January 2003 Archives

I don’t want to say that I intend on this update to be the balance to yesterday’s entry. I thought that yesterday’s message was pretty clear. However, Murphy’s Law of preaching, teaching, etc., is that if a statement can be misinterpreted, it will be. Lest I sound like I was bashing people who desire to be married, I wanted to give my view of marriage that has sprung very much from the viewpoint I submitted yesterday.

As I was driving home from work today, I was admiring the green fields, blue sky, clouds, sunset, all while singing some songs of praise to God. Oh, how I was delighting in the glory of God! As I looked out the right side of my car at the beautiful scene before me, to the south, my eyes fell on the empty passenger seat.

At that moment, my thought was, I wish my wife was sitting there, enjoying all this with me. I thought how positively wonderful it would be for both of us, together, to delight in God. I wanted someone with whom could be shared a mutually delirious happiness in God and each other.

I am not against finding joy and happiness in marriage, nor am I against looking forward to it with great anticipation and longing. If the thought in your mind from yesterday’s update was that I was somehow saying that we should love God and not marriage, I want to lay that thought to rest. The point of yesterday’s message is that we should love God above everything in our lives and be willing to do without any of them in order to have Him, if He so chooses. And I was lamenting that I see so many of my friends who somehow view marriage as an essential component of their happiness that they delight in it more than they delight in God.

So tonight, I wish to say that in regards to the gift of marriage, I am positively, absolutely, 100% in favor of having and nurturing desires for marriage. God created it, and it is very good. God created woman because it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him. (Genesis 2:18)

Marriage is a shadow, a picture of Christ and the church. Therefore to experience marriage is to personally experience, in a real physical setting, what that relationship is like. It is not the reality (hence yesterday’s update), and so if we do not have the shadow, it is no statement of our full participation in the reality being foreshadowed. But the shadow is very good.

But it’s a different longing than I used to have. I want to enjoy God with her. I want to love her in Christ. I want to see Christ in her. I want to be Christ to her, that is, show her the love of Christ. I want to build her up in Christ. I want to nourish and cherish her, as Christ does to the church.

I used to just want to enjoy her company. I still do, badly at times. But now, when the day comes that she looks at me, I want her to see me pointing, and as her eyes follow my pointing, she sees Christ in His glory. Then, our breaths will be taken away, and I’ll whisper, Isn’t He amazing? There is only so much beauty that I possess, and it wasn’t meant to satisfy like Christ. I want to pursue God together with her.

Is this making any sense? Marriage is, to me, perhaps the most intimate example of what John mentioned, in making his joy full. It’s the coming together of two people, who become one. They are united. And in so doing, their complete joy is entirely dependent upon the other’s complete joy. It is circular. My joy is made full when her joy is made full, and her joy is made full when my joy is made full.

Edwards said:

In some sense the most benevolent, generous person in the world seeks his own happiness in doing good to others, because he places his happiness in their good. His mind is so enlarged as to take them, as it were, into himself. Thus when they are happy, he feels it; he partakes with them, and is happy in their happiness. This is so far from being inconsistent with the freeness of beneficence, that, on the contrary, free benevolence and kindness consists in it.

If you got caught up, as I did, in the statement, the freeness of beneficence, in today’s language he means the idea that love is freely given without expecting anything in return. But he says that the most loving person is receiving something in return; namely, his joy.

In marriage, that’s exactly what’s happening. It’s two people who have enlarged their scope of joy from merely themselves, and have taken the other into his or her self. And so, I can’t be happy if my wife is not happy. If I seek to be happy at the expense of her happiness, I am not loving.

And so what satisfies us and makes us most happy? God. And so the great desire of my heart since reading The Pleasures of God in February of ‘02 was to have the intimacy of marriage in order that I might experience God in my wife, and she through me. It goes way beyond taking romantic walks on the beach (which I want to do!) and having picnics in the park (which I want to do!) and curling up in front of the fire on a cold night (which I want to do!) and a host of other intense pleasures that marriage brings.

