Adored, Part 1

Here lies a solitary rose,
Isolated, but for the hurt of human's foot,
Stormy weather's ravage, and time's decay -
A flower that no romantic chose
To give his darling, for the grimy soot
Surrounding it would make her turn away.

Here stands a maiden to one side,
Ashamed of her beauty, for she has worked outside -
Her words of comfort to herself, she sighs,
In contrast to the looks that say, "You'll never be a wife",
From girls in dollhouses, with the light-skinned, easy life:
"Dark may my skin appear, but fair am I."

Yet He, the Lover, sees no flaw in her:
Among the thorns, He sees His choicest fleur.
He will not defer the honor He confers:
"I love you for what I will make you, not what you were."

They say, "Hasten now before the moment dies",
Yet today, love stays bound with virtue's ties.
In this story now, it leads her to surmise:
True love has not desired to arise.

After gazing out all day, now her eyes will widen:
She sees her faithful Lover leaping hills on the horizon.
He ran days' journey so that she could see His face,
Like the prodigal's father, letting law give way to grace.

With storms of winter past, the trees bud with the signs
That springtime, by design, has brought life's signs to the vines.
Yet early in this story we still see this lesson hard:
Many fruit-destroying foxes still roam His sacred yard.

She tries to catch each fox alone, but they slip from her hands.
They keep running over every plant in the small vineyard's spans.
But mercy still flows from the future-scarred hands of the Lover:
For these idols He purges from His Bride, His death stands to cover!

The Lover seems to disappear, though her heart still desires
To take today to make way for their love's burning fires.
Yet to do it all now would wrap her in dire briars.
"True love still sleeps now", she repeats the refrain prior.

But oh, how her heart burns when she seems spurned.
His hard lesson: Leave no idol's stone unturned!
Her heart has sins to kill, not just to maim.
He has a sweeter stone to give her: white, with a new name.

Selfish Ambition and the Lord's Work

"I used to want to do it big.
When you're only focused on yourself, that's small.
And they - they used to tell me as a kid,
that I could do anything that I want except fall.

"And now that I recall, I was chasing my goals.
And every time I caught them, they multiplied into more.
I never even thought about whether the Lord approved.
Call it selfish ambition; I call[ed] it, 'I'm making moves.'

"But history repeats itself. Evil's what it is.
'Cause Lucifer was cast away for doing what I did.
Created by the God who spoke the earth into existence,
instead of chasing the Father's glory, he was chasing his.

"He lies to us all - told Adam he could ball,
'Why [are] you following God when you can go get it all?'
I'll tell you what's better, or better yet worse:
Chasing your own glory by doing the Lord's work.

"So holler if it hurts. But we were made for greater.
Our greatest satisfaction is making His name famous.
So if we're never named among the greatest [or] they don't critically acclaim us,
[That's] nothing to be ashamed of. We gave it up for the Savior.

"And you can have the money. And you can have the fame.
For me, I want the glory. I'm living for the Name.
See, life is just a picture. I see outside the frame.
I'm living for a kingdom that I [have] never seen.
And I'm [going to] chase that. ..."

- Lecrae, "Chase That (Ambition)"

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"We must resist the pride that may spring forth from fruitfulness.

"You know, some progress in the Christian life can also be dangerous. That is why God does not allow us sometimes to experience all the progress that we had hoped for because it would turn and work against us in pride, because we are too immature to really be used to bear such fruit.

"Listen to this in 1 Corinthians 4:7. 'For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?'

"He is talking to a very, very gifted Church, manifestations of the Holy Spirit works in all sorts of things and he is saying, 'Now, hold on here. You have got this all backwards. You have fallen the way of Ephraim. You have not realized that all your fruit, all your gifts, all your abilities, all your knowledge, all your everything comes from Christ.'

"And if it comes from Christ then why do you, how can you boast in anyone, but Christ? Christ alone, he is the true vine."

- Paul Washer, "The Vine and the Branches".

A Sword

Builder of Each Constellation,
Inventor of Cogitation,
Definer of Consecration,
He reigns in conflagration,
worthy of all commendation.

He shaped the depths and elevations
With the words of His exhalations.
Most are unfound by our explorations.
Try to start with nothing for your emulations.

Somehow, we only see Christ as Lamb, or we only see Him as Lion.
Each angle sheds another light on the chief resident of Zion.
Many lesser-loved words of Christ need to be underscored,
like this one: "I came to bring a sword."

