Joy

An excerpt from Christianity and Liberalism--a book that was written in 1923 but speaks with profound relevance to us today.

"Joy is indeed being sought by the modern liberal Church. But it is being sought in ways that are false. How may communion with God be made joyful? Obviously, we are told, by emphasizing the comforting attributes of God--His long-suffering, His love. Let us, it is urged, regard Him not as a moody Despot, not as a sternly righteous Judge, but simply as a loving Father. Away with the horrors of the old theology! Let us worship a God in whom we can rejoice.

Two questions arise with regard to this method of making religion joyful--in the first place, Does it work? and in the second place, Is it true?

Does it work? It certainly ought to work. How can anyone be unhappy when the ruler of the universe is declared to be the loving Father of all men who will never permanently inflict pain upon His children ? Where is the sting of remorse if all sin will necessarily be forgiven? Yet men are strangely ungrateful. After the modern preacher has done his part with all diligence--after everything unpleasant has carefully been eliminated from the conception of God, after His unlimited love has been celebrated with the eloquence that it deserves--the congregation somehow persistently refuses to burst into the old ecstasies of joy. The truth is, the God of modern preaching, though He may perhaps be very good, is rather uninteresting. Nothing is so insipid as indiscriminate good humor. Is that really love that costs so little? If God will necessarily forgive, no matter what we do, why trouble ourselves about Him at all? Such a God may deliver us from the fear of hell. But His heaven, if He has any, is full of sin.

The other objection to the modern encouraging idea of God is that it is not true. How do you know that God is all love and kindness? Surely not through nature, for it is full of horrors. Human suffering may be unpleasant, but it is real, and God must have something to do with it. Just as surely not through the Bible. For it was from the Bible that the old theologians derived that conception of God which you would reject as gloomy. "The Lord thy God," the Bible says, "is a consuming fire." Or is Jesus alone your authority? You are no better off. For it was Jesus who spoke of the outer darkness and the everlasting fire, of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this age or in that which is to come. Or do you appeal, for your comforting idea of God, to a twentieth-century revelation granted immediately to you? It is to be feared that you will convince no one but yourself.

Religion cannot be made joyful simply by looking on the bright side of God. For a one-sided God is not a real God, and it is the real God alone who can satisfy the longing of our soul. God is love, but is He only love? God is love, but is love God? Seek joy alone, then, seek joy at any cost, and you will not find it. How then may it be attained?

The search for joy in religion seems to have ended in disaster. God is found to be enveloped in impenetrable mystery, and in awful righteousness; man is confined in the prison of the world, trying to make the best of his condition, beautifying the prison with tinsel, yet secretly dissatisfied with his bondage, dissatisfied with a merely relative goodness which is no goodness at all, dissatisfied with the companionship of his sinful fellows, unable to forget his heavenly destiny and his heavenly duty, longing for communion with the Holy One. There seems to be no hope; God is separate from sinners; there is no room for joy, but only a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.

Yet such a God has at least one advantage over the comforting God of modern preaching--He is alive, He is sovereign, He is not bound by His creation or by His creatures, He can perform wonders. Could He even save us if He would? He has saved us--in that message the gospel consists. It could not have been foretold; still less could the manner of it have been foretold. That Birth, that Life, that Death-- why was it done just thus and then and there? It all seems so very local, so very particular, so very unphilosophical, so very unlike what might have been expected. Are not our own methods of salvation, men say, better thanthat? "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" Yet what if it were true? "So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too"-- God's own Son delivered up for us all, freedom from the world, sought by philosophers of all the ages, offered now freely to every simple soul, things hidden from the wise and prudent revealed unto babes, the long striving over, the impossible accomplished, sin conquered by mysterious grace, communion at length with the holy God, our Father which art in heaven!

Surely this and this alone is joy."

Oh, the glorious love of God

Haha...I haven't posted for a while. This is something I wrote in my journal earlier this week.

Do I look at the cross and think, "That was so good of you, Jesus, but not really necessary." I wouldn't tell someone I believe this--I know theology well enough. But does my life and my attitude--my practical theology--show it?

The offense of the cross is that it shows us how unworthy of love we are. Someone had to die for our own dirty sins.

Yet the beauty of the cross is that he does love us that much. Not because we're worthy, but simply because he loves us. It seems like foolish love, to die for an enemy; but not if you are able to make that enemy into a friend and a lover...to make that whore into a bride in white...to make that selfish snob into a humble, generous giver of life.

His love is of a sort that tears us down by destroying our presumption of self-sufficiency so that he can build us up into something truly beautiful--something that he truly delights in and which is somehow worthy of him.

"Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or blemish."
Ephesians 5:25-27

Unite my heart to fear Your name, O God of undeserved Love.

Here are some A. W. Tozer quotes I read today, followed by some of my own thoughts.

"It is a strange and beautiful ecentricity of the free God that He has allowed His heart to be emotionally identified with men. Self-sufficient as He is, He wants our love and will not be satisfied till He gets it. Free as He is, He has let His heart be bound to us forever."

"No man with a trace of humility would first think that he is a friend of God; but the idea did not originate with men. Abraham would never have said, "I am God's friend," but God Himself said that Abraham was His friend."

