Satisfied

We all want to be satisfied (in the most common use of the term). I made some (smoked) pulled pork last night – and believe me, we were all satisfied at meal’s end!

But, our temporary feelings of satisfaction pale into insignificance when we consider this question: Can God be satisfied? Clearly, we’re going to need to consider a variant meaning of the word compared to, say, the appeasing of our fleeting appetites!

“If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation (satisfaction) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.” I John 2:1-2

For God to be satisfied, in this case, means that His wrath is fully appeased through an effective, once-for-all-time sacrifice to take away the guilt of sin – healing the breach caused by our rebellion.

Yes, God IS satisfied – utterly, totally, and universally satisfied – and it has something to do with an advocate for sinners, Jesus Christ.

Satisfied here implies complete, without flaw – when Jesus said, “It is finished!” as He perished on the cross, it meant that satisfaction for sin was now reaching a whole new level. One sacrifice for all sin, for all peoples. A satisfaction that anyone in the entire world could enter into, at any time, and be reconciled with God.

We don’t sacrifice a lamb for our daily sins – that is to go backwards into the time when God was instructing the human race through types and symbols. All those temporary sacrifices were like brush strokes, painting the portrait of the Lamb of God to come who would fully satisfy the wrath of a just God with a perfect sacrifice.

We need no Mass to crucify afresh the body and blood of Christ. We can do no good works to appease God when He has already satisfied His perfect requirements through the giving up of His Son. Our acts of devotion are to be from a wellspring of gratitude and joy that God is satisfied with those who embrace His Son.

We cannot earn favor. We cannot cancel our guilt. We cannot cleanse our own stains. We cannot appease our offended consciences or obey a law that we already despise; and we certainly cannot satisfy a holy God. Our feeble efforts at reconciling ourselves to God through ANY religious observances or good works are like sitting on the beach digging through sand with a bent spoon to try to find a bit of water, when the whole ocean is in front of us. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that God is satisfied – with Jesus Christ. Embracing and following Him, we enter into a rest that nothing else can give: the smile of a satisfied God.

If I put a heaping plate of nourishing food in front of you, and you decide instead to scratch around on the floor looking for crumbs – would that satisfy either of us? So, when God makes abundant provision and we embark on a do-it-yourself project, we stiff-arm the only One who can satisfy.

We can be washed in the ocean of God’s grace. Bent spoons and crumbs don’t bring a smile to God’s heart. Anything that has the trappings of Christianity without the satisfaction of God as its constant heartbeat is simply missing the point.

It is vanity to think that we could satisfy a God who has already satisfied every requirement of His holiness. We can, however, bow to worship and humbly receive His gracious kindness.

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.” I John 1:8,9

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Clueless Birds

As I sit in the (relative) quiet of my study this Sunday morning, there is a squawking noise outside – sparrows happily jousting with one another for their turn at the feeder that hangs from the red maple by our deck.

Wings flapping as they hop from deck rail to seed-holder, they greedily go after their morning breakfast, provided by someone they’ll never know, someone they’d fear and flee from on sight.

Someone who gladly provides for them anyway. Because they are alive and have a purpose; even if that purpose is only to sing and look pretty and propagate and remind us that we are but one species in a glorious pantheon of wonderful creatures.

A mourning dove has now joined them – big, slow, with its incredibly distinctive and plaintive cry. And sometimes, my ears will delight at the calls of the neighborhood mockingbird (my favorite), one of the many reminders that God has a whimsical sense of humor.

These birds are clueless about higher purposes, yet they glorify God, even when not conscious of it.

Sometimes I wonder how clueless I am. Yet it is my calling and privilege to knowingly glorify God.

Not just take the daily abundance that he gives and fly off in fear…

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My Idea of Justice

I find that I have a very ambivalent relationship with Justice.

Like every human being made in the image of God (well, I guess that’s all of us!), my instinct for justice is undeniable. Murderers should be severely punished. Thieves (corporate or otherwise) should be locked up and have their assets liquidated and returned to their victims. People who do great work should be promoted.

We are hard-wired to seek consequences for choices, on both the reward and the punishment level.

Some feel squeamish about justice. But steal our wallet, smash our car, hurt our kids – we pretty quickly find out that we yearn for justice like everyone else. On a personal and societal level.

