Author: Andrew Micah

Andrew Micah is a 24-year-old worship leader and songwriter from the suburbs of Chicago. His ambition in life is to partner with God in pursuing the praise of His people. In his spare time he loves reading good fantasy fiction, being outdoors, drinking loose-leaf tea, and listening to folk music.

Holiness/Heart for Us

by Andrew Micah, posted in Uncategorized
“And David danced before the LORD with all his might.” (2 Samuel 6:14)

What caused David, a man after God’s own heart, to burst out in exuberant praise before the Lord?
When you read the story carefully, you realize that David was experiencing two things: the awesome holiness of God, and the demonstration of God’s commitment to save and dwell intimately with His people.
So how do we break out of cold, affectionless, self-absorbed religion into a vibrant life of sacrificial praise?

By waking up to God’s holiness and His heart for His people–his heart for us.
If God’s not holy, then His approval, His goodness, and His desire for intimate relationship with us doesn’t really mean anything. It’s nice, but it isn’t going to change your life. The lack of spiritual life that plagues much of the attractional church comes from forgetting God’s holiness. If the Philistines, Uzzah, and the people of Beth-Shemesh hadn’t died because of the presence of God, do you really think David would broke out dancing before the LORD when the presence returned?

But if God is holy and He doesn’t have a heart for us, we’re dead. There are many people in the church today who love to talk about God’s holiness and are severely lacking in spiritual life for this very reason. They don’t dance because they’re too scared to dance. They don’t believe that God is drawing near except to scrutinize, shame, and condemn. They don’t dance because they don’t understand the cross.

Holiness. Heart for us. We can’t live without either. Neither can live in our minds unless we hold fastly to the other. The spring of spiritual life is in the grasp of these two things: God is dreadfully holy, and He is deeply in love with His people. 

Only Something To Be Given

by Andrew Micah, posted in calling, encouragement, exhortation, gospel, Uncategorized

“What a revolution would come over the world–the world of starving bodies at home and starving souls abroad, if something like this were the standard of giving; if God’s people ventured on “making themselves poor” as Jesus did, for the sake of the need around; if the “I”–“me”–“mine” were  practically delivered up, no longer to be recognized when they clash with those needs.

The hour of this new dying is clearly defined to the dandelion globe: it is marked by detachment. There is no sense of wrenching: it stands ready, holding up its little life, not knowing when or where or how the wind that bloweth where it listeth may carry it away. It holds itself no longer for its own keeping, only as something to be given: a breath does the rest, turning the “readiness to will” into “performance.” (2 Cor. 8. 11.) And to a soul that through “deaths oft” has been brought to this point, even acts that look as if they must involve an effort, become something natural, spontaneous, full of a “heavenly involuntariness,” so simply as they are the outcome of the indwelling love of Christ.

Shall we not ask God to convict us, as to where lies the hindrance to this self-emptying? It is not alone mere selfishness, in the ordinary sense, that prevents it; long after this has been cleansed away by the Precious Blood there may remain, unrecognized, the self-life in more subtle forms. It may co-exist with much that looks like sacrifice; there may be much of usefulness and of outward self-denial, and yet below the surface may remain a clinging to our own judgment, a confidence in our own resources, an unconscious taking of our own way, even in God’s service.” –Lilias Trotter (1853-1928),  Parables of the Cross

You Have No Idea

by Andrew Micah, posted in gospel, grace, justice, theology, Uncategorized

“Consider this also: if you don’t believe in a God of wrath, you have no idea of your value. Here’s what I mean. A god without wrath has no need to go to the cross and suffer incredible agony and die in order to save you. Picture on the left a god who pays nothing in order to love you, and picture on the right the God of the Bible, who, because he’s angry at evil, must go to the cross, absorb the debt, pay the ransom, and suffer immense torment. How do you know how much the “free love” god loves you or how valuable you are to him? Well, his love is just a concept. You don’t know at all. This god pays no price in order to love you.”

-Tim Keller,  Jesus the King

A thought about being faithful to the truth

by Andrew Micah, posted in Uncategorized

Doctrinal faithfulness has to be measured not just by the accuracy of the individual truths we proclaim but by the completeness of the whole doctrine we proclaim as truth, and that completeness can only be measured by how thoroughly we disturb the lies. Truth without application is truth without power. If we perfectly summarize comprehensive truth without making its implications explicit in such a way as to deliberately disturb all the lies, we have created a powerless form of godliness.

New things! Songs and fundraising

by Andrew Micah, posted in Uncategorized

Hey readers! Check out the new “my songs” page. You’ll a see a link there to another page titled “ALL MY SORROWS (LOVE THAT SAVES)”. Follow that link, and you’ll find chords and a demo video to the first of 30 worship songs that I’ll be releasing over the next 30 days! The second song, “Were You There (Sing Glory),” will be published later today.

ALSO, I’m raising money to kick-start my launch into full-time worship ministry! Head over to givesendgo.com/andrewmicahmusic to contribute. Thanks!

The Discipline of Studying God’s Word, part 2: Practical Encouragements

by Andrew Micah, posted in reflection

This is the promised part 2 on the discipline of studying God’s word. I took a break from writing on this subject to address some things that were heavy on my heart regarding the subject of abuse in the church. I’m most likely going to be removing those posts at some point and posting a condensed, clarified version (UPDATE: they are now removed), but for now, I’d like to invite you to consider with me how we can enrich our relationship with God through the disciplined study of His word.

Now that we’ve established the spirit and state of mind in which we must approach the study of God’s word, let’s consider some practical things. In the eight or nine years that I’ve been a believer in and a follower of Christ, I’ve experimented with a lot of different patterns, routines, and practices in studying God’s word. I’m going to share the most helpful ones with you. The Father encourages us to seek for His truth in a similar way to how we might mine and refine precious metal (Proverbs 2:4). He has given us a bible, not a set of systematic theology volumes (which are all very well in their place); He has left work for us to be done because we work for what we treasure, and treasure what we have worked for. A very casual survey of metallurgy reveals that, over the centuries, human ingenuity has discovered many ways to extract pure gold and silver from ore. All of them were developed through work, and all of them involve hard work. We mentally apply ourselves to obtain the things that are most precious to us. Listen to the Father’s counsel from the book of Proverbs:

“Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding,
for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than fine gold.
She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.”
(Proverbs 3:14-15)

The wisdom of God is better than fine gold and sweeter than honey (cf. Psalm 19:10). What if we believed that? What if we took Him at His word? How different would our lives be if we took it to heart that nothing we could ever desire, not even the dearest love of our soul, could ever compare to the wisdom that is found in understanding, believing, and obeying the word of God!

So practically, then, how do we go about mining the precious riches of God’s Word? The most important thing is, of course, to do it. There are many ways to study God’s Word. His wisdom is far too precious and immediately needed in our lives for us to wait to get started in the habit of study until we find the perfect method. It is also too precious for us to not be constantly evaluating and improving our study approach.

Experience has its benefits, but ultimately, the Bible is our first and best guide on how to study the Bible. Here’s a few biblical principles for how to study God’s word, coupled with some of my own insights on the application of those principles.

