God's Refinishing Work

One of the things I inherited from my parents was a love of beautiful wood, especially oak.  So over the years, I have refinished a good number of pieces of furniture, making it possible to acquire some beautiful and functional furniture at a very reasonable cost.  Those who know me and have watched my projects come and go have seen my love/hate relationship with this hobby.  Even after several attempts, I have not learned any strategy to make the process of stripping off the old finish easy, fast, or pleasant.  I don’t enjoy wearing goggles and heavy-duty gloves, the stench, dealing with chemical burns, or gathering up piles of steel wool pads soaked with stripper and old varnish.  But still I take on projects, and not simply as the means to get some nice furniture for little money.

Despite the hate part of refinishing furniture, there is a love part as well.  As the old varnish and stain come off along with the dirt and stains accumulated over years if not decades, I get to see the beauty of the wood that was hiding underneath.  The imagination and thoughtful design of the creator becomes apparent.  It is wonderful to see the unexpected beauty as a newly stripped surface emerges.  And then there is the delight in making the beauty functional and lasting by completing the job with a series of finishing coats.

I believe that the pleasure I take in refinishing furniture reflects my calling as a Christian counselor.  As a counselor dedicated to helping people build their lives on the truth of Christ, I assist in the “stripping” process—the hard work of identifying long-standing hurts and repenting of the sinful, self-protective habits that have developed in response.  It is a hard and painful time, and it is hard for me to find pleasure in it.  But I know that if my client perseveres, we will get to see the amazing person who has been hidden under all the years and layers of sin dirt and coverings.  And then we see the glorious purposes that God intends for that person, highlighted by the “finishing coats” of God’s redemptive work.

It is not difficult to see how the Lord’s sanctifying and redeeming work in us is like refinishing.  And now that we are looking at a new year, the concept of New Year’s resolutions arises once again.  I am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions because they generally represent a self-focused effort in which performance is emphasized.  If, however, we come before the Lord, ask Him to search our hearts, and put our lives in the hands of the Great Refinisher, we can be reformed and shaped in amazing ways.  We need not fear the need for correction and sanctification.  Just like the refinishing of furniture, the process can be long, hard, tedious, painful, and at times downright ugly.  But the result—a beautiful life made new and glorious for the Lord’s glorious purposes—is worth it. 

Christmas: God's Show

I speak and write often about what I call the Garden Game.  The Garden Game is an easily-remembered moniker that helps me to be mindful of the terrible precedent that was set in the Garden of Eden and how often my sin nature pulls me in the same direction.

When Eve was confronted in the garden by the serpent, she encountered temptation and choice.  She could believe God or she could believe the serpent.  She could consult her husband (who was, according to the account, standing right by her) and perhaps God or she could deal with the serpent herself.  She could refrain from eating the forbidden fruit or she could take and eat it.

Eve made the wrong choice, every time.  It shows for us the power of pride.  Eve wanted to “do it herself,” to be independent of God and her husband.  This is most clearly represented in the way the serpent framed the temptation: the fruit would make her wise like God.  If she became wise like God, she would be able to continue on her independent path.  She would not need a husband or a God.

Eve’s spiritual DNA is evident all through history.  The Pharisees were so focused on doing religion themselves that they were unable to recognize God Incarnate when He was standing before them.  Believers since the days of the early church have struggled with the appeal of the Garden Game.  In his letter to the Galatians, Paul has some very strong words to those Gentile believers who were choosing to be circumcised in an attempt to “add” to what Christ had done on their behalf.  We, too, have Eve’s spiritual DNA.  We tend to use rules to feel good about ourselves apart from the gospel.  Although as believers we acknowledge our need of God, our view of salvation is often sharply limited: “Thanks for saving me, Lord.  I can take it from here.” And onward we go. 

Submission to God and obedience to His Word and will are essential components of the Christian life.  Very often, though, we feel the pull of the Garden Game and begin to subconsciously take pride in our obedience, to regard it as a means by which we earn God’s grace and favor.  

Christmas gives us a wonderful opportunity to confront the pull of the Garden Game, to choose to walk away from our pride and independence and toward dependence on God.  Christmas is God’s personal invitation to leave ourselves and join His party.  As for me and my household, we will celebrate Christmas!

A Lesson From The Pilgrims

November.  A time to give thanks.  I appreciate the reminder, and I really love that giving thanks, a Christian principle, becomes a nationwide focus.  But there is a part of our Thanksgiving holiday that we Christians perhaps do not think enough about.  The first thanksgiving was the response of the Pilgrims to their first successful harvest in the New World.  This first harvest was no small thing.  It represented, quite literally, the difference between life and death.  Without food safely put away, there would be very little to eat during the long, cold winter.  Truly, the giving of thanks was most appropriate.

In 21^st Century America, some of us have difficulty in gathering enough funds to purchase our food, but most of us are not personally concerned with bringing in an annual agricultural harvest.  But all believers have a spiritual harvest to which we must attend.  In his gospel account, Matthew records for us Jesus’s words: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”  When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we become part of that harvest.  And though we may not think about it often, we are also the ones who are working to bring in the Lord’s harvest.  It is our privilege to proclaim Christ and invite others to join us as part of God’s family.  This is God’s harvest, and it is essential to the life of the church and the eternal lives of those to whom we minister.

