The wicked flee when no one is pursuing,
but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1

I recently reminded a student that if he felt guilty when no one was looking, he probably was right on one count. He was guilty, and God was the one looking.

Our consciences, fallen as they are, often tell the truth. When we’re worried about someone looking over our shoulder, it’s because we crossed the line into sin. We know we’ve sinned, that’s why we’re looking around for a “pursuer” who is there only in the unseen spiritual realm. But our conscience tell us He’s still there.

Contrary to selfish-shoulder-gazers, the righteous knows his actions are righteous because his heart is righteous. Therefore, he is “bold as a lion.” He needs not look over his shoulder for a pursuer who isn’t there; there are plenty of real enemies! Jesus promises as much, that “if the world hated Me, so it will hate you.” But the righteous are simply that: righteous by faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen on our behalf; so the righteous are afraid of nothing.

Jesus has already won the battle over sin, Satan, death, and condemnation; so we live in the strength and boldness that He supplies, that in everything He may get the glory (1 Peter 4:11).

So are you gazing over behind your own back today, or living boldly for the Lion of Judah?

And not that I plug things like this much, but you can find out more information and how to give here. The team and I would love your prayers and support.

Thanks!

• Well, I hope you enjoy yourself.
• You just need to learn to be okay with yourself.
• I can be happy all by myself.
• When I look at myself, I’m happy with me.

Sentiments such as these seem to permeate American, me-centered culture. Indeed, they must, since our atheology is built on self. We espouse enstasy, which is the state of standing inside one’s self.

America loves self-esteem, self-confidence, enstasy; therefore, we know nothing of ecstasy. Enstasy robs us of ecstasy, which is literally the standing outside of one’s self. Enstasy and ecstasy cannot coexist.

Isn’t the etymology interesting? “En-” always means “inside, into;” and “ec-/ex-” always means “outside, out from.” These two words give us a window into the dichotomy of desiring delight in ourselves versus pursuing pleasure in another.

One verse (of many) that helps us see this in the Scriptures is 2 Timothy 3:4, where God tells us to avoid such people of the last days (our days) that are “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant . . . not loving good . . . swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Notice here that the source of this false appearance of godliness is a love of self and pleasure rather than God. This is different than saying that God is not pleasurable. Paul is speaking here of a selfish pleasure, an enstatic pleasure rather than an ecstatic one found in God. How wildly, maniacally egocentric we are, to believe that loving our ugly selves can produce more pleasure than loving God!

The truth is that there is no real pleasure to be found in loving ourselves, because we are finite, sinful, and not worth gazing at for long. We were made for something more, something for which Jesus redeemed all who will believe: to be happy in God alone. This is true ecstasy.

But I am convinced that the Great Commission will not be completed by a “seeker friendly” church with an in-house rock band, a comedy team, a gift shop and a coffee bar. Nor will it be completed by a mission trip that looks like a church youth group retreat. It will be completed by the career missionary who has just buried his child who died from a tropical disease. It will be completed by the “developing world” pastor who has just been released from prison where they pulled out his toenails with pliers because his government didn’t like his evangelistic activities.

We all know that because of what Christ did for us, salvation is free. But the Great Commission calls for sacrifice. Who will pay that “cost of discipleship?”

Most “mission trips” I’ve seen reminded me of the Billy Crystal movie, City Slickers. I get negative feedback from Malawians. One student told me that when vacationaries show up at his village and start taking pictures, it makes the people “feel like animals in a zoo.”

In a country with 80% unemployment, they may resent watching Americans doing construction work they might have been hired to do. They needed the work, and they didn’t need to buy airplane tickets.

One group of 27 American teenagers came out and painted half a building on campus while surrounded by $60 a month Malawian workers. Then they got on a bus and went on a day trip to view Lake Malawi. The Malawians finished painting the building. I was told the teenagers raised $3500 apiece to come (total: $94,500) – to paint half a building.

Think about the Taj Mahal in India. Think about the Pyramids in Egypt. People living overseas can paint and do construction work.

Does it ever occur to anyone that most of the money spent on “mission trips” goes to the travel industry, not to the people living in the target area? Try googling “mission trip.” You’ll get hundreds of web sites of organizations that want to help your church organize your mission trip. It has become a major industry.

One pastor on a “mission trip” had me step aside while he taught my class for a week. I wonder how he’d respond if I showed up at his church and said I wanted to preach in his pulpit.

Meanwhile career missionaries struggle to raise and maintain the support they need for things like health insurance and retirement. When my late wife was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, we had no health insurance; we had dropped it because we couldn’t afford the premiums. I think about that when the vacationaries ride past my house in a bus.

Chewy is what Jesus must be if we can understand Him at all. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” (John 6:53 ESV). “Eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,” that’s basically a command.

But it’s also gross, right? Does Jesus want us to become cannibals?

Well, in a manner of speaking, yes. Faith-cannibals, cannibals in a way that’s deeper and truer than any aboriginal man-eating practices. Cosmic cannibalism rather than merely carnal.

Humans need Christ’s “flesh and blood” more than we need a hot meal or a cool drink.We need Him, as the verse says, for “life.” We have no life in ourselves, so we need to ingest Christ to gain life. To wit:

• Christ’s flesh and blood are life-giving; all other meals are not.
• Christ’s flesh and blood enliven forever; all other meals only work for a short time (if you’re already breathing).
• Christ’s flesh and blood awaken and embolden us for God; all other meals have no spiritual power at all.

