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The Single Life: A Season for Trust
This perspective on the single life is the hardest for me. I’ve realized lately that trusting the Lord is something I tend to resist. I like to have all my theology worked out, all my plans in place, every contingency sorted out in my mind. I don’t like to have to do anything that requires an absolute trust in the faithfulness of the Lord. Yet this is the sort of faith that is required of all of us. It’s the faith of Abraham.
Abraham’s faith is scary: “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.…So Abram went, as the LORD had told him’” (Genesis 12:1, 4). The author of Hebrews explains:
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8–10)
We learn three things here. First, this was an act of faith on Abraham’s part. He obeyed “by faith.” We who follow Christ are justified by faith, and that same faith is what drives us to obey the Lord even when the way isn’t clear. When we do hard things for God because we trust him to take care of us, we work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12). Our faith is completed by our works because works are the natural response of faith (James 2:22); you can’t tease them apart since they are bound so close together.
Second, this act of faith was a huge risk. Abraham was leaving everything that was familiar to him—his family, his city, his culture. He had no idea where he was going. He had no idea what he would find when he got there. The road was long and dangerous, along wilderness roads rife with bandits, away from the safety of the city of Haran.
Third, he left this city because he was looking forward to “the city that has foundations,” what is later called “the city that is to come” (13:14). Its designer and its builder is God. In this city there would be safety and rest for the weary traveler. When we look toward this city—the heavenly Jerusalem, where God dwells with his people (Revelation 21:2–3), we gain the courage we need to face any challenges that come our way. We know that God will preserve us for it and that he will welcome us home with open arms to spend eternity with him. We are safe in the hands of the sovereign Lord who has always loved us and always will.
That’s why trusting the Lord is so important, whether you’re single or married, young or old, man or woman. Without it, we can’t do anything to please God, “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). If we seek him, trusting that he will reward our search for him by revealing his loving presence to us, there is no trial, no suffering so great that we cannot handle it; there is no opportunity that we cannot seize to glorify him.
For someone who is single, faith can express itself in many ways. I think we’ve lost sight of this. Whenever I see the phrase “trust in the Lord” applied to a single person, it’s almost always in the context of waiting for marriage. The prototypical narrative, found in Christian books and articles and personal testimonies, goes something like this: someone really wants to get married badly, but finally learns to trust in the Lord, experiences a wonderful feeling of peace about it, no longer seeks a spouse, and then God dumps a man or woman in that person’s lap uninvited, and they get married and live happily ever after. Sometimes this does happen. But I wonder whether many people reduce it to a formula: God won’t give you what you want until you don’t want it. Really? Is God some sort of killjoy? Is he playing games with us? “Nope, you can’t have that! Oh wait, you don’t want it now? Too bad, I’m giving it to you anyway!” This is not always how God works. Trusting in the Lord always means that we rest in his sovereign will, but it doesn’t always mean that we sit back and do nothing.
If you are single, there are actually many different ways you can trust the Lord. Maybe more than one of these applies to your situation:
- You can be content to remain single, trusting that you don’t have to be married for the Lord to use you in remarkable ways (in fact, trusting that you can serve him in ways a married person never could!).
- You can give up worrying about whether or not you will find a spouse, knowing that the Lord will give you what is best for you (Romans 8:28), that his grace is sufficient to bring you through this season of pain (2 Corinthians 12:9), and that he will never abandon you (Hebrews 13:5).
- You can stop pursuing, in your actions and in your mind, men or women who aren’t believers or who aren’t eagerly following the Lord. You trust that if you pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ, it will bring you far more joy than a relationship with anyone else ever could.
- You can stop setting impossible standards for a spouse, trusting that the Holy Spirit will always be working to sanctify both you and your husband or wife.
- You can have the courage you need to ask out that young woman you’re interested in, because you trust that the Lord will not abandon you even if you are rejected. You will not fear; what can man do to you? (Hebrews 13:5–6)
- You can have the courage to ask that young woman to marry you, trusting the Lord that he will always be there even as your whole life is rearranged and everything you understand and know is thrown out the window.