"It's strange that the Prince of Peace would say something so warlike"
may be a common objection,
but is worthy of correction,
since it is inspired truth despite apparent contradictions.

Yet a gospel of repentance is a call
to find no inherent worth in all
of our ambitions and hope in self.
There, Christ brings the maul
between us and our cosmos since the fall.

And many will find it strange that the score
to a follower of Christ is not based on what we hoard
for ourselves in this world, but the wrath poured
into the cup for Christ to drink down for sins galore.

Yet we were undone to the core
and our sins, we deplored
when He opened our dead eyes and our first sight was the Lord
and we saw that Christ our sins bore.
Are there treasures in store?
Yes, more.
But He Himself is the greatest of all treasures.

Abhorred

For the proud look in the eye,
For the tongue telling a lie,
For the murders implied by a hate standing by, (Matthew 5.)
For this scheming heart of mine,
For these feet that evil find,
For false witness and vain strife,
Someone had to die.

Not for low self-esteem,
Not to grant a worldling's dream,
Not for a Benz agleam,
Not for more wins for my team,
But for sin - my sins extreme
Against the God who cannot deem
That I can stand in His regime
Unless He would first redeem.

Do you know how a loving God can hate?
He hates because He first loves His own glory -
His own name -
His own attributes -
The name we profane when we do not consider its weight -
Its majesty -
Its dominion -

Over colliding galaxies and orbiting bodies and shifting continents -
That He first shaped in the palm of His hand
And said with a word, "May it be -
It is good. I have fashioned this for the glory and praise and pleasure of Me - alone!"

And all of heaven cheered as they saw this planet,
Freed to spin throughout the dark expanse of space
About its nearest burning star -
To show His creative power -
For His glory.

His dominion extends over every nation, whether in peace or war -
To every city great or small,
To every person rich or poor,
To every creature of the forest, air, and seas,
To every blade of grass that they trample on,
To every cell, molecule, and atom -
Engineered like a little solar system, with electrons orbiting a nucleus,
To show His grand design, even on the smallest scale -
For His glory.

And the angels, beside themselves in adoration,
Respond with their every meditation:
"Holy is the Most High over all creation!"

And my life's reply?
Selfish ambitions,
Not-captive cognitions,
Partial submissions,
Apathetic renditions
Citing "too much tradition"
Of men's compositions
To give Him recognition.

I should constantly strive to do the things which make my Holy Father smile,
To know that He grieves when my heart is not God-besought,
Because He knows that He alone is the source of every perfect gift
And apart from Him I have no good thing at all;
To see my inmost man, with a heart adrift
even for a second, in my mind I fall.
And for even that careless step, I ought
To march with the hellbound ranks, one hundred-file -

Rather than to take the narrow path with room enough for one,
A road with jagged rocks, traveled barefoot by the Son
Of God, who took the forty lashes - smack! -
Was lifted to a cross and nailed there - whack! -
And died the worst of deaths to buy me back. (That was grace.)

My trifles I pursue,
The idols not eschewed,
The thoughts that pleased my old mind unrenewed -
The Lord must abhor each one,
Because for His glory to triumph over that, He had to kill His Son.

Adorned

Envision the seraph:
A "burning one", unequaled in creation.
A "singing one" in constant worship celebration.
Yet to be praised has never been his concentration.
He will instead ascribe all glory to the God of every nation.

A perfect being, yet its perfections can't outdo
its God's, so worshiping a seraph is taboo.
Four of their wings hid their faces and feet from view,
Lest they be impure. They fly with the other two.

Do not think that in their presence you can be a passerby.
Isaiah himself cried out, "Undone am I!"
Supernaturally strengthened just so that he would not die?
He had to be when he saw the Lord nigh.

Consider their God:
There is one God in three Persons - with no brothers.
Not white, black, or Latin - this God checks "other".
But don't fit Him in our boxes. He has no mother.
And at His creations, we stare in wonder.

From the setting sun to the rising tide,
From the highest peaks to the lands' divide,
From the Challenger Deep to the deepest sky,
Creation spreads the fame of the Lord on high.

Now face down, I am entranced with the thought
That this God would call me holy like his priceless, sinless Son.
And more than a servant, He has made me one
co-heir with Christ, rejoicing in what He has done.

Examine the bride:
The world calls her a dirty girl in a dirty dress,
Full of sins not confessed and problems to address.
Many do not even call her a damsel in distress,
And concentrate only on her failures to impress.

