Enjoying God Blog

A new book has just been released that I believe will prove to be an incredibly helpful tool for you and the people in your church during Holy Week (beginning with Palm Sunday, extending through Easter Sunday). Continue reading . . .

A new book has just been released that I believe will prove to be an incredibly helpful tool for you and the people in your church during Holy Week (beginning with Palm Sunday, extending through Easter Sunday). The book is co-authored by Andreas J. Kostenberger and Justin Taylor and is titled, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 217 pp.

The book walks the reader through each day of the final week of Jesus’ life, providing descriptive portrayals of the major events, dates, people, as well as maps and time flow charts that will enable you to get a grasp on everything that transpired. All of this is tethered to and grounded in the various texts in all four Gospel accounts. I don’t know of another source quite like this one. It is thorough, yet written in a way that is accessible to the average adult-educated Christian. Above all else, it is spiritually rich and Christ-centered.

The authors make this suggestion on how the book might be used by you individually and in your church corporately:

“We envision that churches, families, small groups, and individuals will benefit from reading through the biblical material and accompanying commentary in sequence on each day of Holy Week, though certainly this subject is worthy of meditation throughout the year. Naturally, some days contain less material than others; Good Friday is particularly lengthy, so it would be good for you to plan on setting aside additional time to work through the material. The study could culmina

Often times when people finally get real and acknowledge how far they have yet to go in Christian maturity, they get discouraged and quit. Not Paul. And I hope not you either. Instead of easing off the gas pedal of Christian living and drifting along as if nothing more were at stake, Paul expresses his determination or resolve in two important statements. Continue reading . . .

Often times when people finally get real and acknowledge how far they have yet to go in Christian maturity, they get discouraged and quit. Not Paul. And I hope not you either. Instead of easing off the gas pedal of Christian living and drifting along as if nothing more were at stake, Paul expresses his determination or resolve in two important statements.

(1) “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12b).

This word translated “press on” belongs to the world of the hunter. It doesn’t merely mean run but pursue, chase, hunt down! Far from our salvation being a reason to relax, Paul sees it as a motive to press on. There are obviously deeper dimensions of what God has done for us in Christ that Paul wants to experience. New vistas of beauty to behold, fresh revelation of the majesty God’s character, deeper experiences of intimacy with Christ, greater joy in the Holy Spirit, more power for life and ministry, and the list could go on endlessly. Paul wants it all! And so should we!

But note especially what it is that drives him. I want to make it my own, says Paul, “because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (v. 12b)! The word ought to be more literally rendered, “Christ Jesus seized me” or has “grasped” me and made me his own. His point is that he’s pursuing these realities of spiritual experience

Someone finally found the courage to say it, so I will too. Continue reading . . .

Someone finally found the courage to say it, so I will too.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of my favorite actors. I first saw him in the film Twister. Given the fact that much of the film was produced here in Oklahoma and that he wore an OU cap throughout endeared him to me immediately! His character, “Dusty”, was a classic. There were other films in which he appeared that were of greater quality, such as Moneyball, and his performance as Truman Capote, which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor, was of the highest order of excellence.

Hoffman was found in his apartment a few weeks ago, dead of a heroin overdose. I grieve for all those who knew him and who have suffered such great loss. Please don’t take my comments that follow as disrespectful or disdainful of him. Drug addiction is a horrible affliction and our compassion for those caught up in it ought to be deep and sincere. But in all the media buzz about whether we should change our drug laws or who might have supplied him with the heroin, I didn’t hear much about the family he left behind. Until today.

In this week’s issue of The Week (February 21, 2014), there is an excerpt from Joseph Curl’s column in The Washington Times, titled, “The victims of Hoffman’s addiction.” They summarize what Curl had to say in this manner:

“After the news of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death from a heroin overdose broke last week, everyone agreed it was ‘sad’ and ‘tragic,’ said Joseph Curl. What a shame, people said, that such a talented actor had died so young, at 46, overcome by the ‘disease’ of addiction. The implication: His relapse and death were &lsquo

In the previous post we looked at the tendency of some Christians to coast, as over against Paul’s determination to “press on” to “what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:12-14). Continue reading . . .

In the previous post we looked at the tendency of some Christians to coast, as over against Paul’s determination to “press on” to “what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:12-14). Here is the passage once more.

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12-14).

He begins this portion of his letter to the Philippians with an immediate disclaimer. He does not want us to think that his suffering the loss of all things to gain Christ means that he has fully arrived, that he has already achieved or obtain everything that God has in store for Christians.

