Busy Weekend

Life is just so worldly. It's hard to be distracted by all these concerns and stay focused on God. I'm looking forward to getting up tomorrow and heading to church. I'm singing tomorrow, and that always makes me happy. We're plugging in for the first time ever. There's going to be guitar, bass, drums etc. I think some of the older folk may keel over, prayer book in hand.

The wife and I are looking at new homes. I've kind of fallen in love with a house. I can't get it off my mind. There's a lot of upside to it. It's 100% financed through BBT. It's not in the best neighborhood, and the schools aren't stellar for Noah. This causes concern. I think it need to take it to the Lord in prayer.

There's not much to say tonight. I feel like the past week I've been a bit distant from God. There's a direct correlation with my prayer life and my connection with Him. If I'm not engaged in daily prayer, I fall away from the faith awfully quickly.

Hopefully a better post tomorrow. Much love.

Why Evil?

Because God Wants Our Love!

Life can provide some new challenges when you decide you are going to try to live in Christ. The sinful aspect of our nature doesn't 'suddenly' disappear as a result. For me personally, I loved to raise hell as a younger man. I did it well for decades. But sadly, the only thing you earn by sinning and raising hell is a pit of emptiness and a quicker end. Physically and spiritually. My old lifestyle only sped up my arrival at the ultimate stop over (death), and I've recently been trying to slow that bus down a bit.

This process of 'applying the breaks' (so to speak)... has included learning about and preparing a variety of defenses for my faith. It's been a fun process. I love being a trial attorney, and CHristian apologetics is somewhat an extension of that. You see, I couldn't just take a leap of faith and believe that God came down to earth and manifested himself as Christ, made the ultimate sacrifice, and most importantly...defeated death through the resurrection...if I couldn't intellectually defend and justify it. Because lets be honest...it sounds like a fantastical fairy tale. And my heart can not rejoice in what my mind intellectually rejects. But for reasons that this note won't endeavor to address, I am at a point in which I'm intellectually satisfied that all of it actually happened. I'm satisfied that the resurrection is in fact true, and that it provides the main turning point in the physical and spiritual history of human kind. 

So lets look at defending the faith. I often hear from non-believers that God can't exist because there is so much evil in the world. And no loving God would allow that kind of evil and suffering to run rampant. But yet, if God created the universe, it seems would've had to have created evil too. But if there's no sin in Him, and evil exists, then perhaps God doesn't exist after all. The syllogism goes as follows:

1) God created everything.

2) Evil is a thing.

3) Therefore, God created evil.

This is a flawed argument. The first problem is that to admit there is evil, presupposes that there is a perfect measure to compare it with. Otherwise, you wouldn't recognize it as evil. It would only be a happenstance of the natural universe. Not right or wrong. So if you can recognize something as evil in the world, there must be God.

But secondly, and more deceptively...the syllogism includes a category mistake that non-believers will try to trip you up with. You see, premise two is wrong. Evil is not a 'thing'. Evil is a real lack of the goodness of God. Here's an illustration: Evil is the same as a donut hole. What is a donut hole made out of? Nothing. But it's real...it exists.

Well...OK...lets say for the sake of argument that I'm right. Evil is a 'lack'...and it's 'real'...but it's not a 'thing'. If God is so magnificently all powerful...why would he create a world in which this 'lack' could not only exist...but flourish in such horrible ways?

The answer that has been making sense to me lately, and is actually beautifully layed out by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, is as follows: (My version is not quite as good as Lewis')

Evil exists because God gave us FREE WILL. Evil came about because God gave us the ability to choose freely. Couldn't he have created a universe in which all we see is him?...with no choice but to fall to our knees and worship? Of course. (Sounds like hell though if you consider it...a world of 'automata' as C.S. Lewis put it...invoking images of Clockwork Orange with our eyelids permanently pulled back.)

But God actually WANTS us to have the opportunity to completely ignore him if we so choose. God is perfect. He is all good. All holy. He is a creator. And if he is going to create...he is going to create the most perfect thing that can possibly be created.

The most perfect thing of which I speak, the most perfect thing that God created, MUST allow for the potential of evil. Why? Because that most perfect thing is TRUE LOVE. And the only way to experience true love...perfect love...altruistic non-conditional love...is when it s FREELY GIVEN. When you freely choose to partake in it...despite the consequences. Anyone who's been in a dysfunctional relationship can attest to the fact that you can't MAKE someone love you. You can't MAKE them stay. But when they choose to freely offer their heart...it's the best gift conceivable. Despite our flaws, God chooses over and over again to dole out unconditional love upon us. Even when we usually don't deserve it, and that gift of love is called GRACE.

God wants our true love in return. And to have our true love, he had to endow in us the ability to choose him freely. The ramifications? There are going to be a lot of people who freely choose to completely tune him out. (And how easy that is to do with all of our modern distractions!!) As soon as you tune him out, say no to God...you've actualized the potential for evil. Why do we have the potential in the first place? Because God wants our true love.

To summarize: In order to allow for perfect love...God created a universe that has free will, and free will allows for the possibility of evil, which we then actualize when we choose to ignore God.

True Love requires a free choice. It requires FREE WILL. And when you freely choose to make the leap of FAITH that allows you to accept God's GRACE, you will experience JOY. (Which transcends the temporal happiness that we so often insist on finding in worldly things.)

