We should offer counsel with God’s Word, and be humble enough to say to our brothers and sisters that they need to seek the Lord on their own. Remember, we only know in part, so we might be missing something. Only God has the full understanding of the situation, therefore we must defer to Him as we give our counsel.

Isn’t it interesting that the less you know, the more willing you are to give counsel? Now, don’t let me throw you under the bus to make me feel better; it’s an unfortunate fact that the less I knew, the more willing I was to give counsel. As a childless, unmarried, single man with no money, I was brimming with counsel about raising children, marriage, and money. And I didn’t just have counsel, I had the conclusive word from God. I had Bible verses; therefore I had the answer. But the interesting thing about God’s word is that it can be twisted (2 Peter 3:16), taken out of context (Matt 4), and must be rightly divided (2 Tim 2:15). I was very good at reading and applying the Bible, but I lacked discernment, wisdom, and humility.
And that’s the ugly truth: I was proud in my counsel. I would come in with guns blazing to tell you exactly what you needed to do and why. I cringe thinking back to the things I said to my family and my friends. And it isn’t even that I think my counsel was all that far away from the truth, but I was proud, and I didn’t leave any room for anyone else to be able to seek the Lord and come to a different conclusion.
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Don’t try to obey the Great Commandment without first receiving God’s great salvation. He always loves first. Our love is merely a response to His great love toward sinners. Let us behold the cross of Jesus and love it more and more. Let us be moved by His amazing grace. And let us love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, and mind.

The lawyer stopped Jesus and asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law” (Matt 22:36)? Jesus responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”
Matt 22:37
When the lawyer asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest, Jesus gave Him the perfect answer. We call it “The Great Commandment,” and as we read the impeccable wisdom of Jesus, we are encouraged, challenged, and humbled. Christians throughout all time have been, rightly, energized to love God more through this high calling. But I have to say this: There is something greater than the Great Commandment. Before you strike me off as a heretic, hear me out.
The Great Commandment is truly great. Jesus says that this commandment, with the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor, is the summation of the entirety of God’s Law. In other words, if you perfectly love God and perfectly love your neighbor, then you will find yourself in perfect obedience to the requirements of all of God’s commandments. Wow. As Christians, we rightly pursue a great love for God and neighbor in order to better please our God.
And yet, we don’t love God as we ought.
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Sometimes seeking the Lord and fighting the good fight takes time. We are commanded to “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord” (2 Peter 3:18), not spontaneously transform. Jesus tells parables to teach us to “pray always and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). Paul instructs us to keep sowing that good seed and not grow weary, because, “in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9). 

For twenty-three years… the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.”
Jeremiah 25:3
I can cook a potato in eight minutes. (I’m sure you’re very impressed). It’s true. Place the potato in the microwave. Heat for 4 minutes. Turn potato. Heat for another 4 minutes. Voila! It’s ready for you to eat! As a fresh college graduate, this was a game changer. What used to take hours, now took less than ten minutes. Granted, it didn’t have that fresh baked potato taste, but it sure was fast.
And honestly, I’ve never had the patience for a baked potato. I always seem to either cook it too fast and burn it, or lack the thoughtful preparation to start cooking it soon enough. You’re probably wondering why in the world I’m talking so much about baked potatoes. I think this little example is indicative of the culture we’re living in. We live in a microwave culture. Here’s what I mean.
In a culture where you can have a baked potato in eight minutes, a 15-minute potato feels like an eternity. And once we’ve grown accustomed to eight minute expectations, our tolerance for things that take longer lengths of time is diminished. And boy does it show. I can text my wife and be wringing my hands when she doesn’t respond within 5 minutes. (Did you know people used to write letters, send them in the mail, and wait for a response? Barbarians!)
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Do not despise your gifting, but trust that God really has designed you for the good of the church, precisely as He has willed. Celebrate the variety of people God has placed within your local body and remember that He has done it all for the common good and the building up of the body. May God be honored in His church.

