He will be great
and will be called
the Son of the Most High.

And the Lord God will give to him
the throne of his father David,
and he will reign
over the house of Jacob
forever,
and of his kingdom
there will be
no
end.

Luke 1:32-33

Russell over at Telos Xelot posts about using our gifts faithfully and joyfully. The Last Letters video he references and an excerpt from his post are below:

I want to show up for my own life. Well, I want to want to show up for my own life. Sometimes I just want to get by. I want to do enough to not get in trouble; enough to have time and money to do what I want to do, and not much more. But whenever I live like that, for very long at all, I find it deeply unsatisfying. The most satisfying times in my life have been when I have taken what God has equipped me to do and done it. I need to show up for my own life.

The movie Saving Private Ryan expresses a picture of this. A squad of 8 men are dispatched to find James Francis Ryan and send him safely home. In the process of saving him, the squad along with Ryan, heroically battle overwhelming odds to defend a key bridge. The leader, Capt. Miller, speaks haunting last words to Ryan: "earn this".
The final scene has an elderly Ryan with his wife, kids and grandkids visiting a graveyard in Normandy. He finds the grave marker of Capt. Miller, begins to weep, and then turns to his wife pleading: "Tell me I've lived a good life; tell me I've been a good man".

How can anyone earn the gift of life? It can't be done. But the question of the effort put into enjoying the gift, that is legitimate. The gift that has been given freely is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort (Dallas Willard). God gifts us with life, with the gospel, with new life from the gospel, with his body, the church, and with particular qualities and strengths for us to utilize as part of his body. We are people defined by gifts, graciously given, not able to be earned, but worthy of effort.

For Timothy this means preaching the Logos. God in Christ is who gifted him this vocation, and Christ will judge whether the investment was handled well. Like the parables in Matthew and Luke, investments are worth checking on. Where much is given, much is expected. Timothy is expected to use his gifts in season and out of season. This requires some degree of mastery. As Paul told Timothy in an earlier letter, spiritual training is like physical training, just with more significance. You take what is given and you shape it with effort.

This idea of spiritual effort is vital. Philippians 2 we are told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Timothy is then used as an example of someone who does this. Hebrews 4 tells us to make every effort to enter into God's rest. James says that trust without work is dead. Again Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, as a gift, so we can be do good works.

Specifically Paul challenges Tim to correct, rebuke and encourage. To correct is to show a map of how things are vs. how they are perceived. To rebuke is to tell someone not to go the wrong way, and to encourage is to show them the right way. Our gifts, even if not in teaching, should have a similar effect. We should give a positive example that contrasts, and even conflicts, with wrong ways. But this is vital: our goal is redemption. The pharisees may be content to be an example and to point out where other's are wrong, it is in the aspect of hopeful expectation, of looking to being able to encourage someone who has been redirected that our highest virtue is experienced.

Even if I show up for my own life using my gifts, a concern is that I will not keep up. I will grow weary, drift, harden my heart and waste away. It is a proper fear; it happens. Paul warns about it and says it is a common problem. Human desires, in conflict with the change process of maturity, find an alternative route. By replacing teachers of truth with teachers of myths, we can find ways to rationalize whatever we want. Sound doctrine is reality, myths are an alternative reality.

"We are people defined by gifts, graciously given, not able to be earned, but worthy of effort." Amen.

A must read: On the Worst Day of Your Life, Jesus Has Been Praying for You, over at Forward Progress.

An excerpt:

And we, like Peter, are gloriously confident in our own faith and will. We are, in our minds, invincible to the lure of sin and the brokenness of the world. But we, like Peter, can take heart in the fact that while we don’t know what the day holds, Jesus does. And, amazingly, He’s been up long before we swing our legs out of bed… praying for us:

“Simon, Simon, look out! Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And you, when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31).

Let that sink in for a moment. Feel the weight of the grace. On the worst day of his life, when Peter had no idea how far he was about to fall, Jesus had been praying for him.

When we woke up some 5 years ago on a morning in October, my wife and I had no idea that we would end the day sleeping in Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. We had no clue that our world was to be flip-flopped. We had no idea that the cancer inside our 2-year-old’s body was about to be discovered.

We didn’t know. We were blissfully ignorant. But thankfully, Jesus was not. He knew. And He was praying for us.

Take heart, Christian, not because you know what to expect from life today. You most certainly do not. But Jesus does. And if today is indeed the worst day of your life, know that Jesus has been praying for you.

Read the whole thing.

I hate reality TV.

Well, let me moderate that a bit. I really dislike most of it. I hardly ever watch it, but sometimes it's on and sometimes it gets me thinking.

