Meditations

“Above all, measure your progress by your improvement in love to God and man…It is the principle of love which disposes them to yield themselves up without reserve to the service of Him who has bought them with the price of His own blood…The bulk of nominal Christians…give no more than they dare withhold; they abstain from nothing but what they must practice…in short, they know Christianity only as a system of restraints…despoiled of every liberal and generous principle…But true Christians consider themselves not as satisfying some rigorous creditor, but as discharging a debt of gratitude.”

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians with the Higher and Middle Classes contrasted with Real Christianity (Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1815) 333-334.

“I define an ordinary saint as a person whose life cannot be discussed without also talking about the life of Jesus. A saint is one whose life makes no sense apart from God. When a person gets lost in the worship of this God, their life becomes lost in His service. The life of one who answer the call to worship the risen Son of God becomes something of an “outlier” in the world. Sadly, all too often, they become something of an anomaly in the Church. Some admire them without understanding them and say things like, “I really admire what you are doing.” Under their breath they whisper, “Better you than me.” Others quietly talk about the “waste” of their life.”

J.D. Walt in Called:?! Following a Future filled with the Possible (Asbury Theological Seminary: Seedbed Publishing, 2011) 17.

Does your obedience to Jesus Christ label you an “outlier” to the world and an “anomaly” in the church? That’s my prayer for myself and each of you reading this! May our lives makes no sense apart from God!

J.D. is my friend and an ordinary saint whose life is lost in God’s service. Check out his 21-day devotional: Called:?!

Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

I’ve creatively distances myself from this, namely, a strategic focus on the “treasures in heaven” with a blind eye to the contrary “treasures on earth,” addressing the spiritual list, ignoring the tangible list. But Jesus set these two in opposition, much like:

You can’t serve God and money.
You’re either a sheep or a goat.
There is only a wide road and a narrow road.
You either love your brother in Christ, or you’re a liar.

We’ve invented a thousand shades of gray, devising a comfortable Christian experience we can all live with—super awesome, except the Bible doesn’t support it. According to Scripture, no real disciple serves God while addicted to the dollar. There is no sheep/goat hybrid. There is no middle road. There is no true believer who hates his brother.

Grayed-down discipleship is an easier sell, but it created pretend Christians, obsessing over Scriptures we like while conspicuously ignoring the rest. Until God asks for everything and we answer, “It’s yours,” we don’t yet have ears to hear or eyes to see. We’re still deaf to the truth, blind to freedom, deceived by the treasures of the world, imagining them to be the key when they are actually the lock.

Jen Hatmaker, Seven: Clothes, Spending, Waste, Stress, Media, Possessions, Food – An Experimental Mutiny against Excess (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2012) 92-93.

“Whatever is not given is lost because, as we ourselves must one day die, all that we have clung to, to the very end, will die with us, but what we have given away will escape corruption for it has been sent ahead into eternity.”

Raniero Cantalmessa, Come, Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003) 86.

This morning I am in Franklin, TN, in the home of a dear brother, J.D. Walt. He authored, Creed, a seven-week reflection on the Apostle’s Creed, which Sammy and I read through this past Summer. J.D. is also a songwriter. Among his songs is Uncreated One made famous by Chris Tomlin.

J.D. was generous to give me this book, Come, Creator Spirit, which has significantly shaped his life. Based on the excerpt I read this morning, I commend it to you. Raniero Cantalmessa holds the role of “Preacher to the Papal Household” or in plain terms, he’s the Pope’s (and J.D.‘s) preacher.

J.D. serves as “Chief Sower” of Seedbed, Asbury Theological Seminary’s virtual field in which I have sown videos and resources for a Great Awakening. Last night J.D. spoke a powerful word: “We don’t give love because we have it; we have love because we give it.” Amen! Meditate on that today (cf. 1 Jn 4:11-12)!

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. Acts 4:32

“What you do with money and possessions declares loudly what sort of a community you are, and the statement made by the Early Church’s practice was clear and definite. No wonder they were able to give such a powerful testimony to the resurrection of Jesus.”

N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone part one, ch. 1-12 (London: SPCK, 2008), notes on Acts 4:32 on page 76.

