A Proverb worth Memorizing: 13:12

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs13:12).

How do you know what to do next? How to respond? Whether or not this seemingly good thing headed your way is from God or from the Evil One? Is this God speaking or my heart -- what I want -- deceiving me (Jer. 17:9)? There is no substitute for memorizing verses in Scripture to know to respond to what life throws at you, to discern if a good thing is also a God thing, and to know if God is speaking to you or trying to get your attention (after all, He's given us His written Word - won't his spoken, mysterious, by-the-Spirit words look remarkably similar if not identical to pages you can leaf through everyday?). To be honest, some verses I've memorized come to mind in real-life situations more often than others - one of these is Proverbs 13:12. I'd like to share with you why might also find it helpful to memorize and even pass along to others.

Hope. Andy Dufresne to his friend Red: "Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing every dies" (from the 1994 classic film The Shawshank Redemption). When circumstances are not what we would want or we are yet who we wish to be, Hope is required. Yet, hope in-and-of-itself is an intangible verb that needs a direct object. In other words, nobody just hopes. You must hope in some thing or for some thing - as Andy said: "No good thing ever dies." And since Hope isn't something you currently have but are looking to access, the best object of hope is the guaranteed object hope. We have supreme and absolute confidence that the person will save us a seat or be there to celebrate with us, unwavering confidence that an annual or weekly event/happening will be all that it says it will be providing us the boost we need, total faith that whatever I am purchasing online - upon arrival, will improve my quality of life. Because Hope is so vital to life and such a powerful instrument in helping us keep-on-keeping-on, Scripture warns us about even putting all the eggs in the basket of your hope into anything in this life. God describes our years as are like an exhaling "sigh" (Psalm 90:9), like the passing smoke of a distant bonfire (Psalm 102:3), like the time it takes for a person to put on a new pair of clothes (Psalm 102:26). C.S. Lewis said it so well: Do not let you happiness depend on something you might lose.  

Deferred makes the heart sick. One of the reasons I so appreciate this verse in real-life is the many times my hope doesn't so much do a 180-degree-turn (ie. as if all of a sudden I'm living solely for money, indulging in an adulterous affair or in pornography, habitually lying and manipulating to get my way, etc.) but, rather, gets just slightly deferred. To defer is to "postpone slightly" or "put slightly off." Let me give you two examples of "slightly off" hope - Spiritual Gifts & Friendship/Marriage. 

>>> Spiritual gifts are given to us upon trusting our lives to Jesus because the Holy Spirit has pitched a tent and taken up residence inside of you. One of the radically gracious benny's of fellowship with the Holy Spirit is He gives you unique empowerments or skills by which you might bless others in the church. It's amazing! However, what if one day that gift doesn't seem to be having an impact in someone's life or you are no longer enjoying using it, or it seems to run dry? You will feel this is the case at some point in your walk even if you haven't yet identify the ways you enjoy blessing people as "gifts" per say. You may get sad, melancholy, even depressed - you may get hardened toward God or toward church leadership ("it's the church's fault I can't use my gift") - or you might even try to denigrate the gifts and progress of others through a sarcastic remark or putdown. These are all signs that you're hope has been slightly deferred and, thus, your heart is sick. The apostle Paul reminds us about gifts that they are will not last forever: "Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for [gift of] knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away" (1 Corinthians 13:8-10). We can and should hope in the Christ who is glorified through the use of our gifts.  

