The Illusion of Longevity (Part 1)

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life span?”

- Matthew 6:26-27

Over the course of the last several weeks, I have noticed a surge in the number of internet news stories that are centered on the search for the key to long life.  As I began to think about these stories, I realized that the interest in prolonging life is not a recent trend by any stretch of the imagination.  The hope for longer, more fulfilled lives is not simply a biological issue but points us toward several key truths.  In this series of posts, I will look at the issues surrounding longevity and the quest for youthfulness.

The quote from Jesus, as seen as part of The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 and 6), provides valuable insight in understanding our perspective on aging.  This verse is part of a whole and as such it is important to understand its context.  In this instance, Jesus is speaking to the crowds about the uselessness of anxiety and worrying about the daily necessities of life.  If God provides for the needs of birds, animals, plants, and all of creation; then how much more will he provide for humans, who are made in His image?

With this in mind, the clamouring over the key to longevity has to be seen for what it truly is; a lack of faith in God as the creator and sustainer of all things.  As people push God away from themselves (both in an intellectual sense as well as in a personal sense), their natural inclination is to seek their own means of sustaining their lives.  The problem remains however, that as mortal humans, we cannot add to the number of days that we have been given.  It is pointless to worry about what tomorrow (or the next 50 years) holds because we may not live to see tomorrow.

In the process of trying to add to our days, we deny our purpose of glorifying God in every aspect of our lives.  When our hope is placed in God through faith in Jesus Christ, we do not live in fear of our lives being cut short, because we realize that it is God who holds the future and He alone has the ability to raise us from death to life, that we might spend eternity in His presence.

Reflections on a Week in “Sin City”

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.  Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.” - Isaiah 1:16-17

I just finished up a week-long mission trip to Las Vegas, Nevada where myself and 12 others helped with a church plant named Summerlin Community Baptist Church.  Vegas is known as “Sin City” because of the widespread access to sin.  It is interesting that even people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ or the need for the forgiveness of sin view Las Vegas as “Sin City”.  It would be easy to spend the majority of my blog in crying out against the great “evils” that are readily found in Las Vegas.  However, as I reflect upon the week spent in Las Vegas, my thoughts are taken in a different direction.

Rather than feeling the spiritual affliction that is so often associated with Las Vegas, I was refreshed and continue to be refreshed by the community of believers in the church in Las Vegas.  The other members of the team and myself were given host families from the church to stay with.  These families went above and beyond all that was asked of them.  As we continued to interact with the members of the church throughout the week, the depth of the church’s love for the body of Christ was further revealed. 

The only other church in which I have witnessed such depth of love was in Siena, Italy.  Siena, like Las Vegas, was a very “spiritually dark” place and was a place of hard soil in terms of sharing the gospel.  It continues to amaze me at how churches in some of the darkest places in the world also produce some of the strongest believers in terms of community. 

Many church “strategists” speak of unity and community as if they are something that must be forced by the body of believers rather than recognizing it as the natural overflow of the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God.  As the Holy Spirit works within the life of individual believers within the context of a community/church the natural result ought to be a spirit of unity and love among the believers.

Might it be that churches in many areas lack unity and community because it’s members aren’t serving alongside one another in the trenches of life?  Are we too busy fighting over the color of the carpet that we have forgotten the purpose of the church?  Hopefully, we can take the lessons learned from churches such as Summerlin and Siena and realize that the unity of believers is something that naturally happens in the process of sanctification.  If community is not found in the natural interactions of the members of a church it will never be found on the back page of our church bulletins.

http://www.summerlincommunity.org/

Rethinking Religiosity

“Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil?  Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts; The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:7-8

In Christianity today, many people try to please God through their works, their “sacrifices”, and even in their religiousity.  Often times, we think that we have “revolutionized” the Christian faith through our cool programs, our new approaches to ministry, or even in the way that we worship God.  When we look at the Old Testament prophet, Micah, we see a strikingly different picture.

God doesn’t want our fancy gifts, our worship services, or our good works if our heart is not right with Him.  God has shown us what is good and we continue to try to complicate it by adding elements to the gospel.  When I say that God wants our hearts to be right before Him, I’m referring to a realization that we are sinners because we do not meet the righteous and perfect standard of holiness of God through our own efforts.  This realization leads to repentance (the turning away from our sinful lives) and to a relationship with Jesus Christ which is by faith and not by anything that we can do. 

