Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my father;}
There is no shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not;
As thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

Summer and winter and seedtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to lead and to guide;
Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine and ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning, new mercies I see.
All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided,
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

© Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923

Chisholm’s hymn is dear to many of us, but perhaps so near that we forget the power of its meaning. This is not just a hymn praising God for His abundant blessing or His steadfast support. In point of fact, the text for this songbook standard comes not from Psalms but from Lamentations - from the lowest point of the lowly life of Jeremiah. And the affirmation of God’s faithfulness comes not after a blessing, or even after deliverance, but after God’s chastisement of Israel. So confident was Jeremiah of God’s purposes in His punishment, that he echoes Job’s cry, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him” (Job 13:15a).

“My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, ‘My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the Lord.’ Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my sould remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:17-23).

That is the true test of our faith - do we trust God enough to know that even the troubles we encounter are part of His plan? Do we believe, as Jeremiah, that “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the most high that both good and ill go forth?” (Lamentations 3:37-38).

Posted by Justin Lonas on August 27th, 2008
Posted in Meditation, Suffering | No Comments »

Generosity in the Age of Handouts

WORLD Magazine’s June 14/21 issue states that “MIT economist John Gruber last year confirmed that President F.D. Roosevelt succeeded in having New Deal governmental programs crowd out private giving. ‘Church relief made up 90 percent of the income of the poor before the New Deal,’ he found out: ‘Government relief made up 90 percent of the income of the poor after the New Deal.’ Gruber found that church and charitable giving held up well in 1929 after the stock market crash and did not drop until 1933 when the New Deal began. Then and only then did church spending for charitable purposes fall by one-third.”

Looking at today, as the national economy is tanking (largely in a stew of our own making), where does the Church fit into the picture? We have for so long relied on the government to be the salvation of those in need that we no longer assume the God-given responsibility to provide for the poor. As Gruber’s findings indicate, all it took for us to give up almost completely was the government’s offering an alternative to responsible stewardship and Christ-like generosity - it is almost as if we were looking for an excuse to quit.

In tough times like these, it is often hard for Christians to maintain our normal levels of giving, let alone give more. We reason that everyone will be taken care of by some program or other. This attitude misses the point of scriptural commands to generosity, however. When a man receives money (or housing, transportation, etc.), from a secular institution, a physical need has been met. Such a gift, however, neither addresses the root causes of his needs nor his deeper spiritual needs. When, however, physical needs are met by members of the Body of Christ, relationships are formed, and the Lord is seen as the source of the provision. Over time, those helped by the Church are likely to have a favorable impression of Christ and be much more receptive to the message of salvation. Government programs open no such doors.

What would it look like if churches stepped up their giving, not just financially, but our giving of time, emotional support, etc. What if churches helped those in need by providing for the basics but also equipping them with knowledge to prevent future problems and engendering attachments to the church? In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Church was widely acknowledged to be the driving force in providing for the holistic needs of people in crisis. Why can’t that be our role in the housing crisis and beyond. If we took our calling seriously, I guarantee that very few people would find the Church “irrelevant”.

Posted by Justin Lonas on July 23rd, 2008
Posted in Culture, Politics, Witness | 1 Comment »

Boasting . . .

What does it mean to boast in Christ?

It certainly has nothing to do with “overcoming” or “living the victorious Christian life”. It probably doesn’t even have anything to do with “Christian service” or “worship” as commonly understood today. It’s really not even anywhere near the discussing of our spiritual experiences with one another or speaking of what “Jesus has done for/taught me” of late or of shouting out a “praise” in the prayer-request session (as I have at points past fuzzily understood it).

Boasting in Christ must simply mean one thing (though it’s rather multifaceted) - the total amelioration of self into the person and message of the Lord. It means realizing the utter (and oft-repeated) truth of Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” It means daily arising and remembering that it’s not about me; remembering to pray as John the Baptist that Christ would increase and I would decrease. It means remembering that I offer nothing to God that wasn’t already His; that any and all good that comes through me flows from His grace.

