Month: October 2016

Copyright 2016 by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

When we who bear the name of Christ sometimes feel particularly miserable in this life, we often come up with one of two reasons to explain why we feel that way. They are

1. Since we are doing some great work for the Lord we must be under satanic attack, either directly or through other people

2.   We are guilty of some great unrepented sin.

I would like to propose a third reason.

3. We are living in a fallen world, and life here is often hard completely apart from whether we are, at the moment, acting like a “saint” or a “sinner.”

The first sentence in M. Scott Peck’s famous book The Road less Travelled is, “Life is difficult.” Whatever one might think of the rest of Peck’s thoughts on the trials of human existence, this first statement absolutely rings true. Life is difficult for all, and that includes believers. We have no immunity from being touched by the same tragedies that affect all of humanity. The trials and tribulations of being human come to all of us. Life is often hard, and sometimes it is so hard as to leave us in a state of misery. I’ve known enough sincere but miserable Christians in my day to know that we are not immune. In fact I know it from my own life experience.

The big question we cannot seem to avoid asking, at least from time to time, is “why?” We want to know why things have to be the way they sometimes are, and one of the obvious places we go to find an answer as followers of Christ is the Bible. As we read through the Word of God, we can easily find examples of people who are going through a time of trouble for the first two reasons.

From the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament to the apostle Paul in the New, we encounter great men of God who deal with all kinds of adversity simply because they are carrying out God’s redemptive will in a world of people who are not only not interested in the redemption He offers but openly hostile to it. We then compare this to the oppression we may have seen in some of our more spiritually productive contemporaries and decide that our own life ministry has drawn the attention of the Enemy of our souls. This is, no doubt, sometimes the case.

We also find plenty of human beings in the Bible who have brought misery upon themselves because of the wrong they have committed. The disobedient and divinely disowned King Saul is one good example and, on a metaphorical level, so is the “prodigal son” of the Gospels, though his ending is happier. Again we read about those who suffered for their sins, and note some we know today who have sinned mightily and paid the price in some form of enduring pain. (We might even note the appearance of such an unfortunate soul while looking in the mirror.) Unrepented sin can certainly be the catalyst for great pain; in fact, even sin for which we have truly repented can still leave us in the unpleasant position of reaping what we once sowed.

However, if we search the Scriptures we will eventually encounter the story of one particular blind man among the several whom Jesus heals. On this occasion the disciples ask their Master the question of who sinned so that this person was born sightless. Was it the man himself or his parents? Jesus replies that none of these “likely suspects” committed a sin that caused this person’s condition. It actually happened so that God’s glory would be displayed…. and then He gives the man his sight.

So just in the light of this one episode, it is safe to say that part of our burden in life is just the result of living in a fallen world as generally fallen people. Perhaps even more importantly we can also say that trouble which comes upon us for this reason can be turned to our gain while simultaneously glorifying our God. The wonderful thing is the fact that this applies to the other causes too. Whatever the reason for our pain, we have a Savior who can use that pain to our ultimate eternal good if we continue to trust Him in the midst of it. Maybe we would do well not to be as concerned with how our misery comes about as much as how God is going to, in His time, bring the best for us out of it.

 

Copyright  by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

At times it is difficult to trust that God’s grace continues to be present in our lives. This is especially true if our past experiences have been full of pain caused by the conditional love that is so common among human beings. This pain, along with an awareness of the scarcity that defines our fallen world, can make us think in terms of grace being a finite commodity rather than an infinite, inexhaustible gift.

When self-condemnation has a grip upon our souls it seems quite possible to believe that God is only so willing to put up with the darkness which we sometimes perceive within ourselves. At such times it seems unimaginable that the divine forbearance made manifest by grace will be sufficient to cover the evil that seems to remain in our lives. “Surely God has had enough of me”, we think. “What if I have pushed Him past the limits of His patience?”

However God’s mercy extends far beyond what a sin-haunted, struggling believer in the midst of a “dark night of the soul” experience tends to think it can.