If we don’t have a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter what we do because by our actions we continually separate ourselves from God.   Our “good works” are filthy rags before the Holy God.  Basically what Micah is saying is that we need to focus on our relationship with God first and foremost because everything else will fall into place.

We are to love God and to love people because we love God.  True religion works itself out from loving God and delighting in Him not by somehow pleasing God through our good works. 

“We have seen…that hypocrites inquire how God is to be pacified, as though they were very solicitous about the performance of thir duty; and that in the meantime these are disguises; for by circuitous windings they turn here and there, and never wish to come directly to God.  The way might have been easily known by them; but they closed their eyes, and at the same time pretended that they had some concern for religion.  And this is also very commonly the case in our day…” - John Calvin commentary on Micah

May God open our eyes to clearly see Him that we might respond accordingly!

The Longing of the Heart

“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?” Psalm 43:1-2

Psalm 43 is well known by many people.  In many churches there is a contemporary worship song that refers to it.  But do we really understand the imagery?

To be honest, my understanding and thinking have involved images of Bambi and Thumper seeking for water after playing around for a while.  It seems as though many people have images of a serene picture of a deer drinking at a brook in their minds.  At the heart of Psalm 43 we are confronted with a drastically different image that forces us to rethink the message of the psalmist.

The other day I was at a man’s house and he had a deer head mounted on his wall.  As with most wall mounts, there was a story behind the hunt.  He explained how he had shot and wounded the deer and ended up following it’s trail for nearly two hours.  He and his fellow hunters knew that there was a stream in the area and inevitably the pursuit of the deer led them to water.  The man explained, “In my hunting experience, wounded animals almost always run to water.”

When we look at the rest of Psalm 43 and see the desperation involved, it becomes clear that our understanding of a deer panting for water should not conjure images of a peaceful creek complete with deer stooping to drink of the water.  Rather it should cause us to think of a desperate struggle for life itself. 

Is our pursuit of God a desperate search for the One who created us or is it something that we worry about one day a week for a little over an hour?  May we understand our need for God in every aspect of our lives!

The Devil Made Me Do It!

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.  And the LORD said to Satan, ‘From where do you come?’ Then Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘ From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.’ And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.’” Job 1:6-8

The problem of evil in the world often leads to the understanding that Satan is behind every evil work and that there is some sort of eternity-long battle that is taking place between God and Satan.  However, the book of Job leads to a different understanding.

In the above passage it is interesting to note the progression of the conversation between God and Satan.  God asks Satan what he’s been up to.  Satan’s response is interesting when we compare it to 1 Peter 5:8 which says; “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.“

In Job, twice Satan simply says that he was “roaming about on the earth and walking about on it.” In 1 Peter we get to the heart behind the purpose for which Satan is roaming around. He was/is roaming around seeking those whom he could devour.  In this context, it makes it even more interesting because God knows the mind of Satan and therefore knew what Satan was looking to do.  Furthermore, God knew that Satan was considering Job.  Rather than protecting Job, God suggests that Job was the perfect candidate because Job was blameless above all other men and feared God. 

The purpose of the book of Job is to debunk the myth that only the wicked suffer.  In fact as you read the book of Job, Job’s friends consistently suggest that Job needs to repent of some sin so that God will restore his wealth to him.  This doesn’t work because Job was blameless. This doesn’t mean that Job was without sin but that he was righteous before the LORD.

The last chapter of Job provides the climax of the book.  In verse 5 of chapter 42, Job says to the LORD, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now my eyes see Thee.” 

Two things that we can learn from Job’s experience is that Satan can only do things which the LORD allows him to do.  He (Satan) is not on an equal level with God.  For the believer in Jesus Christ, Satan was defeated at the cross on Calvary when Jesus became sin for us and was crucified, died, was buried, and was resurrected.  Secondly, suffering does not come only to the wicked.  In the case of Job who was a righteous man, suffering brought about a deeper understanding of the wisdom and justice of God.

In times of suffering, we are wise to seek God’s purpose in the midst of suffering.  It is often in the valleys of life that we grow and mature the most.  The “mountain top” experiences should be viewed as times of refreshment and preparation for further growth and maturation in the valley.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me” -Psalm 23:4