I have heard it said, "God didn't die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans." This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They aren't bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.

There is only one explanation for God's sacrifice for us. It is not us. It is "the riches of his grace" (Ephesians 1:7). It is all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is the overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely, his infinite beauty.

- John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

"We are sitcom people serving the God of epic novels."

- Jared Wilson, Your Jesus is Too Safe

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

- Exodus 3:13-14

I'm starting a teaching series in College and Young Singles this weekend on the seven "I Am" statements of Jesus in the book of John. I can't wait and I hope it goes well. I'm going to start with the passage above, as an introduction, with it's surrounding context.

There's so much here. So much. Two things jump out at me on just a cursory re-reading of this passage.

1. The people of Israel are truly without a shepherd. They feel abandoned, and they have no foundation, They don't really know the God of their fathers very well. Moses is concerned, and he needs a name.

Does that speak to you? How alone are you in the universe when God is such a stranger to you? But even in their loneliness and desperation the Hebrews have cried out to the God they barely knew, and He has heard them.

2. In answer to the "What's your name?" question, God answers "I am who I am". I don't have anything very profound to say here, other than just to say that God is cool. And I don't mean cool in the acid-washed, frosted tips, ipod buds in your ears, shirt untucked, tat with a gotee way. I mean it in the "when I read that, my jaw drops and I say 'wow . . . that's cool'" way. God said "I AM", because what better way is there to describe the eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, creator-God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End? He is. And because He is, we are.

And the sooner we acknowledge that, the better.

I'm looking forward to this.

Blake and I are watching the Chronicles of Narnia. We just watched the scene where Father Christmas comes upon the children and the Beavers in the wood beyond the frozen field.

I'm such a sap . . . I found myself misting up as Lucy looked with joy upon the bringer of gifts. Redemption came upon them suddenly, and in that moment they were granted the tools they needed to persevere. A dagger, a bow, a sword, a horn to bring help, a healing elixir.

That spoke to me.

Nastasya Filippovna turned with curiosity to Myshkin.

"Is that true?" she asked.

It's true," whispered Myshkin.

"Will you take me as I am, with nothing?"

"I will, Nastasya Filippovna."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

This is the wonderful hymn Be Thou My Vision in Gaelic.



[Hat Tip: Sherry (who also has a lot more on Be Thou My Vision at her place)]

More posts that strike themes similar to my last post:

Russell Moore, as quoted at The Spyglass:

Where the Wild Things Are isn’t going to be a classic movie the way it is a classic book. But the Christian discomfort with wildness will be with us for a while. And it’s the reason too many of our children find Maurice Sendak more realistic than Sunday school.

Too many of our Bible study curricula for children declaw the Bible, excising all the snakes and dragons and wildness. We reduce the Bible to a set of ethical guidelines and a text on how gentle and kind Jesus is. The problem is, our kids know there are monsters out there. God put that awareness in them. They’re looking for a sheep-herding dragon-slayer, the One who can put all the wild things under His feet.

My friend Danielle, up on her soapbox:

During class we were supposed to get in groups and discuss what we thought kids need to know by that stage in their lives, and honestly, I was kind of appalled by the answers I heard. I mean at face-value they were all okay answers, but they just really struck me as complete garbage.

Here are some of the first ones I heard...

- actions speak louder than words
- how to be a good person
- how to be obedient

I mean seriously, are you kidding me?! One girl had the audacity to call me "harsh" because I said that they need to know that they are sinners. How can anyone have an appreciation or understanding of salvation without first knowing what sin is and that they are a sinner?

. . .

I guess the reason it frustrated me so much was because I was thinking of my own (future/potential) children. I don't want my ten/eleven/twelve year old thinking that "being a good person" or being "obedient" means anything without having a personal, intimate relationship with Christ. I mean sure, I want obedient children ;), but in the grand scheme of things that would not be on the top of my list.

My group mentioned Jesus once (minus my submissions) . And the one time they mentioned Him, the exact words were "...to know Jesus died on a cross". Seriously, that was it. No explanation of His life and why He had to die on a cross, no emphasis on salvation or the Gospel...just flat historical facts.

