Loss

Have you ever lost something very important? I guess all of us have. Some have lost things greater than others, or at least we think so. Have there been things you lost that after the passage of time didn’t really seem like a big deal?

I lost my hair and I am trying to lose some weight. I lost my mother twice. My birth mother was gone after my birth and my adopted mother died when I was 16.

I have lost children. I would have four more children if death hadn’t snatched them away before birth.

I’ve lost many years and moments that could have been shared with my family if I hadn’t been lost in the little world of me.

I lost most of my tools when my work van was broken into. Many of them were passed down from my Dad.

I have never lost a fortune although I have never had one to lose. I have never lost a wife through death or divorce. I have never lost the contents of our house in a fire. I have never lost my wallet or the car keys.

I found out yesterday that I lost something that was very important me. Partly through my error and partly through bad programming every comment left on this blog for the past four years is now gone. I don’t think there is anything that can be done to bring them back.

There were comments that told me I was stupid or misinformed. There were even some that said what I wrote was meaningful. It stings that all of these are gone because many times they filled-out or balanced something I wrote. Now all that is left is me and some of the time that’s not a good thing.

As I think about all of this I am reminded how often I get things backward. I value and spend time on and am anxious for so many things that don’t really matter. I also neglect many things that have eternal value. I wish confession meant getting it right; it doesn’t so I know I will continue to mess up. I will trudge along or speed along; fully convinced I’m on the right path. I thank God for people along the way whose comments help set me straight.

Philip

The Grace of a Clean Heart

Thoughts from my reading in Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp. The devotional is indented and abbreviated.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Psalm 51:10

Could there be a more fundamental prayer request than this? Could there be anything more essential than this? Could there be any hope more beautiful than to believe that someday your heart and mine will be totally free from impurity of any kind? This is the most radical claim of all the claims of the gospel. This is the epicenter of what the cross of Jesus Christ alone can produce. This is the thing that the keeping of the law could never do.

This is the hope of every true Christian – to be pure before God. We keep the rules but we know it’s not just about the rules. We keep the rules because that’s what is in our heart.

Let's think about the theology of the heart that's behind David's request. Human beings have been made by God in two parts, the inner man and the outer man. The outer man is your physical self, your body. The body is the house you've been given for your heart. The inner man is given many names: mind, emotion, will, soul, spirit, to name a few. All of these terms are collected into one big basket term, heart. The heart is the control center of the human being. It's the center of your emotions, cognition, and desires. Essentially, what the Bible says is that the heart is the steering wheel of the human being. The heart controls, shapes, and directs everything you choose, say, and do. What controls the heart will therefore exercise unavoidable control over your behavior.

As a parent I’m always reminded (by my wife) that what’s important is the heart. We can force kids to do “right things” but what we really want is obedience from the heart. If the kids have right hearts the right behavior will follow. Now if only I could make their heart change.

What does this have to do with David's courageous request? David understands something that's fundamental to repentance. It's that sin isn't first a matter of behavior; it's first a matter of the heart. That's why Jesus said that to look at a woman and lust after her carries the moral value of the physical act of adultery. You see, since your heart guides your actions and words, if you allow your heart to lust, it won't be long before you commit the physical act.

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? In the same way it’s hard to understand heart versus behavior. Speaking of lust, you may innocently come across an image in a magazine or billboard. To look away and keep looking away may signify a pure heart or it may show incredible discipline when all inside wants to look. To take a second look may lead to lust. Where did the lust start? Was it already in the heart or did the behavior of a second look bring it about?

Or we could look at the other side of the coin. Worship is not first an activity. No, worship is first a position of the heart. It's only when my heart esteems God above everything else that I'll serve him with my time, energy, money, and strength. Impurity of the heart is not primarily about bad thoughts or bad desires. No, impurity of the heart is really about love for something in the creation replacing love that I was only ever meant to have for the Creator. And when I love something in creation more than I love God, I'll think, desire, say, and do bad things.

Again, there are many times we may have all the outward appearance of devotion to God but it may all be for show. We have to be careful how we look at other people. Do we judge them by the outward? I am surprised how many times people are elevated to various positions such as elder and deacon in churches because they are successful in business and wear a nice suit. In some cases their personal and home life are a mess but having them on the board looks good and may bring in some contributions. And many times the better qualified are overlooked because they don’t fit the image of success.

