Thursday, February 4, 2010

walls of defense.

When people begin to crash in on our parade, it tends to cause friction inside of us. We have this ability to raise walls fast and high. Our defensive systems are always on high alert. This is my life and my idea, who are you to treat me and what I am doing with disdain and threaten my happiness. The pride in our hearts is a prime contender for a heavy weight fight. We do not want to lose or be attacked.

The Bible in contrast to our internal battle gives us a clear direction for dealing with these so-called personal attacks. Peter describes us as sojourners, people on a journey. While on our journey not in our homeland we should act with purpose. The Gospel gives us purpose. The Gospel gives us significance in our lives.

1Peter 2:12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
1Peter 3:9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.


These two verses give us purpose that God would be glorified and that we would live out the covenant given to Abraham thousands of years earlier. God has given us significance through the name of Jesus; we have an opportunity to love others not with our love but with his love. We were called to live outside of our selves for others in the name of Jesus.

When your parade crashers come flying around trying to bring you down, remember your conduct has to do with what you believe about God and his glory. Will these crashers see Jesus in you?

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The Beautiful Monotony of the Gospel

The Beautiful Monotony of the Gospel
Jared C. Wilson

One fear we must put aside in our quest for greater gospel-centrality is that it will not preach week to week. The enemy and our own flesh will test our commitment with the “plausible argument” (Col. 2:4) that the gospel will just sound so one-note. We are tempted to think the repetition will have the unintended effect of boring people or making the gospel appear routine and commonplace.

But the gospel is resilient. It is miraculously versatile. It proves itself every day for those awake to it. Because it is the antidote for all sin of all people, power effectual for every type of person no matter their background or circumstance, it is God’s might to save every millisecond and therefore every Sunday.

The gospel is indeed one song. But it is a song with many notes. The news is the same, but some of the words may change and the angles shift. (Use a thesaurus if you have to.) If we are awake to the gospel and seek the wakefulness of others, Christian and non-Christian, the playing of the greatest song at every instance is a lot like the exuberance of childlike wonder in monotonous fun. In Orthodoxy, the great G.K. Chesterton writes:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

When we “get” the gospel for what it really is — the power to save, the most thrilling news there could be, the declaration that God’s Son died for us and then came back to life! to be the risen Lord and supreme King of the universe, not just the entry fee for heaven but the currency for all of life — we revel in the new creation it unleashes in its wake at every turn. We never get tired of hearing it. It’s the new song that never gets old. “Play it again, play it again!” we will cry.

Gospel wakened people have been given the strength enough to exult in the beautiful monotony of the gospel.
The further good news is that those who are dulled in their senses will not be further dulled by the gospel. In fact, only the gospel can deliver them from their dulled state. No amount of fog and lasers will do it.