Jesus promised His disciples that He would build His church, “and the gates of Hell” would not prevail against it (Matt 16:18). And for the last 2,000 years, He has been faithful to do just that. He has saved men and women and brought them together for the praise of His glory and the good of the saints. And not only has He saved, but He has uniquely gifted each one, arranging His church, His body, in a very specific way. And this is the encouragement: That the church of God is arranged with purpose.
It’s one thing to understand that we are the body of Christ, and that we are each like different parts of that body. Some are like mouths and some are like ears. Some are like eyes and some are like hands. These are body parts with noticeable purpose. Still others can feel like pinky toes or the appendix. Not really sure why they’re there, but technically a part of the body. But it’s another thing to know that, not only am I a part of the body of Christ, but I am a purposeful part of the body of Christ.
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Each person who believes is given the Spirit of God to live in them (John 7:39). By the gift of the Holy Spirit, all believers are thus empowered to live the Christian life and actively put away sin (Rom 8:13). Not only this, but because of this right standing with God, there is the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7). Each Christian will one day be in God’s favorable presence for all of eternity (Rev 7:15-17). This will be a place of fullness of joy and eternal pleasure (Psa 16:11). There will be no more sin, no more sorrow, no more death and disease (Rev 21:4). Christians will be given new bodies and they will dwell forever with the Lord (1 Cor 15:42-44; 1 Thess 4:17).

How we relate to God in light of what we know about God and what we know about ourselves is of massive importance. As we see God and ourselves correctly, we are faced with a sober reality: God is good, and we are not. God is the just judge, and we are the guilty sinners. God is merciful, but we have a moral inability to come to Him for this mercy. Because of our sin, we deserve God’s just punishment as lawbreakers (James 2:10-11). God’s judgement is a place of eternal torment (2 Thess 1:9), day and night forever and ever (Rev 20:10). It is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 13:50), a conscious burning that can never be quenched (Luke 16:23-24). This place, Hell, is the place reserved for the devil and his angels, but the place where the unrighteous dwell forever (Matt 25:41). How is it that sinners can be made right before a holy God?
The Love Of God
God is not ignorant to our problem. He knows that mankind has sinned against Him, and in and of themselves they cannot be reconciled to Him. And so He loved them (John 3:16). The high and holy One who inhabits eternity, entered into time as the man Christ Jesus (John 1:14). God the Son, Jesus Christ, was born in Bethlehem of the virgin Mary, in the line of David the king (Luke 2). He lived under the law of God (Gal 4:4), was tempted in every way as we are, yet He never sinned (Heb 4:15).
The Death of Christ
And while He had done nothing wrong, He was put on trial, beaten, mocked, and eventually killed on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem (Mark 15). But why did He die? If the wages of sin are death (Rom 6:23), then what are the wages for the sinless? Jesus deserved to live as the sinless One.
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We get a chance to love the stranger as a beautiful gospel picture to the lost world. Let us, “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9), let us reach out most specifically to those who are the least known, and let us seek to be hospitable using all resources at our disposal. 

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Romans 12:13
I have a confession: I am a hopeless extrovert. I love being around people. Put me in a good conversation or in a group and I’m immediately rejuvenated. Having people in my house is better than shot of espresso. In God’s mercy, I married an introvert. She loves people, but her battery gets depleted in a group setting. She charges up to have people over and needs a rest when they leave. I’d say these two types probably describe a large number of people. Neither are superior and both have their shortcomings, but both types are called to, “seek to show hospitality.” One thing I’ve come to learn over the years is that hospitality is about more than food.
When I think of hospitality, I immediately think of having someone over to my house, feeding them a meal, and spending the evening in good conversation. And while that has biblical precedence (think Abraham and the angel of the LORD in Genesis 18), I think we can miss the heart behind hospitality when we simplify it to a meal in our homes. Here’s what I mean: The word we translate as “hospitality” is literally “philoxenia”. Do any of those parts look familiar? It literally means “love” (philo) for the “stranger” (xenia). So when we are commanded to show hospitality, we are commanded to show love for the stranger.
Who
How does this change the way we should think of hospitality? For one, this should sharpen the focus of whom hospitality is primarily directed toward.
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God commands Moses to lift up this symbol and if anyone would simply look to the symbol, then they would live. And this was not lost on Jesus. In John 3:14 and 15 (the setup to John 3:16), He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” He understood that this was a shadow that was pointing to Himself.

