Life2gether

If you’re like me, you like your time alone.  You come away feeling refreshed, revitalized, and ready to live for Christ.  And then you come into contact with real people again.  And it doesn’t take long before you feel tired and impatient.  Sure you could chalk up some of this to your temperament, but we all know something deeper is going on.  It’s called sanctification.  God wants us to be in community with others because that’s where we change.  That’s where sin is exposed and humility is grown.  That’s where mistakes are made and grace is given.

Don’t get me wrong.  We need both community and solitude.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said,

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.  Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”

How true.  But the danger in solitude is that we miss the fellowship of others who can help us see into our souls.  We miss the encouragement and exhortation from those who care about the outcome of our faith.  As B. Witherington so eloquently put it,

“The community, not the closet, is the place where our salvation is worked out.”

Practically, wouldn’t it be wonderful to wed these two together in some kind of outing with others in your church?  Solitude mingled with community.  Community mingled with solitude.  Sounds like a worthwhile and perhaps life-changing idea.

This is a good word from J.C. Ryle (one of my favorite dead pastors):

Our Lord experienced everything that belongs to man’s nature – except only sin. As man He was born an infant. As man He grew from infancy to boyhood. As man He yearly increased in bodily strength and mental power, during His passage from boyhood to adulthood. Of all the sinless conditions of man’s body – its feebleness as a child, its growth, its regular progress to maturity – He was in the fullest sense a human being. We must rest satisfied with knowing this. To pry beyond is useless. To know this clearly is of much importance. An absence of settled knowledge of it has led to many wild heresies.

One comforting, practical lesson stands out, something we should never overlook. Our Lord is able to sympathize with humanity in every stage, from the cradle to the grave. He knows by experience the nature and temperament of the child and the youth and the adult. He has stood in their place. He has occupied their position. He knows their hearts. Let us never forget this in dealing with young people concerning their souls. Let us tell them confidently that there is One in heaven at the right hand of God who is exactly suited to be their Friend. He who died on the cross was once a youth Himself and feels a special interest in youth, as well as in adults.

Adapted from The Gospel of Luke by J.C. Ryle (Chapter 2).

Kids love their pets.  So when they die the question eventually comes, “Will I see my pet in heaven?”  Instead of passing it off as a stupid or trivial question, my friend, Eric Schumacher, seeks to answer it (and other questions below) in a recent sermon.  You can listen to it here.

1. What is the nature and purpose of animals in creation?
2. What is the relationship between animals and man?
3. Why do animals suffer and die?
4. Will animals be redeemed?
5. Will particular pets be recreated?
6. What is the root of this question, and where should we go with it?

• Randy Alcorn answered this question here …
• I recommend his book, Heaven for Kids, as well

Ed Welch on his new devotional guide, When I Am Afraid:

“You know how anxiety and fear feels, your stomach drops, your neck tightens, your whole body tenses, but do you know what to do when anxiety fills your days and troubles your nights? You’ve probably already tried a few strategies, like denial or working harder, and noticed that they aren’t a permanent solution. If you are tired of dealing with anxiety and worry on your own, then this guide is just for you. As you go through each set of meditations, anxiety will gradually yield to hope, peace, and rest. Of course, this is a lifelong process, but going through this devotional guide, either on your own or with a small group, will kick-start the process and bring lifelong change.”

I love Ed Welch’s stuff.  His book, Running Scared, greatly affected me.  This book looks to be a helpful, shorter (96 pgs.) devotional with new insights. Might be a helpful resource to pick up.

This is a great reminder when caring for people’s souls:

“Though we are all Christians together, we are all different, and the problems and the difficulties, the perplexities and the trials that we are likely to meet are in a large measure determined by the difference of temperament and of type. We are all in the same fight, of course, as we share the same common salvation, and have the same common central need.  But the manifestations of the trouble vary from case to case and from person to person.  There is nothing more futile, when dealing with [a] condition, than to act on the assumption that all Christians are identical in every respect. They are not, and they are not even meant to be.”

~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure

(HT: Eric Schumacher)

My buddy, Chris Caligiuiri passed this video along to me.  It gives personal testimonies of people who have been transformed by God’s grace in reading through a book called, TrueFaced.  I’ve read the book and I recommend it to anyone who is tired of putting on masks for others and just wants to trust God and others with who they really are.

Jonathan Dodson, from his article, Gospel Identity: We All Have Identity Issues:

We all have identity issues. Many of us have created an alter ego….This alter ego contends for our identity. It pulls at your heart, your longings. It tells you that if you were just a little more like this or that, then you’d be somebody. If you were better looking, if you were more successful, if you were married, if you were more spiritual, if you had more of a following on Twitter or Facebook, then you’d be somebody.

How do you detect your alter ego? Where do your thoughts drift when you have down time? What do you daydream about? Follow your thoughts, your dreams, your heart-longings and you will find your alter ego — the thing or things that call for you to find security/identity in them.

Eric Johnson, Professor of Soul Care at Southern Seminary, calls this the “false self”.  He writes,

It is indeed false.  It is every way that we choose to live outside of God’s will.  It is our way of resisting God and others.  It is our attempt to control our lives and sometimes the lives of others.  It is rooted in a refusal to not trust God to secure us.  It is how we say, “I will do this my own way.  I will not believe God or his words.  I will be good on my own.  I will not trust Christ crucified and raised from the dead.”

Some examples of the false self could be: the good boy, the independent one, the performer, the busy one, the perfectionist, the controller, the passive one, the religious one, the expert, the addicted one, the codependent, the stoic, the clown, the judge, the critic, the liar, the rager, the know it all …  All of these are about control.  I will control how I experience life.

His conclusion: The false self must be identified and laid bare before God and others (Ephesians 5:8-14).  In this place of nakedness and brokenness, Jesus meets me, loves and heals me.

This past Sunday I invited my church to take a journey with me into the heart of God for broken people like you and me.  I preached from the story of David and Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9:1-13), one of the most beautiful expressions of God’s love in the Old Testament.  I hope it encourages you.

  Listen | Watch|  Download | Subscribe
To download this message, right click “Download” and select “Save Target As…”

Back in my college years God used a man named Dave Busby to radically affect my faith and life.  Perhaps more than anyone, Dave taught me to see God as a compassionate Savior instead of a disappointed taskmaster.  His deeply penetrating and brutally honest messages encouraged me to rest in God’s grace and taste and see that He truly is good.

Awhile ago I ordered some of Dave’s messages on CD, and just recently I’ve been listening to them again.  In one series of messages entitled Oh Taste and See, Dave invites us to experience Jesus as our Forgiver.  I love what he says here:

The safest place in all the world to be totally exposed is in the presence of Jesus. Why? Because He has a forgiver’s heart. He loves to forgive you… And remember it’s not the quality of your repentance, but the quality of His sacrifice. So will you let him forgive you? Will you let him love you?

I like Mark Driscoll’s approach to solitude — get away, connect with Jesus in creation, and sometimes do nothing:

I schedule at least one day a month to get away and connect with Jesus. Because every minute of my day is normally scheduled, I don’t plan these days but just wake up and go wherever I end up. I do not answer my phone, do not meet with anyone, and usually get out of town. During a few hours of driving I do a lot of praying and sometimes worship God in song by myself. I like to drive until I am out of the city and find a small town or hidden secluded place in God’s creation. There, I do whatever I feel like. Sometimes I go for long walks and hikes alone to get fresh air, think, and pray.  Sometimes I check into a bed and breakfast and take a nap and then go out to dinner. And sometimes I don’t do anything.

(Read the whole thing …)