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Category Archives: Faith

Post Election Blues

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Most people, at least 47% of the population, probably felt some sort of “post-election blues.” Because their candidate lost, or because the opposing candidate won. But for Christians, what is the deal? I mean, are Christians really to be so wrapped up in politics that we get depressed when our politician loses?

Things got so intense with this election that pastors were even telling people how to vote from their own pulpits. REALLY? Somehow I missed in the New Testament Christ encouraging his disciples to get involved in political activism. Also, no where in any of the epistles does any apostle encourage political involvement. I’m not against Christians voting, but if the results of the election are so important to you that it effects your mood, there may be a bigger heart problem at work.

I find that a lot of Christians have their identity wrapped up in politics; like whether or not the USA is going to ban gay marriage or overturn Roe v. Wade. Since when did the decisions of the federal government dictate so much of your joy? When you trying pulling your joy from politics and not Christ, it shows; and it shows big time. Newsflash: your hope is not in a political leader. If Christ thought that true social change could come through an election official, he would have ran for office, but he didn’t. Because politics can’t change the heart. They never can and never will.

Likewise, if you voted for the incumbent because you actually believe he is going to make your life better you are not only deceived, you are naive. As Christians we should work for the betterment of our city, but not by electing other people to do our work for us, but by loving our neighbor and living the gospel. Voting is important, and you should vote, but I would put more hope in the gospel and the power of Christ to change hearts than in some vapid political slogan that, for the last four years, has produced little except disappointment.

Christ never disappoints. His word never fails. His hope is forever. His change is real.

 

Concluding Thoughts on Faith, Affection, and Action

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In Psalm 119:32-36 it says,

I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!

The psalmist declares that an enlarged heart is what he needs to follow the commandments of God. How does one get an “enlarged heart”? What produces an enlarged heart? The psalmist answers this question. An enlarged heart comes from an understanding, given by God, of his commandments. Such understanding of God’s law produces a delight in it. This delight in God’s commandments inclines our heart to God.  The psalmist continues in 119:44-47:

I will keep your law continually, forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts. I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.

The psalmist speaks of godly practice (“keeping your law continually, forever and ever”). This godly practice finds its source in the affection and delight that he has for God and his commandments (“for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love”). As Psalm 40:8 says, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” When God’s word resides by faith in the heart of the Christian, the result is delight in and affection for God. The psalmist could not follow God’s law without loving it. Because he loves and delights in God’s law he can follow and obey it.

Likewise, the Christian cannot walk in godly practice without loving God. The believer’s affection for God motivates and empowers him, by grace through faith, to toward godly action. Through the believer’s renewed mind by faith in the gospel, he can increase his affection for God, producing a life of of godly practice.

Faith and Affections Affect Everything We Do

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David writes in Psalm 51:16,17, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” God does not want godly practice from his children apart from godly affections. In 2 Corinthians 5:12-15, Paul writes:

We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. . . For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Paul makes a distinction about the outward appearance versus “what is in the heart.” What is in Paul’s heart is the love of Christ and it is that love that “controls” him. The love of Christ in Paul’s heart is what drives his practice. The source of this love in Paul’s heart is faith in the gospel “because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Faith in the gospel produced the love of Christ in Paul’s heart, and that godly love “controlled” his godly practice. In Romans 6:16-18 Paul lends further support to godly practice resulting from a heart of godly affection. He writes:

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Paul says that his readers were once slaves of sin that led to death, but now have become obedient from the heart to his teaching and are being led to righteousness. Wilberforce explains this kind of obedience from the heart best when he says:

When a man or woman possesses authentic faith, the pursuit of holiness is a joy. Such individuals have the sense that because God is all knowing and all loving, His will for their lives is the one that will produce the greatest benefit for them. When you put the pieces together, you see that authentic faith is motivated toward obedience to the will of God by an understanding of the glory of God, by a sense of trust and hope in Him, with an appreciation and awe for his goodness, in a spirit of joyfulness and with continual gratitude.

Wilberforce recognizes that obedience from the heart is obedience that comes from a heart that is joyful and delighting in God and his glory. A heart overflowing with hope and trust from “authentic faith” leads to godly practice. Again Wilberforce says:

At the risk of repeating myself, let me point out the false thinking that exists about the nature of authentic faith. True faith is something that so pervades our lives that it affects everything we do. It is a matter of the heart, where its reality becomes our supreme influence. It seeks to root out anything that is contrary to its truth and attempts to bring all the heart’s desires and affections under its control.

The reality of the our faith influences our heart. Our heart’s affections and desires are transformed by our faith, and such faith and affections, according to Wilberforce, “affects everything we do.”