Grace has been theologically defined as “unmerited favor.” By such a definition it cannot be earned. If grace cannot be earned then it is reasonable to believe that it cannot be spent either. The very word “spent” implies the finite and is not applicable to something that is inexhaustible. Perhaps we can reject this gift of God─ but this would be grace spurned, not grace exhausted. Compared to the potentially exhaustible love of fellow imperfect people in our lives, divine love is limitless. It never runs out. Think of it this way: God is love and God is infinite. Therefore His love must be as He is─ infinite. This reality is one of the cornerstones of the Gospel; in putting our faith in Christ we gain access to the Father’s unending love. In sanctification His love works to progressively perfect us. At the time of our home-going, or at the return of our Lord, this same love will definitively finish that work.

We who have a proclivity for self-effort (and its resulting self-punishment) often draw lines in the sand for ourselves. We believe that if these lines are crossed, God may no longer love us and grace will be withdrawn from our lives because we’ve “sinned it away.” The exact nature of the crossed lines in question varies, but they always involve some sin that we see as particularly heinous, particularly persistent, or both. If any such self-made line is breached, we are tempted to presume that God has no choice but to stop loving the one who sins so horribly. Surely, at this point, the God who so clearly hates sin must begin to hate us?

Remember, though, that the question at issue is whether or not divine love can be used up, not whether it can be refused. Besetting sin is one thing, apostasy is another. Theologians may argue that a person who calls himself a believer but then deliberately and finally renounces Jesus Christ effectively refuses the ongoing grace of God. But does this mean that God never loved him? Does it mean that He doesn’t continue to love him, even now when that love is destined to be unrequited? If God unconditionally loves a human being how can He be made to hate that person? His love, after all, does not depend upon us but upon Himself.

In Christ God has made it clear that He hates the sin but not, by some kind of divine necessity, the sinner. We are loved despite our sin. Once we repent of our unbelief, and trust in the saving work of the Son of God, the Father’s inexhaustible grace is brought to bear on and in us. As long as we truly want His grace, it is available for us.

The wonderful thing about God’s grace is that the very desire for, and receiving of, that grace can keep us alive in its continual flow and continuing to want more….both now and forever.

 

Copyright  by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

In our Post-Modern era it has become fashionable for certain segments of the American Church to denigrate the use of reason as an important part of living the authentic Christian life. Some voices in the “Emergent” movement have opined that Evangelical Protestantism has too long been captive to the Enlightenment’s idolatrous elevation of human rationality during the 17th and 18^th Centuries. The theory is that the Church has been unwittingly co-opted by the basically secular worldview expressed in Modernity. In reaction to this, a greater emphasis on emotion is sometimes promoted as a vital corrective. One might say that systematic theology is out and “The Sacred Romance” is in. We are now being advised in certain quarters to think less about God’s order so that we can be free to feel more of His Presence.

No doubt some of this corrective is right on target. Dry intellectualism obsessed only with “right doctrine” is not conducive to the holistic experience of God in all aspects of our being that He Himself desires us to know. The placement of reason above emotion has too often been worn as a sort of badge of biblical legitimacy in the Evangelical world; sometimes to the point of demonizing denominations that endorse emotional experience as a legitimate aspect of worship. We truly have suffered from the larger culture’s captivity to Scientific Modernism. Too often contemporary Christians been subtly assimilated into secularism’s blind faith in the ability of human reason to capture all truth, including theological truth. It is not wrong to acknowledge the need for emotional passion in the pursuit of a God who shows abundant evidence in Scripture of being emotionally passionate Himself. Our hearts must connect with our Lord just as surely as our minds.

That said it benefits us to remember that human reason, even fallen human reason is derived from a God of order as well as passion. Myriad signs of a divine moral and natural order produced by supremely rational thought are no less present in the Bible than signs of divine passion. Reminders of this aspect of God’s character exist all around us. The realms of mathematics, physics and astronomy (to name just a few) eloquently speak of logical intelligent design. In fact all of the applied sciences that gave rise to the astounding technologies we denizens of the 21^st Century take for granted today are based on utilizing the rationally consistent natural order our Lord ordained in the physical universe. If God were a God only of chaotic passion, emotional or otherwise, we would not experience the fixed day to day realities that allow us to “subdue the earth” as Scripture commands. The natural laws of the universe are the product of a Rational Mind and it is their utilization by our derivative created minds that has given us legitimate, if limited, power over creation.

