Pride, Depravity, Healing, and Thanksgiving

Although many who are in the circles with which I associate have little good to say about Calvinistic theology, I would like to at least temporarily break ranks and point out that there are some important lessons we can learn from our reformed friends. The area that I am thinking of right now that we could learn from greatly is in the realm of human depravity. Although I don’t see this exactly the way the Calvinists do,  and although this is probably not the way the Calvinists would word it, I firmly believe that it is quite healthy for me spiritually to understand that without Christ I am a filthy, rotten, self-centered, arrogant, and degenerate scumbag. Not exactly a pretty picture, I know, but this is my point.

Today’s society is saturated with the idea that we must promote a healthy self esteem – healthy usually meaning high. I do not believe that Scripture advances this teaching. Nor, however, does it advance the acquisition of a low self esteem. The problem with the term "self esteem" is that the first half of it is made up of the word “self”. The more that we as Christians can distance ourselves from an overt focus on self the better off we will be. In other words we need to get away from “self esteem” and get back to “God esteem”. Here are 3 inexhaustive reasons why I believe a healthy understanding of human depravity is extremely important.

1. It annihilates pride.

In his book Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis calls pride “The Great Sin”. He points out how pride was behind the fall of man when Satan endeavored to “be like God” and essentially convinced Adam and Eve that he and they knew better than God. Pride flies in the face of God’s plan for man because it decreases our dependence on Him and increases our dependence on self. It causes us to become spiteful and condescending toward others. It gives rise to all sorts of evil practices like racism, gossip, prejudice, class warfare, and power struggles of all sorts; but when we realize that before God, in and of ourselves, we are worthless minions, it keeps us from “looking down” on our fellow human beings.

2. It promotes spiritual and emotional healing.

This doctrine of depravity is an important part of what this blog is all about. When Jesus overheard the religious leaders asking His disciples why He eats with sinners His response was “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. Since Jesus was well aware of the fact that every human being is a sinner, I believe He was almost sarcastically pointing out that only people who know and admit that they are sick have any chance of finding healing. Why go to the doctor if you don’t believe anything is wrong with you? In their own eyes the religious leaders were “righteous” and had no need for the “Great Physician”. If you have any kind of emotional or spiritual infirmity - and we all do - you must come to the realization that you are desperately in need of Christ and His atoning work before you have any hope of truly being healed. If you are broken and penitent before God, you are the person Jesus came for.

3. It fills us with a heart of true thanksgiving.

In keeping with the spirit of the season I would like to point out that this is a key to truly being thankful. When I come to the stunning realization that I am a filthy, rotten sinner on the path to a certain judgment, and the only reason I will not be separated from God forever is because “He gave His only begotten Son” to come and take my punishment so that I can be redeemed, I am driven to a humble attitude of overwhelming gratitude for the incredible mercy, love, and grace of God. An unthankful heart is an insult to the inconceivable benevolence of our God. True thanksgiving is not just saying trite cliches about how much we have compared to the rest of the world, it is about understanding that we as human beings were hopelessly lost, broken, and alone until the incarnate Son of God came to this earth and took our punishment so that our ransom can be paid in full. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

                                              

The Blame Game (Part 2)

As I mentioned in part 1 it is not healthy to either deny or embrace the hurts of our pasts. I also asked the question, how then should we deal with them? I attempted to answer the first part of this question in part 1 – that is we must first of all become decisively aware of the fact that we live in a fallen world and all hurt stems from this fallen ness. The reason for this is so we do not get stuck blaming others instead of dealing with our hurt in a redemptive way. So what is the next step to dealing with the pain from our pasts?