MEDITATION

The godly person is someone who meditates on God’s Word day and night (Psalm 1:2, 119:15-16, 148). This might go without saying, but biblical meditation is not about emptying the mind; it’s not about disengagement from thought. It is quite often necessary for us to clear our minds of other things in order to fill up our minds with God, and prayer is helpful for this. That said, meditation is about conscious reflection and thought about God’s Word. It is pondering, contemplating, considering. Meditation is a critical discipline in the study of God’s word; without it, memorization and simple reading are pointless, and obedience is easily misguided. 

Sometimes some kind of physical activity such as taking a walk or a run or a bike ride is helpful to keep our minds from fidgeting while we are trying to meditate on God’s word. More often, it is physical stillness that I need. Either way, it’s important to quiet our minds so that the real worries and concerns and questions and desires of our hearts can rise to the surface of our consciousness to engage and be engaged with by God’s words. If we’re not allowing God’s word to speak to the real stuff in our hearts and minds and lives, we’re not meditating. So meditation isn’t just about unpacking the meaning of Scripture but making room for Scripture to speak to us. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) In context, this verse is not primarily a statement about the written word of God, but the Person we encounter through the word, Jesus Christ. When we quiet our hearts and make room for God to speak, Jesus draws near through the written word and separates truth from lies, sin from goodness, and love from idolatry in the deepest parts of our hearts.

That said, the conscious engagement of our minds with the unpacking of biblical meaning, or the refining of our understanding, is an essential part of biblical meditation too. To this end, it’s helpful to ask questions of the text, and write or journal those answers. I tend to have so much to write when I do this that it’s often helpful for me to sit in front of my lap-top and pour thoughts and reflections into an open WordPad document; if I rely on physical journaling, I rarely get anything done because it takes too long to write everything out. This is in part because I’m a verbal processor and I have a hard time really working with my own thoughts unless I talk through them or write them out. Technology is not the enemy of godliness, but it’s helpful to set boundaries (like turning off my wi-fi).

Many people use some form of the Discovery Bible Study (DBS) method in their approach to meditating on God’s word. DBS was initially developed for the purpose of cross-cultural evangelism and discipleship, but it can be a help in our conversations with God as well, provided that we aren’t controlling the conversation with our agenda, and that we’re actually allowing Him to speak to us. What I like about DBS is that it involves looking for answers to specific questions, and verbalizing those answers because this engages the conscious mind. At the heart of DBS is conversation about three questions:

-What do I learn about God from this passage?
-What do I learn about myself/people/others?
-How can I put what I’ve learned into practice?

For myself, I find it helpful to ask even more specific questions such as these:

GOD
-What specific attributes or characteristics of God are made apparent or glorified in this passage of Scripture? What do I learn about His personality, His love, His justice, His holiness, His grace, His wrath, His mercy, His power, or His presence?
-What do I learn about the works of God in this passage? What has God done, and how does it impact my life?
-What do I learn specifically about the person and work of Christ from this passage, or how does it relate to Christ?
-How would my life be different if I was to take to heart the awareness of who God is and what He has done that is offered to me in this passage? What does He want me to remember about Him?

PEOPLE/ME/US
-What does this passage of Scripture reveal about the claims of God’s lordship on human lives, or specifically on my life? What does it reveal about God’s presence in my life or the lives of others?
-What does this passage suggest or declare to be true about me as a person, or about other people in the world?
-What does this passage state or imply about my identity as a believer in Jesus? What does God want me to remember about myself? How might my life be different if I did?

APPLICATION
-What promises can I believe? How would my life be different if I believed them?
-In light of this passage, what can I worship God for/how can I worship Him differently?
-What commandments can I obey? Why does God want me to obey them?
-How is God correcting my thoughts and actions in love?
-How can my life find meaning in God’s greater story because of the truth in this passage of Scripture? How will Christ be formed in me through obedience to His word?

All of these questions can be starting points for prayer, whether we are seeking God to understand the meaning of the text (e.g., “Father, help me to find your promises here”) or apply it (e.g. “Father, help me to believe these promises”). Scripture study thrives when it is mingled with prayer. God wants us to engage with His word on our knees; it’s the only way our hearts can be softened enough for His wisdom to work its way in. He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34). The Bible is a spiritual book that is spiritually understood. This doesn’t mean that there are no rules or structure or logic to interpreting the Bible. But it does mean that we can’t possibly hope to arrive at wisdom (which is more than intellectual knowledge) without the Holy Spirit, and it also means that there are treasures of God’s word that can only be discovered or appreciated by those who know and seek Him personally. No one can be wise for you (Proverbs 9:12), and no one (except Jesus, who has made a way for all of us) can seek after God for you. To paraphrase worship leader Brooke Ligertwood, “everyone must walk the path of God’s presence for themselves.” There is something of a symbiotic relationship between prayer and meditation on God’s word. Praying while we meditate of God’s word engages our minds with the personal God who is the author of His word, and helps us humbly depend on Him for understanding. Meditating on God’s word as we pray keeps our prayers engaged with the things that God is most concerned with in our lives.

In the end, meditation on God’s word must be focused on the person and work of Christ if it is to profit us at all. Nothing will help us find spiritual nutrition in the obscure or challenging portions of God’s word quite like a robust, rich, biblical doctrine of Christ. What is more, there are many portions of scripture that we might think we understand very well, but actually cannot understand without Christ at the forefront of our minds. You cannot mine the riches of the Law until you understand that Christ is the end of the Law (Romans 10:4). You cannot nourish your soul in the Proverbs until you understand that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ (Colossians 2:3). You cannot with cry out or celebrate with the prophets until you understand that it is Christ who inherits and distributes all the blessings that God promised to Abraham and David and the nation of Israel (2 Corinthians 1:20). You cannot join the voice of your heart with the chorus of the Psalms until you know that the story of Christ is the story of God, and that our stories are woven into the story of God through our union with Him.

In all of our meditation, we will be rewarded (or not) by what we are looking for. If we are looking to be searched and known, to be refined and tested, to be challenged and instructed and corrected and purified–if we engage God’s word with a determined willingness to sacrifice our pride, our most treasured little points of doctrinal detail, our dearest little idols and monuments to ourselves–we will arrive at the knowledge of God. But if we engage in God’s word with a desire for self-promotion, we will ultimately miss out on everything that God means to give us through His word, and we may be none the wiser (I Timothy 1:3-8). We all come to God’s word with many ideas and desires more or less firmly lodged in our hearts and minds that are lifted up against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5)–and by knowledge I mean (as I think Paul means) not just mental apprehension of sound doctrine, but as intimate relationship. If we are unwilling for those things to be loosened, dislodged, shattered, and swept away by the supernatural power of God for the sake of the treasure of knowing Him, we will find ourselves no better off than the Pharisees (John 5:39-40). Unless we are willing to die to ourselves, to be utterly dethroned before the living God, we cannot have life through the word of God.

The admonition of James is fitting here: “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” (James 3:14-15) I deeply regret time that I wasted, relationships that I fractured, and so much life that I missed as a much younger believer because of my preoccupation with little pet points of doctrine that may or may not have been true and were not nearly as important as I blindly supposed them to be. Prideful longing for the attention of men is a great deceiver, and it will make us bold about many things that we really have no reason to be. If we are dishonest about the intentions of our hearts, we are only hurting ourselves and our relationships. Mustering armies of proof-texts for doctrinal wargames over the application of ceremonial laws or the proper mode of baptism may be intellectually stimulating, but it will not promote the praise of God, it will not build up the household of God, it will not fill up a dry and thirsty heart, and it will not keep you from sin.