I was musing the other day on the contrast between three of the biggies: Survivor, Biggest Loser, and Extreme Home Makeover.

Survivor is, as far as I know, the most popular of the reality shows and the show that sparked the glut of reality - and wasn't TV supposed to give us an escape from reality? Erk - that we currently have on the airwaves.

I despise that show. And I know I'm in the minority here. Consider what it, generally, takes to win. The show is a great example of natural selection, the survival of the fittest. In general, treachery, double-dealing, conceit, self-seeking, flattery and ruthlessness win the day. I've never understood why a show with so little redeeming value is so popular. But maybe it's because it reflects on the human condition. We recognize very well what we see in Survivor. It's in the deepest heart of each of us.

Biggest Loser is a show that I actually keep up with, intermittently. I admit I kind of like it. And it does have its redemptive qualities; who doesn't love seeing obese and unhealthy people turn their lives around through hard work and perseverance?

But I'm realizing that one of the draws of Biggest Loser for me is Law. Though there is often compassion and tenderness between the competitors, there is no grace regarding the results. The scale doesn't lie. I was talking to a personal trainer the other night and she likes the show as well but is horrified by the way they go about losing weight. Losing weight that fast, with brutal six hour a day workouts, is not safe. But we applaud Biggest Loser, with all its talk of "taking control of your life", "earning it", and "working your [behonkus] off". The Law can be appealing. It speaks to the drive that is in most of us to earn our own way toward our own goals through our own efforts without the help of grace.

Which brings me to Extreme Home Makeover. Oddly enough, I think that Extreme Home Makeover may be the closest picture of the Gospel in reality TV today. Have you noticed that the family being blessed is not even allowed to work on the house? And "makeover" is an understatement, to say the least. Generally, the house is completely gutted and rebuilt from the ground up.

I've thought, at times, that I would be uncomfortable as an Extreme Home Makeover blessee. I think that I would be embarrassed to not have any part in the renovation of a house that I had let, often due to my own hard circumstances, go to rot. I also might be a bit nervous about what I would see when that bus finally moved out of the way, because none of it was my doing or my plan.

My relationship with God is like that, most of the time. I want him to come in and fix my creaking floor, or repaint my bathroom, or install a new garage door opener (all, incidentally, recent needs in my actual house). His plan, and he means to complete it, is to gut the place, design a whole new floorplan, and build something Magnificent, just like He is.

It may make me uncomfortable, but it is Good News. And considering my skills in spiritual home repair, it is Very Good News.

Master Builder, have Your way.

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

First, I want to define some terms, as otherwise a question like this causes lots of confusion.

By "happy", I don't mean happy in the way the health and wealth gospel does. I'm not talking about perfect or even better life circumstances. I mean "happy" in the way we use it in our day to day conversations. And I'm not too interested in semantic arguments about the difference between happiness and joy.

Secondly, I'm not asking if Jesus "should" make you happy or if you expect him to (or don't expect him to) make you happy. I'm asking if he does make you happy. And I don't mean "you" in a generic sense. I mean you.

Finally, this isn't a loaded question. I don't have an agenda, although I confess that one might develop based on the conversation, if any, this inspires.

Leave your response in the comments thread. Thanks!

In a recurring Groundhog Day tribute of their own, the editors of National Review annually post Jonah Goldberg's excellent 2005 paean to the classic Harold Ramis movie, Groundhog Day. Here are the closing paragraphs of Goldberg's article, A Movie for All Time.

Ultimately, the story is one of redemption, so it should surprise no one that it speaks to those in search of the same. But there is also a secular, even conservative, point to be made here. Connors’s metamorphosis contradicts almost everything postmodernity teaches. He doesn’t find paradise or liberation by becoming more “authentic,” by acting on his whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: He learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by shedding his ironic detachment from the world.

Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin, the writers of the original story, are not philosophers. Ramis was born Jewish and is now a lackadaisical Buddhist. He wears meditation beads on his wrist, he told the New York Times, “because I’m on a Buddhist diet. They’re supposed to remind me not to eat, but actually just get in the way when I’m cutting my steak.” Rubin’s original script was apparently much more complex and philosophical — it opened in the middle of Connors’s sentence to purgatory and ended with the revelation that Rita was caught in a cycle of her own. Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical (indeed, the film is surely the best sign of his reincarnation as a great actor), but Ramis constantly insisted that the film be funny first and philosophical second.