Once again I would like to suggest to you that ignoring the problem does not provide a solution. I have heard the argument that we need to “(forget) those things which are behind and (reach) forth to those things which are before”, this is of course in reference to the apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13. To use this verse to defend willfully ignoring the pain from our pasts is, I believe, taking it badly out of context. Most of us would agree that when someone becomes a Christian there are certain things that must be done to rectify our pasts. To say that we should completely forget our pasts is to say that we should never go back to resolve a conflict or make restitution. I have heard of many people who have long lists of things that they have “gone back” and righted after committing their life to Christ, and I think any Christian would agree that this should be done. If I understand this verse corrrectly Paul is referring to leaving behind the all things that would hinder him reaching his prize. He was also leaving behind any trust in the physical accomplishments of his past knowing that the one most important thing he was after was reaching the prize. One could argue that that willful ignorance of past wrongs is not leaving behind your past, it is staying in the past because of the simple fact that ignoring problems does not make them go away. So, in essence, someone who holds onto the bitterness of the past is doing exactly the opposite of what Paul is saying here, and he may not even be aware of it. I recently asked a counselor what he says to someone who says he is just keeping people in their pasts. His answer was that his goal was not to keep people in their pasts, but to help them be released from their pasts. This is the essence of what I am talking about. Total forgiveness is when we truly “leave” the past behind. When we do not need to keep bringing it up and it no longer impacts the way we live, act, and react because we have been set free from it.

Reaching this point, however, is the key. I cannot do justice to the process in this blog, but I believe that there are some simple* steps that must take place. First we must acknowledge that we have been wronged. It doesn’t matter who it was: our best friend, our pastor, our teacher, or our parents, we must concede the fact that a wrong was done. It may not have been done intentionally, it may not have been meant, and it may not have even been realized; but we must still admit that it was done. We then need to take it to the foot of the cross, give it to Christ, and lay it down. Finally we must let God administer healing to our hearts. This healing takes time. Someone has said “forgiveness is a choice healing is a process”. The last step and sometimes the most difficult is that we must continue to lay the offence down. Satan will constantly try to get us to take it back up. Many fall prey to this ploy – they feel that they have forgiven the person and then let down their guard only to pick the offense up once more without even realizing it. There also may be times we need to go to the person and confront their offense, but this probably depends on the situation.

This is a much oversimplified version of what I believe needs to take place in the process of true forgiveness. I do not want leave the impression, however, that it is just a quick easy step by step process. For some it is a tremendous struggle and it can get very messy. Many times it is accompanied by powerful emotions. Many refuse to go there because they do not want to face what may be awaiting them, but for those that do the end result is a wonderfully powerful step toward becoming more alive and whole. This then needs to be translated into a life that glorifies and magnifies God, which is very difficult to do when one’s life is occupied by bitterness.

The question is where are you? Have you allowed God into the deepest darkest places of your heart and asked Him to clean house. Have you surrendered you’re your pain and bitterness to Him. Unresolved bitterness is like a cancer that is contagious. It destroys friendships, marriages, churches, and people. It is the antithesis of what Christ came to accomplish here on earth. Don’t carry it any longer.

The beauty of the Gospel is that its primary message is redemption. As people we can be reunited with the God who we forsook and we can be reconciled to those with whom we have been estranged. God can and does heal and restore, but we must allow Him. So do not get stuck blaming your problems on those who have hurt you, acknowledge the wrong, take it to Jesus, lay it down, and walk free my friend – walk free.



*simple does not necessarily mean easy

The Blame Game (Part 1)

Who or what is responsible for what I do and the way I am?

This is a question that we all need to ask ourselves. It seems that we live in a society that loves to shift responsibility, to blame anyone but ourselves when something goes wrong. We make excuses for our own mistakes but judge harshly the mistakes and weaknesses of others. Whether we like it or not it seems that our generation and our churches have been influenced strongly by the field of psychology known as psychoanalysis. This philosophy is the somewhat ignominious school of thought coined by Sigmund Freud that traces all of human behavior to sexuality and its various dynamics. Many of Freud’s theories were quite bizarre in nature and in a large part have been discarded by more modern scholars of human behavior. The part of this philosophy that has stuck and become highly influential, however, is the part that blames behavior on the traumas of childhood. Even the birth process is pointed to as one of the events that cause us to have the insecurities and fears that we have. From there you can go all the way up through childhood to the early teen years pointing fingers at things like spankings, bullying, rejection, abandonment, and on and on as the root cause of why we are the way we are. Parents of course tend to get the brunt of the blame.