EXTENDED READING

I have put meditation ahead of extended reading because I believe that a really solid grasp of a few passages of Scripture is a prerequisite to being able to glean much from reading extended portions of Scripture, especially in the Old Testament. A firm hold of the principles of Christ, as we have discussed, is essential to being able to gain spiritual nourishment from reading the Old Testament. That being said, we become very limited in our understanding of God’s character and work when we confine ourselves to our favorite portions of the New Testament, and perhaps some passages in the Psalms. There are a lot of really terrible misconceptions about who God is and what we ought to expect of Him that get transmitted from one person to the next through out-of-context, single-sentence quotes from the Old Testament on calendars, keychains, journal covers, and facebook statuses. “All Scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Including the parts that we leave out.

If you want to know what Jeremiah 29:11 means and how it applies to our lives, you really ought to take a day and read Jeremiah from start to finish. It will shake your soul. It will lay in ruins so many precious illusions about the life of faith that you took for granted. It will bring you face to face with the jealous anger of a holy God, and it will force you to reconsider whether your personal comfort or success in life is quite as indispensable to God as you have always assumed. If you have a good hold on Christ, you will understand much better why He had to go to the cross. Read it. Let it disturb you. Let it restructure your view of God and of reality for the better.

While you’re at it, take a few hours sometime and read Job. Read Ezekiel, and don’t skip over the graphic parts; grapple with them. Read about the life of David from start to finish, all his glorious promise and his gruesome failures, and let it stir the longing in your heart for the better king that was promised to and through Him. Read Deuteronomy, and ponder what it might mean for a people to be God’s treasured possession. Taking a few hours every now and then to read a longer portion of less familiar Scripture will strengthen what is true in your vision of God, and challenge what is misguided. Just remember that there is a veil over the reader of the Old Testament, and the veil is lifted by Christ (2 Corinthians 3:12-16). Make it your aim to behold Him. The Jesus Bible produced by the Passion Movement is an outstanding resource, and its commentary has much to offer in the way of guiding the reader towards beholding and worshiping Jesus through the Old and New Testaments of Scripture.

 MEMORIZATION

Memorizing the Bible is a biblical idea. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell richly within you.” That’s impossible if we’re unable to recall specific things that God has said to mind throughout the day. Memorization is not an end to itself; its value is that it enables us to nourished by God’s word as we meditate on what we’ve memorized.

I’m on a brand new long-term scripture study and memorization plan that I put together two weeks ago. I’ve been making use of a great app recommended by a friend for the memorization side. I’ve had the desire (but not the discipline) to memorize longer portions of Scripture for quite some time, and it seems that I’ve found a good rhythm to stick to. In the summer of 2015 I attempted to commit both Ephesians and James to memory, and while I could not now recite very much of either of those books verbatim, the result of the effort was that I now have a much deeper grasp of both of those letters than I otherwise could have.

The real benefit of Scripture memorization is not in being able to rattle verses off word-for-word and make an impression on God, yourself, the devil, or anyone else. The benefit is found the meditation that happens in the midst of the process of memorization and that can happen as a result of it. This is especially true when we memorize longer portions of scripture, instead of scattered verses. Memorizing longer chapters or longer sections of chapters, or even whole books, confronts us with the need to grapple with God, His concerns, His claims, and His work instead of crafting a shallow, personalized Christianity driven by our own impulses and perceived needs. It causes us to ask questions like, “why did God say that?” and “why did He say it that way?” It has the result of allowing some of God’s thoughts that we might not otherwise think of as useful to soak in our minds and hearts, and reshape them so far that the whole structure of thought and desire by which we filter information as useful or un-useful is redefined. 

To give an example of how this has proved true in my life, when I memorized (or tried to memorize) the book of Ephesians, I was brought face-to-face with how God’s reconciling of people and nations in Christ is such a central part of His story. And I realized that my spiritual life was driven far too much by my own perceived personal needs and not nearly enough by God’s plan to redeem and gather the nations into a unified body in Christ. As another example (and I could give dozens), when I memorized the book of James, I realized that the real concern of a phrase that I was very familiar with–“quick to hear, slow to speak” (James 1:19) was less about listening well to other people (although that’s certainly important) more with humbly and quietly hearing God in a way that’s impossible when I’m filling the air with my own words (see vs. 21).

I would heartily recommend to you this practice of memorizing longer portions of Scripture–chapters, books, and longer portions. There are so many spiritual benefits, even if you don’t carefully maintain what you’ve memorized (and I wish that I had). But don’t just focus on sounds and syllables and stringing them all in the proper order. Make time for your mind to engage and wrestle with the meaning of the text. Force yourself to put your questions into words. And pray, before and after and in the midst of the process! Ask God to steady your wandering mind and help you understand and internalize His priorities for your heart and life through His word.

OBEDIENCE

George MacDonald said that “obedience is the soul of knowledge.” There is a level of understanding that only comes when we obey God’s word. This is important because we all have a fleshly tendency to demand understanding before we obey. The reality is that understanding often only comes through the process of obedience. If we want to delight in God and to experience His delight in us through a deeper understanding of His heart, His work, and His character, we must discipline ourselves to obey, and humbly welcome God’s discipline! Jesus encourages us to obey Him with this promise: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (John 15:10). But what does this mean? That we increase God’s love for us by obeying Him?

No, far from it! John says that “we love because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19) We don’t love God to stir up His love for us; we love God in response to the way that He has already loved us! God does not love us more when we obey Him. It is not even accurate to say that God loves us because of Christ’s active and passive obedience, His righteous life and sacrificial death on our behalf! The work of Christ is the fulfillment of the love that God had for us “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8), even before we were justified and cleansed! So it is clear that we do not obey God in order to increase His love for us. God fundamentally welcomes us, delights in us, affirms us, and blesses us through Christ because of His great love for us. Paul says in Ephesians, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual lessing in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 1:3) How do we know that God has blessed us? Because we are united with Christ through faith in His finished work! We do not obtain the eternal blessings of God through obedience, but through faith in Christ.

If all of this is true, then why does Christ call us to obey Him as a means of “abiding in His love?” Many would answer this question by drawing our attention to the fact that sin, even for believers, is not without its consequences. God still disciplines us when we sin, and there is even the possibility of missing out on some eternal rewards if we persist in sinful living (I Corinthians 3:10-15). But all that God does for us He does for us in love. Even in God’s acts of discipline and judgment, He is acting  for us, not against us. Why, then, is obedience the way that we abide in God’s love?

Because it is through obedience that we bring our hearts and minds into agreement with the truth of God’s love for us. Listen to Paul’s encouragement in Ephesians 5:1-2: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The doctrine of positive confession has done and is doing great damage to the church, with all of its expectations of prosperity and material comfort in this life, but there is something to be said for the emphasis on agreeing with God. It is not our agreement with God about a thing that makes the thing true; but it is our agreement that enables us to take delight in and be comforted by what is true. Obedience is a tool of spiritual warfare, because when we obey, we are declaring to the world, the flesh, and the powers of darkness that we are not our own anymore. We have been bought with a price and born again to a living hope in the new family of grace, and when we obey we are taking ownership of that reality. Obedience is a means by which we take hold of the comfort that is found in our identity in Christ. It is a way that we reassure ourselves of the truths of grace.

