Apologies that I haven't blogged much recently. These last weeks have been busy and filled with many other things to distract my mind and keep me from writing much. Many of them are resolved, but I simply haven't been the mood. I've spent so much time thinking that taking more time to sit and think through my writing has not appealed much to me.
We are called to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our strength, and all our minds. We are called to surrender to Him our everything: to truly love Him with our lives. These bodies He has given us - subjected to futility by the fall though they be - are glorious things. We are called to love Him with the way we think, with the way we eat, with the way we sleep, with the way we exercise, with the way we spend our times - with everything. He has to be first in all we do.
The gospel is news. That's what the word means! John Piper spoke on this a number of weeks ago to his church: that the power of the gospel is in its nature: it is not some mantra which has power because of the words' spiritual quality, but because the news is so good. (The words are inspired, but they are inspired because God is using them to communicate glorious Truth, not because they are somehow powerful in and of themselves. The power of Scripture is because the Spirit speaks through it.) It is good news! Good news! The best news there has ever been. Dare to stop and think about it. Don't gloss over it. Don't let it be normal.
God became a man.
He lived from infancy to death as a man. He ate, drank, went to the bathroom, slept, cried, threw up when he had a virus, went through puberty. God did all this. The humiliation! Yet He counted the glory of His Father and the ransom of His people worth it.
He wasn't any less God for it. He wasn't hindered by His humanity, wasn't constrained by it. He was still upholding the universe by the word of His power.
God is. He's everywhere, in every time, without exception.
That doesn't make any sense. It's crazy.
God died.
He was beaten, lashed, and then hung on a cross to die a slow, excruciating death by suffocation, his nerves screaming in agony, his nakedness revealed for all the world to see. And then, the wrath of God for the sins of all humanity was poured out on Him. God did all this.
He was separated from His father, and in a way we don't understand, was still God, was still of infinite worth, was still Christ.
That's utterly inconceivable.
God was buried. Wrapped in cloth, and laid in a tomb until the third morning. They came to anoint the body with incense so that it wouldn't smell bad. And then He rose from the dead, uncontained by the tomb or by death, displaying the greatness of God's power, the utter triumph over evil - not the final triumph, but the one that definitively forecasts it.
God did all this.
He overcame sin, death, hell, Satan, every power that would be in rebellion to Him. All that has been subjected to futility is now being renewed. He reasserted His lordship - a lordship that had never ceased, but had been denied, that has become deniable.
And - and! AND! - in doing all of this, He sets us free - you, me, our parents, our friends, all who will come to Him - from the folly of this world, from the death that rules us, the sin that controls us, the cycles of destruction that we can never escape! HE SET US FREE.
STOP. Don't keep reading. Don't look at another blog. Go back, and think about that, meditate on it, pray about it, read the Bible about all that. But don't dare go on with your day, callous and accustomed to what God has done, absent the wonder and the awe that should fill us. STOP. Worship.
- Chris
We are called to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our strength, and all our minds. We are called to surrender to Him our everything: to truly love Him with our lives. These bodies He has given us - subjected to futility by the fall though they be - are glorious things. We are called to love Him with the way we think, with the way we eat, with the way we sleep, with the way we exercise, with the way we spend our times - with everything. He has to be first in all we do.
The gospel is news. That's what the word means! John Piper spoke on this a number of weeks ago to his church: that the power of the gospel is in its nature: it is not some mantra which has power because of the words' spiritual quality, but because the news is so good. (The words are inspired, but they are inspired because God is using them to communicate glorious Truth, not because they are somehow powerful in and of themselves. The power of Scripture is because the Spirit speaks through it.) It is good news! Good news! The best news there has ever been. Dare to stop and think about it. Don't gloss over it. Don't let it be normal.
God became a man.
He lived from infancy to death as a man. He ate, drank, went to the bathroom, slept, cried, threw up when he had a virus, went through puberty. God did all this. The humiliation! Yet He counted the glory of His Father and the ransom of His people worth it.
He wasn't any less God for it. He wasn't hindered by His humanity, wasn't constrained by it. He was still upholding the universe by the word of His power.
God is. He's everywhere, in every time, without exception.
That doesn't make any sense. It's crazy.
God died.
He was beaten, lashed, and then hung on a cross to die a slow, excruciating death by suffocation, his nerves screaming in agony, his nakedness revealed for all the world to see. And then, the wrath of God for the sins of all humanity was poured out on Him. God did all this.
He was separated from His father, and in a way we don't understand, was still God, was still of infinite worth, was still Christ.
That's utterly inconceivable.
God was buried. Wrapped in cloth, and laid in a tomb until the third morning. They came to anoint the body with incense so that it wouldn't smell bad. And then He rose from the dead, uncontained by the tomb or by death, displaying the greatness of God's power, the utter triumph over evil - not the final triumph, but the one that definitively forecasts it.
God did all this.
He overcame sin, death, hell, Satan, every power that would be in rebellion to Him. All that has been subjected to futility is now being renewed. He reasserted His lordship - a lordship that had never ceased, but had been denied, that has become deniable.
And - and! AND! - in doing all of this, He sets us free - you, me, our parents, our friends, all who will come to Him - from the folly of this world, from the death that rules us, the sin that controls us, the cycles of destruction that we can never escape! HE SET US FREE.
STOP. Don't keep reading. Don't look at another blog. Go back, and think about that, meditate on it, pray about it, read the Bible about all that. But don't dare go on with your day, callous and accustomed to what God has done, absent the wonder and the awe that should fill us. STOP. Worship.
- Chris
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