So, to what does the word “this” in v. 12 refer? Or again, in v. 13, to what does the word “it” refer? Paul denies having obtained “this” and having made “it” his own. What’s he talking about?

There are several possibilities, all of which may be true! He may have in mind the “resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:11). There were some in the early church (see 2 Tim. 2:16-18) who argued that our spiritual resurrection or coming to life through faith in Christ is the only resurrection that will ever occur. Or he may also have in mind the claim of some to have achieved sinless perfection in this life.

Should we be concerned that some Christians, for a variety of reasons, have become spiritually stagnant. Continue reading . . .

Should we be concerned that some Christians, for a variety of reasons, have become spiritually stagnant. They aren’t regressing but there is a sense in which they are stuck in neutral. Or perhaps they’re actually moving forward, but only because they’ve set their souls on cruise control. They don’t pay much attention to the speed and progress of their Christian life, but are attentive only to the degree that it is necessary to keep from swerving off the road of following Christ. They don’t think it’s necessary to accelerate. They are content with where they are on the pathway to eternal life. They’ve settled for the status quo. “Things as they are” is just fine with them. No need to rock the boat or increase the pace at which they pursue Christ in all his fullness. Again, they are spiritually stagnant.

I’m not suggesting they aren’t genuinely born again and saved. But there is little or no growth. Their passion for Jesus Christ is lukewarm, at best. Their study of God’s Word is sporadic, at best. Their prayer lives are largely restricted to listening to others intercede with God on a Sunday morning. They’ve embraced the truth that by faith alone they stand righteous in God’s sight and have concluded from this that they need do no more. There is a sense in which they’ve fully and finally arrived.

Some might even think that whatever Christ died to obtain for them is already theirs in total perfection. It’s now just a matter of resting in what is already true. The idea of pressing forward and relentlessly pursuing the knowledge and enjoyment of Christ strikes them as inconsist

There is a profoundly important connection between the spiritual discipline of fasting and our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Continue reading . . .

There is a profoundly important connection between the spiritual discipline of fasting and our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a feasting that looks backward in time, whereas fasting is a feasting that looks forward in time. The breaking of bread and drinking the cup is done “in remembrance” of our Lord’s historic, and therefore past, act of sacrifice. Thus by eating and drinking we celebrate the finality and sufficiency of that atoning death and that glorious resurrection. We should never fast from the supper of the Lord, even when we are fasting from other ordinary “suppers”. On the other hand, as John Piper explains,

“by not eating—by fasting—we look to the future with an aching in our hearts saying: ‘Yes, he came. And yes, what he did for us is glorious. But precisely because of what we have seen and what we have tasted, we feel keenly his absence as well as his presence. . . . we can eat and even celebrate with feasting because he has come. But this we also know: he is not here the way he once was. . . . And his [physical] absence is painful. The sin and misery of the world is painful. . . . We long for him to come again and take up his throne and reign in our midst and vindicate his people and his truth and his glory” (A Hunger for God, 84).

When we sit at Christ’s table with other believers we gratefully, fearfully, joyfully feast upon that food and drink that remind us of what has happened. And when we, in a time of fasting, turn away from the table where otherwise daily meals are served we declare our deep yearning for what has not yet happened.

Not long ago I read an article about the discovery of the most distant galaxy in our universe. The galaxy, known as z8-GND-5296, was detected by the Hubble Space Telescope and an observatory in Hawaii. Continue reading . . .

Not long ago I read an article about the discovery of the most distant galaxy in our universe. The galaxy, known as z8-GND-5296, was detected by the Hubble Space Telescope and an observatory in Hawaii. As the article explains, “when scientists look at distant galaxies, they see them as they appeared in the past because of the time it takes for a galaxy’s light to travel to Earth. The newly discovered galaxy was seen by the researchers as it appeared 13 billion years ago” (Ralph K. M. Haurwitz, The Oklahoman, 10-24-13).

Taking into account the continuous expansion of the universe, researchers estimate that the galaxy is now about 30 billion light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, or nearly 6 trillion miles. So, to determine how far away the galaxy is today, simply multiply 30 billion by 6 trillion! My math leads to the conclusion that this galaxy is currently some 180 sextillion miles from Earth (that’s 180 followed by 21 zeros)!

As amazing and mind-boggling as it is, I’ve always been bothered by something like this. Whenever I think of the immeasurable expanse of the universe, it makes me feel so very, very, very (ok, very with hundreds of zeros behind it!) small. To say that the Earth is a sub-microscopic pinprick in this vast universe is to exaggerate wildly. We are actually much smaller than that.

