Deus Vult

Here's another "concept" article like Tupos.

Deus vult is a concept that has grown ever more prominent in my life since I learned of it. Strictly translated, it means "God wills it", but its connotations go far beyond that for me (yes, I do use "for me", and this is one of the few topics I will allow myself to be subjective about).

Deus vult means that no matter what our situation, God is in control, God is above, God has a plan that WILL be accomplished, and God will work all things for good.

It's the kind of thing that Job could say with assuredness and conviction when he was lying in squalor. I have been asked before what I thought the point of the book of Job was. The book of Job tells the story of a pious man who is struck down in every physical way possible. He loses all his possessions, his health, and even his family. Then, at the end, God restores all his possessions and even his children in greater number. Is this a fitting end? Can these new children simply replace the old ones who were killed? Will this heal Job's grieving heart, the broken heart of a father? Certainly not! Job was scarred in a huge way and was probably affected for much of his later life by these incidences.

However, what Job could do is acknowledge Deus vult. Because, here is the point of Job: not that Job reached his happy ending, not that God rewards suffering, not that Satan is a poor gambler, but that God is victorious over the devil, and that same devil must crawl from God's throne admitting defeat and having accomplished nothing but to demonstrate that God is in control and works things according to His purpose.

That is the point of Job, and that is also the point of the entire Bible. To God be the glory; all glory and praise be to our omniscient, omnipotent, just, holy God. All else is futile and trivial.

I urge you, my brothers and sisters, to keep this in the forefront of your minds as you go through the day, because what I have said does apply to our daily lives. God does work all things together for His better purpose, whether bringing each individual piece together in a single hour, or a day, or a year, or a century, or an eternity. Some pains I experience immediately bear fruit I can see the good effects of. Some take longer. Some I don't know but will. Some I don't know and won't, because that plan or part of the plan is not meant for me to understand. But, in most situations, I can find the beautiful plan of God behind the situation, how God is using it for good.

One way that I often see God uses our suffering is so that we may relate to those in similar circumstances. You may or may not have heard of Christians who have survived multiple bouts with cancer or other traumatic health conditions and now use their story as a platform to reach people in a similar position (people who often say no one can understand what they are going through). I have recently rediscovered the effectiveness of this application from my Theology professor (who I am not sure is a Christian). His son committed suicide a few years back; this son had everything going for him, a good family, a good job, a good life. But, he made the decision to kill himself and left his family still suffering to this day. One of the many ways this suffering could be used is if my professor opted to reach out to others who grieve from the unexpected pain of losing a loved one. There are other ways I have thought about since then, but that was the first.

So, we can see that behind every bad situation and experience God is working to sanctify and strengthen us.

I pray that these words will comfort you, my brothers and sisters, if you are in hard places in life and struggling.

-In Christ,
Phil

 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV)

Power over swine? Not a chance.

Something that struck me while I was doing my devotions today.

My Theology class is going through The Life of Antony by Athanasius. I do not recommend the book, nor do I agree with some of its teachings, but one of Antony's observations is highly encouraging to me, as I hope it will be to you.

'But if any one having in mind the history of Job  should say, Why then hath the devil gone forth and accomplished all things against him; and stripped him of all his possessions, and slew his children, and smote him with evil ulcers? let such a one, on the other hand, recognise that the devil was not the strong man, but God who delivered Job to him to be tried. Certainly he had no power to do anything, but he asked, and having received it, he hath wrought what he did. So also from this the enemy is the more to be condemned, for although willing he could not prevail against one just man. For if he could have, he would not have asked permission. But having asked not once but also a second time, he shows his weakness and want of power. And it is no wonder if he could do nothing against Job, when destruction would not have come even on his cattle had not God allowed it. And he has not the power over swine, for as it is written in the Gospel, they besought the Lord, saying, "Let us enter the swine." But if they had power not even against swine, much less have they any over men formed in the image of God.
'So then we ought to fear God only, and despise the demons, and be in no fear of them. But the more they do these things the more let us intensify our discipline against them, for a good life and faith in God is a great weapon. At any rate they fear the fasting, the sleeplessness, the prayers, the meekness, the quietness, the contempt of money and vainglory, the humility, the love of the poor, the alms, the freedom from anger of the ascetics, and, chief of all, their piety towards Christ. Wherefore they do all things that they may not have any that trample on them, knowing the grace given to the faithful against them by the Saviour, when He says, "Behold I have given to you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy."

