Our Daily Bread in ALL Things

     My dear friend Gary Cepek has given me permission to share his words of response to my brotherly concern for his health. He has Lyme Disease, which has recurring symptoms that are sometimes very severe. His response is one that I believe can serve us all as we look to our gracious God and Father for purpose and understanding in our daily experiences.

     Thank you again for your encouragement and support about my health issues. Our God graciously grants such expressions in Christ to add to the goodness of the day He grants me. As Luther was granted insight to teach Scriptural truths about daily bread, he noted that good health is a daily gift our Father grants us each day. As the Spirit mercifully renews me in Christ during the day He gives me, I grasp by faith that truth, that no matter how I or anyone else may adjudge my health (or any other aspect of daily bread for that matter) it is good because it is exactly what the Father knows will best serve His eternal purpose for me "today" all the while serving my earthly life in the best possible way also. Paralleling that truth, all that is of the curse from Adam and on Adam and us must also serve that wonderful purpose. So truly, each child of God has each moment every good and perfect gift, coming down from the heavenly Father with whom there is no variation or change.

     Gary has been taught in the school of the Holy Spirit the faith that grasps God’s gracious activity even in the things that cannot be understood from our ordinary human reason. The Holy Spirit is poured out to us in our baptism to be our counselor and comforter and teacher. The Lord Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead His disciples into all truth, causing them to recall all things whatsoever that He had taught them and putting these into the proper perspective. That same promise is given to us.

     This faith is not a faith that we generate for ourselves. It is the faith of Jesus, the faith through which His life, His accomplishments, His faithfulness, His goodness, His merits are accounted to us as our own so that we are made to know God as our loving, gracious, merciful Father.

     Gary’s words above are more than just a statement of what he personally chooses to believe. These words are a wonderful prayer. This prayer is taught by the Holy Spirit. In this prayer is expressed the absolute confidence that the Holy Spirit gives concerning God’s promises to work good through all things to those who love Him, the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

     In the following verse St. Paul further explains this, saying:

     For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

     Here St. Paul explains that God’s knowledge concerning us is perfect. His knowledge of who we are and what we need is from eternity. We see things from the limitations of our temporality. Our perception is blurred by our senses of pain and loss and grief and sorrow. We often cannot see the good that God is working for us through the circumstances that we encounter. Through the faith of Jesus, however, we do see. This faith directs us beyond what we can know according to our own reason and strength to the assurance of God’s perfect holiness and goodness, His limitless mercy and love. We are made to have this confidence in connection with the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. As the doctrine of the true faith directs us away from ourselves to the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, then we see how God works for us through the most horrific suffering and anguish. Our fleshly nature looks for help and relief through other means, but God brings us perfect deliverance through the cross.

     In their eternal counsel together the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit predestinated our salvation through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. From beyond the reaches of time they stretched forth their mercy to us and redeemed us from the destructive choices of our sinfulness. And God turned suffering and death and misery into the opposite for us, He turned these into blessedness, life, and everlasting joy. Even our considerably lesser troubles also serve God’s purposes for us, if we receive them in the faith that He gives. Then we begin to pray as dear Gary has shared with us. Then we begin to understand how our Lord Jesus prayed especially in the garden, “Not My will but Thine be done.” Then, by faith, we already have the blessing that we will only perceive with our time bound reason on the other side of the trial.

+ + +

Reformation Day —God’s True Purpose for His Church

When I was a teenager, our family needed to clear some acreage of the briars and palmettos and undergrowth and to level the ground for seeding.  We had a small tractor with various implements.  My father entrusted much of the work to me as the eldest son.

The work included pulling out various palmettos and stumps, plowing and then discing.  One day I was discing through some very tricky areas between the pine trees.  Often the passages were very narrow between the trees.

On one pass through a particularly narrow gap, a large stinging insect attacked and stung or bit me on the back of my shoulder.  It felt as though someone stuck me with a red hot fire iron.

I jerked in response to the pain, thereby turning the wheel slightly, and running the front right wheel of the tractor into one of the pines.  I broke the axle.

I was in pain.  I needed to tend to my shoulder.  But I also was hurting because I broke the tractor.  I had broken my father’s trust.  I broke his tractor.  I felt guilty, ashamed, and afraid.

When Dad came home I told him how I had let him down.

He responded, “Let’s see.”  Upon examining it he said, “Well, we’ll have to fix it.”

After we fixed it, which did cost for the repairs, again he entrusted me to do the work at hand, reminding me to be careful.

This is much like the Lord’s way of dealing with His children, only God’s is even better.  Not only does He deal with us with compassion, love, and forgiveness, not only does He fix what we have broken, not only does He take away our guilt and shame and fear, not only does He entrust to us again the work of His kingdom, but He also empowers us through the gift of the indwelling of His Holy Spirit and through the continual nurturing of His Holy Communion.

Sadly, those to whom the most precious work of preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments has been entrusted keep forgetting this as His true purpose for His Church.  And so, as has happened time and time again in previous times, the focus becomes shifted to what we must do rather than what our Heavenly Father does for us.  The preaching becomes “How to” sermons.  The precious Gospel is reduced to commandments that we must keep, such as “You must believe” and “You must repent” and “You must commit your lives to Jesus” and “You must make Jesus the center of your life.”

But the Gospel is the proclamation of what God does for us through His Church and His means of grace.  Through the pure preaching of the Gospel Jesus comes to us and with Him the Holy Spirit, and we are regenerated as the water of Baptism is poured over us in connection with this preaching of Jesus through which the Holy Spirit works and enters into us and makes us to be His tabernacles on earth.  God Himself works the repentance or changing of heart and mind that we need so that we know Him for who He really is.  God committed His life to us, through the gift of His Son, Jesus, so that we would not have to rely upon our weak and faltering personal faith and commitment to Him.  He makes His commitment to us the cause of our salvation and redemption and justification and sanctification.  God makes us the center of His life in His body, the Church.  He makes us the very reason for the Church’s existence, that in His Church He may come to us and commune with us as His precious saints.  He proclaims us to be saints and comes to us to reclaim us again and again and again through the holy absolution and through the Holy Supper.  He makes Himself to be the very foundation of our life so that we don’t have to commit ourselves to Him or try to make Him our focus.  He does this for us through the continual activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives, who is poured out to us and into us in our baptism.