And this is the film’s true triumph. It is a very, very funny movie, in which all of the themes are invisible to people who just want to have a good time. There’s no violence, no strong language, and the sexual content is about as tame as it gets. (Some e-mailers complained that Connors is only liberated when he has sex with Rita. Not true: They merely fall asleep together.) If this were a French film dealing with the same themes, it would be in black and white, the sex would be constant and depraved, and it would end in cold death. My only criticism is that Andie MacDowell isn’t nearly charming enough to warrant all the fuss (she says a prayer for world peace every time she orders a drink!). And yet for all the opportunities the film presents for self-importance and sentimentality, it almost never falls for either. The best example: When the two lovebirds emerge from the B&B to embrace a happy new life together in what Connors considers a paradisiacal Punxsutawney, Connors declares, “Let’s live here!” They kiss, the music builds, and then in the film’s last line he adds: “We’ll rent to start.”

Read the whole thing.

I think Groundhog Day is one of the best movies ever made. I remember watching it on VHS with my wife, years ago; though it does not have an explicitly Christian message, the movie is brimming with redemption. Watching it for the first time surfaced in me an exquisite sense of joy. (And, in my one beef with Goldberg over this article, I thought Andie MacDowell was plenty charming).

If you haven't already watched Groundhog Day, I highly recommend it. If you have, get with the spirit of things and watch it again (and again, and again, and . . .)

Had this thought while I was running this morning: in my lifetime, the adjective "irreverent" has gone from being a criticism to being a compliment.

C. Michael Patton over at Parchment and Pen posts about his depression, nearly two years later. Below is an excerpt:

Two years later, there are still times when driving down the road, playing a video game with my kids, or drinking a Coke out of a bottle that I notice that recovery is chronic. “Oh, yeah,” I say to myself. “That is what it is like to be notice good things.” During these times I want to call out to God and say, “Time out!” Whatever made me realize again what I took for granted before needs to find its way to the shelves of the store.

Two years later I know there are places I cannot go in my mind. Two years later I look through the peep-hole in the door of my emotions before I let anything in. Two years later I long for a glory that knows no tears in a way I had not longed before. Two years later I am stable but scared. Scared that it might happen again. Two years later, my heart does not know how to respond to others who are groping for hope in a dark mind. I want to grab their depression by the neck and kill it, burn it, smash it, and choke it. I hate it.

Many end these type of messages with the “But I am glad I went through this” type stuff. My sister says that she is glad I went through it. Okay, fine. Gotcha. Neat. But I don’t know if I am. I think I would rather not live with the haunting memory of that time. At least not now. To know that this actually exists in this world . . . Really? That? Torture, hunger, blindness, poverty, even holocaust are things I gawked at before. But depression is from a planet I could not imagine existed. A dark planet. A cold and lonely planet that no telescope can see, no pictures can describe, for which no analogy of being can be found. It only exists in theory before you have been there. But I think I would have rather seen it through the telescope. When I returned from that world, a part of me was left behind. I think I would have rather not had that passport stamped.

But I serve a God who is sovereign and does not have the word “meaningless” in any dictionary signed by him. In this, I suppose, you can pull my teeth until I say “Okay, it was good for me to go there. Better to go to the house of the morning than the house of feasting. Okay. Yeah, okay.” In glory, you will not have to pull my teeth to say this. But for now, you still do.

I encourage you to read the whole thing, and also his original post on the brokenness of depression from April, 2010.

There was a time in my life when I thought that the "blues" and times of slight hopelessness and small despair that I sometime experienced could be called "depression". Then I experienced depression second-hand in the lives of people I love, and I realized that I didn't know what I was talking about.

It's hard now to express what I think of this terrible condition. At least not in words that are fit to print in a family blog. I think C. Michael Patton said it well, above: "my heart does not know how to respond to others who are groping for hope in a dark mind. I want to grab their depression by the neck and kill it, burn it, smash it, and choke it. I hate it."

When Christ's kingdom is fully realized, depression will be a thing of the past. It will be cast into the lake of fire along with our enemy and all the other curses of fallen creation.

If you are currently suffering from depression, or in that baffling, helpless state of trying to help and encourage someone you love dearly who is wearing the dark sackcloth, my heart goes out to you. May the mercy and rescue of God be yours in abundance, and may joy truly come in the swift-approaching morning.

Tonight I watched Frank Capra's masterpiece It's a Wonderful Life with my bride. I love that movie. Jill loves the fact that, no matter how hard I try not to, I get misty in the last scene.

Something occurred to me during the climactic "never been born" section of the movie that has never occurred to me before: I wonder how many people watch this show these days and think "Pottersville looks a lot more fun than Bedford Falls."

