Month: December 2011

Quote: By-Product


“If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts – i.e., Materialism and Astronomy – are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.”

— C.S. Lewis

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Quote: Superior


“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that — and therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison — you do not know God at all.”

— C.S. Lewis

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Quote: Acceptance


Abiding in Jesus means understanding that His acceptance of us is the same regardless of the amount of fruit we have produced. Ironically, it is only when we understand that His love is not conditioned on our spiritual fruitfulness that we gain the power to become truly fruitful. … In other words, those people who get better are those who understand that God’s approval of them is not dependent on their getting better.

— J.D. Greear

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Happy There

I meet with my counselor. He’s the pastor of a four-hundred-plus college ministry and one of the most Spirit-led men I know. For him to even make time for me is ridiculous.

I walk in and he’s on hold with an airline over the office speaker phone. He’s on his cell phone too, an urgent call. There’s a roll of one-hundred dollar bills on his desk. I don’t ask. He’s looking through his drawers for something. He tells me he’s so sorry to be distracted. As a pastor who just suffered a breakdown from anxiety, I totally understand.

I needed his counsel because soon I’d be in a meeting to re-negotiate how I do the ministry. But I was nervous: I wanted to be humble with them while authoritative, demanding yet firm. I was also afraid that I’d be rejected, shot down, or fired.

While my counselor rummaged through his drawers, I shared my fears. The airline music was playing in the background. I must have said “What if” a dozen times. Suddenly he stopped, slammed the drawer shut, smiled, and looked right at me.

“You know, Joon, do me a favor. Will you stop being such a sh_tless wonder? I’ve been dealing with death all morning in and out of hospitals and funerals and I can’t find my wallet which has everything in it and you’re scared to be yourself. If you can’t say what you want to them, maybe that’s not the right place for you. Shouldn’t you just be happy there?”

He apologized for being so short with me. The airline person came on. He took the call and went right back to looking for his wallet.

We talked some more. He walked me out and hugged me and told me he loved me. He asked me to pray about his wallet. I got in my car and prayed.

“I’ve been dealing with death all morning . . . Shouldn’t you just be happy there?”

Of course, he was right.

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Quote: Deliverance


In this performancism, we eventually figure out that being the star of our own show actually makes life a tragedy. When life is all about us — what we can do, how we perform — our world becomes small and smothering; we shrink. To have everything riding on ourselves leads to despair, not deliverance.

— Tullian Tchividjian

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The Origin of Such

I’m confused by these kinds of statements:

“Follow your heart.”

“Believe in yourself.”

“Love who you are.”

“You’ll never know unless you try.”

“Whatever happens, happens.”

And a plethora of other wise-sounding jingles that appeal to the starry-eyed hipster in all of us.

But I wonder if we have ever thought through these statements. What is the logical end result of following them? Have we actually contemplated the origin of such therapeutic self-serving feel-good nonsense? When have they ever worked out? Not when your day got flipped upside-down by death or disaster or worse.

I don’t mean to kill your buzz. But I hate to see mindless blogs of fuzzy cliches that parade themselves as wisdom. Often they’re just excuses to be selfish, as if following your heart to leave your spouse and kids is some kind of acceptable option.

We accept this line of secular thought because it feeds our self-worship project, which allows a religion of lawlessness that creates a devout follower to no real devotion. “Follow your heart” — to everywhere and nowhere. The relativist dream of anarchy.

If you are a follower of Christ, please meditate carefully on the wisdom you’re endorsing because much of the “world’s wisdom” is a lie. If it gives you freedom to go right back into imprisonment, that’s not only selfish: it’s plain dumb.

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Quote: Moralism


Moralism beats this drum: If I improve, then I’ll be accepted — by God, by others, even by myself. But the gospel says something radically different. The gospel announces that everyone ‘in Christ’ is already accepted by God because of Jesus’s work for them. Therefore, no improvement, good behavior, or performance is necessary in order to experience the deep acceptance we long for and in fact strive for on a daily basis.