Then the work that He entrusts to us is not a burden that we must strive to fulfill.  Rather, our very lives are made to be the fulfillment of the work entrusted to us as we live as His beloved children, turning again and again to His forgiveness and renewal, rejoicing in His goodness, mercy, and love.  Through this the world sees God’s work done in us and for us and occasionally someone actually asks us to give the reason for the hope in which we live.  Then we joyously may share with them the good news that they, too, are God’s children whom He wishes to have rejoined to Him in His everlasting kingdom of righteousness and blessedness.  Then they too may received the free gift of the new life that is in Christ Jesus in His body, the Church, the household of God.

This is the joyous focus of Reformation Day.  When this is how the Reformation is understood, every day is Reformation Day and the rejoicing truly never ceases.

+ + +

From Whence Comes Good Gifts?

Yesterday was a very warm day, especially for me, as I was fulfilling my duty as husband and chief barbeque chef.  We decided that barbecuing a turkey would be a good choice for this week’s meat supply for our suppers.

As I prepared the fire, the robins splashed about in the two pans of water that I have in the yard for the birds and squirrels and other by-passers of our back yard.  One of the robins perched on the fence and looked back at me as I worked.  I said to him, “You’re welcome.”  Then I thought and said, “Do you even know that I am the one who sets the water out for you?”

It seemed to me a fitting reflection of this Sunday’s Epistle reading.

     Do not err, my beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.  Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.  Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:  For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.  Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.  (James 1:16-21)

How often we forget that every giving that is good and every gift that is complete is from above, coming down to us from the Father of lights.  How truly good and gracious and loving our heavenly Father is we really do not realize.  We do not even understand all that we need for our lives, yet the Lord ceaselessly provides everything, even without our knowledge or understanding, even without our asking, even without our faithfulness.  We abuse ourselves and He reaches out to us offering healing.  We wander into foolish ways and He calls us back to the straight path of safety.

Oh, that we would hear Him, truly hear Him, even as the Collect of the Day leads us to pray and confess:

     O God, who makes the minds of the faithful to be of one will, grant unto Thy people that they may love what Thou commandest and desire what Thou dost promise that among the manifold changes of this world our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

+ + +

The Jealous Father

Here is a story that breaks the heart:

A loving husband and father worked very hard to establish a household for his wife and children. He promised to be faithful and always to take care of them. He built a house, a magnificent home, a genuine mansion. Some might even call it a castle.

He worked and provided for all of the needs of his family. He set up a trust fund that would continually grow so as to provide for his family in perpetuity. He made certain that they were safe and protected.

One day along came a conniving swindler, who had many secret assistants. This selfish and cruel embezzler and thief came to the wife and children with a story about how the father was not as caring and loving as he had presented to them. While the father was busy providing for them and planning for their future, this other fellow convinced the family that they would be better off making their own plans and establishing their own way. He explained how they could take the investments that the father had kept from them and use them more productively. He explained that they could use these investments for things that the father had not given to them for their use, or at least not for the uses that they now would engage.

All that the father had established was undermined. The family unity disintegrated. The family members began to envy one another and to plot against one another. Turmoil supplanted the peace and harmony previously enjoyed. The children began to focus upon hoarding resources. Hard and arduous work became the daily routine. Fences were built to prevent stealing. Wars arose over property disputes.

The father spoke to the family members and urged them to return to the way that they formerly enjoyed together. A few listened and lived in peace together. But the others, the vast majority, reacted angrily and began to promote hatred toward those who listened to their father. The few remaining in the unity of the family were mistreated and sometimes enslaved and sometimes even killed.

What was the father to do? What action should he take concerning those who chose to destroy all that he had lovingly established? What should he do regarding the belligerent rebellion and subsequent attacks against those who remained in the family together?

+ + +

You Stinking Hypocrite!

Hypocrites, hypocrites everywhere!




This includes my own mirror.

That is, of course, the first place that we each need to acknowledge the reflection of hypocrisy. After turning to the Lord to remove the log from our own eyes, then we see the specks in the eyes of others more clearly. Suddenly what we previously perceived as such an enormous cause for judging others shrinks in our perception.

Certainly there are some monstrous things being perpetrated in the world. But how many of these are actually my responsibility? In a nation where I have a role in the election of those who govern, I do have the obligation to do what I can to be informed. I have an obligation to cry out on behalf of those who are wronged and to cry out for that which is right. But even then, how far does this responsibility extend?

The Lord instructs that my first concern should be regarding my own thoughts, words, and deeds. Then I also am to see to my own family. In this connection I am to judge or discern the Lord’s body so as to be certain that where my household congregates is truly the Lord’s body where His true Communion is. (1 Cor. 11; Matt. 18)

These certainly are sufficient to keep my heart and mind occupied.

But I am not to be like Cain. I am to realize that I am also my brother’s keeper. I am to look beyond myself and my own family and the congregation to which the Holy Spirit gathers us, looking next to those whom I can identify as my brethren in the Lord, and then also to my neighbor. This begins with my prayers to the Lord on their behalf, both generally as in the Our Father, and specifically as I become aware of my neighbor’s personal needs. These prayers for my neighbor will also move me to do what I am able for my neighbor directly. This even extends to issues regarding the city council and eventually even to the vote that I cast for the President of the country.

But when I do these things in honest acknowledgment of all that I observe, I am always back in front of the mirror, being confronted with my own failures, my own sin, and my own hypocrisy, from which I need for the Lord to turn me, directing me again to His grace in Christ. Then, having received his forgiveness I also am empowered to forgive myself. Then I am set free to do the same for everyone else whom I encounter, first forgiving them from my own heart, and then, in that freedom, proclaiming to them God’s forgiveness in Christ.

Imagine what the world would observe if indeed all who professed to believe in Christ actually lived as He has declared. Imagine if this is what the world observed as the way of Christians. Imagine how differently from the current perception even Christians would perceive the Church.

+ + +

Sad Sign

My next door neighbor, who was ninety-one years old, died. The memorial service was conducted. The family came for the precious memories attached to some of his possessions. Tuesday the auctioneer came to tote away the rest. All that remains is this sign:

Everyday this sign reminds me that my old friend is no longer to be found next door. Everyday I walk out to prepare for the day’s work and look to his back yard where he sat and called to me to visit, but his chair is no longer there. Every night I come home and see the same.