But there are comforts even beyond these to be found in obedience. God’s commandments are an invitation to taste the sweet goodness of His eternal character (2 Peter 1:4) and grow in resembling Him in the way that we live. God’s commandments are a way for us to fellowship with Him in His holiness, to partake with Him of the glory of His justice and mercy and truth. As we do this, our joy in God for who He is increases–and not only that, but we bring Him the great joy of seeing His children walk in truth, and we protect ourselves from many painful natural consequences of sin that affect our ability to have true happiness in this life. There is an experience of God’s good intentions for us that is only possible through submitting to His commandments. In calling us to obey, God is not manipulating us by threatening to withdraw His love; He is simply entreating us to allow Him to love us by submitting to His commandments, because His commandments are an expression of His love. He will still love us when we disobey, but love can only bring satisfaction to a willing heart.

So there you have it. Meditate, read, memorize, obey. May you be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to delight in God and discipline yourself in the cultivation of delight through the diligent study of His word!

The Discipline of Studying God’s Word, part 1: A Practical Theology

by Andrew Micah, posted in encouragement, exhortation, reflection

Yesterday I published a post on this blog attempting to broadly answer the question of what spiritual discipline is. This morning I sat down with the intention of gathering and presenting some insights from a particular passage of scripture that I’ve been studying this week, and quickly found myself sidetracked by my own introduction into a discussion on the subject of how we can discipline ourselves in the study of God’s word. It seems that I’m being led into a series of posts on spiritual disciplines, so I might as well fall into the work. I hope that what follows here will offer helpful direction, both in terms of profound perspective, and in terms of practical guidance. This article, part 1, focuses on the motivation and the mindset of being disciplined in studying scripture.

Please understand that when I write about spiritual disciplines, I’m not writing as a master or a mentor in these things. Much of what I’ll cover in this series involves disciplines that I am currently establishing in my life for the very first time, or that I am re-establishing after a period of partial or complete neglect. I’m speaking to exhort and encourage myself as much as I am anyone who reads these posts. There’s an implicit accountability in putting thoughts on record like this which I hope will be helpful to me. One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it, and oh how I need to learn. So walk with me as I walk towards the fullness of fellowship with God in Christ.

I’d like to start our discussion of the study of God’s word by considering together a brief passage of God’s word that offers to us a whole implied practical theology of obtaining and growing in wisdom. Five years ago, in the spring and summer of 2015, I made a serious attempt at memorizing several extended portions of Scripture: James, Ephesians, and the first ten chapters of Proverbs. There was a period of a few weeks when I could in fact recite all of the above from the King James Bible. Since that time, I’ve gone through three changes of preferred translation (NKJV to NIV and now ESV), and I have not diligently maintained my word-for-word memory of those passages of Scripture. But the time and effort that I put into the attempt of memorizing has brought tremendous yields in my relationship with God and my knowledge of His word, and some of the most precious yields have come through familiarity with this following passage, from the book of Proverbs:

“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

For the LORD gives wisdom; out of his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice, and preserving the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you.”
(Proverbs 2:1-10, ESV)

WISDOM IS A GIFT OF THE FATHER

The first thing we should take note of here is that wisdom is already being conveyed to us in the context of a relationship. It’s something we are given before it is something we go out and find. When Proverbs says, “my son,” it’s not just a wishful imagining of what fathers would or could or should do with their children. It’s our Father addressing us as His children (Hebrews 12:5). This is important because many of us had fathers who did next to nothing to teach us wisdom. They may have been completely absent. They may have attempted to impart some life lessons, but those lessons were fleshly and deeply flawed. But even those of us who were fortunate enough to have fully present and intentional fathers who walked with God and trained us to walk with Him still grew up without the complete nourishment that we needed, because in the work of the very best fathers there is a great distance between what was intended and what was actually accomplished by their discipline and discipleship (Hebrews 12:10). The good news is, those of us who still need fathering (which is all of us) are offered an intimate relationship with a perfect heavenly Father who listens to us, knows us, watches over us, walks with us, speaks to us, affirms us, corrects us, enjoys us, and delights in us. It is in this relationship, secured by the blood of Jesus Christ, that God speaks to us as children.

What this means is that studying God’s word is not something that we do to earn the right to think of ourselves as children of God. The right to be and think of ourselves as children of God is something that is given to us as we receive the person and work of Jesus Christ through faith in the message of His gospel, because it is in the moment that we first believe in Jesus that we are born into God’s family by the power of His Holy Spirit (John 1:12-13). Apart from the question of faith in the finished work of Jesus, what we are doing right now with God’s commandments, His story, and His testimonies doesn’t ultimately have any bearing on whether we are children of God in this moment. It does, however, have bearing on whether or not we are good children who increase the joy of our Father’s heart by walking in truth (cf. Proverbs 17:25, 3 John 1:4).

God’s good promise to us is that He will give us words that we can receive. He will give us commandments that we can treasure. He will provide us with wisdom that we can make our ears attentive to. He will offer us understanding that we can incline our hearts to. We do not have to worry that He will turn His eyes, His voice, or His heart away from us. But in the way that He relates to us, He leaves room for us to reciprocate and respond to His attention to us with our own attention to Him. He will discipline us if He has to (Proverbs 3:11-12), but He would much rather not (cf. Psalm 32:8-9) because He is kind and does not afflict us from His heart (Lamentations 3:33).

In all of this, there is a strong appeal to the free will of the liberated child of God. Those of us who treasure and emphasize the truth of God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation and in human events–who call ourselves reformed, Calvinists, monergists, or what have you (and I am firmly one of them, because the word of God persuades me)–are in danger of setting aside these appeals that Scripture makes to an implicitly free will. “Obedience to the faith” (cf. Acts 6:7, Romans 1:5, 16:26)–both to the truth of God’s absolute sovereignty and the truth of our responsibility–must take priority over exploring the paradoxes and resolving the apparent contradictions in sound doctrine. There is a place for such inquiry, but only if we are stewarding well the truth that we have been already given by considering and obeying its implications: first, that God is totally sovereign, and second, that we are totally responsible and capable of free moral action as those who have been set free by the work of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Galatians 3:2, 5:22-24) from the power and curse of sin. There is a particularly strong element of synergy between the work of God and the exercise of our free will in the process of our sanctification, and we dismiss it to our own loss. Christians who do not often think of themselves as free moral agents become atrophied in their character because they expect God to do for us things that God is only willing to do with us, in partnership with our own struggling and laboring (Colossians 1:29). Like Paul in Galatians, Proverbs presents us with a choice: what will you do with your freedom? (Galatians 5:13) Our insistence upon our own constructions of God’s sovereignty can take a very disrespectful turn when we put the question back on God. We do not like it when our children talk back to us, and we should not expect that God likes it when we talk back to Him. So let’s be humble before God, our creator, our sovereign Lord, our almighty Redeemer, and our great Father. Let’s take His words to heart with sweet and trusting simplicity, believing that as we treasure His commandments, we will gradually arrive at a deeper vision of the beauty of His sovereignty than would otherwise be attainable. We must plead with God to incline our hearts after His word and keep us from wandering (Psalm 119:32-40); but we must also hear and obey when He tells us to incline our own hearts.

