Money and joy. Across the passages in the New Testament that speak to Christian leadership, these are the two most repeated themes. And we might see them as two sides of one motivational coin. That is, what gain are pastor-elders to seek (and not seek) in becoming and enduring as local-church leaders? Why pastors serve really matters.

What Makes a Pastor Happy?

The apostle Paul worked with his own hands, making and mending tents — which made him a good man to make the case for “double honor” (respect and remuneration) for pastor-elders who give themselves to church-work as their breadwinning vocation. However, necessary and good as it is for staff pastors to receive pay, Paul would not have greedy men (paid or unpaid) in either the pastoral or diaconal office. “Not a lover of money,” he specifies in 1 Timothy 3:3 (memorable in the King James as “not greedy of filthy lucre”). For deacons, in 1 Timothy 3:8: “not greedy for dishonest gain.”

So too, the final chapter of Hebrews moves seamlessly from “keep your life free from love of money” (Hebrews 13:5–6) to “remember your leaders” (Hebrews 13:7), and it’s no wonder. The one should go hand in hand with the other — as they do right at the heart of Peter’s passage for elders: “Shepherd the flock . . . , not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly” (1 Peter 5:2). The apostles would have us speak, in the same breath, of lives free from love of money and local-church leaders who exemplify that lifestyle.

The other side of the coin, then, is the positive motivation: joy. Paul begins 1 Timothy 3 by not only condoning but requiring the holy pursuit of joy in ministry: “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” Pastor-elders must aspire to the work, that is, want it, desire it, anticipating that it will, in some important sense, make them happy. They should not have their arms twisted to serve, but genuinely desire such work from the heart — as Peter says, “not under compulsion, but willingly.” Even though prospective church leaders hear (and may have observed or even experienced) that this line of labor can be especially taxing emotionally and spiritually, they can’t seem to shake a settled desire and aspiration for the work. They desire it, from and for joy.

Gain That Matches the Work

Peter succinctly captures the two sides (not money but joy) of our motivation coin: “not for shameful gain, but eagerly.” Notice he doesn’t say “not for gain.” Rather, he says “not for shameful gain,” meaning that there is a gain without shame that he is not excluding. And in fact, he requires it. “Eagerly” presumes some motivation to gain — just that this gain is not “shameful.”

“Honorable gain in Christian ministry is benefit that befits the work.”

What, then, might be honorable gain in Christian leadership? We wouldn’t be right to rule out any financial remuneration (which would require ignoring Paul’s case). But we would be correct to rule out money as the driving motivation. What gain, then, are pastors to seek? We might say it like this: honorable gain in Christian ministry is benefit that befits the work. Or we might say: gain that is commensurate with the work. We might ask the potential or present pastor, “Do you have joy in the work, and receive joy from the work, that strengthens the work itself? Or does the gain you seek from the work of Christian ministry take you away from the work?”

In other words, Is the gain you seek from ministry in, or apart from, the good of the flock?

Joy, Not Groaning

Hebrews is particularly striking in that it puts the pursuit of joy at the heart of the work of pastors, both for the pastors and for their people. Addressing the congregation, Hebrews 13:17 says,

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

In the healthiest of churches, the pastor-elders aspire to the work and do it willingly and eagerly (1 Peter 5:2), and (now we add) the people do their part to “let them [labor] with joy.” Which makes for a kind of holy conspiracy of joy in three critical stages.

1. The Leaders Aspire

First, the leaders aspire to the work, as we’ve seen, and joyfully undertake it. Good pastors want to do the work of pastoral ministry, from joy and for joy.

“Let them [labor] with joy” assumes that the pastors are starting out with joy; they are operating from and for holy joy in Christ, and in his people. Let’s be honest, pastors don’t get into this line of work for the money; the pay is modest at best in the vast majority of pastorates. Rather, God moved on these men, whether over time or seemingly in some particular moment, to give them an unusual desire to give more of themselves for the good of the church. They came into the work with a particular joy-fed and joy-led desire to love and serve the church through diligent teaching and humble governance.

“Unlike other vocations, mere willingness is not enough in pastoral work.”

Unlike other vocations, mere willingness is not enough in pastoral work. Christ appoints and provides a kind of eagerness in pastors for the calling, not just to make a living, but to give of themselves, beyond what can be fully reckoned and remunerated, for others’ progress and joy in the faith.

2. The Church Cooperates

The people then, encourages Hebrews, “let them do this with joy.” That is, the people try not to disrupt or derail that happiness by turning pastoral joy into groaning. Healthy congregants don’t want to interrupt happy labor with needless and sinful complaining and grumbling.

Note well, the church is not charged to make the pastors’ work joyful, but to let them labor with joy. In other words, “Church, your pastors are working with joy. Don’t make their work miserable or unnecessarily difficult. Your miseries might want company, but for your own good, don’t seek to make your pastors groan.” The church is not responsible to make their pastors happy; neither is it the church’s job to make them miserable.

Now, to be sure, there’s a word here for pastors too: brothers, labor with gladness, not groaning, even when ministry gets hard, for both your own joy and the church’s, which is the third and final part.

3. The Church Gains

Finally, ongoing, resilient, joyful labor by the pastors brings about the joyful gain of the congregation. That’s the explicit reason Hebrews gives: “Let [your leaders labor] with joy and not with groaning,” he says, “for that would be of no advantage to you.” When the pastors labor with joy, and the people don’t unnecessarily interrupt that joy, the people themselves benefit. Those who undermine the joy of their pastors do so to their own disadvantage.

And the pastors, who have been aiming all along at the holy and enduring joy of their people, have their own joy made complete in seeing the advantage and gain of the flock. So it is, in the apostles’ complementary callings on the pastors and their people, a kind of holy conspiracy of joy: the leaders aspire to the work and joyfully do it; the people “let them do this with joy,” striving to not give their pastors reasons to groan; and that joyful labor by the pastors then brings about the greater joy, advantage, and benefit of the whole church.

In it all, why is joy so central to the work of pastoral ministry? Because Christ is most glorified in his people when they are most satisfied in him. Joy in Christ in the heart, radiating out in audible and visual expressions, and life together in the church, magnifies its source and focus. So if pastors want Jesus to be glorified in their work, then one major, even central, reality to take into account is joy — the pastors’ joy in the people’s joy in Christ.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16001142/god-wont-leave-salvation-to-chance

[Better is] the day of death than the day of birth.

I realize that’s an abrupt way to begin an article, but that’s how the Preacher begins Ecclesiastes 7. No easing in; he just pushes us into the deep end of the existential pool. So, here we are. What do you think about the Preacher’s statement? Do you agree with him?

