God, speaking through Jeremiah, bared his heart to his people: “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me” (Jeremiah 2:5).

When I read this I quickly asked a counter-question, “God, does our widespread human distaste for you really matter? Aren’t you so transcendent, so exalted in your glory, and so rich in your being that our own lack of desire for you only impacts you as much as a gnat’s landing?”

Yet I already knew the answer: we do matter to him. It’s not because he somehow needs us; nor because of what we offer him. Instead our worth comes in our bond to him as his valued creations: as the artist values his art; or a mother loves the child she births. He created us to be relational—just as he is in his Triune communion. As those who are like him we were made to receive his love and to love him in turn.

As God spoke to his chosen people we can hear his heartfelt desire for them as he recalls the “good old days” when they learned to depend on him as they traveled in Sinai together: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (2:2). That generation of faithful ones—those birthed to the generation that grew up in Egypt and who were not particularly responsive—were treasured by God. And—as God’s treasures—their worth was immeasurable.

How great, then, is God’s worth-giving love for our generation of believers? Our value is expressed by his heart-investment in for us. In love the Father sent Jesus to die on the cross to free us from our sin and death, an investment that signals our value to him: we, too, are treasures of his love.

Which is to say that he doesn’t value us for what we bring him “on our own”—for any assets we think might impress him—or for our efforts to meet any presumed needs we think he has. Is he desperate to be worshipped or honored? No; that sort of thing is nonsense because it starts with a premise that I have some inherent value or independent goodness that I bring to the table. Our value comes, instead, because of his investment of value in us by the fact that he created us as expressions of his love to be recipients of that love.

That’s not to say that we don’t have work to do in the context of that love. All of us were created for good works that he prepared beforehand for us to live out in our love for him and for each other. But that isn’t treated as a starting point. Instead it’s our entrée to sharing in God’s dynamic creativity. He is relationally active and he gives each of us a unique means to be active too: to “build up” others in the member-and-body analogy of Ephesians 4. We find the joy of his love expressed to us and then through us to others.

In the larger Bible narrative a constellation of images and analogies underscore God’s delight in us—his genuine pleasure in our communion with him. But this also sets up his grief: we can abandon our worth by despising his love. Listen to the second part of the verse we began with above: “[why was it that your fathers, my beloved people] went after worthlessness and became worthless?”

And here is the lesson: we, too, have our own invitation to the growing worth that comes as we live actively in God’s love. We then grow into what he made us to be—lovers who are gifted to love others. And, in doing so, we discover in practice the worth that comes with being treasured ones—children beloved by God. Everything else in life is worthless by comparison.

Who is the Spirit? What should we expect of him and how do we respond to him? It’s an important question, especially given what Jesus had to say. And what Paul said as well. It’s a question so important that our lives depend on getting it right.

The full edition of this post was published over a week ago at our Cor Deo site. To read the full entry click here

The king leaned forward, angry. “He deserves to die.”

The prophet responded, fixing the king eye-to-eye: “And you are the man.”

Many readers will immediately recognize this element as the dramatic peak of Nathan’s confrontation of King David after the king murdered Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba. I start with it—a story of adultery, murder, confrontation, repentance, and a continuing outflow of generational sin—to illustrate the power of stories. The impact of this particular narrative is etched in the memory of all who have read it.

Now let me shift gears. As I write this I’m attending a two-day consultation of youth workers who use “orality” (or “storying”) in their ministries. In our hours together a number of anecdotes have been exchanged that make it clear: a good story is riveting. And, even more, a strong story can be transformative. Each of us is convinced that more transformation takes place in a story-rich ministry than by other training approaches.

This is nothing new, of course. Jesus was a master storyteller, full of pithy parables and ready references to Old Testament stories. And as measured by the spread of Christianity after his ascension his ministry was more effective than the efforts of any other pastor or teacher in history. That’s a pretty good example to follow.

In contrast to Jesus, however, most churches today tend to relegate Bible stories and storytelling to childhood education. For adults we prefer monologues and lectures that generate principles or lessons for an audience to learn and apply. The more systematic and structured the teaching, the better. We even have audiences conditioned to believe that the “meat” of good teaching involves esoterica and regular references to dogmatic theology.

To be blunt: Jesus just didn’t go there, nor did he choose his first tier leaders on the basis of their academic prowess or proven analytical skills. It’s clear, though, that his eleven disciples hung on every word as he offered his parables. Think, for instance, of the number of times we read, in effect, “So they asked him . . .”

