Sycamore

If you were at Shoreline’s service on Sunday, you heard me give a pretty personal sermon dealing with how God feels about us as believers, and how grace removes that low-level guilt and condemnation that I’ve struggled with so often.  It was a message that felt a bit scattered to me, but it came with a great change in my heart and for the last couple of days I’ve found God breaking down any resistance I’ve had to the fact that he loves me unconditionally.  The fallout from that, even over a couple of days, has been what I said on Sunday - a renewed passion for God.  I feel like the last few months I’ve fallen into a rut where my pursuit of God has been something that I’ve been maintaining - instead of straining towards the goal, I’ve been making sure I keep pace and don’t fall behind.  But being reminded of God’s grace, my absolute forgiveness, and His fatherly love for me, has given me this energy and desire that feels so much more passionate.

Today, I ran across a post by Tim Chester, an author and pastor from England.  I feel like I can relate to him in what he writes, and I think we can all use a reminder to treasure Christ in our daily lives.  Below is the post in it’s entirety:

A little off-topic, but totally worth it:

Pound for pound, this is one of the best posts I’ve seen.  Here’s the whole thing:

If we have a problem loving others, then we could have a significant relationship issue with the Creator of the world. The Apostle John said that if we don’t love others, then we don’t even know God. Why? Because when we know God, we are so completely changed that it results in sincere love for others. We can’t hate because we are changed by the love of God. We freely forgive because we have been forgiven. We lay down our own rights in deference to others because Christ laid down His rights for us.

Has the love of God changed you?

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:7-8

(HT: Milton)

(Every once in a while, I look back over the last few years of writing and find something that strikes a chord with me again.  Sometimes, I feel like it’s worth passing on, and so here is a reprint of a post I wrote almost a year ago on Malachi and the way we interact with God.)

Malachi is a minor prophet, the last book in the Old Testament, and a great follow up to Monday’s post on remembering that God is real. Malachi, a prophet, says to the lukewarm nation of Israel this:

1:6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts.

I remember when I was younger, and I transferred to a new elementary school after my family moved. For some reason in 1990 there was a yo-yo craze making waves throughout the third grade, and on my first day I met a guy and subsequently broke his super sweet glow in the dark yo-yo. He, of course, demanded payment and I, of course, went home despondent and worried that my entire life was doomed to be a social failure. Plus, I was pretty certain that I hadn’t actually broken the thing, but that it was really just a difficult knot near the base. So for an entire afternoon, when I wasn’t staring at the $15 that I was supposed to give my new “friend,” I was verbally chastising him.

Of course, he wasn’t actually in the room. And as long as he wasn’t there, I decimated him and all of his petty arguments, oftentimes in front of crowds of popular students who would all embrace me afterwards and make me their king. Yet, the next morning, I handed him $15, stammered something while staring at the ground, and was so out of sorts that I barely noticed the lack of popular students giving me hugs.

I wonder sometimes if we don’t treat God the way I treated my new friend — as someone who we know is real but who we interact with as though He’s imaginary. Malachi says as much in the passage above. When the Jews had to bring an offering to God, they’d pick out some sick, pathetic lamb that wasn’t worth much and throw it on the altar. They’re going through the motions, and the discussion they’re having in their room with their imaginary God is going quite well for them. But, God says, imagine bringing that same sickly lamb to the governor’s house as a gift for a dinner party. What would that be like?

The lesson isn’t hard to find. When the real governor sees the real crappy lamb and then sees you really holding it, he’d be insulted and all of a sudden, reality would hit you — there would be real consequences in a real world. The moral of the story is that God isn’t imaginary, and that our interactions with Him can’t be lame excuses that we imagine into success stories. Just like everything went well in my head until I actually had to deal with my new friend and his broken yo-yo, everything can go quite well in our heads until we actually have to stand face to face with the Ancient of Days. And, crazier still, there’s more joy to be found by encountering God as a reality than by imagining up your own happy ending — as long as you have the blood of Christ to make you a part of His family.

JD Grear wrote a post recently that I thought was worthy of passing on.  It’s on a topic that we rarely discuss - how we encourage others with our words.  Grear is a pastor who, like everyone, gets discouraged at times.  And he found that what really helped was when people gave him some encouragement.  I know it sounds obvious, but it seems like something we don’t do as often as we should.  Give it a read after checking out some quotes below:

It is easy, you see, for us to “assume the strengths” in others and to “notice the weakness.” We can even write off our pointing out their faults as being “helpful” to them, or not pointing out their strengths as an attempt to guard their pride. Bull. Such an attitude shows little to no awareness of the human condition, or how God works. I believe we should reverse that. We should assume others’ weaknesses and notice their strengths.

