Is God Unfair? Thoughts on God's Justice and Grace Part 1

 When you're going through a major trauma life have you ever asked yourself, "why am I going to this others or not?" Do you ever feel like you're not really getting a fair shake in life compared to other people?  Do you ever feel deep inside or have ever verbalized it that God is unfair to you in how He treats you compaired to others?

Now some of us believe in a kind of justice that works like this. Justice demands that each person gets exactly what is deserved. If you do good, in strict justice, you are owed good. If you do evil, in strict justice you deserve punishment. Now most people think that they deserve a right to pain free, problem free, trouble free lives and that maybe other bad people deserve justice but not them. They deserve life,liberty,and the pursuit of happiness.

Biblically speaking, the bible tells us that all are sinners and in that view of justice we would all get what we deserve from God. What is that? All sinners deserve nothing but eternal punishment. Most of us believe as Christians that we don't want that kind of justice!

But then, there is another view that God should operate treat everyone the same, and that means we should escape a specific affliction if others do! Otherwise, it seems that God has been unfair. But, if God really did handle us that way, we would all either experience the same torture or be equally blessed. But those ideas don’t match the God described in Scripture.

I believe this is a sticking point for many people that makes it very difficult for them to live with God. Please do not misunderstand this. I don’t wish my pain on anyone, but it seems only fair that if others escape problems,suffering,loss,and pain, then I should too. Since God has kept others from this fate, why not us as well? Should we not get at least as good a shake as the next family? I have had these thoughts at times in my life and I imagine that you have as well, but I have come to see that they contain a huge error.

If you are suffering from some affliction, you may feel that God should extend the same grace to you as he has to those who never have to deal with an affliction that is anywhere near as horrible as yours. So it seems that God must be unjust for not extending as much grace to you as to the next person. This objection makes a lot of sense, and I believe it was at the heart of what often is bothering me. Nonetheless, it is still wrong. The complaint against God has now escalated from a demand that God treat us with what we deserve in justice to a demand that God grant us grace.

This is wrong in at least two respects. First, God is no more obligated to give the same grace to everyone than he is to give justice to all. He is only obligated to distribute what we deserve, and we already know what that is! Secondly, since we are talking about granting grace, the charge that God has been unjust because he gave someone else more grace (and this is really what the sufferer is complaining about) is totally misguided.

Grace is unmerited favor, and that means that you get something good that you don’t deserve and didn’t earn. If God owes no one any grace at all (if he owed it, it wouldn’t be grace, but justice), then it can’t be unjust for others to get more grace than I get. It can only be unjust if God is obligated to treat us all the same with grace, and he surely isn’t. In fact, he isn’t obligated to treat us with any kind of grace. Grace precludes obligation! That’s why it’s grace and not justice. Hence, it can’t be unjust if someone gets more grace than another. If God graciously chooses to give some people a better lot in life than others, he has done nothing wrong. We have no right to place requirements on how and when God distributes grace; if we did, that would turn it into justice.

 This distinction between grace and justice is crucial. Many people seem to think that grace is the opposite of injustice. Hence, when God doesn’t give them grace, they conclude that God has treated them unfairly. But the opposite of injustice is justice; grace is an entirely different thing from another world, the Kingdom of God! Put differently, grace is neither fair nor unfair, because fairness and unfairness invoke the concept of justice. Grace has nothing to do with justice; it’s a different
commodity altogether finding its source and meaning only in God!

So is God unjust or unfair to you? May we never accuse Him or ask the question again!
Because of Grace, I'm always doing better than I deserve! Because of Grace, nothing has to be what is in your life. I hope you will begin to gain a new understanding on grace and justice. Next week I will continue by looking at Jesus illustration of grace and justice in Matthew 20:1-16.