But then I read statements like this today, in Psalm 58:

Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges the earth!

…and I look around and say, where? Isn’t it often the case that the wicked “get away with it” while the righteous suffer (see Psalm 73)? If God is just, and a Judge over all the earth, why is there so much injustice? In the timeline of our experience, it all seems so uneven and inconsistent. What’s up with that?

This can be a real stumbling block to faith. Of course, reading through the Scriptures, we do find numerous places where God actively brings judgment on those who oppose Him, and even judges His people when they stray off from His ways. But other times, He seems silent. Is this injustice? Impotence? Absence? Or something else?

From our (admittedly limited) perspective, it looks like there’s not a whole lot of justice going on! But maybe – just maybe – this is a good thing.

The same psalm opens with this bald statement of our universal human sin: “the wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth speaking lies.” If just our little white lies were subject to the justice they deserve, we’d all be living through a Category 10 hurricane of wrath each day. Let alone all the other ways in which we daily fall pitifully short of perfect holiness.

God is just…and patient (or, in older English – longsuffering). God is a God of justice…and mercy. God is opposed to the wicked…and inscrutably wise in His eternal purposes.

In other words, justice will not always occur in the way and in the timing we expect. It WILL occur, as sure as day follows night – but, as for me, I am glad it is not immediate and fitting to the crime. Because I’d be a dead man 100,000 times over for all of my violations – in action and in heart – of God’s law.

Throughout the Torah, we see the principle of substitutionary sacrifice for sin – justice taken out on an animal substitute, such as a spotless lamb. Blood was shed as payment for human sin. Day after day, year after year. This understanding continued forward into the Christian faith, with the full outworking being a once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, for sinners of every race.

Justice satisfied via sacrificial substitute??? My sin cancelled out by the sword of justice falling on a willing, and faultless, sacrifice?? What’s up with that?

Scandalous idea. And that, my friends, is the gospel.

It’s God’s idea of justice, linked in mysterious wisdom to mercy for fallen men and women. Justice, and deliverance from justice. Holiness meeting humanity over a table of atoning love.

I’ll take that over my idea of justice any day.

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The End of Greed

There’s a lot of talk about greed in our society these days – the greed of the rich, the greed of politicians – even the greed of the unproductive.

We get agitated about the enormity of greed that surrounds (and infects) us; and when it leads to illegal and unethical activity, which it often does, our hearts cry out for justice. Well  – ahem – except for our own case. Then we have a few ready rationalizations…

While we might like to think that we live in a uniquely depraved time, in fact, there truly is nothing new under the sun. If we look back through human history, for however many thousands of years, two of the underlying bass notes of the performance have always been pride and greed.

And death. While government will never be able to “fix” greed, there is one sure-fire cure.

Here’s how it was put, many generations ago, in Psalm 49:

Give ear, all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together…Even wise men die; the stupid and senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses are forever…but man in his pomp will not endure; he is like the beasts that perish…Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not descend after him.

Stark, yes? And unavoidably true.

When our eyes ascend to the feeble and temporary heights achieved by those who accumulate wealth and power, we often feel a sense of fear, of outrage – and a need to bring them down. But this is because our gaze does not ascend high enough – to a just and holy God who looks with far keener eyes upon the pride and pitiful wealth of men. Rich and poor alike are like a flower in spring – vibrant but for a moment, then soon gone. Not a single greedy, wealthy, arrogant baron who elevated himself a few millimeters above his fellow man in the 1800′s is still around to be feared. And when we look around at the living faces of people in our generation – they, and we, will soon be gone.

God, however, remains – unmoved, unchanged, unsullied by our sin. He is the one to fear. He is the one to depend on. His justice will make things right.

We can’t “fix” greed – all attempts to do so by human means are misguided. We can enforce laws against illegal behavior, but a pure heart is beyond the reach of societal and governmental enforcement.

We can, however, look ahead to the end of greed, and see that it cannot and will not endure. The Lord, our Redeemer, will see to that.

There’s plenty enough for our attention to be cleansed of the greed that infests our own hearts. God can see to that, too.

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I, Me, My, You

God is not a third-person abstraction, though we often treat him that way.

