Category: Uncategorized

Categories
Uncategorized

Testimony: The Light Shines

Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul. Psalm 66:16 ESV

“It’s hard to be an atheist,” our friend reflected aloud. She spoke from experience, as for many years her worldview precluded that which could not be perceived through natural senses. Over time, however, she opened herself to the possibility that God existed, and ultimately to God himself. Without Him, she told us, “There isn’t an almighty power to hold you in whatever situation, and there tends to be more bitterness and resentment. There’s the feeling of ‘I am going through this struggle by myself.’ It’s hard.” Reflecting further she added, “Atheism didn’t help me become the better person that I wanted to become. On my own, I wouldn’t have become as caring or kind to people.” But life with God? “I’m more grateful for everything. I’ve found more peace and joy, and it is easier to make more generous assumptions about other people and to care more about them.”

Oh, the wonders God works in our soul! He is real, deliberate, and relational, and He pursues us in love. Many years before Jesus’ birth, God foretold of the servant-Messiah who would come in great power, authority, and righteousness: “I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.”1 Yet His power would be so great that He could live among us and draw us to Himself in perfect patience and gentleness. “He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break . . . He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on the earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”2 This servant-Messiah’s mission would be one of compassion and care, of healing and wholeness, and of life and love. Of Him God said, “I will . . . make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles to open the eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”3

Indeed He does. For the servant-Messiah has come, and He comes to us still today—opening our eyes to Himself, freeing us from futility, and delivering us from oppression. If He has brought light into your darkness, you, too, have a story to tell. And if oppression rises up against you today, you have this truth to hold: ”The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” 4

Father, life here can be so difficult, but You are light. Open our eyes today; set us free today; shine Your truth into our soul today. We need You and we trust You; You are good. In Christ we pray, Amen.

1 Isaiah 42:1
2 Isaiah 42:2-4
3 Isaiah 42:6-7
4 John 1:5

Categories
Uncategorized

Who Conforms to Whom?

Are you familiar with “Calvinball” from the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes? It is a fictional game in which both Calvin and his stuffed toy tiger Hobbes, who lives animated in Calvin’s imagination, make up their own rules as they go along. No rule can be used twice, except the rule that no rule can be used twice! It is Calvin’s way of averting society’s demands and conforming reality to his passions of the moment. In a little ditty he sings, “You don’t need a team or a referee! You know that it’s great, ‘cause it’s named after me!”1

In its humorous way, Calvinball gently illustrates something more consequential than childhood fantasies, namely our tendency to comport Biblical truth to our own comfort level, instead of vice versa. This is neither new nor cultural; it is human. It shows up in what we choose to believe about God, rather than what is necessarily true about Him. What might this look like? Sometimes we dangerously supplant God’s law with our own notions of right and wrong, as Isaiah cautioned, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”2 Also, our religious traditions, however sincere, may actually “nullify the word of God,”3 as Jesus warned the Sadducees, who insisted there was no life after death. “You are in error,” He told them, “because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”4 Forewarning us against bending God’s truth to our preferences, Peter cautioned his readers about “unstable people” who distort Scriptures, even “to their own destruction.”5 It is Satan’s oldest trick—to “explain away” the clear meaning of God’s Word through false premises and twisted reasoning and thus redirect us toward “a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”6 Tragically Adam, in the garden, fell for it; thankfully Jesus, in the wilderness, did not.

To his protégé Timothy—and effectively to us—Paul wrote, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” 7 God’s Word is truth8, and when we misuse it, we do so at our own peril. But when we conform our will to His ways, and not vice versa, we are safe to serve and free to flourish in life eternal—a fruitful, meaningful life.

Father, You send us not away from this world, but into it.9 Ignite in us a burning passion for Your Word and equip us in its truth to do every good work.” In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

1 Waterson, Bill. “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip. September 14, 2015. https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2015/09/14
2 Isaiah 5:20
3 Mark 7:13
4 Matthew 22:29
5 1 Peter 3:16
6 Proverbs 14:12
7 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT
8 John 17:17
9 John 17:18

Categories
Uncategorized

The Authority We Want and Need

Attending college in Columbus, Ohio, I introduced a friend to the joy of skating at the OSU ice rink across town. She quickly grew in fondness and ability for this winter pastime, and decided to buy her own skates. While fitting her, the rink worker noticed she was wearing two pairs of socks. “You’ll only want one pair of socks for skating” he told her, at which point I interrupted and said, “No, she’ll need two.” We went back and forth a couple of times, so I pulled out my ace: “I grew up in northern Michigan and played four years of hockey in high school, and I’m telling you, she’ll need to wear two pairs of socks.” To which he replied, “I grew up in Ontario and played five years for the Boston Bruins; she will only want to wear one pair.” With a keen recognition of authority, I humbly conceded.

God’s Word is authority for life. His commands, wrote Paul, are “the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,”1 and we live “on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”2 Yet our sinful nature is prone to challenge His Word—and thereby, His authority—rebelliously subjecting His truth to our flawed judgments and twisting it to appease our self-centered desires. This is not new, for through Jeremiah God declared of ancient Israel, “every man’s own word becomes his oracle and so you distort the words of the living God.”3 Nor are we immune from it now or in the future, for as Paul warned Timothy, “the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”4

Then amid the escalating cacophony around us, how do we discern and flourish under the voice of authority? First, recognize that truth exists—“[God’s] word is truth”5—and that He who reigns in authority loves us, for “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”6 Then in such confidence we, like David, walk today with this assurance firmly placed in God: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”7 God’s Word is authority; we humbly concede. He speaks it in love; we gladly submit.

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”8 Light our path today in the truth of your Word. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Romans 2:20 NASB
2 Deuteronomy 8:3
3 Jeremiah 23:36
4 2 Timothy 4:3-4
5 John 17:17
6 Proverbs 30:5
7 Psalm 119:105 KJV
8 John 6:68