putting God first – Public Christianity

Flashback Friday: Give God a Valentine

February 15, 2013Frank

***Originally posted in 2009 as notes from a contribution talk I gave the Sunday after Valentine’s Day. The dollar figures may have changed, but God does not change.***

I saw on the news that last year [2008] the average person spent $123 on Valentines Day and this year given the economy it was expected to drop to $102. That sounds like a lot, but if consider dinner on top of the flowers, candies, and cards you can see how that would add up quick. I bring this up because it points out how we spend a lot of money on silly things while we struggle to pay the bills and make ends meet. (not that Valentines Day is silly, but the efforts we go though to impress our loved ones with things is)

Brothers, how much did you spend yesterday? We justify it because it’s only once a year, but I hope we show that love our spouses more than just once a year, Amen? Just like I hope we demonstrate our love for God more than just on Sundays. How do we show our love to God? Well, just like our wives, he likes to be given things. No, not stuffed animals that sing Elvis songs when you press its paw. But he wants us to sacrifice to him. Things of value, things that demonstrate that he is more important than what we give him. Just like Valentine’s Day, our spouses are worth much more than that box of candies, but what message would it have sent if we didn’t get anything at all and just sat with our arms crossed, huffing at the suggestion of spending money on Valentines Day? Are you sitting now with your arms crossed huffing at the suggestion of giving part of your hard earned income to God?

In Matthew 19, beginning in verse 16, we read of a rich man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to get to heaven. The answer shocked him, verse 21, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” And the man walked away sad. Jesus isn’t telling us to sell everything we have and give it away to the poor, but don’t let that stop you. What he is telling us is to love him more than our possessions or our wealth. Give him a valentine today.

The Conclusion of the Matter

December 12, 2012Frank

I’m not a very good closer. Whenever I write reports for work I always get stuck at the conclusion. Even my blog posts will often ramble on for one or two paragraphs too many because I don’t know how to finish my thoughts. I can’t even imagine trying to conclude and summarize the themes of a book.

This is the last week we’re discussing A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God and concluding with his chapter, The Sacrament of Living. It is a lofty goal to even begin to describe the holiness of God and then to follow up with practical application to pursue that holiness in our own unique spiritual walks. So I have to admit I was expecting this last chapter to summarize the rest of the book and leave me, the reader, with marching orders to go forward in my own pursuit of God.

Just looking at the chapter titles, you can tell Tozer is building his case: Following Hard After God, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing, Removing the Veil, Apprehending God, The Universal Presence, The Speaking Voice, The Gaze of the Soul, Restoring the Creator-creature Relation, Meekness and Rest, and finally The Sacrament of Living.

I often state that Romans 12 gives most comprehensive description of Christian living in the Bible- talking about sanctification, humility, applying our spiritual gifts, generosity, and forgiveness. But that chapter doesn’t just come out of nowhere. It begins “Therefore…” The lifestyle Paul describes in Romans 12 requires Romans chapters 1-11. “Therefore, in view of God’s mercy…” There it is, our Christianity needs to be motivated by God’s character and what he has done on our behalf. “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1) Paul could have stopped there.

So how does Tozer conclude his premise of the pursuit of God? What does he write after his “therefore”?

“the sacramental quality of every day living.” (pg 90)

Like I said, I was expecting some lofty conclusion, some kind of new wisdom that I could apply to my own spirituality. Yet I should not have been surprised that Tozer came to the same conclusion as Paul (and Solomon for that matter): that our lives, our everyday lives, should be lived for the glory of God. That is how you pursue God, by seeking to glorify him in all things no matter how big or small, how routine or extraordinary, how mundane or exciting. A fitting end for this blog as well, whose overall theme is that of living out our faith in the day-to-day.

“We must practice living to the glory of God, actually and determinedly.” (pg 87)

Tozer closes with this prayer:

Lord, I would trust thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, ‘I beseech Thee so far to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.’ And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.

This blog is part of a book club reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. Please join the discussion here and at our hosts, Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter. Need a copy of the book? You can get it for free on Kindle.

The Glory of God in Secular Work

December 5, 2012Frank

“Nor will that old serpent the devil take all this lying down. He will be there in the cab or at the desk or in the field to remind the Christian that he giving the better part of his day to the things of this world and allotting to his religious duties only a trifling portion of his time.” -A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Do you ever feel like you’re wasting your time? Do you sit at your desk at work watching the clock tick by until you can call it a day and go home? Do you ever go home with the weight of the world on your shoulders wondering if it is all worth it?