We are often inclined to talk about God as if He is not personal; as if there is no genuine one-to-one relationship. And perhaps for many, there is no such personal relationship – God is best kept in some box, only to be dragged out in time of desperation and appealed to as some mystical caster of spells for my benefit in desperate times.

Ugh. Can you imagine children treating their parents this way?

Reading through Psalms 40, 41, and 42 the last few mornings, I was struck afresh by the cornucopia of first- and second-person references. Here is an extremely abbreviated sample:

• I waited patiently for the Lord…He inclined to me and heard my cry
• Many, O Lord, are the wonders which You have done, and your thoughts toward us
• There is none to compare with You
• My ears you have opened
• I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart
• Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; make haste, O Lord, to help me
• As for me, I said, “O Lord, be gracious to me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against You”
• As for me, You uphold me in Your integrity, and You set me in Your presence forever
• As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God
• My soul thirsts for God
• Why are you in despair, O my soul…hope in God, for I shall again praise Him

I, me, my, You. That is the proper language of a soul engaged with the living and personal God.

Whatever anyone may think about the God of the Bible, and the faith of those who follow Him, there is no such thing as a far-off, third-person, unapproachable deity in the entirety of the Scriptures. Unless, of course, you choose to build that wall.

From Genesis to Revelation, I see an open door…and those who seek, find.

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Blessed Confusion

“Hail, blessed woman! The Lord is with you.”

Huh??

Mary was just minding her own business. A virgin, engaged to Joseph, she very likely did not view herself as a potential world-changer. As a uniquely and highly favored person in the sight of the Lord. As one who would know a “God with us” in a way that, body and soul, no-one else ever could.

Via an unanticipated without-Joseph pregnancy, she would bear a Son whose impact on the following generations would be unfathomable. One whose kingdom would have no end.

“How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

While the angel gives her an answer, it’s the summary statement, the exclamation point at the end, that resonates through the ages even to us today, in all of our confusing difficulties: “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Whatever perplexities we’re facing, if God is with us, we’re richly blessed. If the Lord has favored us with his nearness, and chosen us for His service, we are wealthy beyond measure, even if poor in this world’s goods.

And He calls us to mind-boggling things. Forsaking treasured sins. Giving up self-direction. Turning our backs on the allure of the world. Holiness. Singleness of heart. Things impossible for mere men.

But possible with God. Only possible with God.

Some people deny the existence, or presence, or activity of God. When you see a follower of Jesus with a submissive and trusting heart, a former slave to selfishness and sin who now (even just in part) walks a different path out of worship and love, you are seeing a divine work. You are seeing the life of God implanted in a chosen one. You are seeing Emmanuel – God with us.

For those who will not see God, there are always alternative explanations to be manufactured. Denial is the daily lot of the unbeliever. Unbroken natural process is the dogma that defines what is possible.

For those who believe but know the confusions (and even tragedies <–I never knew this backstory until this morning) that swirl about in our fallen world, there will always be unresolved questions (esp. the ones starting in “Why….?). But there is one exclamation point that is simply self-evident regarding the one God who has created heaven and earth and all that is in them.

The Unlimited One doesn’t feel the handcuffs of “the impossible.” As King, He does whatever He chooses. Even if it involves sovereignly blessing His chosen servants, and bypassing the laws by which He set up His universe.

Confusing at times? Yes. But a blessed confusion.

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50 Shades of Great

I decided, this morning, to see how many of the 150 Psalms I’d need to go through to find 50 shades of God’s greatness – a far more uplifting topic than that other “50 Shades” currently making the rounds…

