The Empty Famish of Letting Go

I was going through some of my books the other day and came across a book that pretty heavily influenced me when I was first a believer: Brother Lawrence's Practice in the Presence of God. I thought I'd give it a quick look.

It's interesting to see some of the things I underlined 8-10 years ago. It's also interesting to see how much my theology has changed since then. When I first read this book I ate it up. Now I think I vomit it out. Okay, maybe that was a little strong. You'll have to forgive me. Reading back over this helped me to see where some of my serious frustrations and doubts came from early on in my Christian walk.

What Brother Lawrence means by “practicing God’s presence” is to be in a state of constant conversation and communion with the eternal God.  Which I’d never say is a bad thing.  It’s all of the muck around it that caused me problems.  Take this quote for example:

“I still believe that all spiritual life consists of practicing God’s presence and that anyone who practices it correctly will soon attain spiritual fulfillment.  To accomplish this, it is necessary for the heart to be emptied of everything that would offend God.  He wants to possess our hearts completely.  Before any work can be done in our souls, God must be totally in control.

Where Spiritual Fulfillment is Found

Do you see any “red-flags”? 

First, notice where “spiritual fulfillment” is found.  It’s not in the finished work of Christ.  Spiritual fulfillment, if I read him correctly, is something that is to be attained.  This type of theology breeds a discontentment that always seeks for a “deeper level” and a “deeper experience and fulfillment”.

The New Testament picture is that our fulfillment has been purchased.  We already have it.  The Christian life is about living in what is already purchased.  There is an earth-shattering yet subtle difference between battling to enjoy all that Christ already purchased and battling to attain an opportunity that Christ made possible. 

The Means of Attaining

Second, notice the means for attaining this spiritual fulfillment.  “The heart needs to be emptied of everything that offends God.”  If he is speaking to an unbeliever then I could more quickly embrace this, but he is not.  For Brother Lawrence if we want to see God working in our lives and experience His presence, then God must be totally in control. 

That sounds so good doesn’t it?  It sounds even like something Jesus would say:  “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  Let God have everything, totally surrender, and then you will see God move in your life. 

Here’s the problem, though, unless God IS working you will not totally surrender--you will not give God everything.  Such a thing is not a precursor to God moving…it IS God moving! 

The Soul-Crushing Effects

Perhaps you could say that I simply misread and misapplied this “Christian classic”.  That could be.  But this book—along with many other similar books—was a negative shaping influence on me. 

For the first couple of years of my Christian walk I was always striving to reach that next level.  I lived frustrated and never able to be satisfied in Jesus.  It practically ran me crazy.  I wanted to be “sold-out” “on fire” all of those other things.  I also wanted other people to be those things.  But I never could attain it.  I never could get myself to “totally surrender”.  The only thing I surrendered was any hope that I’d ever be able to “experience God” how I wanted to.

Then the gospel happened.  Psalm 103 rocked my world.  My eyes opened up and I saw that Christ already had purchased everything.  Of course my battle was still intense.  Now I have to fight to take hold of what Christ has already done.  But, as I think David Platt has said, I fight from victory and not for it.  Huge difference. 

If you’ve been famished by this “let go and let God” stuff, I encourage you to feast on the gospel.

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If this topic peaks your interest a really neat resource that I hope to purchase soon is this book by Andy Naselli.  Or you can check out some of his online resources here.

Mustaches and Book Burning

I am certain that you have heard all the hubbub about the church burning copies of the Koran.  Here are several insightful articles on why believers should not support this utter ridiculousness. 

Dr. Mohler’s The Briefing

Tony Reinke’s 6 Reasons

Jimmy Snowden’s insightful statement

James Galyon encourages us to pray for its cancellation

Andrew Lisi tells us to burn couches, not the Quran

Carl Trueman also weighs in

But in my opinion this whole thing could have been avoided if we would have remembered that fateful day of July 7, 1996.  Here’s the video:

I learned from that day forward, never trust a man with a horseshoe mustache (or a Hungarian variety for that matter).  If those following Terry Jones would have learned this principle in ‘96 then it would just be one guy burning books.  And not this:

Examples in Gospel Neutering

Yesterday I made this statement:

The Corinthians attempted to blend the gospel with the thriving, competitive, and self-sufficient Corinthian culture.  As a result they were in danger of losing the gospel.  Rather than unleashing the power of the gospel they were neutering it.  And we do the exact same thing when we try to be “somebodies” to show that Christianity is a “somebody” type of faith.  A crucified king is “foolish” lets just admit that. 

I thought it may be beneficial to give a few examples of how we do this in our day:

Whenever we try really hard to show unbelievers that Christians can be cool.  The entire reason why we hang out with unbelievers, watch certain television programs, and listen to certain music is to prove to a watching world that Christians aren’t boring.  We can be fun too.  That’s all well and good until our “coolness” morphs into worldliness.  You do not win people to the gospel by being worldly.  You might convince them that you are cool, but I am not certain you will convince them that Christ is mighty to save. 