And even though I ponder and try to understand these things...(and that's all this essay is...an attempt to better understand God and my purpose)...so often I choose to tune him out. So many times, throughout my day, I'm tempted to look the other way and ignore God. Even though I've received glimpses of unadulterated Joy...I still try to find happiness on my own. In fact, I often can't get through two lines of a silent prayer before my mind wanders off to something else. It seems to be in our nature to worry about our own priorities. To take our own lead, and to play king of our own little worlds. To dictatorially search for happiness as opposed to accepting Joy. And that's why I'm doing my best to give my little kingdom over to God. Giving my faith a go, and reaching out to accept His Grace. Because I'm so damned flawed. I tried to be the ruler of my own world for years and years. It wasn't a success. I'm not a good enough person to be an Atheist. Without a celestial judge on the bench...why bother trying to be good? I certainly didn't.

The answer? For me it lives in the cross and the resurrection. I don't need to figure it all out on my own. I'm not riddled with guilt for my slip ups. I don't need to 'earn' my way to heaven through good deeds and be 'better' than other people. I don't have to repetitively perform outward actions in a certain way, or at a certain time. Nothing that I could possibly do would be more effective than the work that was done for me on the cross. I love Biblical Christianity for that reason. It's all I've seen that offers complete assurance of where I will end up one millisecond after my death, and a personal relationship with a living intimate God while I'm here. My thankfulness and joy at knowing my savior intimately commands my outward acts of faith. Nothing else. I don't act faithfully because I'm hoping to earn a spot in heaven...I do it because Love flows two ways down the spiritual highway. As I see it, the goal of Christianity is not to become a better person by following the law...but to enter into a living relationship with Christ. Only through him will I become lastingly (eternally) transformed. And that transformation will allow me - (Lil ole me) - to become a pinprick of light in the universe, a personal intersection where God's Kingdom and the Earthly Realm are allowed to meet.

Ultimately I do have one job to do. I need to choose to accept that the work has been done for me...the work which was given as a gift of complete Grace and Love. Accept that on my own, I can't accomplish a whole lot. I need to accept that the only way to 'earn' the righteousness of God's grace, is to on my knees, ask for Christ's help. Then everything will eventually fall into place. I've seen a rebirth of my heart in the last couple years. A lot of my old self has indeed died, and a new heart has been reborn. Knowing that I have been Forgiven and Loved by Christ's perfect sacrifice...how can I decide against forgiving and loving everyone around me? Whether they deserve it or not. God knows I didn't deserve it! The resurrection has been alive in my own breastplate, and it's been an amazing feeling. And slowly but surely, I tune out a little bit less from God every day. Through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, my eyes are slowly opening to the goodness of it all. I'm starting to see it man!

Woot! I'm pumped about it. I'm so riddled with flaws...it's ridiculous. But I've got a reason for hope now. And trust me...I looked for it in a million other places before I looked here. This is the last place I thought I needed or wanted to go. It's been a heart changer.

Galatians 4:6

Ephesians 1:18

Much Love.

Love

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

--CS Lewis

Christian Life

One of My Favorite Descriptions of the Christian Life:

I am not what I ought to be.
Ah! how imperfect and deficient.
Not what I might be,
considering my privileges and opportunities.
Not what I wish to be.
God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him.
I am not what I hope to be;
ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as He is.
Not what I once was,
a child of sin, and slave of the devil.


Thought not all these,


not what I ought to be,
not what I might be,
not what I wish or hope to be, and
not what once was,


I think I can truly say with the apostle,


“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

—Cited in Letters of John Newton, p. 400.

From a Hike - Winter 2008

I needed a break from studying so I headed out into the wilderness. Ok, it was a bike path through the woods. But I was alone, and there was no one in sight. It was nice and warm, above 70 degrees. The trees were completely barren, and the forest floor was awash with flattened leaves. After about 15 minutes of twists and turns, and some time after a slight divergence onto a golf course - (I watched two old farts line up for a drive...one sliced and the other faded...I thought: If they had only been born one person...they could've made the tour...) - I noticed a barely trodden path into the woods, and up the side of a hill. It was a medium incline. I glanced behind me and seeing no one around...I hopped off the paved path, into the forest and up the leafy trail. 

That's when things got interesting. I was suddenly completely alone, and on the edge of a great forest. I felt like I had just fallen through the Wardrobe. I began to climb up the small leafy path, and through the trees. (Now, I want to write a detailed description of what followed, because it was so wonderfully spirit filled and vivid. Such a change from my study quarters.)

As I approached the top of the hill, I realized that I was about to overlook quite a summit. And as I crested the top of the ridge, all of a sudden...I was hit with a cacophony of sound. It was loud, when just a minute before, all was silent besides my tripping through forest debris. Suddenly all I could hear was at least a million frogs chirping away from the bottom of the valley that I only now could see. In fact, the ridge overlooked such a steep slope that I couldn't really see to the bottom. I noticed a dead tree stump to my right and hopped up. Only then could I see completely over the ridge to the bottom of the valley. There was a river running through the middle, and the frogs must've been making the waterway their home. It was interesting because, had I not taken the leafy path up the hill, I never would've heard the frogs, or realized that there was such a sudden drop only 50 yards from the paved bike path. 