Death is not kind. It is a thief. But it is not the master thief, Satan is, who used God’s own words with just the tiniest change to trick our first parents so that they exchanged God’s gift of life for the delusion of free will, and with it, the choice of separation from God, that is, Sin. And the wages of Sin is death. Death is what so-called free will accomplishes. It is not free at all, but people imagine that it is.

Upon listening to the serpent, Adam immediately discovered the trap that the devil had set with the delusion of free will. Previously mankind lived in perfect freedom, the freedom of the communion of God’s holy and perfect will. All things were possible. All things were free. All things were good! But with the choice to “be like God” freedom was cast away for the bondage of “the knowledge of good and evil.” Now everything was corrupted and Adam had no freedom, no ability, to restore what he had destroyed. Now all of his offspring would be in bondage to this delusion, to this hopeless corruption of understanding and knowledge and will. Never again would mankind have the freedom of knowing only good.

This is why we dare not allow the Gospel to be compromised in even the tiniest degree. Any change, any compromise, has the same result as the tiny change that the serpent presented to the woman and through her to Adam. The Gospel is pure. The pure Gospel is life. A corrupted or compromised or adulterated Gospel is death.

Truly, the “For Sale” sign that has been placed over the churches and their preaching and practices is a very sad sign. But the true Church shall stand by the Lord’s promise and decree, and even the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Wherever the Holy Spirit gathers the few to the Pure Gospel and Sacraments, there the Church still stands, offering the pure water of Life and freedom to all who gladly receive it.

+ + +

As Thyself

This past Sunday’s Gospel reading is surely familiar to all who call themselves Christian. The reading is Matthew 22:31-46.

But how many people understand what this text teaches? Sandwiched into the middle of this text is the question: “Which is the great commandment of the law?” The Lord Jesus answers more than the lawyer realized that he was asking. For the lawyer, even with all of his study of the law, knew nothing of its true meaning. The Lord Jesus answers, quoting Moses:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)

I’d like to examine this beginning in reverse, since this is where we usually begin in our daily lives. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” The reason for beginning in reverse is because this is how we generally function. We struggle to do for ourselves what is really the outflow of what needs to be done for us and in us. We struggle with our actions toward neighbor.

Why do we struggle in this way? Why do we find it difficult truly to love our neighbor? Is it not because of selfishness? And what really is selfishness? Why do we act selfishly? Is it not because we do not feel complete in ourselves and so we seek after and grasp after things as though they could somehow fulfill us? What is the result? Do we find ourselves feeling fulfilled? Do we find ourselves feeling satisfied? Or do we find ourselves struggling more and more to gain that which is beyond us? Don’t we find ourselves feeling empty and full of nothing but failure?

How often do we end up saying something like: “I hate myself!” and “I wish I were dead!”

But this is the exact opposite of what the Lord our God desires for us and commands as what should be for us.

Do you hear, first of all, how differently this is stated than how we often interpret it? God’s commandment is concerning what should be for us, not what we should do for ourselves. This will become more clear shortly.

The second great command is like the first. Both are concerning love. The second great command says “You will love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not an imperative but a future indicative. It indicates what will be, not what one must do. It begins saying how a child of God will live in connection with neighbor: “You will love your neighbor.” This is further defined by what absolutely must precede it: “You will love your neighbor in the same manner as you love yourself.”

Before we can love our neighbor, we must love ourselves. Thus self does come before neighbor. Because we do not rightly understand this, we end up acting selfishly. Because we do not understand the true meaning of loving self, we become selfish and unable to see beyond what we cannot make happen on our own. This is because love for self is not something that we do of our own accord but as that which naturally follows the first great command of God.

The first great command is: “You will love the Lord your God in all of your heart and in all of your soul and in all of your mind.”

Again this is future tense indicating what will be. God speaks His command in this way because He is the one who will make it happen in us. And this little word “in” carries a very big meaning, a very different meaning than the way our translations interpret this. For our translations choose to change this to “with” rather than what stands written as “in”.

This is why we struggle so terribly with love. We hear that we must love with all of our heart and soul and mind when the Lord promises that He will change us so that we love in all of our heart and soul and mind. Love is of God and God is Love. (1 John 4) When God fills our heart and soul and mind then His love fills our heart and soul and mind and drives out the emptiness that drives us to selfishness. Selfishness is not the result of loving oneself but of desperately desiring love for oneself. Since we cannot supply this love for ourselves we seek to steal it for ourselves.

But Love is of God for God is Love. Love for self comes from knowing God fully as He comes to us through His means of grace and fills us through and through with His gracious and loving presence. When the Lord has filled us in our heart and soul and mind, we love as He loves. We first know His love to us personally, and knowing His love moves us to respond in love toward Him. As we love ourselves with this love that fills us it overflows in our lives so that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This is not what we do as much as what we have been regenerated to be.

This is what we must learn regarding true love. Love is not a choice. Love is who we have been regenerated to be. In Baptism God gives to us the Holy Spirit who takes up residence in us and fills our heart and soul and mind. Through this holy union God sanctifies us and sets us apart, recreating us in His image again. Notice that God does not say that He created us with His image but in His image. (Genesis 1:26-27) This image of God is Christ. (Colossians 1:12-18)

Those who have been regenerated into Christ have been regenerated into the image of God and as they begin to understand this more and more their lives begin to reflect their newborn identity more and more fully. Since God is love, this is what begins to show more and more. For as we grow in understanding what God has done for us, we respond to His love in love. As we begin to love ourselves as God loves us, it is only natural that we will love our neighbors as ourselves.

+ + +

Collect for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity

One of the things that continues to leave me in awe about the historic liturgy is the use of the Collect of the Day. Each Sunday these wonderful snippets direct our hearts to important aspects of the daily pericopal readings.

Here is the Collect from this Sunday:

O God, who declarest Thine almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of Thy grace that we, running the way of Thy commandments, may obtain Thy gracious promises and be made partakers of Thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

This collect marvelously directs our hearts to acknowledge what the Lord declares to us concerning Himself. The Lord God to whom we pray is the one who declares His almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity. His primary means of making His almighty power known to us is not through signs and wonders in the heavens and in the earth and in the seas, but in showing mercy and pity.

Is this not absolutely wonderful? Is this not magnificent? Is this not worthy of our full devotion and attention? This is what the divine service is given to teach us and deliver to us. This is what the Holy Spirit calls us to congregate to hear and to receive. Throughout the entire service this is what God works and gives to us.