It is a wondrous thing that God would stoop down and choose to love us. What do we have that He lacks? What could attract Him to us? We are dust, and He is the Almighty, Transcendent, Infinite, Living God. Yet He not only chose to save us, He also loves us and delights in those who are His. What a magnificent truth!

Too many people, myself included, fail to realize how incredible this is. We come to God so casually. We easily call Him our friend and assume He is on our side. We make Him our equal, if not smaller. To many people, He is no more than a means to an end (to look spiritual, to prosper, etc.). To many, He is not a Living Being, but only a philosophical theory. A friend of mine wrote, "God is ONLY a thought to us." Oh, how I fear for his soul.

Many who call themselves Christians today worship a small God, one who is good and loving and many other things, but he is just a part of life. A god who fits in our pockets and whom we can take out and put away as we please. We worship him at our convenience and leave him out of our personal agendas. So many people are just presuming on His grace, that God is too loving to do anything bad to "pretty good people" like themselves. But they are storing up wrath for themselves. (Romans 2:4-5)

Where is the fear of God? Where is our reverence?

Even for me, a person who has for a long time honestly desired to please God and find all my joy in Him, I have so often lacked reverence and so often forgotten how Holy He is compared to me. This week I was struck in 1 Timothy with the words "the living God." When I pray, do I really realize that I am talking to a living Being? Do I live life every day acknowledging His presence? So often I fail to do so.

This is my earnest prayer, as I think about these things: "Unite my heart to fear your name." Psalm 86:11. In its deepest place, my heart does fear the Lord. I know He is high and exalted. His love is deeper than I could ever comprehend, and the fact that He even cares to know my name is incredible, even breathtaking. Yet my heart also has hard places that doubt Him, doubt His word, want what I want rather than what He wants, and often believe the lie that something else is of more worth than God.

My heart has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, but He is still at work in it. I am divided, inconsistent, and unfaithful. But He remains faithful to me always, for He cannot deny Himself. We have a sacred covenant that He will never break. He is my Husband, and though I am not as faithful as I would like to be, He delights in a humble, broken heart. He loves me and sings over me.

There are no more words for this post. I don't have words beautiful enough to convey the magnificence of the kindness He has shown in Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, Praise Him in humility, reverence, and great joy.

Treasure

Luke 12:32-34 "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Psalm 16:11 "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."


We naturally seek after things that won't last. Food. Clothing. Money. Thrills. All of these things will fail us. If we are a little wiser we pursue human relationships. Yet, even they will not last. We are all prone to death. What can we pursue and treasure that will never fail or fade away?

Praise God! He has shown us the way to a treasure that is far more valuable and cannot be destroyed. He himself is our treasure, and our lasting inheritance is in heaven.

When I read the Luke passage above, these questions came to mind. Examine yourself, and see where your treasure lies. If your bank account suddenly disappeared, would you still have your treasure? If you lost your job or got kicked out of school, would you still have your treasure? If you lost your family or your best friend betrayed you, would you have something to hang onto? If your reputation was absolutely shredded, would your treasure remain?

I just feel like making a new post

That's all. I just want a new post here on my blog. It's been too long. And it's late at night and I'm done with finals and for once I don't really have anything important to do right now. So, I shall post a post on my blog.

I like the word amalgamation

Haha...I kind of forgot about those stories and pictures I promised last time. This blog will be an amalgamation of random photos.
A few pictures from Guatemala first...This is Fernando, one of my favorites

Here are some of the kids in the LifeTenderMercies home (They all have HIV)

A girl at VBS

Again, kids at LifeTenderMercies

All of us ladies about to leave for a Guatemalan church service


Me and Mishel

We ate at a really cool Guatemalan restaurant
This is Agua, a huge volcano, and the beautiful city of Antigua

This was one of the most beautiful places I've been

VBS again. This gives you an idea of how many kids there were



This is from the Spring Banquet, which was on May 4

As we waited to be seated we had some fun taking pictures in our pretty dresses

Caroline and Charity

Here are some other good friends of mine: Sarah, Alyssa, and Lea

The tulips on campus--Northwestern is gorgeous in the spring!



These geese live outside our window. They're around all the time!

Oh, spring banquet again...taking pictures in the bathroom...

This is me with my roommate Sarah

Here's most of my hall at an indoor soccer game a while back

Oh, and Aaron Espe, can't forget him. I recruited some new fans from NWC when he played in St. Paul in March.

This is at kids club at Living Hope Ministries. I work there every Wed. night. Next to me is Elizabeth, a co-teacher for the 10-11 year olds, and these are some of our girls, Natasha and Lois

One of them wanted to take a picture of me...

Susie Shellenberger spoke in chapel last week. It was fun to meet her.

Ok, so there are a few somewhat random snippets from my life...Now I must return to my 20-page paper. The semester is almost over! I'm coming home the 15th.

My Trip to Guatemala

I'm not sure where to start. So much has inspired and challenged me in the past three or four weeks. But I guess I'll start with my mission trip.