- You can have the courage to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, trusting the Lord to protect you and to bring you through any ensuing trials.
- You can trust the Lord after being dumped, knowing that he is present in the deepest darkness and will bring you through it (Psalm 23:4). His own Son was forsaken so that you would never be abandoned.
What is wonderful is that there are so many ways to trust the Lord! You might even face a decision where there is no “right” or “wrong” answer—just a choice of how you will express your faith in God. Here’s the bottom line, delivered with a heavy dose of hyperbole: whether you marry, and who you marry, are not important questions. What’s truly important is that you act out of faith in a gracious God, showing the world how great his faithfulness really is. His steadfast love for you will never cease. Every morning, you will see his mercy to you in new and precious ways. He has given himself to you. Hope in him. (Lamentations 3:22–23)
Grow up, Peter Pan! (Part 3 of 3)
If you’re a young man here in America, you’ve probably got a Peter Pan problem. In the first post in this series on Thursday, we looked at a list of symptoms that might indicate how even a Christian young man can struggle with a failure to grow up and take responsibility for the things that God wants him to take responsibility for. Then, in the second post, we looked at the heart issue behind this failure: we insist on maintaining the illusion of adequacy, and thus we only do the things that we are good at (e.g. watching TV, surfing the Internet, or even homework or sports). We aren’t willing to take on things that we’re bad at because it would wound our pride and force us to cry out to God for help.
We were not saved to be mediocre. God did not choose us in Jesus Christ “before the foundation of the world” to merely do the things for which we are adequate but “that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4). So often, we settle for legalism. We say and do enough to look like we’re obeying God’s law—enough to assuage our consciences and look good in front of other people. But we’re living a life devoid of faith. We aren’t willing to take risks for God; we’d rather trust in our own flesh than trust in God.
I don’t suppose you want to keep living like that. Here’s God’s way to live:
Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.
—Jeremiah 17:7-8
“The man who trusts in man” (v. 5) lives in a wasteland. But the one who trusts in the Lord—he grows and flourishes, bears fruit and stays green even in times of drought.
When we humble ourselves and begin to trust in the Lord rather than in our own adequacy, God’s Word comes alive. When you start doing what God calls you to do, you will quickly find your own wisdom and your own strength to be inadequate. You will find your own sin to be overwhelming. You will find yourself in prayer, often and at length, crying out for help. You will find yourself turning to the Bible for wisdom, guidance, and encouragement—and its words will no longer be boring but will crackle with energy. You will find yourself turning to mature believers for advice, instead of keeping your problems bottled up inside of you.
If you’re waiting for God to flip some switch inside of you to give you the faith to do all of those things…sorry, it doesn’t usually work that way. Here’s the advice that the apostle Paul gives: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). First, remember that God is at work in you. He isn’t watching lazily from heaven, waiting for you to make the first move, turning a deaf ear to your prayers. He is on your side. He is with you in this! He wants to see you grow and serve him faithfully, and he will exercise all of his might to make sure you do. Second, you have to get to work. You’re simply going to have to say a prayer, suck it up, and go out and take care of your responsibilities. It will be hard. You will be hurt. But you will finally know what it means to be “happy in Jesus.”
It’s a simple truth, and we tend to dismiss simple truths because we think we’re beyond them. But the fact is that we need to learn to trust and obey, like the hymn says:
When we walk with the Lord
In the light of his Word,
What a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.Trust and obey,
For there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey.
Grow up, Peter Pan! (Part 2 of 3)
Yesterday, I admitted to being Peter Pan, and I incriminated a whole bunch of other young men in the process. Peter Pan won’t grow up; he’d rather not take responsibility for things that grown-ups are supposed to do. Peter Pan lives in a fantasy world which substitutes for the real world and its real problems, its real imperfections, and its real responsibilities.
