Questions: How important is our spiritual foundation? How important should it be?

Context: In Christian theology, one of the core attributes we see revealed repeatedly in Scripture is that God knows everything (omniscience). Is it not both prudent and wise, therefore, for us to look to the One who is omniscient? Asked another way, should not the wise person build upon the foundation of the One who knows all, the Creator of all things?

Text: I love the way David phrases it in Psalm 139:1-18:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
f I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

Teaching: What we see in Psalm 139 are the heart and mind of a man who has been gripped by God. God is not just a name David throws out there like Hollywood actors might throw out a pittance of appreciation when accepting a prize. God is not a t-shirt slogan or lettering on a rubber bracelet. In Psalm 139, we see a man with a heart and mind renewed by God such that the tone and timbre of David’s theology here are those of benediction. David knows that God sees him through and through. And so, David is a humble man. Why? Because he knows God is holy and that none of us escapes God. We cannot outrun God.

David, in talking to the Lord, says that the Lord “formed [his] inward parts” and “knitted [him] together in [his] mother’s womb” (v. 13, ESV). That’s an intimacy that staggers the mind. I remember when I was in graduate school many moons ago, and where I went to university, we were just a few miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway. We would hike the trails often that wind through the Smokies and much of the Appalachian Trail. But if night came sooner than we planned for, when darkness fell upon us, and those stars became visible on clear nights, and the moon glowed in its ghostly light over those magisterial hills and forests, it all humbled us. Why? Because we realized—time and time again—that God is so much bigger and more majestic than we often understand. The stars and planets and galaxies stretched on and on. Their Author is greater still. Who laid the foundation of all that we beheld on those starlit nights in western NC? It wasn’t us. It wasn’t David in Psalm 139.

Encouragement: When it comes to our spiritual foundation, we often don’t know how desperately we need it until we’re amidst times of duress or suffering. And those times invariably come. How vital, therefore, for us to build upon the Rock rather than shifting sands. As David penned in v. 14 of Psalm 139: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14, ESV). David knew the Foundation was not wish fulfillment, or psychological mumbo-jumbo, or pep talks, but rather the One who says, “ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, ESV). The Foundation is not only there, but He welcomes us pilgrims all the way home.

Bottom line up front: Faithfulness when no one’s watching

Text: Numbers 22

Context: It is too long of a chapter for such a forum as a blog/email, so here’s the summary: God is faithful to his covenant promises. Israel was camping in the plains of Moab, just north of the Dead Sea. The people of Moab had heard of God’s mighty works for Israel. So, the enemies of God (personified in the Moabite king Balak) tried to bribe one of Israel’s leaders (Balaam) so that Balaam would curse his own people (Israel). Initially, Balaam resisted the temptation. But after Israel’s enemies upped their offer of remuneration, Balaam opened the door to the enemies of Israel. But he was very sneaky in the way he did it. He cloaked it in spiritual-sounding language: “So you, too, please stay here tonight, that I may know what more the LORD will say to me” (Numbers 22:19, ESV). But here’s the rub: God had already told him clearly not to go with Israel’s enemies, not to give the enemies a foothold, and not ever to curse what God has covenanted to bless: “You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed” (Numbers 22:12, ESV).

Encouragement: Balaam was ultimately humiliated. Why? Because he gave in to temptation. He gave in to the lure of wealth. He gave in to his lust for his own comfort. He put himself (i.e., his own self-interest) before those he was to represent. Rather than being faithful when he thought no one was watching, he tried to minimize the fact that the Lord is always watching. The Lord does not sleep or slumber. He sees all. And so, we should labor to be faithful when we might be tempted to think that no one is watching. Why? Because we’re called to the highest standard of fidelity—God’s. In short, there was more than one ‘donkey’ in Numbers 22. There was the four-legged beast who was saddled with leather, but also the one who sat upon the leather saddle. Faithfulness is all.

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew —
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

(G.M. Hopkins, “Binsey Poplars,” 1879)

Question #1: Have you ever seen something so clearly but others could not see it, and you felt frustrated? Up until my forties, I had strong eyesight, especially at long distances. When hiking, I would point out distant peaks or spot birds far out, and tell my buddies, “Look! See him? A peregrine falcon, just to the right of the cypress limb jutting out from that ledge!” And when my buds could not spot the bird, I would feel frustrated, thinking to myself, “How can you guys not see that? It’s clear as day.”

Question #2: How much more important, therefore, is it for Christians to be people of discernment? Just this week, another up-and-coming pastor was confronted by his own fellow elders at Pray’s Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, GA after they had accumulated mounds of evidence about their own pastor. What had their own pastor been doing? Among other things, the lead pastor had established anonymous email and social media accounts wherein he would mock and troll those he was trying to sabotage, men of whom he was jealous. Let that sink in: this was the lead pastor doing this. Now the pastor is another ‘former pastor.’ What’s more, he only admitted his devious ways after multiple denials. He dug his heels in for a long time, despite being discovered. So that surely prompts us to ask, Is this genuine repentance now or just embarrassment over being discovered?