The law is extensive. Even to focus on ten,
We would still break each commandment given then.
Liars, lusters, rebels - from each infant to each man
Whether living in Cannes, Iran, or Japan.

On that final day, we cannot point to house or lands,
Only to our Scapegoat who fulfilled the law's demands.
We could never walk next to Him along the ocean sands.
Each second, He carried us in His holy, nail-pierced hands.

And we make much of the Bridegroom:
The King of Glory, eternally co-existing with His Father,
Three in one with the Spirit in perfect pleasure. Why bother
To walk terra firma as a mortal man?
How could Judah's Lion on this mortal coil stand?

The Author of the law gave Him as sufficient grace.
This upholder of stars, planets, and interstellar space
Laid aside His glory to take on a fleshly case
And cast off our sins as far as east from west - erased.

He has named us sons and daughters of His own
And His perfect rule will never be overthrown.
Even as we think of sonship, are there tears,
Especially when our misdeeds large appear?
In this world, until we claim the shining Prize,
Realize that our joy comes through mournful eyes.

When You died there were stripes from a whip and thorns
Composed Your crown as You submitted to this storm
Of wrath for sin - our failures to conform.
Yet there, our lengthy process to transform
To future glory will be done - no more lukewarm.
We will see why You, Lord, suffered in this form:
Diamonds shine as coal compared to how Your bride will be adorned.

Each jewel of her necklace shines brighter than dawn.
Pure are her ways now. To her Savior she's drawn.
Joy on her face replaces her shame woebegone.
Once acting like Hester, she walks in like Esther,
Perfectly arrayed, with each scarlet letter gone!

What is it like to always live in the third heaven
with the Prince of Peace and no need for the weapons
of this war to kill sin, since temptation will die
and we will more clearly see the Christ's glorious eyes?

[This was inspired partially by Paul Washer's sessions on The Son's Glory (first session here) and a tweet by John Piper. I am also tweeting now.]

Flame - "Tonight (All of Me)"

I just want to be,
I just want to be closer to Your heart.
You will find me there.
Everything I am, it's because of You.
It's because of You, and now we sing tonight:

I'm giving You all of me tonight.
I'll let go of everything tonight.
I'm giving You all of me tonight, tonight,
Tonight, I'll give You all of me.

Let's pray:
Dear Father, in the name of Your holy Son,
I desire like Jesus, pray for us to be one (I do)
I desire to give. I desire to serve. I desire to love others with more than my words.
Bless me to be humble. Bless me to be meek.
I want to be a joy when people come around me.
Give me a gentle spirit. Bless me to be content.
Please keep me from my sin. Let me quickly repent.
Please give me discipline. Give me self-control,
to know when to stop and when to say no.
Make me a bold witness. Please remove fear.
Replace it with faith. Pour out Your Spirit here.
Fill me up, Lord. Let me overflow.
Let me overdose. Make me holy. Keep me close.
I want to give it all until there's none left.
But I can't be too giving. Look at Your Son's death.

I just want to be,
I just want to be closer to Your heart.
You will find me there.
Everything I am, it's because of You.
It's because of You, and now we sing tonight:

I'm giving You all of me tonight.
I'll let go of everything tonight.
I'm giving You all of me tonight, tonight,
Tonight, I'll give You all of me.

I can see You talking to the high priest.
Peter just denied You.
for the second time. One more time, he will deny You. (Why?)
One of the officers smacked You in the face,
but he didn't understand that You were actually grace.
But the people would rather see the release of a thief
than to know forgiveness and be with the Prince of Peace. (That's true.)
And as they scream for Pilate to crucify You,
I hear my own voice 'cause every day I deny You. (Somehow.)
But You still bore the cross on Your vertebrae
Walking to Golgotha, what a display of grace!
I see Your weakened body beaten - can't keep me from crying
Your cross was very heavy. They gave it to Simon.
Then You were crucified. They divided Your clothes.
Like the Scriptures prophesied, You died and You rose. (Yes!)
Two thousand years ago, slaughtered on a tree,
You gave all of You. I'm giving all of me.

I just want to be,
I just want to be closer to Your heart.
You will find me there.
Everything I am, it's because of You.
It's because of You, and now we sing tonight:

I'm giving You all of me tonight.
I'll let go of everything tonight.
I'm giving You all of me tonight, tonight,
Tonight, I'll give You all of me.

