The Self-Centered God

Pictures of stars and galaxies afar made my imagination flare. Why would God create such wondrous beauties far beyond our grasp, but still allow them to take our breath away through a mediated image of them? Lets face it: if these stars and galaxies are just a string of cosmic reactions that are purely coincidence, then we probably would have been blown up by now. But if God made these to display His glory, now that is something that makes sense. 

God loves His glory, and He loves to display His glory. We see evidence of this in nature and life. They all reflect His glory. But what if I told you that God is for His own glory. He is centered upon His glory and is concerned about His glory being exalted. Well, that makes him a self-centered, kind of selfish God, right? I once had a friend told me that he was leaving community because he didn't want to believe that God was primarily for Himself. If we say that then we say we would rather have an idolatrous God because its idolatry to hold anything to His standard outside of Himself (Isaiah 42:8). 

Humanity has tainted the idea of self-centeredness to the point where the very God who made us is considered "selfish" for making us for His glory (Isaiah 43:7). But John Piper explains this in a great way saying: "He must be for Himself if He is to be for us." The glory emanating from His presence is the highest thing in all of existence, so if He wasn't for the exaltation of His glory then it would almost be as if He is giving way for evil to reign. We merely receive the blessing of Him working for His own glory.

Now the issue is how humanity views the idea of self-centeredness. This idea becomes renewed or transformed in God. To explain, God is centered on His glory and He is motivated by the exaltation of His glory and that spills out onto His people for His praise. Now to apply this idea to ourselves, we can be motivated by our own joy or happiness or love as long as it is also centered on the exaltation of God's glory.

As Christians we generally rebuke the idea of being "for ourself." This is considered selfish, especially in light of 1 Cor. 13:5 which says, "love is not self-seeking." We have denied the idea that we can be motivated by something that is self-gratifying. Yet we all are motivated by something that is self-gratifying. If we desire Heaven and to be with God, then aren't we ultimately being motivated by something we want for ourself? This is echoed a number of times in the New Testament by the disciples and especially by Paul!

I will take the idea of joy to prove my point. In Philippians 2:2, Paul says, "then make my joy complete . . ." Paul wants for himself for his joy to be complete. But his joy is not something he draws from solely for himself. His joy is in the Lord, and it is because of this joy that his joy becomes synonymous with the joy of others (1 Thess. 2:19-20, Phil. 4:1). And that is what happens when we draw from the joy of the Father! Its spills out in abundance for other people to also praise Him! It is only because His joy is centered on the exaltation of God's glory that his own joy becomes transformed in such a way that though it pleases himself, it is not in the least sense selfish. We see this in Matthew 13:44 also where the man who finds the treasure in the field is motivated by His joy to sell everything he has. We don't call this man selfish for finding satisfaction in his joy, we call him wise! Because his joy was for the exaltation of God's glory.
Then there is the example of Jesus. In Romans: 15:3 it speaks the truth that Christ did not please Himself. But we know that Christ came to die for our sins and that was the mission set forth by God. He was mainly centered on glorifying His Father in Heaven (John 17:4-5). But Jesus had joy in returning to His Father. This is seen in Hebrews 12:2 where it says: "who for the joy set before Him endured the cross." Jesus had a motivating joy, and while this joy would satisfy Him, it is for the benefit of us all that this joy would satisfy Him. The fulfillment of Jesus' joy means that He has completed His Father's task and that we have been reconciled with God. Him being motivated by His own joy to glorify God is not in the least sense selfish. If Jesus was mainly concerned for His own joy, He wouldn't have endured the cross. 
And thats how it is for a lot of us. It is for our benefit in the Kingdom of God that someone who is centered on God's glory is motivated and fulfilled in their joy of Him. We are built up by someone who is motivated by their own joy, but this joy has to be centered on the exaltation of His glory, because if it isn't, then it is a joy that is truly centered on them self for their own satisfaction.