Basking in grace and repenting of thinking God was unfair,
Pastor Bill

TEARS. 101

"You have kept count of my tossings;put my tears in your bottle.Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call.This I know, that God is for me.In God, whose word I praise,in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.What can man do to me?" Psalm 56:8-11 ESV

I consider myself somewhat of an expert on tears. It has come through taking a course that I did not ever want to take. I did not take this course in seminary, at a seminar or conference, or read in a book! The course is called Tears 101! The reason being because over the past 6 years, my life has been filled with so many tears. Oh how I have wept countless tears of repentance, tears of regret, tears of inconsolable grief, tears of mourning, tears of loss, tears of anger towards myself, tears of brokenness, and tears of bitterness. But, there have also been tears of joy and tears of gratitude to God for the incredible mercy, kindness, grace, and provision I have experienced from Him during this season.

All of us are familiar with tears. There are many kinds of tears. Tears sum up everything gone wrong in this fallen world. Grief, frustration, pain, disappointment, loss, stress, tragedy, disaster, regret, mourning, depression, lament, brokenness, abandonment; all of it can be expressed through the universal language of tears. Is there not one of us who at least in our solitary moments have not shed tears?

What an incredible, absolutely mind-boggling concept it is that the God of heaven, Creator of eternity, cares enough about our tears that He knows and remembers each and every one, like Hezekiah's tears.

King Hezekiah was at the point of death with illness and Isaiah the prophet came to him and told him, "thus says the Lord: set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover." (Isaiah 38:1)

We read on, "Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, and said, please, oh Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and done what is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly." (Isaiah 38:2-3)

But then the prophet Isaiah speaks this wonderful word of promise and comfort to the broken King,
"Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears." (Isaiah 38:5)

"Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you"(2 Kings 20:5)

God saw Hezekiah's tears and He responded to those tears and to his crying out in prayer. 

Perhaps you are searching for answers to your own tears. Maybe your hopes and dreams have been shattered by the loss of a dream, the death of someone dear, or some other tragedy in your life. Satan may even have whispered to your heart that nobody understands your pain and nobody really cares that your world has crashed into little pieces at your feet.

I am so encouraged by the image of God keeping all my tears in a bottle in Psalm 56:8, "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.Are they not in your book?"It is a known fact that in Bible lands and other middle eastern countries there was a tradition that when someone died, tears of those present were collected and placed in a bottle. This bottle was considered sacred for it represented all the sorrow of the family and was buried with the deceased. Many of these bottles have been found in ancient tombs. In ancient Rome, mourners filled small glass vials or cups with tears and placed them in burial tombs as symbols of love and respect. Sometimes people were even paid to cry into cups, as they walked along the mourning procession. Those crying the loudest and producing the most tears received the most compensation. The more anguish and tears produced, the more important and valued the deceased person was perceived to be. In some war stories, women were said to have cried into tear bottles and saved them until their husbands returned. Their collected tears would show the men how much they were loved and missed. So, the psalmist David was not a stranger to the 'Tears in a Bottle' phraseology

King David was someone who knew what it was to shed many tears. Yet even in his tears and in exile, he found comfort. He realized that God was taking note of everything he was going through. A record was being kept in God’s book of all that he suffered. Even his tears were not shed in vain. They were tears of grief and loneliness, but not of despair. There was a future to them. At present they were a token of suffering, but one day each tear would become the theme for a song of praise. "In God, whose word I praise..., in the Lord, whose word I praise,So David says to God, “Put my tears in Your bottle—store them up carefully for me.”

I can envision shelves filled with bottles in Heaven, each with a name on it, and an accompanying scroll documenting every tear and lament. Or maybe it is just one huge bottle with all of our tears mingled together. Each and every teardrop is precious to God. They are eternal keepsakes. Not a single tear is lost on God. He remembers each and every one. He collects each one.

I like the idea that God has mingled all our tears together. The Psalm does refer to God’s “bottle” in the singular. And if He has collected every tear in that bottle, then mingled with our own are the tears of Jesus. He Himself is well acquainted with tears. I have been very encouraged that there is one I can come to in my lonely, broken hearted, sad tears, Jesus, the savior who wept. The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” It is also the most poignant. Those words are like a window pointing to the nature and glory of Jesus. It cuts the heart out of any view of God that places Him in some distant universe looking down dispassionately on His creation. Jesus wept. Maybe that surprises us, or frightens us, or threatens us, or embarrasses us. It is all too easy for me to think of Jesus always as unemotional and always serene facing danger and crises without even flinching. But Jesus wept. Never has so much been said so succinctly.

