It has been an incredibly long time since I have made use of this blog. I would like to get into it again and a question just posed to me as part of an ethics class I'm taking has given me such an opportunity. I am not a Wesleyan and I hope the title of this post has not lead anyone to assume that I feel I have attained such a complete victory. Far from it, in fact my thoughts arise out of struggle and defeat. Well, this is what I am working on in my own personal life. Below I'll share the question I was asked and my response.
What do you think is the most important thing in your life that helps you live what you believe? What is it in your life that you believe will help you buck the worldly trends?
Well, I am very thankful for this last question, for the answer is something that I have been working on, especially over the last year. I owe a large debt to John Piper in this regard. Even now my wife and I are using material of his for our devotions together and we are dealing with this issue.
The most important thing that helps me to live what I believe and helps me buck worldly trends is love for God. It is my struggle and desire to love God more. I have been disappointed with my lack of love for God. As I struggle against sin I have found that I will only realize victory when I desire God more than anything else, more than anything that the world offers and tempts me with. I believe that the root of sin, the cause of my every stumble, is a lack of love for God. I have chosen something else over God, I have loved something else as I should only have loved Him. When I desire to glorify Him, to have fellowship with my heavenly Father more than I desire anything else, then I will experience victory over sin.
While the concept is simple, I must admit that the practice is not. I mean, I love God and I want live a life that glorifies Him, but I still fall short, I still sin, I still chose the world. I do not want to give the impression that it is a losing battle. Certainly by grace I am making progress in personal sanctification, but it is not as much progress as I should like. I experience temptations that I think should no longer entice me, but they do. So what is there to do?
The love for God that I desire is a gift of God’s grace. I cannot work it up on my own. But this is not to say that there is nothing I can do. The practice of the spiritual disciplines will produce the desired effect. I believe Scripture reading and prayer in particular are the God ordained means for producing in the human heart a love for Him that over comes the world. And so this is my task as I seek to become a man of dignity, a man above reproach, that God would be pleased to use as a pastor/teacher to build up His people.
I would like to share a single verse parable that the Lord has used to show me my need of greater love for Him. Matthew 13:44, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." May our heavenly Father place in our hearts such a joy, may we value Him above all else, and may we "count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:8).
How would you answer the question?
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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