So I sat on the stump for a bit trying to remain silent and appreciative. I mean, the view over this hill was into...wilderness. No houses...no golf course...I could've been in Greenridge State Forest. (I did see a sign that it was a preserve instituted by the City of Raleigh.) After some time, as they always do, the animals began to flit about again. I noticed some things I had never seen before. To my right, about 10 yards away were two woodpeckers. Not the large ones with the crested red heads, but the smaller ones with the red breast and black backs. I didn't know that woodpeckers traveled together. One was clearly male and the other female. They were busy flying back and forth amongst the smaller trees in the underbrush of the forest. I thought the pair together was interesting. Love...exciting and new.

The frogs chirped away.

After some time, I hopped off the stump. As I landed my arms flew up a bit, which scared out of the canopy one of the largest hawks I have ever seen. In his beak was a lifeless animal, (or was it in his talons?)...maybe the size of a skinned rabbit. He flew...or glided perhaps is a better description...across the valley, above the frogs, over the river, and into a tree on the incline on the other side. As he soared he let out a shriek, the likes of which I have only heard in the movies. 'EEEEEEeeeeerrrrrrrrr.' Super high pitched and shrill. You can imagine it...like something before a shootout in a wild west flick. Another cool bit...He landed next to another hawk about half his size. If I hadn't watched the trajectory of his flight, I never would have noticed them sitting together on the other side of the valley. They blended in so well. But there they were, heads a bobbing...silently adjusting on the branch. I watched for another 30 seconds or so...then larger hawk flew off again to the left. I lost track of him in the distance. When I tried to find the smaller hawk, and the branch they both had just been sitting on...I could not.

So I kneeled down on the path and looked around for a couple minutes. Sometimes when I'm in the woods, I get the sudden feeling that someone may be watching me. You see, more than just being paranoid, I know what it's like to be silently sitting in the woods only to be startled by the oncoming noisiness of a hiker coming over a ridge. For the hiker, it's really hard to notice someone sitting motionless at the base of a tree, or partly concealed by a tree. In fact, there have been times when I've heard the onset of people coming my way...voices echoing, tree limbs snapping...and I've just remained still and let them pass by me. Often, they've never noticed my presence. It's not until you stop moving, stop kicking up the underbrush, stop talking...that you notice how quiet it can get in the woods. I guess its a metaphor for life huh? You want to feel the weight of God's presence? Shut your mouth for a bit...unplug from the internet, and be quiet. So maybe someone was watching me...or watching over me...either way it put me on edge a little bit. It made it easier to imagine what ancient people meant when they wrote that God should be 'feared.' His presence is so powerful, that when you accidentally stumble into it...you can almost feel the weight of it pressing you to your knees. Perhaps respect is a better word...except for the fact that it can be pretty scary. Maybe it's not God who's frightening...maybe it's the realization of your own insignificance, the understanding of your own inadequacy in His presence.

Anyway, the point is...I suddenly felt small and vulnerable.

I decided to say a little prayer. I know, I know...my atheist pals would be rolling their eyes at this point...but when the Holy Spirit moves you, there not a whole lot of choice in the matter. So this is what happened next. By the way, I'm not making any of this stuff up. It just happened an hour ago. 

I was still silently crouched in the middle of the forest, on a bed of dead leaves. I got down on my knees, and bowed my head. No sooner had I mouthed 'Lord, forgive me for my transgressions...' When I heard from above, the sound of a booming avalanche. Having already been a little bit on edge, this was a bit much. I must admit...I cried out briefly like a little girl. It startled me. About 20 yards away...a gigantic tree limb, the size of a small tree itself, had snapped from the ceiling of the forest. It was heavy enough to rip down branches of all sizes as it fell. I couldn't believe how loud the initial 'crack' was. It landed with a thud to the forest floor kicking up a pile of leaves and limbs. Boom! I was close enough to feel the impact.

I didn't know whether to take this as a good sign, or perhaps not such a good sign. I sat there looking around, scanning the undergrowth for a while. I quickly wrapped up any prayers, and moved out of the forest and back to the bike path. To say the least, I was quite a bit unnerved.

I was left with the feeling that God had imparted to me this: "You're a good guy. But if you're going to walk around professing to know me...you need to live it too. I hear you, you're forgiven...but never forget...I'm real, I'm here, and I'm powerful. Respect it." Of course I didn't hear these words...I just felt like that was the message of my experience. Which I think...I think...is how the Holy Spirit talks. Like mental telepathy, but straight to your heart.

Upon reflection, it was a great thing. It was a good hike. I wanted to jot it down so I wouldn't forget any of it.

Now back to the books.

Back From Practice

I'm starting to really enjoy Monday nights. We're gearing up for a transition to some more contemporary types of music in Church. So we've formed a little group, and it's starting to come together pretty well. I'm singing, and we also have a high school girl who can blow the roof off the place. She's excellent. It's fun to sing with her because she's always on pitch. Three other high schoolers on guitar, bass, and drums. Our two adult music leaders rock out the piano really well.

What we're working on is called praise music I guess. I'm not really sure, since I wasn't really into church and church music growing up. I remember there was this Catholic girl that lived on my street as a kid who was really into modern Christian music. Even at the time, I thought it was wacky that you could be entering your teenage years and not rebelling at all. Listening to exactly what your parents would love for you to listen to. That to me was odd. But I guess she knew Jesus before I did. Now I don't think listening to praise and worship music is odd at all. Of course, I'm 37 years old.

