THE RARE JEWEL OF CHRISTIAN COMMITMENT by Nick Batzig

As a young believer, I came across Jeremiah Burrough's searching little book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. I have yet to come across another book that so helpfully uncovers the great problem of sinful discontentment and our need to learn to be content in Christ wherever He may choose to place us. I'm convinced that every believer ought to read through this book at least once a year. However, I sometimes wonder, if Burroughs had lived in our day would he have written a companion volume to be published side by side with it--bearing the title, The Rare Jewel of Christian Commitment. Scripture and experience teach us that commitment to the Lord and to His people in the church is one of the rarest and yet most precious graces.

I recently listened to a group of ministers discussing this perennial problem--noting that the proverbial 80/20 rule is born out of the lamentable scarcity of commitment on the part of professing believers in the church. 80% of the work in the church is done by 20% of the people because 20% of the people are fully committed to the Lord and to His church. So important is the rare jewel of Christian commitment among the members of a local church that it is right to say that the health and the mission of the church depends upon it. Here are a few observations about commitment from Scripture and experience:

1. Our Culture Fuels a Lack of Commitment. 

Access to the internet and an overwhelming amount of entertainment options makes commitment increasingly rare. We have so many distractions that committing to volunteer service in a local church looks less and less attractive to people. With so many options men and women are increasingly taught not to allow themselves to be tied down to anything. We have to learn to unplug the DirectTV, XBox and the Internet and purposefully give ourselves to the work of the Lord.  

Add to this our propensity to overwork. Tim Keller has made the observation that we are the most overworked society in the history of humanity. By ceaselessly working, people in the church have limited their ability to serve in a volunteer capacity. While the reasons for overworking are numerous, at ground zero is a lack of contentment with what we have and where the Lord has us. If we would learn the rare jewel of Christian contentment we would find the rare jewel of Christian commitment. 

Finally, a lack of secondary, volunteer vocations in our culture has fueled a lack of commitment in the church. There was a time in this country's history when every Senator and fireman served in a volunteer capacity. While working a primary job, they gave themselves willingly to what they deemed to be a secondary, volunteer vocation. Today there is almost no such thing as a secondary, volunteer vocation. At present, most churches rely on paid staffing to carry the burden of the work. In the eyes of many congregations, it is more expedient to pay someone to do what needs to be done rather that wait for willing volunteers to rise us and faithfully offer to help accomplish it. It seems to me that this has sometimes created an atmosphere of professionalism and has--perhaps inadvertently--hindered the opportunities that members of the church would have otherwise had for volunteer service. 

2. We are Often Blind to Our Own Unfaithfulness. Many convince themselves that they are more committed than they really are. In Proverbs 20:6 we read, "Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, but who can find a faithful man?" It is easy to convince yourself that you are something that you are not. This is due to the fact that we do not like seeing our sinful selves as we really appear. Our propensity to point out the sin of others (which ought to appear relatively small in comparison with our own) while neglecting an effort to remove our own is one of the great dangers that we constantly face as fallen sinners. Jesus taught us this painful truth when He said, "Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (Matthew 7:3-5). Those in the a church who serve in the most minimal way possible often love to convince themselves that they are extremely involved. 

3. Our Actions Affect Others. The lack of commitment on the part of the many will inevitably have a detrimental impact on the few. Proverbs 25:19 teaches us that "Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint." Uncommitted and unfaithful church members will inevitably harm the growth and progress of the body. Almost nothing is more painful than having to live with a rotten tooth or a foot out of joint. The Lord tells us that this is the effect of unfaithfulness. If only a handful of the members of a church are willing to serve it makes it more of a burden on the few who faithfully set their hand to the plow of committed Christian service in these areas. 

4. Motivation is Everything. Those who serve for the wrong motives usually join the ranks of the uncommitted in time. Even among the 20% there is the rare jewel of properly motivated Christian commitment. There will always be those who appear to be committed but who are really only serving out of a sense of guilt or for the praise of man. Usually those who are serving out of guilt or desire for human approval burn out and cut back on their commitment to service in the church. While there is sometimes the need for members of a church to pull back from an area of service because of a difficult stage of life or some other legitimate factor, generally people who quite serving do so because their motive was not to please the Lord and to bless His people. 