— Tullian Tchividjian

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Really Saying

It’s romantic to believe that the guy who calls and texts first, saves ‘I love you’ for you, covers you with his coat, cooks your favorite meal even if he’s allergic to it, and a flurry of other Hollywood montage moments will really fulfill you. Before we die, we want to visit Paris at night during Christmas and parasail over the Atlantic and sip wine on a hot air balloon — but you don’t really mean that.

What are you really saying? You want these things if the dude isn’t creepy, if the poor beggars in Paris do not intrude on your comfort, and as long as you don’t have to prepare a thing. A cute guy who texts you first is cute, but you change your philosophy when the dude is too nice or too short or has no jawline. Children are cute until you have to raise one — and kids are screwed up because we push our distorted view of idealism on them in place of real gritty sacrifice.

What you’re really saying is you demand a photoshopped dream, like the impossible make-up model on the cover of Maxim, to attain the highest degree of complacency at the least amount of effort for the easiest life possible. Your blog proves it.

We reveal our selfish hearts with a conditional wishlist that reads more like a bad movie script. Can you step back for a moment and examine what you really mean? And why you have these idealistic fantasies? And what your motives are? We buy into bizarre paradigms of romance and leisure and life without thinking to the bottom of them. You’ll find quickly that self-serving is not even good enough to serve yourself.

The wasted life wastes no time wasting it. The destined life invests time and makes it. You can cheat yourself to death simply by choosing the current convenient option. A life of non-committed fantasy is just a walking grave.

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Quote: Longings


Because of Christ’s finished work,Christians already possess the approval, the love, the security, the freedom, the meaning, the purpose, the protection, the new beginning, the cleansing, the forgiveness, the righteousness, and the rescue we intensely long for and, in fact, look for in a thousand things smaller than Jesus every day — things transient, things incapable of delivering the goods.The gospel is the only thing big enough to satisfy our deepest, eternal longings — both now and forever.

— Tullian Tchividjian

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Sermon Illustration: Second Nature Jesus

Click picture or link below for the audio.

A four minute sermon illustration about how a saturation with the Word of God creates a second nature reflex of godliness.

This is about my pastor and mentor Reverend Paul Kim, who I became so close with that I eventually began to think like him and act like him. In the same way, intimacy with Jesus and the Word creates a Christ-likeness as a natural reflex in cooperation with the Spirit.

For the sermon podcast, click here.

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Quote: Mountain



The sweetest thing in all my life has been longing to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.

— C.S. Lewis


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Quote: Accountability



The reason I hate the kind of group described above [for accountability] is that their focus is primarily (almost exclusively, in my experience) on our sin, and not on our Savior. Because of this, these groups breed self-righteousness, guilt, and the almost irresistible temptation to pretend — to be less than honest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in accountability groups where there has been little to no attention given to the gospel whatsoever. There’s no reminder of what Christ has done for our sin — cleansing us from its guilt and power — and the resources that are already ours by virtue of our union with him. These groups produce a “do more, try harder” moralism that robs us of the joy and freedom Jesus paid dearly to secure for us. They start with the narcissistic presupposition that Christianity is all about cleaning up and getting better — it’s all about personal improvement. But that’s not Christianity!

— Tullian Tchividjian


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Quote: Value



We live in a world that values others based on what they have accomplished in life, how intelligent they are or what their social status is. But for the Christian, this is not where a person receives their value. The value and dignity of each human life, male and female, is based on the biblical doctrine that each person is made in the image of God. Our value is not in our intellectual abilities, social status, the number of children we produce, the number of degrees we obtain or the size of our bank account. Our value is first found in Christ Jesus, whose image we bear. It is not a matter of degree; it is categorical.

— William M. Struthers


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Quote: Honor



When a man makes a promise, he is honor bound to keep it because his word is who he is. The degree to which a man keeps his word is the measure of his integrity and honor. When the masculine voice affirms, it says, ‘It is good.’ It doesn’t say, ‘It is okay now, but it might not be later.’

— William M. Struthers


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Quote: Reward



God never calls us to sacrifice as an end in itself, but only through sacrifice on the way to great joy. On the other side of the seeming loss and denial is always reward and pleasure so deep and so intense that it’s almost impossible to call what you gave up a sacrifice at all.

— Joshua Harris


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