Here’s an analogy. The other day, I received a gift from a long-distance friend. It was a thank-you note for some work I had done, and along with it was a Starbucks gift card. When I opened the the envelope, the gift card fell out. I picked it up, smiled, then set it aside so that I might read the note. The note was more valuable to me than the gift card.

Now, suppose I opened the envelope and out fell the card, and I looked at it and said, Wahooooooo! and ran out to spend it, not even reading the note. What would that say about my opinion of the note? Even worse, what would that say about my opinion of the giver?

The gift card represents God’s gift. It can be marriage. It can be food. It can be internet surfing. It can be reading. It can be music. It can be art. It can be video games. It can be nature. It can be good grades. It can be friends. It can be family.

The note represents the Word. In it are all the promises of God that are made good because of Christ. And the giver obviously represents God, whose fellowship is so incredibly sweet.

When God gives us His gifts, they are meant to be enjoyed. My gift card was given to me in order that I might benefit from the lattés I’m going to buy with it. I love coffee, and I love Starbucks. So when I go to Starbucks, I’m going to like drinking the coffee I can now buy because of the gift card. But when I do buy it, the giver is going to come to mind, and my heart will be filled with gratitude.

The giver is more important than the card. God is more important than all His gifts.

If I lost the card, or it was stolen from me, or it was damaged, would that affect my joy in my friendship with the giver? No, not in the least. Will I be disappointed in the missed coffee? Yes. But my delight in the giver would not be diminished. Every time I would think of my lost card, my mind would then focus on the giver, and I would think how nice it was to receive such a gift.

When His gifts are taken from us, threatened, damaged, whatever, should that affect our joy in our relationship with God? No, it shouldn’t. Will we be disappointed in the missed gift? Yes, and many tears may perhaps flow. But our delight in the giver should not be diminished, only strengthened. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:21)

Now let’s say I am given the gift, but I just let it sit there and don’t go out and buy coffee. I am missing out on the joy the giver meant for me to have. Starbucks coffee is good! It is delightful! My irish cream latté is going to taste so good tomorrow morning! The fact that I can enjoy and savor the gift actually reflects my primary delight in the friendship of the giver.

You see, in both examples, the gift is passionately enjoyed. However, one dishonors the giver, the other expresses delight in the giver. The giver is glorified.

So it is with marriage. I am going to enjoy marriage if God grants it to me, and I want marriage so that I might experience the Giver more, not just by myself, but with her, and with the children He might give us. And if God wants me to experience Him more without marriage, that is totally worth it.

On the one hand, I look forward to it with an anxious longing; on the other, I could take it or leave it. An interesting set of emotions, huh?

I want to close with what Sarah Edwards told her daughter when her gift, Jonathan Edwards, died:

My very dear child!

What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore His goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives; and He has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be.

Your affectionate mother,

Sarah Edwards.

This weekend I want to go over some of Packer’s Knowing God, the book where I got yesterday’s quote from. That chapter explains very much why grace means everything to me, and I feel that in my very guts. Until then, I hope I’ve clarified some misconceptions.

I’ve had two very good conversations today about God and His glory. Sweet fellowship indeed. However, at the end of the day, I still can’t help but bring up the J.I. Packer quote I’ve referenced several times now:

To be sure, there have always been some who have found the thought of grace so overwhelmingly wonderful that they could never get over it. But many church people are not like this. They may pay lip service to the idea of grace, but there they stop. Their conception of grace is not so much debased or non-existent. The thought means nothing to them; it does not touch their experience at all. Talk to them about the church’s heating, or last year’s accounts, and they are with you at once; but speak to them about the realities to which the word grace points, and their attitude is one of deferential blankness. They do not accuse you of talking nonsense; they do not doubt that your words have meaning; but they feel that, whatever it is you are talking about, it is beyond them, and the longer they have lived without it the surer they are that at their stage of life they do not really need it.