The statement becomes more disturbing when we realize that the Preacher isn’t talking about our deaths, but about the deaths of people we know and love — deaths we experience as losses. He’s talking about the deaths of our grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses, children, extended family members, friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

Think about that for a moment. Is the Preacher — and God through the Preacher — really saying that the day we weep over a loved one’s death is better than the day we laugh for joy over a loved one’s newborn baby? Yes, he is. But he means it in a limited, specific sense.

What Death Has to Say

We can see what the Preacher means by reading more of the context:

A good name is better than precious ointment,     and the day of death than the day of birth.It is better to go to the house of mourning     than to go to the house of feasting,for this is the end of all mankind,     and the living will lay it to heart.Sorrow is better than laughter,     for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,     but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. (Ecclesiastes 7:1–4)

This clarifies the Preacher’s point. The day of death is better than the day of birth in the sense that death speaks to us in ways birth does not. For death says,

You too are going to die, perhaps sooner than you think. And so will every other person you love and every mourner who pays his respects to this loved one whose final earthly end has come. If you are wise, you will take this to heart and live with your end in mind.

That’s not a message anyone hears at a baby shower.

Wisdom’s Counterintuitive Way

When we read through the wisdom literature of the Bible, we see this strange motif: we gain wisdom by paying careful attention to and learning to embrace things we would rather avoid.

We would rather avoid the significant discomfort that discipline requires, yet we see that “whoever loves discipline loves knowledge” (Proverbs 12:1).
We would rather avoid the unpleasant, humbling experience of being corrected, yet we see that “whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence” (Proverbs 15:32).
We would certainly rather avoid the more painful correction of being rebuked, yet we hear a wise man say, “Let a righteous man strike me — it is a kindness; let him rebuke me — it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it” (Psalm 141:5).
And we would really rather avoid afflictions of any kind, yet we hear another wise man say, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

“We gain wisdom by paying careful attention to and learning to embrace things we would rather avoid.”

The way of wisdom is often counterintuitive. We must learn to love instruction from teachers we intuitively fear because they have lessons we cannot live without. That’s why, when it comes to baby showers and funerals, the Preacher says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Ecclesiastes 7:4).

But he doesn’t mean that we’re fools if we ever celebrate a baby’s birth. For the Preacher also says, “For everything there is a season,” including “a time to be born, and a time to die,” and God “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2, 11). There’s a time to enjoy the beauty of a new life. But the Preacher does mean that we’re fools if, because we fear death, we avoid listening to its depressing instruction by keeping ourselves distracted and entertained in houses of mirth. For the wise discover that essential springs of life flow from what we learn in houses of mourning.

What Endings Reveal

The Preacher also wants us to know that we’re wise to listen carefully not only to what a death has to teach us, but to what every significant ending has to teach us. That’s why he widens his focus from death to include endings in general: “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

“The end of a thing reveals what its beginning conceals.”

He says this not only because every significant ending in our lives carries the echo of death’s message, but also because the end of a thing reveals what its beginning conceals. Whereas a beginning makes us hopeful by promising a better future, we discover only in the end whether the promise, or the promise-maker, was truly worthy of the hope we had. And significant endings also often reveal the true spiritual state of our hearts — what we truly trust in, what truly gives us hope, and what we truly treasure.

Here’s one example of a revealing end.

Death of a Promise

One day, years ago, when my brother and I were washing windows to put ourselves through college (me) and seminary (my brother), we were working at the home of a well-to-do elderly couple. The husband had attained remarkable career success as the founder of a company that ran a large regional chain of supermarkets, which he then handed over to his children when he retired. He had achieved the American dream.

But he turned out to be a dour, depressed, angry, bitter man. At one point, after he’d said something needlessly harsh to us and trudged off, his wife came over and apologized. She turned out to be just the opposite: buoyant, joyful, gracious, and kind. As we talked, we discovered she was a sister in Christ and had an earnest, vibrant faith. She discreetly shared with us her deep heartache over her husband’s rejection of Christ and her concern over his severe depression, which had set in when his declining capacities and health forced him to relinquish his leadership and influence in his beloved company. When his career ended, so did any meaningful purpose to his life. When we finished the windows, we prayed with her and for him.

The following year, when the woman hired us again, she was alone. Her husband, having nothing more to live for, had died. She was grieving. But her hope in Christ was strong, and her peace surpassed mere human understanding.

No doubt, this man began his career with the hope-fueled energy of a promising future. But its end revealed that the expiration date on this promise was the same as the career’s. When it was over, his remaining prosperity and prestige were hollow, having been emptied of a future and a hope.

Are You Paying Attention?

The Preacher knows how attracted we are to the hopeful siren songs wafting from the houses of mirth, and how repulsed we are by the fearsome dirges emanating from the houses of mourning. But he also knows how deceptive those siren songs can be and how those dirges can lead us to the Source of the springs of life.

So, in Ecclesiastes 7, he pushes us into the deep end of the pool by declaring that the day of death is better than the day of birth, and the end of a thing is better than its beginning. In other words, “You would be wise to pay careful attention to what your endings are telling you, especially when you encounter a death. These fearsome instructors will make you wise if you listen to them, but you ignore them at your peril.”

The Preacher leaves each of us with an implicit question to answer: What are your endings revealing? For if we pay careful attention, they will reveal to us what we’ve truly placed our faith in, what is truly our ultimate source of hope, and what is truly our greatest treasure. They are important lessons to learn. For all we will carry with us beyond our death is our faith, our hope, and our love.

Audio Transcript

On Monday, we celebrated the glorious depths of Hebrews 10:19–20. We now have “confidence to enter the holy places” — we go right into the presence of God — “by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” And that means, according to verse 22, we should now “draw near [to God] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” It’s an incredible invitation.

And as Pastor John said on Monday’s episode, we cannot repeat these claims too often — that all our communion with God is done by direct access to him, an access that Christ purchased for us through his torn body, torn like the temple curtain from top to bottom. Thus, we pray directly to God. Christ is our mediator, our only mediator. Our prayers don’t require angels, or priests, or saints, or even Mary or Hail Marys. For your prayers to be heard, you don’t have to be on your knees or inside a cathedral or at a temple or near a holy shrine or even standing at a holy place in the Holy Land. We need none of that to draw near to God.

The entire book of Hebrews is given to us to celebrate this new access that we have been given to God through Christ. There, the phrase “draw near” is used over and over. “Draw near” is actually one Greek word — proserchomai — and that word appears seven times throughout the book of Hebrews (4:16; 7:19, 25; 10:1, 22, 25; 11:6). It’s a profound word, as Pastor John explains in this 1997 sermon clip.

This word “draw near” is a favorite word in Hebrews. In fact, I would argue that almost (maybe not quite) the main point of the writing of the book of Hebrews is this word, to help you draw near to God without being consumed by his wrath as a sinner, and without being hindered by an evil conscience and a sense of unworthiness.

Draw Near to What?

