I live in Pittsburgh, otherwise known as "Steeler Town." In 2009 Pittsburgh is also known as "City of Champions." Now I have NOTHING against either the Steelers or champions - be they Penguins with a big silver cup or whatever.
However, I do sometimes want to stand in a prominent place in the city center (perhaps that's Heinz Field), and talk about idols of the heart. I am astonished at the people in this city who plan their lives around a football team!
Tullian Tchividjian - pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL - writes, "Idolatry is centering our attention and affection on something, or someone, smaller than God. In fact, most idols are good things in our lives that we turn into ultimate things–things that take God’s place as we unconciously depend on them to give our lives meaning."
John Calvin once said, “Our hearts are idol making factories.”
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon prayed, "Lord Jesus, take from us now everything that would hinder the closest communion with God. Any wish or desire that might hamper us in prayer remove, we pray You. Any memory of either sorrow or care that might hinder the fixing of our affection wholly on our God, take it away now. What have we to do with idols anymore? You have seen and observed us. You know where the difficulty lies. Help us against it, and may we now come boldly, not in the holy place alone, but in the holiest of all, where we should not dare to come if our great Lord had not torn the veil, sprinkled the mercy seat with His own blood, and asked us to enter."
Here's the shocking truth for my heart: I have my idols, too! My idols aren't Steelers, but I too make idols in my heart. I too center my attention and affection on something or someone smaller than God. My idols are "good" things, too. The problem is that my sinner's heart turns them into ultimate things - things that take God's place. God alone gives meaning to life! Idols - as the ancient prophet Elijah proclaimed on Mt. Carmel - can't do anything, see anything or be anything! (1 Kings 18:16-39)
So, before I "preach" to others, I need to "preach" the Gospel to myself!
Showing posts with label Charles Spurgeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Spurgeon. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Black Holes
My son pointed out an article related to black holes and the Internet. Scientists at the University of Washington's Hubble web site have charted a map of the Earth color-coded as to the intensity of duration of these black holes.
You know the drill - you are diligently typing some profound thoughts when all of a sudden either your screen freezes with that hourglass icon that just goes on and on OR a sudden power glitch blinks off power and you lose all your great thoughts OR you accidentally hit just the right wrong key to suddenly lose all the work you've done and not saved. It's one of the MOST frustrating things that can happen to any writer!
According to this news article in the science section on MSNBC.com, these black holes might be attributed to an Internet server momentarily going down or a wireless network cutting out. Another cause might be a "cyber black hole." Research by computer science graduate student Ethan Katz-Bassett at the University of Washington and his faculty advisor Arvind Krishnamurthy has resulted in a program designed to search for these "strange Internet gaps." The result is a graph of the entire Earth and where these glitches (black holes) occur. Their hope is that this data will help Internet service providers track specific network problems and learn better how to deal with them. These computer scientists also hope to improve Internet consistency. After all, we are all increasingly dependant on the Internet for processing and disseminating information. Fine-tuning the system will help us all be more efficient in using the Internet. An additional benefit is that perhaps someone will eventually discover the vast black hole where all this valuable and "brilliant" thinking has vanished and be able to retrieve it once again.
There is another black hole unrelated to the Internet. It's a black hole of the heart! It is where many, many people live (or at least exist)! It's a very scary place where days pass slowly and nights pass even more slowly. It's almost like continuing to live after "flat-lining" on an ekg. The colors of this black hole are mostly unrelieved black with perhaps a little gray or deep blue.
Many famous people have lived in this black hole. Pablo Picasso painted through his black hole experience and expressed his pain in his art works. Others who have struggled in the black hole of depression are: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Charles Spurgeon, William Cowper, missionary David Brainerd, the great preacher Jonathan Edwards and many others. William Cowper - who wrote some wonderful hymns in the midst of his pain - described his own black hole in terms that resonate in my own heart: "Behind a frowning providence, God hides a smiling face." (Hymn, "God Moves in A Mysterious Way") John Piper, the great Reformed Baptist preacher of our generation, wrote of some of these men in his book, The Swans Are Not Silent, Vol. 2.