Of course, the Gospel is the solution to our propensity to unfaithfulness. When we see with the eyes of faith what God has done for us in Christ we will guard our hearts against a lack of commitment to His work in the church. Jesus died to make us faithful, self-sacrificial and God-honoring men and women. Jesus' own faithfulness in the work of redemption serves as the example par excellence of Christian commitment. The example of the Apostles likewise serves as an example of Gospel-motivated commitment. The Apostle Paul explained the secret of the rare jewel of Christian commitment when he wrote, "The love of Christ compels us because we judge thus: If One died for all then all died that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for Him who died for them and rose again." May God grant that we all diligently labor to find and keep the rare jewel of Christian commitment in our own lives.  

You Have Just Enough Time by Jon Bloom

“I don’t have enough time.”

I have said this countless times over the years. I have thought it many times more than I’ve said it. But I have not ever seriously considered that thinking or speaking this way reflected poorly on God. Until the other day on “Ask Pastor John” I heard Prof. Bruce Hindmarshsay,

Busyness is moral laziness [because it is often a statement of our self-importance and our excuse to be inattentive to people]. . . . But God has given us just enough time to do what we need to do moment by moment to respond to him. And his grace is there; it is eternally present. Every moment is a sacrament where time touches eternity and there is exactly enough time to do what God has called us to do.

I had to replay this a number of times. It wasn’t even the main point in Prof. Hindmarsh’s remarks about the importance of Sabbath. But it was the main point for me. Busyness is moral laziness, God has given us just enough time, every moment is a sacrament — these are massively important truths I need to soak in.

“Busyness Is Moral Laziness”

We all know busyness. Everyone is busy. And everyone complains about being busy. Busy, busy, busy. Busy is a buzzword (even phonetically). Most of us have grown fairly comfortable with busyness.

But to call busyness (meaning a frenetic, distracted lifestyle) “moral laziness” suddenly makes us uncomfortable. It means that busyness is not something that merely happens to us. It is something we choose. As objections begin to rise in our minds, it is helpful to remember what Jesus said to busy Martha: “Mary has chosen the good portion” (Luke 10:42). Martha, you have chosen something else.

So why do we choose busyness? Prof. Hindmarsh says that too often we make it a “statement of self-importance.” We use busyness as a way of telling ourselves and, maybe more importantly, others how essential we are. Busyness is a way of posturing our significance. Ouch. I’ve done this.

But a more serious issue is that we choose busyness as a way to avoid having to make harder, sometimes more costly choices (which is why Tony Reinke calls it “lazy busy.”). Busyness can easily be an escape. It provides a convenient way to opt-out of wrestling through ambiguity to make a difficult, complex decision that we will be responsible for. It’s much easier to be the victim of circumstances than to be responsible for a mistake. And an overflowing schedule can become a shield protecting us from the unpredictable, inconvenient, time-consuming needs of other people. It’s an effective cover. Who can argue with you if you have too many things to do? Jesus can (Luke 14:15–24).

Now, of course there is such a thing as being legitimately too time-taxed to take on another need. We really are finite, as Jethro reminded Moses in Exodus 18. But that’s what makes busyness a moral and faith issue. Stewarding time is simply hard work. There are helpful tools, but there is no formula. Each person and each calling is unique and it requires our prayerful discernment and the humility of receiving (and seeking) counsel.

“Just Enough Time”

I need to break the very bad habit of saying I don’t have enough time. When I say this, I’m not only blaming my own moral laziness on my circumstances, I’m actually blaming God. I’m essentially saying that God is either insufficient or he’s stingy.

In reflecting on this I’ve become more aware of my lack of faith for God’s provision of time. I tend to have more faith that God will supply for our financial needs than he will for our time needs. For a while I’ve been bothered about not being more directly involved in personal discipleship and evangelistic relationships. But I’ve chalked it up to particular leadership and phase-of-life busyness — too easily, I now believe.

Toward the end of last year it dawned on me that my reticence (in part, selfishness and fear of man are also at work) is significantly due to my lack of faith that God would provide sufficient time if these unpredictable relationships proved more time-consuming than I could manage. I felt the Spirit’s conviction of my lack of faith and prompting to confront it. So since the turn of the year, my wife and I have been giving more freely of our time to these relationships and experiencing God’s provision.