So just how much should we blame the people and events of our past for the way we are now? This is an excellent question. On one hand you have those who vehemently defend the actions of their parents and others who have hurt them basically denying that any wrong was done. In essence they are admitting that they deserved any hurts that were inflicted upon them. Many times these people have anger and bitterness that stays unresolved because they have not come to grips with the fact that they have been wronged. On the other hand you have those who can’t seem to stop talking about how badly they were treated when they were children. Again, this is normally directed at parents. They get stuck wallowing in the pain of their pasts. They also have unresolved bitterness because, although they acknowledge they have been wronged, they do not want to let go of those wrongs. So if neither denying nor embracing them are healthy solutions what should we do with the problems of our pasts?

Let me propose a scenario. Let’s say you go to a psychiatrist for help. He immediately takes you into your past with the intention of uncovering what might be causing you to have the problem you are having. You reveal to him that your father was always angry and distant, that he never validated you, never told you “great job”, never was interested in your problems or interests, never took time to build a relationship with you, and never said “I love you”. Any "good" psychiatrist would find plenty here to go on. He might encourage you to relive the hurts, unleash your anger by screaming and throwing things, and just generally give you permission to blame all of your problems on your father. He would probably take you swimming through all the pain leaving nothing untouched, bringing it all back up for you to experience all over again.

The problem is if you are going to open a wound you had better have a way to heal it. So many well-meaning psychologists and psychiatrists have taken people back into a world of hurt without offering a truly redemptive way of dealing with that hurt.

Let me continue the scenario in a way that is highly unlikely to occur. Let’s say the counselor tells you “Okay now that you’ve dealt with the hurts from your father I want you to think about something else. What about his father. How did your grandfather treat your dad?” So you go home to do some investigating. You come to find out your father was also treated badly by your grandfather. He was tied to the table and beaten with a belt. He was regularly abused both physically and verbally; he could never do a good enough job no matter how hard he tried. Now you turn your anger on your grandfather. Then suddenly the thought occurs to you – what about his past? Your continued investigation reveals that his father, your great grandfather, left home when your grandfather was very young to get a job during the depression. He met and married another woman while he was away and never came back. When your great grandfather asked his mom why daddy doesn’t come home she would scream in anger “Because he doesn’t love us anymore!”

I know this is a fictitious scenario that may not exactly apply to anyone in the world, but do you get the picture? If we’re going to go back then we must continue to go back. You can’t stop with your parents or their parents and you can’t stop even there. You must continue to go back generation after generation until you get to the common set of in-laws that we all have – Adam and Eve. Oh so we can blame it all on them. No not exactly. We have all sinned it’s just that Adam and Eve were the first ones to do it. We all have contributed to the fall of mankind. Sin was brought into the world by us, because we allowed the father of lies to convince us that God does not know best and that we need to take things into our own hands. Who influenced Adam and Eve to sin – Satan. Who wants to destroy your family – Satan. Who was delighted every time any of your ancestors hurt their children – Satan. Who hates you and your family and wants to destroy you, you guessed it – Satan. You see the problem is not your father or mother or grandparents. The problem is that we live in a world that is saturated by evil, that we were born with a natural tendency to follow after this evil, and that there is a powerful being out there who propagates this evil through lies, deceit, and manipulation.

So now we have found the answer of who we can blame right? The old saying “The devil made me do it” was right after all. Once again the answer is no. The one simple reason why we must take responsibility for our actions and why we will stand alone before the judgment seat of Christ is that God gave us the ability to choose. This does not negate the influence that our parents had on us, but it does stop the buck with us. We must choose to allow Christ to go to work in our lives. We must let Him do heart renovation. If we choose to follow Christ He then gives us the power to live above the world. Satan’s stranglehold on our hearts is broken. We can live victoriously. Not that we always do, but we can. As much as we are a product of our past and as important as it is for us to realize this, we must never allow this to become an excuse for bitterness.