Here is the love, mercy, passion, compassion, grief, and anger of Jesus chiseled down into two words: Jesus wept. On three separate occasions, scripture speaks of Jesus weeping. The first instance was at the grave of His friend Lazarus. "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept"(John 11:33-35). I don’t think Jesus was weeping because Lazarus was dead – He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Rather, I think He wept because of the compassion He felt for humanity as we weep over our own tragedies and losses. It is us that He loved so much that it brought Him to tears.

The second occasion is found in Hebrews 5:7,”During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”

The third occasion is in Luke 19:41-44, "And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”".

Luke tells us that as Jesus entered the city to the tumultuous welcome of the people, His own spirit was not festive. When He saw the Holy City, He wept over it. With all these people, all this excitement, all this joy, and all this acclaim, Jesus wept? We must never forget this. The Greek word for "wept" is much fuller. It comes from the Greek word, "klaio”, which means to sob, to wail aloud." This is much more than just a few tears; it was loud and deep sorrow. Imagine the Lord of the universe wailing over Jerusalem!

Jesus who keeps your tears in a bottle, weeps! He wept over a friend who died and he weeps over a nation who wanted its own way and died as well. He is God, who became a man, a real, vulnerable, touchable, man entering into all the grief and suffering you know including tears.

The day will come when He who wept and stores up all of your tears will as Isaiah says. "will wipe away tears from all faces" (Isaiah 25:8). Until then, God will move heaven and earth to honor every tear that has been shed by you.

"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). And when that morning comes, “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4).

So if you weep today, remember that God is collecting your tears in His bottle, and mixing them with the tears of our dear Savior.

Weeping with joy,

Pastor Bill

WHY GOD WONT TELL ME MY FUTURE

Do you wish that you knew what your future would be? What would you do if you knew your future? If it was going to be prosperous? If it was going to be full of suffering and calamity? Who doesn't feel inquisitive to know the future?

I remember when I was a kid one of the big craze was Ouji boards. Do any of you remember? Now without getting into all the ramifications of Ouija boards,I remember one time I did the Ouija board when I was a little kid and I asked what was going to be the name of my future wife? The Ouija board spelled out that my wife's name going to be Martha. When I got older I kept my eyes out for a Martha. I never did meet any. girl named Martha LOL I did marry someone but her name was Debi not Martha!

There's always been a quest for man to know his future. Is it no wonder why people have consulted mediums, fortunetellers, clairvoyants, soothsayers, and whatever latest prophet is on the rise? Even in the church, there are those who travel everywhere hoping for some alleged prophet to give them some kind of predictive word about their future. But in spite of all this, the fact is God does not tell us much about our own personal future. Yes he gives us a prophetic timetable about the course of history leading to the end of this age and the new world to come. But when  it comes to our daily lives we experience much frustration at times because God does not reveal to us our personal future.

Does that bother you? Wouldn't it be better if we could know what is the future for us and our lives? I'd like to give several reasons why I think  God in his deep love and care for us thinks that knowing our future would not be in our best interest but rather desires us to live by faith.

More than anything else:
GOD HIDES OUR FUTURE SO THAT WE WOULD TRUST HIM

We read in Ecclesiastes, "Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked? When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future. (7: 13–14)

The writer’s point  is that just aaren’t always what they seem. God has made both good and bad times, and that he pieces them together in our lives in such a way that we won’t know what will happen in the future. God structures our personal histories in a way that conceals the future.

So Why does God hide the future from us?

1. Knowing the details of our future would probably be harmful to us. If we knew our future would be good we might be relieved but the joy of discovery would be gone. What should be so great when it happens would lose it's  excitement as a surprise. We might even be bored, and the joy of anticipation will be gone.

