Doing Hard Things

My team at work has decided that it is going to try running a 5k this April. I told them about the running plan that Amanda used and they are intrigued. Now we'll see what happens.

I am a bit skeptical about this, but I hope that peer pressure will end up winning the day in the end. It's in the 40s today and drizzling. How many of my colleagues are going to run in this weather?

In other words, we have Gatorade commercials with athletes working very hard to achieve their goals. We have Under Armour commercials with athletes running the steps on the stadium. And so on. They really glorify the hard work that goes into performance. Yet it is clear that so few are willing to put in that kind of work.

That goes for me too. I don't always push myself enough when I run. I don't always dig as deeply into the Bible as I'd like. I don't always work as hard at loving my family as I should. I certainly don't dig as much as I could at work. And so on.

This whole experience brings a few things to mind for me:

• I need to watch out for pride as I run
• I need to push harder in areas where I know I need work
• I need to keep seeking insight into other areas where I need to push harder

I used to work with someone who had the motto "lean into it." I think that is a good motto for life. Am I willing to do it?

The Reason for Freedom

Psalms 9:13-14
(13) Be gracious to me, O LORD! See my affliction from those who hate me, O you who lift me up from the gates of death,
(14) that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation.

Why does God set sinners like me free? Why does He care about me and take care of me? He does it so that I may recount His praises. He does it so that He might be glorified in my witness about Him. I have a story to tell of God's goodness and love in my life. If I don't tell others about it then there is really very little reason for it. Otherwise it is all about me, and that is not what God had in mind when He set me free.

Of course, I get to enjoy the benefits of freedom, but I can't let it be all about me. I've got to sing His praises.

An Angry God

Psalms 7:11-13
(11) God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.
(12) If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow;
(13) he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

Many today reject the teaching of Jonathan Edwards' classic "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But look at how this paragraph:

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

Flows so naturally from the text I quoted. Edwards didn't pull his view of God out of thin air. Rather, he pulled it from the text of the Bible.

So where do we get the current vision of God as one of nothing but love and hold the wrath? What happened to God's justice and wrath? Without it we have no need for the gospel. We may as well go to Dr. Phil as well as the Bible if all the gospel is for is self-improvement.

How Can We Stop?

Acts 4:15-21
(15) But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another,
(16) saying, "What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.
(17) But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name."
(18) So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
(19) But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,
(20) for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard."
(21) And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.

I feel like verse 20 is maybe a bit overquoted sometimes. However, it is a fantastic reminder of what genuine faith is supposed to look like. Peter and John were strictly forbidden from spreading the gospel any further. Yet because of what they knew to be true they just could not help but tell people about Jesus.

It's taken me a while, but I think I'm starting to get there. I can't believe how long I let myself be oppressed by some emergent thinking. I think that long period of my life helped me to perhaps soften my approach just a bit. I'm less of a jerk with family now, for example. However, in the end, I realize that I am mandated to spread the message of the gospel. After all, there is that speeding truck that is going to crush anyone who wanders out into the street. This is true even if they are ignorant.

Finding Grace

Genesis 6:5-9
(5) The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
(6) And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
(7) So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them."
(8) But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
(9) These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

The typical Sunday School curriculum inverts verses 8 and 9. The general idea is that Noah was an exception to all the wickedness in the world and, therefore, he found favor in the eyes of the Lord. However, I don't think that is what the text says. It looks to me like for some reason Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord and then he was a righteous man. We learn later that Noah liked to hit the bottle from time to time. That hardly sounds like he was perfect and that is why he found favor, does it?

In other words, everything starts with God's grace. The word translated "favor" could also mean "grace." It started with God choosing Noah and then Noah became righteous.

We need to be careful about inverting this order. Otherwise we might begin to think that God is really lucky to have us on His team when we forget that He is the one who chose us for the team in the first place.