Just like John Piper said: "He must be for Himself if He is to be for us." But in the same way, we must be for Him, if we are to be, in the right nature, for ourself.

"We who are strong ought to bear with

the failings of the weak and not to please

ourselves. Each of us should please His neighbor

for his good, to build him up.

For even Christ did not please Himself . . . "

-Romans 15:1-3

Radiance

In the winter of 2009, a snowstorm blanketed my hometown in a fresh white coat of snow. I opened the door and took in the cold stale air which felt like needles pricking my throat. I took a step and felt the crinkle and crackle of the ice on my heel. Everyone knows the feeling when you wake up in the morning to stand witness to a fresh blanket of snow untouched by the snow plows. It is the beauty of snow at its climax. I stood witness to this that morning in 2009. Yet as I was standing there, I had to squint at its beauty. You see, there is this crazy phenomenon that follows along with snow. Snow has an albedo of .8-.9 (with 1 meaning it is perfectly white) meaning when it is fresh and untouched, it reflects a lot of sunlight back into the atmosphere. 

I instantly had the picture of God washing away our sin and making our crimson sin as white as snow (Is. 1:18). Maybe thats why God created snow. So that when we can look at it, we can be reminded of how He makes us white as snow.

But there is a deeper issue that I chose to focus on here, and it lies in the fact of the snow's albedo. 
If God is the all powerful Being that we believe He is, then we must believe that whatever He does, He succeeds. There is no room for failing in Him. Whatever He pleases, He does and He succeeds (Ps. 135:6, Pr. 16:4). Well consider God's intention in creating us. He created us for His glory (Is. 43:7). If that was God's purpose and He willed it to be, then ultimately, we are all going to glorify the Lord whether its intentional or unintentional. Even the unbelieving will glorify the Lord through His justice in their condemnation (Ps. 76:10). 
What if we took the illustration of snow to mean that His chosen people who have been washed cleaned of their sin intentionally choose to reflect back His glory? I'm not saying that those chosen reflect more of the Lord's glory, but I want to focus on the literal choosing and decision to glorify the Lord. I mean, lets face it, even those who are unbelievers glorify Him, but it is unintentional. Charcoal- one of the darkest substances- has an albedo. It still reflects light, though it is very little.
And lets face another fact, those who have been washed clean can also not glorify the Lord to the extent that He calls for. Heck, we all fall short of His glory (Romans 3:23). While snow has a high albedo, it is not a perfect 1. We are all imperfect.
Just as snow reflects light, we all reflect the Lord's glory (2 Cor. 3:18). We were created in His image (Gen. 1:27) and in Hebrews 1:3-5 it says that He, Jesus, is the radiance of God's glory. While we were not created to be equals with Him, we were created to be like Him. Jesus is the fulfillment of what we were suppose to be in God (constantly reflecting His glory). But we failed. In his essay "The Weight of Glory," C.S. Lewis says, "We are far too easily pleased." We were far too easily pleased by pleasures other than His glory and therefore, we held it in contempt (Ps. 4:2). We instead exchanged His glory, because we were "satisfied" or too easily pleased in other things (Romans 1:25). So Jesus came and restored the light in us so that we may become children of light (Eph. 5:8) and that we may have His light shine His glory in our hearts (2 Cor. 4:6). Now we can be radiant just like Jesus by choosing to be transformed into His likeness through the reflection of His glory (2 Cor. 3:18). The only thing to highlight here is that we have to choose to be sanctified into His likeness. God will be glorified no matter what and He is not dependent on us choosing to glorify Him, but to be holy is to intentionally glorify Him, and being holy is what He deserves out of His creation. 
We are all but instruments in the grand orchestration of reflecting the radiance of His glory. The only question is, are you choosing to glorify Him? Are you choosing to be transformed into His likeness through the reflection of His glory? Are you choosing to be radiant in Him? 

"Those who look to Him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame."