Notice that the collect directs us to remember that it is through the declaration of God’s mercy and pity to us that we are enabled to run the way of the commandments and obtain God’s gracious promises and we are made to be partakers of His heavenly treasures. Notice that the true faith teaches us that we do not obtain God’s gracious promises through our own obedience, but through His mercy and pity declared unto us. We are made partakers of His heavenly treasure not through our obedience, but through the declaration of His mercy and pity to us. The power is in His declaration. Even the power to honor the commandments and to value them as part of the way through which God blesses us, is through the declaration of His mercy and pity.

God does bless us through His commandments, because He produces the obedience in us through the faith that He gives. For example, He commands that we administer the Sacrament and partake of it together for the forgiveness of our sins and renewed faith in His mercy and grace. Because He works faith in us to believe His good and gracious will and to believe His promise of forgiveness and renewal in the Sacrament, we administer it in the congregation according to His commandment and we come forward and receive His blessings through this blessed means of His grace. This obedience is not something that we choose to do, but rather, it is produced in us through the faith that He generates in us concerning His mercy and gracious will toward us and concerning His promise to grant us forgiveness and renewal through the body and blood of Jesus. At the Last Day, even as He does today, He will count these works that He produces in us as our own works and say “Well done!”

Who but the Lord would even imagine such to be possible, let alone actually to make it so? Truly this requires almighty power, which He declares to us chiefly in showing mercy and pity.


† † †

What is the purpose of life?

A very kind person sent me the following in an e-mail. I also found it through an Internet search at many other locations, including: Celebrate Recovery: Interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren.

I found the following rather inspiring. In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond, In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body - but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillion of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act, the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life: The goal is to grow in character, In Christ-likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you got to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, “which is my problem, my issues, my pain.”

But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people…You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before.
I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for you to own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan - to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better…God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do. That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

While many people find this sort of theology to be helpful and encouraging, the question to ask is whether or not it is the theology that the Holy Spirit has revealed through His Holy Scriptures. Is this really the way?

Not many churches today use the historic liturgy. Even among those who still use a liturgical format, some of the elements of the historic liturgy have been changed and even lost in common usage. One of the very significant losses seems to be the General Prayer. In The Lutheran Hymnal it is found on pages 23 and 24.

Near the center of this marvelous prayer is the following paragraph:

All who are in trouble, want, sickness, anguish of labor, peril of death, or any other adversity, especially those who are in suffering for Thy name’s and for Thy truth’s sake, comfort, O God, with Thy Holy Spirit, that they may receive and acknowledge their afflictions as the manifestation of Thy fatherly will.

I feel for Rick Warren in his time of hardship and adversity. This is a time of great struggle for him and his wife and all who are near and dear to them.

However, his understanding is wrong and it leads him to make false statements regarding God, life, and the purpose of life.

He and all who seek to know God as the truly merciful and loving Father that He declares and proves Himself to be, would do well to hear and to pray this section of the General Prayer, which is an emulation of what the apostles and their Lord have taught on this matter.

First of all, the purpose of life is NOT “preparation for eternity.” The purpose of life is to live. We are not capable of preparing for eternity. This preparation is the work of the Lord. The Lord Jesus made this very clear, saying:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. (John 14:1-7)

The Lord Jesus is the one who prepares both us and our place in the Father’s house. The Holy Spirit is the one who works within us to convert us and to give us the faith that saves us. He is the one who continually calls us unto repentance. He is the one given to us in Baptism to sanctify us and make us fit for God’s kingdom through the merits of Christ Jesus.

This is not our work. It is not our doing. Rick is right in saying that we are made to be human beings and not human doings. By this I mean that we are not the ones who do the work of preparation but we are the ones being prepared. The preparation is done by the one who was and is and ever shall be.

Rick says that life is a series of problems. From our perspective this is true. But our perspective is warped and corrupted and incomplete at best. Our perspective needs to be set right by the clear statements of the Holy Scriptures. Praying the General Prayer helps us to remember just what the Scriptures declare to us.

Like the Lord very strongly explained to Job, all of the things that happen in our lives, even the things that the Lord allows the devil to inflict upon us, are the Lord’s doing. By faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit we receive these as manifestations of the good and gracious will of our heavenly Father. While many of these things we may never understand fully, on account of what the Holy Spirit teaches us in our hearts we know that all things God works together for our good. Thus, we count even the things that cause us to mourn and to cry out in anguish to be manifestations of His fatherly will.

When this is the perspective worked in us by the Holy Spirit, we realize that we do not need to rationalize in an attempt to understand everything that happens in our earthly lives. We realize that God alone can know the fullness of His purposes and plans. We realize that He alone can see the good before it is revealed in time.

This changes our perspective completely so that with St. Paul we can say:

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. (Philippians 4:11-12)

What St. Paul here teaches is not something that he learned on his own. This was taught to him by the Holy Spirit. This is not merely accepting bad things. This is the knowledge that for those who are in Christ there are no bad things. This is very different than saying as Rick does: “And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.” No. St. Paul instructs us that we are empowered to give thanks to God even for the things that we perceive as being bad.

This is the nature of true faith. It does not rely upon what is seen and perceived. Rather, it relies upon God and His endless goodness and mercy. The true faith praises God in every situation and trusts that what is happening is in accord with His good and gracious will.

Moreover, the true faith does not move us to imagine that the goal of life is “to grow in character, In Christ-likeness.” The true faith teaches us to believe that through Baptism that the Holy Spirit has sanctified us and works within us to show us this new nature that He has regenerated us to receive. This is why the Holy Spirit calls us to confess our sins: so that we may hear God’s holy absolution and call to partake with Him in the Holy Communion of His body and blood. First He washes us into His body and then He feeds us the unity of His body and the forgiveness of His blood. Through this we are brought again and again and again into the knowledge that this is not something that we need to do for ourselves, but what God does for us. He has brought us again into the image of His Son through Baptism and He keeps us alive as branches grafted into the vine, continually receiving the lifeblood of the body which is poured out to all of the members.