Godly Affections Produce Godly Actions

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Apart from godly affections, godly practice is meaningless. William Wilberforce offers a sobering warning to believers when he writes, “For those who attempt to reduce faith to a system of ethics we respond with words of Jesus: ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’”101 The Christian life is not solely about righteous living. It is about a godly faith in the truth of the gospel that produces godly affection, which are demonstrated in godly practice. Paul writes in Colossians 3:1-14:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. . . Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. . . seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. . . Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience . . . And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Paul begins his reason from the gospel. He does not simply issue a command to holiness, he begins by telling the Colossian church where the source of their ability to follow the command comes from, the gospel. “If then you have been raised with Christ,” Paul begins; he is saying “if you are truly believers, if you have truly believed the gospel, if you have truly been born again, then you have been given the power to do what I am about to tell you to do.”

But Paul does not give an imperative alone, he appeals to the affections for the fulfillment of the command. He compels them to put on “compassionate hearts” and to “above all put on love.” Paul’s point in this passage is clear, the affection for God and others that flows from faith in the gospel overcomes sinful actions and produces a life defined by godly practice.

Believers Struggle Too

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Believers in Christ struggle too. They struggle with sinful affections. Just read James 4:1:  “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” Here James argues explicitly that sinful actions are a result of sinful affections. In writing to believers, James says that sinful and godly affections are at war within the heart. The sinful affections are producing sinful actions, the godly affections are producing godly affections. James continues:

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

These believers are ruled by their sinful affections. As a result, their actions are sinful and preventing them from growing in Christ. James ends his statement with a call for them to purify their actions, by purifying their hearts. For in purifying their hearts they, by virtue, purify their actions.

Sinful Affections Produce Sinful Actions

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In Romans 6:12, Paul gives a command to the church regarding sanctification. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” Paul uses the word ἐπιθυμία, which is translated as “passions” in the dative case, which is the case of the indirect object and also indicates the means by which something is done. In other words, the sin that reigns in the mortal body and expresses itself in sinful actions finds it root and motivation in sinful passions. Or to say it another way, Paul is reasoning that sinful passions are the means to sinful practice.

Again in Romans 7:5 Paul states, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” Paul argues even more explicitly here that sinful affections are the means to and result in sinful actions. It is important to note that this behavior is the characteristic of an unbeliever. The unbeliever’s heart is fully of sinful affections and no affections for God. However, the sinful action of a believer is too the result of sinful affection. So it is safe to say then that for both the unbeliever, as well as the believer, sinful actions are the result of sinful affections.

There is a difference between the unbeliever and believer. That difference lies in the defining characteristic. For the believer, though he still produces sinful actions from sinful affections, he is not, nor should be, defined or characterized by such sinful affections or actions. The believer must be defined by godly affections and godly actions.

Faith Produces Godly Affections (Part 2)

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The most practical example in the New Testament of faith transforming affections is found in the words of Paul in Philippians 3:8-9. He says,

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

The righteousness required by God for justification has been merited for us by Christ. That righteousness comes to us through faith in Christ. This is Paul’s message in Philippians 3 and it is the message at the heart of the gospel. Faith in this truth of the gospel produces in Paul such a great affection for God that he counts everything else as loss.

The word that is translated as “surpassing worth” (ὑπερέχω) is a present active participle. Such a word carries the idea of the surpassing worth being continual and on going. In other words, the more that Paul grows in his “knowing Christ” the more valuable God becomes and worth God has to Paul. Such continuing and increasing affection for God causes Paul to see the worthlessness of the things of this world and reject any value or affection for them.

In similar fashion to Paul, as the believer grows by faith in his knowledge of Christ, his affection will also grow. Understanding and believing in the gospel demonstrates Christ as supremely and vastly more valuable and satisfying than anything or anyone else. When the Christian embraces by faith this supreme value, his affections are transformed and grown toward God.

Faith Produces Godly Affections (Part 1)

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Those who belong to Christ by faith, by the Spirit, put to death their sinful desires. Faith in Christ destroys sinful affections and produces godly affections. it is by faith that we walk by the Spirit. Godly affections are a work of the Spirit in the life of the believer through faith to produce fruit. Jonathan Edwards remarks:

The Spirit of God is given to the true saints to dwell in them, as his proper lasting abode; and to influence their hearts, as a principle of new nature or as a divine supernatural spring of life and action. The Scriptures represent the Holy Spirit not only as moving, and occasionally influencing the saints, but as dwelling in them as his temple, his proper abode, and everlasting dwelling place, 1 Cor. 3:16, 2 Cor. 6:16, John 14:16, 17. And he is represented as being there so united to the faculties of the soul, that he becomes there a principle or spring of new nature and life. So the saints are said to live by Christ living in them, Gal. 2:20. Christ by his Spirit not only is in them, but lives in them; and so that they live by his life; so is his Spirit united to them, as a principle of life in them; they do not only drink living water, but this “living water becomes a well or fountain of water,” in the soul, “springing up into spiritual and everlasting life,” John 4:14, and thus becomes a principle of life in them.

