God loves us, but does God like us?

Chris and I talk about our (I hope very human need) to feel special and not just part of a group. She wants to be the only orientee to be a part of the SAFE program so that she stands out. I want to know that I am liked as well as loved.

Scripture is clear about God's love for his people. There are times when I think of God's salvation being like a "class-action" lawsuit. This is where members of a class receive a settlement from a lawsuit, not because of who they are individually, but merely for being part of the group. The lawsuit doesn't say anything really about each individual beyond what they share to be part of the group.

Is there scriptural evidence so that a child of God can also say that God likes him/her?

I think the limited atonement lends itself to being understood such that we can say that God, because he has specifically chosen individuals to be elect, that he has an affection for these same individuals (not that they have some quality that made God choose them). A "general" atonement seems more like that class-action suit. With this, any individual may plausibly think God may really not care for him or her, but that he or she has slipped into the kingdom as part of the class.

Gal. 2:20 supports God's selection of an individual to set his love upon each, rather than just as part of a group.

Have a laugh

I'm not a Christian because I'm good

While on my trip to Vegas this past week, I read Clark's Recovering the Reformed Confession. On page 41 he responds to covenant moralism (AKA Federal Vision teaching) saying, "...the coventnat moralists flatten out the tension between our justification and our sanctification by moving toward the old medieval and Roman dosctrine of justification by sanctification so that God is said to justify the godly" (underscore mine).

In hanging around non-Christians in Vegas I thought about what a poor example of a Christian I can be. Among other things, I look at how dull I am, how uninteresting. Who would ever want to be like me? But I also realized that I am not a Christian because I am good - I'm a Christian because I am not good. I'm not healthy; I'm sick and in need of a physician (Matt. 9:12).

How do I view the lost?

Tomorrow morning I leave for Las Vegas to do some training for EPS. My regular work is done from my home, over the telephone. Since I work alone, I get out of practice when it comes to being around people, especially non-Christians.

And a lot of the folks I'm going to Vegas with are non-Christians.

I am taking my Bible and some Christian books to read on the plane. I usually feel self-conscious about this (forgive me, Jesus!), and have thought a bit about what I might say to whoever sits next to me (most likely a fellow-trainer). But before I can know what to say, I need to be aware of my attitude underneath.

I've already posted about envy, but what alternative views of the lost arise within me?

One attitude is despising the lost. I think this is an almost natural response once envy has been dismissed as wrong (at least within me.) This also makes me think I'm superior to them and feels very defensive.

Another attitude is one that leads to looking at the lost in a moralistic way - focusing on their sin. But this focus isn't a gospel-focus but again done from a sense of superiority and again feels defensive.

I'm beginning to see a glimmer of light as another attitude comes to mind - pity. Again, this could be from a sense of superiority, but also from a sense of the lost person's condition beofre God. The former arises out of moralism, the latter from the gospel.

The lost person sitting beside me has been blinded by the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4) just as I was for eighteen years and have often been at times since God saved me. I am not superior, but like Paul need to be their servant in the gospel.

But at times I think they feel superior to me - they are often more talented than I am, better at presenting the training material, have more money, am younger, lead a more exciting life, etc. so what do they have need of the gospel?

What I can tell them is the power of God for their salvation (Rom. 1:16). It does not depend on me, but on the Word and Spirit.

God help me to speak and not fear or be mute!

Evangelizing Someone You Envy

Can you evangelize someone you envy?

I can envy folks with more money than I have. My wife sometimes envies women she considers better-looking than her (I tell her there are none who are). We both can envy folks who have (or appear to have) more self-confidence than we do.

I really think envy can kill evangelism. First, envy seems to over-value what someone else has and de-value what I have. Particularly, it can de-value the gospel I want to share. I don't see Christ as my all-sufficient one if I envy something someone else has. I don't have the trust I should in God's providence if I believe my life lacks something someone else has. Also, if I envy others, do I see him or her as they truly are - lost and without hope?

When I think about the encounter between Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler (Matt 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-30), I wonder if Satan was in the background tempting our Lord. After all, Jesus had said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt 8:20) and this kind of lack may have become old. Others in his position might have felt some envy to this man who had everything.

Likewise, Jesus could have asked for a donation to support him and the apostles. They received supprt from others, and it may have been tempting to ask this man to contribute, even on an on-going basis.

But instead of envying, Mark records that Jesus loved this man. That is the alternative to envying - lovong.

We also see in Psalm 73 how envy affects us spiritually. The psalmist envied the wicked and questioned his own life. He was cured of this by seeing their fate (Ps 73:17). What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Chalmers' Expulsive Power

Thomas Chalmer's The Expulsive Power of a New Affection powerfully describes how people change. It is not enough through will-power to rid ourselves of a bad habit; we must find something positive to displace it.

As I think about how best to spend the remaining time God has given me, I need to find what he would have me do beyond watching TV and other time-wasters. Yes, reading good books is better, but is that the highest level to which to attain?

A great quote:

"Salvation by grace—salvation by free grace—salvation not of works, but according to the mercy of God, salvation on such a footing is not more indispensable to the deliverance of our persons from the hand of justice than it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill and the weight of ungodliness. Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the gospel, and you raise a topic of distrust between man and God. You take away from the power of the gospel to melt and to conciliate. For this purpose the freer it is the better it is. That very peculiarity which so many dread as the germ of Antinomianism, is, in fact, the germ of a new spirit and a new inclination against it. Along with the lights of a free gospel does there enter the love of the gospel, which, in proportion as you impair the freeness, you are sure to chase away.

And never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation as when, under the belief that he is saved by grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness."

One of the best songs in recent memory.



I may be biased because I first heard it when I was away from home and Chris (I think I was driving through the San Joaquim Valley in California on a CLIP trip). I was traveling a lot those days, and it put into words the difficulty of being away from home.

What about Confessions?

I've spent some time at R. Scott Clark's blog reading entries, and have been thinking a bit about Confessions.

I have had trouble understanding folks (many of whom hang out at Jesus Creed) who express strong objections to Confessions. It seems to me a Confession is a way of answering the question, "What does the Bible teach?" Your answer to this question is your Confession. From reading Scot McKnight's Blue Parakeet, it seems he would answer this question by handing someone a Bible.

However, at least at Jesus Creed, the reaction to Confessions is tied closely to the anti-Reformed bent of many of the contributors.

Of course, to have an answer to the question, "What does the Bible trach?" assumes that the Bible is a unity and does not contradict itself.

In preparation to reading Clark's book Recovering the Reformed Confession (which was shipped today and I hope to have before my trip to Vegas) I'm re-reading the Westminster Confession. I have not read it in a few years, and my antenna will be sensitized to what I may have doubts about.

Reformed Confessionalism and Edwards (among other issues)

Fascinating discussion by R Scott Clark at Westminster - CA of J Edwards and Martyn Lloyd-Jones in light of Alan Strange's review of Clark's Recovering Reformed Confessionalism (follow the links to Strange's review and Clark's response - both in Ordained Servant).

As I have read Edwards and L-J, I have often felt crushed (not in a good way) and have wondered about my deficient experiences of the Holy Spirit. I plan to get Clark's book and see if it sheds any light on this.

Great video by Taylor Swift! All the more remarkable as she reportedly came up with the idea and effects herself.

Pietism

Just got volume 4 of Yale's paperback edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards - The Great Awakening

CC Goen in his introduction says:

"all pietists agreed that true Christianity has its main locus in a meaningful relationship of the individual to God." (page 1)

I'm looking forward to seeing how this gets unpacked. I wonder if Edwards is really a precursor to today's "accepting Christ as your personal Savior."