Somewhere deep inside, each one of us longs for more. We want more money, more authority, more followers, more of whatever it is that we find especially desirable or especially validating. “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,” says the Sage, “and never satisfied are the eyes of man” (Proverbs 27:20). We live within a vicious cycle of longing, receiving, and longing all over again.

Yet the longing for more is not always bad and not necessarily wrong. There may be good reasons to long for more—more gifts, more responsibilities, more opportunities to serve the Lord. God is not opposed to giving us more. But he means to give us more according to our faithfulness with what he has already given.

Give me a bigger congregation, wishes the pastor! But what are you doing with the one you have now? Are you being a faithful shepherd over that small flock? And are you really ready to accept the weightier responsibility that will come with more?

Give me more readers, wishes the author! But how are you being faithful with the readers you have at this moment? How are you blessing and serving them with the words you write? Your faithfulness with hundreds predicts your faithfulness with thousands or millions.

Give me more money, wishes almost every one of us! But how are you proving yourself a faithful steward of the money God has already blessed you with? It is folly to think generosity depends upon abundance. If you will not give out of your lack, you will not give out of your plenty.

If you will not be committed to God’s purposes in little things, you provide no evidence that you will be committed to God’s purposes in great things. If you cannot faithfully steward little there is no reason to think you will faithfully steward much. Hence, God may be holding back what you long for to save you from the catastrophe of being unfaithful in much. He may be saving you from yourself. What you count a sorrow could actually be a rich blessing, for if you get what you want, it might destroy you.

God has placed you in the situation in which you can best prove your faithfulness to him. He has placed you right where you can best serve his cause. It is today that he means for you to prove your sincerity, here that he means for you to prove your love, and now that he means to for you to prove your devotion—in this circumstance, in this sphere, with this quantity.

It is folly to think generosity depends upon abundance. If you will not give out of your lack, you will not give out of your plenty.Share

And it is when you have proven yourself in this—when you have accepted it with joy and stewarded it with faithfulness—that God may see fit to give you that. Thus, if there is any longing for more in your heart, let it first be a longing for more of God’s glory, more of God’s fame, more wonder that he has seen fit to give you any of his blessings when you are so undeserving. And when you have proven yourself in what God has already given, when you have dedicated it to his cause and enlarged it for his purposes, perhaps he will deem you suitable to be stewards of more. Or maybe he will keep you just where you are and just as you are. Either way, you can trust him fully.

So don’t resent that you serve God in a small arena. Don’t feel sorry for yourself that you write for a small audience or preach before a small congregation. Be honored that God lets you serve him at all and deploy what he’s given you for the good of others and the glory of God. Be faithful in little and fully discharge your duty before God. Leave it to the riches of his wisdom to determine whether he will call you to prove your faithfulness over more.

Westminster Books has many different varieties of ESV Scripture Journals on sale this week in case that’s of interest.

Today’s Kindle deals include an excellent systematic theology along with some commentaries and books related to specific issues.

As Jonathan Van Maren explains, IVF is not pro-family as some are claiming. “Families are not ‘made great again’ by having unborn children created in labs, graded, discarded, or stored in freezers, and we must make this case both persuasively and emphatically.”

Trevin Wax explains why we need to be careful with the words we use to describe ourselves. If we talk about ourselves like we are machines we may begin to understand ourselves accordingly.

“It’s difficult to be published. Unless you have a large following, or catch a break, you may face an uphill battle in getting your book published. And yet, I would argue, it’s still important for you to write for at least a couple of reasons.”

Rachel draws a lesson from a grade school pencil sharpener. “Holding that little itty-bitty piece in my hand struck me with its resemblance to sin.”

Karen Corcoran: “Wilderness and wandering go together for the sake of our hearts. What might God see about the wilderness journey as good for our hearts? When life’s direction seemingly feels harder than it should, I grow increasingly aware of how unsettled I feel. It feels like wandering an aimless trek, full of uncertainties. Unresolved things are, by nature, not settled or solved.”

It is important to define “nation” because God calls us to go to the nations and make disciples within them!

Just as a tower is straight only to the degree to which it matches the builder’s perfect line, our lives are right only to the degree to which they match God’s perfect law. 

If we aren’t deliberate in developing our children’s understanding of God, then it will be developed by someone else.
—Sam Luce & Hunter Williams

The God of peace be with you today, my friends.

