Tag: Bible

A Meditation on Common Grace Following Election Day

God causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good

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Families harvesting fruit and vegetables in a colorful rural garden beneath a rainbow

A few days after election day my thoughts are still swirling. Actually not swirling, really, but focusing on things that Jesus said. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his audience to “be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The context in which Jesus said this is loving our enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'”

Matthew 5:43-48

The illustration Jesus used is the fact that God causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good and his rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. God demonstrates his love for the world that is filled with people in opposition to Him by providing common grace.

Many fellow Christians in this country have been fighting a culture war for decades and trying to take over the U.S. government for Jesus. What they don’t realize is what they will accomplished if they succeed. If they succeed in making the US a Christian nation today, they will change the character of a country.

It will no longer be a country in which there is liberty and justice for all. It will no longer be a country in which all people are protected in the freedom of their conscience, to worship as they choose, and to speak according to their conscience. To make our country a Christian nation means to favor Christianity.

That may seem like a good idea as long as Christians are in power. As long as Christians fight to maintain their power and to prevent a takeover by another group, everything will be fine for us.

In the meantime we establish precedent for might makes right. If it was good for the Christian cause, it will be good for the atheist cause, or the Muslim cause, or the cause of whatever group rises to power and dethrones the Christians.

This dynamic continues to tear apart countries around the world, and it always has. The United States was comparatively a shining city on the hill from the date the wet ink on the Constitution dried. To make this country a Christian country is to ignore the First Amendment of the Constitution that protects all people from the establishment of a state religion and protects the conscience of all people to worship as they individually determine.

To ignore the Constitution is to negate the power of it and to open our country up to the same tribal conflicts that occur in many other nations around the world. Christians who are fighting to make the United States a Christian nation are short-sighted in pursuing that goal and are laying the foundation for our country to be controlled by whatever thought group rises to power.

I believe that the effort also is not biblical. God does not force people to love Him, to honor Him, or even to acknowledge Him in this world. He causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good and sends the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.

God desires that all people “would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.'” (Acts 17:27-28) If He did not want us to have any choice in the matter, He would have programmed us like obedient robots. Of course, then we would not truly love Him.

Instead, He gave us a world in which we are not required to love Him, and that means we can truly love Him for who He is. He became incarnate and sacrificed Himself to show His love for us. Stands at the door and knocks, and all who will open the door He comes into them. The people who reject Him or ignore Him will not be required to spend an eternity with Him – to their sad loss.

If we want a country that demonstrates God’s love to the world, it should be established to protect and promote common grace – liberty to all – the way our Constitution now reads, and we should do nothing to undermine it. We should protect the liberty of every individual to seek God and perhaps find Him, to discover that in Him we live and move and have our being, to love Him for who He is and not because of any law that was passed by a Christian legislature.

It may sound very Christian to take over the U.S. government for Jesus, but it actually isn’t. The Gospel spread steadily over the first three centuries in a hostile Roman government that crucified our Savior. God does not need the U.S. government to protect His sovereignty or His plan of salvation that extends to all the nations. He only needs His children to be faithful for the harvest is great and the workers are few.

What Does it mean to Be Perfect As the Father Is Perfect

What is godly perfection?

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Two people sharing a loaf of bread and drinks at a wooden table

“Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'”


Matthew 19:21 ESV

I read this statement Jesus made in Matthew 19, his statement in the Sermon on the Mount came to mind: “be perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect.” I realized as I looked into it that the context in the Sermon on the Mount in which the statement made is similar. Both texts focus on the Ten Commandments, but Jesus takes them in a direction his audience likely did not anticipate.

In Matthew 19, a wealthy young man had come to him and asked him what good deed must be done to earn eternal life. Jesus responded first by saying that no one is good but for the Father in heaven. Jesus didn’t really answer the question to begin with. He needed to correct an assumption the young man was making, which is that people can be good enough to gain eternal life.

The young man wasn’t catching on, though. The man pressed Jesus further, asking which commandments must be kept to gain eternal life, as if there was some formula that would work. He wanted Jesus to boil it down to the right formula so he could check them off and get on with his life.