>>> Human friendship/marriage. God made us to love friendships and live in community. But to what extent is even the most intimate friendship - the marriage relationship - eternal? Jesus even hints that marriage is something for "the sons of this age" (see Luke 20:34-36). Indeed, marriage is primarily a picture in this life of Jesus' eternal relationship with His church (Ephesians 5:32). You know the feeling of looking so forward to a weekend with your mates, a special luncheon with a friend whom you always pick up where you left off, or the prospects of what looks like a great new season for your marriage. Yet, though a gift from God and even if you or they are the best of people, continually putting hope in human relationships will disappoint. One of my favorite Singers/Songwriters, Rich Mullins, put it like this: "I think one of the stresses on a lot of friendships is that we require that the people we love take away our lonliness. And they really can't. And so, when we still feel lonely, even in the company of the people we love, we become angry with them because they don't do what we think they're supposed to do...So while you still have life, love everybody you can love. Love them as much as you can love them. Don't try to keep them for yourself. Because when you're gone, they'll just resent you for having left."

>> How this Proverb helps in real-life moments. (1) As a warning. When I find myself starting to look forward to or hoping in the person, experience, object itself, the Holy Spirit reminds me of Prov. 13:12: Look forward to seeing Jesus, experiencing Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, and passing on Jesus to others in the near future encounter with the person, experience, object. OR if I find my mind wandering toward or thinking toward something too much, again: Prov 13:12. Remember: It would be easy to miss. This displaced hope is a deferral not a 180-degree lifestyle turn (though left unchecked you 180-degrees will be the end result). (2) As a diagnosis. When I wonder why I'm feeling down, frustrated, hardened - have I deferred my hope to something that will pass away? ; (3) As a turning point toward getting my longings fulfilled....

But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. The basis and object of our hope is the Risen

Lesser-known Alternate Ending: Andy's Letter Reads:
"Red, if you are reading this, I've died of dysentery
on the way to Mexico. Read Proverbs 13:12."

Christ. His present promises of nearness (Matthew 28:20), forgiveness (1 John 1:9), His intercession in prayer (Hebrews 7:25), that we can rest from doing work to justifying ourselves and, instead, to do good work to glorify him as we do it with Him (Matthew 11:28-30), that He is working even this hard situation for incredible good (Rom 8:28) and His future promises often called "future grace" - new glorified body (1 Cor. 15:51-57), no more sadness (Revelation 21:4), right all the wrong in this current age (Revelation 11:17), in His tender and awesome presence forever (Revelation 7:15-17)

The Bible begins and ends with a Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9, Revelation 22:2, Revelation 22:19). So it's fitting to end a mediation on hope with the following passage from the prophet Jeremiah who speaks here of Living Water: 

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when the heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8).

Root your hope in Him who gives Living Water. I believe God will use your memorizing Proverbs 13:12 to help keep those roots headed in the right and most fulfilling direction.

Sunday Follow-Up: The Lingering ? about Abundance

Sunday we looked at a 2nd Paradox of Christian Living Abundance through Monogamy. Most people try to add to their life by seeking out and accumulating individual additions - be they pleasures/comforts, things, friends, security, power. One at a time so that they might eventually have a life of "abundance." Jesus flips this notion on its head - monogamy (a commitment to ONE above all others and for a lifetime) leads to abundance. So instead of "out of many, one" (E Pluribus Unum), "out of one, many" (do your own Latin!!). Jesus wasn't thinking of the U.S. motto, so here's how he put it:

[22] And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. [23] For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. [24] Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! [25] And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? [26] If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? [27] Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [28] But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! [29] And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. [30] For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. [31] Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. [32] “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  (Luke 12:22-32 ESV)

Seek one King, one kingdom above all and God will graciously provide. Theo-monogamy leads to poly-provision. Faithfulness in seeking One lifelong God (theo-monogamy) leads to superabundance of provision (poly-provision). Here it is, Jesus promises.


I wrapped up Sun's message without getting to the last part of my notes - a lingering question that often comes up when talking abundance and God's promises. Namely: 

Okay, if I do seek God, how does God promise to bless me? And please give specifics.