Prof. Hindmarsh is right on when he says, “God has given us just enough time to do what we need to do moment by moment to respond to him. And his grace is there; it is eternally present.”

“Every Moment Is a Sacrament”

“Every moment is a sacrament where time touches eternity and there is exactly enough time to do what God has called us to do.”

What a beautiful and fearful statement. It’s beautiful in that every moment belongs to God (therefore every moment is holy) and he gives each moment to us as a gift. And he gives us enough sacramental moments to provide for our sacred callings, whatever they are. It is fearful in that we are stewards of these gifts and we will be held accountable for their investment (Matthew 25:14–30; 2 Corinthians 5:10). Fear and trembling is what we’re supposed to feel (Philippians 2:12). We are to handle holy things with great care.

Yet in our trembling we are also to remember that God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Psalm 86:15). If we come to him humbly through Christ confessing our sin and asking for help, all sinful stewardship is forgiven (1 John 1:9) and he will give us everything we need to steward the time entrusted to us (Luke 11:9; John 15:7; Philippians 4:19; Hebrews 13:20–21).

“His Grace Is There”

So let us lay aside the weighty sin of morally lazy busyness (Hebrews 12:1) and resolve to stop using it as a badge of self-importance or as an excuse to avoid what we don’t want to do.

And let us stop dishonoring God by saying that we don’t have enough time. God may, and frequently does, fill our time-plates full, which means that there are many things we must refrain from doing in order to remain faithful to our callings. But God always gives us enough time to do what he calls us to do.

And let us remember that this moment and every moment is a sacred gift from God. God’s sufficient grace is here, right now, where time touches eternity. As we prayerfully trust him, he will give us “just enough time to do what we need to do moment by moment to respond to him.”

When Your Twenties Are Darker Than You Expected by Paul Maxwell

The human body starts dying at age 25. Our twenties slap us with the expiration date of sin’s curse (Genesis 6:3): slowly, in our ligaments; tightly, in our muscle fibers; subtly, checking for bumps; decimally, with a rising BMI. We feel death in our twenties; emotionally and relationally, in ugly and odious ways. Death latches its chain to our frame, slowly pulling us deep into an answer to the question “Death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Our twenties bring so many answers to that question — transition, failure, desperation, dependence, accusation, responsibility, moral failure, stagnation, unfulfillment. “Sting” isn’t sufficient. Our twenties can be a dark time.

Aspects of Quarter-Life Crisis

There are (at least) five feelings that overwhelm and disillusion the wandering young saints, day after day.

1. Disappointment

“I thought things would be better.”
“I thought I would be better.”
“I thought friendships would stay together.”

We show up at the doorstep of our twenties and mid-twenties hoping to meet our childhood dreams. It turns out that we oversold ourselves on our future. No astronaut missions. No presidencies. No spouse and kids. No house. “Wait, does life suck?” Expectations aren’t shown to be false — only shown to be miniature scales of what we’re actually hoping for; financially in dire straights, emotionally unfulfilled, professionally unimpressive, and spiritually stagnant. “I thought I would have grown out of this sin by now.” Shared, white-walled apartment spaces drag our nerves with doom: “This can’t be it. This can’t be all there is.” The doors of childhood are closed behind. Life, it seems, indicates that things will only be getting worse from here.

2. Despondency

“I’m just not as happy as I used to be.”
“I feel fundamentally unable to see the bright side of life.”
“My ability to feel joy is just broken.”

Each day — another day, and another — erodes the soul. Each day, a little less meaningful, a little more hazy; a few less moments of true beauty, a few more innocent pleasures to make it through. Unrelenting haze. Emotional nebula. Spiritual indolence. Slowly — down, sinking — down, twisting — down. Lethargic weight, myopic gaze. “Darkness” is not a sufficient word. Heavy. Weary. Vapid. Unaroused. Despondent.

3. Despair

“Nothing I do matters.”
“I’m going to be stuck here forever.”
“My parents are so disappointed.”
“All of my friends are doing so much better than I am.”
“Life just feels like a rat race.”