2. Revealing a good future might also make us complacent in our relationship with God, and that would be bad. If we know that the future is going to be good, we might conclude that we don't need to rely on God, but obviously we do. We might also be very inattentive to the present and impatient to get to the future as we eagerly await it.

3. If we thought the future was going to be evil if we knew in advance the circumstances of our death, or if we knew what would befall us along the way, we might be totally horrified and unable to live our lives as fear would paralyze us.

4. Hiding the future is also compassionate because we must not ignore the present, something we might do if we knew the future. We might spend so much of our time worrying or grieving over our anticipated future. Even more so, we might think that we could somehow change the future to avoid the forcing evils.

5. Gods hiding your future is also compassion, because we couldn't handle some of the information about the future if we had it.

God compassionately reveals the details for our future moment by moment, and that is enough. Scripture says, "each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34). I don't have tomorrow's grace yet, so I don't need to know tomorrow's evil yet either.

God conceals our future, therefore, so that we would trust Him. He not only not knows the future, but HE holds the future. I'll rest in that.

Pastor Bill

Thoughts On Being Perfect While Being Perfected

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.Hebrews 10:14 ESV

The more I read the scriptures, the more I am amazed at its depth. Growing in maturity causes us to learn to let God be God and let His word speak for itself, even when it proposes two seeming contradictions in passages such as Hebrews 10:14. Think about it. God has already perfected us because of Christ, yet God is also perfecting us who are perfected because of Christ. This is not easy to understand, much less savor and glory in at first glance. It might be easier for some of us to quickly pass over a passage such as this because of its seeming difficulty.

But oh, the loss of great blessings and encouragement! The apostle Paul gives us a great exhortation in 2 Timothy 2:7.  "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." He says think, reflect, muse, ponder, meditate and the Lord by His Spirit will enable us to understand. In short, we are to think and God will help us through the means of thought to apprehend spiritual truths.

With this in mind, Hebrews 10:14 is well worth pondering. The first blessing here is that Christ has already perfected His people."For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." Now consider this wonderful truth. This is in the perfect tense, meaning Jesus Christ has perfected His people. It is complete and finished forever.

What is hard to grasp here is that if this is true, then why am I so imperfect? How can He say I am perfected when I have sinned already several times this morning? Because of what He says in the next clause
"For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."Who has been perfected? Those who are being sanctified or those who are being perfected! This is in the indicative tense meaning continuous action. So those who are "being sanctified" are not yet fully sanctified in the sense of perfection in this life and ceasing from committing sin. Otherwise they would not need to be ongoing sanctified. 

So here we have the both shocking and awesome combination. The very people who are perfect are the very ones who are being perfected! By the work of the cross "for by a single offering"there is total, complete forgiveness (read Hebrews 10:15-18). When He looks at us, He does not impute any of our sins to us-past, present, or future. He does not count our sins against us. In eternity Christ sees you as already perfect, and thus we stand before Him perfected. We can stand before Him with the assurance that you are perfected and complete in the eyes of God.

But in this present time those who are perfect are being perfected. The very reality of our imperfection gives us assurance that we are in this life time are progressing towards our perfection purchased and guaranteed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

God is making us into what He already sees us as being and our experience testifies to it as we trust in this reality by faith and move away from our imperfections and move closer and closer in this lifetime to perfection. Oh what encouragement in our imperfection and what motivation for holiness. Hebrews 10:14 says that you can be assured that you stand perfect in the eyes of God not because you are perfect now, but because in your present imperfection you are being perfected.

Oh reader, consider these promises and let them encourage you today and reinforces Hebrews 10:14 to you. Take heart and fix your eyes on the one who perfected you once for all time and is perfecting you day by day.

Philippians 1:6, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." 

Philippians 2:12-13, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." 

2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." 

Amazed and full of joy,
Pastor Bill

IS GOD AN EGOMANIAC?

Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven (Matt. 10:32-33).

Have you ever thought about this? We are demanded by God to love Him, worship Him, glorify Him, and acknowledge Him. Does that offend you or is the greatest news you have ever heard?