Some examples. (1) People will point to Old Testament examples of God's material blessing upon those who seek His interests and not their own. King Solomon is a great example and one I used this past Sunday. He sought God and His Kingdom until he eventually wants to worship God in his own way (1 Kings 3:3-4) which leads to Solomon trying to juggle the interests of two kingdoms - His kingdom + God's (1 Kings 3:1-2, 1 Kings 10:8) which leads to theo-polygamy (1 Kings 11:4-5). But when he was seeking God, God blessed him with riches & wisdom beyond compare (1 Kings 3:13). (2) Psalm 37:4 is a famous one often followed by mentally listing everything I desire; (3) John 10:10 is sometimes quoted when a person has obtained extra favor, pleasure or riches. 

In my still relatively brief experience as a pastor, I rarely find that someone just brings up this question upon reading the Bible for himself or herself nor does it come up out-of-the-blue from the new Christian. But rather, a preacher, teacher, author of some kind presents the possibility and then stirs it up in his/her audience (I've talked about the danger of this "Word of Faith" teaching elsewhere). Why not?  Because the one who realizes that a Holy God has forgiven, accepted and declared righteous someone like me (a rebel against God ill-deserving of even a glance in my direction) and at the cost of His Son, does not demand specifics but is grateful for acceptance.

Look again at the end of Jesus' promise about monogamous seeking. Having given the promise of "adding all these things unto you," he says: "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).  Isn't this interesting? Put yourself there. You can imagine some of the disciples and others listening in thinking: "Uh, dude that is not what we are worried about or fear. We are worried about getting 'all these things added to us'...what about the 'all these things'?" But Jesus is speaking to those who get it (which, by the way, is the main purpose of his parables - to separate those who get it from those who don't). He is speaking to those who recognize they are unworthy rebels but still want the gift of the King and who, upon getting the king, care only about the Father's pleasure. When the King becomes your #1 thing, your singular worry becomes your status in the Kingdom and with the King himself. Will he grant me forgiveness when I stumble? Will he accept me though I wander? Will He grant me fellowship before His throne though I served him less than wholeheartedly or acted with less than full faith? To this Jesus gives His answer: It's to the Father's good pleasure to give. He's constantly teetering on favoring you with His presence, His fellowship, His Holy Spirit - such that even faith the size of mustard seed will tip the scales in your favor.

Here's a challenge: Go back and look through the New Testament promises of Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and the other apostles and writers. Might they be read in light of God giving himself to us in Jesus Christ rather than another "thing"? The peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7) - is it a necessarily feeling where all anxiety melts away or is it centrally located in Christ being our peace ensuring fellowship with God the Father? When Jesus promises abundant life (John 10:10), is He himself not the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). When I delight myself in the Lord, isn't it possible, even likely, that He Himself becomes the desire of my heart? As 18th c. poet Alexander Pope once said: "One master passion in the breast / like Aaron's serpent swallows up the rest."

Right now on my bathroom mirror hangs an old, smudgy notecard with the following words of Jesus upon leaving his disciples: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives; do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid" (John 14:27). The truth that Jesus doesn't give peace or comfort as the world gives - does that trouble you or is it your antidote to fear and trouble? How you answer that question is likely a good indicator of whose Kingdom you are seeking. Jesus gives us Himself and the very Kingdom of the Father. He may give you more but he won't give you less - and that is a comforting thought.

Freedom Run Wild & Abundant Pleasures...mmm...YES, PLEASE!

On Sunday mornings under the Big Top we have been examining the Paradoxes of the Christian Life. God wants to give us all manner of graces but the way we access such grace is the opposite of what we'd expect (or want !!). Last Sunday's Paradox: Freedom through Slavery and this Sunday's will be Abundance through Monogamy. 

I ran across some of G.K. Chesterton's writings on the subject in his classic work Orthodoxy. Chesterton, like C.S. Lewis after him, had a wonderful way of putting things, especially big biblical truths. He beautifully summarizes both how total sold-out-ness (slavery) to the rule and order of a good God leads to freedom and how monogamy leads to the most abundant of pleasures.