I calculated not too long ago that I’ve spent more than 20,000 hours at my job and have commuted 200,000 miles in the past ten years at my job. Meanwhile, at best I’ve spent 3650 hours in prayer and 1040 hours sitting in church.

We can read about missionary heroes, or bold preachers, or successful authors and then ask ourselves, “why can’t I do that?” Then we look at our jobs and the responsibilities of life and answer back, “oh yeah, that’s why.”

But that is only Satan talking. God created this world and called it good. Before the fall, Adam and Eve tended to the garden- worked, if you will- together with God. And it was a good thing. After the fall, God promised that mankind would toil in labor- yet God’s creation and God’s design is still good.

My evangelist here once preached (paraphrasing), “of course work is hard- it’s called work! If it was easy and pleasant they’d call it something else. Like, I don’t know, Disneyland!”

Work is hard. It is tedious. It is toil. But that does not mean it is not good. And the best part is, we don’t have to work alone.

A friend of mine related it to apple orchards: if you allow an apple tree to grow up all on its own, it will bear fruit but it will likely be sour. But when you take the branches of another tree, even for another kind of apple, and graft it in with the tree then the fruit will be sweet. This is an example of God and man working together to gain a better result. God’s creation plus man’s innovation leads to the delicious fruit I pack in my lunch bag.

Maybe you view your work as too secular, that there’s no way for you and God to work together in that environment. Going back to the illustration of sweet fruit, you can exhibit the fruits of the spirit in your workplace: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Of course, you cannot bear those fruits without the Holy Spirit- so there are the two of you working together.

“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

This isn’t impossible. Don’t listen to Satan’s lies trying to convince you that your labor is in vain. Smile. Be generous. Work honestly. Pray. And your work will be a fragrant offering to God.

God the Politician

November 14, 2012Frank

When I was in high school I wrote a paper in my psychology class about if you apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Jungian psychology that religion is tied to the subconscious, then the logical conclusion is that man invented the notion of God. (In hindsight, even in high school I was a religious studies nerd.) Recent studies have gone a step further detailing how certain chemical reactions in our brains give us a sense of pleasure during worship and even create the so-called “light” that many have described seeing on their deathbeds. Even physics has its “god particle”.

This only reveals the truth that throughout history we have been trying to mold God into a person that we can accept. (Maybe that was the wisdom behind God the Father sending his son Jesus?) When we see injustice we cry out to God that it isn’t fair. But unfair to whom? When we find a difficult passage of scripture that is counter to ever-evolving cultural norms, we dance around it saying “God didn’t really mean that.” A.W. Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, “Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image.” (pg 71)

It is like a politician who will vacillate on issues at the whim of public sentiment or to capture a certain demographic. I remember President Clinton being criticized for “waffling” and the jokes about how he’d take a poll before making a decision on what to have for dinner. What many found unacceptable just a few years ago is now considered common practice. We the people, are a fickle bunch. Are we surprised that we approach God the same way?

Tozer writes later, “The whole course of the life is upset by failure to put God where He belongs. We exalt ourselves instead of God and the curse follows.” (pg 76) When we fail to let God be who He is, we essentially put ourselves- our desires, our priorities, our definitions of right and wrong- above Him. We call Jesus “Lord” but only because we get something out of it. But only when we exalt God above all else, even ourselves, can we truly find peace with Him. Without doing so we will constantly struggle against God’s way because we want to get our way.

God’s truths are eternal. Our morals are the signs of the times and are ever shifting through history.

In the end, the only thing that really matters is whose Truth do you trust?

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

(Hebrews 13:8)

An Altar to Me

September 5, 2012Frank

When Jesus died, the curtain separating the people from the Presence of God was torn, symbolizing that by the blood of Christ we could now enter into God’s presence without the need for intercessors or any further sacrifice. The blood-debt of our sins has been paid in full; the final sacrifice has been made. Yet A.W. Tozer writes that despite that “God wills that we should push into His Presence and live our whole life there,” (pg 26) we are content to remain outside the veil. Tozer asks, “why do we consent to abide all our days just outside the Holy of Holies and never enter at all to look upon God?” (pg 31) He concludes that there must be a veil inside of our own hearts that separates us from the divine presence of God.

