Classic Thoughts on God – DDDiSarro.org

Worshippers Out Of Rebels

July 25, 2011April 16, 2013

I’m writing this from our ministry’s biannual staff conference in Colorado. One of my favorite things about these conferences is that we spend a large of amount of time every day in worship through music and/or prayer. I love how A. W. Tozer links the purpose of Jesus’ life and ministry with our worship:

Why did Christ come? Why was He Conceived? Why was He born? Why was He crucified? Why did He rise again? Why is He now at the right hand of the Father? The answer to all these questions is, in order that He might make worshippers out of rebels; in order that He might restore us again to the place of worship we knew when we were first created. Now because we were created to worship, worship is the normal employment of moral beings.

A. W. Tozer, Worship: The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church

The phrase that blew me away was this: “in order that He might make worshippers out of rebels.” I had never thought about it this way before. What a wonderful way to summarize God’s purpose for His creation! As His child, all I do in both this life and the next is to be an act of worship to Him. And Jesus Great Commission to His church will be fulfilled in worship:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
-Revelation 7:9-10 (ESV)

Not Safe, But Good

October 4, 2010April 16, 2013

It stormed the other day in central Indiana. The clouds were layered in multiple shades of gray, ranging from off-white to nearly charcoal. It made me think of the picture at the top of this newly-redesigened blog, although today’s skies were much less dramatic than they were the day I took this photo (which, aside from the quote, is unretouched). The storms here can be much more violent than where I grew up, but the upside is how beautiful the clouds can be. Beautiful, but scary; kind of like God.

Which brings me to my favorite quote in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series – well, actually, I think it’s just about everyone’s favorite quote. When the Pevensie children first hear about Aslan, they are surprised to learn that he is a lion.

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he–quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

– C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

Not safe. But good. The King. The sovereign Lord who is always good, even when He’s more than a little scary. We can trust Him completely, but we dare not presume that He is a pushover. For even though He is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness” (Exodus 34:6; Psalm 103:8), He is still the Holy One, the righteous judge (Psalm 7:11; 2 Timothy 4:8), and “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).

I think one of the reasons God does not appear to be “safe” is that He’s far more concerned about our holiness than He is about our happiness, and our character is far more important to Him than our comfort. (I’m sure those phrases are not original with me, but I can’t dredge up the source from my middle-aged memory.) God is relentless in this regard; He’ll stop at nothing to shape us into the image of Christ. And that’s a scary thought, at least to me, because I’ve experienced a little of that relentlessness.

Every year our ministry runs a summer missions project for college students, and one year we decided the project theme would be “whatever it takes.” We soon learned that God would not let us teach something we could not live out. The sacrifices of time, effort and energy required to pull the project off that summer pushed us all to exhaustion. Knowing it was no coincidence, our team joke became, “Next year, our theme’s gonna be ‘peaceful, easy feeling’!”

It was definitely not a “safe” summer, but it was a good one. Lives were changed–the lives of our students, the lives of those who received Christ through their ministry, and the lives of those of us who taught, mentored, and administrated the project. Even though I was physically and mentally drained, probably more than I had ever been before, the reward of seeing God change us all was well worth the sacrifice.

Relentless. Beautiful, but scary. Not safe, but good.

This is our God.

Peace in Affliction

July 1, 2010April 16, 2013

Over the past couple of years I’ve experienced a lot of change and loss. I switched departments and job responsibilities twice, several close friends have moved out-of-state, an older friend died after months of illness, and a beloved church closed. As I’ve grieved through the various losses, God led me to a little book called Let Go, a collection of letters written by a 17th century archbishop named François Fénelon.

The second letter was titled by the editors, “How to Bear Suffering Peacefully.” That caught my attention. Then as I read, a couple of sections jumped off the page at me:

“We can add to our God-given cross by an agitated resistance and an unwilingness to suffer. This is simply an evidence of the remaining life of self…when you receive your cross unwillingly, you will find it to be doubly severe. The resistance within is harder to bear than the cross itself! But if you recognize the hand of God, and make no opposition to His will, you will have peace in the midst of affliction…But usually we want to drive a bargain with God. We would at least like to suggest some limits so that we can see an end to our sufferings. We don’t realize how we are thwarting the purposes of God when we take this attitude. Because the stubborn clinging to life which makes the cross necessary in the first place, also tends us to reject that cross–at least in part…may the Lord deliver us from falling into that state of soul in which crosses are of no benefit to us. God loves a cheerful giver, according to St. Paul in Second Corinthians 9:7. Ah! What must be His love for those who, in cheerful and absolute abandonment, give themselves completely to be crucified with Christ!”