While the fellowship is indeed sweet, I feel like this most of the time. I cannot get over grace. I simply can’t. I don’t want to. 1 John 1:4 says:

These things we write, so that our joy may be complete.

What completes John’s joy?

…eternal life… that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. (1:2-3)

It is seeing his writers experience eternal life. What, as in eternal life in the future? Sort of. What do you think is up with 3:15?

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in Him.

Has eternal life abiding (present tense) in him? That’s odd. Eternal life is not just a destination, but it can abide in you? What is eternal life?

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, and in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. (5:20)

That we may know Him who is true… Jesus Christ… this is the true God and eternal life. Do you see something there? The song is right: Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You; there is no greater thing.

Tying this all together, I see that when John says that his joy is not complete until his readers experience eternal life, and if eternal life is knowing Christ (knowing meaning an intimate understanding, as a man “knows” his wife is a euphemism for sexual relations in the Bible), then John can’t experience full joy yet.

You ever wonder what drove people like Paul and other great, seemingly perfect and incredible Christians to such radical missionary endeavors? It wasn’t that they were so incredible; their tastebuds were entirely different from ours. Their joy was not complete until that joy was duplicated in others. There was a sort of godly discontentment. Read Ephesians 3 and see why Paul was so passionate about the Gentiles being brought in. Here’s what he says in Phillipians 3:8,

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.

There it is again, black and white! Paul viewed knowing Christ as the end to everything. This is synonymous with Ephesians 1’s “to the praise of His glory.” Knowing Christ and His receiving glory… they’re one. They’re the same.

Glorious truth! Wonderful consolation! Tremendous peace! I could fill another megabyte full of exclamations expressing how I feel about it.

But many do not understand this. Indeed, some have not yet heard, and some that have heard don’t understand.

Faith, which in Future Grace Piper rightly defines as “being satisfied for all that God is for us in Christ Jesus,” this faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. And so I tell it! I shout it! I live it! I talk about it incessantly. I eat it, I drink it, I sleep it, I want it, I desire it, I long for it. And I want others to, too.

So when my passion is met with “deferential blankness,” and I see people who will more readily scream and yell about a sporting event or their girlfriends before they’ll shout about God, I want to pull back the veil and let God shine forth in His glory in their lives. It’s like I’ve found a source of crystal clear spring water, and I look over and see a guy digging in the ground, putting his mouth to the dirt, trying to suck moisture out of it. Is that horrid to you? It is to God.

Be apalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, to hew cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jer. 2:12-13)

And until glory, I will always be seeing people sucking dirt. I’m not talking about X-rated videos. I’m talking about marriage. I’m talking about music. I’m talking about anything that is loved not for God’s sake. God’s gifts can be our greatest enemy.

Give up your dirt! Marriage is good, my single friends, and I indeed look forward with anticipation toward the day… but on the other hand, I could take it or leave it. My satisfaction on this planet does not hinge upon my being married or not. If God gives me that gift, with thanksgiving I will receive it and seek to enjoy it maximally, pursuing my joy in my wife’s joy (a tremendous concept, one whose praise I ought to sing for hours about). But if God doesn’t give it to me, can I be satisfied? Oh, yes! Yes! The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life!

Can you take marriage or leave it? If I take it, I want to take it for Christ’s sake. If I leave it, I want to leave it for Christ’s sake. But until you get to that point where you can honestly say on the deepest level that you can take marriage or leave it, for Christ’s sake, marriage is an idol in your life. If you believe that marriage is an essential component of your happiness on this planet, and until you have it you will be “incomplete,” you’re not getting it.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m sure that when I’m married, I will easily and joyfully admit, “She completes me. My weaknesses are made up in her strengths.” But why will I say that? Because God is the one who created the void to fill. This is very different from saying, “God created a hole in man’s heart to be filled by woman.” No, God created a hole in man and woman’s heart to be filled by Christ, and marriage is the closest relationship we can experience that imitates that Christ-centric relationship. Where I differ is to say that unless we have this shadow, we cannot experience and be complete in the reality.