Work is going well. I'm really, really busy. In my opinion we're understaffed for the amount of cases we're handling. But to make that gripe too often starts to sound like you can't handle it. So I'm waiting to see what happens. The lid has to blow off somewhere. I'll rejoice when they hire a third attorney. That's all I'm saying.

I've been doing what I can to make a positive impact on my clients. I had a case today that made me a bit sad, and in turn demonstrated that I've grown up a bit. Back in the day as a young attorney at the PD's office in Baltimore,...the fellas and I used to clamor to represent the good looking young female criminals. The party girl that was on her third DWI, the prostitute who just got started and wasn't ragged out yet by drugs...etc. We'd check out a mug shot, grab the file and say..."I got this one!" Jeez, even writing it now sounds kind of tasteless, but I think part of it was trying to stay sane in an environment that was sensory overload with sadness.

Well today, I represented a girl all of 21 who was has been charged with prostitution. She is a great looking girl and pretty smart. And probably has a really acute, although pretty well hidden case of bipolar disorder. Of course I don't know that for sure...but her decision making is off at the very least. I ended up positioning her case for a dismissal, but as I left the courthouse and walked to my car...all I felt for her was sadness. She was a vortex of despair. She had that thing where she's not really focusing on what your'e saying, but instead thinking about where she's going to get her next fix. I mean, she's engaging, but she's also distracted. As I drove away I saw her talking to some old guy outside the courthouse. I felt like making a u-turn, rolling down my window and shouting 'Go Home!' I almost did.

It was just sad. And so I was wondering how I could have better handled the situation from a Christian perspective. She needs to know she's valued and loved unconditionally. Somewhere along the line she lost her belief in that. It's tough, because she hasn't hired me to bring her the gospel, she's hired me to get her case dismissed. And I'm really good at what she's hired me for, and not so good quite yet at bringing up the good news. Anyway...that was a bit of a rabbit hole I wasn't intending on going down with this post. I think the point is, as you grow up and get a bit more mature...the gravity of these situations hits home in a more profound way. I saw her not so much from a worldly perspective, but more as a lost soul who has no hope. That was a hard thing to stare at.

Well, that was a bit depressing. I'll give it to prayer tonight. There's a lot of street people out there with mental health conditions. I'm going to make that a focus of my prayer tonight. It will be good especially because my little family has been blessed enough to look at buying a new home over the past couple of weeks. Only by the grace of God have I been given the opportunity to be doing that. I'm thankful.

OK...good night.

God's In Control

So today I found myself hanging out, and talking theology in a cozy environment with one of the more respected theologians of our time. I am truly blessed. 10 years ago, I was living completely for myself and doing my dangest to satisfy my every fleeting whim. Now I'm getting up close and personal with people like Norman Geisler, Tim Keller and Michael Green. I've met Dinesh D'souza and Lee Strobel, who've written some great evangelical and apologetic books that have inspired me. I've met leaders in the Anglican church like Robert Duncan and Todd Hunter. Amazing. Inspiring people that have given their lives to Christ.

Today it was Michael Green. From Wikipedia:

Green has been a prolific writer, with much of his work written for a popular reading audience, although he has also contributed to academic studies. Many of his best known books discuss the twin topics of evangelism and apologetics.

One of Green's objectives has been to equip lay Christian believers in their grasp of the gospel message, and to then have confidence to converse with others about faith matters. These practical objectives are very clear in books such as Evangelism, Now and Then and Sharing Your Faith With Friends and Family. At a technical level Green has contributed a valuable academic study of the praxis and theory of evangelism in Evangelism in the Early Church. This work explores the development of evangelism through the New Testament texts and from the early church fathers, and is a basic text in Christian missions. He has built on those foundational studies in his advocacy of evangelism at a parish church level, both through his personal ministry and in his book Evangelism Through the Local Church.

His apologetic work has generally focussed on popular misconceptions and objections held by non-Christians. In books such as You Must Be Joking, World on the Run and Why Bother With Jesus, Green deals with attitudes of religious indifference and scepticism. He also addresses a variety of objections concerning religious hypocrisy, religious pluralism, and popular questions of doubt and unbelief. He has also examined the evidences for the life, death and resurrection of Christ in Man Alive and again in the revision of that book The Day Death Died.

He has considered aspects of apologetic methodology and strategy in his co-authored work with Alister McGrath. Aside from his apologetic writings, Green has also addressed issues of discipleship in the Christian life, ministry and leadership in the church, the doctrine of baptism, pneumatology (the Holy Spirit) and demonology. He has also written non-technical commentaries on certain books of the New Testament...etc.

OK...so you get the drift...the guy is a big deal in his circle. He has been referred to as the Billy Graham of Europe. And here I am, sitting in a bar with about 20 other people shooting the breeze with him on the topics of Christian life, evangelism and theology. What?!?

Last week, I got to spend three days in a small room listening to Tim Keller. Now I'm on to Michael Green. God indeed has a plan for our lives. It was sometime in the summer months of 2006 when Reba interrupted me from doing some online fantasy football research (very important) to inform me that she was pregnant, (and I went straight to church for the first time in eons), that God put me on a road to the bar I was sitting in today. Oh, and I had a coke. I was sitting in a bar for two hours drinking soda, on superbowl Sunday, talking about Jesus Christ. This is ME we're talking about here. You don't believe in the transformative power of the living Christ?? The proof is manifest in the changes I've undergone in the past five years. Praise God.