So what is that veil? Is it things, or a lack of knowledge of God? I could go on and on and speculate, but something hit me as I was praying yesterday. In the Temple, before the curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was an altar on which incense was burned as an act of perpetual worship. What hit me as I was praying was that it is this altar that is keeping me from entering in to God’s presence.

Perpetual worship is keeping me from intimacy with God. That doesn’t sound right, does it? The problem isn’t the worship, but to whom I am worshipping. I realized that I worship myself. This isn’t really any new revelation, but the perpetual nature of incense burning before the veil is what convicted me. It is not just that I worship myself- we all do at times- but that this worship is perpetual and all-consuming.

To whom do I turn when things are hard? Me. Who do I talk to during those quiet and still times in my mind? Myself. Who do I seek to satisfy? I. Me, myself, and I. My own holy trinity. I pay God lip service in prayer and I do lift up my voice in praise on Sunday mornings. I reflect on his word daily, but most of the time only to the extent of how I would teach about a particular passage. (I am even guilty of this on Sundays; listening to a sermon I think of the point I would make instead of the actual point being made) My worship is centered around me: what I want, what I think, what I like. And so I perpetually burn incense to myself.

In order to enter in to where God longs for me to be, I need to snuff out the incense and stop worshipping myself. With respect to our own veils that keep us from God Tozer writes, “In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue… To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed.” (pg 32)

I need to tear down the altar I have build to myself. I need to tear away my own veil that keeps me from God. This is going to hurt. I cannot do this alone. Praise be to God who sent his only Son to go ahead of me, shedding his blood for my sake. “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:14)

Knowing, Trusting, Entering

August 30, 2012Frank

In the third chapter of A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, Tozer highlights a serious danger to our churches that is as true today as it was when it was first written in 1948: “The world is perishing for
lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence.” (pg 27) There is a lot to digest here with respect to what keeps us from entering into the presence of God, but that will have to wait until next week. Instead I want to suggest that one of the things that causes the latter (want of his Presence) is a consequence of the former (lack of the knowledge of God). How much do
we take for granted evangelical language like when we “came to know Christ” or sing songs like “I’ve got a friend in Jesus”? A relationship requires more than meeting someone a single time, and
deep relationships require knowing someone intimately.

And so I believe one of the biggest obstacles to authentic Christianity in our churches is this lack of intimate knowledge of who God is. Books have been written on this very issue with respect to the Son (The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy for example), the Holy Spirit (Forgotten God by Francis Chan as one), or the Father (Praying the Names of God by Ann Spangler to round out the list from my personal bookshelf). But how many address the Triune God as not of singular characteristics of one of the three, but the perfection that comes from the whole? (And I believe Tozer recognized this when he later wrote The Knowledge of the Holy.) Ask yourself, when was the last time you heard a sermon on the very nature of God, or his majesty, or even of his infinite love and justice?

A couple paragraphs in this chapter stood out to me that I think need to be shared in their entirety:

Who is this within the veil who dwells in fiery manifestations? It is none other than God Himself, “One God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible,” and “One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten not made; being of one substance with the Father,” and “the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.” Yet this holy Trinity is One God, for “we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal.” So in part run the ancient creeds, and so the inspired Word declares. (pg 27)

What a broad world to roam in, what a sea to swim in is this God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is eternal, which means that he antedates time and is wholly independent of it. Time began in Him and will end in Him. To it He pays no tribute and from it He suffers no change. He is immutable, which means that He has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure. To change He would need to go from better to worse or from worse to better. He cannot do either, for being perfect He cannot become more perfect, and if He were to become less perfect He would be less than God. He is omniscient, which means that He knows in one free and effortless act all matter, all spirit, all relationships, all events. He has no past and He has no future. He is, and none of the limiting and qualifying terms used of creatures can apply to Him. Love and mercy and righteousness are His, and holiness so ineffable that no comparisons or figures will avail to express it. Only fire can give even a remote conception of it. In fire He appeared at the burning bush; in the pillar of fire He dwelt through all the long wilderness journey. The fire that glowed between the wings of the cherubim in the holy place was called the “shekinah,” the Presence, through the years of Israel’s glory, and when the Old had given place to the New, He came at Pentecost as a fiery flame and rested upon each disciple. (pg 28)

Is this the God you came to know when you accepted Jesus? Is this the God you know now this very moment? If so, are you living like you believe this? A couple things stand out- since God is eternal, time exists in Him not the other way around. And because of this, he has no past and no future and knows the result of all things.