So to answer the question “Draw near to what?” he uses the word seven times. Let’s just look at one or two of the others. One is Hebrews 4:16, where he says, “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” So that’s what he’s talking about here — the throne of grace, God’s throne. Or go to Hebrews 7:25, where he says, “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.” So we’re drawing near to God, drawing near to the throne of grace, and if you go to Hebrews 11:6, it says, “He who draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” You have three ways of saying it now: (1) Draw near to a throne of grace. (2) Draw near to God. (3) Draw near to a rewarder.

“We have access to, and we’re to come boldly into, that holy place to meet with God.”

If you come back to the text then and say, “Yes, but is that what is meant here?” wouldn’t it be confirmed by looking at Hebrews 10:19, where it says that “we have confidence to enter the holy places”? You know the image if you’ve been here for a few weeks. You know that the image of the tabernacle in the Old Testament — with its court and then its inner sanctuary and then its most holy place, where God met once a year with the high priest and the glory came down — that’s the word here. We have access to, and we’re to come boldly into, that holy place to meet with God. So the answer to the first question, “Draw near to whom?” is God. God, the gracious king on his throne. God, the bountiful rewarder with his hands full of blessing. “Draw near — draw near to me,” he says.

How We Draw Near

Here’s the second question: Which direction do you head when you’re doing this? Do you go west, east, north, south, altar, knees, to an enemy to get reconciled? The answer is you don’t move a muscle. You don’t move the muscle of your tongue. This is a spiritual act, not a physical one. When he says, “Draw near to God, draw near to the throne, draw near to the rewarder,” it is something you can do standing rock solid. It is something you can do flat on your back in a hospital bed, and it is something that you can do sitting in a church on a Sunday morning at 11:12 listening to a sermon. And I plead with you right now, in the name of Jesus, to do it. You do not have to wait until this sermon is over — to go home and get on your knees, or to get in a quiet place somewhere after this church service — to do this. This is something that I commend for the doing of right now.

By saying in your heart, mind, will, with eyes open or eyes closed, “God, I come. I draw near. I want to listen to the rest of this sermon in your presence. I want a hand on my shoulder. I want a hand of blessing on my head. I want support under my back. I want the priest at your right hand cleansing my heart. I don’t want to go through the rest of this service right now distant from you like I felt when I walked into this room.” You don’t need to bow one millimeter to do that. Beware, lest you think coming to God is coming to church. Beware, lest you think coming to God is coming to an altar. Beware, lest you think it’s going to small group tonight. It might be all of those and it might not be. It is a spiritual act of the heart, without a motion of a muscle.

Heart of Christianity

When I think about this and meditate on this central command in Hebrews, repeated seven times, I was struck this week how this is the center of the gospel. This is the New Testament. This is Christianity. Just think about this for a moment. What is the heart of Christianity? What’s the essential message? So if somebody at work this week says, “You’re one of those born-again-type, Baptist-type, Christian-type, evangelical-type people. What’s that?” If you wanted to start at the center, what would you say? Take a few verses.

Take 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18: “[Christ] bore our sins in his body on the tree . . . that he might bring us to God.” Is that drawing near? That’s the gospel. Or take Ephesians 2:18: “Through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” That’s the gospel. Or take Romans 5:11: “We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” — home with God, no longer estranged or enemies.

Or take the prodigal son. Almost everybody knows the story of the prodigal son, but not everybody remembers the context of the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, which begins with Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners (the bad people) and the Pharisees saying, “Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

“Draw near to God by the blood. Draw near to God through the flesh. Draw near to me.”

Jesus says, “Let me tell you a story. There was a woman who lost a coin. There was a man, a shepherd, who lost a sheep. There was a father who lost a son. And when he took his inheritance and became dissolute and got tired of eating pig food in the world, he remembered there was food. ‘Ho, everyone who thirsts, come.’ And he headed home. And this father, old and dignified, pulled up his robes between his legs when he saw this dirty, rascally, no good, inheritance-wasting son coming home, and ran into his arms and kissed him and put a robe on him and a ring on his finger and killed the fatted calf and threw a party and said, ‘My son who was dead is alive.’ That’s why I’m eating with tax collectors and sinners. That’s the meaning of my ministry. That’s why I came, to open a way home to the Father. Draw near.”

Would you agree with me, I wonder? Are we at the center of the gospel here? Draw near to God by the blood. Draw near to God through the flesh. Draw near to me. The whole point of Christianity is to look upon a lost world moving in the opposite direction, toward destruction, and to stop them and say, “God has made a way home.”

Joy is found in the strangest places. Take this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). When we read this, we may assume the field is attractive, something we would love to purchase anyway: a sun-drenched meadow dappled with wildflowers, or a garden plot with rich soil ready for tilling.

But life is not like that. We can see the field in this parable as representing what God would have us embrace for the sake of our joy. His lot for you may not be attractive; it may resemble a sandlot with broken bottles, rusty oil cans, and old tires scattered around. It may be a bleak field, with nothing about it even hinting of wealth.

Until you discover it hides a treasure. Then the scrap of hard dirt and weeds suddenly brims with possibilities. Once you know great riches are concealed there, you’re ready to sell everything to buy it. It’s what happened to me.

Striking Gold

Early on in my paralysis — and almost by accident — I unearthed an unexpected treasure. I opened the word of God and discovered a mine shaft. I dug my paralyzed fingers into a weight of incomprehensible glory, a sweetness with Jesus that made my paralysis pale in comparison.

In my great joy, I went out and sold everything, trading in my resentment and self-pity to buy the ugly field nobody else would want. And I struck gold.

After decades of using the pick and shovel of prayer and Scripture, my field has yielded the riches of the kingdom of heaven. I have found a God who is thunderous, full-throttled joy spilling over. His Son swims in his own bottomless ocean of elation, and he is positively, absolutely driven to share it with us. Why? As he puts it, “[so] that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Jesus is after nothing less than our full joy.

“Jesus is after nothing less than our full joy.”

But deep in the bedrock of Scripture, my shovel hit something hard and unyielding. God is nobody’s water boy. As the solemn Monarch of everything and everyone, he shares his joy on his own terms. And those terms call for us to suffer — and to suffer, in some measure, as his beloved Son did when he walked on earth (2 Timothy 2:12).

Rejoice in Hope

No one understands the relationship between joy and suffering better than the Son of Man. My God became human, his love insisting that I not be alone in my struggles. When I hurt, he knows. But Jesus does not merely sympathize with me; he’s done something about it. Through his death and resurrection, he has freed me from sin’s power and, in part, from the suffering that results from it. And he will free me fully in the age to come.

That coming age is my joyous hope! It’s hope that sees Jesus on his throne with his kingdom filling every corner of the cosmos. Hope that envisions sorrow and sighing erased from the face of the universe. Hope that eagerly awaits the moment when pain and tears will be banished and evil punished.

