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Monthly Archives: April 2012

Dealing with Anger

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In Matthew 5:48 Jesus says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; Our Father is perfectly and completely holy, he wants his children to pursue holiness in order that they may be more and more like him. Jesus gives this command as a conclusion to everything he said previously to it. If we look at the context that this command comes from we see that Jesus has a practical and specific ideas in mind as to what “being perfect” looks like.

The first topic that Jesus addresses is in verses 21-26 is anger. Jesus states,

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Jesus here addresses sinful anger and forgiveness (reconciliation). The original command concerning murder is expanded by Christ to encompass not just the action, but the intention behind the action.  Anger is an emotion and, by itself, is not sinful. But when anger is not properly handled it can become sinful. The proper response to anger is reconciliatory forgiveness. Not just a forgiveness that gives mental ascent to release another person from obligation, but forgiveness that actually brings the two persons involved into better relationship with each other.

Because of Christ’s substitutionary atonement for us on the cross, our perfect Father can never again be angry toward his children for their sin. No matter what  we have done, no matter what we do, and no matter what we will do, through Christ, our perfect Father has given more than a mental ascent to release us from our obligation to pay for our sin, he made Christ pay for them on our behalf that we might enter into a better and more perfect relationship with him.

Our Heavenly Father (Part 3)

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As the sovereign Creator and Lord of everything, our heavenly Father rewards those who fear him and not those who fear the opinions and approval of other people (6:1). In a world that is ravaged by fear of man and gaining the approval of others, God wants us to see him as the most supreme and valuable being to fear. Not because he is narcissistic and out of control, but because what our hearts desire (approval and acceptance) can only be truly found in fearing God. Fearing anything other than God will only lead to disappointment and despair. Fear God is the beginning of wisdom and the ultimate experience of true joy.

Only a Father who is separate, different and set apart from this earth (only a Father who is heavenly), can accomplish all this in and through us.

Our Heavenly Father (Part 2)

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In Matthew 5:43-47 Jesus says,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

Our heavenly Father tells us to “love our enemies” because he does and he wants his children to be like him. Our heavenly Father loves his enemies in that “while they are still sinners, Christ died for them. Christ was sent to the cross to purchase his enemies and make them his friends. Therefore, we ought to love our enemies for in so doing we display to the world the love of our heavenly Father.

Moreover, loving our enemies is a sign of being in the family of God. If we simply love those that we like or that like us, how is that any different from what the world does? Gospel transformation living marks kingdom living in the family of God. God’s love that was demonstrated for me while I was his enemy is what led me to repentance. The daily loving of my enemies is a physical demonstration of the gospel’s spiritual reality.

Our Heavenly Father (Part 1)

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In Matthew 6:10, Jesus teaches his disciples how they should pray. When addressing God in prayer, Jesus emphasizes relating to God, not just as our Father, but as our heavenly Father. God as our “heavenly” Father is a theme that Jesus begins early in his sermon on the mount and continues to develop through out. In Matthew 5:44-45 Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven”; in 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven”; in 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”; in 6:32, “For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all”; and in 7:11, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Jesus wants us to understand and relate to God as our heavenly Father.

Understanding and relating to God the Father as “heavenly” is important because of the implications it has. The term “heavenly” is more than just an adjective ascribed to give us the whereabouts of God. Jesus doesn’t emphasize God as “heavenly” to give us his street address; there is something greater going on here. Jesus is describing our Father as the boss of the Universe. Everything exists  or ceases to exist at his command. Therefore, God is the only One with both the right and the power to issue commands and demand perfect obedience to them. But he does not do this as a strict school Master, but as a kind and benevolent Father. His commands are not over bearing and impossible to follow, they are lovingly crafted with our benefit in mind.

God As Father

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Most of the people we meet have a very difficult time relating to God as Father. Whenever we dig a little deeper as to the reason why, we usually discover that the biggest reason people have difficulty with relating to God as their heavenly Father is that they lacked good earthly one. We tend to project our experience with our dads on to God. If our dads were angry and physically abusive, we tend to have trouble seeing God as kind or gentle. If our dads were passive and uninvolved we tend to struggle with whether or not God really cares about us. Whatever faults our sinful earthly fathers had, we tend to think of God in a similar light. But sooner or later we have to discover that God calls us to understand him based on what he has revealed about himself and not what others have revealed about themselves.

Three More Videos

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We are in the process of preparing three more videos to shoot the first weekend in May. I know it is less than 2 weeks away, which is really exciting! All three script ideas came at the same time. Carving out enough time to shoot all three was difficult, but we finally did it.

Once the shooting is actually done we will release one per month over the following 3 months. We will of course post them here on the videos page of our website (under the “Resources” tab in the menu).

Look for more updates as we get closer to the shooting dates (May 4-6) as we will have some behind the scenes photos and video clips as well!