-Psalm 34:5

Advent Pt. 3 - Origins

I sat bewildered at what had just happened. I couldn't believe that Facebook had changed again. It all too often caves into the waves of change allowing its users to sit and complain about it for a moment and then get used to its new form. Yet this new form of Facebook completely alters social networking. You can now trace a person's life on this timeline all the way back to their birth. 
It's a shame how a lot of people can't do that. A lot of people can't trace their origins. 
While this new moralism is still preaching a gospel of peace and love, it is a peace and love with no foundation. Unlike how the Israelites can looks back on how God led them out of Egypt to justify their faithfulness and how Christians can look back on Christ's death and resurrection to justify their new life, new moralists can't look back on everything. Rather this new moralism is a synthesis of beliefs from different religions. 
So where are its origins?
I don't believe that Jesus came up with the moral structure explained in the Sermon on the Mount out of nowhere. If He did, then the flaws of His structure would have caved in over time. Yet it still has a firm foundation in society today. New moralists partake in this structure because they are still preaching the same gospel of love and peace. The only difference is that they have secularized it. An example would be someone would love their neighbor because they are a fellow American and not a creation of God or cause Jesus said so. Therefore, a rationality was introduced to justify their means.
One of the greatest threats to our philosophical age is the justification that rationality provides. 
People who partake in this new moralism seek to be justified in their own rationality rather than by God in their actions. But in doing so, they effectively deny their roots. 
The ironic thing is how rationality has actually blurred our origin instead of make it clearer. 
This Advent season, as we love, as we give, as we toil, as we do anything and everything under God's grace, we need to realize that we are only doing that because of our origins. If God didn't send His Son, then we wouldn't be celebrating Christmas. If God didn't send His Son, then we would have no reason to love and to give this season. 
So there is a way to redeem the secularization of the Advent season and that is to reconnect the new moralism that has doused our culture to its origins in Jesus Christ. 

"Let them give thanks to the Lord

for His unfailing love

and His wonderful deeds for men."

-Psalm 107: 8, 15, 21, 31

Advent Pt. 2 - Morality

It's funny how we go about morality in a subjective manner. As humans, we are all moral beings given the idea that we have the power to discern right from wrong. But we have different definitions of what is right and what is wrong. A person who robs a bank could justify his actions by saying its morally right. This is because morality is defined through culture as to what culture believes is right and wrong. But beneath it all, if everyone has some different sense of what is moral then the culture's perspective of morality is permeable and manipulable, giving in to the law of the jungle stating that whoever is in power has a say of what is moral.

An example of this situation came to me just recently. Last week I took up a job buying back books from students on campus. My main intention in doing this job was to make people happy and serve them in a loving way. So I researched one of my books for class with the bookstore and found that they were buying back the book for a cheaper price than I offered. So I emailed my whole class and told them that I was offering a better price and that I would just sit outside the final and buy their books from them. Well one person, unaware that I was telling the wholesale price of the book at the bookstore and not the market price, sought to react to my email in a bad manner. He said that I was screwing people over. Now here are the two clashing moralities: I, wanting to help and serve people, and the other person, wanting to react to injustice. Both sides are serving an ultimate good, but one side goes about it in a malicious manner.

But if we doused this situation in the standard of morality that the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus presents, we find that they not only serve an ultimate good, but a beneficial good. We both could have gone about this situation in a more loving manner and build each other up rather than seek to tear others down.

There is a new moralism (as Pope Joseph Ratzinger calls it) that is taking precedence in culture today. This new moralism can be defined by belief in a greater good by the standards of culture and promoting ideals such as love, justice, peace, etc. etc. As this new moralism is taking precedence it is still man-made which allows it to be fallible enough to allow for the preaching of a gospel of hate rather than a gospel of peace and love. In the mentioned situation we were both trying to create a peace endowed with justice but in doing so preached this gospel of hate. 

How does culture's morality affect the Advent season?