But that hope — the better country of Hebrews 11:16 — is still in the future. I’ve likely got miles to go before I sleep, and it’s getting harder to adjust to the harsh encroachments of older age and increasing pain. I could easily throw down my pick and shovel, collapse by the edge of my ugly field, and say, “God, I am so tired of this. Please, no more.”

So I stoke my hope. I am heartened by my precious Savior and the way he endured unthinkable suffering for the joy set before him. I follow him, parking my wheelchair on Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Now, it’s easy to see why God commands us to be constant in prayer, for it can be a struggle to pray when you’re suffering. And we understand why God commands us to be patient in tribulation, for it’s hard to muster patience when you’re in misery.

But it’s really hard to rejoice in hope — hope can feel so far off, vague, and nebulous. Yet God commands it. For if Jesus laid aside his robes to put on the enormous indignity of human birth for our sake, then his Father has the right to command our joy. He has the prerogative to call forth in us a happiness that’s commensurate with his Son’s sacrifice. We are to cultivate a joy that’s worthy of Jesus, our Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13).

Rejoice in Suffering

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3). I cultivate a habit of welcoming trials because it produces perseverance that results in godly character — the kind of character that easily grasps the appeal of Christ’s loveliness and yearns to see his magnificent denouement with his kingdom completed. This marvelous hope is enlarged every time I choose joy in my afflictions.

Hope then no longer seems far off, but very near. Not vague and nebulous, but concrete and real. Hope fills my vision with Jesus, making my pain seem light and momentary compared to the glory to be revealed. So when suffering begins to wither my resolve, I stoke my hope by taking several steps.

I sing my way through suffering. Whenever I feel downcast, I ask a few friends to pray, and then I worship Jesus with robust hymns filled with solid doctrine. Hymns that focus on the worthiness of Christ have enough spiritual muscle to barge into my discouraged soul and shake awake a hopeful response. When my weak mind is too foggy to put two sentences together in prayer, my heart defaults to hymns I’ve memorized, like “Crown Him with Many Crowns”:

Awake, my soul, and sing     Of him who died for thee,And hail him as thy matchless King     Through all eternity!

I busy my heart with good things. I’m no fan of television. If a story does not convey moral virtue or truth that points to God, it will dull my heart before the first commercial. Why yield the precious real estate of my brain to that which flattens my spirit? Instead, I busy my heart with good books and videos, art, memorizing Scripture and poetry, and pursuing uplifting friendships that nourish my soul. “It is entirely fitting that our hearts should be set on God when the heart of God is so much set on us,” wrote Richard Baxter. “If God does not have our hearts, who or what will have them?” (The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, 102–3). When suffering overwhelms me, I crowd my heart with Christ.

I serve others who hurt worse than I do. There are always people in worse shape than I am, and my job is to go find them and encourage them in Christ. It’s what Jesus did in his last hours on the cross. In spite of his unfathomable pain, he looked out for the interests of his mother and the thief next to him, and he even pronounced forgiveness on the brutal men who tortured him (John 19:26–27; Luke 23:34, 43). I want to serve like Jesus in the same manner, so I invest my time in Joni and Friends and minister to the world’s families that struggle with disability. It’s always better — and more joyful — to give them relief than for me to receive it.

Resilient Joy

As we rejoice in our suffering, we experience a joy that’s otherworldly. It never asks, “How much more can I take?” but readily adapts to difficult situations with enough elasticity to spring back into shape if disappointed. Resilient joy makes hope come alive, so much so that we can be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). I can be enjoying a glorious symphony or watching a breathtaking sunset, delighting in my backyard roses, or thanking God for his awesome creation, and still, there will be an accompanying sorrow. Part of my sorrow is related to my paralysis and pain, which never goes away; the other part is a heart-wrenching awareness that my crucified Lord gave his life so that I might enjoy the beauties of this world.

“As we rejoice in our suffering, we experience a joy that’s otherworldly.”

Suffering has made me hypersensitive to God’s joys. Such joy is an emotion and a fruit of the Spirit — it is deep and profound, yet tickles at the edges with an almost giddy delight over the prospects of its heavenly hope.

This sort of hard-fought-for joy swells Christ’s heart with gladness. The day is drawing near when Jesus will completely free us from all sin and suffering and present us “before the presence of his glory and with great joy” (Jude 1:24). And when joy becomes a way of life in your suffering, you prove the exceeding worthiness of Christ, which, in turn, will increase his joy in presenting you before the Father. I do not want to diminish that wonderful moment in any way. So joy is not an option. It is commanded for the sake of Christ.

That crowning day is drawing close for this aging quadriplegic. There’s no time to waste. So, it’s back to my sandlot of broken bottles and weeds with my pick and shovel. Back to the bleak field of pain and paralysis, for which no one would even put up collateral. From the beginning, God had set his eye on that ugly field for me, and I couldn’t be more grateful. And I certainly couldn’t be more joyful.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15997498/chosen-before-creation-for-salvation

One year ago, we lost our youngest daughter to her longstanding battle against addiction. Walking alongside her in this multiyear struggle sank us into parts of this broken world we never dreamed we would inhabit. Dark places with desperate people became familiar terrain. We fought for life. Death won. Now our precious daughter is gone. Each morning I stare into the eyes of her 2-year-old son, now entrusted to us.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about grief. I have seen how it attacks meaning and motivation. Grief creeps up and seizes a moment, an hour, an afternoon. I think it’s going to be like this for a while. The shadow of death; the empty chair; the burden of shame; the clay pot, broken.

Ministry, if I’m honest, is conflicting. It’s been more splendid than I possibly expected and more painful than I ever dreamed. Somewhere along the way, I began to think differently about resilience. It’s no longer the place I am reaching for after the pain. It’s the work of God, in and through mystery and agony, by which he is helping me persevere in a way that reveals his power.

Treasure in Jars of Clay

In 1947, a young Bedouin shepherd was herding his flock on a hill near the Dead Sea. Since sheep are prone to wander, one little lamb ambled away. The shepherd set out on a search that led him to a dark cave on the northwestern ridge.

The young shepherd approached the cave mouth, peered inside, and then chucked a rock into the darkness. Something shattered. Crawling through the entrance, the intrepid shepherd came face to face with an archaeological wonder.

The boy found a row of enormous clay pots, larger than him — each one sealed shut. Popping one lid, he found ancient scrolls inside — some wrapped in linen, others blackened to the point of being unreadable. Little did the shepherd know that he would be immortalized as the guy who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A treasure of incomprehensible value. Stored in clay pots.