This I pray, Lord,
To be like Abraham:
Ready to give it all. My only son is the lamb.
Ready to sacrifice everything if You ask,
Because nothing is mine - not even this life that I have.
Everything I own, O Lord, is a gift,
So who am I to hold it with a firm grip?
I give You my talents. I give You my time.
I give You my eyes. I give You my mind.

I just want to be,
I just want to be closer to Your heart.
You will find me there.
Everything I am, it's because of You.
It's because of You, and now we sing tonight:

I'm giving You all of me tonight.
I'll let go of everything tonight.
I'm giving You all of me tonight, tonight,
Tonight, I'll give You all of me.

I'll give You all of me. ...

- Flame, "Tonight (All of Me)", from Captured.

(If you are reading this because you were looking for the words to this song, please check out my other posts from the menu at the right!)

17 Things To Be As a (Future) Husband.

"Finally, pray less that God would show you who is the right husband or wife and pray more to be the right kind of spouse. Dump your list of seventeen things you need in a husband/wife and make yourself a list of seventeen things you need to be as a wife or husband."

- Kevin DeYoung.

Recently, I reread one of my favorite books, Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung, in its entirety. Having been in a courtship for most of the past year and not knowing which way it will go, now is a good time for me to fill out what I must be. I have also been reading John Piper's Report on His Leave of Absence (http://desiringgod.org/blog/posts/john-pipers-report-on-his-leave-of-absence) and trying to incorporate that into my list.

1. I must be continually abiding in Christ and satisfied in Him. Romantic love is not to be my ultimate source of satisfaction. Christ must be. If I become obsessed with what a woman thinks of me, even if it is my wife, I am actually committing the sin of idolatry before a holy God. Not to mention, it will drive me insane. I know this from my courtship.

2. I must be obedient to the commands of Scripture. This only includes full obedience, because partial or delayed obedience is disobedience. I must be willing to risk rejection by the world and take risks for the sake of the gospel.

3. I must have a good and regular spiritual diet, using the Bible most of all but also doctrinally sound Christian books. Books, I have found, are amazing sources of wisdom. I must read Scripture both systematically and to specific passages, as the Lord leads.

4. I must be constantly aware of my own inadequacies and failures and not be self-righteous. An asawa would do much to show me about my own failings before God and before her and expose my imperfections. Being binata at the moment, no particular person can clue me in to my own failures to the same level that an asawa can.

5. I must be a capable provider who can always have or readily find good work to provide for my asawa and the kids. In providing for them, I must realize that my asawa must have a husband and my children must have a father. Work must never take the top priority in my life.

6. I must be consistently loving and compassionate to my asawa in words, actions, and truth. She will not always like me, and I will not always like her. But I must love her at all times, and she needs to know that. She needs to know that my love, romantically speaking, is only for her and for no one else.

7. I must seek wise counsel from my asawa and from my kuyas and ates in the faith in order to make wise decisions. Although God has called me to biblical headship and will ultimately hold primarily me (not her) responsible for the family that (God willing) He will eventually entrust to me, He has given my asawa a brain too. I am to see her as a helpmeet. And I am to see fellow Christians as people who can help me and who I can help.

8. I must be a consistent student of her language and culture. This includes regular study of Tagalog and being aware and respectful of cultural differences between the US and the Philippines. My goal regarding Tagalog is to eventually make her and me comfortable using either Tagalog or English in the home, so that language is not a barrier. However, I must not see our cultures as the rule in our home. We must give Scripture full authority in our lives and not do things just because our cultures say so if the Bible speaks convincingly to the contrary.

9. I must be disciplined in regards to my body. This means I must have self-control over my eyes and my sexuality. I must also have good exercise habits and a disciplined, healthy diet in order to look physically attractive to my asawa. I should not expect her to make an effort to be beautiful while I let my body go to corpulent, couch-potato waste.

10. I must give entertainment its proper place in life. The average American spends several hours each day watching television. The vast majority of television shows are terrible for me spiritually, and even what is good must have its proper balance. I must determine to not live and die according to how my sports teams are doing.

11. I must choose my words carefully when speaking to her, when speaking to others, and when I am alone. My tongue leads me into so much sin. I often sound uncaring with my words and must make sure that I do not damage others by what I say. If I correct someone, it should be obvious to them that I give them hard words because I love them, not for the sake of being hard. Although known among my friends for doctrinal correctness, I can't be known as critical or exacting. God has forgiven me of much. I must forgive others as He has forgiven me.