Is Jesus — is God — an egomaniac? How you answer that question will dramatically affect the way you relate to, worship, love, and follow the God revealed in the Bible. There are many that cannot follow a God that they perceive is an egomaniac. Sam storms has written an excellent response to this question that I have posted this week in my blog. Please read it prayerfully, reflectively, and openly and I think it will cause you to worship him more than ever.

The answer can be given in a syllogism. (You recall from your logic classes at the university: All men are mortal. Plato was a man. Therefore, Plato was mortal. Two premises, which if they are true, lead to a true conclusion.)

My first premise is a definition of one essential aspect of true, authentic love. In other words, if this is missing, our feelings and actions may bring some relief or pleasure to the one we love, but it will fall short of true, authentic love, complete love—love the way God calls us to love.

Premise #1: Love desires and works and is willing to suffer to enthrall the beloved with the fullest and longest happiness.

Now, I think this is what the Christian Scriptures teach, but mainly I want you to understand what I mean, and follow my argument. You’ll have to decide for yourselves whether you think this definition is true. But for now, see if you follow me and see if the syllogism is valid.

So when I say, “love desires and works and is willing to suffer” I simply mean that authentic love is never mere action without a heart that cares, and never a mere emotion that has no action behind it. And that this desire and this action — when they are real — are willing to suffer in order to do the beloved as much good as they can.

And when I say that the aim of love’s desiring and working and suffering is to “enthrall” the beloved, I mean that someday — sooner or later — the beloved will be caught up in an experience that is so soul-pervading and body-pervading that no part of personal existence is left out, and that the experience will involve a kind of self-forgetfulness that is the mark of all true ecstasy.

And when I say that love aims to enthrall the beloved with “the fullest and longest happiness,” I mean a happiness, or joy, or satisfaction, or contentment, or pleasure, or gladness, or delight — the word is not the essence, the experience is — that is so full it cannot be fuller and so long it cannot be longer. This means that love aims at the infinite and eternal joy of the beloved.

Which is why I said, we can have many feelings for people, and many actions toward people that may bring them some relief or pleasure, but if we don’t desire and work toward this fullest and longest happiness, we do not love them fully, truly, authentically, as we are called to do by Jesus.

So that is Premise #1: Love desires and works and is willing to suffer to enthrall the beloved with the fullest and longest happiness.

Premise #2: Being eternally enthralled with Jesus as the decisive revelation of God is the fullest and longest happiness in the universe.

This is because Jesus is the wisest, smartest, strongest, deepest, most creative, most loving, most just, and therefore, most admirable and most valuable person in the universe — because he is himself the very essence of God. So there is no more satisfying experience than to know and admire and be the everlasting friend and family of Jesus. God created us to be fully and eternally enthralled with God through his Son Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: Therefore, when Jesus tells us that we must love him — treasure him, be satisfied in him — above all others, he is loving us.

He is desiring and working and willing to suffer to enthrall us with the fullest and longest happiness, namely, himself.
Here is the end of the matter: God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is not the act of a needy ego, but an act of infinite giving. The reason God seeks our supreme praise, or that Jesus seeks our supreme love, is not because he’s needy and won’t be fully God until he getsit, but because we are needy and won’t be fully happy until we give it.

This is not arrogance. This is grace.
This is not egomania. This is love.
And the very heart of the Christian gospel is that this is what Christ died to achieve — our full and everlasting enjoyment of the greatness of God.

Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).
In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore(Psalm 16:11

LET GOD BE GOD!

"Just as it is written, [Malachi 1:2-3] "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated...What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion...But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?" (Romans 9:12,14,20-24)

The book of Romans is a precious, important, yet difficult book to understand. To glean from it demands much thought, reflection, and humble prayerfulness. Romans Chapters 9-11 especially, are chapters that are difficult, tedious, and demand much thought and prayer. They are full of difficult statements that challenge our understanding of God.