I find no joy in seeing yet another so-called pastor being revealed as a fraud and a snake. Scripture warns us of this repeatedly (Acts 20:29-30; John 10:12; 1 Cor 11:19; 2 Cor 11:13, etc.). In this case, Josh repeatedly tried to sabotage his fellow elders; he aimed to marginalize his own people. He labored furtively, surreptitiously, to freeze out his own staff. And why? For his own ambitions. Out of his own insecurities. That is shameful, and now the effects of his schemes are making waves throughout spheres of evangelicalism.

Question #3: How does one remain patient while at the same time praying for people to be discerning? Poole wrote of it this way: “God expects of us that we should so keep in mind his former dispensations of providence to us, under straits and difficulties, as to trust in him when his providence brings us again into the like difficulties.”

As I tell my fellow soldiers and Sunday school class often, “That’s easy to preach but hard to live.”

God sends judgments at times in ways we might not think. Sometimes those who are supposed to shepherd the flock of God instead divide it and devour it as part of their ambitions for their own name. We should heed Poole’s counsel. Why? Because God’s providence often means enduring the false in order to later discern the true. In the interim, keep praying for discernment–for oneself and for the sheepfold.

“If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under,” said President Reagan.

Those are words of wisdom, in my estimation.

Reasons why:

• I think those are words of wisdom because they acknowledge that man is noble but fallen (i.e., sinful).
• I think those are words of wisdom because they acknowledge that there is always a God of the system. In other words, if there is no God above the state, then the state becomes God.
• I think those are words of wisdom because they acknowledge that judgment is inevitable. That is, “going under” as a nation would be the result of hostile sinners scoffing at God, mocking the holy, perverting the sane, normal, biblical ways of morality and instead embracing identity politics, borderlessness, rogue judges, groupthink, and denials of reality. (Some people claim they don’t even know what a woman is. However, they simultaneously claim that people can ‘transition’ via medical castration, injections of hormones, and plastic surgery. But wait, if gender is just a construct, from what are you transitioning? And into what are you transitioning? Transition literally means “a going across or over from one to the other.”) Logic and the law of identity are such great levelers, n’est-ce pas?

Takeaway: It’s not whether but which. In plain language, man will invariably worship. He’ll either worship the one and only true God who created us either male or female (Genesis 5:2) or he’ll worship an idol–a false god, something that is not the only true and living God. False gods may be politics, groupthink, AI, sexuality, power, fame, wealth, the demonic, oneself, calves of gold, or comfort. The list could continue. It’s not whether but which.

President Reagan, one might say, nailed it.

I remember when I was filling in as teaching pastor to a congregation years ago. On Wednesday evenings, I taught through the gospel of John verse-by-verse. I was doing that for one main reason. John’s gospel is the clearest example of who Jesus is, especially to those who are baby Christians, or who are perhaps still unregenerate.

I love teaching through John. If a person’s mind and heart are being gripped by God, John’s gospel often seems to launch people into a clearer understanding of the person and work of Christ. That has been my experience, anyway.

I have found that people, after having the Word taught systematically and verse-by-verse, they find that verses and passages they had often heard cited mean something quite different than what they’d previously thought.

A Real Example: On one Wednesday night as I was teaching at this church, we had really slim attendance, and I think one of the men present picked up on how down I was because of low attendance. (It’s hard not to take it personally, if you care about your people.) Anyway, Tim said, “Well, pastor, where two or three are gathered in my name, Jesus is in the midst.”

Tim was trying to console me, of course. I knew that. So I took his offer of comfort and thanked him for it. But here’s the rub: That is NOT what that verse is about, not even close.

In Matthew 18:19-20 (ESV), Jesus says this: “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”

Context, Context, Context: Do you know what the context of Jesus’ words was there? It was about church discipline. It was about how to handle the situation when a brother sins against another brother (v. 15). It is about the efforts we should go to in order to restore a brother if and when he repents. It is about how the community of disciples, and later qualified elders, were to operate as those with authority from Christ himself in order to deal with sin in the church. And where two or three of said disciples and/or qualified elders are gathered, Christ’s authority was likewise among them insofar as they (the disciples and/or qualified elders) remained biblically faithful to Scripture. In short, it had NOTHING to do with slim attendance numbers at Bible study.

Encouragement/takeaway: “Text without context is pretext” is axiomatic for good reason. So much betrayal of the truth of God occurs because verses, phrases, words, etc. are divorced from their original contexts. This ought not be for Christians. We should abide by the NT’s teaching: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, ESV). More than two or three should be gathered around that clear command, and live it out, for then God’s authority would surely be in their midst.

Bottom line up front: God’s Commendation Medal

Introduction: I know of no one who does not appreciate being commended. Whether it’s an “Attaboy/girl,” or a friendly slap on the back, or a commendation medal of some ilk, most people would concede that praise is a welcome occasion.