One of my favorite theologians on this was Martin Luther. Luther said that God’s way was to redefine reality with WORDS. God looked into chaos and spoke the hopeful, power-infusing words of creation. He looked into the chaos of our sin and declared us righteous in His Son. By speaking those words (coupled with our belief in them), He reconstituted our reality. You see, if He had declared us lost He would have spoken truth, but He spoke an even greater truth by recreating us with His words.

This is pretty cool:

(HT: Joe Thorn)

G.K. Chesterton - who saw everything as bigger than life, because it is:

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor… We may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy. We may love negroes because they are black or German Socialists because they are pedantic. But we have to love our neighbor because he is there– a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.

G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

(HT: Nate Spencer.  Loving that guy.)

Matt Kleinhans - Ron Paul enthusiast, economics major, recently married, purveyor of physical humor - said that this was a great explanation of what’s going on economically in America right now.  As I mentioned earlier, things are kind of going “kablooie”, and this quick read (reprinted in it’s entirety below; thanks to Justin Taylor) will give you a good handle on why:

David Kotter is the Executive Director of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I’ve found him to be a reliable, insightful voice on the intersection of theology and economics. He has an MBA, has taught economics, served as a finance manager for Ford Motor Company, and has done a lot of thinking on the topic. So I decided to ask him a few questions in an attempt to think biblically about the banking crisis that is currently underway.

What is happening in the present banking crisis?

Last night the federal government committed to lend $85 billion to the insurer American International Group (AIG), on top of the $200 billion of capital promised to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac solvent in July and $30 billion for Bear Stearns in March. In other words, more than $1,000 for every man woman and child in the country has been directed in various ways to resolve the present banking crisis. At this point, you might be wondering why this happened and what benefit you can expect to receive from your thousand-dollar share.

Why is this happening?

There are plenty of root causes for the present crisis, depending on whom you ask and where you look. Some point to the several years of artificially low interest rates from the Federal Reserve Bank. These led to an explosion of home building and enabled families to stretch into larger houses. Others blame lenders for creatively introducing no-documentation and interest-only loans as a temptation to over-extended buyers. There is certainly individual responsibility involved whenever anyone signs the imposing mortgage document packet. In any case, many people borrowed money to purchase houses and this increase in demand increased the price of houses.

At the most basic level, a $100,000 mortgage loan on a house (at 6%) is a promise to pay back about $215,000 over the next 30 years in 360 convenient payments. This promise is obviously valuable to a commercial bank, and can be sold to other banks or even consolidated and sold to large investors as a Mortgage-Backed Security (MBS). If the promise is not kept, the lender gets the house to offset the decreased value of the promise.

Problems arose last year when many people failed to keep their mortgage promises. This year a staggering 25% of all subprime loans are delinquent or in foreclosure. In essence, the valuable promises that were being bought and sold are now worth much less. Further, the houses backing the promises are often worth much less because so many are being sold at distressed prices.

Therefore someone has lost a lot of money (a.k.a. a crisis). The mortgage promises are no longer worth what banks paid for them and the underlying real estate is often worth less than the loans. Precisely, the real problem was that the risk of default was underpriced, or not completely taking into account by insurers and purchasers of mortgage-backed securities. Now that the default rate turned out to be much higher than credit scoring agencies predicted, the key question is who will ultimately bear the cost of these multibillion-dollar losses.

Certainly the shareholders of investment banks like Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers have realized tremendous losses. This has forced these companies into bankruptcy or distressed sales to other firms. The shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost almost all of their equity when these government sponsored enterprises were forced into conservatorship by the government. AIG, which sold insurance against the risk of default of mortgage backed securities, gave up 80% of the firm to the US government in exchange for a two-year loan at 11% interest.

This is where your thousand dollar contribution enters the picture: it represents your share of the government bailout to partially offset these losses and keep most of these firms afloat. If they all fail, the borrowing and lending that efficiently directs capital in a modern economy will grind to a halt. If none of them fail, the Federal Reserve will introduce a “moral hazard” that will reward risky behavior and encourage more in the future. This is a good reason to intercede for “those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1).

By the way, you won’t receive a personal invoice for the thousand dollars; it will just be added to the national debt. Ironically, for many people this is larger than the stimulus payment sent out earlier this year, and there is no guarantee that the taxpayers won’t be asked contribute yet more as the crisis unfolds.

What effect will this have on the wider economy?