I will attempt to sort out how to healthily handle the hurts of our past in part 2.

Pain and the Majesty of God

I am currently reading a book called The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper. In the first part of this book he gives an account of how he had decided at one point during his career as a pastor to spend several Sundays preaching about the holiness and glory of God from the book of Isaiah. At some point during or after this period a father approached him and told him that it was during this time that he and his wife had discovered that their daughter was being sexually abused by a relative. He proceeded to tell Piper that it was his preaching on the holiness, majesty, and purity of God that kept him going through this difficult time.

When we see people around us full of pain, hurt, and fear it is so easy to get overly caught up in sympathy and forget the fact that God is still on the throne and He is pure, He is majestic, and He is holy. The beautiful thing about this is that He, through the death of His Son has chosen to impart His grace to us, thus giving us an opportunity to get a glimpse of His glory. The only hope for true healing in a person’s life is to partake in the grace that God so freely bestows upon us. The best way to help someone else heal is to introduce them to this grace by allowing God’s love to flow through us to them.

Remember the story of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Jesus had come to visit and Martha was busily preparing the meal while Mary was at Jesus’ feet basking in His presence. Martha was annoyed because Mary was not helping her, but Jesus rebuked her and, in essence, reminded her that some things are more important than preparing meals and having everything perfectly in order. Sometimes we must simply sit at Jesus feet and drink in the words of life. His words heal, they strengthen, they restore, and they redeem.

One aspect of this story that we sometimes overlook, however, is the fact that Mary was sitting in the very presence of God in human flesh. He had been there when the Creation was spoken into existence, He was there when the Deluge covered the earth, He was there when the Red Sea parted. He walked in the fire with the 3 Hebrew children, He caused the sun to stand still when Joshua needed some extra time, He dropped fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, He leveled the walls of Jericho. He used a fearful man named Gideon and 300 men to strike terror in the hearts of thousands of Midianites in a great military triumph which should have left no doubt in anyone’s mind that He had been the One Who had won the victory. He fed the starving widow and her son with an unexplainable supply of oil and flour. His presence caused Isaiah the prophet to cry out “Woe is me for I am man of unclean lips”. He is just, He is holy, He is majestic, He is powerful beyond imagination, He is pure, He is good, and Mary was sitting at His feet captivated by His magnificent presence. This, my friend, is where healing begins.

We should never cease to be enthralled by the astonishing reality of the incarnation. The amazing ramifications of God Himself coming down to us are incredible. Other religions are just a plethora of attempts by man to reach God or a god, when in reality He reached out to us.

So maybe we need to stop striving, stop working, stop trying to solve our problems of pain by doing all the things we are told to do and just sit and bask in the presence of our majestic God. Remember, even though He is all these things that I have mentioned in this meager article and much much more, He also loves you and me intensely – and this is simply astonishing!

Disappointed by Hope

There have been several famous books about hope written within the past few years; none of which I have read, but when you take an honest look at the world around us it’s easy to see why this would be. If there is anything the inhabitants of this planet are in need of it is hope, and there are many in this world asking is there really any hope left?


Hope is the last thing to leave when trouble comes. It is the last positive element that an individual may have when their life has come completely unraveled. Even if someone has absolutely nothing going for them, if there is even a glimmer of reason to think that maybe things will one day be better, then they just might find the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hope clings to the desire that one day justice will be served, wrongs will be righted, poverty will be abated, diseases will be cured, and love will be restored. It longs, no it aches, for that brighter day when dreams come true, suffering is left behind, and joy is restored. When hope is gone it leaves nothing but darkness and pain. One of the starkest realities of hell is that it is a place utterly devoid of hope. So what do you do when you find yourself wondering whether or not you have any reason to go on hoping?