Now that I’ve laid out a ridiculously long laundry list of unmanly habits and ways of thinking, I’d like to examine what the root is behind this problem. Why is it so hard for us to grow up? Why do we stay so childish for so long?
Well, if you read the first post carefully, you may already have an idea where this is going to go. I made a number of comments to the effect that if we just do things that we’re comfortable with or good at, we don’t need to depend on God. I want to explore that a little more, because this is a dangerous tendency that is most pronounced in guys—because they are called as men to lead and to initiate—but affects everyone to some degree.
There’s a sentence in the Bible that I just haven’t been able to get out of my mind these last couple of weeks. It’s the second half of 2 Corinthians 2:16: “Who is sufficient for these things?” In context, of course, Paul is writing about the preaching of God’s word and its effect “among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (v. 15). However, this question certainly applies to all forms of obedience. We cannot obey the Lord without his Spirit at work within us “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). We are not sufficient—or adequate, as some translations put it—to do what is right with motives that are pleasing to God. We are not adequate to display Christ in our actions, our attitudes, and our words.
Here’s what we are adequate for. You and I are totally adequate to sit on the couch for hours and watch TV. We are totally adequate to stay up until one in the morning surfing the Internet. We are totally adequate to lock ourselves away in our rooms and do homework. We are totally adequate not to tell our friends and family the good news of Jesus Christ. We are totally adequate to wimp out on asking out young women we like. We are totally adequate to confine ourselves to our circle of friends, people just like us, from our age group, around whom we’re comfortable. We are totally adequate to do all these things that are easy and natural.
What a tragedy of adequacy! We want to do only those things for which we are able to trust in our own strength. Take a look at what God says about this lifestyle:
Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.”
—Jeremiah 17:5-6
I have lived in that uninhabited salt land for years. Perhaps you have, too. You’re miserable, aren’t you? You haven’t seen any good come. Your life is parched; you are depressed and discouraged. Friends and movies and video games and sports can make you happy for a little while, but before long you are back in the desert. The Bible seems dead, boring, and dry; your prayers are limp and ineffective.
You have trusted in man. You have made flesh your strength. Often, we put our trust in other people—in the President or sports icons or parents or friends; they will always disappoint us. Yet a much more sinister form of trusting in man is when we trust in ourselves. That’s why we only do the things we’re adequate to do. You and I—we don’t want to do anything that would require us to trust in God. We’d rather do what we’re capable of doing on our own. It doesn’t take any faith whatsoever to watch TV or play video games or sports (if you’re athletic) or do homework (if you’re intelligent). It takes faith to actually step out and obey God.
Of course, if we were to obey God, we’d quickly realize that we can’t do it on our own strength, and then we’d have to cry out for help. That’s a blow to the ego. And you and I have invested far too much effort into polishing our pride and propping up our reputations; we certainly can’t get down on our knees, weeping, crying out for help from the God who is the only one who can help. “The arm of flesh will fail you; ye dare not trust your own.”
That’s why we’re Peter Pans. We are self-reliant. We are proud. We are arrogant. And we don’t want to have to act out of faith in God. We don’t want to depend on him.
Of course, this lifestyle doesn’t work. I know it doesn’t. But often, I’d rather be miserable and govern my own life—with God as a Tinkerbell perched on my shoulder—than recognize and submit to his Lordship and experience the joy he has to offer. More on that joy in the third and final post.
The Book of Happiness – Meditation 9: Faith
Inspirational quotes are great, as long as you don’t know where they came from. Enjoy Meditation #9 from The Book of Happiness: Faith.
UPDATE: The timing couldn’t be better.
Are some non-Christians saved? (Part 2)
Okay, here’s Part 2, as promised. In Part 1, I looked at the main argument of Josh’s post—that many non-Christians may be saved because their loving character proves that they know God (1 John 4:7-8). My goal was to demonstrate that the apostle John’s use of “love” requires someone to obey the biblical commandments of God (1 John 5:2-3); no one who is from another religion or who is an atheist displays this sort of love. Rather, such a person is unrepentant and thus does not know God (1 John 3:6).