12. I must be gracious when people do nice things for me and understanding of their good intentions when they do something kindly that does not ultimately please me. I must repay them for their kindnesses based not grudgingly on a debtor's ethic but based joyfully on the kindness and mercy that God has shown me in redeeming even me.

13. I must meditate frequently on the promises of God and must hope in Him. Ultimately, this includes His redeeming me from the presence of sin. I must make others aware of that redemption - for God's glory and for my joy in that glory.

14. I must worship God as much as possible, with a great deal of passion, faith, and understanding. This includes both public and private worship. He must be my first love.

15. I must be living in community with other believers and seeking godly fellowship. My natural tendency is to withdraw. I am alone when I write. But staying alone all the time is not good for me. I need face time with my friends more than one day a week. And it is important to pray for them and with them. This will permit me to be more caring toward them and seek to please God in this sphere of life.

16. I must make my decisions regarding life with an eye toward my future asawa and future generations. I must be a wise steward of what God has given me, giving regularly to my local church and international missions efforts and avoiding unnecessary purchases and debt. I must consider the long-term effect of decisions related to my career, family life, and ministry, making decisions with my future asawa in mind.

17. I must have a "women and children first" attitude in regards to protecting them. This involves self-sacrifice and willingness to put myself in danger ahead of any woman or child. And this still applies to me even though I don't have an asawa or children right now.

Ah, after writing this, I wish there were, in fact, only 17 things that I had to be!

This Entertaining Truth, Part 4: The Sufficiency of "Christian".

There is something else I wanted to discuss now: the sufficiency of "Christian". I could identify myself as a "Reformed Baptist" or "Christian Hedonist" or an "I'm of John Piper". The guys at TeamPyro describe themselves as "Calvidispiebaptogelical". And of what use is that in describing what saves me? It's a cute label and something that people in my school of thought would chuckle at and possibly unite under. There are two problems with that.

First, it is not good for the unity of the church. If a Christian labels themselves as anything other than Christian, it can divide them from other legitimate believers. I am not talking about "Christians" that prayed a prayer and went back to sinning so that grace would abound. I mean others that have turned from their sins, believed in Christ alone for salvation, and have been given a persevering faith in Christ that stands up to trials so that God will find them faithful when they stand before Him at the end of their lives.

Second, you are not saved by a theological framework! Jesus did not die on the cross and say, "The limited atonement is finished! I didn't die for you, Caesar! Haha... gotcha!!" Everyone who is saved, regardless of their background, becomes a Christian when they repent of their sins and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15). Those are the only essentials, though they carry a much higher cost than most people think.

Strangely enough, most of my close friends are Christians who do not agree with me theologically. Some of them are from my old church, a church that calls itself Baptist but does not preach a gospel of repentance. Yet some people there (including the aforementioned friends) have truly repented from their sins and believed in Christ and remained in that church, more or less, as missionaries to it - teaching what they know is right even though the pastors don't always agree with them. And one of my best friends is a member of a Pentecostal church. He does not personally subscribe to the health-and-wealth gospel, but he goes to that church because that is what he has always done.

See, in most contexts, enjoying fellowship with another believer until I find a disagreement with them, then spending all subsequent time disagreeing with them until we both just say "hmph!" and part ways does not help. It is important to fellowship with those who are like-minded. But if someone really is a believer and is not like-minded, and it really is that important to win them over to my side, I need to win them over with love. And if "love doesn't work", I need to repent of my pragmatism and continue giving them the truth in love anyway.

Here is another thought just in case I have made it seem that theology is not important. Many of the differences across Christian theologies boil down to one question: Does God exist to make me look great, or do I exist to make God look great? Phrased another way, who is at the center - man or Christ? Our answers do a lot to shape our views of Him and of the world around us.

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Tim Conway from Grace Community Church and I'll Be Honest said the following in one of his Q&A sessions. My apologies for not remembering which one:

"There are Calvinists in hell. ... Whatever Bible you have, it ought to be teaching you how to love other Christians more. Whatever doctrine you have - whatever theology you have - it ought to be revealing Christ to you more and more, that you will want to love Him more and more."