Undoubtedly this crisis is having widespread effects on the economy, although economists disagree as to the extent at this point. AIG is one of the 30 stocks in the Dow industrials, so the evaporation of the equity in this company was a major contributor to the 500 point drop in the market on Monday. Investors are now suspicious of other banks, leading them to sell those stocks as well. Banks are increasingly reluctant to make mortgage loans and this makes it more difficult for individuals to purchase a house. A huge inventory of houses on the market in many areas is resulting in neighborhood blight and further depresses prices. Individuals whose houses are declining in value are curtailing other large purchases, and this further weakens the economy. High gasoline prices and a weaker dollar only contribute to the malaise.

On the other end, we must keep this in a wider perspective. Though some laugh when they hear “the fundamentals of the economy remains strong,” this is actually true. For example, the unemployment rate has risen to 6.1% (which is a challenge if you have personally lost a job), but this rate is still lower than the peak in 2003 and is better than many European countries today. Further, despite the rampant media discussion of a recession, the economy has been growing for the last two quarters. This bubble, like the “dot com” bubble and even the tulip mania bubble of 1637, will eventually be resolved as banks and investors accurately report their losses and adjust accordingly.

What effect will this have on individuals?

For believers, this is just one more reason to “not love the world or the things in the world” which is “passing away along with its desires” (1 John 2:15, 16). In Louisville we have been without electricity since Sunday, and it makes me increasingly grateful that our God is independent and powerful enough to accomplish his good will every moment. Lighting candles each night reminds me that I am not!

Although it will be harder to obtain aggressive mortgages, Christians who are practicing prudent financial stewardship (modest houses, large down payments, monthly payments easily within their means, diligent participation in the work force) should not have much problem. Everyone will want to verify that their savings account is government insured, but believers with a generous “wartime mindset” should have no trouble keeping their bank accounts under $100,000 FDIC limit. Above all, don’t be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor what you will wear. Remember that journalists, markets, and lemmings tend to move in herds. The media never reports on thousands of planes that land safely, but solely focuses on one that doesn’t. In that light, if you are saving for retirement more than 10 years from now, this actually would be a good time to invest in the stock market. But don’t let your IRA be a substitute god or distract you from treasuring Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:24-34).

Is it right to pray for the economy?

I think it is appropriate to pray for the economy. After all, God said to Jeremiah, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7). When the economy is strong, people are able to work and support their families, believers have greater opportunities for generosity, and many benefit from this common grace.

We can pray for integrity and wisdom for government officials who are faced with the incredibly complex task of regulating investment securities and banks in a way that is transparent and serves all of the varied stakeholders. We can pray that those who are willing to work will be able to find gainful employment. We can pray that greed would be restrained at all levels, from the leaders on Wall Street to individual families tempted to live beyond their means. We can pray for ourselves that we will participate in the national economy that keeps in mind the time is short and the present form of this world is passing away (1 Corinthians 7: 29-31).

Many thanks to David for taking the time to answer these questions!

(Reprinted in it’s entirety from Justin Taylor’s blog.  He’s the man, you really should subscribe.)

Doug Powlison is getting to that place where everything he writes, I think we all need to read.  A few weeks ago I recommended his articles called “Sane Faith” (here are parts 1, 2, 3, and a clarification).  His latest, The Therapeutic Gospel, is also excellent.  If you’ve ever felt like you needed counseling or just someone to talk to you about your life, Powlison’s words give you a foundation to start with that I hope none of us ever forget.  Read the whole thing here (sample quote below):

The therapeutic outlook is a good thing in its proper place. By definition, a medical therapeutic gaze holds in view true problems of physical suffering and breakdown. In literal medical intervention, a therapy treats an illness, trauma or deficiency. You don’t call someone to repentance for their colon cancer, broken leg or beriberi. You seek to heal — literally.

So far, so good.

But in today’s therapeutic gospel the medical way of looking at the world is metaphorically extended to these psychological desires. If I experienced betrayal and rejection, my heart was broken and wounded. Like with a broken leg, I need healing. If my need for love was not met, then, as with a vitamin B1 deficiency, I become sick. I won’t become better until the deficiency is made up for and the need is met.

These psychological experiences are defined exactly on the pattern of medical problems. You feel bad; the therapy makes you feel better. The definition of the disease bypasses or downplays the agency of the sinful human heart. You are not the agent of your deepest problems. You might have some outward sins, but you are a mostly a sufferer and victim of unmet needs.

The offer of a cure logically skips lightly over the sin-bearing Savior. It’s more important that He meets your sense of need than that He was crucified in your place. Repentance from unbelief, willfulness and self-centeredness is not really the issue. Sinners are not called to a U-turn and to the new life that is life indeed.