Clay-Pot Conspiracy

Make no mistake: ministry is hard. We come aboard assuming God tapped us for our strengths. But God’s program incorporates many of our weaknesses. In a broken world, ministry is often conveyed through broken vessels. Listen to how the apostle Paul describes it:

We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7–12)

Paul faced opposition in Corinth. Tradition has it that he was somewhat unattractive and sported some kind of eye condition (see 2 Corinthians 10:10; Galatians 4:13–15). From his opponents’ point of view, Paul was too plain, too contemptible, too weak. But Paul counters with a decidedly unconventional defense. To the charge that he’s insufficient, Paul says, “Guilty.” To the charge that he’s an unrefined orator, Paul repeats, “Guilty.” To the charge that he’s weak, Paul asserts, “Guilty!” Paul flips the script on his detractors by saying, “You think my weakness disqualifies me. But actually, it’s the core of my credentials.”

Paul discovered a secret: his weakness was an opportunity for God’s power. He learned that when our weakness meets God’s grace, strength abounds. It’s what I like to call the “clay-pot conspiracy.”

Although the word conspiracy has dark overtones, I think it accurately conveys the essence behind God’s hidden agenda. God has a covert plan to sabotage the enemy and to display his power. It’s a secret design to humble the proud, abolish boasting, and establish the ground for our longevity.

That’s what I mean by the clay-pot conspiracy. And it’s as simple as this: Our weakness + God’s power = resilient ministry.

Filled with Gospel

Paul states, “We have treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Paul’s treasure is his gospel ministry. Paul is speaking about the resplendent worth of the incomparable gospel, the priceless message about the Savior who left the glory of heaven and died to save sinners. But let’s connect a couple of dots. Gospel ministry is a privilege many of us share with Paul. It is a privilege that we’re called to when we enter ministry as leaders in the local church. We share the glorious honor of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, to see the light of God’s glory go forward through the finished work of Jesus.

Now comes the conspiracy. At the heart of this passage rests a stunning contrast. This incomprehensible treasure is stored in fragile jars of clay. Church leader, God is talking about you. You have something of infinite value stored in your ministry, your body, your life — your clay pot. You are the receptacle; you are the clay pot in which the treasure of the gospel rests.

Can You Own Your Weakness?

When I was 7 years old, my brother — such a nutcase, my brother — called me over to the gravel parking lot across from our house. “Dave,” he said. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

In his hand was a gold nugget — at least what looked like a gold nugget; I didn’t yet see the gold spray-paint cans littered on the ground around his feet.

“Whoa! Where did you get that?” I said.

“Right here, man!” he said. “And they’re sprinkled all over the parking lot. It’s filled with gold!”

I stood astounded. But my brother was just getting started. “And guess what? I bought the whole lot!”

Then he stepped forward. “And since I’m your brother, here’s the first piece of gold from my new lot.” He reached over and set the spray-painted piece of gravel in my sweaty hand. When I close my eyes, I can still remember the sensation of awe as I palmed this priceless mineral that had transformed me into a wildly wealthy kid.

Feeling the burden of spontaneous wealth, I knew my gold needed to be secured. So I ran home, rushed upstairs, and grabbed a shoe box. I put my gold nugget in the middle of the shoe box, and I stuffed newspaper all around it. Then I wrapped it in duct tape (because we all know that duct tape is impregnable to burglars). The box then went into the bottom drawer of my dresser (because no criminal would ever think of going into the bottom drawer). Even at 7, I knew that my treasure should be in the safest place I could find.

But God’s strategy is different. God stores his treasure in something common and breakable. We think our battle with anxiety makes us less effective to lead. We assume our bodily illness or our prodigal child means the end of usefulness for God. But beneath your pain there is a plan — the clay-pot conspiracy. God is working to make your life speak in ways you never imagined. How? God stores his treasure in clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to him and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:7).

We are not always strong. We are weak. And the only way to experience God’s surpassing power is to own our fragility. God stores his treasure in jars of clay. Can you own it?

Break the Pot to Free the Power

The intruders in Corinth were known for boasting about their power — for talking incessantly about the triumphs of their leadership. So, Paul says to them, “Let me share with you my ministry profile.” Then, the apostle provides these four contrasts (2 Corinthians 4:8–9):

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.”
“We are . . . perplexed, but not driven to despair.”
“We are . . . persecuted, but not forsaken.”
“We are . . . struck down, but not destroyed.”

Ministry, for Paul, was complicated and excruciating. It was a life where you’re afflicted, baffled, persecuted, and struck down. Paul summarizes it by saying, “We are . . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:10).

“Your pain is designed to produce a leader who embodies the gospel message.”

As with Paul, your pain is designed to produce a leader who embodies the gospel message. God triggers experiences of death in us so that gospel life might flow. It’s a series of trials where your kids see you maligned, but you do not retaliate; where one sleepless night rolls into the next; where you keep loving when you feel like your heart is empty.

But it’s all part of the plan. Death is at work “so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Do you see the plan? God breaks the pot to free the power.

That’s right. Your weaknesses and struggles — the very places your mind is going as you read this — are the very places God makes his power known most clearly. You are walking the path behind Paul. “I carry death, so that the life of Christ may be manifested in me.”

It’s strange, isn’t it? We come into leadership thinking the kingdom advances by strong people using amazing gifts to bear epic fruit. But God says, “Not really. When I want to shape a soul for service, I bid him to come and die. When I want my gospel to ring forth, I break the pot.”

Your suffering is meant to produce life for others. It’s not merely confounding. It’s the clay-pot conspiracy. Our weakness + God’s power = resilient ministry.

Resilience Right Now

Leader, remember: Your suffering is not an obstacle to resilience. It’s the means of producing it. It’s all part of God’s conspiracy, where “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4). God breaks the pot to shape the soul. It’s a mysterious grace we are given, a grace upon which we stand (Romans 5:2).

If you’re struggling for resilience right now, remember: Your pot is not the first to be broken. The clay pot of Christ’s body was broken for our sins. Then Christ rose from death on the third day. It’s the conspiracy’s origin: God made death produce life.

“From the ashes of your brokenness, God is kindling the fire of hope and life.”

Leaders, don’t begrudge the nails that pin you to the cross. Don’t despise your places of death. From the ashes of your brokenness, God is kindling the fire of hope and life. Though it baffles the mind, those wounds are fortifying the resilience you seek. And they are preparing your soul to meet a Savior. Each day in heaven will be more glorious because of what you have borne on earth.

When I look into my grandson’s eyes and see my daughter, the pang reminds me that God breaks the pot to free his power. If you’re in ministry and experiencing any kind of loss, the breaking is also forging a more durable soul. The kind that reminds the world of the true power behind a crucified Savior.

My weakness plus God’s power equals my resilience. It’s the clay-pot conspiracy. And it is magnificent!