But whether we marry or not, we are Christ’s! “For if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8) That’s my point. I just see so many of my dear brothers and sisters who will profess to valuing God more than marriage, who will pay it lip service, but ultimately can’t be happy until they’re married. And marriage won’t solve their emptiness. God’s glory can.

If the prospect of marriage is in your life and God is your consuming passion and exceeding joy, then pursue it recklessly! Dive in! Enjoy it! What a gift! What kind of awesome God would create something as beautiful as marriage? Write your songs about it, write your journals about it. But my prayer is that through it, the supremacy of God would be the entire band on which the jewels of the necklace rest. Because the moment the prospect of marriage is threatened, if God is not your exceeding joy, then despair and depression will be your companions, not weeping and hope.

<sigh> I feel the deferential blankness just because I can’t put this down the way I ought. I’ve tried and tried, but it just doesn’t come off sounding the way I want. Christ… He’s worth selling everything you own in order to have. Until you’re willing to sell it all with joy… you’re missing out. And Jesus says you’re not worthy of being His disciple.

Scary? Yes. Because just maybe what we’ve built our lives upon is really sand. On Christ the solid rock I stand. Stand with me. See Him. Savor Him. Sell everything you have to own Him as your chief treasure and joy. Then you’ll see His gifts in a whole new light.

"Isn't it ironic that in the thing I desire to be most eloquent about, I find myself babbling like a kindergardener?"

-Rachel Cole

I led worship today at church because Dad is sick. It was awesome. I've led the congregation before. But in those times, I was "leading the music." Today, I felt like I was leading worship. I don't know if my passion touched anyone's hearts today to where they could feel God (the apex of genuine worship), but I could not be silent. I just could not be silent.

Thus the quote for today. I wanted to be the most eloquent I could, but I found myself babbling, like I was speaking another language. It was so difficult to convey how I felt about God in words. So I just had to do it in singing and hope that my face was radiant as I look to Him (Psalm 34:5).

"The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

"Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:22-24)

God's love for Jesus was in relation to the revelation of His glory. And Jesus desired that His own would be able to see His glory, which in turn glorified the Father. Intensely profound words and thoughts which express my desires in today's worship.

And sometime soon I might expound upon a thought I just had:

"The degree of worship expressed should be in relation to the truth revealed."

I think I've had so many "deep thoughts" for the past three weeks that my brain is on overload. I've spent about as much as can be squeezed out of this sponge I call my heart and mind. As I read and as I feast more, I look forward with sharing it with you. Until then, I'm working, studying, and hanging in there.

By the way, have you ever been presented or looked forward to a big meal, such as Thanksgiving? Or perhaps you know that at the end of the week, you're going to eat at some restaurant that you are positively famished for? When the meal finally comes, you eat and eat, but then you get full. Though there's food left, much food that you have looked forward with great eagerness to enjoy, you can't possibly fit it in. You wish you had another stomach.

Take what you know of that disappointment and follow me to where this illustration points. I've begun to feast on the superior satisfaction of the supremacy of God in all things, and I have eating and eating and have talked to the person next to me, saying, "Isn't this fantastic?" But I've reached a point that while I want to enjoy it more, my ability to go further is spent. Thus, I'm going to go back to more reading and less writing. Though I wish I had two spiritual stomachs, I'm going to digest for a while.

Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness,
Opened my eyes and let me see
Beauty that makes this heart adore You,
Hope for a life spent with You.

Here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that You're my God.
You're altogether lovely,
Altogether worthy,
Altogether wonderful to me.

Tim Highes, Here I Am to Worship

I stayed after singing in the second service of our church just so I could sing the song, Open The Eyes of My Heart, LORD. Today's worship was a feast for me. Today's sermon and Sunday school was positively glorious.