"If your doctrine makes it harder for you to get along with - if it makes you more difficult - if it makes you unbearable - if it makes you ungracious - if it makes you unloving, then ... you're making an idol out of that. And I'll say the same thing about Bible translations, about denominations. If your denomination, or being a Baptist, or clinging to a certain Bible translation makes you ugly towards other people, makes you bitter towards other people, you've made an idol out of it."

"Many times, discipline is right in the area of the sin. You know what sin a lot of times He comes after us for? Idolatry. A lot of times, we tend to treasure something in our lives more than Christ. ... He will come to us right at that idol. ... If you are in sin and you can just keep on going at it, beware."

This Entertaining Truth, Part 3: A Soundtrack for Life

In my music collection, I have at least 38 days' worth of songs, sermons, and podcast episodes, accrued through about 13 years of buying music and 4 years of listening to sermons. I definitely appreciate good music and preaching. Most of my days at work are spent, at least partially, listening to various songs in order to block out noise in the office and help me to focus on my tasks. And then I usually listen to music on the way home and sometimes after I get home as well.

As Joshua Harris said well in Dug Down Deep, everyone is a theologian; but is what you believe about God true?

Now I will expand this to musicians and entertainers in general. Every song that contains lyrics expresses theology, whether it says, "How great is our God" or "Shake that [rear end], girl". I say that of the latter example because it still expresses a worldview that says, "The chief end of a man is to pursue pleasure for himself, and women exist to provide him with that pleasure." This is the obviously wrong example to most Christians, although the fact that such songs still express some form of theology is far less obvious. One can find another less obvious example in songs which teach, "God exists to give me what I want."

Christians can respond to this in several ways. One is to still listen to the world but try not to let it affect our worldview. That often sets us up for additional temptation. Others will listen to anything that calls itself Christian without examining its doctrine. And others will only listen to songs that are doctrinally sound.

Customized theology can creep in here as well. Few, if any, people use lyrics alone as the determining factor in what they will willfully listen to. The song must sound good too, right? We obtain some sort of pleasure from listening to music, and it also serves as a means to worship corporately. Otherwise, we would just listen to preaching all the time.

So we can have two filters: one, lyrical; the other, musical. And then our playlists become routine. I don't know anyone who sets up playlists on their music player of choice based on the theology that the songs teach. Most people use a genre, an artist, or just favorite songs. So then the favorite songs become stuck in our heads and we start meditating on the words. And we can get a skewed theology this way. I suspect this is one way how some people listen to songs that say "all things are possible" all day and then start praying outside the will of God.

There exist other dangers in considering music as a soundtrack for life. How many times have I been inclined to pray and decided to listen to my umpteenth holy hip hop song of the day instead? It is trading "best" - communion with the Father - for merely "good" - learning great doctrine. We can listen to doctrinally sound worship music or holy hip hop or read wonderful books or listen to deep expositional preaching all day and still not abide in Christ. Often I need to check myself: would I really rather listen to a full playlist of music than just read Scripture? Would I really rather listen to another sermon than just pray? In doing this, I exalt my teachers instead of my Lord.

And I have found it also sometimes becomes hard for me to sing a simple worship song after a week of listening to lots of doctrinally deep Christian music. If I go into a worship service expecting to sing a certain deep worship song with the rest of the congregation, and I'm disappointed when we sing something simpler instead, the service starts to become about me instead of about God. Even in giving myself to God-centered Christianity, I can still center my Christianity on myself.

Some of my friends have been able to go on a media fast for a week or 40 days. Honestly, I don't think I could do it right now. When I fast from food, I have not been able to also fast from Facebook or checking my email - or sometimes even checking my Blogger stats! When Jesus communed with His Father, He withdrew - away from the disciples, away from ministry and fellowship. Ah, as C.S. Lewis says, "we are far too easily pleased" - with our electronic toys.

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"The best thing some of you can do is take every television set in your house and destroy it - and learn to read, and think, and talk."

- Paul Washer, "The Sovereignty of God and World Missions".

This Entertaining Truth, Part 2: Sola "Scriptura + My Opinions"?

"In a separate report, Barna found that more than 6 in 10 born-again Christians say they are customizing their faith, not following any one church's theology. 'Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible,' the report notes."

- "Christian faith: Calvinism is Back".