The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

Chesterton goes on to use the example of sex:

I could never mix in the common murmur of that rising generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself...Keeping to one woman is a small price to pay so much as seeing one woman. To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurable with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not an exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it. A man is a fool who complains he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it is like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind.

One of the great difficulties of the Christian life is warding off the deception that the only way you are truly going to get personal freedom and get abundance of pleasure is to go out and get it yourself (e.g., making more $ to have more personal choices, climbing the ladder to get more personal time off, etc. and seeking multiple partners, multiple purchases, multiple social circles, multiple "good time activities" as primary means to personal pleasure).

Accordingly, I pray Chesterton helps you today: Submission to God's rule allows freedom to run wild & monogamy in marriage keeps us ever-sensitive and enjoying the truly strange and mysterious (and quite pleasurable!) gift of sex. 

A message about Porn (no longer just a problem for men...but, yeah, still a problem for men)

Below I've posted a concise and helpful sermon by P.J. Smyth (lead pastor of Godfirst church in Johannesburg, South Africa) about the Porn epidemic that is still running wild amongst Christians - and not just amongst men by the way. A couple summers ago I was speaking with a man who started and runs one of the largest Christian-based rehab centers for addicts of various kinds. He said the most surprising trend that no one knows about is that the majority of addicts amongst 18-22 y. olds are women and not men. I was floored by this revelation. Smyth addresses, in part, why this is the case.

Here are some of the quotes from the message that impacted me:

• "Every second, $3000 are spent on porn."
• "Porn is like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by listening to someone grunt a few bars."
• "Porn girls never say 'No.' So that imagery ruins proper relationships."
• "To Adam, Eve was perfect. She was his standard of beauty. Porn cuts that."
• "Sex in marriage is so important that the devil does everything to get us into bed before we are married and keep us out of bed when we are."
• "About 60% of the power of sin dissipates the moment you confess it to someone else."
• "The gospel and marriage teach us that I am way worse than I thought and way more loved than I thought."
• "Be a Churchill, not a Chamberlin."
• "Spending time in God's presence is one of the most underrated ways to deal with sin."

Summer Reading & Summer Pics

I don't know about you, but Summer Reading used to immediately bring to mind: "Come on, do I really have to read Where the Red Fern Grows?!" (Incidentally, I think my best summer reading experience was the Summer I read Hatchet  - 13 y. old survives a plane crash and survives for 45 days in the wilderness using only a hatchet - he was the original Bear Grylls). Anywho, nowadays the summer reading experience is something I look forward to. So I thought I'd sally forth what I read this summer along with description - feel free to post back with any gems from your list.


#1 - Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer. 464 pages. I've read so much of Lewis but have never read a full-length biography of his. Sayer knew Lewis well. Things I learned about Lewis - He was one lusty bloke before he put his faith in Christ. Sayers goes into this in some detail. Honestly, had Lewis been in his 20s while living in our era, he'd most likely be attracted to some hard core stuff on the web (if you know what I mean). He was so attracted to beauty, especially the beauty of a woman, that he greatly indulged in it vis-a-vis his thought life. When J.R.R. Tolkien explained Christ as the reality behind the beauty (or "myth"), Lewis found his heart's true home. But it was his penchant for passions and the constant struggle to focus on Christ as the object of His passions and pleasure with which I could most relate to Lewis. He struggled with co-dependency, was an incredibly faithful friend, and tirelessly, but quietly, cared for those in need. And, if you've ever watched the movie Shadowlands (Anthony Hopkins) which chronicles the end of Lewis' life dealing with the death of his wife, the book provides a more accurate and detailed handling of that time period (In the movie, Lewis is nebulously portrayed as having given up his faith, whereas in real-life, his struggle was more like that of the Psalmists - moving from despair toward hope and thanksgiving).

#2 - A Proverbs-Driven Life by Anthony Selvaggio. 201 pages. I read Proverbs in conjunction with 1 Corinthians over the Summer (the theme of wisdom being paramount in both). Thus, this book was a handy guide. Great chapters on friendship, making wise choice of a spouse, marital faithfulness, and childrearing. 