I'm concerned about something, about this notion in Christendom, especially conservative evangelicalism, that to "get a buzz" in worship is somehow wrong. Or, to sound even more heretical to my viewing audience, that it's wrong to want to manipulate the emotions of the congregation you are leading in worship through variations in musical style or whatever.

Now, the fruit of such concern is that there are indeed a vast amount of services and leaders who manipulate people into emotional frenzies that are unbiblical and no deeper than the skin on my body. So, as these people manipulate the emotions of the people, they are not turning their hearts toward God through His Word, but just mindless "feel good" liberalism.

But the damage this is also causing is that we somehow think that the emotional feelings we get in worship are by-products of real, solid, doctrinal worship of God. There is this notion that if we come to "get a buzz" (as the emotions produced from emotional music is often called) in worship, is no reason to worship God. This stems from thinking that to praise or worship God merely means to compliment Him or give Him our approval.

That's nonsense.

When I am about to sing a song of worship to God corporately, I want to engage the affections of my brothers and sisters so that we might magnify the Lord together. I want them to be stirred out of the stupor that was caused by a week's worth of vicious attacks from all that is in the world. All the pleasure the world promises... we forget about God being our chief delight. We scream and yell and are passionate about the Super Bowl, but when it comes to God, it's, as Packer says (and I quoted earlier this month), "deferential blankness." Sure, we'll pay lip service and sing the hymns and choruses and all that, but if I start getting emotional to the point of wanting to raise my hands, that's fleshly.

Again, that's nonsense.

When I get in front of the brothers and sisters of my church, I have examined myself and am ready to worship God. I am ready to tell God how much I delight in Him and that He is more important to me than anything and anyone in this world. And in so doing, my joy is made full not when the congregation says amen, or claps, or whatever. I don't care how you express your agreement, whether by clapping or saying amen or stomping the floor or throwing fish at the walls. I'm not singing for the agreement of the congregation. I'm singing to God, and one of my hopes that in so doing I might be joined by the hearts of the people in the service. I want them to worship God with me.

And telling God you love Him without feeling it is hypocrisy. And so, I want to engage the emotions in a very deep way, with truth. They go hand in hand. A song like Tim Hughe's Here I Am to Worship is one such song that I believe was designed to be emotional, but it is the emotions that truth causes.

Think about it! "[You] opened my eyes and let me see beauty that makes this heart adore You...." That truth, found strewn about the book of John and Romans and Ephesians... how can you say it with a straight face? How can it not grip you? God has called us out of the darkness into the Kingdom of His marvelous Light!

I was reading Psalm 34 again yesterday, which is fast becoming my favorite psalm, period. Hear this:

"I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the LORD; the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them. O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him." (Psalm 34:1-8)

If you ask me, it sounds like David is getting quite a "buzz" from the LORD. Not from His gifts, but in God Himself. The truth of God erupted spontaneously in David's heart into exuberant praise and delight in God. O taste and see that the LORD is good!

We do not worship because we feel good, nor do we feel good because we worship. It's not really a question which one goes first; it ought to be the same. I praise God not to compliment Him, but to express my lovesickness for Him. Does that mean that I am always gleefully and deliriously happy? No, as we may worship in tears or while we experience great suffering and trouble. But underneath it all are the everlasting arms of God.

I think Edwards hits the nail on the head:

"God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might be received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God's glory doesn't glorify God so much as he that testifies also his appropbation [approval] of it and his delight in it." (Jonathan Edwards, Miscellanies)

So, my conclusion tonight is that for us to want to be joyfully satisfied and emotionally engaged when we sing is worship so long as it is in God that we are seeking such satisfaction. There is shallowness in merely wanting to "feel good," and there is deadness in just singing "because it honors God." Both the mind and the heart must be engaged.