So Jesus played along and began to recite the commandments:

“And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”

Matthew 19:18-19 ESV

Notice that Jesus doesn’t go through all the Ten Commandments. If we are paying attention, we notice that Jesus started in the middle of the Ten Commandments, and he recited only five of them. In fact, he only recited the commandments on the horizontal plane – the commandments focusing on our relationship with others. He skips over the commandments focusing on our relationship with God (love the Lord your God, keep the Sabbath, etc.) I will come back to that in a moment, but I want to see how this passage ties back to the Sermon on the Mount first.

The entirety of the Sermon on the Mount is a reflection on moving from the commandments as a list of rules to a heart attitude toward God and people. Jesus upped the ante on people focused on keeping the commandments. Her repeatedly recited a rule, like you shall not murder, followed by a statement that goes to the heart: if you are angry with your brother, if you have contempt for him, if you call him a fool, you have violated the spirit of the rule, according to Jesus. (Matt. 5:21-22) If you do not commit adultery, that’s great: but if you lust after someone, you have violated the spirit of the rule, according to Jesus.

I think that these two things are going on. First, the real point of the rules is to focus us on the attitude of our hearts. If our hearts are wrong, we have violated the spirit of the rules. The rules are not what God ultimately wants us to master. He wants us to see the attitude of our hearts and recognize that something is amiss.

Second, the rules are intended to show us we don’t measure up. If we think that we are ok because we keep the rules, we are missing the point of the rules – that something is amiss, we don’t measure up, and we need help. As Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners….” (Mark 2:17)

Actually, both of those points are really the same point, and the truth is that we are all sick (even the Pharisees). We are never going to measure up because something is a mess. We are fallen. We fall short. We need help.

Jesus wrapped up the discourse on keeping the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount by talking about loving our neighbors – and even our enemies. It was in this context that Jesus told us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.

Similarly, Jesus set up the wealthy young man by telling him he lacked something (as if he really had kept all the commandments in the first place): that he should sell all he has, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. Of course, he went away sad and didn’t hear what else Jesus had to say.

If he had stuck around he might have heard Jesus say things similar to what he said in the Sermon on the Mount. He is not looking for rule followers. He is looking for people whose hearts have the right orientation. It’s not about following the rules; it’s about knowing that God loves us, receiving that love and loving others.

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The Trajectory of the Bible: from Grace to Grace

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

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Biblical scroll, ritual vessels, and wheat on table

“Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.’ He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?'”

Matthew 15:1-3

The tradition Jesus is talking about is the practice of people “devoting to God” that which might otherwise have been used to help to their parents. Honoring your parents was commanded by God, but the religious leaders allowed people not to help their parents if they devoted offerings to the Temple. Giving offerings at the Temple instead of providing for parents is the tradition that Jesus criticized in this passage.

This criticism of the Pharisees came in response to the Pharisees’ criticism of the disciples who did not wash their hands before they ate. Washing hands, like devoting offerings to the Temple instead of honoring parents, exalts religious tradition over what God actually desires of us.

Jesus was not commenting on the propriety of washing hands. We all know that washing our hands is a good thing. We wash off bacteria and other things that can cause illness. Cleanliness is a good thing, but Jesus is not commenting on cleanliness. He is commenting on the hypocrisy of exalting form (tradition) over substance. Quoting Isaiah, Jesus concluded:

“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'”


Matthew 15:8-9 ESV

Throughout the ministry of Jesus, he consistently focuses on the importance of what is going on in our hearts. He prioritizes our hearts and our motivations over the things that we say and do, especially the religious things that make us look good to other people. Thus, Jesus concluded this encounter by telling the crowd:

“What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

Matthew 15:11

He isn’t saying that we can do whatever we want as long as our heart is pure. He is saying that the wrong things that we do and say proceed from the defilement in our hearts. Even doing the right things with the wrong heart is wrong. The root of our sin is not in the things that we say or do, but in our heart. The sinful things we say and do proceed from our sinful hearts.

Even if we do things that are right or seem right are wrong if we do them with impure hearts. For instance, when we say or do things because we want other people to hear or see them and think well of us, we are missing the mark.

I am thinking about these things because I have been continually impressed lately about the importance of the trajectory of the Bible. The trajectory of the Bible is important because we can mistake the Bible for a code of law – a book of rules – if we are not paying attention to what I call the trajectory of the Bible. The emphasis Jesus placed on the heart over the things that we say and do is an example of that trajectory.