As Paul says in II Corinthians 10:17-18, “But ‘He who boasts is to boast in the Lord.’ For it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends.”

The last verse of “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townend puts it further into the simplest of terms:

“I will not boast in anything;
No gifts, no power, no wisdom.
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer.
But this I know with all my heart:
His wounds have paid my ransom.”

Folks, it ain’t about us!

Posted by Justin Lonas on June 23rd, 2008
Posted in Christian Life | No Comments »

The Bad Guys

Greetings to you all. I’m blogging for the first time on the Pulpit Helps website, and before I do, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’ve been interning at AMG for a couple of weeks now, and I’ll be here the rest of the summer. Hopefully you all will see some of my work soon in the magazine.

For now, though, I want to talk about something God has been pounding into my head – and my heart – for the last few days: His sovereignty.

I just got back from vacation with my family and fiancée. We went to Walt Disney World in Orlando and had a blast. Disney World is one of our favorite vacation spots; this is the fourth time we’ve gone as a family. Disney just seems to do things so well that we love going back again and again.

One of the things they do so well, in fact it’s probably what they do best, is tell stories. No matter how old you are, the stories they tell and the ways in which they tell them endear themselves to your imagination and your heart. From cartoons, to live-action movies, to stage shows, to fireworks shows, Disney makes you care about its characters. I was struck by something last week while watching one of the best fireworks shows I’ve ever seen: I even enjoy seeing the bad guys. When one of the bad guys came out (like Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty or the Queen from Snow White), most everyone booed and hissed, treating them like bad guys. But I thought for a minute that if there were no bad guy, there would be no story to tell, no struggle to capture our imagination. There would be no mystery in the story to hold our attention, and no principle of good and evil on which to rest our hearts. In short, if there were no bad guy, there would be no glory in the tale.

Much the same, if there were no “bad guys” here on a fallen earth, we would never see as much of God’s glory. If there were no struggles, no pain, no bad guys to get in our way, we would never be forced to rely on the glory and sovereignty of God.

How interesting would it have been if Moses had led the Hebrews out of a picture perfect situation into the Promised Land, without a Pharaoh or Egyptian army in the way? How glorious would it have been if the Israelites had always obeyed God and He never had to bail them out of trouble or captivity? How glorious would it have been if Pilate or the Sanhedrin had said to Jesus, “Oh, you are the Messiah. Sorry, we’ll let you go, then.” Without the bad guys acting badly, Christ never would have made it to the Cross, and he never would have paid for our sins with His blood. To have a happy ending to our story of redemption, someone had to be the bad guy.

 Scripture even tells us that God, in His absolute sovereignty, has hardened the hearts of some men so that we might realize His glory. Throughout the plagues in Exodus, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart: “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go” (Exodus 10:20).

God is sovereign. God is in control. God is the author of this story – His plan of redemption for all of creation. Even when the bad guys get in the way, it is by His plan and under His authority.

How interesting – how glorious – would our stories be if there were no bad guys?

Posted by Michael Reneau on June 3rd, 2008
Posted in Christian Life | No Comments »

Can you Buy Hope for $25?

We are blessed beyond belief in the West. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, our plenty can easily become a sin when we neglect to help those in need. Unless we are confronted with the realities of spiritual and economic poverty in the world, we can be lulled into complacency and miss incredible opportunities to reach out.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to put your blessings to work for the kingdom of God is through child sponsorship. The $25 per month you send through AMG International for a child in one of our childcare centers has an incredible impact, and the return on your investment is measured not in dollars but in lives changed. Through sponsorship, you provide food, education, spiritual guidance (and, in many cases, hope and love) that these children may never otherwise receive—it is the gift of life to them.    

My wife and I have sponsored a boy, Pierre-Dony Marc, from Grand Bassin, Haiti for over a year now. We’ve always taken our responsibility to him seriously, but in April of this year, he became more than a “face on the fridge” to us. I was able to be a part of an AMG Mission Adventure team from my church to Grand Bassin. Before we left, the national worker there took all the team members who sponsored children there to visit their homes.