There is a long list of Kindle deals to browse through this morning. I recommend Don’t Follow Your Heart and Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, but there’s lots else as well.

(Yesterday on the blog: Only Ever Better)

John Piper is both amazed and dismayed as he considers AI. “Let’s use ChatGPT and other sources that are coming along for information, even for inspiration, just like you use commentaries and articles and books and songs and poetry. But don’t use it for composition unless you’re going to give credit for it.”

There are lots of really helpful insights in this article. “While the hypothesis that Jonathan and David were friends with benefits makes sense of the modern belief that unrestrained sexual expression is the highest good, it does not make sense of David’s world or of adherence to Biblical morality.”

Yes, let’s all embrace the fact that we are burdens to others and they are burdens to us.

Samuel James gives his take on why, as we age, we tend to complain more. “There is no easy version of life. There is no existential financial freedom seminar that can teach you how to put away 10% of your hopes and desires in an account that will one day mature and be available to withdraw. There is no guarantee, not from your parents or lovers and certainly not from God, that you will succeed. You may, you may not.”

Please don’t! “Preaching that truly disciples a congregation is rooted in intimacy with the biblical languages, a knowledge of the rich history of interpretation, and sound exegesis. But this combination does not make a sermon. These are the building blocks of a pastor’s sermon. They are the raw materials in the hands of a craftsman. Instead , what every congregation needs is the finished product—not the building materials.”

“Entitlement is a common parenting issue in our day. Entitled children can’t appreciate a gift. They’re anxious and angry and disappointed in their riches, because they are convinced that there is always more and better out there somewhere. That there is always someone in a more privileged position. That there is always a better present under the tree with another person’s name on it. So instead of enjoying all that they have and being grateful for it, they can only focus on what they don’t have, and fix blame onto the one they think is withholding it from them.”

…grumbling and disputing are not merely actions but evidences of a disposition. They are not just words of our mouths but attitudes of our hearts. They do not simply reflect something we do but broadcast something we are.

Repentance is not a discrete external act; it is the turning round of the whole life in faith in Christ.
—Sinclair Ferguson

This week the blog is sponsored by The Good Book Company, publisher of The Art of Disagreeing by Gavin Ortlund. In this positive and practical book, Gavin Ortlund looks to the Scriptures to discover a way to disagree with courage and kindness. You can purchase The Art of Disagreeing here.

There is a theory in social psychology about two contrasting ways in which people deal with disagreement. Essentially, about half of human beings act like rhinoceroses: the other half, like hedgehogs. Rhinos are aggressive, charging when threatened. Hedgehogs are more defensive, using their prickles as a shield. One book puts it like this:

“Just as animals respond differently to attack, so people react differently when hurt and angry. There are two major patterns of behaviour, and … it would appear that the population is split roughly fifty-fifty. Half of the population are like the rhino: when they

are angry, they let you know it. The other half of the population are like the hedgehog: when they feel angry, they hide their feelings.”

Whether you adopt this exact framework or not, it draws attention to an important fact: when it comes to challenging conversations or relationships, we all have different temptations. So disagreement will challenge all of us in different ways.

The truth is that we all have some work to do. Healthy disagreement will draw all of us beyond our natural strengths. It will require stretching into new (often uncomfortable) territory.Share

If you are a rhino, healthy disagreement will be difficult because it requires more restraint than you would naturally be inclined to show. You may have moments when you feel like “charging,” and it might even feel like the right thing to do—but you actually need to tap the brakes. (Often we realize this only afterwards, once the temperature has cooled!)

But if you’re a hedgehog, healthy disagreement will be difficult because it requires more boldness than you would naturally be inclined to show. You may have moments when you feel like hiding, but you actually need to embrace the vulnerability of leaning forward into the disagreement. Where you would normally pull back, you have to speak up. This can be scary! It rubs against our natural preference for harmonious relationships.

To make matters worse, hedgehogs and rhinos will often be tempted to look down on each other while ignoring their own weakness. The opposing flaws will be obvious to us, while our own will seem small or invisible. A rhino might look at a hedgehog and say, “Why doesn’t he speak up more? I know he agrees, but he lacks the courage to say so!” Conversely, a hedgehog might look at a rhino and say, “Why is she so argumentative? She turns everything into a fight!” Both might be (partly) right. This is one way that outrage about disagreement can contribute to further disagreement and outrage, without us realizing it.