I was just reading in Sheila Walsh’s God Loves Broken People about trusting in this aspect of God to carry us through our trials. We can plaster Romans 8 on a bumper sticker, but do we actually live as if it is true? Do we honestly, I mean honestly, believe that God works all things out for the good? As I type, New Orleans is flooding under yet another hurricane. That same hurricane, then as a tropical storm, pummeled Haiti with rain, ruining the makeshift tent cities and undoing much of the relief efforts there. Meanwhile political talking-heads jockey for position as voters concern themselves with
the economy, finding a job, and wondering how they are going to pay their bills. On whom is our faith based? We are surrounded by sickness, addiction and trauma that have ruined peoples’ very lives. Or has it?

Because we don’t really know God, it is hard to put our trust and faith in him. And because we struggle to trust him we allow all the circumstances above, and even inconsequential things like a tough day at the office or the kids fighting over a toy, to stand in our way of entering into His divine presence.

Thirst

August 9, 2012Frank

My mom is from the Southeast so we would regularly fly out over the summer to spend a week with her family. I remember nearly every trip getting migraine headaches that would lay me up in bed for a day. I would attribute it to the heat and the humidity, but then I took a trip to cooler climate and suffered the same malady. What was common was that I would feel this way the second day after flying, so I figured that maybe it was the recirculated air on-board, or the pressurization of the cabin. But I later learned it was dehydration. Spending 5-6 hours on a plane drinking nothing but free soda and no water has that effect. Since coming to that realization, I now will only drink water on-board and make sure to drink at least another liter of water every time I fly. And I haven’t had such a headache since.

“Blessed is the man

who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.”

(Psalm 1:1-3)

It is funny to look back and recognize that I physically felt ill just because I was thirsty. And because I was filling my body with junk disguised as refreshment, I didn’t recognize my need for pure water.

A.W. Tozer writes “Christ may be ‘received’ without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is ‘saved’ but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.” (Pursuit of God, pg 12)

We are fooled into thinking we are spiritually satisfied by church attendance or religious participation. Meanwhile our souls ache inexplicably. We fail to recognize the thirst that God himself has placed in us. “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.” (pg 9)

It would be easy to jump on my soapbox and compare religiosity to the nutritionally vapid soda from my personal experience. What is interesting is that nearly 70 years ago, Tozer observed the same thing. This is nothing new and whatever I write on some blog is unlikely to change that. Instead I need to look inwardly at my own thirst, and my own temptation to drink deeply from that which does not satisfy.

“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:2)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

In the Beatitude above it is in vogue to translate righteousness instead as justice and miss the point of personal sanctification. The Amplified Bible expands righteousness as “uprightness and right standing with God.” The Message Bible talks of having a “good appetite for God.” The temptation, besides an outward focused “justice” is a works-oriented trying hard to do good definition of righteousness. I like the idea combining the two translations above as simply having an appetite to be with God.

My soul thirsts for God. I am hungry to be with Him. Where can I go to satisfy my appetite and be filled? My temptation is to look around and try and find some program, some activity, some quick-fix to my spiritual longing. Tozer addresses this too, “The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.” (pg 15) Simply put, man created religion to satisfy the need to seek out God and his holiness. But it is man-made and can never satisfy. So for every failed method there is an improved program. For every campaign that falls short there is a new marketing program. For every book read and put down there is another best-seller to take its place.

I cannot be satisfied by what the world, even the religious world, offers. Only God himself can satisfy my soul. Only God, God alone. And so I begin this book in The Pursuit of God.

Give God a Valentine

February 15, 2009Frank

I was asked to give the contribution talk this morning and I thought I’d share it here too…

I saw on the news that last year the average person spent $123 on Valentines Day and this year given the economy it was expected to drop to $102. That sounds like a lot, but if consider dinner on top of the flowers, candies, and cards you can see how that would add up quick. I bring this up because it points out how we spend a lot of money on silly things while we struggle to pay the bills and make ends meet. (not that Valentines Day is silly, but the efforts we go though to impress our loved ones with things is)