I met Pierre Dony, and as he and I talked through a translator outside of his house, I realized just how much a sponsorship means to him. He thanked me for helping him attend school. He told me that he loved math and wanted to be a doctor someday. He told me that he enjoyed to riding but had no bicycle. He told me that his father died in December. I observed that he lives in a 300 sq. ft. house with his mother and 6 siblings, and that times were incredibly tough for them. I suppose what I really learned that day was how much more I could and should give him.

This is, indeed the beauty of sponsorship—not that I’m able to provide the basics for a child, but that the Lord uses that child to open the eyes of my heart to the vastness of His calling and, through the child, gives us an opportunity to impact a community. My family will do everything we can to help Pierre Dony grow into the man God wants him to be, whatever that looks like. We’re going to do what we can to help his whole family from now on as well. There’s no question—we cannot afford not to give more.

Posted by Justin Lonas on May 22nd, 2008
Posted in Ministry, Missions | 1 Comment »

Major Morality

This time last year, the American Christian Community was dealing with the passing of Jerry Falwell - perhaps the elder statesman of evangelicalism in the public square. This morning, I came across a brief piece I wrote at the time but never published.

 5-17-07:
It’s interesting that the passing of Jerry Falwell would come on a day when I’ve been thinking a lot about my own personal application of Christ.

I think we all, to some degree, struggle with a balance between the private, relational nature of our faith and the need to exercise it in the public arena. The confusion comes because the public application of Christianity often depends on black and white responses to the issues of the day, whereas the personal application is wrapped up in the gray of listening to and following the Father’s bidding. Obviously, God has unchanging standards of morality. By the same token, our public actions are carefully weighed on a case by case basis. Too often though, the public (and political) aspect of Christianity seems like little more than a reincarnation of the very law that Christ came to free us from.

The list of Falwell’s achievements in the public sphere is long - he arguably reintroduced Christianity to public policy with more fervor and effectiveness than anyone since Wilberforce. He also arguably sacrificed grace on the altar of principle in terms of how he chose to deal with sinners.

The lesson to us is to be always on guard against the easy (taking sides in the public debates of the day), and not to lose sight of the arduous (earnestly seeking God and treating sinners as people needing a Savior rather than opponents). We have to always remember that moral principles cannot save anyone (indeed, without Christ, they can only convict) - if they could, Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:21). Our public Christianity (and treatment of fellow men) has to flow out of the grace we know as sinners redeemed. Otherwise, we are very much in danger of letting the rigid stances we take in public alter our personal view of God.

It’s a fine line to walk, but one that we are asked and expected to. Thank God for His indwelling guidance that makes meeting the expectation as simple as submission to Him.

Posted by Justin Lonas on May 19th, 2008
Posted in Christian Life, Culture, Politics | No Comments »

The Disappearance of Discipline

For centuries, believers practiced a plethora of spiritual disciplines designed to focus attention on the things of the Lord and promote prayer and true repentance. Fasting, monasticism, meditation, pilgrimage, and even self-flagellation were fairly common to the life of the church. By the 16th century, however, the reformers proclaimed (in most cases, very correctly) that such external practices of the Catholic church were all for show and served only to cover up the lack of commitment in the heart. Zwingli, it is said, went so far as to stage an “ostentatious public sausage-eating*” during Lent to mock the futility of fasting for salvation.

In modern Evangelical Christianity, very little, if anything has changed about the general attitude toward many of the liturgical practices associated with more formal branches of the Church (Roman Catholicism, Eastern/Russian Orthodox, and Anglicanism).

Scripture, however, is not wholly on the side of either interpretation. Both the Old and New Testaments are replete with references to fasting and meditative prayer. Christ’s teaching on fasting in Matthew 6:16-24 presupposes its practice: He begins by saying “Whenever you fast . . .”, not “if you fast”. Jesus Himself fasted, most notably for the 40 days culminating in His temptation by Satan. While Protestant tradition is correct to point out that spiritual disciplines alone have no power to save, nor to change lives, it often misses the larger point that such habits serve to break up the flow of everyday life and remind us of our true calling. The liturgical tradition, while enforcing a spiritual mindset through discipline, fails to differentiate between means and ends and can very easily promote self-righteousness through what should be very selfless practices.