Pottersville, with its bars, dancing girls, gambling houses and gin-joints that serve hard drinks to men who want to get drunk fast fits far better into our coarsened, entertainment-saturated culture than the quiet streets of Bedford Falls, with it's Bijou, Emporium, and that wonderful old Bailey building and loan. Pottersville moves, and has the flashing lights, raucous crowds, and the frequent gunshots to keep our short attention spans jumping. No one's bored in Pottersville.

For my part, I'm hoping to spend more time in Bedford Falls in 2012.

"Zuzu's petals! Zuzu's . . . they're . . . they're here, Bert!

What do you know about that? Merry Christmas!"

Merry Christmas, everyone, and may you have a wonderful new year!

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

- C.S. Lewis

Doug Wilson over at Blog and MaBlog reflects on the death of Christopher Hitchens. An excerpt:

Those who hold to the gospel of Jesus Christ must always remember that the good news of Christ is set against the backdrop of the bad news -- we are all of us sinners, and we all need cleansing and forgiveness. Christopher Hitchens did not need to come to Christ to have his arguments refuted (although that would have happened). He needed to come to Christ to have his sins forgiven.

There will be a CanonWIRED clip out shortly, in which I caution Christians against two errors -- and both of them are errors of speculation. The possibility of last minute conversions must never be turned into actual last minute conversions. No one is wished into Heaven. There have been too many unbelievers preached into Heaven at the funeral, and we ought not to give way to the false tenderness of that impulse. At the same time, the likelihood that Christopher never called on Christ should not be turned into a hard-line dogmatic statement, followed by "good riddance." No one is wished into Hell either. We ought not to greet the news of Christopher's death the way he greeted the death of Jerry Falwell's, for example.

The bad news is that we are all under judgment. The good news is that the one who has faith in Jesus may be forgiven. We must unashamedly declare these terms to the whole world -- but declaring the terms of judgment (which Scripture requires us to do) is not the same thing as playing the Judge ourselves. We leave the soul of Christopher Hitchens (and he did have a soul, despite all his arguments) in the hands of God, who will do nothing but right.

All of this is of course consistent with the affection I had for Christopher. Our prayers and condolences are with his family and friends.

We are so utter­ly ordi­nary, so com­mon­place, while we pro­fess to know a Power the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry does not reck­on with. But we are “harmless,” and there­fore unharmed. We are spir­i­tu­al paci­fists, non-militants, con­sci­en­tious objec­tors in this battle-to-the-death with prin­ci­pal­i­ties and pow­ers in high places. Meek­ness must be had for con­tact with men, but brass, out­spo­ken bold­ness is required to take part in the com­rade­ship of the Cross. We are “side­lin­ers” — coach­ing and crit­i­ciz­ing the real wrestlers while con­tent to sit by and leave the ene­mies of God unchal­lenged. The world can­not hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dan­ger­ous!

-Jim Elliot

[HT Challies]

We are the 100%.

We are not in a battle against flesh and blood. But all we like sheep have gone astray, so we forget that. We are consumed with greed and covetousness and set ourselves against others made in the image of God.

We forget our brothers in need, we envy and rail against those who have what we desire. We place our hope in men and systems and media and money and rage.

You can divide yourself from others and categorize yourself as a 99 or a 1.

I'm in the 100% that need Jesus.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing. (Isaiah 40:26 ESV)

The passage above was read before one of the songs at church today. I want to be careful using Scripture out of context, and I'm not saying that I received a word from the Lord, necessarily. But I think I received a "Bill. Pay attention." For a moment I lost my breath.

Here's what was going through my mind: the faces of some dear friends, young people, who have left the Lord and are living lives of rebellion and lostness.

I don't know . . . Maybe for some of them faith was never a reality. But this I do know: if they were ever the Lord's, they will be reclaimed. Not one of them is missing. If they were ever held in the strong, scarred hand of the Lord Jesus, they will not ultimately be lost. They are to be reclaimed!

And that's why I felt like shouting this morning. We do not fight against flesh and blood. Our adversary has been defeated, forever! To our ancient enemy: the Lord rebuke you, and may He make you feel some real pain for daring to touch his precious ones. I know the feeling's mutual, but I hate you.

Praying for reclamation!

From Ray Ortlund.

Congratulations to the entitled, for they grab what they want.
Congratulations to the carefree, for they shall be comfortable.
Congratulations to the pushy, for they shall win.
Congratulations to the greedy, for they shall climb the food chain.
Congratulations to the vengeful, for they shall be feared.
Congratulations to those who don’t get caught, for they shall look good.
Congratulations to the argumentative, for they shall get in the last word.
Congratulations to the popular, for this world lies at their feet.