Despair is the emotional muscle of “Oh God, this will never end.” Pay up. You’re bulldozed. Despair is the overdrawn bank account — “Insufficient hope. Please deposit more faith to make a withdrawal.” And we have nothing. Rejection letters, romantic break ups, deaths of parents and siblings, bad news tailor fit to our most arresting anxieties. They’ve embarrassed us with empty hands. They are thieves of hope. Ruthless pillagers of dreams. Our circumstances, emotions, and relationships — we are fooling ourselves if we don’t think they are interwoven in the fabric of our beliefs. And when they die, despair comes alive.

4. Doubt

“The church doesn’t understand or address the issues I’m struggling with.”
“I feel judged by God all the time.”
“I’m not sure that God exists. And if he does, I don’t care.”

Doubt has been consecrated and crowned by the millennial generation of twenty somethings — hail, our new priest and king: incredulity. “God, if your people are so loving, then why . . .” “God, if you’re so great, then why . . .” “God, if you’re not a sadistic, disinterested deity, then why . . .” As we sink deeper into despondency, we lock arms with doubt. Our faith turns from “He will come again” to “That one time when . . .” — from “I believe” to “I once believed.”

5. Desolation

“I haven’t felt God in a really long time.”
“Friends are fake.”
“I don’t have a place that feels like home.”

Desolation — “Anguished misery or loneliness; a state of complete emptiness or destruction” — from the Latin desolare, “to abandon.” Loneliness can be the most crushing force in the universe. The heartache of leaving home requires more than wisdom and a coffee table — it can take and contort and dismember the soul. To lose for the first time the holding hand, the loving concern, the caring eye, the steady help — it can be grievous. Alone; therefore, alone forever; therefore, helpless. To be desolated is to be broken by the void. And we are being broken.

God and the Darkness of Our Twenties

God was a twentysomething once — Christ in the flesh. But there is more. He created twentysomething-ness. He died for twentysomethings and was raised for twentysomethings. I know, I know. It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything. Jesus Christ doesn’t change anything, you might think.

Leslie Newbigin said, “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist; Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.” Is Jesus irrelevant? How is wallowing in a dialectic of self-deprecation and self-pity going? Is that doing things for you? Is that doing more than Jesus has done? If so, get off this article. Get off the Internet. Go and drink and at the very least be merry, for tomorrow you die (1 Corinthians 15:32). But if you’re clawing for a grip — for something, anything — keep reading. Jesus actually changes quite a bit. Here are five things he offers.

1. Diligence

Responsibilities are scorching. Perhaps never more so than when we first feel their heat, and that they will never end. In order to feel a desire to move forward in a new stage in life, we have to do the hard work of letting go of our old life — a good life, as children, as carefree, as optimistic, as unjaded, as fearless and free to dream beyond our reach. That’s gone now. It’s not an overstatement to say that we may need to formally grieve our childhood, so that we can leave it behind. “We’re like shellfish that continue to open and close their shells on the tide schedule of their home waters after they have been transplanted to a laboratory tank or the restaurant kitchen” (William Bridges, “Transition”). We need to acclimate to our new surroundings.

In a dark and depressing transition, Ezra “made confession, weeping and casting himself down” (Ezra 10:1). The people gave him a mission — to make space for God: “Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it” (Ezra 10:4). Before anything else, we need one thing in our twenties: a meaningful task. It’s part of our constitution as human beings — to seek and yearn for and mourn the absence of a meaningful task: “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you” (1 Thessalonians 4:11). Diligence sets the necessary rhythm for the gospel to weave its way into the crippling emotions that our twenties can bring. Diligence in grief, in moving on, in acclimating, in moving forward — diligence in meaning is the fundamental counteragent to the quarterlife crisis.

2. Dreams

First, if you see the darkness as a deathblow to hope, you’re already dead. There is no overcoming the darkness of despair if it meets a willing heart. But it is not a deathblow. Despair is a gauntlet thrown — here, in our twenties, we must learn the guerilla violence of the Christian life. “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” There are no points for style. Despair is not a prophet or friend — despair always speaks with a froward tongue, and it deserves bloody brutality. This is not a macho thing. It is a life-in-the-Spirit thing. Jeremiah’s prophet Baruch cried, “Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest” (Jeremiah 45:3). God responds, “I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go” (Jeremiah 45:5). God fights with us, if we would fight. The apostle John writes to the young because “you have overcome the evil one” and because “you are strong” (1 John 2:13–14).