I’m inclined, as I’m sure many of you are also inclined, to fear and feel insecure whenever God makes an appeal to my responsibility to choose Him. I deeply feel the instability of my own affections, the weakness of my own will, the incessant tendency of my mind towards distraction. Let our hearts take comfort! Our God is the God who spoke to fathers, “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, ESV) He did not ask any one of us to be a better Father than He is. He created men as fathers and sons from His own eternal Fatherhood and Sonship. The words that He commands us are on His heart. He will teach them diligently to us. He will talk of them when we sit in our houses, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up. He is already speaking to us. What are we doing with the treasures of His truth that God abundantly showers on us moment by moment and day by day? Are we receiving them and treasuring them up in our hearts? Are we forcing our ears to pay attention and wrestling our minds into love and obedience? We must access the power of the Holy Spirit to engage and discipline our own minds and hearts in the pursuit of God’s wisdom, and then trust that when our own effort grows weak, He will be near with His loving discipline to supply us with the motivation to “lift the drooping hands and strengthen the weak knees, and make straight paths for our feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” (Hebrews 12:13-14) Our self-discipline must fully rest in and respond to the promise of God’s discipline of us. It is one hundred percent up to Him to be our Father, and He is one hundred percent up to the task. It’s up to us to be His children, and He has given us everything that we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). We are fully equipped to learn and grow as God’s children. What are we doing with what the Father has given to us?

DESPERATE ACTION, DESPERATE DEPENDENCE

There is a paradox in these verses that we must grapple with in the passage that I quoted at the beginning. The Father’s words are freely given and His commandments are abundantly provided for us. He is not stingy with His counsel, measuring out a word or two for every few thousand tears of agonized prayer. He is always speaking to us, even when we’re not listening. At the same time, we are called to engage with God’s words and commandments in a way that can only be described as diligent urgency. The kind of listening that the Father requires of us is much more like digging for hidden treasure than it is like gathering treasure in baskets as it falls from the sky. It is as every bit as much like pounding on the door of your friend (Luke 11:5-13) as it is like opening the door for your friend (Revelation 3:20). God will come to our door, but there is an intimacy with Him and with His thoughts that only happens when we go to His door, and refuse to be denied. Gaining wisdom is a process that involves both searching and crying out:

“yes, if you call out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.”
(Proverbs 2:3-5)

There is both urgency of action here and urgency of prayer. We do not merely work hard at studying God’s word, and then say a prayer at the end and hope that it amounts to something. Nor do we spend all of our time in prayer, and flip through our Bibles until we land on something that strikes us. We must couple desperate dependence on God in prayer with desperate action. That is the way to know God. It involves persistent labor and passionate pleading. Hard work and the humility of absolute helplessness. We must savor the truth in our minds every moment, and utterly despair of knowing anything apart from the guiding, leading, enabling, and preserving work of the Holy Spirit.

It is true that all of our striving after godliness must proceed from resting in the promises of God, even as our whole lives as natural creatures proceed from rest in the works of God in creation, and our whole lives as new creatures in Christ proceed from rest in His finished works. But in our carefulness against the wrong kind of striving we have done much harm if we eliminate striving altogether. The kingdom of heaven belongs not to the self-assured and contented but to the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), and one integral part of what it means to be poor in spirit is a refusal to settle into the idleness of spiritual complacency. If God gave me all of His Word for this life only (and I do believe He did), then it is essential that I know His Word for this life. This implies a willingness to study hard, to discipline my mind, to memorize, to ask good questions, and to wrestle with those questions until they are answered.

Another integral part of what it means to be poor in spirit is the understanding that without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, all of my efforts to know and understand God, His word, and His work will amount to worse than nothing. It is the LORD who gives wisdom, and He rewards the humble hard worker who turns from the pursuit of immediate pleasure and even a little of his own dignity for the enduring satisfaction that can only be found in knowing God.

We must be willing to take vengeance on the things that crowd God’s word out of our minds, even things that are not bad in and of themselves. There is value in games and shows and social gatherings, in public and private recreational pursuits that refresh the mind, broaden the imagination, and provide us with a relational context in which we can encourage one another. There is value in work that provides for the needs of our bodies and those who depend on us. But these things must be made to serve the true purpose of our lives, not the other way around (cf. Matthew 6:25). To know and serve God is the true purpose of our lives, to be always after the fullest realization of His experiential righteousness in us and His kingdom through us that is possible in this present age (Matthew 6:33).

As a rule, whenever God admonishes us in Scripture to pray briefly and with calm assurance, it is with regard to the needs of the body and the practical concerns of life; whenever God encourages us to pray long and hard, with great emotion and desperate insistence, it is with regard to the things of His kingdom, to His righteousness in us, to the baptism and gifts of His Spirit, to the building up of the church in love, the increase of God’s praise, and the work of justice. Whenever God admonishes us to do only what is necessary, it is in providing for our bodies and sorting out the daily obligations of mundane life; but when He admonishes us to apply ourselves with all heart and soul, it is with regard to knowing Him in our work and making Him known through it. Try out these rules for yourself on the Word of God, and see if they do not give you some light. Let us then only pray for our needs as much as we must in order to un-burden our cares on the heart of God, and pray as much as we can to take His cares upon our heart, for as we do this we will be lifted beyond the momentary concerns of sustaining our own existence to the great and noble calling for which we have been made to exist, and which is the measure of our human lives: knowing God and having friendship with Him in His work of crucified love (John 15:15). And for this purpose, let us study and strive to know the word of God. Let us disturb the quiet of our hearts with loud inward cries and diligent seeking. Let us not be content until we have found this one thing: the knowledge of God. And what I have found is that the more I know God, the more I crave to know Him. Surrender to the hunger. Let it have its way with you. Let it do with your life what ever it will, turning it upside down, consuming your free time, and taking away your appetite for unworthy things. Starve the relationships that are built on trivial things and wrestle your way into real Christian fellowship. Protect your time spent with God in His word; show steadfast gentleness toward others and take savage vengeance on the flesh (cf. I Corinthians 9:27). It’s worth it.

~Andrew

What is Spiritual Discipline?

by Andrew Micah, posted in calling, christian leadership, Uncategorized

I’m currently reading through Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes. (I’ve only just started, so I’ll withhold a recommendation or a review until I’ve finished.) Yesterday I sat down to answer the study questions for chapter 1. I found the first of those questions, which concerns the definition of spiritual discipline, an appropriate subject of contemplation not just for myself but for many of my friends who have more than usual solitary free time in the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine. What follows is the fruit of my own contemplation, and I hope it offers helpful perspective and guidance to those of you who are perhaps giving an unusual degree of attention to the state of spiritual discipline in your lives in this unique time. In this article I attempt to provide a thorough definition of what spiritual discipline is in a way that will help us engage in spiritual disciplines more worshipfully and fruitfully. I’d like to start by giving you my own definition, and then show you step-by-step how I arrive at that definition.