I have heard stories of televangelists soaking up air conditioning in luxury hotels in the third world countries as a display of the power of God in blessing people.  Whenever we think that we have to look glamorous to make Christ look beautiful we have missed the gospel entirely. 

If we are convinced that what the world really needs is a cogent and fine-sounding argument for the validity of Christianity, the existence of  God, the historicity of the resurrection, etc. then I think we are moving away from Paul’s primary means of apologetics.  This is not to say that Christianity is based upon blind faith devoid of reason.  This is to say that Christianity is founded upon claims that the unregenerate finds foolish.  So while you are studying how to tackle the logic of Epicurus, pray that the Lord may tackle the depravity of heart. 

What are your suggestions????

What a Lame Gospel Produces

Over the past week I have heard Christian Smith quoted a few times.  His study on the beliefs of teens in America can be labeled as “moralistic therapeutic deism”.  Dr. Mohler has summed up Smith’s book, Soul Searching , quite well.  You can view that summary here.  This “moralistic therapeutic deism” can be summed up in five points:

1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth."
2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions."
3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself."
4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem."
5. "Good people go to heaven when they die."

These views do not just happen.  These views are cultivated.  Of course we can blame several cultural things like television, movies, music, and more.  But these are just a reflection of the culture at large.  Music does not have a view of God and the gospel—musicians do.  Your television does not display a false gospel—actors and writers do.  And there are a myriad of things influencing actors, writers, musicians, athletes, and all other cultural influencers.
What I have a heart for—and what I think can actually change the world—is the local church and our faithfulness to the proclamation of the gospel.  Our kids (yes, church kids) have a “moralistic therapeutic deism” because they watch their parents display such a belief with their lives and their lips.  A lame gospel inevitably produces rotten fruit. 
UPDATE:
I am going a different direction with this. So, if you were looking forward to those 5 posts, I apologize. But I will be considering this idea of moralistic therapeutic deism over the next few weeks. Once I get a little clarity I will create a post that serves as a hub for all of these thoughts. But the point of this post still stands A lame gospel inevitably produces rotten fruit.

Today in Blogworld 12/10

I am sitting here trying to figure out how to interact with Time Magazine's article on Rob Bell. (HT: JT) In it he is heralded as potentially "one of the most important leaders of the 21st century". Indeed with a church that tops 11,000 he has considerable influence. My concern lies in this quote: "the faith needs someone who can defend its tenets in the argot [specialized vocabulary] of the day". If Bell is hoping to be that man then he is falling way short. If you want a little more information on Bell's doctrine I suggest checking out Mark Sohmer's review of Velvet Elvis. In it he categorizes the errors as follows: Under heresy we see a wrong view of the Trinity, Exclusivity of Christianity, mankind, and the gospel; under aberrant theology we see a wrong view of Jesus' purpose, heaven and hell, rabbinc judaism, hermeneutics, and influences.
So, as I am trying to think of how to interact with this article I am struggling with knowing whether or not to dismiss Bell as a dangerous heretic or a brother with aberrant theology. All I know is this--I will not be suggesting his books or Nooma videos to the sheep God has entrusted to my care.

Also, over the weekend Mark Dever wrote an article about the gospel. To be honest, I am not certain I understand it. His central thesis is this: "It is very important to [mentally] divorce the gospel from its implications and entailments. [Do NOT divorce these in your life and practice--that is James 2 hypocrisy!]" I think my problem lies in wondering what Dever means by "implications and entailments". If you read the comments I apparently am not the only one. I await Mark's response. My take so far is this: Dever is simply saying that our ministries should be comprised of preaching Christ and Him crucified and THAT is the gospel. It seems to me that his "rebuke" is not aimed at social gospel adherents or vague presentations of the Emerging Church. It seems to me that his rebuke is towards those of us who are so passionate about saying all of the right words that rather than just preaching the gospel we go into really lengthy discourses and reject formulations such as the God-man-Christ-response. All in all, I am awaiting Dever's more in depth explanation of this comment. It is probably a profound one but as it stands it is far too vague and leaves open far too many questions.

That's all that we have so far today. I would also like to give a woohoo! to the Cleveland Browns who are now 8-5!! For those Chiefs and Rams fans who tease me for being a Browns fan I will not gloat that the Rams and Chiefs combined have 1 less win than the Browns. The Brownies are playoff bound and I'm happy--and I am hoping that it's first round Pittsburgh vs. Cleveland. How sweet it would be to walk into Pittsburgh and beat them senseless! (By the way, I think being a Cleveland Browns fan is proof that I have a big view of God--what hope could I have unless I believed in the sovereignty of God?!?!?) Oh, also if you are a lover of fantasy baseball then go to Fantasy Baseball Heaven and join a winter league comprised of all those old-timey players...looks like it could be fun.