The truth is that we all have some work to do. Healthy disagreement will draw all of us beyond our natural strengths. It will require stretching into new (often uncomfortable) territory.

For this reason, the ability to engage in healthy disagreement is a good general test of maturity. If you want to see how much self-awareness someone has, just watch how they respond to a good old-fashioned disagreement.

I’m sure you’ve had the same kind of experience I’ve had—the experience of bumping into someone you haven’t seen for many years. Maybe it is at a conference, maybe at a wedding, or maybe through pure serendipity. Yet now you’re face to face and you realize that even while you’re enjoying a conversation with that other person you’re also having a separate conversation within yourself.

In the first conversation, you’re recounting what has happened in the intervening years, telling of trials and triumphs and everything in between. Meanwhile, in the second and silent conversation you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, he looks old! He has a lot less hair than I remember and a lot more of it is gray.” And it isn’t long before you find yourself wondering, “Wait, is he thinking the same about me? Do I look as old as he does?” And frankly, he probably is and you probably do.

When we part ways with friends and then encounter them again ten or twelve years on, we can’t help but think how different they look. And almost invariably the years and decades have not been particularly kind. Time changes our outward appearance and I hope you will not be offended when I say that it is rarely for the better. Beauty, like physical strength, peaks relatively early in life and then begins a long decline. Thankfully, beauty matters far less than wisdom and character which peak late and never go into decline. Hence it is far better to value inner beauty than outer, to value the “hidden person of the heart” and the kind of imperishable beauty that is precious to God and to those who love him (1 Peter 3:4).

When we pause to think about life on this earth it is no wonder that our physical appearance changes over time. We face illnesses that sap our strength and injuries that never fully heal. Mother’s bodies are scarred by bearing children and strained by nursing them while father’s bodies are stressed by putting in long hours to provide for their families. We suffer physical consequences related to mental disorders and spiritual attacks. We get worn down and worn out by failures, grief, and losses. The more we age, the more the inner workings of our bodies begin to fail and interrupt everything from communication to cognition to digestion. We all eventually realize that Ecclesiastes 12 is not just the Preacher’s biography, but ours as well. Vanity of vanities.

We all eventually realize that Ecclesiastes 12 is not just the Preacher’s biography, but ours as well.Share

So what a joy it is, then, to consider that when our time here has come to an end and we go to be with the Lord, we will see our loved ones not as they were but as they are and as they forever will be. Despite a gap of time that may be decades, they will have improved instead of declined. The weight of cares will have been lifted from their shoulders, the hollow-eyed sorrow of loss will have been removed from their countenance. The one who limped will now stride with confidence, the one whose vision had faded will now look you straight in the eye, the one who could not hear will now listen gladly and attentively. Weakness of mind will have given way to strength, frailty of body will have been replaced by fortitude. All will be well. All will be better than we have ever known or even imagined.

If there are two tracks playing in our minds in the day we are reunited with old friends and beloved family, surely the first will be rejoicing aloud in God’s mighty acts of deliverance and rejoicing in the love of the Son. And surely the second, perhaps still unspoken, will be marveling that their new inner perfection has been matched by outer perfection. We will marvel at how escaping time and all its ravages has improved them and how it has changed them—changed into the people God meant for them to be all along.

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Kindle deals include several excellent titles on justification. There’s a study Bible in the mix as well.

Alan Noble responds to some recent writing about masculinity. “A positive Christian account of masculinity involves the use of power for protecting, sacrificing for, serving, and caring for the vulnerable. It also sees the pursuit of greatness, magnanimity, not as a perverse egotism, but as a striving for excellence for God’s glory and the good of the community … I’m not implying that women don’t also desire greatness, but I think men, particularly young men, often feel this desire acutely. At least, that is my sense of things. They experience it as a great burden.”

Casey continues writing about some of his concerns with therapy culture. “We live in a therapeutic age that trains us to label every emotional struggle as disease. We are trained to identify illnesses for which we bear no responsibility. Our mental state is determined solely by forces outside our control. As a result, we bypass our own moral agency and engage in an external battle against invisible forces with the help of the professional medical class. Our greatest problem is never in here—in what the Bible calls the ‘mind’ or ‘heart’; it’s always out there in an oppressive trauma-inducing society that wreaks havoc on emotionally-deficient persons.”