It is a shame that so many people who call themselves Christians refuse to acknowledge these means of grace which Christ Himself ordained. If only those who struggle to be Christlike would believe His words and receive Him as He promises to come to us. Then their struggles would be turned to blessing and their sorrows to true joy that cannot be measured. Then they would rely upon Christ, as the true faith is worked in them through the means in which the Holy Spirit works, and they would not need to invent a purpose for their lives. They would not even wonder what the purpose is, anymore than a newborn babe wonders about such things. No, they would simply crave the Word’s pure milk and drink it in as God gives it.

As the thorns and thistles and briars of life grow up around us, as the waves of life’s tempestuous sea rage against us, we tend to look away from Christ and to try to choke out the weeds and to keep our heads above the waves. But we do not have this power. God does. And He is faithful to do what He has promised.

As for myself, I am not preparing for eternity, for Christ has promised that He sent His Holy Spirit to do that for me. Christ Himself paid the price to redeem me and the Holy Spirit dwells in me to keep me in the true faith with Christ Jesus my Lord. This is the eternal will of God, our Father in heaven, who has accomplished all this even from eternity so that the promise was made to Adam and Eve, and continues on to you and to me. So what is left for me to do? What is the purpose of my life? I am told to LIVE! I am told to walk in spirit. I am told to partake of the blessed gifts of life that are administered in Christ’s Church.

Why on earth would I choose to try to find some other explanation?

Romans 1:17 says that the just out of faith shall live. Faith is the source for our life, and faith is God’s gift that is not of ourselves and not a work that we must do (Ephesians 2:8-9).

It truly does not get any better than this!


† † †

Enslaved by Lust

Wow! I saw this advertisement today.

I often glance past advertisements but this one seemed to burn into my brain. Lust is not limited to sexual desire. We lust for sweets and for junk food and for entertainment and for basically everything that exists.

These lusts enslave us if we allow them to do so. More accurately, they enslave us and we need to be set free from their powers. Our lusts burn from within us. They smoulder within our sinful nature until various factors fan them into roaring flames.

So how can we be free? Do we muster up strength from within to resist them? Do we go to a hypnotist and allow our emotions and our subconscious to be tricked into submission to the hypnotic “suggestions”?

There is a better way. There is a way of true freedom from lust. That way is the way of conversion. That way is the way of true faith. The Holy Spirit is poured out to us in our baptism to live within us. He works continually through the Word and through the Word filled Sacrament. Jesus is in the Sacrament of the Altar. Our God comes to us and gives Himself to us. He empowers us with the true faith with the gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism. He nurtures us in this true faith through the Holy Supper.

By these means and through the continual preaching of the Gospel, He fills us with His will. His thoughts and holy desires begin to fill us so that our own lusts are pressed out of us. The two ways oppose one another. But God’s will is greater. His will is omnipotent. When His will fills us, our wills are converted to be one with His will. The more that we partake of His means of grace, the more that we rely upon the means that He has provided for us, the more fully our wills become subjected to His.

This is not the same as making a choice. Rather it is a way. God comes to us through His Word. His Word confronts us in our ways and shows us the destruction, the everlasting destruction of the ways that we choose for ourselves. He shows us the everlasting blessing of His way. His Word penetrates our very soul, converting our spirit and our mind and our heart and our will so that His will fills us and drives out the old will. Then He continually calls to us through the Word that has taken root in us and is growing within us by the activity of the Holy Spirit. His Word takes hold within us and even though the old nature tries to come forward and tries to grow again to press out the Word, the Word prevails. The Word is greater than our sinful nature. The Word is greater than our sinful desires. The Word is greater than even our sins.

The question is not whether or not we will choose to listen and heed the Word. The question is whether or not we will choose to stop listening and heeding the Word. Once the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts, there remains no choice except for the original choice that Adam made that brought death to the world.

According to our sinful nature we resist the notion of bondage to God’s will being freedom. I like to use the example of my tree climbing to illustrate why bondage to the right way is indeed freedom.

In my tree climbing I bind myself to certain rules. One of these rules binds me further to my climbing rope or ropes. Before I enter into a tall tree I always position my climbing line into a suitable crotch of a limb of sufficient strength to support my weight. Then I tie the appropriate climbing friction knot and attach my climbing saddle, which I have secured to my body. This binds me to the secure crotch in the tree. While it restricts my movement in certain ways, it also sets me free to climb without fear of falling. There are numerous other rules involved in my climbing, to which I bind myself. These restrict me from certain things but set me free to do such things as to walk out onto a branch that otherwise would not support my weight. These set me free to do some rather amazing feats in the tree.

There is a difference, however, between this and the bondage of the true faith. In the example above I do the binding. In the matter of the faith, God does not leave this to me to do for myself. He does the binding. Not only does He teach the need for this binding, but He actually makes it happen. He converts my will so that I become bound to Him and His will. He binds me with the gift of His Holy Spirit. He binds me and maintains the tie, the communion. He does it all for me and I merely follow along in His way. On my own I would wander, but because He has bound me to Himself, I am gently led along the right way, even pulled onward in His way.

God works the same for all who are truly united with Him through the means that He has ordained. This is the way of freedom that little babies know. God makes us to be His beloved and protected children once again.

Who Put Christ on the Cross?

Who put Christ on the cross? This is a question that is set forth by many and frequently, especially during Lententide and Holy Week. Good Friday is a day when every heart that hears of Christ’s sacrificial death is inclined to ask this question.

Hearing and perceiving the correct answer to this question is the difference between hearing the Gospel or hearing yet again the tyranny of the preaching of the Law and works righteousness.

Most times, what is preached and/or perceived in connection with this question is akin to the answer given at CyberBrethren in the post entitled: Who Put Christ on the Cross? You did.

This is indeed the commonly held perception. This is very likely the first response that any person has to the preaching of the cross of Christ. Cyberbrethren’s post opens with this line: “It was your sin, and mine, that put him on the Cross.”

While this is the commonly held perception, is it true? No. Even more, absolutely no!

As the appointed pericopal texts from Maundy Thursday and Good Friday inform us, it was the love of God that put Jesus on the cross. Our sin did not put Jesus on the cross. Our sin put US on the cross. Our sin killed US and damned US to everlasting condemnation. Our sin placed US under the curse of everlasting death on account of separating US from God’s Holy Communion.