God reassured me that He was aware of my pain and in His sovereignty He had allowed it; it was, in Fenelon’s words, my “God-given cross.” I could resist the pain and prolong it, ot accept it and allow God to use it as His tool to remove more of the old self-life and make me more like Jesus. I wonder if that’s what Paul was getting at in Philippians 3 when he said this:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11, NIV)

The Vision That Launched Modern Missions

May 12, 2010April 16, 2013

218 years ago today, on May 12, 1792, one of the most significant Christian books in the English-speaking world was published. It was titled An Enquiry Into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. (Not very catchy, but that was the style of the day!) Written by William Carey, a poor English shoemaker and pastor, it expresses his passion for reaching the multitudes in far-off lands who had never heard about Christ.

Most in Carey’s day thought that Christ’s commission to “Go into all the world” (Mark 16:15) and “teach all the nations” (Matthew 28:19) no longer applied to the church. But Carey argued powerfully that the commission was still binding, and set out a plan to help fulfill it. Shortly after his book was published, a small group of pastors formed what later became known as the Baptist Missionary Society and sent Carey and a coworker to India.

In his first few years on there Carey endured poverty, tropical diseases, the death of one of his sons, and his wife’s descent into mental illness. Yet despite such hardship and tragedy, Carey persevered to serve faithfully (and without furlough) for 40 years. I’m challenged and encouraged by the way he lived out the vision God had given him, as expressed so many years before in the closing paragraph of his book:

We are exhorted to lay up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. It is also declared that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. These Scriptures teach us that the enjoyments of the life to come, bear a near relation to that which now is; a relation similar to that of the harvest, and the seed. It is true all the reward is of mere grace, but it is nevertheless encouraging; what a treasure, what an harvest must await such characters as Paul, and Elliot, and Brainerd, and others, who have given themselves wholly to the work of the Lord. What a heaven will it be to see the many myriads of poor heathens, of Britons amongst the rest, who by their labours have been brought to the knowledge of God. Surely a crown of rejoicing like this is worth aspiring to. Surely it is worth while to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause, and kingdom of Christ.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures 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 (NIV)

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
– Mark 16:15 (NIV)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
– Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)

(For more on Carey and his influence, see the online Issue 36 of Christian History & Biography)

The Crown of All Our Hopes

My last new post was nearly a year ago at Easter, so it seems fitting to start posting again on Easter. It also seems fitting to restart this blog with a passage by the same author I quoted for my first post, A. W.Tozer. For the Easter season I started reading a new collection of his essays (previously published in other books) called The Radical Cross: Living the Passion of Christ. In a chapter called “The Easter Emphasis” Tozer writes:

“Christ was born that He might become a man and became a man that He might give His life a ransom for many. Neither the birth nor the dying were ends in themselves. As He was born to die, so did He die that He might atone, and rise that He might justify freely all who take refuge in Him. His birth and His death are history. His appearance at the mercy seat is not history past, but a present, continuing fact, to the instructed Christian the most glorious fact his trusting heart can entertain…The glory of the Christian faith is that the Christ who died for our sins rose again for our justification. We should joyfully remember His birth and gratefully muse on His dying, but the crown of all our hopes is with Him at the Father’s right hand.”

Because Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, I can have absolute confidence that the Father accepted His sacrifice on my behalf and that I am forgiven and in right relationship with Him. His resurrection not only guarantees my future resurrection but provides new life for me right now. Christ is alive and actively working on my behalf right now. He is my “defense attorney” in the court of heaven, so I have no reason to fear the accusations of either the devil or my own overactive conscience (but I still do, more often than I like to admit – oh, me of little faith!). Jesus is representing me before the Father and interceding for me right now. Amazing! The Son of God Himself is praying for me at this very moment! Why do I forget that so often?

Father, please remind me of the significance of the resurrection not only this Easter, but throughout the year.