. . .

I'm not saying every church should try to scare their kids, or anything like that, but if the thought of Hell scares them...well, it should! Children can be taught all kinds of things as long as they are taught in love and kindness. Give kids the opportunity to understand, instead of withholding Truth from them. Offer them the whole Gospel, not just cartoons or cut-and-dry facts. I know I probably sound like some hardcore beat-truth-into-them type of lady, but I hate the thought of kids wasting what can be the most influential years of growth on pointless trivia or partial Truth.

A great band, from Supernatural, a superb album.

And this hits me, on so many levels.

(does anyone else pick up the heavy Pink Floyd influence in the bridge?)

In Christ alone my hope is found.

I haven't read Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, but Sherry posted this quote from it and . . . well, Bam!

“The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me.”

My notes on Matthew 6:19-34 are here. I was privileged to teach on this today.

Being a fully integrated citizen of God's kingdom frees us from the rat-race that the human race has been frantically running since the Fall. Here Jesus offers a beautiful promise: if we will be about God's work and Kingdom living, and will make those things our focus, we will be free from anxiety. The Lord will provide.

So true, though it's tough to live like it.

Eldest daughter shares some good thoughts and questions about ministry:

I think that instead of trying to get lost people into the church, why not train the Christians inside the church to go get 'em, share the Truth with them outside the church, and then bring them in whenever they are saved? I haven't done much research on this, but did the early church gatherings ever involve lost people? Not to say that I would say that we should block them out, of course, or make it exclusive, but I think that maybe we've gotten to the point where we consider inviting our friends to church witnessing to them, trusting that the pastor will share the Truth with them. At least I know that I've felt that way before. Acts does say that the number of people who were being saved were being added to them every day, but what if that means that the Church - the body of Christ - was a light, and took to the world the Love, Hope and Faith.

Her post also includes a review of Your Jesus is Too Safe. Good readin'.

Tomorrow I'm teaching Matthew 5:33-42 in a continuing series on the sermon on the mount. The Sermon is blasting away at me, in lots of good ways. If you're interested in reading my notes for tomorrow, such as they are, you can find them here.

While I've long realized and taught that Jesus performed the sermon in his life, and especially in his passion, the thought hit me as I studied today that I probably haven't realized the extent to which he lived out his teaching.

This hit me square in the face this morning:

And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

- Matthew 5:40

. . .

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,

“They divided my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.”

- John 19:23-24

Jesus gave it all.

Let's be frank: if you find the message of Jesus easy to digest, you'd better check the label on the box. You may be consuming a diluted version of Christianity. The message of Jesus - that he himself is life and you can't get it anywhere else, least of all in yourself - is the hardest message we could ever hear, because it goes completely against our perceptions and conceptions, our prejudices and our opinions. It goes radically against the bent of our souls.

- Jared Wilson, Your Jesus is Too Safe, Chapter 1.

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

- Psalm 118:24

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

- Romans 12:1 (ESV)

Romans 12:1 follows Romans chapters 1 through 11, in which Paul has systematically expounded on God's great mercies toward us. Paul's audience, which included converted Roman pagans, no doubt caught his stunning reversal of the concept of sacrifice when compared to the millennia-long practice of sacrifice that they knew well.

For a pagan (and, sadly, for many of us that call ourselves Christians), sacrifice is something we do to gain the favor of the gods. Love and mercy are foreign concepts to normal modes of sacrifice. Sacrifice to a pagan is a transaction, a trade. And sacrifice usually involves blood and death.

But by the mercies of God, this is not the sacrifice that we are called to. Rather than spill blood in order to satiate and gain favor from the gods, we have had the Lord's favor bestowed on us through his grace alone. Dwell on his mercy, gain a small understanding of his overwhelming love, and we find ourselves bowed before him in worship, awed by his great gifts to us.