Our Spiritual Lives & the Question of Spiritual Resilience: We train our bodies, our marksmanship, our mental acuity, our abilities to accomplish sundry missions, etc. All well, good, and necessary in the profession of arms. But what about our spiritual lives? What are ways in which we might cultivate spiritual disciplines into our lives? How might we labor for that type of commendation?

Illustration: On a deployment I was on several years ago, I had a commander that I grew to deeply respect. He was a to-the-point, matter-of-fact type man but who was by no means cold or aloof. He was simply very streamlined in his approach to command and to his life as a whole. Nothing seemed wasted with him. He told us in a staff meeting one time in Iraq that each day, a part of his regimen involved growing in at least three areas: physically, intellectually, and spiritually. I like that trinitarian approach. And we’d see him each day. He’d do his PT for the physical regimen; he’d study, read, and develop professionally via continuous education for the intellectual pieces; and spiritually, he was and remains a Christian, and so he’d attend chapel services, read the Scriptures, associate with fellow believers, pray, and lead his family spiritually.

Encouragement/takeaway: When Paul penned his letter to the Thessalonians in the late 40s in the 1st. c. A.D., Paul commended his audience this way–namely, that they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, ESV). Think of that–a letter of commendation from the apostle Paul. What did Paul commend them for? In short, he commended them for forsaking idolatry and embracing the truth.

Spiritual resilience is not to be confused with empty bromides of psycho-babble or fortune cookie cliches. Wise spiritual resilience must be rooted in the objective truth of ultimate reality, and that means discerning the truth from falsehood. May we ground our spiritual resilience upon the One who is truth itself.

Introduction: I remember in reading a brief but powerful spiritual reflection of a WWII survivor, wherein the author grappled with how and why some of his fellow Jews survived the spiritual anguish that accompanied the unspeakable physical and emotional horrors of Auschwitz. The author wrote something to this effect (I don’t have my copy of his book at my computer currently): “He who has a why to live can bear/endure almost any how.” The book is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Connection to Us: As a chaplain, one of the areas that occupies much of my time is ministering to those who are in need. That is the paradigm we have set in Scripture. The word pastor means “shepherd.” The man called by God is to shepherd the flock of people God has entrusted him with; he’s to care for the flock of God, to use Peter’s language: “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you . . .” (1 Peter 5:1-2, ESV). We see the biblical command to have qualified elders to shepherd the flock. So much of that shepherding means walking with them through the valleys that we all face in life. We are not to “talk at” people; rather, we are to walk alongside them as shepherds who love the sheep.

Encouragement: If you’re in the valley, look to the ultimate Shepherd, Christ himself, but also for the elder/pastor/under-shepherd who cares for you and is walking alongside you. If you’re not in a valley, be getting ready for one; such is the nature of this world (Romans 8:22-24).

Bottom line up front: The Biblical View of Reward

Introduction: Colossians 3 was one of the passages I was studying. Specifically, verses 18-25. I don’t understand it when folks say they can’t understand Scripture; letters like Colossians are replete with practical items. For example,

22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. (Colossians 3:22-24, ESV)

In modern parlance, we might say, “Keep it real” or “Be genuine.” Stated negatively, it would read like, “Don’t be a hypocrite, because God sees, and we will answer.” Stated positively, it would read like, “Work hard and properly because rewards are meted out via God’s standard, commensurate with what we did properly and for God’s glory.”

What the passage does NOT teach is that we merit favor with God by way of our works. What it does teach is that if we are Christians, our works will bear witness that we’re being transformed by the sovereign grace of God into vessels that reflect Christlikeness. As Paul writes in one of his other New Testament letters, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV).

Encouragement: When we think upon Colossians 3:22-24, we see clearly that we’re to fear the Lord, to labor diligently for the Lord, and to trust the Lord to reward redeemed people. God crowns his own graces. That is, the fact that God would reward us sinners after rescuing us is grace upon grace. How much more, therefore, should our labors reflect said grace. We are told plainly not to aim to please men in a sycophantic way; rather, we are to labor faithfully because we know that we are ultimately evaluated by the scales of the Righteous and Holy One.

As I pulled out of the garage and backed down the driveway, our sweet neighbors had two Sunday morning girls munching their sod. When the girls spotted me photographing them, they raised their heads, and cocked their ears. Their black eyes focused upon me, and their legs swelled readiness.

They are familiar deer, so they did not bolt. They watched me back the car down the drive. At the bottom, I put the gear shifter into ‘D’ from ‘R’ and ascended the hill.

Pretty ones, I’ll not harm you.

The rains have fallen much over the last three days, and we are grateful. The grasses are greening again, the leaves on the hardwoods deep-green from the lightning and nitrogen. You can hear the creeks running across the road and also behind the house.

The fawns will appear on this Spring stage soon–in their spots and frantic energy and skinny shaking legs, close to their moms, shaking with youthful energy, thirsting for summer’s lushness. And their sundry thirsts–those hundreds and thousands of creatures’ thirsts–will be slaked.

And 100% of it will be via the hand of providence. 100%.