The Shack

Though I've wanted to refrain on commenting on this issue, the book The Shack by William P. Young has caused loads of controversy throughout this country and others. Though I do believe there are things that seem good in this book, the negative and misleading aspects of the book outweigh any good that it is worth. However, I realize that there are some who will disagree with me on this who I might sincerely agree with on more important issues.

For those who want to know more about this book and its author, Kendall Adams has done a helpful interview with Young. It seems that Young knows less of what he's talking about than he should and his answers are a little hard to understand. Also, he flatly denies substitutionary atonement which is disheartening, but I encourage anyone interested to listen to this interview. I just pray that maybe Young would grow some in certain areas and that Christians who disagree with him will be patient and gracious and listen carefully to what he and others like him would have to say. We do not have to settle for anything less than the truth, but we can patiently discuss the issues in this book with those people in the hope of helping them further understand the grace of God.

The Focus of Fear

(This is my fifth post in my series on fear)



Love Vs. Fear
The Language of the Bible
What is Fear?
New Post Series on Fear



I think that the problem of fear mainly arises from a wrong focus of our minds and attentions. When we give ourselves over to concentrating on possible mishaps or what might happen, then we begin to fear. Consistent thoughts about possibilities often lead to worry and the longer we worry the greater our fear grows.

Conversely, if we fix our focus on God and how might and awesome He is; and we trust in the promises of His Word, then our minds will be filled with the majesty an power of God and our worries will look too small to bother us. God is bigger than all our fears and as long we trust in Him, we will have no reason to be anxious. Consider the case of Peter:

Matthew 14:22-36 tells us that the disciples had gone ahead of Jesus in their boat so that Jesus could pray alone. By the time He was finished, the boat was a ways off and Jesus, being God, decided to walk out to them on the water.

The disciples see Jesus walking toward them and they immediately think He is a ghost and become afraid. Jesus, seeing that they are afraid, calls out "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid"(Matthew 14:27).

Peter decides to test His claim and asks Jesus to tell Peter to walk to Him on the water. Jesus does so and Peter steps out of the boat. Looking at Jesus, he puts one foot, then another on to the water. Then he takes a few steps. Peter is walking on water! And all the while his eyes on Jesus.

But then the initial excitement wears off and Peter realizes what he's doing. The Bible says that he saw the wind and became frightened (Matthew 14:30). Maybe he started to think, "What am I doing? People don't walk on water. That's impossible. What if I fall through?" But one thing is sure, as soon as this fear took him, he began to sink. He had taken his eyes and focus of off Jesus and began to worry.

So it is with us. As long as our eyes are on Jesus, our fears won't be as big in or minds. We will be able to accomplish great things in the power of the Holy Spirit because our fear will not hold us back. But when we take our focus off of Jesus, then we are prone to fall. I pray that we would learn to focus on Jesus and trust in His strength.

Spectacular Sin?

If you want to read a book that will help you appreciate and delight in the sovereignty of God over everything (and especially if you don't), including the myriad evil in this world, I suggest you read one of John Piper's most recent books, Spectacular Sins and their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ. Don't let the title daunt you. It is not a difficult read. In fact, I had it done in about 4 days. And all the time spent reading it was worth it. Rarely have I seen more clearly the glory of Christ in the worst of circumstances and the purpose of God in the most senseless of activities.

I thank God for this book and I thank John Piper for accepting God's call to write it. I recommend it to you with no reservations. Please consider taking a weekend to read this book. I promise you won't be disappointed.

If Pharaoh would have Revered God

Sometimes the hardness of the human heart is truly mystifying. Take, for instance the case of Pharaoh before the Red Sea.

Before Pharaoh chased the Israelites to the edge of the Red Sea, he had witnessed God work in several miraculous ways. Ten, to be exact. After seeing a stick turn into a snake, the prestigious King of Egypt saw a river of blood; his land laid to waste by gnats, frogs, disease, tremendous hail, locusts; a blinding darkness across Egypt; and lastly the death of every firstborn in Egypt who was not covered by the blood of the lamb (Exodus 8:1-11:5).

