muses

Ever since the fall, God has been active to reverse the effects of sin. He takes action to limit sin’s damage; he calls out a new nation, the Israelites, to mediate his teaching and his grace to others; he promises that one day he will send the promised Davidic king to overthrow sin and death and all their wretched effects. This is what Jesus does: he conquers death, inaugurates the kingdom of righteousness, and calls his followers to live out that righteousness now in prospect of the consummation still to come.

Is there anything wrong with this description of sin? According to D.A. Carson, plenty: It collapses human rebellion, God’s wrath, and assorted disasters into one construct, namely, the degradation of human life, while depersonalizing the wrath of God. It thus fails to wrestle with the fact that from the beginning, sin is an offense against God.

Yes, God takes sin personally. It is an active rebellion against Him. And sin occurs in the church as well because the church is filled with sinners, like me. Problem is, sometimes we try to hide the fact that it’s there.

Sin lives in a costume; that’s why it’s so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party. Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth. Lust can masquerade as a love for beauty. Gossip does its evil work by living in the costume of concern and prayer. Craving for power and control wears the mask of biblical leadership. Fear of man gets dressed up as a servant heart. The pride of always being right masquerades as a love for biblical wisdom. Evil simply doesn’t present itself as evil, which is part of its draw. You’ll never understand sin’s sleight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception. Now, what this means personally is that as sinners we are all very committed and gifted self-swindlers… We’re all too skilled at looking at our own wrong and seeing good.

- Paul David Tripp, Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy

Let’s not pretend or think that sin is not in the church because that’s the deceptiveness of sin itself. That’s why we battle to fight it every day. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matt 9:12). I am always sick with sin, so I always need to see the Doctor. Every day I need my dosage of forgiveness from God.

One word: wow.

***

Unbelief says:

Some other time, but not now;
some other place, but not here;
some other people, but not us.

Faith says:

Anything He did anywhere else He will do here;
anything He did any other time He is willing to do now;
anything He ever did for other people He is willing to do for us!With our

feet on the ground,
and our head cool,
but with our heart ablaze with the love of God,we walk out in this fullness of the Spirit, if we will yield and obey.

God wants to work through you!

- A.W. Tozer, The Counselor: Straight Talk About the Holy Spirit from a 20th Century Prophet

Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are, ‘It might’ve been.’ That’s not true. There are sadder words, like “Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are, ‘It can never change.’” That would be sad.

John Piper

Such wise words. Personally, I hate it when people say, ‘Aiyah, should have done this…’. If I knew that this would happen, of course I would have done something else! Duh! So easy to say things on hindsight. 事后孔明。 But as John Piper puts it, the real tragedy is when we refuse to change. Reminds me of a new term I learnt at a conference today. It’s called ‘learned helplessness’, i.e. ‘a condition of a human being or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which it has been subjected’ (from Wikipedia). In other words, you tell yourself you can’t be helped, you can’t change.

As usual, I took leave to have some solitude and reflection as I turned a year older. This time, it was clear to me that at this period in my life, I was having too little affections for God. It’s plain to see: I felt no strong inclination towards spending more time with God apart from my daily Quiet Time, and I would rather spend time watching TV and surfing the net. By the grace of God, this disturbed me.

I shared with my Foundation group on my lack of desire, and a brother suggested that I fast from these earthly distractions. To tell the truth, the suggestion was unappealing to me as it appeared rigid and seemed to be just a prohibition that would not bring me desire for God’s things. Yet, as I considered the two questions in my last blog post, what stirs my affection for Jesus Christ and what robs me of these affections, I know that the answers to the latter question were TV and the Internet. I just have to control my time spent on these media.

I mentioned in the previous post that I don’t know what stirs my affection for Christ. I realised today that I love to read the meditations of godly Christians who think of God’s thoughts after Him. These include John Piper, AW Tozer, Philip Yancey, etc. I need to be inspired to think great thoughts of God. So instead of watching TV and surfing mindless sites, I need to immerse myself with meditations on His word and works. And one of the writings by John Piper inspired the prayer for myself, which is to grow in desire and delight for God. Both are gifts from God, and I know that I have to continually pray for God to incline my heart to HIm and to have great joy in Him.

Thank you, Abba, for your revelation to me.

Many things in life are amoral, i.e. not involving questions of right or wrong. It’s different from immoral, i.e. violating moral principles. I love watching TV. I love surfing the net. But when I spend too much time on them, dulling my spiritual senses and appetite, than to spend more time with Christ in prayer, reading His word, then they become dangerous. The sin is not in watching TV or surfing the net; the sin is having too little love for God. I suppose growing in spiritual maturity is also knowing how to exercise this God-given freedom and choosing what’s best for my relationship with God. This is aptly explained by Pastor Matt Chandler:

What stirs your affections for Jesus Christ? And what robs you of those affections? Many of the things that stifle growth are morally neutral. They’re not bad things. Facebook is not bad. Television and movies are not bad. I enjoy TV, but it doesn’t take long for me to begin to find humorous on TV what the Lord finds heartbreaking.

The same goes for following sports. It’s not wrong, but if I start watching sports, I begin to care too much. I get stupid. If 19-year-old boys are ruining your day because of what they do with a ball, that’s a problem. These things rob my affections for Christ. I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him…

We want our people to think beyond simply what’s right and wrong. We want them to fill their lives with things that stir their affections for Jesus Christ and, as best as they can, to walk away from things that rob those affections—even when they’re not immoral.

I think I can easily answer the question ‘what robs me of my affections for Jesus Christ’, but I would struggle in answering the other question. I’m not sure. I need time to think.