Now, I’d like to address three other questions raised by Josh’s two posts:
- First, what is the means through which we are saved?
Biblically, we are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus (Ephesians 1:15, 2:8). This is more than just some sort of odd subconscious knowledge of His character; it involves a belief in the historical truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Josh quoted Romans 10:13 in His post, declaring that we simply had to call on the name or character of Jesus Christ to be saved, since the divine attributes of God are apparent in general revelation. I wish he had read the verses around it. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” We must believe in the historical truth of the Resurrection—which most non-Christians deny—in order to be saved.
Furthermore, Paul explains in the very next verse what this “calling on the name of the Lord” is: “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15). Paul hear declares that non-Christians have not called on Christ and have not believed Him because they have never heard of Him. Josh argues that it is possible to be saved without a “mental belief” in Christ; Paul knows nothing of this schizophrenic “faith.” I don’t see how one can more explicitly deny Josh’s position than Paul does in Romans 10.
Sure, God is powerful enough to save people even if they don’t believe in Him. But He has chosen not to. Faith itself doesn’t save us; rather, it is appointed as the one and only means of salvation by God Himself (Romans 3:25, Ephesians 2:8-9). If you reject the historical Jesus, you reject Jesus. The gospel Josh presents is a false gospel.
(Note: the Old Testament saints were saved by believing in the promises foreshadowing Christ (Hebrews 11:13). Now that Christ has come, we are to believe in Him as the fulfillment of these promises.)
- Second, is it possible to understand anything about death, resurrection, and eternal life?
Josh says no—that all we have are “dim symbols” and that “the only thing we know is that we do not know.” This is false. We don’t have anywhere near a full understanding of these things. However, we do know some truths about them—that in death, the soul is separated from the body and, in the case of the Christian, dwells with Christ in Paradise (Luke 23:43). We know that in the resurrection, we will be given a new, immortal, spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:35-58). We know very little of what this means, but we do know that it will be imperishable, far more glorious and powerful than our present, natural body (1 Corinthians 15:42-43). And we know that right now, we Christians are experiencing eternal life (John 3:36).
Josh’s belief that our knowledge of God is inherently warped is wrong. We can know many true things about God; it’s just that our knowledge is partial (1 Corinthians 13:12). This belief is not based on the Bible but on human wisdom. Whereas human wisdom will never lead to an undistorted understanding of God, He has revealed Himself truthfully through His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-16). We can know things about death, resurrection, eternal life, and the character of God because His Spirit has been given to us.
- Third, is Christianity wrong in places?
Josh believes Christianity is more truthful than other religions, but nonetheless, it is merely a religion, which he labels as “man’s attempts to reach God (whatever they may call him), including all theologies, traditions, and formulas.” This is true of other religions, but it is not true of Christianity.
Christianity is based on the revelation of God from the Bible. It is not “man’s attempts to reach God” but rather what God demands from man. The Bible reveals to us what God requires of us; we respond by doing what He has commanded by the power of the Spirit which dwells within us.
One final note I would like to make begins with Josh’s use of Romans 3:22-23. Since “there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he says, there is no real difference between Christians and non-Christians; all can call on the name of the Lord. Once again, the surrounding verses blow holes in this argument, for they make it clear that “all” refers to “all who believe,” who “have faith in Jesus Christ”; their propitiation being “received by faith,” they are justified for having “faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:22-26). This does not refer to every last person on earth, but only to believers (Christians). Misuse of scripture runs rampant through both of Josh’s posts. In each case, the context of each of the verses he cites has not been allowed to explain what each verse means. It is clear that these arguments are buttressed by poor exegesis of scripture, as are all false doctrines.
Finally, I do want to make it clear that I have a lot of respect and love for Josh; any harshness present in my posts is not an attempt to tear him down but rather to correct him. I apologize if there is any way I could have said these things just as plainly with kinder words; I am still learning how to speak the truth in love.