Second, those dark feelings might not be so dark. They might actually mean something. They may be a flashing red warning: “Do that other thing.” Or “Don’t settle here forever.” Paul insists: “Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Are you following the dreams of your parents? Your community? Are your dreams a slave to your fears? The intimacy of our individual union with Christ allows us the freedom to stop living other people’s dreams. God has given you a personal call. It’s okay to take a risk on your own, and dream big for the glory of God.

3. Dissatisfaction

Are you dissatisfied? Good. The world is full of feasts that satiate the flesh in the moment, but starve the soul (Ecclesiastes 7:2). Believe better about yourself than “this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). If we believe the world’s message that we are incomplete, inadequate, insufficient just to the degree that we can fix it — with enough Facebook, with enough money, with enough sex, with enough hobbies — then we are slaves to those things (Romans 6:16). We are both more hopeless, and have more reason to hope, than we would ever imagine. God endorses your dissatisfaction with the world’s self-concept package: “Large, with a side of self-doubt and a sprinkle of guilt — hold the Jesus.” How predictably joyless.

Self-hatred is self-perpetuating — it is not an isolated thought; it is a downward and accelerating cycle. We judge our desires: incomplete, unaccomplished, base, stupid, unrealistic. Don’t try to preempt your disappointment and abandonment with self-condemnation and self-abandonment. It is a cycle into a numb and catatonic existence. Find the fire. Our twenties can be an anesthesia — they can numb us to pain and motivation. If we can stop the morphine drip of despondency, we will find that our unbearable existential angst is not a prophet of doom — it is the pain of depressurization, rising out of the depths. “I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand” (Psalm 73:22–23). Dissatisfaction is what God uses to separate us from the beasts.

4. Dependence

God is a loving Father. Full stop. Part of that package: God cares about your parental issues. If you had an abusive, disappointing, harmful, traumatizing, or maladaptive relationship with your parents, that is a tragedy and a burden. And yet, God — your perfect Father — cares for you, and cares about your story. David Powlison explains, “Dynamic psychology [turns] the antique relationship with parents into a magic wand to explain all of life. The Bible offers . . . a more concrete and life-transforming explanation” (“What If Your Father Didn’t Love You?”).

God does not expect you to be a Wall Street executive. God does not wish you were making six figures. God does not wish you had a happy-go-lucky personality. God does not wish you would just “Get yourself together already!” We are not on our own. We are not broken beyond repair. We are not doomed to be our parents (2 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 22:2). We are not condemned by our heavenly Father for being in process (2 Peter 3:15). He knows us and loves us and is working patiently in and with us: “I write to you, children, because you know the Father” (1 John 2:13). You can depend on him for love, affirmation, affection, correction, a guiding hand, and his never-forsaking care. Breathe.

5. Devotion

God is devoted to us. That may sound strange — aren’t we devoted to God? Isn’t “devoted” an inferior activity? No. God is devoted to Christ and we are one with Christ: “Do not be afraid or tremble . . . God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). To the extent that God is devoted to and present with Christ, he is devoted to and present with us (Ephesians 1:20). God will never be more devoted to us than he is today, even at his return: We have “salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10).

This may sound trite. That’s okay. God doesn’t promise that his truths will always carry the wit of that guy in your creative writing MFA that’s putting you $25,000 in debt. God says trite things — God repeats one single, unoriginal, overstated, overplayed truth again and again because we forget it just as often: “Work, for I am with you” (Haggai 2:4). “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18).

God is with the lonely and the heartbroken. “Where? Where is he?” He is . . . he is there. Sometimes there is more to say, and sometimes there is not. You object: “Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none” (Psalm 69:20). He will not stop repeating: “He who touches you touches the apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8).

Check Your Investments by Melissa Edgington

This week I’ve been spending some time with some senior adults from our church, going to some shows and eating way too much.  Today we saw a show that featured a whole family of wildly talented musicians.  The whole large family, down to the littlest children, could play multiple instruments, sing, dance, and act.  It was really remarkable to watch.