Several verses are helpful here. Verse 54 says that those who eat and drink Christ’s body and blood will be raised up on the last day, verse 55 says that this blood and flesh are true drink and true food, verse 56 connects the ideas to abiding in Christ (see also chapter 15 with its vine and branches analogy), and verse 63 connects this everlasting life both to Christ’s words and to the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus wants us to chew and gulp on Him by faith. He wants us to imbibe His presence, His person, His passion and life by believing His Word in the power of His Spirit. He wants us to drink deeply on Him, because He is our only true drink.

Because, in terms of salvation, Jesus Christ must be chewy to you, or He’s nothing at all.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, may Jesus Christ be praised this coming week and to eternity.

Proverbs 18:24:

A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Ruminating on what exactly troubled me about the movie I had just watched, I realized that it wasn’t the protagonist’s penchant for biting sarcasm, nor his razor-edged insults, nor in his inability to dress for any occasion. What bothered me about the lead character in The Social Network was the fact that he sacrificed his best friend for a billion dollars.

Mark traded a friendship with Eduardo, perhaps his only decent friend, for a chance to grow his company. We would quickly ask, “Why?”; but, to the world, the answer is simple: “Money.”

But, as Christians, those of us who believe that the love of money is the root of all evil, who believe that heaven-held treasures are better than earth’s, who believe that Jesus Christ died and lives for sinners to turn from sins like money-lust, that answer simply won’t suffice. We believe in things like faithfulness, honor, friendship, loyalty, and oath-keeping, because we believe in a God who is and does all of those things.

We ought never trade a friend for money, not for $5 or $50 billion. In exchange for a friend, money just isn’t worth it.

Maybe a couple of years ago, I randomly heard about Evernote. Since then, I’ve learned there at least eight good reasons for a researcher, writer, teacher, preacher, and family man like me to use Evernote:

1. You can put your stuff in there. Pretty much anything you write down, type, find online, or need to keep can be saved into Evernote. And it’s easier to later find than using some OS search bar.
2. You can remember important facts, figures, and info. Applying for a job and need recent success rates? Evernote is the perfect place to file these facts together for quick access.
3. You can archive all your research. If you read, ponder, and discuss on the web, Evernote is a great place to archive the articles, posts, and sites that interest you the most.
4. You can spread out your research. Find and open any single article or separate articles into separate windows whenever you need to “spread out” your research to compile it, review it, or write a new piece.
5. You can type and file all your writing in one place. Eight different folders for various types of writing? With Evernote, you can file and organize these together, saving time and trouble when you search for that old poem about the beetle at the gas station.
6. You can save pictures, audio, and handwriting. Recent updates include audio, webcam, and handwritten notes. You can even attach pdf’s and pictures. So if you can write it, type it, picture it, or record it, you can file it in Evernote.
7. You can search it all. The search bar helps you search through certain notebook stacks, notebooks, tags, or whole documents to find just the right article, like which gift your wife wanted for her birthday or how to build the bunk-beds for your kids.
8. You will use it more than you think. You’ll wonder how you ever worked and filed without it.

There’s lots more I haven’t yet explained, but you can go over to Evernote.com and see that for yourself. They have handy how-to videos that will keep you learning for weeks. Oh yeah, it’s also free (you can upgrade to premium if you need more space).

Often, we hear of “God’s love” as this vanilla, ambling, faceless force in the universe. “It’s all about God’s love, man.” But often professing Christians know neither (1) where this love is from nor (2) where it is going.

From Father to Son to Father
The Bible, however, is clear. “Love comes from God” (1 John 4:7) doesn’t mean that it merely emanates from His person like smoke from a fire. It is an tungsten filament shining out light’s unstoppable beam – because that filament is already white-hot.

So how and why is God already white-hot? God has always been white-hot love because He always loves His Son. This is a perfectly blazing love, because it runs back and forth between two perfect Beings who are One. “You loved me before the foundation of the world,” Jesus says of the Father in John 17:24. What a perfect love is this!

To Children to Son to Father
So how then does God love His children? It is out of this white-hot love for His Son Jesus that He loves His children forever. “In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself,” says Ephesians 1:5. Jesus is God’s chosen means for adopting many more sons into His glory. (This is also why He requires repentance for all who come to Christ, but we leave that for another post.)

God’s love doesn’t ramble over the countryside, looking for a place to plop down and muse over a random knoll or vale. He purposed to save everyone He calls through faith, and He purposed and placed and substituted and saved through Jesus Christ alone.

Further, not only is His love accomplished through Jesus Christ, it is aimed back toward Christ. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers,” (Romans 8:29). In other words, everything God does in salvation returns to magnify the glory of the Firstborn-over-many-brothers, Christ Jesus.

God is the Goal (Not Us)
As application, notice that God’s love neither originates nor culminates with us. We are neither the measure, nor the means, nor the magnification of His grace! He is the Starter, He is the Sustainer, He is the Savior, He is the Shine and Sparkle and Sublimity of salvation! His love is no plain, path-less, mindlessly placating love. It births and bounces and breaks and brings us to Jesus!

And so does all true love. (To be continued . . . )