This just shows how much greater the power of our God is than any other being's. It also gives a great perspective on the devil, his demons, and temptations: they have to beg even for control over swine. Pretty low state, huh?

Today, I am praying that you will remember how far superior God's might is to that of the temptations arrayed against you. Remember that He is in control and allows only what He knows you can bear. Think of a sports coach who makes you work out until your body burns. Why does he do this? To make you stronger. In the same way, your resistance to these temptations makes you stronger.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4 ESV)

Go with courage and certainty, brothers and sisters.

-In Christ,
Phil

Tupos

Today, I’m going to tell you all about tupos. Unfortunately, my brain is not running well enough this evening to come up with some kind of entertaining or even semi-intelligent introductory statement, so that’s going to have to do . . .

Anyways, tupos. It’s a Greek word meaning “impact,” and one of my favorite words.  When a blacksmith would work at his forge and make a breastplate, he would start out with something that looked nothing like a breastplate, but he would strike again and again with his hammer, each blow leaving a tupos in the metal, a concave impact mark. Eventually, he would have the final product, drastically different from the flat piece with which he started.

Now, there is a twofold message to be found here. The first is obvious: God is the blacksmith, and He uses His tools to shape us into the final product He planned for us to be. The tools are the various trials we run into in this life. Pretty deep analogy, huh? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

The second analogy is what really hit me while thinking about tupos. It’s a fact that ever y contact we have with another person affects us. The degree to which each encounter affects us varies greatly, but each meeting nonetheless. affects who we are and who we develop into. Even if you just meet someone once, they have contributed to your steriotypes and preconceptions or your social skills and thought patterns. And we have the same affect on others. This is our tupos, our impact on another person’s life. And we control what that tupos entails, whether it is a good one or bad. Is it a tupos Jesus would be proud of you for leaving, or is it just like everyone else’s? That’s what we need to be thinking about. You have twenty seconds in some other person’s life. How is that tiny period going to affect them?

 

-In Christ,

Phil

Focus

A vital part of my family’s history is our military heritage. Many of my family members have served in a branch of the service or are still serving. From this vantage point, I have gotten some quite interesting opportunities to experience the military as a civilian.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the drills. Throughout boot camp and training, military personnel are rigorously drilled (which is a nice way of saying they get screamed at hysterically until they perform the desired action the desired way). During these drills, trainees are focused intently on responding only to their appointed superior and zoning everything else out. Good drill students will hear nothing else besides the instructor. Others may be yelling over the instructor, trying to drown his voice out or break the trainee’s concentration; but, that trainee will try above all to hear his instructor and comply with his wishes. His focus is undivided, and the harassers are as good as gone.

Oy. Here I would love to include for each of you a copy of a wonderful book that has really impressed me through my childhood and continues to do so, but that costs money . .. So, the book is called With You All The Way by Max Lucado. I cannot recommend it enough, and everyone who reads this should not rest or eat until they have their own copy in hand. In all seriousness, it’s a great book, and I will struggle to give a brief summary . . . Oh, wait, I found an online copy. Well, look at that. So, open it in a new tab, read it, then come back. Don’t worry, it’s short, and I will wait on you to get back. Here’s the link: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~burc0050/poems/lucado_king.html. Go get it. Go now.

“Wasn’t that a wonderful story, children?” Now, I’m sure you have put one and one together to realize the point I’m getting at. We have an “Instructor” Who is daily guiding and aiding us. There are many other things that are struggling to gain our attention. There are messages everywhere, whether subtle or flagrant, that are bent on affecting us. But, we also have our Instructor’s Son, Who has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us. We can be confident (our confidence tempered with alertness) in this world because of Who we have at our side! So focus. Listen. Learn. Pray for wisdom and strength.

Go with confidence, brothers and sisters. Go knowing that you have power through Him Who is in control of everything.

-In Christ,

Phil

The Escalator Analogy, Mk. II

Today’s post was inspired by a song we sing in church pretty often. The song is called “There is a Peace” by Sojourn.

 After a recent trip to Haiti, my fatigued team and I were moving to our waiting area in the Miami Airport. As we were walking, I was carrying on conversation with my best friend who was walking next to me. We were bemoaning how all the good times go so fast, and all the bad times seem to never end. I then shared my perspective that life is like a conveyor belt, and we are unable to move faster or slower than the uniform, unchanging conveyor belt’s speed. This mental image had helped me gain some perspective in the past. I then followed it up with a metaphor of considerably less quality: the Escalator Analogy.