In Ephesians 4, Paul teaches us that our Lord has given some as evangelists.  I am most definitely not one of those evangelists.  God has gifted and called me to a different ministry.  But all believers are ambassadors of Christ, called by Him to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19).  It is not that we must tell others about Christ; rather, we have the incredible privilege of participating in our Lord’s work of redeeming this world, helping to bring in the spiritual harvest that will culminate in the end times.

So as we appropriately give thanks to God for all of His provision and blessing, let us also attend to His spiritual harvest and give thanks that we have been included in it.

Thought for the Day

"Only a lifegiver can give life."

                      Dr. Andrew Straubel, Pastor, Windsor Chapel

                   

The Power of God

When I was a beginning Greek student, I was strongly cautioned against a common error in translating and interpreting God’s Word:  When encountering a Greek word that has become part of the English language, it is critically important to not practice reverse translation, i.e. to use our understanding of an English word to assign meaning/connotation to its Greek forerunner.  For sure, this is excellent advice.  But there is, I believe, merit to considering how we have taken Greek words and incorporated them into our vocabulary culture.  A good candidate for this is the Greek word dunamis.  It is the word upon which our word dynamite is based.

We all know what dynamite is.  It is a concentrated source of incredible power.  Dynamite can provide power for human use and for human purposes.  Dynamite is explosive and dangerous.

Dunamis appears well over 100 times in the New Testament.  Aside from its obvious translation, “power,” it is translated, “wonderful works,” “mighty works,” “ability,” “miracle,” and “strength.”  Dunamis is the power that enabled a virgin to give birth to God Incarnate.  It is the power that fueled the ministry of John the Baptist.  Dunamis enabled Jesus and His disciples to heal, and it is associated with the authority of Christ as He faced the hostility of Jewish leaders.  Most importantly, dunamis is the power of the resurrection of Christ in history and the power of our resurrection in Him as we walk into our eternal future as heirs of the kingdom of God.

Now, if we compare God’s dunamis to our dynamite, dynamite doesn’t seem so impressive.  Dynamite is power, to be sure, but it is limited, impersonal, and imprecise.  Dunamis, on the other hand, is unlimited and eternal, personal, and often tender.  Dynamite is dangerous, and when wielded by sinful human beings, all the more so.  Dunamis, however, is that which enables our good, wise, loving, and sovereign God to show His love to us, to bring us to Him, to enable us to do the works for which He created us, and to complete the work He has begun in us.  Dynamite might be necessary to build a road through a mountain, but dunamis is the fuel for all holy construction projects.

If we return to the advice I was given as a beginning Greek student, it is apparent that the words of caution were right on target.  If we took our understanding of dynamite and superimposed it upon our understanding of the power of God, we would be limited by a seriously impoverished view of our God.  Fortunately, the dunamis of God is not so limited.  We can place our hearts, lives, and eternal futures into His hands, trusting that the Lord’s dunamis is sufficient to guide and guard us through the challenges of this life and to transform us into creatures fit for an eternal heavenly home. 

For Thine is the kingdom and the dunamis

and the glory forever.  Amen.

Thought For The Day

"A comprehended God is no God at all."

                                   Gerhard Tersteegen

Amazing Grace: From John Newton To Us

Not too long ago, Windsor Chapel’s Worship Team introduced us to a new song as an offertory.  “Broken Vessels” is a beautiful contemporary version of  “Amazing Grace.”  Indeed, it even includes the Christian classic’s first line: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”  It stands with other contemporary versions of “Amazing Grace” and joins countless versions and arrangements that have appeared since the hymn was first published in 1779.  But why has just one of over 200 hymns of a relatively obscure believer in 18^th Century England generated such a legacy?  I think there are two very significant pieces to the story of “Amazing Grace.”

First, its message.  I believe that the old hymn has endured because its message is a succinct and memorable proclamation of the Gospel:  I am a wretch, helpless and hopeless in my sin.  But by the grace of God, I have been rescued from my sin: Christ as paid the penalty for it, and He invites me to live a new life in Him.

This is an old message but no less relevant than when Newton or Christ or the Apostles proclaimed it.  In today’s culture, it is often regarded with disdain and distaste.  Since human beings are regarded as intrinsically good, we need merely develop and share that goodness.  But it isn’t true.  We aren’t good.  We don’t need remediation; we need salvation. 

The salvation offered by Christ is a multi-faceted gift of redemption.  His death on the cross on our behalf covers our sins, “buys us back,” so to speak.  We can enjoy a right place before God and confidence before His throne.  But it reaches far beyond that as God takes even the ugliest and most painful parts of our history and remakes them into blessings. 

The redemptive work of God is what “Amazing Grace” is all about.  It is a story within a story: not only is it a powerful proclamation of the Gospel, it is the story of its author. Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with John Newton.  He is best known as a slave trader who received Christ and became a force for great good in his world.  Less known are the difficulties he faced as a boy losing his mother and as an impetuous young man who endured mistreatment and even slavery himself.  The amazing grace he experienced as God saved him and worked his past for his good became the story of his life. 

This is where the story of John Newton intersects with the story of our lives.  We, like Newton, have been rescued from our sin through the grace of God.  And now we get to experience God’s redemption as he weaves all the threads of our past—all the sin, all the hardship—into a tapestry of life that manifests His good purposes for us and reveals His glory.  And you never know.  God may use us in a way that echoes for generations to come.