#3 - Autobiography of George Mueller, or a Million and a Half in Answer to Prayer. George Mueller is known for setting up scores of Orphanages throughout England in the early to mid 1800s. But what's truly remarkable about this man is his prayer life. I kept writing in the margins: "Didn't leave God alone" "Didn't leave God alone" (x20). And as a result, God did not leave George Mueller alone. If you want to be inspired in your prayer life with both a lofty and authentic example, try this on for size. You can also read a shorter version which has compiled "highlights" of his autobiography - it's called Answers to Prayer. And, yeah, he had a neck beard...and pulled it off!

#4 - The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson.272 pages. I don't just read stuff from the Family Christian Book Stores (besides, those places are kind of a rip-off, unless you like "Testa-mints"). I love to read about what makes people tick - why people do/think/feel as they do. Does your boss (or pastor??) demonstrate: Glibness/superficial charm, Grandiose sense of self-worth, Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom. These are the first three items on the Psychopath Test developed by Bob Hare and utilized around the world to help identify psychopaths and sociopaths. Jon Ronson, a journalist who also wrote The Men who Stare at Goats, is hilarious as he attempts to hunt down and speak with psychopaths, tries to figure out what's legit in the madness industry, attempts to ascertain if he's a psychopath, and discovers that CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies are far more likely to be psychopaths than your average Joe or Josephine.


Okay enough of that, I promised the peeps of Sunrise Community Church some pictures from our Oelschlager Summer Adventures (Grandiose sense of self-worth??):

Ziplining with Katie's side of family (Yes, all those people are related)

Mason's first time surfing.

Katie tubing on North Carolina's Dan River. Gage overwhelmed by life preserver.
River-tubing in the U.S. South has quite a clientele let me tell you.

Boogie-board Racing with my Dad
(he had a head start..I eventually won...should I really be writing about this?)

At one point, there were 10 children in this inflatable pool which was tenuously held up by duct tape
as the children continuously (and joyously?) walked in a synchronized circle.

U.S. Independence Day Celebration (4th of July).
We never really seemed to ride the bikes - just walked them along in a hot, slow death march.
Yes, I'm related to a (young) Uncle Sam

Bros.

A Sunday Follow-up: What to do with my Swagger?

Joan Rivers, here at her 140th birthday party,
is impervious to pain.

I have a pick-up basketball game I play in most Thursday evenings. If playing well, I'll stay for an hour or more; if I'm playing poorly, I'll stay for 30-45 minutes and talk about how much I miss my kids who probably want a father to put them to bed. But seriously, while I am only in my thirties, I am jeered as the old guy at these games (there is one guy who is older, but he's so much older he's impervious to jokes about his age -- much like Joan Rivers). Anywho, my best hoop years are behind me but once in a while I can bring the thunder...or at least mild rain shower. Such was the case this past Thursday. I had a good groove going: steals, cold-blooded jump shots and...I barely had to play defense. A perfect trifecta.


I had an old feeling arise at this moment. It was convinced it wasn't temptation. In fact, it felt pretty pure. It was the desire to stick out my chest, strut my 'stuff', show a little swagger (and not the Old Spice Deodorant & Body Wash that goes by the same name...that stuff smells like rubbing alcohol). After making a jump shot, I felt like thumping my chest (see below) or giving the "ok" sign around my right eye, which says to your opponent:  "I don't know if you realize this, but I just made a 3-pointer right in your eye..." (see below).

 Let me back up for a minute. It was an awesome privilege this past Sunday to preach about God's glorious grace and how He uses it to help both individual persons and churches grows. But for some, as it was for those attending the synagogue in Nazareth listening to Jesus' ignaugural address in Luke 4: 16-30, grace can become a bitter pill to swallow. One of the reasons is that we start to trust in self and own ability to do good and, even while we give God credit still for all the BIG stuff, we hold one to little shreds    of "I did good" (a.k.a. self-righteousness) for ourselves. In doing so, we begin to erect a separate (lower) tier of Christians for those who don't follow rules quite as well as we do.