 We were riding an escalator, which is similar to a conveyor belt, so I attempted to adapt my device to fit our scenario. “Life is like this escalator. It has a beginning and an end. And all we can do is wait until we get from one end to the other . . . except you can’t move forward . . . or backward  . . . It’s kinda like being on an escalator with Derren (one of the team members) directly in front and another Derren directly behind . . .” At that point the analogy fell apart as I realized I couldn’t salvage it.

One of the problems with the perspective presented in the conveyor belt and escalator analogies (and the perspective many people have on life) is the spirit that it creates within me. I see life and time then as spanning on in front and behind without any idea where the ride ends, just helpless to affect my progress on the belt and moving along at a uniform speed. I feel rather depressed and held back, restricted.

Now this isn’t really a big deal, I suppose, but my perspective was wonderfully reformed during worship on Sunday. As we were singing the aforementioned song, the line “There is a peace that is calling you home” caught my eye. That phrase “calling you home” really stuck out to me. All of the sudden, I had a new idea on life. Regardless as to where we are, whether on an escalator or a conveyor belt or anything else, Jesus is calling us home. His irresistible call of love is daily drawing us nearer to the beautiful consummation of the next life. We still aren’t able to do much to change or impede time’s progress, but we can look to our Guide Who is standing at the end, calling for us with joy, encouraging us to keep moving forward.

 With this in mind, we can look at such troublesome thoughts as the prospect of getting old with a new outlook. The older we get, the closer we are to that point when we reach the end of the ride and run into our Savior’s arms.

 This may seem rather petty or far-out, but it is something that has been laid on my heart for a while, and I felt like sharing.

-In Christ,

Phil

The "Hundredfold" Crop

Ok, let's start off the week with a shorter post I've been meaning to write for a long time. I was finally pushed into action by my pastor's two-part sermon on the passage I was inspired by (I will probably be borrowing a few ideas from his sermons). 

So many authors exhort Christians to evangelize, and they should, and I’m about to do more of the same. There is no such thing as trying too hard, and I still am not sure we can even try enough. This topic came to mind a few weeks ago when I read Mark 4:8. The Word of God, from the lips of Jesus Christ, recorded by the pen of the apostle Mark says thus: “And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”  

Who are the seeds who fell in good soil? We are, the Christians, the Church! And what does this passage say? The good seed produced grain. But, the part that really shook me up was the part about “yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” I don’t know about you, my beloved readers, but I had never even dreamed of yielding a hundredfold or even thirtyfold. Can you imagine you in your current state bringing a hundred people to Christ? I certainly can’t see myself doing the same. 

The problem is the flawed mindset of many in the church today including myself. All of us have heard the stories of young Christians at college or in society in general; they live good lives, everyone knows they are a Christian, and eventually some shy classmate approaches them with questions about their faith. This is great, but these Christian students are not “fishing.” They are not being proactive, going after others with the Gospel; they are simply waiting for the occasional fish to jump into the boat. 

Jesus apparently seems to think that we as Christians can lead a huge “crop” of new believers to Him, and you may be thinking, “That sounds awesome, but a hundred is a big number.” The fact is, it’s true. And neither you nor I are capable of  leading a single person to salvation. We can only strive toward that goal and pray that the Holy Spirit will work within them. This is a vital realization you must make: you cannot save anyone. In fact, we humans are pretty pathetic creatures, vulnerable to every temptation, fickle, foolish, stubborn. The only way we can become anything better is through grace. And, grace is the only way new converts are made. We are but tools, humble servants to God (more on that in a later post). 

And, we need to be trying. And trying harder. I cannot simply be content waiting on the fish that jump into the boat. I was content with sharing my faith once every two weeks or so, trying to get more people to come to church. My “yield” is small, if it even exists. 

We as Christians  exist to share the Gospel. The Gospel is our life until our last breath. Everything else comes third to the Gospel (nothing is close enough to be considered second). We need to remember daily that this is our purpose. We need to exhort and encourage one another, and to pray for one another often.

 

In Christ,

Phil

 

May God make you, dear readers and fellow believers, armor-plated warriors for Him, loyal servants daily prepared to fight for Him.

I'm back!

Sorry, everyone, school has been swamping me right now (Yay, college!); I'm really going to be trying to find the free time to continue work on my blog, as it's sat dormant for several months now. Please bear with me (better yet, pray for me) as I try to get back into scedule and start posting. I have some pretty cool new concepts to talk about.

Phil