If the "buzz" I've been getting in my worship of God, the feeling in my soul that I cannot possibly do without God, then I want more of this buzz. As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for You, O God.

This past week, God has used several people to rekindle not just my mood, but an intense, white-hot, on fire passion for His glory. Rachel Cole's sincere questions (and incredibly beneficial conversations), Sarah Cole's challenges and experiences, Bob Browder's encouragement, everyone in Primerica who didn't bash me for taking the job with Haddock but only encouraged me, Nathan Carr for taking the time to talk to me at Starbucks, Matthew Bertram for his careful questions and interest, Tom Leonard for providing me with the iMic that I had been wanting... these are just a few of the things that are coming to mind when I think of this past week.

But I owe a tremendous debt to John Piper. His works, His God-soaked passion... I cannot even begin to express my gratitude to God for coming across the works of this Christian Hedonist. Some people get all bent out of shape and might accuse me for being man-focused, or not being God-focused, because I pay so much attention to Piper. But I read 1 Corinthians 11:1 today in our corporate worship service, and you know what Paul said?

"Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ."

Paul is telling the Corinthians, "Look, in the area of Christian liberty, look at what I do. I don't do whatever I want, as that's not liberty. What it means is that I am now free to do what is pleasing to Christ. So watch me, Corinthians. Learn from me. Imitate me."

And I can't help but think that when Paul says he's an imitator of Christ, the principle or thought from the following verses wasn't in his mind:

"Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You... that to all whom You have given [Me, I] may give eternal life." (John 17:1-2)

You see, as Jesus was seeking to be recognized in order to bring glory to God, Paul is taking a cue from that and telling the Corinthians to look at him (which brings attention to Paul), not for his own glory, but for the glory of Christ. And in the same way, Piper imitates Christ like no author I have read or paster I have heard in that God is his all-consuming passion. He glorifies God by being satisfied in Him. And I want to know the God of this man.

So, I've learned much this week, have grown in my understanding of the "old, old story," and am hungering and thirsting to hear more of it.

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.

John Piper, Desiring God

I put this quote from Piper in my away message today. The first time I read it, I highlighted it and think it sums up Desiring God in a great way. Some people believe Piper to be a person who promotes “empty frenzy” and that his writings “cultivate shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought.” It’s funny, because try reading his major books and you will have engaged in some seriously rigorous thought. This is not the way he writes, and I agree with his lament:

I would prefer to reserve a definition of Christian Hedonism until the end of the book, when misunderstandings would have been swept away. A writer often wishes his first sentence could be read in light of his last, and vice versa! But, alas, one must begin somewhere.

So it is in this light that I admit I am in somewhat disbelief over people who wave Piper off as a mindless emotional Epicurean after they have read his works, especially the first few chapters of Desiring God. A wacky Calvinist, that’s fine (I’ve gotten called that). A friend who is just starting Desiring God gave me the best description of Piper’s work that I think I have ever read (this was in response to the above quote):

I was glad to hear him say something like that — somehow having the writer address that the “other side” still exists, though perhaps he never denied its existence in the first place, assures one of his sensitivity to God.

And then I read and reread the next part:

It makes him easier to trust, as one not trying to hypnotize the masses into a new feel-good doctrine, but as one who has methodically searched the Scriptures and found them to impart a strong, celestial pulsing of the vast fulfillment found in God Himself.