But even as I preached this and even told myself: "Every single good thing comes from Jesus not from you, Ryan...stay humble...,"  I was haunted by the occasional desire to swagger, to boast as evidenced just a few days earlier in this basketball game. I think if you are of the male gender and reading this you might relate to this desire especially. On Sunday Night, during a really cool worship event I attended, God's Spirit led me to a passage in Galatians and not only did it help me with this boasting issue but with another one as well, which is this:

The God of the Bible does not mean to neuter desires, only re-direct them.

I spoke recently on Easter Sunday about this same concept, but at that time specifically with regard to pleasures. Our problem isn't a failure to deny ourselves of pleasure, it's that our ultimate pleasures are too low, too base when we have God who means for us to re-direct our quest for pleasure to find a far higher and more lasting pleasure in Him. As the David prayed in the Psalter, "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).


But I think we often get stuck believing in a caricature of God who engages in the never-ending quest to neuter all these desires (and sometimes, for those of us who are married, it seems our spouse is trying to do the same thing!).


Let's work through Galatians 6: 13-16. I'll try and let it speak sufficiently.

"For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they 

desire to have circumcised that they may boast in your flesh" (v.13)

 Okay, so first, we see this natural desire to boast, here directed toward self. These false teachers are folks who are not content with salvation and inclusion into a church by faith alone but by faith plus additional rules (in this case, getting circumcised). By adding rules and people to join with them in that mission, they create a two-tier system of community and are able to safely distinguish themselves from that lower tier. They will boast in themselves and continue to gain bragging rights when others come to their senses and join them. All by just adding a simple extra condition or moral rule as a requirement to be a more genuine Christian. Such diminishment of pure grace is why the brilliant G.K. Chesterton once remarked: "If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals."

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, 

by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (v.14).

Like Paul, I was created to boast and the kind of boasting he describes is, indeed, worth thumping one's chest about. First of all, to so boast and "lose oneself" in the cross of Christ that it results in being dead to the world's pullings, schemes, marketing ploys, assumed 'everyone at least does this' indulgences, is an absolutely radically audacious statement. In fact, it reminds me a bit of what 20th cent. French philosopher Albert Camus tried to hint at but could only do so philosophically: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very act of existence becomes an act of rebellion."

Such is how Paul seemed to live because he struts and swaggers and sticks out his chest about the cross -- and it got under people's skin. 

Simultaneously, Paul can sit it is by this cross that he has died to the world -- who cannot possibly any longer perceive Paul as a typical, "unfree" next door neighbor, but as a radically free and audacious messenger of the Christ, who, for some, will be good news.

"For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new 

creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, 

and upon the Israel of God" (vv.15-16).

Okay, here's where things get really interesting. First, we're back to rules. But Paul says there is only one good rule when it comes to salvation & inclusion into God's community -- radically new persons who are changed by faith. Second, and here's where it gets really cool and God shows He's not in our lives to spay & neuter us, we see another desire re-directed. For all the rule-followers out there, the Lord isn't looking to quench or neuter your desire either but rather re-direct it. Become passionate, stick to, be insistent about a rule (but just this one): A criteria of a Christian is a person who changes on the inside because of their faith in Jesus. Rule-followers tend to be passionate and have convictions (your description of yourself if you are one) or stubborn, unyielding, and a pain in the rump (if you have a close friend or family member who is one). Rule-following is a God-exalting desire when one's passions, convictions, stubbornness are re-directed to this one thing: People trusting Christ, which leads to a change on the inside.


Praise be to God, who is so gracious in His dealings with us and so wise in His judgments -- even His decision to keep those desires within us burning strong.