Now, what all of this means is that our biggest, most abiding, most life-shaping problem exists inside of us and not outside of us. What we actually need to be rescued from is us. What needs to be transformed in our lives is not so much our situation and relationships (although they need transformation as well). What really needs to be transformed are our hearts.

This is where we need to examine ourselves. With the help of God and good friends we can discover what our hearts are like.

Here's the gorgeous message of the gospel: even though I've bowed again and again to an endless catalog of God replacements, even though I've loved myself more than I've loved God, even though I've rebelled against God's kingdom and sought to set up my own kingdom, God comes to me in grace and wraps arms of love around me and begins a process that will result in the total transformation of the core of my personhood, the heart.

It’s encouraging that He pursues us and doesn’t give up. Sometimes it is a long, hard road.

So we wake up every morning knowing that by his grace our hearts are purer than they once were, and by his grace they'll be purer than they are today. So with thankfulness for the transformation that's already taken place and with the courage of hope of the transformation that's yet to come, we wake up, look to heaven, and say with David, "Create in me a clean heart."

Each day can be a little better than the one before.

Take a moment:

Celebrate the reality that your heart is purer than it once was as you pray for a further cleansing from the impurities that are still there.

Sometimes it’s hard to see change from close up. It’s easy to think that no progress is being made. Failures sap us of hope. The reality is that God is doing a work in us. I know I can look back through time and see the work He has done.

Philip


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Sunrise Celebration

I was driving across town this morning to a business meeting. It was a little before 7 am. The eastern sky was ablaze with orange and red. The sun was rising and a camera could never capture what my eyes were seeing.

I felt sad for people who are not awake at this time of morning. I thought how amazing that God brings in each new day with a celebration.

Isn’t that how we should live? The Bible tells us that God’s mercies are new each morning. He is ready to start each day fresh.

Let the sunrise be a reminder of the amazing grace, mercy and forgiveness of God.

Philip

The Hardening of the Heart

Thoughts from my reading in Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp. The devotional is indented.

Uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:12

Could there be a scarier spiritual dynamic than the hardening of the heart? Could anything be sadder to watch than a warm and tender man become cold and hard? Could anything be more spiritually dangerous than the capacity of a sinner to grow quite comfortable with doing what would have once assaulted his conscience? What's worse than coming to a place where you actually have the capacity to feel right about what God says is wrong? What could be more threatening than the thought that, as sinners, we have an amazing capacity to deceive ourselves? David's story is a case study of this kind of danger. David prays for a broken heart because, in his confession, he's realized that his heart has become hard.

An amazing capacity to deceive ourselves – If we really believe that, we will be very careful in what we allow to influence us. The gateway of our eyes, ears and senses need to be protected. Small compromises lead to huge disasters.

When you read the story in 2 Samuel 11 and the words of confession in Psalm 51, you can't help but ask, "How did David get from the anointed king of Israel to a murdering adulterer? How could this good man end up in such a bad place? Such is the dangerous deceitfulness of sin and the disaster of the hardening of the heart. Here's the thing we all need to remember: sin isn't an event; no, it's a progressive movement of the heart that results in disobedient behavior.

The progressive movement starts with the small movement; the little thing that causes a prick of conscience but is ignored or suppressed. Next time it’s easier and we sink a little deeper.

Let's consider David's story. David inadvertently saw Bathsheba bathing. The fact that he saw her wasn't sin, but what he did with what he saw began the process of sin. It's clear that David wasn't repulsed by the temptation. It's clear that he didn't seek God's help. Why is this clear? Because of what he does next. David sends a servant to try to find out who this woman is. This isn't the action of a man who's running away from temptation. David immediately begins to move toward what he knows is wrong, and so in his heart he would have to be justifying what he was doing. David finds out that this woman he was lusting after was married. But again he doesn't stop; he doesn't run. No, he uses his political power to bring her to the palace. What did David tell himself he was going to do next? How did he justify what he was about to do with a married woman?