It is easy for us to misread God’s actions. There are times when God is going to act in ways that we don’t understand and are contrary to the ways we think He should act. This is one of the problems we face in dealing with God. When confronted with the truth of Romans 9, we realize that God is beyond us. The human heart is a deceitful but very resourceful thing, and one way it expresses these characteristics is by dismissing God, on the one hand, and/or blaming him on the other.

“Why is God doing this to me?” is one of the most common questions I have faced as a pastor and in my own experience. Even if we don’t ask it aloud, it is a question that many of us ask in our private thoughts. When we ask that question what we are really doing is asking why God is unfair. This is the kind of thinking Paul deals with in Romans 9. There is a big difference between life being unfair and God being unfair. Romans 9 is one of those chapters that are often avoided in today’s pulpit because it is not light, easy, have to think a little bit, and is God centered rather than man centered. Just what the devil hates! I call it “Let God be God!” because it focuses upon how God works out His plans and purposes for salvation among fallen men. Phillip Yancey writes in his book The Jesus I Never Knew:“What we think and believe about God matters-really matters-as much as anything in life matters.”

We must be very careful in our reading of scriptures such as Romans 9. Be careful that you do not play God and tell him how he should save. Be careful you do not stand above Scripture and demand that it be one way and not another. Be careful that you let scripture stand-to let it teach you what it will and not to tell it what it cannot say. Be careful that you allow things to stand in scripture even when you do not understand it. Be careful that you do not assume that your heart is good enough to judge the goodness of God. Or wise enough to judge the wisdom of God.

There are a thousand reasons why God does what he does which we cannot yet comprehend. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God" (Deuteronomy 29:29). "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Oh how we must humbly read, study, reflect upon , and pray Romans 9! But along with that, this is how our posture should be in all that Paul teaches us at the very end of Romans 11:

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen". (Romans 11:33-36)

Standing in awe of God's being God,
Pastor Bill

A PECULIAR APPETITE

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

For they shall be filled.

Matt 5:6

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

John 7:37-39

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

John 6:48-51

“Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.”

Augustine

“We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.”

Bernard of Clairveux

I remember as a little kid being invited to a friend’s house to eat. My friend’s mother made a banquet type meal complete with Chicken Parmesan, spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and spumoni ice cream. (At least it is my idea of a banquet!) But before I went I didn’t know what I was going to be having for supper. I was afraid that it might be a meal like my mother’s favorite meal. I called this “the meal from hell”. It consisted of a combination of pork chops, liver, or spam, along with broccoli, hominy (which I called agony), and Swanson’s T.V. Corn Bread (whose constitution was much like eating sawdust!) So dreading the possibilities I loaded up beforehand upon good old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (also known as PB and J). As a result, when I got to my friend’s house, to my surprise my dream feast was being served, but to my disappointment I had absolutely no appetite and therefore ended up passing on the meal. I missed out on the feast because I settled for a sandwich.

I am afraid that many of us are in danger of becoming peanut butter and jelly Christians stuffed with other food that has robbed us of an appetite for God. Every day of life a war goes on in regards to our appetites. Every one of us has all been born with appetites and desires. They dictate what directs us and what satisfies us whether it is the cravings of our physical hunger, the desire for the things that this world offers, or the deep longings of our souls for God.

Augustine said, “Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.” ⁱ The heart of man is full of restlessness and longing. We are both afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ. And that having found him we might be turned back to Him again and again when we leave His spring to taste of other springs and find them lacking. As Augustine said, we were made for God. Our souls longing was made to be satisfied in fellowship with the Son of God. No wonder that Jesus said in John 6:35:

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. John 4:14, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Salvation is the awakening of our appetites for God. It is a “peculiar appetite”. It is an appetite that God gives the palette of our souls for Him. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good”, says the Psalmest (Psalm 34:8). Once you have tasted the Lord, nothing less will ever satisfy your longings. No wonder, for when we taste of God’s ultimate goodness, anything else would be like penute butter and jelly sandwhiches compared to filete mignonge!