But then I got to thinking. We wouldn’t be any bigger in any ultimate sense of the term or a greater part of the universe if we were 10,000 (or 10 sextillion) times larger than we are. If the universe is infi

God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered worship happens whenever the mind is filled with deep, robust, expansive, biblical thoughts about who God is and what he has done, which in turn awaken and inflame heart-felt and passionate affections for God such as joy, gladness, delight, gratitude, admiration, love, fear, zeal, and deep satisfaction in all that he is for us in Jesus Christ. Continue reading . . .

God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered worship happens whenever the mind is filled with deep, robust, expansive, biblical thoughts about who God is and what he has done, which in turn awaken and inflame heart-felt and passionate affections for God such as joy, gladness, delight, gratitude, admiration, love, fear, zeal, and deep satisfaction in all that he is for us in Jesus Christ.

You will notice that I said nothing about the kind of songs we sing. One can genuinely worship God with a medieval hymn, a contemporary chorus, or in spoken prose. Nothing was said in my definition about physical posture. One can genuinely worship God sitting, standing, kneeling, lying prostrate on the ground, dancing, with hands raised, with hands in pockets, with hands clapping, with tears flowing or a wide smile. I said nothing about the presence or absence of musical instruments. One can genuinely worship God by singing a cappella or with musical accompaniment, both by the human voice alone or with a symphony orchestra. I said nothing about the freedom, form, or style in which worship is expressed. One can genuinely worship God through centuries-old structured liturgy or Spirit-prompted spontaneity, both through pre-written confessions of faith or impromptu shouts of praise.

The mistake many make is in conceiving worship as if it’s all about

The blogosphere was all abuzz last week when Donald Miller, well-known author of the best-selling book, Blue Like Jazz, announced that he no longer attends a local church. Continue reading . . .

The blogosphere was all abuzz last week when Donald Miller, well-known author of the best-selling book, Blue Like Jazz, announced that he no longer attends a local church. I won’t go into his reasons or the multitude of responses, many of which were extremely insightful (others weren’t). What struck me most was the element of surprise among many evangelicals. They acted as if this choice of Miller’s was unexpected. “How can this be?” they asked. “What could possibly lead an educated and articulate professing Christian to abandon local church life?”

For my part, Miller’s decision makes perfectly good sense, given his rejection of the functional authority of Scripture. If one does not believe that the Bible is authoritative for belief and behavior, all options are on the table. To say that the inspired and infallible text of Scripture functions authoritatively means, among other things, that our minds are not free to believe whatever seems preferable. It means that our choices are limited to what Scripture approves. It means that God exerts his rule over us through his written Word.

Of course, many bristle at this. Such limitations on their “freedom” are highly offensive and ultimately stifling to any meaningful sense of personal development. Scripture, on the other hand, would have us enjoy the superior “freedom” of conformity to the will of God so revealed. Freedom is not the multiplication of options and the unfettered opportunity to select whichever ones suit our fancy. Freedom is the Spirit-wrought alignment of one’s mind with what God declares to be true and

The notion of divine justice and wrath are not popular in certain sectors of the professing Christian world today. If nothing else, this betrays how weak in the minds of such folk is the doctrine of inspiration and the functional authority of Scripture. For if Scripture is indeed the Word of God written, infallible for all life and belief, then divine wrath must be embraced, as uncomfortable for some as that may be. Continue reading . . .

The notion of divine justice and wrath are not popular in certain sectors of the professing Christian world today. If nothing else, this betrays how weak in the minds of such folk is the doctrine of inspiration and the functional authority of Scripture. For if Scripture is indeed the Word of God written, infallible for all life and belief, then divine wrath must be embraced, as uncomfortable for some as that may be.

I have of late been reading extensively in the works of J. I. Packer. In his reflections on the atonement Packer speaks often of what has been called the retributive justice of God, or that which God's nature requires him to require of his creatures. Retributive justice is that in virtue of which God gives to each of us that which is our due. It is that in virtue of which God treats us according to our deserts. Retributive justice is thus somewhat synonymous with punishment. This is a necessary expression of God's reaction to sin and evil. Retributive justice is not something which God may or may not exercise, as is the case with mercy, love, and grace. Retributive justice, i.e., punishment for sin, is a matter of debt. It is something from which God cannot refrain doing lest he violate the rectitude and righteousness of his nature and will. Sin must be punished. It is a serious misunderstanding of Christianity and the nature of forgiveness to say that believers are those whose guilt is rescinded and who