Sinners are in union with sin. Apart from the work of the Spirit, so too would believers remain. The Spirit brings the believer into union with Christ. That union, by faith, renews the heart with godly affections and becomes the “spring of new nature or life.” A.W. Pink wrote a definitive work on sanctification. In his work, he defines the nature of sanctification and writes the following:

Sin, then, is an inward state which precedes the evil deeds. It is a state of heart which refuses to be in subjection to God. It is a casting off the Divine law, and setting up self-will and self pleasing in its stead. Now, since holiness is the opposite of sin this helps us to determine something more of the nature of sanctification. Sanctification is that work of Divine grace in the believer which brings him back into allegiance to God, regulating his affections and actions in harmony with His will, writing His law on the heart (Heb. 10-16), moving him to make God’s glory his chief aim and end.

The critical point that Pink makes is that sin is a state of heart. It is from the heart that affections and actions proceed. Pink reasons from this that since holiness (sanctification) is the opposite of self-will and self-pleasing, it must be a work of grace in the believers life to bring the heart into godly affection. Such godly affection results in the believer’s actions being harmonious with God’s glory.

In Psalm 37:4, the writer encourages his reader to find his delight and satisfaction in the Lord. The oft quoted and very familiar verse reads, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The context surrounding this verse reveals that as the writer looks around at the world, all he can see is the wicked prospering and the righteous suffering. However, the underlying assumption in verse 4 is that the discontentedness of the writer is based on finding his delight in success, the same success of the wicked. Because the writer of Psalm 37 desires and seeks his delight in the success of the wicked, though he himself has not found it, he is envious of the wicked.

The remedy he prescribes himself is to refocus his pursuit from finding his delight in success to finding his delight in the Lord. It is only the Lord who can provide true everlasting delight. By contrast, the wicked will “soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.”97 Moreover, in verses 10 through 11 the writer says, “In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” Though overtaken with grief at the prosperity of the wicked, the writer reminds himself that they will soon disappear and the righteous will find delight.

Faith and Affection (Part2)

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The 1647 “Westminster Confession of Faith” says, “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” John Piper comments on this and saying,

The human heart produces desires as the fire produces heat. As surely as the sparks fly upward, the heart pumps out desire after desire for a happier future. The condition of the heart is appraised by the kinds of desires that hold sway. Or to put it another way, the state of the heart is shown by the things that satisfy its desires.

Failure to believe in the gospel and put trust in the flesh produces sinful affections. Sinful affections are desires that seek satisfaction in anything other than the all-sufficiency of Christ. By contrast, godly affections of the heart of the Christian have their proper place when they are set finding their satisfaction in Christ. Faith in the gospel gravitates the heart’s affection toward God.

Faith and Affections (Part 1)

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The struggle for the Christian lies in the affections. The war for holiness is fought on the battleground of the heart. Sanctification advances in the life of the believer through the affections.

Sin has often been defined, and thought of, as strictly the behavior that we do or fail to do. Sin is the habits of behavior that we need to fight against. In the words of Jay Adams:

When Paul speaks of the body as sinful, he does not conceive of the body as originally created by God as sinful (as if he were a Gnostic), but rather of the body plunged into sinful practices and habits as the result of Adams’ fall. There is no ultimate mind/body (flesh) dualism here, but the indwelling of the Spirit in a body habituated to do evil. This leads to an inner/outer struggle. This warfare increasingly is won by the Spirit, Who renews and activates the inner man, who helps the body to put off sinful patterns and to put on new biblical responses. Bodily members are to be yielded less and less to sin and more and more to God (Rom. 6:13, 16, 19). This is possible because Christ has given life not only to the believer’s soul (inner man), but also to his body (Rom. 7:24; 8:10, 11).

Because of this view of sin, the resulting view of sanctification is “a matter of growing out of old ways while growing into new ones.”

However, this view tends to neglect the essential role that the heart plays in sanctification. It is only by changing the heart that we can change behavior. Lane and Tripp speak to this:

The average Christian defines sin by talking about behavior. For example, what is the goal of most Christian parents? Is it not to get their children to do the right things? We set up all kinds of relational, motivational, and corrective structures to constrain and direct our children’s behavior. These structures are not without value, but if this is your only response to your child’s rebellion and sin, you will leave him defenseless against sin once he leaves home and the structures are no longer there.

Beneath the battle for behavior is another, more fundamental battle— the battle for the thoughts and motives of the heart.

The heart is the real or essential you. All of the ways in which the Bible refers to the inner person (mind, emotions, spirit, soul, will, etc.) are summed up with this one term: heart. The heart is the steering wheel of every human being. Everything we do is shaped and controlled by what our hearts desire.

That is why the Bible is very clear that God wants our hearts. Only when God has your heart does he have you. As much as we are affected by our broken world and the sins of others against us, our greatest problem is the sin that resides in our hearts. That is why the message of the gospel is that God transforms our lives by transforming our hearts.

Lasting change always comes through the heart. This is one of Scripture’s most thoroughly developed themes, but many of us have missed its profound implications. We need a deeper understanding of Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Sheer human effort to change behavior is not sufficient or proper for a Christian’s sanctification. The ultimate goal of sanctification is not behavior modification, rather it is image transformation. God pursues our heart because through it, he can have the whole Christian, with out the heart, he can have none of the Christian.

CyberChimps