From the Maundy Thursday Gospel reading, John 13:1-15, the very first sentence in this text sets this plainly before us, saying, “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

This is a brief reiteration of what Jesus Himself declared earlier in John 10:13-18:

     The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

Jesus, Immanuel, with-us-God, did all that was foretold of Him to insure that those who rejected and hated Him would hand Him over to the Gentiles to be crucified. This was God’s will from eternity. It was foreshadowed in the Passover. In merciful love, God Himself took up our flesh, tabernacling among us with the fullness of His glory enshrouded by flesh and blood, so as to take our sin and carry it to the cross. Immanuel willingly took our place on the cross.

Who put Jesus on the cross? Jesus did! He went to the cross in order to carry our sin to the judgment and to the grave for us in order to set us free from the guilt and the condemnation from which we could never escape. He subjected Himself to the cross so as to remove all guilt of the curse of the tree from us. To incorporate us into the freedom that He purchased for us, He instituted Baptism, as the means of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the regeneration and renewal of faith that the Holy Spirit works. By this newly generated faith He then leads us to the continual proclamation of His death till He comes again in glory, that we should partake of the fullness of the life of the Holy Communion that is in His body and blood.

This distinction is important. It is vitally important. For in recognizing that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is entirely according to the will and gracious providence of the Lord Himself, we are freed from all guilt, including the guilt of the putting of Jesus upon the cross. In the appointed Gospel reading for Good Friday, John 18:1-19:42, Jesus makes this unmistakably clear.

     When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?

     Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

Who had the greatest sin? Who but the Lamb of God who takes the sin of the world? Even Satan has no sin equal to this! Jesus alone carried the sin of the entire world. He sent Judas from the Supper to do the wickedness that dwelled in his heart. Jesus went to Gethsemane, where He knew that Judas would bring the soldiers from the Sanhedrin. Jesus commanded Peter to put away His sword. Jesus prayed for the strength not to call upon the legions of heavenly angels to fight for Him. Jesus healed the ear of the servant. Jesus permitted Himself to be chained and led away, to be falsely accused, to be mocked and spit upon, to be beaten and scourged, and finally to be crucified. The sin of the cross was fully upon the shoulders of Jesus alone. He carried it all, willingly, lovingly.

So, fellow sinner redeemed by Christ, allow no one to put that guilt upon you. Jesus has taken the sin of the world and continues to take it through the means of grace. Do not allow the devil, the world, or your own flesh to tempt you to believe that in some way you must take any part of this upon yourself. The Truth is that in Christ Jesus you are absolutely and unequivocally free!

Paul Gerhardt understood this clearly as he expounds in his magnificent hymn, “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth,” which you can read and sing again for yourself. (TLH 142)

1. A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth,
The guilt of all men bearing;
And laden with the sins of earth,
None else the burden sharing!
Goes patient on, grows weak and faint,
To slaughter led without complaint,
That spotless life to offer;
Bears shame and stripes, and wounds and death,
Anguish and mockery, and saith,
"Willing all this I suffer."

2. This Lamb is Christ, the soul's great Friend,
The Lamb of God, our Savior;
Him God the Father chose to send
To gain for us His favor.
"Go forth, My Son," the Father saith,
"And free men from the fear of death,
From guilt and condemnation.
The wrath and stripes are hard to bear,
But by Thy Passion men shall share
The fruit of Thy salvation."

3. "Yea, Father, yea, most willingly
I'll bear what Thou commandest;
My will conforms to Thy decree,
I do what Thou demandest."
O wondrous Love, what hast Thou done!
The Father offers up His Son!
The Son, content, descendeth! O Love, how strong Thou art to save!Thou beddest Him within the grave
Whose word the mountains rendeth.

4. From morn till eve my theme shall be
Thy mercy's wondrous measure;
To sacrifice myself for Thee
Shall be my aim and pleasure.
My stream of life shall ever be
A current flowing ceaselessly,
Thy constant praise outpouring.
I'll treasure in my memory,
O Lord, all Thou hast done for me,
Thy gracious love adoring.

5. Of death I am no more afraid,
New life from Thee is flowing;
Thy cross affords me cooling shade
When noonday's sun is glowing.
When by my grief I am opprest,
On Thee my weary soul shall rest
Serenely as on pillows.
Thou art my Anchor when by woe
My bark is driven to and fro
On trouble's surging billows.

6. And when Thy glory I shall see
And taste Thy kingdom's pleasure,
Thy blood my royal robe shall be,
My joy beyond all measure.
When I appear before Thy throne,
Thy righteousness shall be my crown,-
With these I need not hide me.
And there, in garments richly wrought
As Thine own bride, I shall be brought
To stand in joy beside Thee.

Ash Wednesday & Divine Fasting

On this day of Ash Wednesday the appointed readings of holy Scripture are:

Psalm 6 (for Matins);
Psalm 51 (for Vespers);
Jonah 3:1-10;
Isaiah 59:12-21;
Joel 2:12-19;
and Matthew 6:16-21.

Repentance and fasting with and unto repentance is the theme of the day, as it is for the life of the Church.

People often choose only part of the definition of repentance for themselves. Often the chosen focus is merely the part that includes feelings of contrition and regret. But the New Testament word for repent is metanoia. It literally means a change of mind or thought. This is far more than the common feeling of sinful mankind of being sorry that we do not measure up to what we think that we ought to be and do. Metanoia is much more than this. It is an actual change of the mind in how it thinks. Metanoia is not only feeling sorry for our sinfulness and sinful actions, it is a change that is worked by God’s merciful love that overpowers us in our very being so that we are changed from idolaters to God fearing people. This is what changes one from being a disciple of choice to being a disciple of Christ, that is, a disciple of faith.

Faith is not a choice. Whatever godly and goodly choices that we make are produced by the faith that the Holy Spirit works in us, not the other way around. True contrition does not stop with being sorry and asking forgiveness. True contrition turns us around in our very thinking so that we no longer look to ourselves and our own thoughts and desires and actions, but to God and His thoughts and desires and actions.

The Old Testament word for this is shuv. It means to turn or be turned. God actually takes our minds and hearts and turns them back to Himself as the one from whom we receive all good things, so that we no longer look here and there or even to ourselves. When God works this change in who we are and in how we know ourselves, we are truly changed in our minds and in our being.