Most of us probably have at least some fond memories of our childhood. Times when we dreamed of what we would do when we grew up. Dreamed of the things we would accomplish and the adventures we would have; dreamed of living in a certain place, and having a perfect job; dreamed about being married to the love of our life and having a bunch of awesome kids. Probably one of the reasons childhood is so enjoyable is that it is so full of hope. Your whole life stretches out in front of you, a vast frontier waiting to be explored and filled with many adventures and good times. Unfortunately for many these dreams never materialize, and if they do they turn out to be not nearly as exhilarating as what was originally thought. We get to the proverbial “gold at the end of the rainbow” and find that along with the gold is real life. We can’t get away from it no matter how hard we try. Troubles continue, the excitement wears off, the dream fades and sometimes even turns into a nightmare, and we are left grasping for something to keep us going, because sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be any reasons left.

One of the psalmists in the Old Testament said “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?” Have you ever wondered why you are in turmoil? Have you ever wondered why you just can’t seem to get back to joy? Could it possibly be that you have allowed yourself to put your hope in things that will undeniably let you down. You see, no matter how hard we try we can’t possibly find complete joy and satisfaction in the things that are temporal. We were not made for such things. We were made for a relationship with an everlasting God. As the psalmist we must implore ourselves to “…hope thou in God, for yet will I praise Him..”

Oh God we desperately need your grace every day. You are our only hope. We plead with you to help us to let go of all the hopes we have put in earthly dreams, in political systems, in relationships, in financial security, in fame, in anything other than You. Help us to find our joy and strength in You and You alone. Because only you are worthy, and only You have anything to offer that is worth hoping for.

The Purpose of this Web Log

There are many ways to view Jesus - Prophet, Priest, King, Son of God, Servant, Bridegroom, etc. When He was on this earth He was a rabbi, a teacher, and a servant. These are all ways we can portray Christ to the inhabitants of this world and it is vitally important that we ourselves learn to view Christ in all of these and many other ways.

However, as I look across the state of our culture here in North America I observe something extremely troubling...pain. Everywhere you turn families are crumbling. Fathers and mothers are abandoning their children and each other, if not physically then emotionally. This has left a multitiude of individuals in the wake feeling uwanted, unneeded, and alone. We as North Americans have created a culture that makes it very difficult to spend the amount of time and energy necessary for life's most meaningful relationships. Unfortunately the end result is a generation that is reeling with pain and fear. When someone has much pain in their heart they have an extremely difficult time seeing anyone but themselves. Our culture is now filled with individuals that are so inwardly focused that they have no idea how to care for the many hurts that are all around them. This pain is usually curtained behind a shield of anger which only causes more pain.  It is a viscously destructive cycle. Even the church is unaware of how to deal with the problem, in part because we ourselves are caught in this maelstrom of hurt.

So, although I realize the importance of seeing and learning about the many titles and roles of Jesus, I would like to focus in this blog on Jesus the Healer. When Jesus began His ministry He stated that His purpose for coming was "... to preach the gospel to the poor; ... to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised". Although He did physically heal many people, I believe this verse is in reference to the spiritual freedom and healing that we experience when we allow Him to touch our hearts. I believe Jesus' true desire for the ones he came in contact with was not just to heal their bodies, but to heal their souls. In short, He desired to give them eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and a purpose that transcended themselves. Our world is desperately in need of this healing touch. He wants to heal you too. No matter what you've done. No matter what you've been through, Jesus wants to show you His healing power.

Once you have experienced His healing touch you will be able to grow in your knowledge of who Christ is in a more holistic way. You will be able to learn that He is a King, a Judge, a Father, a Husband, and on and on. Again it is extemely important for us to learn to know Christ in a comprehensive way, but it is my belief that we first need to know, understand, and experience His healing powers before we can move on into a more mature understanding of who He is.

The purpose of this blog is to dialogue about the many hurts with which individuals have been afflicted, it is to encourage and give hope to those people, but mainly it is to remind everyone that the only true source of healing comes from the Great Physician - that Gentle Healer from Galilee whose delight is to touch and heal hearts. May you find this healing and, as you do, may you be set free to raise your hands toward heaven, glorify our majestic God, and live for the renown of His Son - the ultimate source of true healing.