So, I didn't miss the opportunity to ask a question on the topic of last weeks blogs. I've been struggling with the question of Calvinism. About how we can exercise Free Will if God's in complete control of everything. About what it means to be an Anglican, and whether the 39 Articles are more Arminian/Weslyan than Calvinist...etc. So I addressed it to Green.

Here's what he had to say. Which was brilliant by the way...

First, he stated scripture supports both a strict and a moderate view of the five points of Calvinism. The scripture says that some are elect, but it also commands to spread the gospel to all of the world. That God has a perfect plan for your life, but that you are also free to decide to accept him or not. Ie: That God is in Control of all things while we also exercise Free Will. And because Green is who he is...he immediately pulled this verse out of his theologian cap to back up his point: 

John 6:37 "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will never cast out.

There you have it in one sentence. The strict election of Calvinism in the first part, and the more moderate free will approach of Arminianism in the second. It's like a father holding out his finger, and the child looking up and grabbing it. You can't grab it without God enticing you towards it...but it's up to you to take a hold of it. If you reach up to grab it, God will NEVER pull his hand away. Green said further that in his daily life as a priest he employs both Strict Calvinism and more Moderate Calvinism. He said that before he goes to give a sermon, he is on his knees as an Extreme Calvinist. Giving complete glory to God and acknowledging that God is in complete control of his preaching. On his knees Green asks for help, knowing that nothing good can come from the sermon and out of his mouth, unless God is directing it all. And then, from the pulpit, his conduct is that of an Arminian. He is telling people that they have the right to choose God, to look up and say yes...to accept Gods hand at their own volition. Inviting people to say to God: I accept what you've done for me, and I accept that without your hand holding mine...I will not become the person that you have planned for me to be.

Man...what an answer. It was exactly what I was looking for. It was exactly the passage that I needed to read to put this question to rest for myself.

As I contemplated and prayed about it the past couple of days I did come up with some illustrations for myself that I wanted to write down so I didn't forget. I know that we can't understand all the ways of God. There are Holy mysteries that will not be revealed until the end times. But even so, I felt I should be able to come up with examples of how God can be in complete control, even while people are exercising the free will to ignore Him. Illustrations for how we can be preordained to sin, but at the same time choose a one way eternal trajectory to Hell. 

Here's what I got:

In law, one can be in control or possession of an object without touching it. This is a concept that my clients often don't want to hear about. It's called 'Dominion and Control'. For example, when the marijuana is in arms reach of two people, but neither one of them is holding it, they are both guilty of a crime. They can both be charged and successfully prosecuted for MJ possession. Another example: When I'm teaching my son to ride his bike, there are moments when I take my hand off his seat so that he can in fact guide the bike on his own. He doesn't understand all that's happening. He doesn't know whether I am directing him, or if he is directing himself...but in all aspects I am still in control. One little slip, and I'll be there to catch him. However, he his exercising the Free Will to peddle and steer, all the while entrusting me to guide his journey. Both of these thoughts came to me in the middle of the night. I was struggling to imagine how God can be in control without directly touching or interfering with our choices. I'm shocked that I remembered them.

One last thing. As humans, we so desperately want to put things in a linear timeline. We want to say that God must be cruel to have decided from the beginning wether some of us would be sinners, and others repenters. And that the sinners would be punished at the end of time, for what they were preordained to become. That sounds cruel doesn't it? But what we forget and what is hard for us to comprehend, is that  God is a mist that completely envelops the linear concept of time. He is, at the very moment that I'm typing this, at the beginning the middle and the end of the timeline of the universe. At the same time you exercise the free will to sin, God is watching it happen...but he is also still at the beginning of time knowing it will happen, and also at the end of the timeline with the hindsight of whether you ever repented for the sin. So he is in complete control, and complete knowledge of the past future and present, because He exists in all of it. Another way to describe this:

Lets say you are at the bottom of a dark tunnel inside a mountain. At the other end, at the opening of the tunnel, you can see the daylight streaming in. Once a day you catch a glimpse of a train roll by. You can only see the train at the exact time that it goes by the mouth of the tunnel. But God...he is perched on top of the mountain. He can see the train coming, as it arrives, and as it is far gone past the tunnel entrance. This is a great illustration of our perspectives, verses God's perspective.

The lesson for me? God is in control of my life, and he has a perfect plan for my life. I can see that by the way he has positioned me to spend time with these amazing Christians over the past five years. Even the smallest decision could have resulted in Reba and I staying in Baltimore, or never finding our living faith in the risen Christ. It was a fragile journey that I know I could not have navigated without God running behind my bike, hand right behind my seat. I have the free will to direct choices about my career and my personal life. I even have the right to look up and reject God, or choose to hold his hand. But beyond that, I entrust the rest to him. The rest of the stuff is beyond my pay grade. I entrust Him completely with the big picture. 

Now..off to exercise my freewill and watch the Superbowl. Much Love.

How Can A Loving God Send People To Hell?

More From Tim Keller:

Modern people inevitably think that hell works like this: God gives us time, but if we havn't made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into hell for all eternity. As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for mercy, but God says "Too late! You had your chance! Now you will suffer!" This caricature misunderstands the very nature of evil. The biblical picture is that sin seperates us from the presence of God, which is the source of all joy, and indeed of all love, wisdom, or good things of any sort. Since we were originally created for God's immediate presence, only before his face will we thrive, flourish and acheive our highest potential. If we were to lose his presence totally, that would be hell - the loss of our capability for giving or receiving love or joy.