The gospel is more than handy tips for improving our lives this week. It is a new outlook on everything, illuminated by God’s promise of a glorious future renewing the entire creation through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

But God is not the only one making us promises. The world has its own version of events, its own eschatology, its own promises of reward. We must choose. And either way, we will be living by faith.

But have you ever met one person who believed this world’s unBeatitudes and came to the end a satisfied, radiant, wise person? Even one?

Tonight I was searching for something on my solo blogsite and skimmed a number of old posts, most of them written during a particularly introspective period a few years ago. At the time I didn't know who I was writing for, because no one really has ever read that space, so I'm wondering if maybe I was writing for future self to read. I was able to put words together back then.

All is well, but the words aren't flowing as easily anymore. They are swallowed up in busyness and distractions. All for good causes, I believe, but I long for simplicity.

And for no other reason than that, and because YouTube is the last refuge of the "I Got Nuthin'" blogger, I give you this simple Zooey Deschanel goodness. It's a rare doldrummed spirit that can't be lifted by a ukelele and two part harmony.



Jesus loves you, and everything is going to be set right.

Good night.

Tomorrow is our pastor's last Sunday at church. He has answered a call from another church in another state. It saddens me; I've gained a lot from his Biblically sound preaching.

It's interesting that this has caused me a good amount of cognitive dissonance. A month or so ago my father in law mentioned that there had been someone sitting on the front row at church, taking notes. "I'll bet he's from a church that's going to call [our pastor's first name]."

I remember thinking that that was kind of crass. I wanted to give that guy (I hadn't noticed him during the service) a piece of my mind. Who did he think he was, sneaking around, taking notes on our pastor?

It's pretty funny that I thought that, because I did the exact same thing six years ago. I was on the pastor search team that called our pastor to our church. I remember flying to another state, and attending a service at his then-church. I took notes. After the service I surreptitiously found him - we had already talked and he knew I was coming - and arranged a place for him and his family to meet me for lunch.

I remember having a really good lunch conversation. A month or so later we called him as our pastor. Keep in mind that we only approached pastoral candidates that had sent us their resumes and expressed interest. I think this is the common practice, and to do anything else would be unethical.

This happens all the time. Most experienced pastors in evangelical churches have been called away from other churches by pastor search teams.

So why does it bother me that it just happened to us?

If you think I'm being political here, you're wrong. This isn't primarily a political issue. It's a moral issue.

And since ours is a government of the people, those of us who have been of voting age for more than a few election cycles are complicit.

[H/T Instapundit]

“Dear Lord, I refuse henceforth to compete with any of Thy servants. They have congregations larger than mine. So be it. I rejoice in their success. They have greater gifts. Very well. That is not in their power nor in mine. I am humbly grateful for their greater gifts and my smaller ones. I only pray that I may use to Thy glory such modest gifts as I possess. I will not compare myself with any, nor try to build up my self-esteem by noting where I may excel one or another in Thy holy work. I herewith make a blanket disavowal of all intrinsic worth. I am but an unprofitable servant. I gladly go to the foot of the cross and own myself the least of Thy people. If I err in my self judgment and actually underestimate myself I do not want to know it. I purpose to pray for others and to rejoice in their prosperity as if it were my own. And indeed it is my own if it is Thine own, for what is Thine is mine, and while one plants and another waters it is Thou alone that giveth the increase.” - (A.W. Tozer, The Price of Neglect)

[H/T David Guzik's commentary on Haggai 2]

From Rachel Held Evans' blog, check this out: Blessed are the un-cool.

Some excerpts below. This expresses a conviction that's been growing in me for some time.

People sometimes assume that because I’m a progressive 30-year-old who enjoys Mumford and Sons and has no children, I must want a super-hip church—you know, the kind that’s called “Thrive” or “Be” and which boasts “an awesome worship experience,” a fair-trade coffee bar, its own iPhone app, and a pastor who looks like a Jonas Brother.

While none of these features are inherently wrong, (and can of course be used by good people to do good things), these days I find myself longing for a church with a cool factor of about 0.

That’s right.

I want a church that includes fussy kids, old liturgy, bad sound, weird congregants, and…brace yourself…painfully amateur “special music” now and then.

Why?

Well, for one thing, when the gospel story is accompanied by a fog machine and light show, I always get this creeped-out feeling like someone’s trying to sell me something. It’s as though we’re all compensating for the fact that Christianity’s not good enough to stand on its own so we’re adding snacks.

Read the whole thing.