Audio Transcript

Do angels carry our prayers to God? Do angels play a mediating role between us and heaven? That’s today’s question. And what makes this question especially interesting is a theme we’ve already looked at three times on the podcast in the past: the fact that angels do hold the prayers of the saints. They hold them. That’s the glorious point of Revelation 8:3–5. The prayers of the saints — our prayers — accumulate in “golden bowls full of incense,” bowls that are held by the angels (Revelation 5:8). It’s an incredibly encouraging image. It’s meant to be. God wants us to know that every one of our prayers — our answered prayers and our yet-unanswered prayers, all of them — are heard by him, are precious to him, and always exist before him. It’s a trio of glorious truths we saw in APJ 37, APJ 630, and APJ 1226.

But this question today is different. Do angels carry our prayers to God? That’s the question on Barb’s mind, a listener to the podcast. “Pastor John, hello! Do angels carry our prayers to God? I have heard this ever since I was a little girl. But passages like 1 Timothy 2:5 seem to suggest otherwise.” Pastor John, what would you say to Barb?

I had a grandmother growing up who lived with us and who embodied some of the impulses, I think, for why over the centuries some churches and people have felt the need to shrink back from direct Christian access to God through Jesus and instead put various other beings between us and God to represent us before him.

Between God and Man

Barb, in this question, mentions angels as a go-between. In Roman Catholicism, the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, is put between us and God as a mediator. People all over the world, sadly, pray to Mary. They say their Hail Marys and do their rosary instead of coming to God directly and confidently and humbly through Jesus alone.

My grandmother was fond of saying — as she declined to participate in family devotions, to the great grief of my father — “God has more important things to do than listen to my prayers.” Now, on the face of it, that sounds humble. It is meant to sound humble. But in reality, it is not humility. It’s a form of Christ-belittling, Christ-rejecting pride. Her supposed sense of unworthiness was not the reason she didn’t pray. She didn’t pray because she did not believe the word of God. She did not believe and cherish who Jesus was and the price he paid to open the door to God for sinners.

Her refusal to come to God the way God offered through Christ was not a humble refusal. It was a self-asserting refusal to see herself as needing a Savior whose life and death were utterly, gloriously sufficient to open the way to God and bid her come boldly to God. She did not believe that God is glorified by welcoming our burdens and carrying them for us, like the strong God that he is. She didn’t believe that what Jesus did on the cross and what he’s doing today in heaven would be glorified if she really humbled herself and was stunned out of her mind with wonder that the Son of God came into the world to open a way for repentant sinners, beyond all imagination, to come into the presence of the infinitely holy God through Christ alone — and find a fatherly reception rather than incineration. She did not believe.

Millions don’t believe that the infinite, blazing holiness of God is so great that no angel, nor the mother of God, Mary, could be a better protection for us than Christ. Let me say that again. That’s just so crucial. She didn’t believe, and millions don’t believe, that the infinite, blazing holiness of God is so great that no angel and no mother of God could be a better protection for us than Christ.

“No angel, nor the mother of God, Mary, could be a better protection for us than Christ.”

If we’re going to approach infinite holiness in prayer now, in fellowship with God now, and finally approach him face to face, then the thought of adding Mary or an angel to Christ for supplementary protection and acceptance is absurd. It’s simply absurd. It’s like saying, “Well, I’ve got an asbestos fire suit here, and it’s twelve inches thick. Now, let’s add a layer of tissue paper to make it more resilient.”

There is not one scripture that teaches us to approach God through angels or through Mary — not one. Let that sink in. Not one. All of that insertion between us and God in addition to Christ is unbiblical tradition, and it is a dishonor to Christ, what he accomplished on the cross, and what he’s doing today.

So let me celebrate with you for just a moment the glories of Christ’s finished work for us on the cross, and its ongoing application to us in heaven as he intercedes today for us and opens the way to God moment by moment for you to come.

Through His Flesh

So we start with that text that Barb mentions in her question: “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). There are not multiple mediators that make it possible to relate to God joyfully, without being destroyed. There are not. Christ and Christ alone accomplished this once for all.

Then there’s the gloriously clear statement of Paul in Ephesians 2:17–18 and 3:12: “[Christ] came [into the world] and preached peace to [those who] were far off and peace to those who were near.” And now here’s the key phrase: “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:17–18). And then he writes this phrase: “In [him] we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him” (Ephesians 3:12). I mean, could it be clearer?

And how did Christ do that? How did he open the way for sinners to come boldly through him to the Creator of the universe in infinite holiness? Ephesians 2:16: “[He reconciled] us both to God in one body through the cross.” Glory! I love it. What a great gospel. “Through the cross” — through his death.

Or here’s the way it’s put in Hebrews 10:19–20: “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” So the blood of Jesus and the torn body of Jesus, dying on the cross in our place, covers our sins. It provides us with the righteousness we need to stand in the presence of the holy Creator of all things.

“The living, risen Christ goes on today, forever interceding for us by pleading his perfect sacrifice.”

And then the living, risen Christ goes on today, forever interceding for us by pleading his perfect sacrifice. Romans 8:34: “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” — right now as I talk. Or 1 John 2:1 puts it like this: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

We don’t need another advocate. It’s almost blasphemy, I want to say, to say we need another advocate or some intercessor or mediator besides Christ. And it’s forever. Hebrews 7:25: “[Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Always — always and forever welcoming us to God through his work.

In Jesus’s Name

So how do we come into the presence of a holy God in prayer and fellowship now? How do we come? Here’s Hebrews 10:19: “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” I can’t say it too many times. “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God . . . let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:14, 16). How do we pray as we come to this throne through Jesus? Do we hold on to our rosary and pray our “Hail Marys,” as if the mother of God could improve on the access that Jesus has made? Do we call down some angel, and hope he has greater access with our prayers than the Son of God? No, we don’t.

Here’s what Jesus said, and this is simply amazing. How precious, glorious, and unthinkable it is. He said, “In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26–27). In other words, “When you speak to God, pray to God, the infinitely holy Creator of the universe, in my name — that is, in my forgiveness, my righteousness — I don’t even have to ask Father to hear you. He loves you. He loves you as he loved me. That’s what it means for me to be the one and only mediator between you and God.” “Trust me,” he says. “Come to God through me.”

Can a man really be truly alive who has forgotten how to weep? Can a man of God, or a minister of Christ, truly claim to be fully awake without tears? These are questions, uncomfortable questions, I have been asking myself.

These considerations, dry as my eyes have been, do not originate with me. I consider them somewhat reluctantly. I had studied (and even memorized) the parting speech from Paul to the Ephesian elders before I beheld the apostle’s wet face.

Paul, anchored briefly on the seacoast of Miletus, sends a message forty miles south to Ephesus. He bids the elders come immediately. When they arrive, he tells them what breaks their hearts: “Now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again” (Acts 20:25, 37–38). Paul was resolved to board a ship sailing into dark providences. “I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me” (Acts 20:22–23).

“Can a man really be truly alive who has forgotten how to weep?”