“Wow,” I thought. “A strong, celestial pulsing of the vast fulfillment found in God Himself.” Those words are what I’ve felt for so long; it’s nice to occasionally have someone who grasps it, too. Sometimes, I get criticized for being a “Piper fan,” simply because I enjoy his works as they present to me the great God of glory. But I’ve told people that if I’m criticized for talking too much about anything, let it be God’s glory. “There goes that glory guy,” someone might say. Or if they say, “There goes that Piper guy,” I have no problem with it to a degree. As long as Piper guy = God’s glory guy, I am content with the label. Call me a Calvinist, call me a Piper guy, whatever. I wrote this in my 07.30.02 update, and it applies here (this is from J.I. Packer’s Knowing God):

To be sure, there have always been some who have found the thought of grace so overwhelmingly wonderful that they could never get over it. But many church people are not like this. They may pay lip service to the idea of grace, but there they stop. Their conception of grace is not so much debased or non-existent. The thought means nothing to them; it does not touch their experience at all. Talk to them about the church’s heating, or last year’s accounts, and they are with you at once; but speak to them about the realities to which the word grace points, and their attitude is one of deferential blankness. They do not accuse you of talking nonsense; they do not doubt that your words have meaning; but they feel that, whatever it is you are talking about, it is beyond them, and the longer they have lived without it the surer they are that at their stage of life they do not really need it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that way, but that describes my feelings on many occasions. There have been a few rare instances where someone’s eyes will light up, as if I’ve just spoken of their favorite musical or favorite movie, and we feast together. But alas, those times are scarce. I thank God for making Himself known to Tim Elam, someone who has stayed up with me many nights and trips to Dallas talking of nothing but God’s glory. Of Mack Wedel, my proctor who, the other night, saw me talking to someone at church about Desiring God, and as he walked over, his comments on the book were simply sighing, “Oh…” as if he savored the truths magnified from Scripture in the book. Of Nathan Carr, who yesterday grabbed my copy and flipped quickly to the back, holding the Scripture index pages from end to end and saying, “This is why I don’t have a problem reading this guy a great deal.” Of Josh Williams, who sat with me at Steve’s Rib in Edmond and gave me Piper’s book, Future Grace, which meditating on further Scripture in regards to the truth of the purifying power of living by faith in future grace has literally dropped me to my knees, weeping over the free grace of God. Of Jeff Deyo, whose closing comments on one of his songs said, “I mean, aren’t you tired of reading your Bible because you feel you have to? I want to want to love Jesus. I want to wake up every morning and can’t wait to be with Him…. I want to be like John Piper says in The Pleasures of God: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. I want God to be glorified, so I want see what I can do to be most satisfied in Him.” Of others who are beginning to not just grasp, but savor and rejoice in the truth that the chief end of man is to glorify God BY enoying Him forever. Oh, for more worshipers of God in spirit and truth!

And if you have wondered why Piper calls missions the “battlecry for Christian Hedonism,” I’m one such reason why.

I know I said I’d get my essay or whatever on love, robots, and free will, but that will have to wait. I’ve been struggling through more important topics.

White Ribbon Day by delirious? is an amazing song. It’s been in my head tonight, and the message of the gospel of peace is so clear in it. This song is likely too rockish for some people, so I’ll just post the lyrics. Don’t listen to it if you don’t like a beat at all. But as it is, I find the parallel between Britain’s White Ribbon Day (a day for peace), with all the war they have over there, and sinners experiencing peace with God so that they might enjoy Him forever. Hallelujah for White Ribbon Day!

How can it be that God is love,
When blood rolls down upon our land
And fathers lose their only son?
Where is the hope?
Oh God, we pray for white ribbon day.

How can it be that You could love,
When blood ran down that wooden cross?
Your Father gave His only Son
You came for peace
You came to die for white ribbon day.

And we pray for peace
To flood our hearts again.
Only God can save our nation now.
And we long for joy to fill our streets again.
Only God can save our nation now.

How can it be that God is just,
When flesh is torn from young and old
And children run in bloody fields?
Where is the hope?
Oh God, we pray for white ribbon day.

And we pray for peace
To flood our hearts again
Only God can save our nation now
And we long for joy to fill our streets again.
Only God can save our nation now

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah for white ribbon day!

And can it be that You are just,
When flesh was torn for young and old?
And here we stand saved by Your blood.
We’ll stand with courage,
We’ll live and die for white ribbon day.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah for white ribbon day!