What does a narrative “story” offer us? We can list any number of benefits—and here are just a few.

First there is the power of identification. In a story we find ourselves drawn to the protagonist and wary of any antagonists. No one comes away from reading the gospels, for instance, saying to himself, “If only I could be like that proud Pharisee or that hair-splitting Teacher of the Law!” And we never hear Jesus teaching lessons about three principles of integrity versus five errors of the hypocrite. Instead he lived out a story of deep integrity—setting up conflicts by healing on the Sabbath, for instance. Or in telling about a persistent widow who pestered a wicked judge into doing what was right.

There is also the power of memory. A good story will have enough Velcro for it to stick to our souls. That is, we tend to let our imaginations fill out the picture of what’s being told in the story so later on we only need to summon up our mental images that formed when we first heard a given story. And in every retelling we build more features to fill out the original scene. I can tell you, for instance, in pretty close detail what I think Daniel faced in the lion’s den—and no artist has ever matched my own visualization. So it’s easy to tell the story afterwards. Call this the “portability” of a story.

And, finally, there is the depth of a story. Every event in real life has multiple layers of invested motivations and meaning. We can probe the relationships, for instance, of Joseph’s brothers in the latter part of Genesis. Reuben was utterly unreliable yet rich with empty rhetoric. Simeon was an incendiary personality—ever ready to kill others, including Joseph—and Levi was a follower. Judah had his own faults but he eventually displayed a basic honesty no matter what the consequences might be. The story of Mary and Martha, too, invites serious reflections that can apply to us if we’re at all vulnerable to the telling of the story. Are we more like Mary or like Martha?

I realize, of course, that if I was really clever I would have made all my points by telling a compelling story! But I’ll leave that to someone more gifted and conclude with this: the trajectory of almost every Bible narrative leads us to a heart-based question. Do I trust God? Or do I trust myself more? Am I a David after getting rid of Uriah? Or am I aligned with God as Nathan was?

“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answers of the tongue is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:1). Here the author offers us God’s perspective as a basis for our own point of view. That is, of course, a key insight for faith as we enter a new year. Let me carry it forward just a bit and include a personal note.

The compete post is located at my shared Cor Deo site. To read it please click here

How often do you ask questions? What kind of questions do you ask? And what’s the ratio between your queries and your assertions?

I ask with an agenda: questions are the lifeblood of learning. Even more than that, questions are crucial to our spiritual growth. And too many of us aren’t growing very quickly – I even challenged some Christians recently to avoid spiritual arteriosclerosis by asking more questions! It was a challenge I felt myself.

Let me stir the point with some more questions and invite you to come up with some answers.

First off, what makes a good question? Some are more penetrating than others. A question about basic facts can be helpful in an applied setting—useful but not necessarily crucial. On the other hand an open-ended question about profound realities—such as the nature of God—can be life changing if it’s pursued in earnest. A good question is like finding the light switch in a dark room. Even the act of looking for light holds potential. So taking time to consider how to ask a life-changing question or two might be a good quest!

Are there bad questions? Yes, of course. In the common cliché, an honest question that isn’t asked can be a bad moment. Or a question with an embedded premise: “Have you quit beating your wife yet?” A biblical example of this is the wealthy ruler who asked Jesus, “What good things should I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus rejected the premise: “No one is good but God alone.”

There are skeptical questions, too. These can be bad or good: useful in some settings and poison in others. In the history of faith, for instance, the archenemy of our souls has always been ready with his “Did God really say?” His goal in the garden was to question God’s single prohibition—“Don’t eat of the tree in the middle of the garden lest you die!”—to lead Eve to focus on God’s one boundary rather than on the vast freedom of God’s goodness. It was really a matter of God’s word versus the serpent’s word, and the tool of doubt turned Eve’s heart away from her initial faith in God’s words.

Skepticism can be good, of course, when I receive a letter that promises me a share of someone’s fortune in Nigeria—all I needed to do was pass along my bank account data.

Skepticism, we realize, is an instrument to destroy confidence; but never to build it. So while there is a place for some informed doubt, we need to recall that skeptics have always paved the road to spiritual cynicism. Should we, perhaps, at least begin to be more skeptical about the benefits of skepticism?

In our quest for exceptionally good questions, then, where should we begin? Let me suggest that the nature of God—something mentioned already—is a good place to start. A. W. Tozer properly made the point that the most important thing about any person is what he or she believes God to be like. It shapes everything: whether it leads to a profound faith, an empty atheism, or something in between.