Continue reading “The Trajectory of the Bible: from Grace to Grace” →

Jesus Shunned the Authority of the Kingdoms of the World

The temptation of power and influence

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Modern-dressed man and robed figure overlooking an ancient city at sunset

“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.’

And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, ”You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.””

Luke 4:5-6, 8 ESV

From this passage it seems clear that Satan has authority over the kingdoms of this world. Satan has the authority to grant authority and the glory that goes with it to whomever he wishes. That the kingdoms of the world have been delivered to the devil. is a jolting statement.

In this passage, Jesus does not deny what Satan says, but he refuses to be tempted by Satan’s offering. He rejects the idea that he should take the authority that has been given to Satan over the kingdoms of the world, saying that a person should worship the Lord God and serve only Him.

This is one of the four temptations of Jesus with which the devil confronted him in the wilderness before he began his public ministry. All of those temptations are instructive for us, but I think this one in particular is instructive for us in this political moment of the United States.

As Jesus was about to go into his public ministry, he certainly knew that he could usurp all the authority of the kingdoms of the Earth. Jesus also knew that all the authority over the nations of the Earth came from God, but that authority had been given to Satan for the present time.

I believe this is why Jesus did not deny that authority existed, and he did not deny that the devil had been given that authority to hand out as he desired. Jesus did not deny any of that, but he rejected the idea that he should take the authority the devil had to give. (Matthew 4:8-10)

To be clear, the offer was “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” in exchange for worshipping the devil. The fact that the devil has the power and authority to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world does not necessarily mean that someone who is in a position of power achieved it by worshiping the devil. I don’t want to leave any impression that I think that.

On the other hand, we should not be unaware that the authority over the kingdoms of the world is the province of the devil, given to the devil by God until Christ comes again.

This was the last attempt by the devil to tempt Jesus – a last ditch effort. I think this underscores the seductiveness of power and political influence. Power and influence is almost always accompanied with the accumulation of wealth. If the love of money is the root of all evil, the power and influence is its twin brothers.

In practical reality, there seems to be little separation between money and influence. People who have great influence nearly always amass wealth. Just look at the net worth of people in politics, especially at the national level.

Of course, money (itself) is not evil. It’s the love of money that is the problem. Jesus handled money, and it did not corrupt him. At the same time, the one man who handled the money for Jesus is the man who betrayed him.

Jesus warned his followers of the seductive influence of money when he said it is harder for a wealthy man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Given the correlation between money and power/influence, we should be just as wary.

Christians should not rush to gain influence any more than Christians should seek wealth. We cannot serve two masters. If we love one, we hate the other. This is true of literally anything we seek, exalt, focus on, depend on, etc., more than God.

When Jesus talked about love and hate in these ways, he wasn’t talking about emotions. He was talking about priorities. When he said that a person who follows him must hate his mother, father, sister, and brother, Jesus wasn’t actually telling us to hate them. He was telling us to prioritize them below our love of God.

And so it is with God and money. To love money is to prioritize money above our love of God. To prioritize influence and power above our love for God is to hate God in comparison.

To focus on governmental authority or to focus on money is a dangerous endeavor for a Christian. If Jesus could be tempted by power and influence, how much more are we tempted by those things? How much more susceptible are we to giving into that temptation?

I am going to be frank here. I think we have seen the disordering of Christian priorities in our country. As Jesus has plainly told us, there are many who will say, “Lord, Lord.” There are many who will say the right things, who will speak of God and of Jesus, but their hearts belong somewhere else. And Jesus said we would know them by their fruit. If anyone has gained power and wealth, but they have not love – the primary fruit of the Spirit – they are like clanging gongs and cymbals.

We overcomplicate what love is. Paul tells us plainly that love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy or boast. Love is not arrogant or rude. (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

Power and wealth corrupt. It warps our priorities. It twists our character. We begin to think that black is white and white is black. We begin to think of power and influence as a blessing from God, rather than a burden that threatens our very souls.

Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted.

Notice that the devil did not tempt Jesus with any of those things! None of those things would be a temptation, would they? Yet, Jesus tells us plainly that people who experience those things are blessed. None of these things are desirable in the world, but they lead to the great treasure of eternal life and relationship with God.