For this reason Philippians 2 seems especially appropriate for this day of repentance and fasting as well. Most especially the first twelve verses seem fitting:

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Likeminded. Oh what a wonderful focus for this season of Lent! If only we would repent of our own thoughts and our own ways, submitting to the will of God for His Church. If only we would hear the call of the Holy Spirit that we might be enlightened with God’s grace so as to be changed in our hearts and minds in accord with the merits of Jesus, who gave Himself for us and for all the world. How differently the Church would appear! How differently our lives would be lived. How truly blessed we would be! How confidently we would live, as we worked out our salvation so as to be certain that our faith is truly reliance upon the suffering and death of Jesus, and not upon anything else. Then we truly would be changed in our thinking and in our actions, for then the peace of God would rule our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Jesus came to this world to be found in fashion as a man, though He Himself was the very form or morphe of God. He was and is the very morphe or nature of God. He is not merely godlike but is the very form of God. To see Jesus is to see the Father. To encounter Jesus is to encounter the Holy Spirit. Yet in Christ Jesus God made Himself to be a servant. In Christ God humbled Himself so as to serve as our Redeemer and Savior. When God works faith in us so that we are joined with Him in His holiness, this is the mind that is created in us in place of the minds that we choose. Jesus fasted concerning His equality with God, acting as a servant, placing our needs above His own glory and power. Today we fast of our weakness, in order that His power may not be hindered in us.

Help!

And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:15)

O Lord! O Lord! O Lord!

To the child of God who truly knows the Lord and fears, loves, and trusts in Him above all things, this is a true prayer.

There have been times where I have found myself praying:

The Lord is my Shepherd.
The Lord is my Shepherd!
The Lord is my Shepherd!!

For me, one who has been baptized into Christ Jesus and into His death and resurrection, one who knows and communes in the Holy Communion of Christ’s body, one who knows what it truly means that the Lord is my Shepherd, this is a true and complete prayer.

I have prayed this way at various times when my heart was troubled and I could not attain peace. My spirit was overwhelmed by the many troubles popping up around me. My heart felt as though it was racing toward the point of exploding. My mind could not focus. I was in trouble.

With those five words, all of the Twenty-third Psalm was at my heart’s assistance. All of the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures was flowing through my heart, mind, and soul. The confidence of a good conscience was restored in connection with the name of the Lord, the name given to me, as God’s baptized child. All of the assurance and comfort of the Holy Communion surrounded me as these words reminded me of God’s promise that for Christ’s sake I am a true and worthy partaker of His body and blood and of all that these heavenly gifts convey.

This is why the true faith is of absolute necessity in the Church. This is why compromise of doctrine and practice are forbidden by Our God and Father, the Good Shepherd. We need to be free of doubt concerning our relationship to God, the relationship that exists purely by the reconciliation that is worked through the pure administration of the means of grace. When we know that we are truly members of Christ’s body, when we have rightly discerned the body of the Lord so that we commune in the confidence of His body and blood regularly, then in moments of weakness and fear our hearts know instinctively where to turn, just as a frightened child instinctively cries out, “Daddy. Daddy! Daddy!!”

Anyone can cry out. Anyone can cry out, “O Lord, help me!”

However, when the person has not feasted upon the steady and pure diet of the pure and unadulterated Gospel, the prayer is not a cry of true faith. It is a prayer mixed with doubt, which is a prayer that has no power, no effect. For such a prayer is not truly in the name and power of Jesus. Rather, it is in the confusion of the person’s jumbled beliefs. It is a prayer based upon the person’s own faith and feelings. The person’s own faith and feelings have already failed. That is why the desperate cry for help is needed in the first place. Turning back again to one’s own faith and feelings has no power to help.

But the prayer of faith, true faith, the faith that comes from hearing the pure Gospel, this prayer is powerful in its effect. Such a prayer is called the prayer of the righteous man, for it is in the name and by the faith of the one true Man of righteousness. Therefore this prayer cannot fail, even as Jesus cannot fail.

The true faith can be known with absolute certainty and this faith never fails, for it is not produced by one’s own reason and strength and is not worked by oneself, but it is the gift of God by His grace. This is why we can pray without doubting. This is why our prayers are effective. God’s faithfulness is the source of our confidence. God’s faithfulness is our hope.

This is why the Lord Jesus teaches us to pray with petitions that are statements of what God has declared rather than with petitions that flow from our own perspective and desires and thoughts. Recite the Our Father and try to find a question or a request. You won’t find one. What you will find is what God has already promised in Christ Jesus. This is why we are commanded to pray believing that we WILL receive what we ask in the name of Jesus. We are to pray according to what God has declared is His will. If we pray according to what He has already declared to be His will, where is there any room for doubt?

The Lord is my Shepherd.
I shall not want!

This is not wishful thinking. This is a statement of fact. If we truly understand all that this declares to us, it is all that we need in our times of trouble.

God’s peace to you all in Christ Jesus, the Lord!

Growing and Declining in Faith

In today’s “Faith & Values” section of the Wichita Eagle the following question was presented to Billy Graham along with his answer. It is a regular feature included in the paper.

The question is a very common question, one that every “person of faith” encounters. The Reverend Graham’s answer is quite typical, and it falls far short for reasons that will be presented later in this post. First the question and the Reverend Graham’s answer:

MY ANSWER/BILLY GRAHAM

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: A year ago I accepted Jesus into my life, and for a time I really felt He was with me. But now I find myself wondering sometimes if God even exists. Why has this happened? Is the devil trying to turn me away from God? --Q.S.

DEAR Q.S.: The devil will always try to turn us away from God; after all, this is the main thing he wants to accomplish in our lives. And one way he does this is by probing for our weak spots and trying to take advantage of them.

But don't blame everything on the devil; he doesn't deserve all the credit! The real problem, I suspect, is that after you gave your life to Jesus you thought this was the end, and it was all you needed to do. You knew your sins were forgiven.

But afterward you never did anything to strengthen yourself spiritually -- and over time you became spiritually weak. In order to survive and grow, you need spiritual food and warmth -- the "food" of the Bible and prayer, and the "warmth" of fellowship with other believers. If these were missing, your spiritual life inevitably suffered.

God has not abandoned you; He loves you and yearns for you to grow stronger in your faith. Confess your weakness to Him, and then take time each day to be alone with God in His Word and in prayer. In addition, ask Him to lead you to a church where Christ is central, and where you can grow in your faith.

The Q&A is also available here.

This question is a very common question. I doubt whether any Christian has lived in this world without facing this challenging question. It is a very disconcerting question. If left without the true answer to this question a person will despair of all hope of everlasting life or will spend a lifetime groping after what cannot be found.