Is God personal and caring? Or aloof and indifferent?

Is God one who loves his power? Or does his love empower all he does?

Is God most fully revealed to us as a set of profound attributes that we get to dissect? Or is he a Triune lover whose initiatives swamp any attributions we start to list?

These, of course, may be faulty questions—loaded with a certain bias that reveals my own sort of faith—but they may also be useful in stirring you to ask your own questions.

Go for it! And then be sure to read the Bible to see how God might answer you there. It’s truly an ultimate quest.

My friend Mark offers a guest-entry this week. He raises an issue we need to hear if we happen to receive some level of status or appreciation from our ministries. It’s not only Paul’s concern – or Mark’s – but ours too.

Paul, like the apostle John on the island of Patmos, was privileged to experience an extraordinary revelation. He had the heavenlies unfold before him. Yet he was so humble about this incredible privilege that he only referred to it in the third person.

Let me speak of our own privileges as Christians. Privilege is an interesting thing in our culture. We can regard it as a point of superiority. After all, we must be pretty important to be privileged. But is privilege a possession or an assignment? Paul rightly sees the importance of the revelation he had been given. What Paul saw was, indeed, great. But another experience brought him down to earth: a “thorn in the flesh.” It caused him to reflect on this pairing of his current life assignment and the unique privilege he had received.

“So
a thorn was given me in the flesh
a messenger of Satan
to keep me from becoming conceited
to harass me
to keep me from becoming conceited.
because
of the surpassing greatness of the revelations . . .”

Just what was this thorn in the flesh? We aren’t told. Whether it was a physical limitation or a spiritual battle—perhaps with covetousness—it was a struggle for Paul.

I know my own thorns . . . immediately as I read this . . . so I don’t need to know his particular thorn in order to understand the risk and reminder of thorns.

The thorn is described as a messenger of Satan. God had not kept Satan’s hand from troubling Paul. Paul tells us why: to keep him from becoming proud. Specifically, to harass him so that he does not become prideful, something his great revelations may have produced. He might have pointed to his experiences to elevate himself before his accusers and other lesser men. He resisted that path because of the thorn: it reminded him of his own weak, humble humanity. So when he does share it here he does so circumspectly.

How many points of pride are rising up in me? How do I react to my own thorn? Do I complain? Or do I ask God to remove it; and then accept it as His gift if He allows it to remain? Paul gave his own example:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this,
that it should leave me.”

First, he asked God to remove it. Three times! Paul did not hesitate to ask God to act on his behalf.

“But
he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you,
for
my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

When it was clear that God had not removed it Paul listened to the Spirit. He told Paul that it was to remind him of his dependence on God; and a reminder of the actual impotence of the thorn—the weakness—in light of Gods surpassing grace and power. It would not be a hindrance to Paul’s ministry. So Paul then made it a point of boasting in Jesus:

“Therefore
I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,
so
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

And the power of Christ gave him contentedness in the very weakness that troubled Him.

“For the sake of Christ, then,
I am content with
weaknesses
insults
hardships
persecutions
and
calamities
For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And he was content in weakness and in the things that result from weakness. He resisted pride towards those who were the sources of his listed trials. Paul recognized that his strength was in Christ; and the thorn then became a witness to that bond.

Lord, help me to keep my eyes open and my perspective fresh. I want to learn to regard privileges as assignments, thorns as witnesses, and difficulties as the times when Christ is most present.

Most of us find security in numbers. We like to be with others—to go with a crowd. And a strong majority vote is the ultimate measure of a good democracy. So, too, as those involved in economics or politics say before they make a key decision, “Let’s look at the numbers.” Numbers, after all, don’t lie.

That’s all fine . . . at least until we get to the Bible.

To read the full post (published in our Cor Deo website) please click here

My dear Lord, thank you for the holiday of Thanksgiving as we share it today. What began centuries ago as a joyful expression of dependence on you still echoes among us today.

Thank you, Lord, for sharing yourself with us. You capture us in the communion of your eternal mutual love through our union with Jesus by the Spirit. That love is too much for us to grasp in a given moment but our ongoing discoveries draw us ever closer to you.

I also thank you, Lord, for your honesty. In the Scriptures you always tell us the truth. You don’t pull any punches in stirring, confronting, and comforting. Our faith in you grows as we discover more and more of your reality in place of our fallen fantasies. And the embrace of your truth and love is as comforting as the hugs any parent ever offered.