As we left we joked about how we only thought we were proud of our own children, until we saw what these little phenomena could do.  But, the truth is that there’s a clear reason why our kids can’t play the violin or dance a huge choreographed number on stage.  It’s because we haven’t invested time and resources into making them performers.  We haven’t awakened them early every day so that they could practice an instrument.  We haven’t paid for private dance or voice lessons.  The developing of these talents has not been a priority in our lives.  So, naturally, we aren’t seeing any results.

While we didn’t set out to make our kids superstars of the stage, I do pray that they grow to be champions of the faith.  Isn’t that what all Christian parents want for their kids?  To see them grow in their knowledge and love of Jesus?  To watch them discover all the delights of His deep and abiding love?

But, I really wonder what kind of results that we expect to get when we don’t invest time and resources to help them get there.  Think of how many ways that we fail to invest in our kids’ spiritual development.

When we sleep in on Sundays.

When we let sports and entertainment and, well, pretty much anything take precedence over church attendance.

When we don’t pray with and for our kids.

When we don’t teach them God’s word.

When we don’t teach them sound doctrine and show them how their theology should shape their worldview.

There are thousands of little ways to say to children, This isn’t that important.  Faith and spiritual growth is for grown ups. 

And then we turn around, and they’re grown. And we are shocked to find that they have little interest in the Christian life.

Young adults are dropping out of church at alarming rates.  Why, dear parents, would we expect our kids to be dedicated, faithful, spirit-led, gospel-centered adults when we know in our hearts that we have not properly invested the time and effort to make that happen? It would be like me putting Adelade on a big stage and handing her a violin, expecting her to play brilliantly.  The fact is that she wouldn’t even know how to hold the instrument in her hands.  She would quickly lay it down and walk off-stage.

We all want our children to be focused on Christ.  First, we have to be genuinely focused on Him.  Then, we have to spend the time training them, teaching them, advising them, guiding them.  We have to think of it as if they are part of a huge production, and it’s our job to prepare them to step onto the stage.

What we do here will have implications for generations to come.  Are we working to build that awe-inspiring, Christ-glorifying phenomenon in our own families, or are we too preoccupied investing in all of the stuff that doesn’t matter?  Today is the day to begin.

Proudly Humble by Tim Challies

Sometimes pride looks an awful lot like humility. There are times that our pride convinces us to put on a great show of what looks to all the world like humility so that we will be seen and acknowledged by others. We swell with pride when we hear, “He is humble.” It is a tricky thing, the human heart—prone to deceive both ourselves and others.

The Apostle Paul was a genuinely humble man. He had a deep awareness of his own sin and a profound sense of his own unworthiness before God. When he wrote to the church at Philippi, he went to great lengths to explain that he knew himself to be the chief of sinners. He remembered with shame that by persecuting the Lord’s church, he had persecuted the Lord Himself (Phil. 3:6; Acts 9:4). He had much to humble him.

Yet when he wrote to that church, Paul also told them, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Phil. 3:17). These might have been the proudest words he ever spoke. He might have been verbalizing the inclination of every heart, that the world would be a better place if everyone was just a little bit more like us. “Imitate me! I have this Christian life all figured out. Do things my way and you’ll be OK.” But was it pride that spoke? I don’t think so.

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” These might have been the humblest words Paul ever spoke. When Paul looked at his life, he saw undeniable evidence of God’s grace, and all he could do was marvel. Once a Pharisee, he now saw the beauty of grace; once a persecutor, he was now willing to be persecuted; once proud of his lineage as a Jew of all Jews, he now knew that this gave him no advantage. His life gave evidence of God’s grace in its every part. Paul knew it, and Paul rejoiced.

As he looked at God’s transforming grace, he could humbly say, “Be like me.” He was not calling attention to his own innate skill or his own zeal. He was simply looking at what he had become through the mercy of God and telling the people he loved that they should display that same grace.

And how about you? What keeps you from calling upon that new Christian to use your life as an example in following Christ? What keeps you from speaking to that person you love and saying, “Follow my example here”? Could it be humility? It is possible, but unlikely. It is far more likely that pride is holding you back, that you are too proud to see grace where it exists, to acknowledge that grace as a work of God, and to call others to imitate it.