“The human body matters, both in life and in death. Our physical being is part of who we are. God has made us with body, mind, heart, and spirit. Harming the body is an affront to human dignity and life. Mistreating the remains of the dead signals a level of disdain both for the dead and for those who are left behind that is inhuman.”

This article grapples with the reality that many Christians can feel that, because of all they’ve done for God, they ought to be exempt from difficulties.

Justin writes to the fearful. “You are not alone, Christian believer! God’s people have always wrestled with fear, with questions, with sickening doubts when it comes to the many challenges of living in a sinful world. Yet the answer continually returns: there is no need to fear!”

Anthony Bradley has an interesting one here: “For decades, popular music has served as a powerful medium for artists to grapple with personal trauma, none more resonant than the wounds inflicted by bad fathers. From abandonment to emotional neglect, musicians have transformed their pain into melody, offering listeners both catharsis and a window into the lifelong consequences of paternal failure. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a wave of songs emerged that directly confronted the heartbreak of absentee or neglectful fathers, spanning genres and generations in a cultural reckoning with broken families.”

…while the Bible clearly commends marriage and expects it for the majority of people, it offers little guidance on getting there…So what are we to do?

Let us beware lest we do injustice to others by believing false things about them. What is it in human nature, that inclines people to believe evil of others? Shall we not strive to have the love which thinks no evil?
—J.R. Miller

Life inevitably faces us with grievous trials and terrible troubles. None of us remains unscathed and undamaged as we make our way through this fallen world. When trials come, they can loom up so large before us that they become the only thing we can see. And even if we find the strength to cry out to God, we cry out with our gaze fixed on the difficulty—on the disease, the loss, the temptation, the pandemic, the financial fears.

It is in this context that Oswald Chambers exhorts us to shift our gaze to something bigger, something stronger, something more permanent than our trial. “We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties,” he says. We see this perfectly modeled in Jesus Christ, who, with the specter of the cross looming before him, said to his disciples, “‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.’ And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed” (Matthew 26:38-39).

In the deepest agony of spirit, with the darkest trial before him, Jesus set his eyes on the Father. Shouldn’t we do the same?

I’m grateful to Ligonier Ministries for sponsoring the blog this week. They want you to know that a 40th anniversary edition of The Holiness of God is available when you provide a donation of any amount. Many would echo me when I say it’s one of the best and most formative books I’ve ever read.

Today’s Kindle deals include a selection of newer books and classics.

(Yesterday on the blog: Either/Or or Both/And?)

J.V. Fesko considers the “ordo amoris” and draws out an interesting point of encouragement. “For the last several decades, politics has become a battle of sound bites; more recently, our nation has undone 400 years of literacy by plying cultural memes as an engine of political and cultural warfare. In an otherwise bleak landscape, Vance’s invocation of Augustine’s order of love means that, whether right or wrong, he has appealed to a substantive idea rather than a sound bite or meme.”

Joshua reflects on the silence of death. “Muffled tears and soft words broke the moment now and again, like small pebbles tossed onto the calm, unbroken surface of a lake. However, all these noises seemed swallowed up within the silence itself – the silence was roaring. One would expect the normal reaction to death and loss to be tears and grief; but when you come face to face with the beast itself, silence often feels most natural.”

Paul Levy reminds us that sin casts a long shadow.

You may enjoy this new song from Bryan Fowler. “What is the truth / That ever anchors me / Amidst the waves of all my guilt / That Christ has shed / His blood and pardoned me / At the cross, at the cross.”

Aubrynn shares some prayers she prays as she faces scrupulosity. They will be helpful, though, even for those who do not.

Erin writes transparently about an especially difficult time in her life and faith. “I’m done waiting to be thankful. Today I give God praise that the dark thoughts have been absent. Even if they return tomorrow, that doesn’t erase the fact that I’ve had three days without them, and it doesn’t erase the fact that God heard my prayers and the prayers of those who love me. Tomorrow’s troubles don’t negate today’s blessings, and nothing can take away God’s goodness.”

…if you, my friend, fail to nourish your soul, you have no cause to be surprised when your soul feels dry, when your faith feels parched, when you seem only to whither and fade.

