faith for faith

He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find him the rest of the day. ~John Bunyan

I have heard it said many times in my short life that it does not matter at what time during the day that a person seeks for God insofar as he does it. While I might chalk my contradictory belief up to personal experience, I must say that I cannot agree more with the above quote by John Bunyan. For I have found that on the days when my bed felt the softest and when the snooze button was easiest to press that my spiritual life has suffered the most. For, on those undisciplined days, rather than waking up early with a mind set against the Adversary, I wake up with mindset of flippancy, desiring to simply make it through another work day and return home so that I might rest.

And I believe that this is the great goal of the Adversary, to make our lives appear mundane and insignificant so that our personal holiness appears insignificant. So, rather than realizing that our efforts against the flesh and for the glory of God in our trivial dealings are far from trivial, we look at each passing day as the world looks at each passing day–without regard for God or eternity.

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As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all (Rm. 11:28-32).

[Warning: Post is at present unedited] This passage of Scripture is perhaps one of the most difficult passages in Romans, perhaps in all of Scripture, to grasp. It is so because of the language that is used in it– language that is complicated by our natural tendency to assign strict definitions to words that do not in themselves demand strict definitions. In this particular passage, the word of which I am speaking is the word that is translated “election” in v. 11:28, which I shall deal with in short order.

First, as always, we must understand the context in which this passage is spoken. As has been so throughout Romans 11, Paul is speaking of two groups of people–the Jews and the Gentiles. And because of God’s good wisdom and pleasure, he has decreed that salvation would only come to Gentiles if the Jews on the whole (less the remnant) would reject the Messiah. This purpose of the Lord is summed up in the apostle’s final statement in Romans 11 concerning the matter, viz. “For God has consigned all [both Jews and Gentiles] to disobedience so that he may have mercy on all.” This is a reiteration of what the apostle has declared earlier in the epistle, viz. “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Rm. 3:9). For what reason? “So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (v. 3:19). Therefore, just as the law has stopped the mouths of the whole world (for they have no justification in themselves), so too this section is designed to stop our self-righteous mouths and declare what the apostle declares at the conclusion of this treatise: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! etc.” (vv. 11:33-36).

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Before I begin, allow me to preface this post by stating that I believe quite wholeheartedly that all things, both good and evil, minute and grand, work together for good for those who love God, which is the riches of his glory accomplished for them (cf. Rm. 8:28; 9:23). Therefore, in spite of our constant failings and in spite of our doctrinal fallacies, God will be glorified, and he will be glorified to the high degree which he has decreed. For whether or not we attribute credit to God appropriately with our petty minds on the matter of our salvation and its accomplishment, God will be glorified fully, be it through our unrighteousness which serves to show his righteousness (cf. Rm. 3:6) or through our obedience which demonstrates our being driven by his Spirit (cf. Rm. 8:13,14).

In spite of the great certainty with which we can be assured that God’s ultimate manifestation of his glory will be accomplished without regard to the fickleness of our wills, we are nevertheless clearly commanded to be holy as he is holy, to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, and to not be carried away by the doctrines of men (cf.1Pt. 1:16; Rm. 12:2; Eph. 4:14). In other words, we are never given warrant to be content in our ill-founded doctrines or in our disobedience knowing that God is and will be glorified in our mishaps. Quite the contrary, we are encouraged not to think as those fools who slanderously charged Paul with “doing evil that good may come” (Rm. 3:8), but we are rather charged to patiently seek for glory and honor and immortality or be met with the full wrath and fury of God (cf. Rm. 2:7,8).

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Having just completed my one-hundredth post here at blog.xpistou.com, I thought that it might do well for me to revisit my reasons for writing on this site day after day. I have written a post prior to this one entitled, “Why I Write,” and hence the name of this present post, “Why I Write Reborn.” Though I did address the same question in said prior post, it was by no mean exhaustive nor adequate. I hope that this post will better answer the question, Why do I write?

I Write To Glorify God
If you were to press me and ask what verse in all of Scripture drives my life day in and day out, I would tell you 1 Corinthians 10:31. In this well known verse, the apostle Paul writes, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all the glory of God.” In it, Paul uses the most common activities of men, viz. eating and drinking, to demonstrate that every action that we take, no matter how minute or how menial, should be an act of worship to God.

My goal, therefore, is that this blog will be an act of worship to God. I know very well that, because I am a sinful man, this site falls well short of this goal often, but nevertheless God’s glory is the bar that I set. This means by necessity that I write some things that I might should not have written and that I am inaccurate and wrong in some of the statements that I make, and for these things I must constantly turn to God by repentance. Though I do falter often in this regard, I continue to write because I am compelled to do so.

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So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:13).

There are few things that are as common and mundane as eating and drinking. Everyone must do both regularly to live and to be healthy. Unlike breathing, which is also necessary to live, we can take great pleasure in the foods we eat and the drinks we drink. We find also that, unlike the oxygen that we must breathe to live, there are bountiful varieties in the foods and drinks available to us.

For this reason, the nature of the Apostle’s command, “Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God,” revolves around the conscious choices that we make each time we eat and drink and the reasons behind those choices. This glorification of God, unlike breathing which is done to the glory of God simply by its testimony of God’s good design and provision, is accomplished by our will. In the context of the command, this glorification of God is accomplished particularly by not offending our brother with the foods we eat—by regarding our brother as better than ourselves. And though this is the context, the implications of the command reach much further than offense.

Every time that we make a conscious choice in our lives, that choice immediately demonstrates whom we regard as Lord at that particular moment. This demonstration is not simply relegated to the “big things” of life, but it is relegated to all things. The Apostle uses the most common of activities, eating and drinking, to declare that regardless of the commonality of a choice God is to be Lord of it. That is also to say that ultimately there is nothing that we do in the physical world that does not have spiritual ramifications. With each choice in life, we are either lining up with God, or we are lining up against him. With each conscious turn of the radio dial, with each button-press of the remote control, with each click of the mouse, we are either consciously glorifying God or we are consciously defying him.

There is a contemporary saying that has been manipulated and abused by marketers, but its truth still rings forth: “What would Jesus do?” It was the will of Jesus Christ to do the will of the Father in all things and thereby glorify the Father in all things. Do you, as Christ did, seek to glorify the Father in all things? Do the television shows that you watch, the songs that you listen to, and the things that you buy declare that God is glorious and sufficient for all your needs? Evaluate the decisions that you make, and make all of them acts of worship to the Lord.