FAITHFULLY DELIVERING THE GOSPEL by Erik Raymond

Recently I’ve been thinking about the power of the gospel. As I do, I’ve been critiquing my own heart, “Do I really believe this?”

Remember, apart from Christ, humanity is not afflicted with a case of the spiritual sniffles, but rather is spiritually dead, utterly unresponsive to the things of God. Ephesians reminds us of this vividly:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

So what are you, the evangelist, the Christian, to do? Talk to people about Jesus. The power is neither in you nor the sinner, but in the gospel!

In Romans chapter 1 we read of Paul who is eager to preach (v.15) and not ashamed of (v.16) the gospel. Paul simply says that he is not ashamed because the gospel is the power of God for salvation. The gospel is the power of God. The gospel is wired with omnipotence! And when believers proclaim this message it comes bearing both divine authority (Matt. 28.19) and divine power (Rom. 1.16).

I love to remind my own heart as to what it is powerful to do: “for it is the power of God for salvation” The gospel brings salvation. The gospel is the exclusive means by which the universal problem of sin is remedied.

But notice the particularity of the salvation, it is not for everyone, but only for “those who believe”(Rom. 1.16). Hence the strong exhortation to evangelize; people must believe in order to be saved. The simple but complex message of Jesus brings salvation to sinners. In this message the sinner is humbled and God is exalted, and this is the way it should be.

If we really believe that the gospel is the power of God for salvation we probably would not mess with it. It is not wise to edit perfection; we have not been given proofreading writes by God to add or delete elements from his masterpiece of Christ exalting truth.

Christians are to simply be minimum wage table servers, taking the masterpiece from the award winning chef and bringing it to the tables. It would be just as absurd to edit the gospel as it would be for a waiter at a five star restaurant to sprinkle on some hot sauce, pull off some asparagus and dump some Splenda in the soup. We just need to faithfully deliver the goods with reverent zeal remembering it is not us that converts but God and his means is the powerful gospel of Jesus.

Be the faithful waiter–deliver the gospel!

The Seed of Divorce by Tim Challies

I recently sat with a group of young adults, men and women in their late teens and early twenties, and we spoke about singleness, dating, and courtship. Eventually the conversation advanced to marriage and to both the joys and the difficulties of marriage. We realized together that as these young adults are considering relationships and begin to pursue marriage, they are wondering how they can divorce-proof their marriages. Many of them have grown up surrounded by divorce and its effects. Some are afraid of commitment because they are afraid they may not be able to keep that commitment.

One young man asked how to ensure that a couple does not bring into their marriage a seed that could bloom into divorce. And it did not take me more than a moment to realize that in my marriage and in your marriage and in every marriage, there is already the seed of divorce. In every marriage is an issue, a belief, a habit, a heart idolatry—indeed, many of them—that can lead easily and naturally to the complete destruction of the union. The world, the flesh, and the devil are all committed to the destruction of marriage, and each of those enemies brings its own evil seeds. The question is not whether those seeds are or will be present in a marriage, but what we will do with them.

It may be that in your marriage, you have allowed the seed of divorce to grow. Perhaps it has already put down roots and is digging in. Maybe it has already poked its head through the soil and begun to grow to full bloom. Do not despair. There is still hope for your marriage. A marriage is not ruined by the presence of such seeds but by accepting, ignoring, or embracing them.

The very same seeds that may lead to destruction may also lead to increased strength and growth. Though powerful forces are arrayed against marriage, God is the creator of marriage, and He is far more committed to its growth than Satan is to its destruction.

Each of those seeds that may lead to divorce represents an opportunity for health. Each is an opportunity for a couple to have open and honest discussion, to identify these seeds, to talk about them, and to commit to stand firmly against them. Each represents a matter to take to the Lord together in prayer, to seek God’s strength and protection. And, of course, each represents an area in which the Bible can and must speak. Those seeds of error are countered and overcome by the truth of Scripture.

Stuart Scott says it well: “The more each mind is renewed (changed) by the Scripture, the more similarly a couple will think (Rom. 12:2). One of the worst things a couple can do is work to change one another into each other’s likeness. They are to be changed, rather, into Christ’s likeness.” And they are changed by going together to God’s Word day by day, week by week, and year after year.