Power and wealth are highly desirable in this world, but none of it will matter in the next. They are a stumbling block in this world. The attachment to power and influence hangs like a dead weight on the backs of human beings who have not shunned it like Jesus did.

Jesus did not preach that a wealthy man cannot enter into the Kingdom of God, but it’s harder than you might think. It’s like a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. However you understand that metaphor, you should not miss the point that wealth is a very heavy burden when it comes to entering the Kingdom of God – and power/influence is the cousin of wealth.

I think we should take notice that the devil did not tempt Jesus with money. He tempted Jesus with the power of the kingdoms of the world. Perhaps, that is because wealth naturally flows from having power. If it’s difficult for a wealthy man to get into the kingdom of heaven, how much more difficult is it for a powerful (and wealthy) man to get into the kingdom of God?

I think we should be sober and alert to the devil’s schemes. If Jesus shunned the power that is the devil’s to give power, how much more should we shun it? Do we have more willpower than Jesus?

That attitude, of course, will not get us anywhere in the world. It looks utterly foolish for us to shun power and influence, but that is the foolishness of the cross. It is the foolishness of God’s wisdom, and I think we would do well to reclaim some of that foolishness.

Reflections on Praying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will Be Done, on Earth As It Is In Heaven”

Intellectual faith vs. doing faith

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Neighbors cleaning a sunlit city street together

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he taught them to recognize God: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Immediately after recognizing God for who He is, Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” These things are the foundation of our prayer life with God, according to Jesus.

As I think about this today, the realization strikes me that praying, “Thy kingdom come,” needs to be accompanied by a willingness to reflect God’s kingdom and God’s will in the way we live. If we pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven and don’t think that prayer means anything for us in the way that we live, do we really mean it?

These thoughts came to me as I was worshipping God and thinking about the song we were singing, which was an expression of faith in the promises of God. If we

pray or sing these words to God without any intention to reflect the God we are worshiping and praying to in our daily lives, is our worship and prayer anything other than a clanging gong or a banging cymbal that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13?

When Jesus began his public ministry, the message he preached was the coming of the kingdom, which he said is near at hand. (Mk. 1:14-15l Matt. 4:17, 23) Jesus said that the reason he was sent was to preach the coming of the kingdom of God. (Luke 4:3)

When Jesus spoke in his hometown synagogue, he said it a little bit differently: he said that he came to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to prisoners, to give sight to the blind, and to set the oppressed free. (Luke 4:18-19)

Throughout his public ministry Jesus demonstrated what he came to do. He touched lepers, though doing so would make him unclean under Jewish law, and he healed them. He gave sight to the blind. He healed the sick and the lame. He set people free from demonic influences. He forgave sins. He lived out a tangible demonstration of what it means for the kingdom of God to come, and he extended God’s favor to Samaritans, a Canaanite woman, and a Roman centurion.

He also challenged the religious people of his day. He repeatedly healed people on the Sabbath. He even went right into the synagogues and healed them in front of the religious leaders, knowing that it would provoke them in their religiosity, because they didn’t understand what it means for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

The religious leaders were angry when Jesus challenged their understanding of the law and therefore of God. In their best moments they were just confused.

When Jesus healed ten lepers and instructed them to go show themselves to the priests, only the Samaritan leper came back and thanked Jesus. The priests asked, when would this kingdom that Jesus was preaching come? Jesus said, God’s kingdom isn’t any particular place, because God’s kingdom is within us. (ἐντός (entos), meaning inside (us) (adverb or noun) — within (us), sometimes translated “among us” or “in our midst”)

They still didn’t know what he meant. All they could see was that he was breaking the rules – the requirements they had established to protect people from breaking the mosaic Law of not working on the Sabbath. They didn’t understand that the Lord of the Sabbath was standing in front of them, telling them they were getting it wrong.

Jesus said the kingdom is in the midst of His followers. He come to announce that God’s kingdom has come, though it is also still to come. He introduced his kingdom, and he called his followers to recognize it, to repent, and to live in its reality.

The question I want to ask today of myself and anyone who might be reading this is this: Are we doing that?

Continue reading “Reflections on Praying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will Be Done, on Earth As It Is In Heaven”” →