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In the last few years, I have picked up on a tendency of American Christians (including myself, to some extent) going into a church service with everything they believe already made up and then filtering everything they hear through that lens instead of through Scripture. There's this notion of "Joel Osteen is saying this; Paul Washer is saying that; they are both Christians, so they must both somehow be telling the truth... so I'll believe both of them." A lot of them don't read their Bibles enough to know the difference, and a lot of them do not "search the Scriptures to see if these things are so" like the Bereans did. And a lot of them don't examine themselves well enough to see whether they or their teachers are genuinely converted. (Note: God is the final arbiter of that, as the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked - Jeremiah 17:9. But: "you shall know them by their fruit" - Matthew 7:16.)

And then as they hear all these teachers saying all these different things, they cancel each other out. So when they do hear something about how their lifestyle habitually does not fall in line with Scripture and that if they don't repent, that is evidence that they may have never been saved, they dismiss it as, "Oh, that's just what John Piper thinks. That's nice. I'll just let him believe what he believes." Just as bad: "Oooo, that's convicting! But I don't need to do anything about it." It becomes like a college lecture on something that has nothing to do with your job: just interesting, just entertainment, just more useless knowledge in a brain that is most likely already full of worldly useless knowledge.

The problem is, God, not you, determines absolute truth. He alone sets the standards that determine whether you are really saved and whether you are growing in holiness. A lot of people mask their opinions with "God told me..." to get away with anything. But the Bible alone holds final authority regarding doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

So I ask: where does your "customized faith" come from? Does it come from legitimate Biblical convictions obtained by reading and praying through Scripture? Or is it just what you want to believe?

It would be nigh upon impossible for me to pick a church that agrees with me 100% on every major and minor issue. I identify, in rapidly descending order of importance, as a Christian, a five-point Calvinist, a Baptist, and a qualified continuationist (in the vein of John Piper and Wayne Grudem). And I don't worship like a dead man. All of this, I arrived at through studying Scripture and listening to faithful preachers from Baptist, Presbyterian, nondenominational, Sovereign Grace, Acts 29, (etc.) churches.

Maybe you are from a Sovereign Grace church, read the preceding paragraph, and said, "I don't see what this guy's problem is. He should just join one of our churches. We agree with him on practically everything." The problem is the will of God.

After spending time in prayer about it and becoming convinced that God would be most glorified in my life right now if I do this, I became a member of a Reformed Baptist church in my area. (This is also the "international church" to which I referred in Godly Fellowship, Part 8.) We don't actually have "Reformed" or "Baptist" in our name. We have gone through three names and two pastors during the two-plus years that I have been there. The majority of the members who were there two years ago have left the church and been replaced by new people whom I do not know as well. And in my age group, our church is so full of young men that we all basically have to look outside our local church for prospective wives - and then make sure that they too agree with us on matters of the faith and can serve in our church - not an easy task. (In our young adult ministry recently, we had five men's small groups and only one for women.) There is really very little in it for me except that I know I am being fed with the Word here and worshiping God truthfully with other genuinely converted people here. And those two things outweigh everything else.

I do not want to make minor issues major, if I can help it in the least. To have fellowship with me as a Christian, someone must agree with me on one thing: the gospel. That is the most important thing in all of Christianity, and everything else in our faith is insignificant to this one thing: Christ died for sinners. And if someone repents of their sins (not just confessing them) and believes in Christ alone, God has given them that repentance and faith and saved them. Nothing else really matters compared to this gospel.

At this stage in life, loving the church means the following for me: "To the wind with 10- or 20-year Christian friendships that were not founded in Christ. Possibly, to the wind with getting married or even finding love, at least for now. I do not wear a cross around my neck. I carry it on my shoulder. And this is no sacrifice to me, because God killing His Son at Calvary was an unthinkable sacrifice, and He did it anyway to glorify His name by saving my soul from His eternal wrath. These are my brothers and sisters. They are with Christ. So I am with them."

When we approach doctrine or the church with apathy or we emphasize our customized theology above everything else, we ought to consider the following:

"You wonder why people choose fields away from the States when young people at home are drifting because no one wants to take time to listen to their problems. I’ll tell you why I left. Because those Stateside young people have every opportunity to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language, and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever. I have had to make a cross of two logs, and lie down on it, to show the Indians what it means to crucify a man. When there is that much ignorance over here and so much knowledge and opportunity over there, I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Those whimpering Stateside young people will wake up on the Day of Judgment condemned to worst fates than these demon-fearing Indians, because having a Bible, they were bored with it – while these never heard of such a thing as writing."

- Jim Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty, p. 237, quoted on Pure Church.