Advent Pt. 1 - The Necessity of Christ

Advent is described as this season of waiting, longing, expectation, preparation, yearning for the arrival of Christ or for Christmas. In many ways I believe we have as a culture secularized this idea. And that's okay! There is a redemption to this idea that exists.
One day, the rain was beating hard against the pavement and was pounding on me relentlessly on my journey to the car. I would have reached my car sooner if I had ran, but I was going about my journey in an odd way. I was taking big and scattered steps. Why? I was trying to avoid all the worms that had been washed out onto the sidewalk. I saw them scrambling to get back into the dirt where they were "safe." While I was looking like an idiot trying to get to my car, I had enough pity on them not to step on them. 
The funny thing is, when God looks down on us, worms that just crave the dirt, He doesn't pity us but He loves us. 
Yet the worms knew no better than to go back to the dirt. In their eyes, if they see some giant figure looming over them, they are naturally going to run. They needed some other worm to guide them out on to the smooth surface of the sidewalk and let them know that they are going to be okay. 
We see many times in the Old Testament how a rain comes and washes worms onto this path of righteousness until they realized they are exposed before a holy God and try to hide in the dirt again. But then God, out of love, sends His Son down to die for us so that we can realize that we can permanently partake on this path of righteousness. 
The necessity of Christ permeates deep within our being. Yet in this secularization of the Advent the idea of being needy of salvation in Christ has become blurred by a new moralism. This new moralism isn't bad because in a tough world, it does the right thing, yet there is a way of connecting this new moralism to a greater truth. Further discussion on what this is in Part 2.

Christ In Us Pt. 1

The confusion distorting her once calm countenance was evident as she walked through the room. As she came closer it was clear that it wasn't confusion as much as it was an array of feelings in response to an essay she had read. She proceeded to read us this essay of her fellow classmate. The volume of this classmate's opinion was so loud it left our ears ringing. We sat stunned empathizing in our friend's confusion.

This classmate was arguing about being controlled by the Supreme will of God and how it's not out of love for us, but rather out of hate. She brought up the story of Abraham and Isaac (which when people argue against God's will, they mostly bring up this story). She argued God's will by asking the question: why would a loving God ask so much of His followers? It was her argument that Abraham would have been better off not listening to God that day.

What shocked me about this paper was that it acknowledged this human capability outside of God's ability. Trusting in our own ability and saying no to God's will would have saved Abraham a trip up Mount Moriah. No. God works His will amongst us out of love for us. Abraham needed that test of faith. And God never intended to have Abraham sacrifice Isaac for He had great plans for Abraham's family. He always had the other sacrifice in mind because He wasn't really down with child sacrifice. In fact, later in Jeremiah 19:5 when the Israelites start committing child sacrifice, God rebukes it saying He never had any of that in mind.

What does all this mean? Human capability outside of God's ability only leads to success in an earthly sense. Imagine if Abraham trusted in His own ability to have a greater sense of faith. He would have never went up on that mountain and would have never been acknowledged as a man of faith. He would have never learned. He might have considered it success but it would be a success that would easily fade. But we see the opposite displayed in this story. Abraham trusted in God's ability to grant him greater faith, and because of this, he gained an eternal success of faith. 

Too many times do I see human ambition and trust in their own ability compete with God rather than submitting to God. We see this in Scripture when the people of the world moved to a plain in Shinar and tried building a tower to reach to the heavens (Genesis 11). This was not in God's will because His people sought to compete with God out of their own ability, so God scattered the people as punishment. 

Human ambition and ability can never exceed the boundary of God's will because God's will knows no boundaries. Rather, God's will at work in us only shines light on how our ability far lacks in comparison. We are not capable of anything eternal by ourself. 

To those who are living to die, the idea of not being capable is the most discouraging thing they could hear. But for those dying to live, it is the most encouraging. It gives us hope that we can change the world not through our own flawed ability, but rather the limitless ability of God. It makes sense to us by re-establishing the correct order of the universe- that we are small and God is big. In my own life, I feel like all my successes only testify to my weakness as a man and the grace God is so willing to bestow.