To a degree, the idea of spiritual discipline is one of “self-induced suffering”. God promises that suffering and persecution will follow Christians (1 Peter, for instance), but also that He will sustain us and use such occurences to shape us into the men and women He desires us to be. When we partake of a fast, a prayer retreat, or sacrificial service of others, we are voluntarily laying aside the worldly clutter that so easily hinders our prayers. To do so is an open invitation for God to work in our hearts. It is during those times when He is most able to point out and excise sin from our lives and renew our commitment to His purposes.

Fasting in particular can also be a way to empathize with brothers and sisters around the world who go hungry everyday by no choice of their own. It is far easier to have a genuine concern for the poor when you’ve gone to bed hungry. It can serve as a motivator to proactively involve yourself in their lives. As Isaiah 8:6-7 says “Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh. Then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.”

Perhaps it is time to reexamine the balance of our Christian life. Perhaps we desperately need to refocus - to follow Christ alone and not the muddled images of Him that we so often pursue. Discipline alone is no help in the journey, but when coupled with a broken and contrite heart and an ear inclined to His wisdom, it can be a tremendous step in the right direction.

 *Wikipedia

Posted by Justin Lonas on April 9th, 2008
Posted in Christian Life, Meditation | No Comments »

Bill Buckley and the art of witness

William F. Buckley, Jr. - the conservative thinker and publisher largely responsible for the resurgence of traditional values and traditionalist politics in the latter half of the 20th century - passed away Wednesday at the age of 82. He will be remembered for his contributions to culture through the incisive and entertaining National Review and his long-running TV program Firing Line. While we may not (and in some cases, should not) agree with Buckley’s Catholicism and political views, his legacy offers an important lesson to believers.

You see, Buckley was a master debater at heart. He knew how to cut his opponents’ ideas right out from under them, and did so with precision. At the same time, however, he exercised the utmost of respect for his opponents’ personality. Buckley could simultaneously defeat someone’s bad ideas and build them up as a person.

Practically speaking, this is precisely what we are called to do toward unbelievers. “Loving the sinner and hating the sin” is only partially applicable, as it has a very passive connotation. Our real responsibility is to actively represent Christ to the world. This includes absolute lack of tolerance for ignorance of the truth, but just as surely absolute respect for the image of God expressed in individuals. It’s not enough to level falsehood; it’s not enough to love without pretension. Both are vital to an effective witness.

That’s Buckley’s challenge to posterity - stand up for truth with passion, and disarm with genuine kindness. Think well, and act with grace. Christians would do well to take note.

Posted by Justin Lonas on February 29th, 2008
Posted in Culture, Witness | 1 Comment »

Sex, Lies, and Symbolism in the Culture Wars

This is a piece I wrote a while back, but I’m bringing it back for the occasion of Valentine’s Day.

Christians these days are all too aware of the grave social issues that revolve around sexuality in today’s world—abortion, promiscuity, homosexuality, pornography, etc.—and all too unwitting about how they attempt to stem the tide.

We gird up our loins to combat the egregious sins of our culture, but we fail to gather the necessary intelligence to fight the right battles. We say abortion is inhumane, promiscuity immoral, homosexuality unnatural, and pornography unloving, selfish, and conducive to unfaithfulness. All those arguments are correct, but they fail to target the core issue, a world so lost it no longer understands the purpose of sexuality.