Starting with Psalm 1, and being pretty selective…

1. God prospers those who delight in His law.
2. God knows the way of the righteous.
3. God ensures that the wicked will not, ultimately, prosper.
4. God is King way above all earthly kings; He rules.
5. He is wrathful toward sin, yet also the refuge from wrath.
6. The nations are, and will be, His inheritance.
7. God is a shield.
8. He lifts up the head of His trusting people.
9. He sustains His people and delivers them from fear.
10. Salvation and blessing belong to the Lord.
11. He relieves us in our distress.
12. He is gracious and hears the prayers of His people.
13. He sets apart the godly man/woman for Himself.
14. God’s countenance is of light, shining on His people.
15. He puts gladness in our hearts.
16. He makes His people dwell in safety.
17. He gives ear to our words and groanings.
18. God takes no pleasure in wickedness; the boastful will not stand before Him.
19. He is a God of abundant lovingkindness.
20. He has given us a “house” in which we have access to His presence.
21. God is righteous.
22. Those who take refuge in Him are glad.
23. The Lord blesses the righteous person.
24. He is gracious and heals.
25. The Lord judges all the peoples; vindicating the righteous.
26. He tries the hearts and the minds; and saves the upright in heart.
27. As the Lord Most High, He is worthy of praise.
28. His Name is majestic in all the earth.
29. His splendor is displayed above the heavens.
30. The heavens are the work of His fingers.
31. Though He is vast and all-powerful, He takes thought of/care of mere men; He makes us special above all other creatures.
32. He is a God of wonders.
33. He rebukes and uproots those who oppose Him.
34. He abides forever.
35. God does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
36. He lifts us up from the gates of death, that we may tell His praises.
37. The Lord has made Himself known.
38. When men say, “God has forgotten; He has hidden His face; He will never see it” – that’s a pure delusion.
39. God hears the desire of the humble, and vindicates the orphan and the oppressed.
40. The upright will behold His face.
41. The words of the Lord are pure, as silver tried in a furnace, refined seven times.
42. The Lord deals bountifully with those who trust in His lovingkindness.
43. God is with the righteous generation.
44. The Lord restores His captive people and makes them glad.
45. We may abide in His tent, and dwell on His holy hill.
46. He is the source and fountain of all good.
47. The Lord is our inheritance.
48. He counsels His people.
49. He is at our right hand.
50. In His presence is fulness of joy; in His right hand there are pleasures forever.

And that brings us all the way through…just Psalm 16. Let alone the other 134 Psalms, and the rest of the Scriptures!

Of course, to be on the wrong side of righteousness and justice and purity of heart is a frightening thought – because, as each hour of every day abundantly reveals, we are all thoroughly corrupt. Yet, in Christ, God Himself clothes us in forgiveness and a righteousness that only He can impart.

We are urged to “set our minds on the things above.” These bright shades of greatness, and many, many others in the Scriptures, are for more edifying than anything else. They are riches given us to make our hearts glad – let’s do just that today!

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No Secrets: Facebook, Google, and God

When I give talks to clients about social networking, I remind them that Google is the new resume – when someone wants to know about you, by and large, the new default setting is to “Google” you.

Google finds, and rarely forgets.

And, if you’re connected on Facebook or don’t have your privacy settings restricted, there’s a wealth of information there as well.

Is privacy dead? Well, in the digital space, not really – there’s a TON of stuff that never gets revealed. You can put up some pictures here and there, tweet some ideas, compose your status throughout the day – but the vast majority of your thoughts, desires, motives, actions, and “status updates” remain unseen and unknown, even by you at times. We clearly see only a fraction of each others’ lives, and even of our own.

But then there’s this, from Psalm 139:

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

Our timeline, our status (past, present, and future), our snapshots, our thoughts, our words – all of them, every one, is seen by our Creator. Privacy settings? -there are none. Opt out? -sorry.

We all keep many secrets from each other, and rightly so. Unless you are totally out of touch with reality, you know there is darkness in every human soul, and the most horrifying possible occurrence would be for everyone to truly know what you’re thinking at any given moment. Can you imagine walking into a social setting and having people be able to see, like a scrolling Facebook status, every thought or desire that passes through your mind?

But, it’s already true. Right now. Denying God is like trying to shut a door that is free-standing in a wide open field. No secrets. No privacy. No hiding. Full exposure. 24/7.

“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching over the evil and the good.” Proverbs 15:3

This is a terrifying thought for some. But for those who are living in growing transparency in the fear of God – those who confess their rampant sinfulness, and receive grace from an all-knowing yet all-loving Father – it is a comfort.

You know me. All the dirt, all the warts. And receive me anyway.

Such knowledge is too wonder-full for me.

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Living in Wanderment

I really should know better.

You walk with God for a number of years, you know the difference between sin and righteousness, you know your heart is deceitful, you should be fully on guard against wandering off the path.

And yet, I wander. Wanderment instead of wonderment; selfishness instead of joyful humility.