He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).
2 Kings 18:4
Did you know that it’s easy to make idols. Really anything will do. Money, status, jobs, etc… God’s word tells us that presumption and covetousness are like idolatry (Col 3:5, 1 Sam 15:23), and that we should, “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor 10:4). God expressly forbids idolatry in all its forms in the Ten Commandments. The Heidelberg Catechism defines idolatry as “having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in the Word.” John Calvin said that our hearts are idol factories, and I can believe it. We are often tempted to push God to the side in order to trust and be satisfied in something else.
But something about the verse at the top of this page strikes me in a different way about idolatry. Something that might not be obvious at first glance. Idols can be overtly evil, but did you know that even good things can become idols? Did you know that even things that are meant to be pictures of Christ can be turned into idols? This is where Nehushtan comes in.
Nehushtan was the name that the people of Israel had given to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.
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I want to raise up, more than anything else, men of faith. In Genesis 1, God mandates husbands and wives to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28). In Malachi 3:15, we find that God desires “godly offspring” from the marriage union. This means that God does not merely want more warm bodies, but disciples. He wants image bearers to make more image bearers. In Christ, we, “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24). So my ultimate trajectory is to see these boys become men of faith. Men who are unreservedly His. Men who use their strength, their intellect, their whole lives to bring glory to the One true God.

I can’t believe that we have four boys,” I said to my wife. She looked at me and corrected, “Lord willing, four men, Jake.” Woah. Four men. I’m training up men. That humbles me and makes me pray. What hallmarks do I want to see in these men? What characteristics do I want to shine out from them? God help me as I train up these men in the way they should go.
Men of Meekness
I want to raise men of meekness. Men of humility. A meek man does not think more highly of himself than he ought, but rather, he counts, “others more significant than [himself]” (Phil 2:3). The man of meekness does not seek to be served, but to serve, just like our Lord (Matt 20:28). The man of meekness is strong and capable, but knows how to restrain and direct that strength for others. A man of meekness is wise and willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits (James 3:13-17). I want these men to be marked by meekness.
Men of Zeal
I want these boys to become men of zeal. I want their meekness to fuel a righteous zeal that is unafraid to stand apart from the world. I want men who are like our Lord, who says “Zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17), and who wears, “zeal as a cloak” (Isa 59:17). And not zeal without knowledge, but a zeal that is confident in and assured of the Word of God.
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One day, for all those who have repented and believed that gospel, we too will rise. We will be with the Lord, in His presence forever. And in His presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). Our joy now is weak and fickle, but then it will be unshakeable. We will be with Him forever and sin and weakness and sickness and sadness and all things that could steal our joy will be banished. 

I was talking with a friend at an engagement party about 12 years ago, and he was in the thick of his medical training. He was preparing for a huge exam that took up the vast majority of his free time, and he had spent hours studying every day for months. So I asked him, as we often did, how his soul was. He said, “I’m busy, but I’m still fighting for time in the word and prayer. I can’t wait for this exam to be over, but I’m fighting to have joy now. I can’t wait for on my circumstances to change to have joy. I want to have joy in the Lord now.” Don’t you love talking to real Christians?
This conversation rocked me. My friend was not waiting for joy. He knew that his circumstances couldn’t dictate when he was to find joy, because our sinful nature and our fallen world will always find an excuse to be dissatisfied. To say it plainly, if we are waiting to have joy until things are perfect, we will never have it. There will always be some hardship, or trial, or shortcoming, or whatever to bring us down and “ruin” our joy. And God actually commands our joy. Listen to these commands: “Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright” (Psalm 33:1). “Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name” (Psalm 97:12)! “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Phil 4:4).
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When we see the failings of our brothers and sisters, let our first inclination be to believe the promises of God for that saint, and to watch out for our own souls. Let us be willing to have the hard conversations, but let it be with clear eyes and a humble heart. Let our own forgiveness cause us to walk in holy fear, and let us extend the same grace that we have been so freely given.

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
Psalm 130:3
Sometimes I get frustrated. I often see it as a holy frustration. (Of course I do). I find someone who is somehow unable to see what I can see so clearly, and I say to myself, “I can’t believe that those people would do/think that thing.” Sometimes I say it out loud. (Of course I do). Early on in my marriage was one of those times that I said it out loud.
I was perusing Facebook, sitting on the couch with my wife, and I saw a post from a Christian friend. Let’s just say it was less than Christ-like. My immediate reaction was, “I can’t believe so-and-so would post something like that. I just don’t know how this person can say this stuff with a good conscience. I don’t think this person will ever change.” And on-and-on I went I’m sure. My wife sat listening for a moment and said, “If the LORD should mark iniquities, who could stand?” Silence. “I’m gonna go take a shower now,” she said casually, as if she hadn’t just hit me with a healthy dose of theologically solid, gospel rich, humility-inducing truth.
When I got married, I realized that I was marrying up. Every now and then the Lord makes that abundantly clear.
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