There is nothing wrong with restoring feelings and emotions to their rightful place in the Christian life. Jesus Christ was no Stoic, no pure Rationalist with the world-view of Star Trek’s logic-obsessed Mr. Spock. The Son of God embodied both reason and passion in perfect measure. His followers should not be afraid of experiencing either aspect of the divine nature, insofar as they do not make an idol of either.

The famous polymath and convert to Christianity Blaise Pascal once said that “the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.” Although this is indeed a true statement, the human mind has reasons of which reason does know something. Such reason should not be rejected simply because the Post-Modern Church is reacting against an earlier philosophical extreme. As is most often the case the truth lies in balance. The best thing the Church as a whole can do today is seek such a balance between reason and emotion while respecting the God-given value of both.

Copyright 2016 by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

They say that no two snowflakes have ever been alike. The same may be said of human beings. However our uniqueness is not where the comparison ends. Snowflakes also have two other qualities that we share; neither being as attractive to the 21^st century American mind as the first one.

Snowflakes are obviously quite numerous and they are also quite short-lived. While people are perhaps not as numerous on the planet we still number in the billions. While people live far longer than snowflakes what is 80 some odd years in the face of thousands of years or, for that matter, in the face of eternity?

We are a society that has put a huge premium on human individuality during this period in our history. We are constantly told by the cultural metanarrative of the Post-Modern West that we are unique and therefore intrinsically of incredibly value. The radical individualism of our time is intimately connected to our race’s universal bent towards pride and self-centeredness. To live for God and for others, in that order, before ourselves is increasingly seen as heresy in the secular world today. It sometimes seems like the only remaining virtue that the majority of people can agree on is a lifetime search for self-fulfillment on their own terms. It is assumed by many today that this brand of self-fulfillment is an absolute human need. One of the things that this is driven by, at least partially, is the supposed necessity to prove how unique and original we are versus everyone else.

While it is a fact that our Creator created us all with a certain degree of uniqueness like the snowflake he also made us very much alike in other ways and in those common aspects of our humanity He desired that we would identify with and support each other. Making our vaunted individuality so primary to what we consider to be “the pursuit of happiness” has cost us something far more truly primary: our ability to put ourselves in a secondary position to the deeper need for authentic community and healthy interdependence. Both of these needs seem to be increasingly ignored by many Americans. This is dangerous because a nation of iconoclasts eventually ceases to be a nation at all.

More importantly it also creates a breeding ground for the kind of pernicious pride that keeps us from the deepest need of all, to love with all our heart, soul, mind and strength the One who created us. Two things can help us to move away from our obsession with self-centered individualism and towards love of God and love of neighbor. They, too, are found in the snowflake comparison. These two things are as follows: we are each just one of billions of our kind and we are all only on this earth for a short time.

When we think of ourselves as being just one among billions of human beings it might help us to put our existence in its proper perspective. We may be unique but we are also, in a sense, quite common in this world. We may be unique but we are also surrounded by multitudes of our kind, each of whom has not only their own uniqueness but also their own commonality with the rest of the human race. We also equally share the same dependence on God and interdependence with each other, whether we know it yet or not.

As for the brevity of our lives most people in this time and place in history do their level best not to think about this reality at all. In our feverish quest for self-fulfillment as unique individuals we tend to forget that all of what we attempt to do, at least in and of ourselves, for others to recognize will begin to vanish in their memory upon our deaths. More importantly what we truly have “made of ourselves” here will be primary to how we will be evaluated hereafter by a God who values what we have done with His Son infinitely (and eternally) more than how we have strived to be different from other human beings just for the sake of the difference.

When a snowflake melts its moment of earthly uniqueness is lost forever and it ceases to exist. This is where the analogy breaks down for we will exist forever somewhere. Where that will be is not determined by our individuality but by whether we have made of it an idol, something that keeps us from putting God first. In the end what does it profit us to be unique but lost?