There a lot of things in this story left unsaid. What kind of woman was Bathsheba who bared her body in a place where someone like David could see. Is she like the women today who prance about with breasts mostly exposed and clothes so tight or revealing that little is left to the imagination? How hard was it to persuade her to come and hang out with the king?

Did David see her one time or was her bathing a ritual that he observed on other occasions? Did he give in right away or did he turn away and then come back for another peek. My guess was that it wasn’t a big fall all at once. I imagine that he gave into the small things that became bigger things that enabled him to become very public in his actions in ways such as enlisting a servant to bring her to his bedroom.

As you read the story, at each point you want to scream, "David, stop; don't do what you're thinking of doing!" But he doesn't stop. Upon bringing Bathsheba to the palace he has sexual relations with her. As you read the account, you find it hard to believe that this is the same man that Samuel anointed to be king because of the character of his heart. But the plot thickens as Bathsheba becomes pregnant. Once more, instead of the pregnancy awakening David from his self-deception, it becomes the occasion of even deeper and greater sin.

Today we would have another quick solution for David that also leads to murder – abortion. An appointment could have been made that would have taken care of the problem and no one would have known.

David does his best to use Uriah to cover what he has done. If he can get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba then perhaps the pregnancy will be attributed to Uriah, and David's sin will be hidden. But Uriah refuses to participate in David's scheme. So what David does next, in lust-driven anger, is hard to imagine, even though by this time you know that sin now has a firm hold on him. David has his soldiers set up Uriah so that he'll die on the battlefield. And then David marries Bathsheba.

So Uriah was aborted and David marries Bathsheba. Talk about a dysfunctional situation; what kind of woman marries the killer of her husband? It’s clear that sin marred both of their lives. Did they somehow think that after all this they were going to live happily-ever-after?

Don’t we see the same today in adulterous situations where deception and scheming are essential? The lovers run around in darkness as families are destroyed. Children are sacrificed to the power of lust. When the dust settles, the couple goes on only to act surprised when one of them repeats the behavior with someone else.

It's a tawdry and disgusting story, one you wouldn't read if it were a paperback at your local bookstore. But the story is helpful, for it pictures how sin is a progressive system of sinful desire and self-deception. It stands as a pointed warning to us all.

I know you're like me, and you too would like to tell yourself that you're not like David; but you know you are. Like me, you too get attracted to things that are outside of the boundaries that God has set for you. Like me, you're quite skilled at covering, minimizing, rationalizing, justifying, defending, or otherwise explaining away your sin. Like me, you don't always stop at the first warning that something is wrong. You permit yourself to step even closer to evil, telling yourself that you'll be okay. Like me, you allow yourself to meditate on things you should repudiate. Like me, you participate in the hardening of your own heart even as you tell yourself that you can handle it, that you'll be okay.

As I think about this I see that we can’t do it by ourselves. We are no match for the deceptive power of sin. We need God’s power and we need good friends who will grab us by the neck when they see us straying. When things are good we need to give friends like these access to our lives – we sure won’t when we are on the way down. They can see what is normal and if things start to go bad they will know.

The physical acts of sin are not actually where the real action takes place. By this I don't mean that behavioral sin isn't sin. What I mean is that the real moral war of sin and obedience is fought on the turf of the heart. It's when the battle for the heart is lost that the battle of physical resistance to sin will be lost as well. When the heart becomes hard, the system of internal restraint that keeps one pure ceases to function as it was designed to function, and we say yes to that which God has called us to say no.

But there's hope for us. Jesus came to give sight to blind eyes. He came to release the captives from their prison. He came to give us new hearts. He came to break sin's dominion over us. He came so that we'd have the power to say, "No!" when temptation comes our way. He came so that we could live with open eyes and soft hearts. He came so that we could turn to him in confession and receive his forgiveness, just like David.

And just like David, we need community; God never intended for us to live alone. Victory comes as we join with the ones He has placed around us; the Lone Ranger is a myth.

A question from the meditation

Where has your conscience grown hard to something that ought to prick and trouble it? Conversely, is there a place where you have been unwilling to do what God is calling you to do?

Where am I blind to the answers? Can I even see when my heart is hard? Is the answer I would give only a smokescreen to hide what is really going on? I need friends and I need you Lord.

Philip


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