Thank you, too, my God, for your wisdom. You know how to reach us and speak to us even at times when we prefer to be obtuse and stubborn. You know how to puzzle and intrigue us to draw us out of our sin. We bow before you as we find how out of touch we once were and how much your reality now frees us to be wise in you.

Thank you as well, Lord, for the bonds we have not only with you but also with so many others who love you. A gathering of Christians who now are defined more by the selfless love of the cross than by the selfishness of the past is a bit of heaven on earth.

Thank you especially that we get to be “children of God” with all the honor, nobility, and privilege it offers. You are gracious beyond words: thank you so very much!

Amen.

Humans love being religious. That’s not to say everyone loves a given religion—or even the notion of religion. I mean, simply, the function of religion. In the secular West, for instance, the place of the Christian Church or the many alternative and non-Christian forms of worship seems to be fading. But the impulse to worship remains lively.

The balance of this post is offered on Cor Deo. To read it please click here.

Why does God do anything? And, as it relates to us, how do we fit within that purpose?

Over the years this question has gained weight: I had to ask it. Why? Because I’ve heard different people locate all of life and meaning within one ultimate divine ambition. And I do it myself. But the answers differ. And if we have competing claims how is any one of them ultimate?

One speaker, for instance, holds that God is moved by his goodness. Another elevates love. Still others point to God’s glory, or his holiness, or his power. And in each case the person gives primacy to their designated issue so that everything God does is explained by just one quality or ambition.

What, then, should we make of claims for a single divine motivation?

To explore the question we need to consider at least two more questions.

First, isn’t it presumptuous to make such bold pronouncements about God’s “ultimate” character? And, second, wouldn’t it make better sense to adopt some sort of facet-theory? So that different attributes or ambitions are treated as coordinate aspects of God’s character? In this view it can be argued that sometimes we see more of one aspect in play and sometimes more of another. In one text it’s holiness, in another it’s love, and so on.

Any answer needs to come from the Bible: if it answers the motivation question with a coherent and sustained response throughout the wide range of Bible writings then we need to listen and respond. If not, then we can propose whatever makes good sense to us—and that sets up the possibility of our being presumptuous. In other word, we need to ask God whether he has an inspired—biblically speaking—answer.

He does. There isn’t a set of facets. Instead he offers us a single answer: he is moved by the mutual love that exists throughout eternity between the Father and the Son by the Spirit. This love is what moved God to create us; and why he allowed us to sin by loving ourselves; and why he sent the Son to save us from our ultimate sin of self-love.

In sum, the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s response expresses the ultimate motivation of God—and he wants us to participate in that love but he won’t force it upon us. Here’s a nutshell basis for this claim as the Bible presents it.

We start with what Jesus, our Lord, tells us.

In John 17 He portrayed his relationship with the Father as a love-motivated glory (verse 24) so that the Triune communion “before the world existed” (verse 5) was one of shared glory. Love was the basis for this plan, a love that embraces all who respond to it and that forms a communion of love: “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them” (verse 26).

In 1 John 4 the divine communion was summarized by the declaration that “God is love”. Paul, knowing this, wrote to the Corinthians that in the spiritual-relational triad of faith, hope and love “the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Divine love exhibits God’s heart for us that the Spirit reveals to us in salvation as he “pours out” his love in our hearts. God so loved the world—revealing the spreading quality of his love—that he gave his Son over to death in order to raise us out of death in the Son’s resurrected life (John 3:16).

This plan was engaged in the Godhead before creation (Ephesians 1:4) and was anticipated by the writers of the Old Testament (1 Peter 1:10-12). It was the pre-incarnate Son who walked in the Garden in Genesis 3 and it was the promise of his coming incarnation that God offered as the resolution to sin (Genesis 3:15); and that launched the promised blessing (Genesis 12:1-3 & Galatians 3:8) in the coming of an anointed “servant” who is the Son (Isaiah 49-53) and who would suffer death on our behalf in order to bring us into a marriage with himself (Isaiah 54:5).

Which brings us to the application: what does this self-disclosure of God’s sole motivation mean to us?

It means that for us to be “right” with God—that is, to be “righteous” and “reconciled”—is for us to share his motivation. This call to love is what he called the “greatest commandment”: nothing else will do.

Listen, then, to the Old Testament call that encapsulates this wonderful disclosure of God’s ultimate motivation: “Kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:12). It’s what we were made for. And for any and all who aren’t there yet there’s still time to repent of any false loves that block a proper, true love.

So come one and all to taste and see that this relational, loving God is good. You’ll love his embrace.