Quotable: Without the gospel

Without the gospel
everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel
we are not Christians;

without the gospel
all riches is poverty,
all wisdom, folly before God;
strength is weakness, and
all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made
children of God,
brothers of Jesus Christ,
fellow townsmen with the saints,
citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,
heirs of God with Jesus Christ,

by whom
the poor are made rich,
the weak strong,
the fools wise,
the sinners justified,
the desolate comforted,
the doubting sure, and
slaves free.

The gospel is the Word of life.

- John Calvin

Featured song: Redemption Hill Music- The solid rock

The Solid Rock from Redemption Hill on Vimeo.

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Loving the truth about God

Up until quite recently I’d never taken much notice of the book of Jonah. Maybe I was looking at it as a Sunday school book. Jonah getting swallowed by the whale does make quite a good story to tell in Sunday school but I discovered as we discussed the book at church camp that there is things for adults to learn from it too. What I want to focus on here is towards the end of the book. At this point in the story, Jonah’s mission to Ninevah has been what most people would call a massive success. All of Ninevah has repented in pretty dramatic fashion and God has spared them his punishment. Then we read this:

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." (Jonah 4:1-3)

The thing I had pointed out to me from this section that I found thought provoking was that Jonah does and says stupid things despite appearing to have a decent theological understanding. He has a pretty accurate grasp on God’s what God is like- he talks about God’s grace, mercy, love and slowness to get angry. Elsewhere in the book he talks about salvation belonging to God (Jonah 2:9) and acknowledges God as creator (Jonah 1:9). These are really important things for Jonah to know but knowing them was not enough. Part of what seems to have caused Jonah’s problems is that Jonah did not love the things he knows about God. Instead the truth about God frustrates him badly. He wanted God to be different. He would have rather God be quick to get angry (at other people of course) and wishes God wasn’t quite so merciful. Because he wasn’t happy about these things, he rebelled.

While we probably don’t usually throw such epic temper tantrums about the things we don’t like about God, the same problem can exist. It doesn’t matter how loudly we confess the truth, if we wish it wasn’t true it will come out in our behavior. At some point, our flesh will find something about God’s character to object to. If you don’t like that God is sovereign and you are not, you’ll probably get bitter when things don’t turn out the way you want. If like Jonah, you are unimpressed that God chooses loves people you don’t like, chances are you aren’t going to reach out to them very well. If you get frustrated that God chooses to bless people you don’t think are deserving, you probably have a bad attitude about God’s grace.

As we learn things about God or remember things we know, we need to watch how our hearts react. If the reaction isn’t good, that needs dealing with. The most important thing we can do is to ask for God’s help. I’m sure help with changing our hearts is the kind of prayer God would love to answer! We can also choose not to focus on how something about how God works gets in the way of us getting what we want. We can choose to retrain our minds by thanking God for various aspects of his character. Whatever it takes to make sure we don’t just believe the truth about God but love it too.

Encouragement from Habakkuk

One of the sections of the bible I’ve been studying lately is the book of Habakkuk. I’ve been finding it quite encouraging. It is admittedly a somewhat strange book to find encouraging. That’s partly because it is relatively obscure. It’s a short book (only 3 chapters), is tucked away towards the back of the old testament and doesn’t get taught on often. However, it is more a strange book to find encouragement from due to some of the content. God tells Habakkuk how things are about to turn really ugly because of the impending invasion of a powerful and nasty neighboring nation. Sounds depressing right? However, there are a few things that are far from depressing.

One of these things is Habakkuk’s honesty. While it is quite obvious in the book that Habakkuk is devout, he is also brutally honest with God. The book opens with Habakkuk questioning why God is allowing the negative things he sees happening around him. He is frustrated with God and it shows! He asks why God doesn’t appear to be listening or answering. God then gives him an answer. Rather than being satisfied, he gets started on another round of quite blunt questions and expressions of frustration. God addresses these questions too. God doesn’t get angry at Habakkuk for asking in ether round of questioning.

This should be really encouraging and freeing to us when we pray. While certainly we should remember who we are talking to and not be unnecessarily flippant or rude, Habakkuk shows us that God can take our honesty. We don’t have to make our prayers pretty and pious sounding. We don’t have to pretend everything is wonderful if it isn’t. We can say what we are thinking and feeling. We can tell God our frustrations and question why he has let things happen. He is big enough to handle that. He won’t always give us the answer we want, but nonetheless, he listens and takes seriously our prayers.

Another thing that is encouraging in Habakkuk is how he chooses to respond to the news of the bad things that are about to happen to his country. The book concludes with the following:

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19a)

I think he provides a wonderful example of how it is possible to to respond to bad things happening. He doesn’t try to pretend that things really aren’t that bad. Instead, he acknowledges that things are indeed bad and decides to fix his eyes on God. Rather than surrendering to despair, he deliberately chooses to be joyful in God. That isn’t an easy decision to make and follow through on sometimes! He also acknowledges that the strength he needs comes from God rather than himself. That is a humbling but freeing thing to confess.

I encourage you to go read Habakkuk for yourself. There’s a lot we can learn from him.