There is this extraordinary phenomena that occurs within us that allows us to accomplish anything. You see, Christ dies for us and then lives in us by His Spirit.  If we live according to His Spirit, then we can trust that God is enacting His supreme will in us, and by that we have the ability to accomplish great things, right? But rather, we find ourselves saying the same thing as the man in Mark 9:22, who says, 'If you can do anything . . .' You see, there are people who have a distrust of God enacting His supreme will in them that they believe they have no ability. What is the result? Well a couple of verses later in Mark 9:38 the disciples say that they stop another man casting out demons in His name. Therefore, out of their own distrust of God working in them, they stifle the work of those who are trusting in God's will and ability for the betterment of their self and others.

In conclusion, people argue against God's will because they are more trusting in their own ability. But their ability far lacks in comparison to submitting to God's will because it doesn't accomplish anything eternal. Trusting in God's ability and will allows us to accomplish the eternal. And this phenomena of God giving us the ability and enacting His will is at work in us because Christ lives in us. But though He lives in us, we have a distrust of His work in us which only leads to a stifling of ability rather than promoting ability for accomplishing the eternal. 

Trust in the fact that Christ lives in us, therefore, we can accomplish anything in submission to His will. 

Boy Meets Grace

"So what do you want to do later on down the road?" There goes the question. Here comes the answer. "I want to be a pastor. Get involved with church planting and ministry." There goes the answers. What follows is what I deem, "the look." Now, I am quite familiar with "the look." "The look" is what the person gives in response to my answer, signifying that in their mind they just placed me on a different level than them self. I am no longer an equal. I am a person who "has it all together." Thats what "the look" tells me! Usually it is not verbalized, except for one time where one guy told me that he wasn't very religious like he was confessing to me. "That's cool, I didn't ask you if you were."

One thing I've learned is that being a pastor or in a ministry leadership role doesn't mean you "have it all together." Rather, it means that you have humbled yourself to allow God to redeem your shortcomings for His will. It means that you have come across the revelation of the bigness of our God and how impossible it is to not bow down and humble yourself before the presence of such a big God. But the reality is: you are one of many Christians who have arrived upon this revelation.

Bearing the title of a Christian brings on the assumption that you have it all together when the reality is that God holds us together. The only thing that keeps the shattered pieces of our broken nature from spilling all over the place is the grace and love of God (Lam 3:22). The only thing that keeps our soul from being sucked into the black hole of our deceitful, sin-natured heart is the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit within us. The only thing allowing us not to be consumed within ourselves, not allowing our light to become trapped within the black hole of our sinful heart, but rather allowing it to shine before men is Jesus Christ living within us. It is not a natural force that man does by himself, but rather, it is a supernatural force compelled by a stirring of God's will within us. 

So why does the idea that "we" have it all together come across more often than the idea of God holding us together? Because the beggar can only relate to the beggar. The beggar can not relate to the proud man. Whoever you come across who gives you "the look," whether they are the beggar or proud man does not matter as long as you humble yourself to become the beggar. No one can relate with the proud man because usually they have placed their self too high for anyone to get to their level. It is all about the idea of being a beggar for God's grace. 
How can we be the beggar? We humble ourself to the point where we can repent. 
Now let me pose the point: How was David a man after God's own heart when he did evil in the Lord's eyes so many times? Like the time he sent Uriah the Hittite to the front line so he would die and David would take Bathsheba, his wife, as his own? Because when Nathan rebuked David, David repented before the Lord saying, "I have sinned against the Lord" (1 Samuel 12:13). Thats why in Acts 13:22, David is described as a man after God's heart. He repented before the Lord, not placing himself above the Lord's forgiveness or power. David was in no way a proud man before the Lord, and he even says this in Psalm 131!
When we become a people after God's own heart, we shine God, not ourselves. It is my prayer that when people give us "the look" they'll see a brokenness that has been redeemed by the grace of God.