Three years he had spent with them in Ephesus, tending their souls “day and night.” This is their last meeting in this life. His words fell as bricks of gold. Of all the things to say and recall, to encourage and to warn, with so few characters left to compose his final message, are you surprised that Paul mentions twice, of all things, his tears?

Serve the Lord with Tears

He begins his final words to these dear friends,

You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. (Acts 20:18–19)

Paul mentions his crying as a matter of fact — you yourselves know. The Ephesian elders remembered how the dew of his affections fell unashamedly. They saw him cry the “whole time” he lived among them. What an oft neglected picture of the mighty apostle.

If I could, I would try and paint it, entitled, “The Lord’s Lion, Crying.” It is good for me to see this. Paul, in his ministry, lost composure at times. At times — and it appears at many times — his passion for Christ and his pity for souls undid his seeming poise. “Do you remember my tears?” he asks these now elders of the church. Can you see those gracious rains watering my sermons, indeed, those sermon exclamation points from my soul to yours, servants of your eternal good and my gracious Lord?

The scene causes me to ask, Do I serve the Lord with such tears? Do I even want to? Do you?

Warnings Through the Blur

When Paul mentions his tears the second time, he says more. After telling the men to pay careful attention to themselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit made them overseers, he tells them that vicious wolves will attack from without, and false teachers will creep up from within (Acts 20:29–30) — stay alert, he pleads. But notice what accompanies his appeal:

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. (Acts 20:31)

“Admonish” means to warn. For three years he did not stop warning them, or weeping for them. What a sight. What a perplexity. Ponder this weeping warrior with me.

This man of industry and blood-earnestness warns them of sin and judgment and the wrath to come — while he weeps warm tears over their souls. As a sentinel, he held up his hands and declared himself free of their blood. He tells them twice he did not shrink back in cowardice from telling them all of God’s truth. He said the hard and unpopular word; he warned and called sin what it is. People did not like what he said — in fact, they were trying to kill him.

Still this soldier wept while warning: Turn from your ruin, flee from the coming wrath, repent toward God and place all of your faith in Jesus Christ! Believe in the good news of the grace of God. Keep believing in the crucified — now risen and soon returning — Christ!

Power of Tearful Pleading

Imagine standing across from such a man.

Your fallen heart has often been on its guard against arguments and criticisms. Your armor is well-clad, and your sin is well-protected. Heartless disputes and playing with words is your sport. But who is this foe striking from horseback? What kind of warrior sheds tears for the man he wishes to conquer? Steel meeting cold steel — this is the battlefield’s familiar soundtrack. Grunts and yells and trumpet blasts you relish, but not these soft and unnerving cries from the enemy — tears for you. This is more than mere truth; it’s love.

You see his redness of eye. You hear the arresting stoppings and startings in his speech. Here is no enemy, no hired hand, no mere debater of this age. He is earnest, to be sure, but earnest for more than an argument. He’s earnest for souls — my soul. He may discard my opinions, yet he bears me upon his heart. He tells me hard things but seems to want good for me. Perhaps more than I want for myself.

Admonitions for Two Men

What a corrective to both tearless stridency and weepy willows today — to the ones like me who have taught on the lake of fire while seldom shedding a tear beside it, and to those crying who would never dare mention hell.

“What a nuisance warnings can become when given without this holy moisture. All lightening, no rain.”

What a nuisance warnings can become when given without this holy moisture. All lightening, no rain. Such repeated scolding gives off dry, hot air and leaves hearts cracked. Bellowings Paul knew too well, “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). In his now-wet eyes, the tearless can find hope that grace may not be done with us just yet.

But neither can we long tolerate the convictionless crier, whose tears have no deep well. Men ever on the verge of crying over trifles need reminding that they should quit themselves like men and be strong. Good tears serve a higher ambition. They serve the Lord Jesus. But above these rise the cries in Ephesus. How that weeping earnestness confounded sinners as Paul pled with the dead to turn and live. The Lord’s Lion — Crying, Warning, Pleading.

Such a one — I am only left to imagine — was hard to argue with for long, and even harder to forget. When is the last time, dear Christian reader, you warned a faithless brother, an apostate mother, a lustful son, a deceived friend through blurred vision?

Should not the truly living, in such a world as this, find times to weep? Do not many live despising mercy and rejecting Christ? Are not souls lost to that eternal place of gnashing and weeping every hour — our friends, classmates, and neighbors — many not knowing a Christian who shed a single tear over their souls? We come with glad tidings; we need not always cry. But is our danger too much tearful pleas for souls?

Weep into Their Souls

A final word, then, for fellow pastor-elders, men like those Paul spoke to that day. Do you have a tear to shed for the lost sinner and threatened saint? Do you serve your Lord with tears? I do not pretend to instruct you in these matters. These are but my sermon notes as I overhear the weeping lion.

Charles Spurgeon said it was a blessed thing for a minister to “weep his way into men’s souls,” a quality he had admired in George Whitefield.

Hear how Whitefield preached, and never dare to be lethargic again. [Cornelius] Winter says of him that “sometimes he exceedingly wept, and was frequently so overcome, that for a few seconds you would suspect he never would recover; and when he did, nature required some little time to compose herself. I hardly ever knew him go through a sermon without weeping more or less. His voice was often interrupted by his affections; and I have heard him say in the pulpit, ‘You blame me for weeping; but how can I help it, when you will not weep for yourselves, although your own immortal souls are on the verge of destruction, and, for aught I know, you are, hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ, offered to you?’” (Lectures to My Students, 307)

Let us all pray for holy tears. Not for their own sake, not to make a vain show that draws attention to ourselves, or tries to manipulate. But let us seek life, full life, abundant life in Christ — a life fully alive, fully awake, fully compassionate within a cursed world of evil times and immortal souls. Lord, raise a generation of lionhearted men and women for Christ who serve you with all their hearts and minds and souls and strength — and tears.

In 1733, an earnest 18-year-old Oxford undergraduate was striving to live a holy life. But something was missing. He had a circle of spiritual friends, and one of them passed him a book entitled The Life of God in the Soul of Man. It was a breakthrough. “I never knew,” he wrote, “what true religion was, till God sent me that excellent treatise by the hands of my never-to-be-forgotten friend” (George Whitefield’s Journals, 46–47).

That undergraduate was George Whitefield, and he would go on within a few years to become the leading preacher of a spiritual awakening that spanned both sides of the Atlantic. The friend who passed on this book to him was Charles Wesley, and he would become the great hymnwriter of that same revival. Indeed, almost all the leaders of the early evangelical movement read this book at some point and testified to its importance.

“This little book was there at the very roots of the evangelical revival.”

Somehow this little book was there at the very roots of the evangelical revival. It was like an underground aquifer that allowed life to appear in the soil above. What was it about this book that made such an impact on George Whitefield and so many others?