Sadly, the answer given by the Reverend Graham falls short.

It falls short for a reason. That reason is actually given in the title chosen for this regularly offered column in the daily paper.

Did you catch the reason in the title?

The title is: MY ANSWER/BILLY GRAHAM.

This is the reason that the hurting individual is troubled by this dreadful question in the first place. The answer that is needed is not a pastor’s answer. The answer that is needed is not a church body’s answer. The answer that is needed is not the Reverend Graham’s answer.

God’s answer is the one that is needed.

The Reverend Graham’s answer sounds very solid to a undiscerning heart. It sounds very Biblical and godly and Christian. His answer to the hurting and troubled person is: “. . . you never did anything to strengthen yourself spiritually -- and over time you became spiritually weak.”

This is a typical response from those who count themselves as spiritual and “more spiritual” than others. This is the response that people typically expect and even seek to hear.

But is this really the answer? Upon whom does this answer direct the individual to depend?

Consider the rest of the Reverend Graham’s answer:

In order to survive and grow, you need spiritual food and warmth -- the "food" of the Bible and prayer, and the "warmth" of fellowship with other believers. If these were missing, your spiritual life inevitably suffered.

To the undiscerning heart this sounds like a very helpful answer. But upon whom does this answer direct the person to depend?

First and foremost this answer directs the person to depend on self. It directs the person to what actions the person takes to strengthen self.

Is this what the Scriptures teach?

And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. (John 5:37-40)

Is the “food” by which one’s spirit is fed the “Bible and prayer”?

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. (John 6:28-35)

The food or bread of life is not the Bible and it is not prayer. Jesus, the Christ, is the bread of life by which the spirit is regenerated and kept alive.

The Bible does not have the power to impart faith. The Bible is the written record that declares the Word. JESUS is the Word.

The question presented by Q.S. betrays the cause of the doubts and fears and pains that this dear soul is experiencing. Q.S. says, “A year ago I accepted Jesus into my life, . . .”

This is a lie. This person is hurting because of a major misunderstanding regarding the way of faith.

No one accepts Jesus into his life.

Jesus comes into the person’s life and then that person acknowledges the presence of the Savior and rejoices in this knowledge..

This sounds trivial until a person understands the fullness of the distinction.

The Scriptures teach that kingdom of God does not come by observation. The Scriptures teach that faith does not come by an act of the human will. The Scriptures teach that a person receives Jesus and is thereby given the power or authority to be born as a son of God.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

This reception Jesus calls a rebirth or regeneration when He explains to Nicodemus the way of life in John chapter 3. He tells the confused preacher and teacher of Israel that no one can even perceive or see the kingdom of God unless that person be regenerated. Then He further explains that no one can enter into the kingdom of God unless that person be regenerated by water and the Spirit.

St. Paul writes to Pastor Titus:

But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

Again the apostle writes to the saints in Ephesus:

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10)

By these we learn that faith is not a work that is done by ourselves but a work that God works in us. It is by the hearing of the Word that the Holy Spirit comes to us and works the miracle of faith in us. This faith is a gift of God. He gives it freely. By this faith He regenerates us. Jesus Christ, the Word, is the one through whom the Holy Spirit is given. The Holy Spirit creates faith in us and that faith changes us from unbelievers to believers.

This is truly good news to anyone who has doubts and fears about the strength of his faith. Our faith is weak on account of it being counted as our own. According to our own faith, we do not truly trust God to be merciful and forgiving. According to our own faith we are full of doubt and fear and weakness.

But according to the faith of Jesus, the faith by which He came to the world and lived without sin and then took our sin in His own body to die on the cross and be buried, according to this faith, which is preached in accord with the pure Gospel and administered in the pure Sacraments, no doubt or fear or weakness remains. This is the faith that God works. It is everlasting and it cannot fail. It is a done deed. Therefore we may rely upon it without doubt or fear, and then no weakness of faith remains.

It is essential that we know where this faith lives. It lives in the body of Christ, which is the pure and holy Church that abides in His words and works. The Lord Jesus established His Church of the New Testament in His blood. He commanded that His Gospel be preached without compromise so that all doubts would be dispersed. He commanded that disciples be made through the means of the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, that is, Baptism. He commanded that these regenerated saint/sinners be kept in His grace, mercy, and peace through the Holy Communion of His body and blood.

The Bread of Life is Jesus. The warmth that we need flows from being connected with His body through Baptism and the Holy Communion. This “warmth” is not the sense of comradery or fellowship that people often mistake for the holy koinonia. This warmth is the life that is in Christ’s blood, poured out for the forgiveness of many. This warmth is the life that is received through Baptism and renewed through the Holy Communion.

Contrary to what the Reverend Graham and most Christians imagine, Christ is not the center of life and faith for the Church. Christ is the life and faith of the Church.

When this is understood, people no longer seek to make Christ the center of their lives. Rather, they live in Christ, trusting that He is their life and their all. With this understanding, doubts and fears are washed away, for then the person no longer looks to his own faith for hope and peace and assurance, but simply lives by the faith that God gives. The person simply trusts that Jesus really is the answer, and having received Jesus through the faith that the Holy Spirit works, that person continues in the great Eucharist or Thanksgiving, partaking of the Bread of Life and being strengthened and renewed in His blood of life.

The answer really is this wonderfully simple.

Knowing AND Following God’s Will

When a person knows God’s Word so that he also acknowledges and knows God’s will for himself, from whom does he need permission or approval before he actually follows it?

In similar fashion, how many people must he first convince to follow it with him, before he follows what he knows to be God’s will himself?

Effective Prayer

When you pray, do you believe that your prayers are effective? When you say, “Amen” do you believe that what you have prayed will be done?

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:5-8)

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16)

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:22-24)

Many people do not know what it means to pray as the Lord and the Scriptures have declared. When you pray do you really mean “Amen” or do you pray “if it be Your will”?

Most of us have been taught for much of our lives that we should pray “if it be Your will” which leaves us unchanged. When we learn to pray “Amen” our prayers become truly effective.

Which way do you pray?

If you would like to read more on this subject, I have prepared an exposition entitled, “What Is Prayer?”

---

Technorati Tags: + what is prayer, prayer, national day of prayer, powerful, effective, effective prayer, pray, thy will be done, amen, how to pray, catechism