When I lived in Mexico my family and I lived on fish. Every day I would have to catch or spear dinner. Unfortunately, I had neither the ability to catch fish nor the availability of many fish except Opal Eye (Which is a reef fish full of scales, bones, and tastes aweful but is edible). We would eat this every day until one day a fisherman brought us some Red Snapper and Sierra. Once we tasted these delicious fish’s we were never able to be satisfied with Opal Eye again. The more of these we ate the less we desired Opal Eye. Our palttes had been awakened to real fish, good fish, and thus we lost our appetite for Opal Eye’s.

When we are converted God awakens in us we a new appetite for Him and a new delight in God. Saint Augustine describes this in his description of his own conversion when he writes:

“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys that I once feared to lose was now a joy to part with.You drove them from me, you who are the true soveriegn joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see honor in themselves…Oh Lord my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation!”ⁱⁱ

The Bible is full of examples of the creation of this new “peculiar appetite”. It is a precious gift of grace from God. Throughout the Bible we see people yearning, hungering, thirsting, longing for, and desiring God.

Asaph describes an appetite for God that is so strong that it eliminates all other desires. “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 75:25-26) David describes this appetite in terms of a deer thirsting for water. “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1-2) Another time David uses similar words to describe his desire for God. “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you” (Psalm 63:1-3). The Apostle Paul went from a man who persecuted Christians to one whose desires had been transformed to cry out. “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better…But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 1:23; 3:7-8).

The creation of a peculair appetite for God alone also leads to a peculair satisfaction in God alone. As God graces us with peculiar desiring craving, hungering, thirsting, and longing so He also graces us with a peculair satisfaction, joy, delight, fulfillment, pleasure, happiness, gladness. They go together. Listen to the words of David who discovered such satisfaction in God that he proclaimed in Psalm 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Jesus spoke of conversion in such a way that the discovery of the pleasures and value of heaven “is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:44-46).

So Christianity is the creation of new desires and the fulment of those desires. God is the object of our desire and God is the fulfillment of our desire. Our whole life is a life of desiring God and tasting God and enjoying God which leads to a deeper hunger for God and more satisfaction in God. We always want more of God and the more of Him we get, the more we want. Bernard of Clairveux so aptly described his own experience of cravings and satisfaction:

“We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.” ⁱⁱⁱAnother time he wrote:

“Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts Thou fount of lifr, Thou light of men from the best bliss that earth imparts we trun unfulfilled to Thee again.”^iv

This appetite for God and the satisfaction that results in God are the most important ways we fulfill our creation purpose. The apostle Paul writes, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). The Westminster Catechism begins “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” The lynchpin of my mentor John Piper’s theology is that “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”^v

The truth of God’s creation of these new peculiar appetites and their new fulfilments is both our greatest blessing and our greatest downfall. It is our greatest blessing because it shows that the worth and value of God is the source of our deepest satisfaction. But it is our greatest downfall because it reveals to us that our desires and the fulfillment of those desires are often far below what God created and saved us for. Augustine described it this way from his own experience:

“I was astonished that though I now loved Thee…yet I did not press on to enjoy my God. Your beauty drove me to you, but soon I was dragged away by my own weight sinking with sorrow into those inferior things…as though I sensed the fragence of the fare but was not yet able to eat it.”^vi

Indwelling sin is what stands in the way of my desire for God and my satisfaction in God. God defines sin in this way through the prophet Jeremiah. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13).

Here God pictures himself as a constant flowing fountain of refreshing life-giving water. The way to affirm the worth of a fountain like this is to enjoy the water, and praise the water, and keep coming back to the water, and point other people to the water, and get strength from the water, and never, never, never prefer any drink in the world over this water. That is what makes the fountain look valuable. That is how we glorify the worth and value God, the fountain of living water.

But in Jeremiah's day people tasted the fountain of God's grace and did not like it. So they gave their energies to finding better water, more sat­isfying water. Not only did God call this effort futile ("broken cisterns that can hold no water"), but he called it evil: "My people have committed two evils." They put God's perfections to the tongue of their souls and disliked what they tasted; then they turned and craved the suicidal cisterns of the world. That double insult to God is the very essence of what evil is.