Depression can get a choke-hold on its victim. The causes of depression may come from physical, mental, emotional or spiritual origins. The symptoms and results of living in depression are also all over the map of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts of life.
Depression is actually almost drowning in down feelings and focusing only on those feelings. Those feelings drive the depressed person to desperate desires to run away, to sit and cry, to commit suicide, to go back to bed and pull the covers up tightly, to avoid family and friends and to simply check out of life in any meaningful way. It is virtually impossible to set goals and accomplish motivational tasks when life seems to be only darkness.
A practical cure for depression is to learn another way to live - not in the pit of one's feelings but rather grounded in God's truth! Hebrews 1:1 describes faith as "being certain of what we do not feel." Only God can bring that kind of certain faith to a heart so desperately in need of God's restoring love! It's important to measure this new kind of living in baby steps and over days rather than hours.
In the games of "Red Light, Green Light" or "Mother, May I?" - two options for actions are taking baby steps or giant steps. There are no giant steps through depression, and it's unrealistic to even think so. There are, however, baby steps as God begins to work His restoring grace deeply into the black hole of a heart desperately in need of restoration! This is something only God can do!
Sometimes He uses someone who has "been there and done that" to come alongside and offer a helping hand and loving heart but, in the end, it is a work God does. His promise is "to comfort us in any trouble." He also promises to bring that comfort through others who have also found that same comfort. Read 2 Corinthians 1:4. It is God's faithful promise to anyone living in the black holes of life!
You know the drill - you are diligently typing some profound thoughts when all of a sudden either your screen freezes with that hourglass icon that just goes on and on OR a sudden power glitch blinks off power and you lose all your great thoughts OR you accidentally hit just the right wrong key to suddenly lose all the work you've done and not saved. It's one of the MOST frustrating things that can happen to any writer!
According to this news article in the science section on MSNBC.com, these black holes might be attributed to an Internet server momentarily going down or a wireless network cutting out. Another cause might be a "cyber black hole." Research by computer science graduate student Ethan Katz-Bassett at the University of Washington and his faculty advisor Arvind Krishnamurthy has resulted in a program designed to search for these "strange Internet gaps." The result is a graph of the entire Earth and where these glitches (black holes) occur. Their hope is that this data will help Internet service providers track specific network problems and learn better how to deal with them. These computer scientists also hope to improve Internet consistency. After all, we are all increasingly dependant on the Internet for processing and disseminating information. Fine-tuning the system will help us all be more efficient in using the Internet. An additional benefit is that perhaps someone will eventually discover the vast black hole where all this valuable and "brilliant" thinking has vanished and be able to retrieve it once again.
There is another black hole unrelated to the Internet. It's a black hole of the heart! It is where many, many people live (or at least exist)! It's a very scary place where days pass slowly and nights pass even more slowly. It's almost like continuing to live after "flat-lining" on an ekg. The colors of this black hole are mostly unrelieved black with perhaps a little gray or deep blue.
Many famous people have lived in this black hole. Pablo Picasso painted through his black hole experience and expressed his pain in his art works. Others who have struggled in the black hole of depression are: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Charles Spurgeon, William Cowper, missionary David Brainerd, the great preacher Jonathan Edwards and many others. William Cowper - who wrote some wonderful hymns in the midst of his pain - described his own black hole in terms that resonate in my own heart: "Behind a frowning providence, God hides a smiling face." (Hymn, "God Moves in A Mysterious Way") John Piper, the great Reformed Baptist preacher of our generation, wrote of some of these men in his book, The Swans Are Not Silent, Vol. 2.
Depression can get a choke-hold on its victim. The causes of depression may come from physical, mental, emotional or spiritual origins. The symptoms and results of living in depression are also all over the map of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts of life.
