Self-Seeking

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

21From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord!^e This shall never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance^f to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

24Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever would save his life^g will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

When Peter rebukes Jesus and says that his suffering will never happen, it may seem that Jesus' response is especially harsh.  After all, Peter was in line with the prevailing school of thought at that time, that Messiah need not suffer.  But upon closer examination, perhaps Jesus' response was necessarily frank.

"Jesus' memorable rebuke seems mercilessly severe.  But the fact that He identified Satan as the source of Peter's words describes precisely and appropriate the character of the advice Peter tried to give:  'Save yourself at all costs.  Sacrifice duty to self-interest, the cause of Christ to personal convenience.'  Peter's advice was satanic in principle for Satan's primary aim is to promote self-interest as the chief end of man."

--p. 33, The Bondage Breaker  (Neil T. Anderson)

It is completely in line with the world's ways to value safety, comfort, and life above all else, even God's plans.  At the heart of Satan's plan is to trick us into thinking that life is all about us.  How will my needs be met?  Why is my life so hard?  What will be best for me?

"Satan has deceived [many Christians] into thinking they are serving themselves when in fact they are serving the world, the flesh, and the devil."

--p. 33, The Bondage Breaker (Neil T. Anderson)

After this response, Jesus moves to weed out faulty theology by reminding the disciples that it is not about them.  In verse 24, Jesus tells his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take his cross and follow me."  In other words, if you want to live for God, you cannot live for yourself; you cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24).  If we live for ourselves, then ultimately, we are living in line with Satan's purposes which are at odds with God's purposes.  We cannot--it is impossible to--live for ourselves and live for God.

In verse 25, Jesus continues, saying, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."  Who can save himself?  We may try living good lives, hoping to earn salvation.  We may try seeking every new spiritual fad, hoping to reach God.  We may try accumulating worldly pleasures and material things, in hopes that we'll achieve salvation on earth.  But ultimately, who can safe himself?  No one.  There are two paths that we can take:  (1) We try saving our lives on our own, apart from the work of Christ.  Since it is impossible, we fail and lose our lives anyways.  Or, (2) We yield and lose the claim to our temporal earthly life, and find eternal life, the life we were created to experience.

Jesus then poses the final question of this section, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?  Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?" (verse 26).  What will all the world--with all its temporal riches, pleasures, power--mean without God?  What would these transient riches mean if one is eternally separated from God and from everything that God is?  And what on this earth could ever be equivalent to the price of a man's soul--a soul that is precious, made in God's image, and made to be fulfilled by God and God alone?  

How could we ever give our hearts and our souls to anything or anyone less worthy?

Christmas

⁶ For to us a child is born, 
   to us a son is given, 
   and the government will be on his shoulders. 
And he will be called 
   Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, 
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
--Isaiah 9:6

What Christmas especially means to me this year:

• We can approach the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16).  Because of Jesus, we are now able to boldly approach God and have an intimate relationship with Him.  We no longer will be struck down because of our sinfulness and God's holiness, but we have been justified and have Jesus' imputed righteousness.
• The God of the universe became flesh and made his home among us (John 1:14).  He descended to our level to help us to see God and His love.  He went through the stages of development, even beginning as a helpless baby.  He came to earth knowing full well what the end of His live would be.  He came down knowing that he would be misunderstood and hurt, even by His closest friends.  He came knowing that He would be rejected and wrongfully punished.  He knew that He would experience separation from God for the first time of His life.  He knew he would be flogged unjustly.  He knew one of his closest friends would deny him; another would turn Him in.  Knowing all this, Jesus still came down and willingly subjected Himself to the will of the Father.
• Jesus endured the pain of life on earth and in crucifixion for the joy to come (Hebrews 12:2).  He had the eternal perspective:  we endure temporary pain now for eternal joy later.
• We no longer have to continually offer the sacrifices of animals because Jesus' sacrifice paid for all sins for all time (Hebrews 9:13-14).  We all can take hold of Jesus' sacrifice paying for all of our sins if we open our hearts to Him.
• Jesus lived on earth and experienced trials of all sorts and thus understands the depths of trials in our lives (Hebrews 4:15).

Without Jesus, I could never have a personal relationship with God.  Without Jesus, I would have had to try hard to earn salvation and still inevitably fail.

With Jesus, I have abundant life, both here on earth and in eternity.

Thank you, Jesus, for your love for me.

Merry Christmas!

