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Like We Do
A common Christian abuse of Christmas poses in a spiritual position. The abuse occurs when Christians reluctantly, or refuse to, love others who don’t rise to the level of understanding that we think they should have about Christmas. In other words, since they don’t get Christmas like we do, they’re not worthy to share our Christmas joy. If only they would grow up, then we wouldn’t have to teach them a lesson by being so fussy.
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Word and Sacrament
Gospel ministers are sometimes referred to as ministers of the Word and sacrament. There’s no need to freak out over the word sacrament; here it means the same thing as ordinance. Not only in reference to the work of ministers, but all Reformed definitions of a church require these two elements as well, often including the third element of church discipline, which actually is hard to disentangle from the Word and sacrament.
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Our Familiar Celebrations
We often say that familiarity breeds contempt. Our contempt starts with that statement itself; it’s contemptible to hear about how easily we’re made contemptuous. But our condition is one in which we get dirty and forget about it, we develop callouses and live with them, we fall down and it’s easier to stay there. We need to be washed, we need to have the hard parts cut off or filed down, and we need to get back on our feet.
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Two Days with Jesus
How did the town of Sychar change after two days with Jesus (Johh 4:39-42)? Many of the townspeople believed in Him and knew that He was the Savior of the world. What type of transformations took place? In a small community, when a good number of people get their worship fixed, how could that not radically altar their day to day interactions?
We don’t know everything that Jesus explained to them.
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Hard to Take
It’s hard to take responsibility. It is much easier to push, not only blame, but to push work onto others. That’s no good. When we’re lazy, when we wait to see who else will serve first, we remove ourselves from the channel of joy.
God didn’t make us to be idle or to find others to do our work for us. He created us to labor. He often uses an agricultural metaphor to encourage us when He says that we will reap what we sow.
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Stoppers at the Wrong End
In John 4:31-38, Jesus told the disciples that His food was to finish the Father’s will as He worked in fields of souls to harvest the fruit of eternal life. We might be tempted to say that the food part was for Jesus alone. However, just as He was sent, so He sends. As He sowed and reaped eternal life, so we sow and reap eternal life. He says that the work was His food, and so it is for us as well.
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Free Subscriptions
I was talking with a friend this week who mentioned that he’d like to subscribe to the Void by email. I used to have a page for just such a thing but apparently it didn’t make the jump when I switched to Jekyll. So I’ve created a Subscribe page and changed the link in the header and added one in the footer for those who come in the future. In the meantime, enjoy a couple different ways to get the Void delivered to you, free of charge.
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A Gluten Free Option
Jesus told the woman at the well that true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth. He didn’t say anything about hymns and Christmas carols. He didn’t collect an offering or read Scripture. He prepared no prayers, no liturgy, no Lord’s day service plans. And He mentioned nothing about table fellowship.
Perhaps, then, we have missed the mark and corrupted the simplicity of “spirit and truth” worship. Maybe all our liturgical efforts are heavy trappings, vain repetitions no better than the gnat-straining Pharisees and white hat-wearing Popes.
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Our Side of the Pendulum
Is it more important that God is light or that God is love? Is it more necessary for us to know Him truly or for us to love Him deeply? These are tough questions, impossible questions. What God has joined together let no man tear asunder (separate).
Some men are quite sincere, authentic even. They believe and feel and experience. They look alive. They appear to really care. Heat radiates from them.
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Our Particular Sins
We thank God that the hour has already come where we don’t concern ourselves with worshipping on Mt. Gerizim or Mt. Zion (see John 4:16-26); neither location would be convenient for us. Fellowship with God is not limited to one particular place. Worship, though, still has particulars. He is a particular God, not a pluralistic God. We come to the Father only through His Son, the Messiah.
In particular, the Messiah has come and we have fewer reasons than ever to wonder about God’s promises.
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Informing the Trinity
Who do we confess for? I don’t mean, do we confess for someone else’s sin or for our own. Instead I mean, do we confess for our sake or for God’s sake? Who needs the confession?
God already knows all our sin. He is omniscient, yes. Jesus knew the sin of the woman in John 4 before He met her at the well. But also, if the Father poured out judgment on His Son for the sins of all who would ever believe, then He had to know all of the sins that Jesus needed to pay for.
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53 Times a Year
Every Lord’s day when our church celebrates communion, I pray twice. We normally don’t do that at home, praying once before the meal and then again in the middle of it. In this practice we are following Jesus’ pattern with two prayers of thanks.
Paul wrote, “on the night he was betrayed, [Jesus] took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you.
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Bullet Points Like Them
Thanksgiving is this week and it seems almost obligatory to address our weak attitudes of gratitude as an area for confession. It is true, we are probably not as thankful as we should be. I often feel as if I’m still sitting at the kids’ card table when it comes to thankful feasting for the Lord. But our personal half-hearts of thanksgiving are only half of the problem. Thanksgiving should be a weapon.
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Organizing Answers
A couple nights ago someone asked me if I thought that believers are lazy in sharing their faith. I answered, without a doubt, yes. I don’t think, however, that believers are lazy in terms of learning the way to evangelize like the Master, giving directions down the road in Romans, or carrying tracts to leave with the tip after dinner at Denny’s. I think believers are lazy mostly by failing to cultivate their faith, hallow Christ as Lord, and grow in hope that would make others ask what’s going on (1 Peter 3:15).
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Emblems of Both
All the ones believing in the Son see life. All the ones not obeying the Son remain under God’s wrath. When Christians come to the Lord’s supper we see the emblems of both life and wrath.
The bread and the cup symbolize the body and blood of the Lord. He took on flesh and lived among us. More than that, He took on our sin and bore God’s wrath in the flesh.
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Negotiating Submission
No one can negotiate the past. A person may not like the past. They may wish it was different than it was. They may try to forget about it. They may tell another version of the story. They may want to run far away from it. But they can’t do anything about it. What has happened can’t be changed. History is the record of reality before now, and we can’t bargain to modify a different past for ourselves.
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Right up the Middle
The apostle John wrote:
Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world–our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)
So, as Christians, we should go and overcome. If we have faith like a grain of mustard seed, we will say to a mountain, “move from here to there” and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for us.
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Toppling by Table
One theme we keep repeating during our communion is the depth of the ditch of self-examination; we’re never quite sure when to stop digging, when we’ve hit the bottom. Eating and drinking in an unworthy manner warrant’s God’s discipline, so we ought not to come to this Table casually, let alone under the impression that God invites us due to our credentials. Nevertheless, we fall into the ditch when we can only think about ourselves.
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He Gets What He Wants
John Calvin wrote that the heart of man produces idols like a factory, like Detroit produces cars: many makes and models that require more work than their worth. You and I were made to worship, and we will supply something or someone to meet that demand.
One of the gods of men that comes off the product line is the god named Attention. He has other names, too: Fame, Recognition, Approval, Popularity.
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The Kuyperian Vision of Christ's Lordship
I can’t remember being as excited about anything that wasn’t divinely inspired in a while. Though I’m always on the lookout for new audio to listen to while running, very few things make me want to run longer and faster. The following did. Two days in a row. I can’t recommend it too highly. I’ve already ordered the biography that is mentioned multiple times and plan to start reading it as soon as it arrives.