Scripturally, we should understand our sexuality as a gift of God, perhaps one of His most generous (and least appreciated). Our very masculinity and femininity are, by design, portraits of different aspects of the nature of God. As a psychologist friend of mine put it, masculinity answers the questions “Is God powerful?” and “Is God going to do something?” Femininity answers the questions “Is God good?” and “Is God beautiful.” This is seen from the very beginning in Genesis 1:27: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

You see, God created men and women separately to tell different parts of His story. Marriage, then, brings the two together to reveal a fuller depiction of the God’s character to the world. Not only that, the unity of a husband and wife is further picture still—that of Christ’s redeeming relationship with the Church (Eph. 5:22-32). Some even construe the marriage relationship as symbolic of the unity of God’s being within Himself in the form of the Trinity.

Our sexuality is important precisely because it is symbolic. Even the act of sex is a portrait of love, given as the receiver needs it in complete unselfishness. It is beautiful because its every aspect is filled with the mark of the Creator (see Song of Solomon, Proverbs 5:19, and many other passages for details). Outside of God’s model, however, it is utterly hollow because it ceases to serve His purpose.

The world for many years now has confused the symbol for the substance. They’ve adopted the radical theories of Sigmund Freud and others who assert that the wonders of life are merely symbols pointing back to sexuality rather than the other way around. They read erotic overtones into all things and glorify sexual gratification (in any form) at the expense of all other things. That’s why sins of the flesh are ubiquitous and even the murder of our most vulnerable fellow humans through abortion is thought of as a “right”. When sex becomes their god, they will allow nothing to impede their ability to “worship” at that altar. They don’t listen when we tell them their actions are repulsive to God because they have no god but self.

That’s why the so-called “culture wars” are not being won—they’re being waged on grounds that our combatants don’t understand. We can’t fight such obvious, external transgressions on a national scale without first engaging people at the base level of their sin. We’ve got to meet them at a personal level and confront their ignorance, self-centeredness, and pride. In short, we need to impress upon them the falsity of their core beliefs and introduce them to the saving grace of Christ Jesus. Fighting these battles from the outside in is simply ineffective—they are ultimately a matter of the heart.

In order to transform the fight, we have to see our Christianity as so much more than just “sin management.” The Truth of God is so much deeper and more winsome than than we want to allow it to be. In framing the battle for righteousness in our time, we should take a page from the playbook of legendary British abolitionist William Wilberforce. Before he could tackle the slave trade, an entrenched vice that was extremely financially profitable and politically active (much like today’s abortion lobby), he knew he had to first change the minds and hearts of the people. Doing that, he knew, required that Christians think deeply about their faith and fight for the right as much as against the wrong. Wilberforce understood that Christianity is something ever more valuable than “a scheme of mere morals.”

If we are to fight a good fight in this arena, we must seek to understand the surpassing beauty and purpose of God’s plan. As with all other aspects of our Christian walk, this one begins with the Great Commission. Unless Christ changes the hearts of sinners, righteousness will not come about. Unless we share Him and His truth with them, how can they be expected to change?

Posted by Justin Lonas on February 19th, 2008
Posted in Culture, Marriage | 1 Comment »

Politically Speaking . . .

With the primary election season in full swing in America, it’s difficult to keep one’s head clear of politics these days. As a rule Pulpit Helps steers well clear of political discussions. This is our policy for two reasons: 1) We believe that the primary calling of believers is to follow Christ and fulfill his commands (most of which are concerned the temporal only insofar as it affects the eternal), and 2) The myriad interpretations of law and ideas for society which circulate through the church can be very divisive and distract us from our unity and purpose.

Still, we are left with Romans 13:1-10, Luke 20:21-16, and other passages that make it clear that Christians are to be concerned with the affairs of state and submit to governments as they are ordained by the Creator. In modern America, however (as in much of the world) we have a system of government that, at least in theory, vests ultimate power in the people - you and me. The scriptures are silent on the issue of Democracy. Ted Kyle, our managing editor, addressed the issue admirably in our February edition (read his article here), but the issue remains - how are we to live out the command to submit to the government when we ourselves are, in a way, the government?

I’m opening up this space for discussion and commentary on our responsibility as Christians in an election year. Let us know what you think!

Posted by Justin Lonas on February 13th, 2008
Posted in Culture, Politics | 2 Comments »

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