Depression is actually almost drowning in down feelings and focusing only on those feelings. Those feelings drive the depressed person to desperate desires to run away, to sit and cry, to commit suicide, to go back to bed and pull the covers up tightly, to avoid family and friends and to simply check out of life in any meaningful way. It is virtually impossible to set goals and accomplish motivational tasks when life seems to be only darkness.
A practical cure for depression is to learn another way to live - not in the pit of one's feelings but rather grounded in God's truth! Hebrews 1:1 describes faith as "being certain of what we do not feel." Only God can bring that kind of certain faith to a heart so desperately in need of God's restoring love! It's important to measure this new kind of living in baby steps and over days rather than hours.
In the games of "Red Light, Green Light" or "Mother, May I?" - two options for actions are taking baby steps or giant steps. There are no giant steps through depression, and it's unrealistic to even think so. There are, however, baby steps as God begins to work His restoring grace deeply into the black hole of a heart desperately in need of restoration! This is something only God can do!
Sometimes He uses someone who has "been there and done that" to come alongside and offer a helping hand and loving heart but, in the end, it is a work God does. His promise is "to comfort us in any trouble." He also promises to bring that comfort through others who have also found that same comfort. Read 2 Corinthians 1:4. It is God's faithful promise to anyone living in the black holes of life!
Monday, March 10, 2008
Botox, Brokenness and Restoration
Charles Spurgeon wrote in All of Grace, "Justification without sanctification would be no salvation at all. It would call the leper clean and leave him to die of his disease; it would forgive the rebellion and allow the rebel to remain an enemy to his king ... " Wow! Talk about counter-cultural!
According to the Westminster standards, "justification" is "act of God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone." (Shorter Catechism, Q. 33)
"Sanctification" is that process or "work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness." (Shorter Catechism, Q. 35)
Spurgeon got it right: the act without the process does leave the leper to die of his disease or the treasonous rebel to remain an enemy of his King! But what an opportunity to be counterpoint, to be salt and light in our world! It is the heart of the Gospel that God doesn't just pronounce us "just" but that He also commits to the process of making us "just" to the bone, deeply into the warp and woof of our life to our very heart!
In a world of fast food and quick fixes, the Gospel speaks loud and clear that make-overs and cosmetics, even botox and liposuction don't fix the problem. Only God's work of restoration (which is a process, actually THE process of sanctification) brings God's restoring love and grace to all the brokenness of life!
I'm signing on for the process of restoration and committed to being the heart and hands of that process in my sphere of influence. I can't fix the brokenness in my own heart nor can I fix the brokenness others experience. Only God can!
It's like the little song children used to sing in Sunday School, "O, who can make a snowflake? I'm sure I can't. Can you? O, who can make a snowflake? No one, but God! It's true!" Who can fix my brokenness? I'm sure I can't; can you? Who can fix your brokenness? No one, but God! And it's true!
According to the Westminster standards, "justification" is "act of God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone." (Shorter Catechism, Q. 33)
"Sanctification" is that process or "work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness." (Shorter Catechism, Q. 35)
Spurgeon got it right: the act without the process does leave the leper to die of his disease or the treasonous rebel to remain an enemy of his King! But what an opportunity to be counterpoint, to be salt and light in our world! It is the heart of the Gospel that God doesn't just pronounce us "just" but that He also commits to the process of making us "just" to the bone, deeply into the warp and woof of our life to our very heart!
In a world of fast food and quick fixes, the Gospel speaks loud and clear that make-overs and cosmetics, even botox and liposuction don't fix the problem. Only God's work of restoration (which is a process, actually THE process of sanctification) brings God's restoring love and grace to all the brokenness of life!
I'm signing on for the process of restoration and committed to being the heart and hands of that process in my sphere of influence. I can't fix the brokenness in my own heart nor can I fix the brokenness others experience. Only God can!
It's like the little song children used to sing in Sunday School, "O, who can make a snowflake? I'm sure I can't. Can you? O, who can make a snowflake? No one, but God! It's true!" Who can fix my brokenness? I'm sure I can't; can you? Who can fix your brokenness? No one, but God! And it's true!
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