A common image of hell in the Bible is that of fire. Fire disintegrates. Even in this life we can see the kind of soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates. We know how selfishness and self absorption leads to piercing bitterness, nauseating envy, paralyzing anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and the mental denials and distortions that accompany them. Now ask the question: "What if when we die we don't end, but spiritually our life extends into eternity?" 

Hell, then, is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going on and on forever.

Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 supports this view of hell. Lazarus is a poor man who begs at the gate of a cruel rich man. They both die and Lazarus goes to heaven while the rich man goes to hell. There he looks up and sees Lazarus in heaven 'in Abraham's bosom':

--So he called to him "Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire." But Abraham replied "Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross from over there to us." He answered, "Then I beg you father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment!" Abraham replied, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them." "No father Abraham," he said. "but if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent." He said to him, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."--

What is astonishing is that though their status's have now been reversed, the rich man seems to be blind to what has happened. He still expects Lazarus to be his servant and treats him as his water boy. He does not ask to get out of hell, but strongly implies that God never gave him or his family enough information about the afterlife. Commentators have noted the astonishing amount of denial, blame shifting, and spiritual blindness in this soul in hell. They have also noted that the rich man, unlike Lazarus, is never given a personal name. He is only called "a rich man", strongly hinting that since he had built his identity on his wealth rather than on God, once he lost his wealth he lost any sense of a self.

In short, hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.

We see this process 'writ small' in addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and pornography. First, there is disintegration, because as time goes on you need more and more of the addictive substance to get an equal kick, which leads to less and less satisfaction. Second, there is isolation, as you increasingly blame others and circumstances in order to justify your behavior. "No one understands! Everyone is against me!" is muttered in greater and greater self-pity and self absorption. When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing - though a good thing - becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have to be happy. When you lose all humility you become out of touch with reality. 

No one ever asks to leave hell. The very idea of heaven seems to them a sham.

In his fantasy, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. They are urged to leave behind the sins that trapped them in hell - but they refuse. Lewis' description of these people are striking because we recognize in them the self delusion and self absorption that are 'writ small' in our own addictions. Lewis writes:

"Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others...but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. There will be no YOU left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE HELL unless it is nipped in the bud."

The people in hell are miserable, but Lewis shows us why. We see raging like unchecked flames their pride, their paranoia, their self pity, their certainty that everyone else is wrong, that everyone else is an idiot! All their humility is gone, and thus so is their sanity. They are utterly, finally locked in a prison of their own self centeredness, and their pride progressively expands into a bigger and bigger mushroom cloud. They continue to go to pieces forever, blaming everyone but themselves. Hell is that, writ large.

That is why it is a travesty to picture God casting people into a pit who are crying "I'm sorry! Let me out!" The people on the bus from Lewis' parable would rather have their 'freedom', as they define it, than salvation. Their delusion is that, if they glorified God, they would somehow lose power and freedom, but in a supreme and tragic irony, their choice has ruined their own potential for greatness. 

Hell is, as Lewis says "the greatest monument to human freedom." As Romans 1:24 says God "gave them up to...their desires." All God does in the end with people is give them what they most want, including freedom from himself. What could be more fair than that? Lewis writes:

"There are only two kinds of people - those who say 'Thy will be done' to God or those to whom God in the end says 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell choose it. 


Without that self choice, it wouldn't be Hell.

The Differences...

I got this post from Kevin Deyoung at the Gospel Coalition. I thought it was an interesting little breakdown of the differences in some of the mainstream branches of Christianity.

Why can’t all the professing Christians in the world look past their differences and just get along?

Because some of those differences are irreconcilable. Most significantly and most foundationally, the three main branches of Christianity in this country–Roman Catholic, Liberal Protestant, and Evangelical Protestant–do not agree on the locus of authority. We don’t answer the question, “What is our final authority?” in the same way.

Every Christian acknowledges that in some sense our theology and ethics must “accord with Scripture.” But whether that means “Scripture along with Church Tradition” or “Scripture as redefined through personal experience” or “Scripture alone” is what separates us. And as long as we disagree on this matter of authority, we should not expect genuine spiritual unity among the three groups. There can be no unity where there is no agreed upon authority.

Let me show you what I mean.

Peter Kreeft (Roman Catholic):

Most Protestants reject all Catholic doctrines they cannot find explicitly in Scripture–for example, Mary’s Assumption into heaven–because they believe sola scriptura: that Scripture alone is the infallible authority. This is the fundamental reason behind all the differences between Protestant and Catholic theology. (Catholic Christianity, 20).

Gary Dorrien (Liberal Protestant):

The essential idea of liberal theology is that all claims to truth, in theology as in other disciplines, must be made on the basis of reason and experience, not by appeal to external authority. Christian scripture may be recognized as spiritually authoritative within Christian experience, but its word does not settle or establish truth claims about matters of fact. (The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900-1950, 1)

Michael Horton (Evangelical Protestant):

Ultimate authority always resides outside the self and even outside the church, as both are always hearers of the Word and receivers of its judgment and justification. The church is commissioned to deliver this Word (a ministerial office), not to possess or rule it (a magisterial office). Thus, the authority is always transcendent. Even when it comes near us, it is never our own word that we hear (Ro. 10:6-13, 17). (The Christian Faith, 194)

So it seems that whatever else we may disagree on as Catholics, Liberals, and Evangelicals, we should at least agree that it is our view of Scripture and authority that divides us.