The Jesus admired by liberals and skeptics would never have been convicted of blasphemy and crucified.
—Michael Horton

It is sometimes difficult to know how to follow Jesus. It is sometimes difficult to encounter a situation, look to Scripture, and know how to live in a distinctly Christian way. Often it seems there are two options before us that appear to stand opposite one another. Do we respond by expressing truth or by expressing love? Should we speak straight or speak with tenderness? Should we display courage or meekness? Or should we perhaps pursue some kind of a mushy middle?

Both/And Ministry

Gary Millar has thought a lot about questions like these and answers them in his new book Both/And Ministry. He concludes that living a Christian life often involves embracing two practices that may seem (but are not actually) paradigmatic. In other words, instead of choosing one option, God means for us to embrace both. “This book aims to help you avoid the danger of settling for less than what God offers. It’s written to help you spot where you have made bad choices, excused yourself and opted out of an authentically gospel-shaped life. It’s an encouragement to pursue the beautiful, Christ-like, Spirit-empowered life of repentance and faith that God has called you to—a life that isn’t complicated but is hard. A life that is marked by contrasts and paradoxes that reflect the glorious richness of our God and Saviour.”

Millar begins by showing some examples of both/and theology. Thus God is both immanent and transcendent, sitting above all things in this world yet being intricately involved in them. The Son is both God and man, the eternal God who took on human flesh. The salvation Christ offers is both a matter of divine election and human responsibility and we cannot understand it without accounting for both. We live our Christian lives as citizens of a Kingdom that is both now and not yet. Hence we are accustomed to these both/ands.

Having established that God and his works involve both/and, Millar shows how the Christian life does as well. Our identity, for example, depends upon knowing that we are both righteous and sinful, that we are both mortal and immortal, and that we are both complete in Christ even as we are also works in progress.

This is true also in our relationships, in our various forms of ministry, and in our leadership. In our relationships, we must speak and listen, we must point out sin in others and own it in ourselves. In ministry, we must depend upon God even while we exert the greatest effort and must use the gifts God has given us even while we remain open to any avenue of service. In leadership, we must be godly and effective rather than choose between them and we must be both servants and leaders rather than only one or the other. In so many ways and so many situations God calls us not to either/or but to both/and.

It would, of course, be easier to live by the either/or approach to life. We would choose the attitudes that come most naturally and pursue those at the neglect of the other. But that would be an incomplete and immature way to live. It is only by acknowledging and embracing the both/and that we emulate Jesus and most become full-formed followers of him. Hence, I commend the book to you and trust it will help you better understand how to live a life that’s fully pleasing to our God.

This week at Westminster Books you can score a big discount on a new Easter devotional.

Today’s Kindle deals include a couple of biographies and some other books as well.

Lois writes about the heavy seasons of life and what it is that makes them so weighty.

It is not unusual today to hear people who insist we can or should refer to God as “mother.” Dr. Kyle Claunch responds.

There is no one like our God. Encountering His holiness leaves us forever changed, bringing new awareness of our sin and need for His grace. R.C. Sproul’s classic book, The Holiness of God, invites readers deeper into the truth of Scripture, that we may marvel at the Lord’s greatness and the wonder of His salvation through Jesus Christ. You can request the 40-anniversary edition of this celebrated book today with your donation to Ligonier Ministries. (Sponsored)

“The building is stuffy and reeks of urine and lethargy as the elderly lie bedridden beneath crumpled sheets. Nonetheless, like moths to a flame, we happily return.”

Stephen says, “The truth is, if anything is a higher priority to us than our faithfulness to Jesus, there is almost no sin we won’t tolerate in order to get it.” This means we need to think carefully about what may be more important to us than faithfulness.

Dan Cruver reflects on the doctrine of adoption. “This wonderful gospel reality—or, I should say, this breathtaking adoption reality—forever changes everything, including how we relate to God, our fellow human beings, and creation itself as God’s good stewards.”

“Paul is encouraging us to go against the grain of the culture, to not follow the patterns of this world, to not fit in with society. Indeed, we must be outcasts as Christians. We are the anomalies; we are the sojourners; we are the weird ones.”

We all know what it is to try to relate to people who are distracted by a phone. And we all know how much better it is to be undistracted. The challenge, of course, is in living that out.

We can’t teach kids kitty-cat theology and expect them to have lion-like resolve.
—Sam Luce & Hunter Williams