Hope In God

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Hope in God who is trustworthy as the only living and true God. He is our Rock, Refuge and Salvation. Our trust in the strength and kindness of God assures us of the hope of our deliverance, and allows our hearts to find its security, rest and joy in the all-satisfying-ness of God.

As bad as the times may be, as desolate as our lives seem, as insulting as are our enemies are, as hopeless as we appear in the sight of man, there is no true cause for despair. There is only one in whom our souls can trust and find rest. We have a promise of restoration; he is as good as he is powerful; hope therefore in God, our great King and Creator, the source of all joy.

Understanding God As Great

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Understanding that God is great affects us in three specific ways. Firstly, it affects our minds in that we are called to come to God with thanksgiving. To come to God thankful for all he has done in our lives. Thankfulness requires thought. It requires that we stay consciously aware of the evidences of grace in our life. Moreover, it can aid us in staying aware of the evidences of grace in others’ lives. See God at work in ourselves and others is a key to thankfulness.

Secondly, it affects our emotions. We are called to make a joyful noise in songs of praise to God. “Joyful” is not a description of the style of music, but rather an expression of the emotion with which the song is to be sung. God is not a robot. God himself is described throughout the Bible as having a range of emotions. Humans, because they are made in the image of God, are meant to enter into and experience emotion, but more importantly, to glorify God in it.

Thirdly, it affects our wills. We are called to bow down and kneel before God. This is not a prescription for proper modes of worship as much as it is a call to bend our will and our volition to God’s. We are called to make our desires God’s desires. To make our will and our goal the glory and worship of God in all that we do.

Our Great God

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The writer of Psalm 95 erupts in a song of praise to God on the basis of the greatness of God. The psalmist’s description of God is actually a three-fold description in one. In verse three, he says that God is great, a great King, and in verses four through five we learn the expression of this greatness of the King in God’s work as the great Creator. He says,

“Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.”

Our great God-King displays his greatness in the beauty and majesty of creation. “In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.” From the top of the mountains to the bottom of the ocean God is maker of it all. All the beauty you see is a minute reflection of the beauty of God.

Notice that in the opening verses the writer of Psalm 95 uses the first person plural; come let “us” sing, let “us” make a joyful noise. He doesn’t say “I.” Learning to worship God happens in the context of community. Because only in the context of community do we see a fuller expression of God. We cannot prize, value, love and worship that which we do not know. Isolating ourselves from fellowship in the body of Christ is dangerous because it gives us an unrealistic and sinfully skewed view of God. We are all made in the image of God, but we are all different. When all God’s people come together in an eclectically beautiful (though not perfect) expression of the goodness, kindness, mercy, grace, love, greatness and glory of God we get a fuller (though not complete) picture of the beauty of God. And as a result, our hearts cannot help but be irresistibly drawn to prize, value, esteem and treasure God. This eclectically beautiful gathering is what Christ calls his “Church.” It is what Christ calls each of us to participate in as a full expression and the practical outworking of true worship.

Our God Who Satisfies

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The writer of Psalm 42 and 43 desperately wants to be near God. But why? There are very good reasons that he gives for finding his soul’s satisfaction in God. The psalmist opens his song with the following verse:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?”
The structure of Psalm 42:1 is type of Hebrew poetry called a “simile.” The first part (a) of the first line indicates a simile (metaphor) and the second part (b) of the first line will employ something literal. So, in the NASB, it reads:

“As the deer pants for the water brooks (a) , So my soul pants for You (b), O God.”

In the same manner that a deer pursues the water brooks for survival and refreshment, so too, the psalmist’s soul “pants” for God. He pursues God for real safety and refreshment.
It is not merely the physical body that yearns for God, but the very soul of man. God’s power and ability to touch the deepest part of a person are described vividly. When we remember the wonders of God, our souls are utterly and completely “poured out,” as it were, “completely spent.” It is God who is ultimately responsible for the waves of trial, so it is to God that the psalmist turns for eternally satisfying relief. As Matthew Henry says,

“When the soul rests on itself, it sinks; if it catches hold on the power and promise of God, the head is kept above the billows. And what is our support under present woes but this, that we shall have comfort in Him.”

Light and Truth (Christ) are what the author longs for; the Word of God alone can bring him into the place of worship. Psalms 42 and 43 communicate a stubborn tenacity on behalf of the author to trust in God regardless of the darkness of the circumstances, remembering his kindness, and thereby trusting in an expectant hope.

The third and final stanza (Psalm 43) concludes with hope and confidence, desiring to return to God’s house for worship, he says,

“Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.”

This hopeful expectation allows the psalmist to conclude his song with confidence “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God”; rejoicing that one day he will praise God unhindered by his present trials. In the midst of mocking taunts from enemies there still remains a trust in God as deliverer. Whether walking in the day or sleeping in the night, God’s lovingkindness is trustworthy (42:8). It is almost a natural spontaneity to trust in God during this time; an eagerness to return to the joy of true worship of God through trusting him.

CyberChimps