Free Will

OK, so to sum up the five points of Calvinism in my own way...

1) Total Depravity: Man is a slave to sin and can't accept God on his own. He must be regenerated by God first.

2) Unconditional Election: It follows that since Man can't choose God on their own, God chooses who gets to be regenerated. In effect, who will be saved and who will burn. 

3) Limited Atonement: Christ died only for the chosen.

4) Irresistible Grace: If God has elected you to be regenerated, then clearly you can't resist the call of the Holy Spirit once chosen.

5) Perseverance of the Saints: The elect will be faithful to the end, and will not die having rejected Christ.

My problems with all this:

1) I agree that on my own, without the help of God in my life, I am completely fallen and sinful. I am under the curse. But that doesn't mean I can't exercise the free will needed to answer God's call and accept his free grace.

2)1 Peter 1:2 we see that the saved are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” It makes much more sense to me that God knows who will choose him from before the dawn of time. I understand that God is in control of all things, but I think in exercising that control, he has allowed us to have free will. For God to have mapped out everyone's specific life choices down to the tittle, takes away the explanation of evil in the world.

3) The offer of salvation HAS to be for all men. How can it be otherwise? If this atonement is 'limited', it is only limited in that some people have chosen to reject it. There is solid Biblical foundation to support the point that Jesus died for the world and wanted his apostles to go into the world and make disciples. *God sent the Son into the world that the world through Him might be saved (Jn. 3:17). That's why Jesus is referred to as the Savior of the world (Jn. 4:42; 1 Jn. 4:14). In dying for the whole world, Christ tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9). Jesus is truly the Savior of all men (1 Tim. 4:10).

4) Irresistable Grace: How could someone be saved against their will? How can we be held responsible for our actions if God has preordained that we are not called? My whole world view is too wrapped up in our freedom to choose God and righteousness vs. the freedom to walk away from him. God is love. You can't force someone to love you. This sounds like magic potion stuff. Calvinists have the order backwards. You don't get the spirit and then come to faith...you choose to come to faith in Christ whereby you are granted the spirit.

5) So in order to be sure that I've been chosen as part of the elect, I've got to wait until the last day of my life to make sure I havn't died in sin? C'mon man. I know I have eternal salvation because I'm secure in my relationship with Christ, and what he has done for me. I'm doing my best to live as a fallen man in a fallen world. God knows I can't be perfect until order is restored. 

Well, those are my thoughts on the matter. This kind of stuff helps me work through things. I'm definitely more on the Arminian/Moderate side of the debate. Partly because I know that I get my sense of justice from God. And when things seem inherently unfair, I know I get that instinct from God. So to imagine that a person who works hard their whole life to follow the model of Christ, could be preordained to burn in hell...that's not justice or love. And God is the epitome of both love and justice.

Feeling a bit under the weather

We're all a tad bit under the weather tonight. My son has a solid fever that tylenol is having a hard time breaking. I hate when that happens. One of the most challenging aspects of parenting comes when you feel helpless to help your kids. Fevers scare me.

I've been battling a migraine like headache for a couple days. I'm giving up coffee. I probably should have cut down a bit before going cold turkey. I thought I could be a man about it and tuff it out, but it's kind of hard when you cant open your eyes all the way, and your stuck in trial. Woops.

My wife has me on a vegan diet this week. We're going through a cleanse. It's been two straight days of tasteless oatmeal and kale for breakfast. One more to go, and then we'll completely fast on Friday. I think the ole lady will have us on some sort of liquid program to flush it all out that day. I've been considering fasting every Friday. I think it would be a good spiritual exercise.

I've thought a bit about Calvinism. I feel like I'd have to classify myself as a Moderate Calvinist. I'll talk a it more about that tomorrow, but I have to admit, I've really been influenced by Norm Geisler's analysis.

On a worldly note, my wife and I have been approved for a nice loan for a new home. The bb&t lady said we had great credit. She is mailing us a copy of the report. Nice to hear. I remember calling my wife before we made this adventure to NC to let her know I had just gotten off the phone with a couple of my creditors. I told her that I knew we'd be buying a house together one day, and I wanted to get a head start cleaning up my life. That was five years ago now. My wife inspired a lot of positive changes in me. My credit score was just one of them. Encouraging God's active role in my life was another. I've cleaned up a lot of areas of my life since we met, and I'm continually inspired to be a better person because of my love for her...and they way God shows up when we're together.

Ok all, short and sweet tonight. Much love.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Rosehaven

Calvinism vs. Arminianism

According to Calvinism:

Salvation is accomplished by the almighty power of the Triune God. The Father chose a people, the Son died for them, the Holy Spirit makes Christ's death effective by bringing the elect to faith and repentance, thereby causing them to willingly obey the gospel. The entire process (election, redemption, regeneration) is the work of God and is by grace alone. Thus God, not man, determines who will be the recipients of the gift of salvation.

According to Arminianism:

Salvation is accomplished through the combined efforts of God (who takes the initiative) and man (who must respond) - man's response being the determining factor. God has provided salvation for everyone, but His provision becomes effective only for those who, of their own free will, "choose" to cooperate with Him and accept His offer of grace. At the crucial point, man's will plays a decisive role; thus man, not God, determines who will be recipients of the gift of salvation. 