Henry Scougal, Protestant Mystic

The book was written by a young Scottish minister named Henry Scougal, who died at only 28 years of age. Published anonymously in 1677, it was originally a tender letter of spiritual direction to a female friend, Lady Gilmour, and it retains the warmth and directness of this personal correspondence. When we read it today, it feels like listening in on spiritual counsel.

Though young, Scougal had absorbed the spirituality of past classics like a sponge. He had read Augustine and many of the church fathers, medieval spiritual writers such as Thomas à Kempis, and more recent devotional authors such as Teresa of Avila and Madame Guyon. But somehow, he assimilated all this material such that when he wrote his own book, it was the core truths that came through. He didn’t need to mention any of these authors by name.

In his hands, the teaching of the mystics was neither particularly monastic nor Catholic. Shorn of its complexity, reduced to its essentials, it was the basic teaching of the apostle Paul for all Christians. His message was simple: we are all meant to experience a “union of the soul with God, a real participation in the Divine nature.” Scougal explains by quoting Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “In the apostle’s phrase, ‘it is Christ formed within us’” (44).

What Is True Religion?

A clue to the importance of this book is that Whitefield says it taught him “true religion.” For all his earnestness and discipline, for all his religious observance and sincerity, he had still not discovered the central reality about being a Christian. As he read this book, he was surprised to find that his religious duties were not regarded by Scougal as the essence of religion. Not at all. Whitefield later recalled the experience:

“Alas!” thought I, “if this be not true religion, what is?” God soon showed me; for in reading a few lines further, that “true religion was union of soul with God, and Christ formed within us,” a ray of Divine light was instantaneously darted in upon my soul, and from that moment, but not until then, did I know that I must be a new creature. (George Whitefield’s Journals, 47)

The breakthrough for Whitefield, as for others, was the discovery that union with Christ was the center of the spiritual life. Everything else flowed from this. John Calvin had said something similar at the beginning of book 3 of the Institutes. The work of Christ as our mediator is useless to us until we are united to Christ by the Spirit.

“The essence of Christianity or ‘true religion’ is to have a new vital principle animating the soul.”

Correct doctrine, correct practice, correct morality — all this is fine and good, but it isn’t the thing itself. The essence of Christianity or “true religion” is to have a new vital principle animating the soul. Christianity is not just an idea. “I know not how the nature of religion can be more fully expressed,” wrote Scougal, “than by calling it a Divine life” (44). It is to find God himself taking up residence and living in me. It is all contained in his title: The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

This then was Scougal’s great theme. After clearing the decks of all the mistaken ideas of religion, he focused his attention on this one imperative. He wanted his reader to experience this. “Here, here it is, my dear friend, that we should fix our most serious and solemn thoughts, ‘that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith’” (126).

Without this indwelling presence, a person is no more religious “than a puppet can be called a man” (48). But if Christ himself lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit, then his very life shines like a candle in the soul. “Nay,” says Scougal, “it is a real participation in his nature, it is a beam of the eternal light, a drop of that infinite ocean of goodness; and they who are endued with it, may be said to have ‘God dwelling in their souls,’ and ‘Christ formed within them’” (49).

Just as our bodily life is characterized by sensation, so also our spiritual life is characterized by faith, “a kind of sense, or feeling persuasion of spiritual things.” And it is not just faith in general but “faith in Jesus Christ” (55). As an active vital principle, this divine life goes to work to make us more like Christ in love to God, charity to our neighbor, purity of heart, and humility of mind.

Excellencies of True Religion

A great spiritual classic not only tells you what ought to be, but it also helps you to desire it. Part of the power of Scougal’s book lies here. In the second part, he paints a compelling picture of the beauty of the divine life: it is what we have really been longing for all our lives, if we only knew it — what in fact we were made for.

He understood as well as any psychologist that human beings have an insatiable desire planted deep in our hearts. The soul “hath in it a raging and unextinguishable thirst, an immaterial kind of fire . . . importunate cravings” (112–13). But he redirects us to see that this most basic desire is fundamentally a longing of the creature for the Creator.

“What,” he asks, “is a little skin-deep beauty, or some small degree of goodness to match or satisfy a passion which was made for God?” Or again, “What an infinite pleasure must it needs be, thus as it were to lose ourselves in him . . . swallowed up in the overcoming sense of his goodness” (74, 78).

Infinite pleasure. I remember as a young person wondering whether following God might mean giving up the pleasures one might otherwise enjoy. A turning point came for me in reading Psalm 16, which concludes, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). In Scougal’s words, “Never doth a Soul know what solid Joy and substantial pleasure it is, till . . . it give itself fully unto the Author of its being, and feel itself to become a hallowed and devoted thing” (78).

Far from missing out on anything, living in union with God promises transcendent joys that are greater than we can imagine. All the streams of desire empty into this ocean.

Practical Guidance

Scougal also offers practical counsel on sustaining life in union with God. All heaven is engaged on our behalf and stands ready to support us. “Why should we think it impossible that true goodness and universal love should ever . . . prevail in our souls?” (96). And there are steps we can take. “We must not lie loitering in the ditch,” he says, “and wait till Omnipotence pulls us thence” (98).

In the first instance, he counsels us that if we desire the divine life in our souls, we can be careful to avoid sin and guard against temptation. We cannot expect to be healed while we are drinking poison. He outlines several practices of self-examination to assist us to a deeper watchfulness over our souls.

He also offers counsel on prayer and contemplation to help us keep our eyes on Christ, and he urges a practice of “consideration.” Just as a spouse might consider the qualities of the beloved, so we might consider God’s perfections. All this serves to increase love. We might also consider with gratitude God’s gifts: “Whatever we find lovely in a friend,” for example, can elevate our affections, for “if there be so much sweetness in a drop, there must be infinitely more in the fountain” (122).

Scougal knows too that in our continued pilgrimage here below, we are often tempted to despair. Yet Christ has sent his Spirit to assist such weak and languishing creatures as we are. He encourages us that where the Spirit has taken hold, where there is the faintest spark of God’s love in the soul, the Spirit will preserve this and “bring it forth into a flame, which many waters shall not quench” (95).

So, when we feel spiritually barren, we may humbly offer up to God a prayer of simple regard. “Here I am, and I present myself to you just as I am. I am here, and I am yours.” Or as Scougal writes, “Let us resign and yield ourselves up unto him a thousand times” (117).

Take Up and Read

Jonathan Edwards began his great treatise on the Religious Affections by saying that there was no question of greater importance to mankind than this: “What is the nature of true religion?” He had read Scougal, and I wonder if he was thinking of this book as he wrote.

Scougal gave what is still one of the best and simplest answers to this question. For any of us still asking today what true religion really is, and how to experience “the life of God in the soul of man,” it is worth turning again to read his little book.