On Spring Break I left with 15 other Northwestern students to go to Guatemala. Last fall when I decided to go on this trip, I only knew one person who was on the team, but now I feel like we're all sort of a family because of our common experience.

We worked with a missionary couple named Dave and Becky at their LifeHomes. They have started three of these LifeHomes, which are sort of like orphanages. These are a refuge for children who have been abandoned, abused, orphaned, and drug-addicted. One of the homes is specifically for children who have HIV or AIDS. The children get to experience the love of Christ in a situation similar to a family.
Much of what we did each day involved simply building relationships with the kids. One of the LifeHomes is for boys ages 11-17. These boys would often help with our work projects after school. We also played soccer with them, had two bonfires with them, and led devotions about the fruit of the Spirit each night. We all miss these boys a lot! It was interesting to try to communicate with them, since we knew very little Spanish and many of them knew very little English. There were a lot of thumb wars and hand-clapping games. We were all impressed that they knew some Switchfoot, DC Talk, and Jars of Clay songs, and our group leader Justin played these on his guitar for us. Some of the boys did know English though, and that was a great help, as one of them was able to translate for us during devotions each night.

I spent several of my days working in the LifeTenderMercies Home, where several children with HIV live. I fell in love with these kids more than any of the others. They just need love so much, and they have so much love to offer.

We also did several work projects while we were there. The girls switched off with painting to complete several rooms. The guys (and sometimes girls) did some electrical work and mixed cement to build some stairs outside and to work on a wall around the property.

We also ministered to the community (and they ministered to us!) through a Vacation Bible School and 2 church visits. We had about 150 kids show up for VBS from the surrounding villages, dressed in their traditional Guatemalan clothes. We sang some songs (in Spanish), did a skit/puppet show and a Bible lesson, helped the kids make bracelets (with fruit beads to remind them of the fruit of the Spirit), and then just hung out with them, playing futbol, or in my case just letting the kids be fascinated with my digital camera. After a while I was able to take advantage of the Duck-duck-goose shirt that I was wearing. I pointed to the ducks and the goose to find out what words to use in order to play the game. It was great fun. One of my favorite parts of VBS were seeing the moms watching their kids. Some of them came and made bracelets for themselves too. I was glad that they were so appreciative of us, and it was good that they heard the gospel too. And my other favorite part was when the kids had to go, almost all of them would say Adios and hug every one of us goodbye. Oh, it was so cute!!

We also visited two churches. At each one, three of us shared testimonies and one shared a sermon (through our translator Roberto). We also sang some songs in English and Spanish. The night before the first church, I was asked to prepare my testimony to share. Somehow I just knew that if God wanted me to get out of my comfort zone, he would have me give my testimony. It actually wasn't bad at all. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I talked about my struggles with lack of confidence and with complacency and encouraged the people to pursue God with all their heart. The other speakers spoke about similar things (though we hadn't planned it) and at the end I think about 20 people came forward to show that they desired a closer relationship with God. It was great to lay our hands on them and pray for them, even if they didn't understand our language as we prayed.

Another thing that meant a lot to me on this trip was the teaching. Just about every morning and every evening, one of the missionaries would spend an hour (or more) teaching us from the Word and from their own testimonies. This was challenging at times, because I was forced to think about what I believe and why I believe it. They are very charismatic in their beliefs, which I am not used to. I was glad that they didn't try to push anything on us, but they told us what they believed and why and told us to search it out for ourselves. This was so good for me! And though since then I have found points of disagreement with things they taught, there was definitely a lot of truth to it, and our whole team benefited a lot from all they taught us. I learned a lot about faith and the Holy Spirit and the power we have as Christians--especially through their many testimonies of healings and other miraculous things they've experienced. (Maybe I can mention some of these later on.)
Every day we were "forced" to spend one hour alone with God. This was so wonderful!! Just sitting on a Guatemalan mountainside away from everything and seeking God and seeking Truth...It was a good time to rejuvenate and draw closer to God, but it also forced me to really dig deep into scripture and decide what I believe. I came back from the trip with a lot of questions, but this has been very good: as I continue to seek answers, I find that God is faithful to give us wisdom and help us understand his word. My time with God was so vital that it was almost a no-brainer by the end of the trip: I needed to spend this time with God every single day. I didn't know if I could accomplish a full hour every day, but I committed to it. The beautiful thing was that 2 days after we got back, we had a chapel speaker here at Northwestern who challenged the students to that very thing: spend an hour each day alone with God. It's so exciting to see that others are being changed, and that we can keep each other accountable.

Speaking of that, the relationships built on this trip were so good! I didn't know any of these people before we signed up for the mission team, but now we are all really good friends. Whenever we see each other (even now, over 2 weeks later) we pretty much freak out and hug each other. I'm so thankful to have these friends (all of whom are upperclassmen that I probably wouldn't have met otherwise), and it's great for us to be able to keep each other accountable so this won't be a mountaintop experience that soon levels out into a valley, but we can stay on fire for God for a long time.

So that's my mission trip...A long post, I know, but there's more to come--Hopefully some pictures and stories next time.

And since I don't have time to tell you all my exciting insights from Desiring God by John Piper, why don't you all just read it for yourselves? :) good stuff