relativism antidote

This is for everyone who is out there having discussions in college classrooms, cafeterias, or coffee shops. Here's something you may be hungry to hear (I know that I am, after school today):

There is objective truth.

It can be known.

It is exclusive.

I will say that again:

Truth is exclusive.

Truth is exclusive.

Truth is exclusive.

This means that there are things that are right, and, necessarily, things that are wrong. If we don't have a truth that can withstand attack and be the ONLY when everyone else's "truth" is one of the many, then we don't have anything worth sharing.

Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the life. We also know that His Word is truth. And we also know that He has sent the Holy Spirit to remind us of the things He said and to accomplish His work in the hearts of those who listen.

Because of the help of the Spirit, we are not alone when we study or share the Word of God. And we can be assured that the truth we find there is the real thing, not one of a million equally viable options for what we can choose to accept as our own personal "truth."

This is hard to live out in a classroom where you may be the only person who [knowingly] acknowledges the existence of objective truth in the first place.

Let's pray for each other that we would be bold to share God's truth with the people in the house or desk or cubicle next to ours.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

-Ephesians 6:10-20

See you tomorrow night!

giving thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Please be praying for the Thanksgiving dinner at church tomorrow, that God would be glorified in all that happens and that people would be drawn closer to Him. And everybody who'll be there, know you're being prayed for!

This week, in between wrapping up school and fighting with turkeys on the frozen food aisle, I've been thinking about the importance of giving thanks. It makes me think about the story of Jesus and the ten lepers in Luke 17:

11 Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. 17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

It seems like a lot of times I mean to say "thank you" to God or to give Him the glory for something He's done, but not so often that I actually do it. Even when I do these things in private prayer, how often do I verbally give God the glory in front of other people?

In the past couple of months I've been very encouraged by hearing Christian brothers and sisters at church directly giving glory to God for things that He's accomplished in their lives. When we step out in obedience and give Him the glory, we really don't know what He plans to work out through that. Many times I think He works it out for the encouragement of others in ways we would never understand.

Let's not be like the nine lepers who never came back to Jesus, so that He will not look at us and ask, "were there not any found who returned to give glory to God?"

variations on a theme

Hey all, check this out this week if you get a chance:

Thank God for an Inspired Bible

It is a sermon by John Piper on the inspiration of Scripture (just exactly what we were talking about Thursday night!).

God is good!

on being drunk

Last Thursday night we studied 1 Thessalonians 5, which includes this passage:

1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

Those who were there on Thursday will remember the story Nate shared about the conversation he'd had with the proprietor of a Middle Eastern restaurant. When Nate explained his job teaching young people about God, the man replied by describing how "drunk" people in the US seem when it comes to God and religion.

The Random House dictionary has a good definition of drunk: "being in a temporary state in which one's physical and mental faculties are impaired by an excess of alcoholic drink." But how does having one's "physical and mental faculties" impaired relate to the American perspective on God?

In the abstract, there are a couple of applications. People are made "drunk" by consumerism and a lifestyle of plenty. And made drunk by the constant drive for entertainment and things that occupy our minds without exercising them. And made drunk by a culture that insists that there are no consequences, that what John Lennon imagined is a good thing.

But I saw some concrete applications of this on Saturday when our FAITH team was doing some door-to-door visiting. We went from house to house passing out MCBC brochures and asking people if we could pray for them. Several people declined our offer with variations of "everything's good, thanks." One man told us that his family had a bad year last year, but that they didn't need prayer this year because things were much better. Another lady said that her family didn't need prayer because everyone was in good health. A couple people waved off Jim's or Nate's mention of Jesus with "I really don't want to get into that right now."

Part of me wants to assume that the people who waved us off were secretly hiding their true feelings of spiritual depravity and struggling desperately to silence the voice of the yawning God-shaped void that infuses all their waking and sleeping hours.

But I think that, truthfully, most were probably just drunk. They say "things are good" because they believe "things are good."

How can we get people to stop being drunk? How can we get them to see that there is a heaven, a hell, and a just God who vehemently hates their sin? How can we help them to know that there is a love, joy, and peace in living for Christ's glory that is greater and deeper and sweeter than anything the world has to offer?

I don't know.

But I know one thing that would help:

not being drunk ourselves.

In the psalms, David used very vivid imagery to depict his hunger and thirst for God:

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.

My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.

I spread out my hands to You; my soul longs for You like a thirsty land.