Freedom

“We are not fundamentally free; external circumstances are not in our hands, they are in God’s hands, the one thing in which we are free is in our personal relationship to God. We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us, or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be.”  (Oswald Chambers, Conformed to His Image, 354 L)

Illuminate

I recently returned from the 2011 West Coast Epic Conference.  Students from all across California, and Oregon, Minnesota, Hawaii, and many other places gathered together to meet God.  It was so exciting to see so many students passionately seeking God and so eager to hear from God. :)  And also to see students mobilized and sent out around San Francisco during the day of outreach.

The theme verse was 1 Peter 2:9--But you are a chosen people a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Here are some media highlights from the conference:

• Epic West Coast Conference in action video:  http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=155054654532795
• Epic West Coast Conference Highlight slideshow:  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=845720642048
• Epic West Coast Conference Illuminate video:  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=819475742037&comments

This video is one about a student's changed life that was shown at the Epic Conference that happened in Dallas, TX over the same weekend:  http://vimeo.com/18849861

Idolatry

“The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.  It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place….Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous.  The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.”  --A.W. Tozer

Good without God?

Back in October of last year in New York around the time when Greg Epstein’s book Good without God was released, there was an advertising campaign with the slogan “A Million New Yorkers are Good Without God.  Are you?”  (More about it here:  http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/good-without-god-atheist-subway-ads-proclaim/)  (This summer, I saw some signs that I suppose were done in response to this advertising saying, “I am good with God.”  (More about this here: http://www.goodwithgod.org/thecampaign.html).

So in thinking about this, I wasn’t thinking of whether I think people are good with or without God because I believe what the Bible says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  None of us is good without God.  People are imperfect and are incapable of being perfect.  And because of this we deserved a separation from God [death]:  “For the wages of sin is death.” But instead, God gave us the greatest gift:  “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).  And so Jesus exchanged His righteousness for our unrighteousness and He paid the penalty for our sins.  So now, when God looks at us, He sees Jesus’ righteousness and not our unrighteousness.  Because of Jesus we were made righteous.

But anyways, I digress.  What I was thinking was okay, so people who are not Christians say that they are “good without God.”  But I wonder, how many people in the Christian community, in how they live their lives, are saying the same?  Perhaps they are not broadcasting it our saying it out loud, but how many people’s lives are demonstrating the exact same thing?  How many Christians are trying to become “good” people without God’s power?  How many people are focusing on conforming to society’s standards of “good” behavior or conforming to the church’s standards of “good” behavior, rather than abiding in God, remaining in Him, and being transformed from the inside out and bearing much fruit?  How many Christians are trying to perform, perform, perform for other people and for God?  How many people are trying to live the Christian life out of their own power and strength?  Instead of remaining in the vine as it says in John 15.  Or how many people rely on their strategies and their methods to try to see life change in people rather than depending upon God? 


I know I’ve definitely seen this in my own life.  Those are the times when I think the Christian life is so difficult.  Those are the times when I realize of course it’s difficult because I’m not relying on God to do the transformation.  I’m trying so hard to change the outside through my actions, when it’s my heart that really needs the transformation.  It’s in those times that I need to remind myself of Jesus’ words in John 15:5—“I am the vine, you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Psalm 37:4

I believe that Psalm 37:4 is true—Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.  God knows deeply what the desires of our heart are.  He sees beyond our feeble attempts to fulfill our desires and sees what we really need.  He sees what our deepest longings are; He sees how to most fully satisfy those desires.  And He is more than capable of meeting those desires.  It reminds me of a quote of Amy Carmichael—“It is a safe thing to trust Him to satisfy the desires He creates.”  


But why is that contingent upon our delighting ourselves in the LORD?  I think that God knows that He is the only one who can satisfy.  I think that He knows that by giving us other things, they could potentially draw our eyes away from Him and onto something else.  It is only when we have deep satisfaction in God that we have become trustworthy enough to have Him satisfy the desires of our hearts.  When He knows that we will follow Him regardless of what He gives us or takes away from us, that’s when He’ll most fully satisfy the desires of our hearts.  


And the psalmist says “Delight ourselves in the Lord.”  He doesn’t say, “Obey all the Lord’s commands.”  He doesn’t say, “Follow God wholeheartedly.”  He doesn’t say, “Have daily quiet times.”  What is most important is to “Delight ourselves in the LORD.”  To love Him to the utmost that our hearts can, to regard Him not as a Master, but as a Lover, to run to Him eager to spend time with Him, to smile when thinking about Him.  All these things are signs of delighting ourselves in the LORD.  It is God's desire for us to delight in Him, not just obey Him.