“Forbid it, Lord, that our roots become too firmly attached to this earth, that we should fall in love with things. Help us to understand that the pilgrimage of life is but an introduction, a preface, a training school for what is to come.

Then shall we see all of life in its true perspective. Then shall we not fall in love with the things of time, but come to love the things that endure. Then shall we be saved from the tyranny of possessions, which we have no leisure to enjoy, of property whose care becomes a burden.

Give us we pray, the courage to simplify our lives.

So we may be mature in our faith, childlike but never childish, humble but never cringing, understanding but never conceited. So help us God, to live and not merely to exist, that we may have joy in our work. In Thy name, who alone can give us moderation and balance and zest for living, we pray. Amen.

Peter Marshall in Hymns for the Family of God (Franklin: Brentwood-Benson, 1976) #464.

“This sharing was not the result of legislation; it was utterly spontaneous. It is not when the law compels us to share but when the heart moves us to share that society is really Christian.”

William Barclay The New Daily Study Bible: Acts of the Apostles on Acts 4:23-31 in the third edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) 49.

“They choose to follow a handful of Old Testament texts in the Deuteronomic tradition, and ignore completely the unanimous witness of the New Testament, which portrays discipleship not in terms of worldly success, but in terms of radical obedience and service—service that involves the sharing of possessions rather than the accumulation of them. There is simply no gospel character to the claims of the prosperity gospel, no element of genuine Christian discipleship.”

Luke Timothy Johnson in Sharing Possessions: What Faith Demands second edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011) 28.

“Godly people must remember that in conscience before God, they are free from the curse of the law, sin, and death, for Christ’s sake; but as far as the body is concerned, they must serve one another in love. Each of us must try to do our duty in our own calling and help our neighbor to the utmost of our power…

Others, as soon as liberty is preached, infer that if they are free, they may do what they like. A thing is their own; why may they not sell it for as much as they can get? They do not obtain salvation by their good deeds, so why should they give anything to the poor? Thus they carelessly shake off the slavery of the flesh and turn the liberty of the Spirit into wantonness and fleshly liberty.

Such people use their bodies and their possessions as they desire, not helping the poor or lending to the needy, but bargaining, snatching, and scraping for themselves by hook or by crook whatever they can get. But even if they laugh us to scorn, we will tell them that they are not free, however much they boast of their liberty…

As for us, we have a commandment from God to preach the Gospel, which offers everyone liberty from the law, sin, death, and God’s wrath freely, for Christ’s sake, if they believe. It is not in our power to conceal or revoke this liberty now proclaimed by the Gospel, for Christ has given it to us freely and purchased it by his death. Nor can we constrain those swine who run headlong into all licentiousness to help other people with their bodies and possessions.

We do what we can; we tell them what they ought to do. If this does not work, we commit the matter to God…Meanwhile we take comfort from the fact that our labor is not lost as far as the godly are concerned.”

Alister McGrath and J.I. Packer in Galatians (Crossway Classic Commentaries): Martin Luther (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998) 262-263.

“There are 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage in America, or more than 7 square feet for every man, woman and child… It’s now “physically possible that every American could stand–all at the same time—under the total canopy of self-storage roofing,” boast the Self Storage Association. There are about 51,000 storage facilities in the country—more than four times the number of McDonalds.

The storage shed is a symptom of our cluttered lives. Clutter is the cholesterol of the home; it’s clogging the hearth…We’re crowding ourselves out of our houses. And it’s not just stuff. Work has come home. Home offices are like small, overwhelmed rail yards, heaped with paper and tangled with cords for all the devices…Entertainment has come home, too. There are more TVs than people in the average home…

Somewhere in there, between the physical and virtual clutter, we are losing the ordinary qualities of home—the solitude to recollect, the time for families to talk…Clutter is choking our shelters. Is there any room left for us in our houses? … What’s keeping you from living?”

Howard Mansfield in “An American Dilemma: Your Clutter or Your Life” from the Denver Post, September 29, 2013.

I must thank my wife, Jenni, for clipping this article for me and for helping my family minimize clutter so our house is a sanctuary filled with God’s presence and plenty of space for living life!