before Midnight" since February 18, 2018!

Change in Everyday Life

God's Word invites change. In the Bible's vivid picture, we "turn" to our Father, Savior, and Comforter. He works in us toward one goal: change. The central dynamic of the Christian life has the FROM...TO...movement. Repentance is not only how we start the Christian life; it is the Christian life. Faith does new transactions and conversations with God. Love does new actions, and choices on the stage of life. When God calls, you listen. When he promises, you trust and talk back to him in your need. When he loves, you love. When he commands, you obey. You aim your life in a new direction by the power of the Holy Spirit. In every case, you turn.

The patterns, themes, and tendencies of our lives are what we see when, figuratively, we view our lives from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. From one hundred floors up, Manhattan and the Hudson River spread serenely before you. But the action and noise of life happens at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, and when we take the Lincoln Tunnel home to Hoboken. The big stories of our lives are worked out in a running series of small scenes. This is how God has made it to be. He works for a turn-the-world-upside-down reorientation and redirection. Change takes place in the watershed moments and decisive incidents of everyday life. - David Powlison

A Life of Change

God's Word invites change. In the Bible's vivid picture, we "turn" to our Father, Savior, and Comforter. He works in us toward one goal: change. The central dynamic of the Christian life has this FROM...TO...movement. Repentance is not only how we start the Christian life; it is the Christian life. Faith does new transactions and conversations with God. Love does new actions and choices on the stage of life. When God calls, you listen. When he promises, you trust and talk back to him in your need. When he loves, you love. When he commands, you obey. You aim your life in a new direction by the power of the Holy Spirit. In every case, you turn.

The patterns, themes, and tendencies of our lives are what we see when, figuratively, we view our lives from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. From one hundred floors up, Manhattan and the Hudson River spread serenely before you. But the action and noise of life happens at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, and when we take the Lincoln Tunnel home to Hoboken. The big stories of our lives are worked out in a running series of small scenes. This is how God has made it to be. He works for a turn-the-world-upside-down reorientation and redirection. Change takes place in the watershed moments and decisive incidents of everyday life. - David Powlison

Living by Faith

This devotional comes from a book, Heart of the Matter, and is written by David Powlison. As a side note, several weeks ago David Powlision was diagnosed with 4th stage pancreatic cancer. Based on his more recent writings, he is still relying on the Lord, even with this dire diagnosis, trusting the Lord for comfort and strength. I took a course with Powlison 15 years ago. A three hour class went by in what seemed to be minutes. His wisdom about the human condition was mesmerizing. He's a wonderful, godly man.

This devotional is based on a reading of Psalm 23:

Whatever your future, you are called to live by faith today. Jesus says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34). Jesus wants you to depend on him one day at a time. Learn not to worry about tomorrow. To do this you must meditate on who Jesus is.

More than any other passage, Psalm 23 brought Jesus to life for me in my struggles with fatigue. The psalm is full of promises - he provides, he restores my soul, he is with me, his goodness and mercy pursue me all of my days. Make this psalm your own. Jesus, your good Shepherd, will fill you with confidence. God doesn't meet us the way we want, but he does restore us. No matter what you are facing, you have a Shepherd who is with you, restoring you, and bringing good things - himself - into your life. Learn to trust him, and you truly have something worth living and dying for.

Spiritual Warfare

Edward Welch shares the following devotional in the book, Heart of the Matter. He addresses spiritual warfare. This is an important lessen as we often forget that Satan is always ready to attack. Satan, along with the flesh and the world, is a source of temptation who we should never take lightly.

The details of how faith works in spiritual warfare are well known but easily forgotten. First, remember that you have an enemy. Follow the lead of wise people who begin each day by actually saying, "Today, I must be alert that I have an enemy." Ask others to remind you, and be quick to remind others. Realize that you are walking where rebels are known to be in the area. Their lives are devoted to your destruction.

Second, assume that warfare rages. Don't even bother looking for sigs of warfare. Just assume that you are in the thick of it. If you want evidence, don't look for it in the intensity of your depression. Satan will use your pain as a venue to employ well-worn strategies like these: Are you hopeless? Do you believe God is aloof and distant? Do you question God's love? Do you question God's forgiveness? Remember that Satan will always attack the character of God.

Are you listening to wise counsel and Scripture? If not, it is a sure sign that you are losing some spiritual skirmishes. Listening is a mark of humility, and Satan can't successfully fight against it.

Christ Wants All of Us

The following is a devotional based on Luke 14:25-35 written by Paul David Tripp. The devotional appears in the book, Heart of the Matter.

Christ doesn't just ask for some of our things. He doesn't ask for the majority of our things. He doesn't say, "I want the best of your things." He doesn't warn us that there are going to be times when he will take precious things from us. No, his call from the outset is this: "Any of you who does not give up everything the he has cannot be my disciple." Why is his call so all-inclusive?

Jesus looks at the large crowd and sees people in the midst of a raging personal war. He understands that each one is a worshipper - each of their lives is always shaped by the pursuit of the treasure that has come to rule their hearts. He knows that what they treasure will shape their decisions, actions, and words. And he knows that they will make incredible personal sacrifices to get, keep, and enjoy whatever it is that they treasure. So, in asking his followers to sacrifice everything, he is not calling them to live without anything. No, he is calling them to empty themselves of every other treasure but him. He is saying, "If you are going to be my disciple, I must be the treasure that gives shape and directions to everything you decide, say, and do."