In our post-agrarian culture it is hard to understand the picture of a "thirsty land," just as it is hard to understand what true hunger and thirst are. We are fed abundantly. Our needs -- and, beyond that, our wants -- rarely go unsatiated.

So, here's an idea. Maybe we should try practicing hunger once in a while. Yep, practicing hunger. In other words, fasting.

The most common type of fast is a fast from food for a pre-determined number of meals or days. Plan to spend a fast day in prayer, and let the growling stomach or the caffeine-deprivation headache remind you to be back on your knees before God.

There are other types of fasts, too. These kinds of fasts can help us realize how attached we are to things in our lives that may be dulling our hunger for God. Other types of fasts could be

• fasts from TV
• fasts from the Internet
• fasts from video games
• fasts from movies or going to the movies
• fasts from instant messaging or text messaging

If anything on this list makes you think, "fasting from that would be impossible!" think twice about whether that may be the fast for you.

Let's be hungry, thirsty people.

new [!] and improved [?]

Just to add some semblance of regularity to this blog, I'm going to experiment with some regular postage (so maybe it should be "posting").

The schedule is . . .

• long post on Wednesday
• Thursday night Bible study follow-up on Friday
• announcements whenever

Eventually we may expand to Sunday School and sermon follow-up . . .

Until then, check back on Wednesdays and Fridays for new content.

thanks to Elsa . . .

for the reminder that this Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

Here are some readings on persecution and the Christian life:

Hebrews 13:3
Matthew 5:10-12
Proverbs 24:11
2 Timothy 3

mirrored here, may our lives tell Your story

Yesterday in my journeys around the internet I ended up in a little neighborhood of atheist/secularist/infidel web sites, and eventually at the web site for the book An Infidel Manifesto: Why Sincere Believers Lose Faith.

I thought I was beyond being discouraged or muddled by this stuff.

I was wrong.

Something about questions like "why does a good God allow children to suffer?" is perennially disturbing. I know (head knowledge) answers to these kinds of questions, but it's easy to start thinking "you know, I think the cynic has a point there . . ."

Reading through the cynic stuff, though, I was struck by the cynic's implied assumption (impressive Greek word for this: enthymeme) -- God exists to make US happy. Operating off this assumption, if there is sadness, pain, or unfairness in the world, then God isn't doing His job.

A lot of Christians tend to operate off this same assumption. And we measure happiness the same way the world does: nice stuff, success, the absence of suffering.

But Jesus gave us a different assumption and a different measure. God, in seeking His own ultimate joy and happiness, subjected His only Son not only to excruciating physical agony, but to the more intense agony of complete separation from Himself. Why did He do this? One reason is so that we could be with Him at His right hand, knowing "pleasures forevermore."

The ultimate reason is to bring glory to HIMSELF.

Does God care about joy? Yes. Does joy exclude suffering? No. Could joy -- true, deep joy -- even exist without suffering?

Are there times that human suffering brings God more glory than plain vanilla happiness ever could? You bet.

Something about this idea grates on our human nature, and I think it's probably one of those lessons that takes a lifetime (and then some) to learn.

---------------------------------
P.S. -- Here's a good article I found this week about the relationship between pain, joy, and God's ultimate glory:

Unexpected Callings
by Suzanne Hadley

to chew on

Here's a link to the set of biographies that Nate was talking about tonight.

Dig in!

And if you listen/read one that you think would be good for others in the group to see/hear, go ahead and post a comment about it.

SO not Hollywood

As young adults, we're in a season of decision-making.

Whether it's jobs, location, or relationships, we're making ties now that will impact our lives, the lives of our families, and the lives of our children (and grandchildren and great-grandchildren).

In all of those choices, the world is screaming at us to do what feels good. Find the job that feels good. Find the place that feels good. Find the relationship that feels good.

What God asks us to do couldn't be more different. He asks for submission. Complete obedience. But the best part is that He does this for our (and His) ultimate joy. How many jobs, places, or relationships that feel good at first end up being totally wrong later?

But submission is hard. And it helps to have examples of people who have been there already and made the right decisions.

One of the most challenging things I've read on this topic is the letter that an aspiring missionary, Adoniram Judson, then in his early twenties, wrote to the father of the girl he wanted to pursue in marriage.

Is this the kind of vision we have for the choices that we're making right now?

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

(P.S. -- Her father let her decide, she said yes, and -- because of the same dangers Adoniram foresaw -- she died on the mission field 13 years later. Both husband and wife are in heaven today, along with the children they buried and the Burmese people they led to Christ.)