I would define spiritual discipline as the God-centered, gospel-enabled, Spirit-empowered, conscious and deliberate training of one’s whole heart, soul, mind, and strength to be set apart for the praise and enjoyment of God through obedience to His commandments, in anticipation of eternity spent with Him. Spiritual discipline is driven by delight in God that is stirred up by the perfection of who He is and His love for and delight in us.

To better understand what spiritual discipline is, let’s break this definition down by considering five essential components. These five components are the orientation (who it’s for) the motive force (what’s the power source), the subject (what it happens to), the action (what it does), and the objective (or the end goal) of spiritual discipline.

First, the orientation of spiritual discipline is God-centered, not self-centered. It’s not about self-promotion, but about the revelation of God’s glory in us as we become progressively more and more conformed to the image of Christ (cf. Ephesians 4:23-24, Colossians 3:10), for the sake of His name and His praise. All-consuming delight in who God is and in His love for us is a prerequisite for growth in godliness. When we delight in God for who He is, spiritual discipline becomes a means and an invitation by which we pursue fellowship with God in the sweetness of His perfect character. But if we only love God for what He can do or has done for us, then it’s impossible for our attempts at spiritual discipline to be anything more than self-centered bargaining with God for our own glory and pleasure in ourselves. At the same time, it’s possible to have some conception of the greatness and majesty of God without a deep assurance of His love for us. When this is true, spiritual discipline quickly devolves into a self-centered attempt to obtain for ourselves from God or from other people what God has already richly provided for us in Jesus Christ. When we try to earn love by spiritual discipline, it’s as if we are kicking down a door to the Father’s house that has already been opened by the blood of Jesus. It’s as though we are trying to steal from the pantry what has already been set before us on the Father’s table. It’s a sad, lonely, foolish, and pointless way to live. But when we humble ourselves to receive the Father’s love freely given to us in Jesus Christ, we come to understand that there is nothing we can do to diminish God’s pleasure in us as His children, or to seal us off from the welcome we have to His love through Jesus Christ. Our sin will never bolt God’s door or fold His arms toward us. His unchangeable welcome for and delight in us is the very reason for His discipline of us (cf. Hebrews 12:6) and His call for us to discipline ourselves (cf. Ephesians 5:1-2).

Because spiritual discipline is God-centered, it directs us to be others-centered through Him. One of the essential ways that we increase God’s praise and the enjoyment of our fellowship with Him is displaying His love in serving others. The flesh has nothing to give to other people; all the rivers of the will of the flesh run into the sea of its own self-promotion and praise. But when the Spirit turns our hearts to God, we are able to love others out of the abundant overflow of the satisfying love we have found in God.

The God-centered nature of spiritual discipline excludes any ambitious pursuit of self-actualization. Our goal in spiritual discipline is not to actualize ourselves or realize our own potential, but to actualize and realize the potential of Christ in us (cf. Ephesians 4:13) through His power (cf. John 15:5) for the praise of God (cf. Matthew 5:16, John 15:8). Self-actualization leads to boasting and idolatry. The actualization of Christ is only possible through humility, through the discipline of confessing our sins and believing the promises of God. From beginning to end the work of Christ-actualization in us glorifies His love and power and leaves no room for boasting in ourselves.

Second, the motive force of spiritual discipline is the power of the Holy Spirit through ongoing faith in the gospel. Spiritual discipline is gospel-enabled. Because Jesus took on the punishment for our sin on the cross and endured the wrath of God, we know that there is no condemnation left for us to face. Jesus has already clothed us in His righteous reputation, and we have access through Him to the infinite resources of a Father who loves us and is infinitely for us! If all this wasn’t true, spiritual discipline would be an endless effort to win a battle for perfection that we have already lost. But because of the cross, spiritual discipline isn’t an effort to obtain or increase God’s love. It’s an effort to enter more fully into the day-to-day experience of God’s love through agreement with what He says about our identity–that we are the free and holy children of God set apart from sin by the work of Christ and called to live in His likeness.

Because spiritual discipline is Gospel-enabled, it is also Spirit-empowered. One of the most hopeful and life-giving realities of the Gospel is freedom from the power of our sinful nature. In Galatians 5:16, God commands us through the words of the apostle Paul to “walk by the Spirit,” with the promise that if we do so we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Without the Gospel, this would be impossible! Earlier in Galatians, Paul rhetorically asks, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3:2) We don’t receive the Holy Spirit through our efforts to obey God’s commandments. Without the Holy Spirit, all we have to work with in living for God is our fallen sinful nature, which is only capable of producing all of the things that disqualify us from entering God’s kingdom on our own merits (Galatians 5:19-21). So if it was up to us to obtain the Holy Spirit by our good works, living for God would be impossible! We’d be left to our resources of our flesh, which is unable to please God (Romans 8:8). But through faith in Christ, we have access to the “Spirit of His Son” (Galatians 4:6) that assures us of our place in God’s family and enables us to walk out our union with Christ. As we abide in Him through the kind of gospel faith that produces obedience, we participate in His spiritual life and bear the fruit through Him that brings praise to God (John 15:3-8).

Third, the subject of spiritual discipline is the heart, soul, mind and strength of the child of God. This encompasses all that we are as living people; it is concerned with our thoughts, our desires, our beliefs, our affections, our words, and our actions. Spiritual discipline is concerned with the whole person because the jealous claims of God extended to every aspect of our personhood as people created in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of His son (cf. I Corinthians 6:19-20). It is the direction of “all my being’s ransomed powers” (to borrow a phrase from the hymn-writer) to the service of God’s purposes of my life. Therefore, spiritual discipline is not just concerned with our actions. It is not just concerned with what other people can see. Nor is it just concerned with our souls, with the inner life. It is concerned with establishing God’s rule in our whole lives from the inside out: our thoughts, our perspectives, our values, our work, our recreation, our relationships, our sexuality, our private life, and our public worship. The blood of Christ, which redeems us from sin, transfers of the ownership of our whole lives into the hands of God, our Father. Spiritual discipline is how God’s beloved children respond to that transfer by learning to walk in love (cf. Ephesians 5:1-2).

Fourth, the action of spiritual discipline is the conscious and deliberate training of the whole person to obey God’s commandments. Because the motive force of spiritual discipline is ongoing faith in the Gospel that accesses the power of the Holy Spirit, the first and most essential discipline that we must practice as believers in Christ is to hold fast to hope of the Gospel (cf. Hebrews 10:23) and the second is to plead without ceasing for the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 11:5-13). But spiritual discipline does not stop there. We don’t simply believe, pray, and wait for holiness to happen. No, we are to engage every area of our lives with the confidence that God is supplying the strength and energy of Christ to our souls, and then struggle with all his energy that he powerfully works within us (cf. Colossians 1:29). The fact that it is the power of God that enables us to discipline ourselves for godliness does not exempt us from toil, labor, hardship and struggle in the pursuit of godliness. The Christian life is a life of rigorous effort and steadfast striving (cf. 2 Timothy 2:3). It is not a life of striving for love but a life of striving from love. But we are foolish to think that we can obtain excellence in godliness if we are unwilling to suffer for it. In order to grow in Christ, we must persistently engage the hostility of our own flesh (cf. I Corinthians 9:27), the hostility of Satan (cf. Eph. 6:12), and the hostility of a sinful world (cf. Hebrews 12:2). This engagement involves blood (cf. Hebrews 12:3), sweat (cf. I Timothy 4:7), and tears (cf. Acts 20:31). We cannot coast our way into the likeness of Christ. There’s no middle ground. Either we are being built up in Christ or we are allowing our gains in godliness to erode (cf. Proverbs 19:8).