A little greed here, a little lust there, perhaps a bit of shading the corner off the truth – it seems like such a small thing. One step off the path – hey, it’s easy to return! Maybe two steps. Soon the path is no longer visible, and we’re surrounded by the weeds of wandering.

Now what?

¹ Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
² Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.

³ When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
⁴ For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.

(Psalm 32:1-5, NIV)

The wanderer needs to stop. Look up. Repent of acts of selfish stupidity. Receive pardon.

And return to the path. With clean hands and a fresh start. And, hopefully, a bit wiser.

Image Credit: Brandon Grasley via Flicker

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Purpose-full

This post will be a meandering stream of consciousness. It may not be cogent, coherent, or correct. But, it will, at the very least, have alliteration in the first paragraph.

I was speaking recently with someone who had renewed energy and a more positive outlook on life. Why? Recent months had been mired in a sense of purposeless-ness. And that saps motivation like almost nothing else.

With the immense and unstoppable human drive to find meaning in life, it’s hard not to conclude that we are hard-wired for purpose. This creates a curious conundrum for those with a purely naturalistic and evolutionary worldview, however. Because when you boil that perspective down to its core philosophical inevitables, a seeking of purpose is a vain attempt to assign meaning where there can (ultimately) be none.

Yet we do seek purpose, and those who accomplish much in life are driven by a sense of purpose. What a different historical view we have of World War 2 – which was brimming with noble purpose – and the Vietnam War, which seemed to have little real purpose, meaning, and direction. Companies like Apple and Google set out to change the world, and attracted people loaded with zeal (or created them!). Dying, legacy companies may have traded their purpose for mere survival in a shrinking market. The difference is palpable.

One of the appeals of a religious worldview is the framework of a greater purpose. So much in life seems random, counter-intuitive, or downright evil. A will to press forward can come from a sense of overarching purpose, which is hidden in the mysterious mind and heart of a benevolent God. And when it comes to the evil part, the mysterious element pops out in bold and italic type. Believers can be just as perplexed as unbelievers by the flow of events. They are sustained by the hope that something actually makes sense on the other side of the tapestry being woven – good sense. Sometimes that greater good is actually seen in the shorter-term, sometimes it is not. Faith is most seen when the mists of mystery are still around us.

Of course, that sounds like a total fantasy-land cop-out to others, and I get that. If God has been locked out of one’s worldview prima facie (at first blush), then appeals to sovereignty simply look like escapism. The alternative is self-created temporary purpose or, if you go the full philosophical mile, raw nihilism. Which, actually, is another way of saying honesty within one’s chosen worldview. And I respect honesty even if when I disagree on first principles. I’d far rather talk to an honest believer in god-less-ness than a disingenuous and corner-cutting “believer” in God.

But then, how honest is it to hold to a position that leads to purposeless-ness, when every intuitive element in our souls cries out for and seeks purpose? We all seek, and desperately need, love; yet shall we say that such a need is a mere artifact of superstition, a defect of evolutionary process? Or a mere survival mechanism for passing on genes to another generation? Really? Is that our higher purpose – genetic reproduction? I don’t know about you, but in my mind, that doesn’t carry a whole lot of motivational weight. “I exist to survive and propagate.” How ennobling is that?

I fully realize that there all kinds of mysteries and complexities to supernaturalism. I came to faith with a critical and analytical mind, and I can’t stand here and say that I have some buttoned-up, 100% airtight, fully-explained worldview. Actually, with each passing year, I feel more ignorant than ever. But purpose seems so deeply stamped into our souls, that I cannot believe it is other than the image of God in man; not some temporary app to help us survive, but the operating system that reflects a brilliant programmer who means for us to do much more than, “eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we die.” Perhaps others will dismiss such a perspective as wishful thinking – but then again, where do even get the imagination, the capacity, the soul-ish drive for wishful thinking?

I believe it’s hard-wired. I see it at the operating system level. To try to divorce ourselves from purpose is to try to divorce ourselves from inescapable, existential reality. The seed produces, inevitably, the plant buried in its genes. Pluck off the pedals, chop off the leaves, spray paint the stem – a sunflower remains a sunflower.

And we seek purpose. Even when our purpose is, ironically, to deny our purpose!

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