Preferring the pleasures of self, possessions, money, power, acheivement, fame, or sex over the pleasures of God is a great evil. The sins of Israel, like all of our sins, stood in the way of their satisfaction with God alone. Sin always opposes and perverts our pursuit of God. It opposes our pursuit by making other things look more desirable than God. And it perverts our pursuit by making us think that we are pursuing God when in fact we are in love with His gifts. Indeed it is the ultimate mean­ing of evil. Esteeming God less than anything is the essence of evil.

Life is war. The Apostle Paul calls it “the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Every day of our lives here on this earth is a battle for our appetites and their satisfaction. What we desire for is what will lead to what we believe will satisfy us. The great enemy in this war is what Jesus calls “the desires or appetite for other things” (Mark 4:19). And the only weapon that will triumph is a deep hunger and thirst for God. There are those whose lack of a hunger for God is not because God is unpleasant. Perhaps at one time their palatte was awakened when they “tasted and saw that the Lord was good” (Psalm 34:8). But, because they have kept themselves stuffed with “other things” they’ve lost their appetite for God. Their soul has been stuffed with small insignificant things, and there is no room any more for the great and worthy thing; they are full of what the world has offered.

This is what took place with Israel in Psalm 106. We read: “They soon forgot His works; They did not wait for His counsel, But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, And tested God in the desert. And He gave them their request, But sent leanness into their soul.” (Psalm 106:13-15)

The Psalmist takes us back to the time of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and God’s leading them in the wilderness of Canaan. In verses 13-14, the Psalmist says that the Israelites forgot God’s works and did not want to wait for His counsel or word. In short, they didn’t want to wait for Him! Instead, they craved meat for their stomachs. They were tired of eating the bread (manna) from heaven that God provided for them. Manna represented more than the provision for Israel’s physical hunger. Moses said that God humbled them “causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3). In short, manna was meant to teach Israel to live on God and to be satisifed with Him.

But Israel lost their appetite for God and His provision. So He gave them their request (verse 15). He showered the camp with quails. But along with the food God sent “leaness into their soul”. The people wasted away even while feasting upon “quail under glass.”

This illustrates how God's greatest adversaries are His gifts. The greatest enemy of hunger for God is endless nibbling at the table of the world. For all the ill that Satan can do, listen to how Jesus sadly describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love:

"A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.' "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.' "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' "Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' "The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.' "'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.' "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'"

(Luke 14:16-24)

Do you see what keeps us from His banquet table? All are things that in themselves are good. It is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not His enemies but His gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.

Jesus said another time that some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, "as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life" (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, "The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" (Mark 4:19). "The pleasures of this life" and "the desires for other things", these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are family dinners and coffee at Starbucks and gardening and reading a good book and decorating your house and playing with your kids and traveling across the U.S. and family get-togethers and date nights and investing in real estate and CD listening and DVD -watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God. These can be the very things that kill the soul.

PRAYER

Oh Lord, fountain of life, living water, bread from heaven. You are our true desire and true delight to our hungry and thirsty souls. But Lord, we are weak. We desire the wrong things and are satisfied with the wrong things. No wonder we are so empty inside. Forgive us for our opposition to you by looking to other things to satisfy our restless longings and forgive us from perverting what satisfies us by looking to your gifts rather than you for our hearts delight. We agree with the Psalmist, “Who have we in heaven but You and there is nothing on earth that we want besides You. Though our flesh and heart may fail, You alone are the strength of our heart and our portion forever.” Oh Jesus, create in us a desire to desire You and a delight to delight in You. In Jesus satisfying and delightful Name, AMEN.

i Saint Augustine, edited by Edward Pursey The Confessions of Saint Augustine (New York, N.Y.:Collier Books) book 1,p. 11

ii Ibid, Book 9, p.133

iii Bernard of Clairveux quoted in The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books) p. 923

iv Bernard of Clairveux quoted by John Piper in Desring God (Eugene Or.: Multnomah Press) p.105

v John Piper Desring God , p.10

vi Augustine, Confessions, Book 7, p. 109-110