So how do we discipline ourselves for godliness? Should we create a system of rewards and punishments for good and bad behaviors, and gather accountability partners around us to enforce these rules? Do we take vows of asceticism and join the monastery? If we trust in God as a good and present Father, we can see that we don’t need to resort to self-made religion (cf. Colossians 3:23); all of the direction that we need for spiritual discipline is given to us in His commandments (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17). Remembering and obeying our Father’s family rules will help us learn and grow into maturity. All of God’s commandments are an invitation for us to experience fellowship with Him in the goodness of His character, and to allow Him to lead us into the fullest possible experience of His love. We don’t need to invent a harsh regimen for our lives to help us be holy; we simply need to find out what God wants us to be about, and carefully budget our time and energy for the things that He calls us to prioritize and put into practice. Then we need to follow through and actually form habits that reflect God’s priorities.

For me, this means setting a reasonable bedtime and wake-up time so that I’m not losing hours to excessive sleep that really should be spent working or studying or investing in my relationship with God and others. It means setting my alarm on my phone and putting it away at least half an hour before I go to bed so that I get quality sleep and wake up rested and ready for the next day. It means subscribing to an app and making a plan so that I can memorize and engage deeply with longer portions of Scripture. It means keeping a prayer list through another app on my phone. It means buying a little journal and writing down the works of the LORD in my life so I don’t forget them. It means buying another little journal and writing down God’s commandments so that I don’t miss His invitation to a life of fellowship with Him in the midst of pursuing my own agenda. It means setting aside a certain amount of time every morning and evening to be alone with God so that I can hear from Him, process the cares and concerns of life, and just enjoy His presence. It means consistently participating in worship at my church and fellowship with my small group, even when those activities are impacted by quarantine restrictions! These are some of the disciplines in my life (some of them very new to me) that are helping me live a focused and fruitful way.

But the real substance of spiritual discipline isn’t in practicing these kinds of habits. It’s in the moment-by-moment decisions we make to turn to, engage with, listen to, obey, and seek God–or not. No amount of memorizing Scripture will help me if I don’t seek God to understand His word and allow it to examine my heart. No amount of studying and remembering God’s commandments will be profitable to me if I’m not willing to obey right away, even when it costs me. Setting aside time to pray won’t help me if I don’t engage my mind and heart in passionately seeking God. Just showing up for worship and small group is pointless if I’m not willing to be fully present with my gifts, receive care through the gifts of others, and work hard at my relationships. Spiritual discipline is much more about applying ourselves to godliness in the moment than it is about structures and schedules. Habits are helpful and can be used by God to fashion our lives for His glory, but they can’t help a hard heart or a mind that’s checked out. What they can do is help us routinely confront ourselves with the need to engage our whole selves in the hard work of seeking and serving Christ, and that’s where their true value lies.

Fifth, the objective of spiritual discipline is that we would fulfill our created purpose in this life, which, in the oft-quoted words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.“ We glorify God by proclaiming His praise, by putting on display the power of His redeeming grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, by declaring His worth in the devotion of our whole lives to Him, and by revealing the beauty of His character and personality in the way that we live so that His praise in the lives of others increases. Spiritual discipline, then, is concerned with all these things, with striving for the greatest glory of God and the greatest enjoyment of Him that is possible in a human life. Understanding this protects us from engaging in spiritual disciplines simply as a reaction against the sin in our lives and the world around us. Life in Christ is not about reacting against sin; it’s about responding to the revelation of God’s glory in the person and work of Jesus Christ by turning from our idols to love and serve the true and living God (I Thessalonians 1:9). Until we have learned to engage our whole person in loving and delighting in God and HIs praise, we have not repented of our sin, because at its core sin is enthroning created things, and ultimately self, against God.

But in its pursuit of the maximum glory of God and the maximum enjoyment of Him in the present moment, spiritual discipline is not preoccupied with this earthly life but is instead driven by the anticipation of eternity with God in Christ (cf. Philippians 3:20, I Peter 1:13, Hebrews 9:28). It is the consecration of an engaged bride yearning for her groom, who feels that she is not at home in her own life as long as she is not married to her beloved, and who lives in anticipation of that day. The more we increase in glorifying God and enjoying Him in this life, the more we will long for the day when our glorifying of Him and our enjoyment of Him is perfected. When Jesus appears from Heaven to claim His bride and bring us into perfect eternal union with Him in the new creation, then and only then will the glory of God be perfected in us, for we will be perfect in the image of God even as our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect, and we will see Him as He is, and there will be no clouds in our vision of Him to restrain us from complete abandonment to His praise. We enjoy God as we experience His goodness to us and the glory of who He is through the intimate fellowship that is made possible in this age by the gift of the Holy Spirit. But there will come a day when the sweetness of our union and fellowship with Jesus in this life will be eclipsed by the all-satisfying ecstasy of being in His presence face-to-face, in a same way that a young bride and groom forget the restless and constrained intimacy of their engagement in the consummate intimacy of their marriage. For marriage is in the world to prophesy to us about just this thing–the love of God for His people and their love for Him–and when that love is perfected, the shadow will pass away before the surpassing glory of what it was given to the world to be a picture of.

Even so come, our precious Lord Jesus.

~Andrew

Let the Wicked Be No More

by Andrew Micah, posted in creation, reflection, theology

I was reading Psalm 104 in my daily devotions today, and was startled and provoked to reflection by the last verse. Psalm 104 is a hymn of celebration for God’s greatness and goodness displayed through his creation of the earth. It’s a poetic survey of all that is beautiful in earth and sky and sea, and how all these contribute to the praise and pleasure of God. God is revealed to us as we ponder with the Psalmist God’s care for creation.

But all this ends with a fierce declaration of desire that, at least to our contemporary sensibilities (I really can’t speak to the past in an informed way) seems completely out of place. We read these words: “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” (Psalm 104:35) Put that up on the closing screen of your National Geographic featurette. If I wasn’t unconditionally committed to biblical inerrancy, I might question the inspiration of this line, simply on a poetic level. There is no leading up to this expression, no setting of the table for the challenging course of coming to terms with God’s consuming justice. It just appears, at a moment when we are completely caught off guard. But it is there for a reason, and in answer to my own prayers for understanding, I believe God has given me some insight into why a cry to God for the destruction of sinners was the only appropriate way for the Holy Spirit to conclude this Psalm.