And it is in this desire to worship, which goes so far beyond (and often has nothing to do with) singing to him, that Paul urges us to the beautiful righting of an upside down pagan vision: not a dead sacrifice caked with blood and flames, but rather a living sacrifice. joyfully and freely given to the Lord who has no need for anything, and who indeed has already given his all to us.

It's the moment by moment sacrifice of a life fully yielded; a beautiful work of art offered to the master Craftsman who made it.

Holy and acceptable.

That's worship.

Update: here's eldest son's take on this verse.

"The idea I meant to develop was that God seems to favor using swords for plowshares, and plowshares for swords, and shepherds' slings for artillery, and cowards for heroes."

- from Lars Walker's excellent novel, Wolf Time

As my kids could probably tell you, I've been somewhat conflicted for the last few years about music in general and modern evangelical church worship in particular. This comes on the heels of seven very challenging and extremely fulfilling years working with student worship bands. I'll never lose those memories. In hindsight (and every other kind of sight) I still look back on those years as wonderful and, for the most part, right where God wanted me. But that doesn't mean that I have little, niggling doubts about some of the things I took part in back then, and the worship culture I experienced.

I can't articulate them very well. But the iMonk does, here. Good read.

I was talking to my mother in law today about how many young people seem to either not take their faith seriously or just lose it entirely when they come of age. Many, not all, of course. Lots of anecdotal evidence feeds into this opinion, such as my eldest son telling me recently that he only has one friend who really prays (she's a Godsend, by the way).

My MIL's reply was very wise: "Maybe they still don't understand that they need to be saved."

So true. We live in peace and plenty, even in our current "hard times" (which are, historically speaking, still very mild).

Why accept the Lordship of a Savior when it's so easy to remain your own personal lord and your own personal savior?

Pray for our younger generation. For my entire Christian life, I've heard Christian young people declare "we can be the generation that changes the world for Christ."

It's been a long while since I've heard that sentiment. May they, and we, wake up.

My memory verse this week:

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, you will remain;
They will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away
But you are the same, and your years have no end.

- Psalm 102:25-27

I was talking to my uncle last week. He is educated in particle physics, subatomic particles and processes, the cosmos, etc. I know a little bit (but only a little bit) about that stuff as well. Frankly, it's mind-blowing. At that level, we're talking about things that exist in dimensions we can't comprehend. For instance, did you know that if you take two subatomic particles and put a spin on one so that it affects the other (i.e., gets it spinning too), and then move them a few light years away from each other and change the spin on the first one, the second one will also change its spin?

I'm still trying to figure out how you get something that small spinning in the first place, and how you can tell which way it's spinning, and if maybe the physicists are just making this stuff up to have a little fun with us.

But, all kidding aside, it's natural to sink down in wonder as we learn more and more about the cosmos. I think that many of those who don't believe in God find the cosmos, the vast distances, the incomprehensible age, and the whole jaw-dropping complexity and marvel of quantum physics, quarks, black holes, galaxies, somehow to be an assurance that God can't exist. It's all just too big. We're too small.

I, however, am with the Psalmist. To a degree that the Psalmist probably couldn't comprehend, and I certainly can't either, our God is awesome. We have a God who is so big, so skilled, and so creative; the heavens really do declare his glory and show forth his handiwork. If our God is true - this great Craftsman, Designer, Programmer, Biologist, Physicist, Chemist that we worship - then he is beyond our comprehension. And yet he stoops down to comprehend, or, as the Bible would put it, know us, and allow us to start to know him.

In the Superman comic book, it's interesting to see how the character of Superman evolved. Originally, when the character was first created, he could run really fast. If memory serves, that's kind of how he flew; he just launched himself. He was impervious to bullets, and was really strong. But his powers grew with the telling, and it wasn't long before he was portrayed flying and surviving in the vacuum of space, surviving nuclear blasts, and moving whole worlds.

Not so with the Lord. The very first line of Scripture establishes his power: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". His tale doesn't grow in the telling, both because it's not a tale at all, but the truth, and because it's already beyond our comprehension. He created all this vast complexity and beauty we see, and he will outlast his creation.

And he knows me, and lets himself be known. Praise be to God.