The five points of Calvinism and the Arminian perspective:

1) Total Depravity:

Sin has affected all parts of man. The heart, emotions, will, mind, and body are all affected by sin. We are completely sinful. We are not as sinful as we could be, but we are completely affected by sin.

The doctrine of Total Depravity is derived from scriptures that reveal human character: Man’s heart is evil (Mark 7:21-23) and sick (Jer. 17:9). Man is a slave of sin (Rom. 6:20). He does not seek for God (Rom. 3:10-12). He cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). He is at enmity with God (Eph. 2:15). And, is by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2:3). The Calvinist asks the question, "In light of the scriptures that declare man’s true nature as being utterly lost and incapable, how is it possible for anyone to choose or desire God?" The answer is, "He cannot. Therefore God must predestine."

Calvinism also maintains that because of our fallen nature we are born again not by our own will but God’s will (John 1:12-13); God grants that we believe (Phil. 1:29); faith is the work of God (John 6:28-29); God appoints people to believe (Acts 13:48); and God predestines (Eph. 1:1-11; Rom. 8:29; 9:9-23).

Arminian Response:

Although human nature was seriously affected by the fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness. God graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does not interfere with man's freedom. Each sinner possesses a free will, and his eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man's freedom consists of his ability to choose good over evil in spiritual matters; his will is not enslaved to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power to either cooperate with God's Spirit and be regenerated or resist God's grace and perish. The lost sinner needs the Spirit's assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man's act and precedes the new birth. Faith is the sinner's gift to God; it is man's contribution to salvation.

2) Unconditional Election:

God does not base His election on anything He sees in the individual. He chooses the elect according to the kind intention of His will (Eph. 1:4-8; Rom. 9:11) without any consideration of merit within the individual. Nor does God look into the future to see who would pick Him. Also, as some are elected into salvation, others are not (Rom. 9:15, 21).

Arminian Response:

God's choice of certain individuals unto salvation before the foundation of the world was based upon His foreseeing that they would respond to His call. He selected only those whom He knew would of themselves freely believe the gospel. Election therefore was determined by or conditioned upon what man would do. The faith which God foresaw and upon which He based His choice was not given to the sinner by God (it was not created by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit) but resulted solely from man's will. It was left entirely up to man as to who would believe and therefore as to who would be elected unto salvation. God chose those whom He knew would, of their own free will, choose Christ. Thus the sinner's choice of Christ, not God's choice of the sinner, is the ultimate cause of salvation.

3) Limited Atonement:

Jesus died only for the elect. Though Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient for all, it was not efficacious for all. Jesus only bore the sins of the elect. Support for this position is drawn from such scriptures as Matt. 26:28 where Jesus died for ‘many'; John 10:11, 15 which say that Jesus died for the sheep (not the goats, per Matt. 25:32-33); John 17:9 where Jesus in prayer interceded for the ones given Him, not those of the entire world; Acts 20:28 and Eph. 5:25-27 which state that the Church was purchased by Christ, not all people; and Isaiah 53:12 which is a prophecy of Jesus’ crucifixion where he would bore the sins of many (not all).

Arminian Response:

Christ's redeeming work made it possible for everyone to be saved but did not actually secure the salvation of anyone. Although Christ died for all men and for every man, only those who believe on Him are saved. His death enabled God to pardon sinners on the condition that they believe, but it did not actually put away anyone's sins. Christ's redemption becomes effective only if man chooses to accept it.

4) Irresistible Grace:

When God calls his elect into salvation, they cannot resist. God offers to all people the gospel message. This is called the external call. But to the elect, God extends an internal call and it cannot be resisted. This call is by the Holy Spirit who works in the hearts and minds of the elect to bring them to repentance and regeneration whereby they willingly and freely come to God. Some of the verses used in support of this teaching are Romans 9:16 where it says that "it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy"; Philippians 2:12-13 where God is said to be the one working salvation in the individual; John 6:28-29 where faith is declared to be the work of God; Acts 13:48 where God appoints people to believe; and John 1:12-13 where being born again is not by man’s will, but by God’s.

Arminian Response:

The Spirit calls inwardly all those who are called outwardly by the gospel invitation; He does all that He can to bring every sinner to salvation. But inasmuch as man is free, he can successfully resist the Spirit's call. The Spirit cannot regenerate the sinner until he believes; faith (which is man's contribution) precedes and makes possible the new birth. Thus, man's free will limits the Spirit in the application of Christ's saving work. The Holy Spirit can only draw to Christ those who allow Him to have His way with them. Until the sinner responds, the Spirit cannot give life. God's grace, therefore, is not invincible; it can be, and often is, resisted and thwarted by man.

5) Perseverance of the Saints:

You cannot lose your salvation. Because the Father has elected, the Son has redeemed, and the Holy Spirit has applied salvation, those thus saved are eternally secure. They are eternally secure in Christ. Some of the verses for this position are John 10:27-28 where Jesus said His sheep will never perish; John 6:47 where salvation is described as everlasting life; Romans 8:1 where it is said we have passed out of judgment; 1 Corinthians 10:13 where God promises to never let us be tempted beyond what we can handle; and Phil. 1:6 where God is the one being faithful to perfect us until the day of Jesus’ return.

Arminian Response:

Those who believe and are truly saved can lose their salvation by failing to keep up their faith, etc. All Arminians have not been agreed on this point; some have held that believers are eternally secure in Christ - that once a sinner is regenerated, he can never be lost.