Creation is in no need of redemption, at least, not in the sense that we typically use that word to speak of the restoration and reconciliation of a moral transgressor. There is nothing morally wrong with creation. Creation has not sinned; it was submitted to the dominion of man, and when man sinned, creation was cursed for his sake. Because of this, creation groans, waiting for rescue from the dominion of corrupt humanity that was the cause of the curse. Creation longs to be restored the freedom and liberty that will come when dominion is restored to people under God who receive power from Him to rule and restore. As we hear and see creation groaning, we should ourselves be groaning for the fullness of redemption that will be accomplished when Christ returns. (Romans 8:18-25) The fulfillment that we now experience as laborers in God’s creation doesn’t compare to that which is coming, and the sufferings imposed on us and on creation as a result of the curse of sin do not compare with the glory that is coming. What creation longs for, per Paul’s words in Romans 8, is for our full redemption, soul and body, so that creation herself can enjoy the freedom and fruitfulness of life under God’s perfect dominion through us. The longing of creation should inspire us to long for the second coming of Jesus where we will be set free forever from the body of sin and made fully alive in Him, not just for our sake, but for creation’s sake also.

With all this in mind, as I look back on Psalm 104 I’m surprised by the rosiness of the picture painted. It’s not the kind of rosy suggested by “nature red in tooth and claw.” There is an acknowledgement of the presence of death (Psalm 104:29), but on the whole, creation is set forth as good, bringing joy to its creator even in the fallen state (v. 31). Why in response to this does the Psalmist cry or for the destruction of the wicked?

I think the answer is clearly this: the sin of man is all that has defiled and desecrated God’s creation. We cannot love the beauty of God’s creation without hating the sin that has caused all the brokenness in the world. If we are led by creation in worship of a wise and loving Maker, we must also with creation groan and testify against the evil that has brought such a hurtful curse on God’s good creation–the sin of man, the sin that lives in us. Sinful mankind is the one foul thing that exists in the midst of all the fair works of God, and it is the one thing that mars His creation.

When we cry out for God to consume the wicked from the earth, we cry out against our own sin with hope in the redeeming work of Christ, for though we ourselves are spared by His death and resurrection, the effect and purpose of His work is to do away with sin. He took our sins on Himself; He took on the identity of our sin. And then He was cut off from the land of the living. (Isaiah 53:8) Because of him, our sin is consumed from the earth and our wickedness is no more. It has been definitely accomplished by the work of the cross, it is being progressively realized by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, and it will be fully realized when Christ returns to fully redeem our bodies. This is the marvel of the work of Christ, that it reconciles God’s determination to save sinners and His determination to wipe out wickedness from the earth. He made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for all of us. To stand in the place of all the sinners and all the wicked people who would turn and put their hope in Him. He was crushed, He was cut off, He was consumed, He was no more. And when sin had been destroyed in His body, He rose from the grave, so that we might walk in a newness of life even now that is only a shadow of the newness to come. Because of this, we can lift our voices with the groans of all creation, crying out “let sinners be consumed from the earth.” If not for Christ, we could not speak these words without calling out for our own destruction. Because of Christ, it becomes a prayer for our salvation. Because of Christ, we can praise God for His justice. We bear witness with creation against our own sin that has subjected creation to the curse, and receive from Him transforming mercy instead of consuming judgment, because Jesus was consumed for us. Perhaps there is in this a fundamental idea about what repentance is–that it is taking the side of God and creation against our sin with hope in the redeeming work of Christ.

The Father Turns His Face Away

by Andrew Micah, posted in reflection, theology, worship

One of my favorite worship songs is “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townend. Over the course of the few years that I’ve been leading worship, I’ve heard some objections to this song, particularly to one line of lyrics. At the end of the first verse, we sing,

“How great the pain of searing loss

The Father turns His face away

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory.”

The line “the Father turns His face away” as a description of what happened on the cross is the line that’s drawn objections, typically from people who are very, very confident that this line implies something that theologically false about the atoning work of Jesus. Today I would like to show why that isn’t true.

First, let’s consider the way that Scripture speaks about God’s face. God prescribed a very specific blessing that was to be spoken over the covenant people of Israel by the priests. In Numbers 6:22-27, we read:

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus shall you bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up the light of His countenance upon you and give you peace.

‘So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.'”

It makes sense to consider the way God speaks to Israel when we’re considering Jesus because Jesus is ultimately the servant of God “born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). Jesus is the one who fulfills God’s covenant law given to Israel perfectly, and as such, receives all the covenant blessings that the rest of Abraham’s children are unable to merit by their works. He has willed these blessings to all who call on Him by faith, Jew and Gentile, and that will took effect when He died on the cross (Hebrews 9:15-22), becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13-14) so that we could inherit a blessing. What we need to see here is that the core metaphor for God’s blessing and favor that was repeated to His people over and over again was this idea of the light of God’s face. He “makes His face to shine” and “lifts up the light of His countenance” on those whom He is blessing. This idea continues throughout Scripture. In Psalm 105, David exhorts God’s people, “Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His presence continually!” (Psalm 105:4) The word translated “presence” in the ESV is the Hebrew word that literally means “face.” David is not calling God’s people to pursue judgment, but blessing! The light of God’s face is praised and appealed to all throughout the book of Psalms as an expression for God’s blessing (Psalm 4:6, 31:16, 67:1, 80:19, 119:135). When God “hides His face,” it means that He has withdrawn His blessing from His people (Psalm 13:1, 27:9, 44:24, 69:17, 88:14, 102:2, 143:7). This is such a core idea in the way that God expresses Himself to His people. The light of God’s face is His blessing; the hiding of His face is judgment.

There are two objections that I’ve heard to the line “the Father turns His face away” as a description of what happened at the cross. The first is that God never really turned His face away from Jesus, but that it only seemed that way. This objection is rooted in a failure to really grasp either the holiness of God, or the substitutionary work of Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul simply couldn’t make the matter any clearer: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” On the cross, Jesus took on the identity of “sinner” for us so that we could receive from him the identity of “righteous man” that he earned by His flawless human life. He became sin. What does God do with sin?

Psalm 5 reads: “For You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” (v. 4-6) When Jesus went to the cross for us, He didn’t go there to appease God for our failures to be nice. He went there to represent us as hateful, deceitful, proud, selfish, wicked people, and to be crushed for us by God’s uncompromising justice so that we wouldn’t have to be. That’s why we have access to God by faith in Jesus. Either Jesus made full atonement, or He didn’t, and if He didn’t, we are still debtors and slaves to the law. In order for the man Christ Jesus to make full atonement, He had to endure God’s righteous judgment of sin. The Father had to really and truly hide His face, because sin cannot stand before His eyes. Jesus had to be crushed without sympathy, without apology, without hesitation, without reservation, in the exact same way that we deserve to be for our sin. He was. It says, “The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” (Isaiah 52:6), and “it was the will of the LORD to crush Him.” (52:10) It is “out of the anguish of His soul” that Jesus has received the prize for which He pursued the cross: “by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” (v. 11)

The language,

“How great the pain of searing loss

The Father turns His face away

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory

captures these truths beautifully and with biblical integrity.

There is another criticism from another angle. Some have argued that God’s judgment is not the absence of His presence but the presence of His justice. We can debate those technicalities of systematic theology (and I think there is an element of truth in that objection) but the reality is that Scripture repeatedly speaks of God’s judgment as a withdrawal of His presence and a hiding of His face. If God speaks this way about Himself, surely it is not incorrect to speak this way about Him. God, as we long to know Him, is the God whose face shines upon us, the God who fellowships with us. When sin has broken that fellowship, we feel alienation, forsakenness, and rejection. That is what Jesus endured for us. It was real, as real as the life we have in Him.

-Andy