He had witnessed all of this with his own eyes. And through most of it, his heart was only steeled more and more against God. He refused to see anything that was happening because of his blind pride. That is, until his own son was killed and his heart was broken. But even then, his heart was hardened once more (Exodus 14:4).

So he set out to capture the Israelites whom he had just let go. And he pursued them day and night until the Israelites stood in the middle of the powerful Egyptian army and the expansive Red Sea before them (Exodus 14). Oh, and by the way, while he's pursuing the Israelites, he's being prevented from reaching them by a pillar of fire!

And all the while, Pharaoh does not recognize God once. God proved over and over that He was greater than any false idols that the Egyptians served. Pharaoh's gods had only succeeded in failing him every step of the way. Even his magicians eventually failed and recognized the Lord God (Exodus 8:16-19). But Pharaoh refused again and again.

And then he ends up at the edge of the Red Sea. Perhaps, he just dashed head long onto the dry path that the Israelites were walking across and didn't even recognize the wonder in front of him.

But what if he would have stopped, even for a minute. Perhaps he would have seen the walls of water clearly before him, standing as if held back by an invisible hand. He may have even seen fish or sharks swimming next to him. Then, maybe, like Nebuchadnezzer, he might have stopped, marveled, and glorified God, saving both himself and his faithful subjects.

But no, we are told he chased after the Israelites in the hardness of his heart and perished beneath the waves (Exodus 14:26-28)

Happy Birthday

I would like to announce that today is the ninth birthday of my youngest sister!

Happy Birthday!

Amazing Photos!

Some rather extraordinary pictures have been brought to my attention recently and I thought I would share them with you.

The first set is a ghostly combination of the Russian town of Leningrad.

The second set are pictures of realistic paintings found on city streets.

I highly recommend checking these out.

Free Calfskin ESV

David Porter is giving away a Calfskin ESV Study Bible for Free! Check out his site for details.

The Mystery of God

When I think about God, I often think of the mysteries that surround Him. How can God be loving and just? How can Jesus be both God and man? Why would the righteous choose to suffere for the unrighteous? And how can God both be three and one?

I love thinking about these mysteries. It assures me that God is truly bigger than my understanding. It is necessary that God be incomprehensible for if He could be understood by his creatures, then they would be greater than He is.

Evelyn Underhill said it this way: "If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshiped."

Now, that being said, there are at least two things we must avoid when thinking about the mysteries of God.

First, just because these things are mysterious does not mean they are without explanation. There is NOT ONE mystery that can't be explained. Incomprehensible does not equal unexplainable. When we accept these apparent contradictions of God, we are not saying that we believe something that is illogical. Rather, we are trusting in God, whose logic transcends our own.

"How is this different?" you might ask. Well, realizing that paradoxes are not flawed logic, but instead superior logic, means that we will not accept something that contradicts what we do know about God. For instance, if we believed that these mysteries were in fact contradictions of reality or Himself then we could accept that certain sins are both right and wrong or that God is both holy and just as well as being lowly and easy-going with sin.

And this leads me to my second point. We should understand that though there is a great deal about God we don't know (we will never know all about God), there are things He has revealed and new revelations will never contradict old ones. But they might change the perspective.

The greatest example of this is the mystery of Jesus Christ. Before Jesus came to earth, God promised a Messiah. Even as far back as the first sin in the Garden of Eden, God promised that he would send a Redeemer (Gen. 3:15). But as the years went forward, no one knew what this Messiah would be like or anything apart from what was said in the prophecies and even that was misinterpreted.

For all people before Christ, His coming was a mystery. That is what Paul called it in Romans 16:25. But when Paul uses the word musterion from which we get the word mystery, he is not at all implying that we still don't understand how, when or why Christ has come. That has now been revealed (1 Peter 1:20-21). But that revelation in no way contradicted what we knew of God before. Rather, it enhanced it. Through Christ the mysteries of the forgiveness of sins and salvation by faith alone were revealed.

And so it is with all mysteries of God. As we learn more about God, it will never contradict what is clearly stated about God in the Bible, but it might change how we view Him. I encourage you to enjoy the mystery of Christ today.