The gift of God!

"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water...Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."


John 4:10-14




Have you ever noticed that when God reveals something to you of Himself and about Himself that the words of the Bible have new meaning and you begin to see this revelation in everything? When I first believed I saw everywhere in the Bible that God loves even His enemies because what God revealed to me first was that He is love. Once God revealed to me that Jesus is God, that is what I saw everywhere in Scripture. Well, God has done it again and I am seeing every verse and every story through the lens of the Trinity of God. Not every verse speaks directly concerning the trinity of God, but all of the Bible ultimately points to it and it is a delight to see this. I hope to show you that when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well His language is laden with a picture of the Trinity of God.

Most people would probably recognize that the water which Jesus offers this woman is the Holy Spirit - but then again, I never realized this until fairly recently, maybe a year and a half ago. My impression was always that the gospel was the water and that Jesus was speaking to her about truth, the good news, and the gospel of His death, burial and resurrection. This error in thinking is not all that uncommon in the reformed circles that I tread. If the error is not as grave as my own, at the very least most reformed saints think of the Holy Spirit as being there simply because we believe...sort of like a caboose at the end of the train. But since God revealed to me more of His triune nature through Jonathan Edwards, John Piper and Brother Lawrence and how there really is no gospel without a triune God, I have begun to see texts like this very differently. Rather than the Holy Spirit being inferential, I now understand Him to be experiential. Let me try to explain this quickly before we move on to our text.

From the time I first believed I always understood the Holy Spirit to be there because I believed. I inferred that because I believed in Jesus, I had the Holy Spirit. And though this is true, insofar as the seal of God's approval on me and the indwelling Holy Spirit which will never leave me, I fought sorely to understand why the Christian life was riddled with such struggle (with holiness) and condemnation. Those who believe in Jesus, in a saving way, are indwelt by the Holy Spirit - there is no doubt about that, for Ephesians 1:13 tells us: "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit," and 2 Corinthians 1:22 in the same way says: "and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." So there is little doubt that the Holy Spirit resides in those of us who have heard the word of God concerning the gospel of His Son and have believed. But it seemed like something was missing and "sticking close to Jesus" was an impossible task. Responding to God simply out of gratitude was more than my sinful flesh could handle and I consequently always ran out of steam. Even with an indwelling Holy Spirit, we cannot hope to live a life growing in the holiness of God as we ought to. And when I say holiness, I don't mean only overcoming particular sins, but the countenance and demeanor of our very souls. Most people can white-knuckle addictions and other obvious sins but to grow in the holiness of God is something else entirely...it goes to very core of the root of our sins. The fruit of the Spirit is not listed as outward behavior like the works of the flesh are but rather as states of our very soul and emotions: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. So though I was certain of my own salvation and knew that God had raised this dead sinner to life, the inward sense of growing in the fruit of the Spirit was lacking and I struggled to see how I could continue living a life managing my sin.

So one evening, as I was reading through the book of Acts and seeing the profound experiences that the early church had with the Holy Spirit of God, I prayed a simple prayer. "Oh Lord, am I missing something? I know that anyone who believes on the Lord Jesus is saved but it seems as if something is different with how I experience you on a daily basis and the way these people experienced you. Will you please give me the gift of your Holy Spirit like you gave it to them?" Not long after this, I slowly started to change, and through conversations with a Pentecostal Brother I learned that being filled with the Spirit is indeed something we Christians should strive for and actually pray for in humble, reliant and expectant prayer. Pay particular attention to the expectant portion of what I jus said because it will be critical to understanding what Jesus is offering this woman and how it relates to us. I have never spoken in tongues, though I pray for this and I pursue it regularly, but I don't think that tongues is the point about being filled with the Spirit. The point is to move our faith from a place of inference to a place of experience where we know, taste, feel, sense and enjoy God's presence in our daily lives. This happened to me in the most remarkable way. I had such profound revelations of God in my life that I routinely wept and worshipped Him even in the midst of difficult situations that would normally have caused me to get angry with Him. I had the presence of God with me and I felt Him both inside me and around me. It all reminded me of being a brand new Christian because this had been my experience at first but the old cliche' of how we are supposed to "tone down" or "cool off" had made its way into my life. As a side note to this, any of you men who tell your wife that you were in love with her once but now your love is more calm, mature and steady should realize that this is not the kind of love your wife wants. She desires to be desired passionately because that is what she is designed and created to need. Yet, we hold to a foolish notion that once we have had our "in love" stage with Jesus we must learn to come down from the mountain top and get on with living out of gratitude for what Jesus has done...no more passionate and lively feelings or desires for God, only gratitude and duty for what Jesus has done. I hope to show you that this is not what God wants for us nor is it what the Bible calls us to. Even in the valley we are called to rejoice exuberantly and praise His name as the object of our most passionate desires and we can sense His presence in our lives every day if only we learn to practice the presence of God.

Now, back to the text. Jesus offers this woman a gift of water and promises her that if she drinks of this water she will never be thirsty again. He refers to this water as "the gift of God" and tells her that this water will well up in her to a spring of water which will well up to eternal life. Let's begin with pondering what "the gift of God" means.

I find it cruious that Jesus doesn't say "the gift from God" instead, to be honest. If the gift He is referring to is that of the truth of the Gospel and the truth that He will die for unworthy sinners then He would have said that this is a gift from God instead of the gift of God. But you see, Jesus is not speaking here of the truth of His life, death, burial and resurrection...not at all. His life, death, burial and resurrection need to be understood as the thing that makes the gift of God possible and I will endeavor to try to make this clearer at the end. Jesus is telling the woman that He can give her the Holy Spirit and that this is the gift of God. The Holy Spirit is God and so Jesus is offering her God Himself. Therefore, it is not the gift from God but the gift of God. I could say more about the language here but I think it necessary to move on to seeing this truth elsewhere in the Bible.

How do we know that this water that Jesus offers the woman is indeed the Holy Spirit? First of all, in my previous post I attempted to show that when David calls us to "taste and see that the Lord is good" he meant that we should "drink" of the Holy Spirit. I showed verses from Ephesians, the Psalms and others which refer to drinking of the Holy Spirit. We can be fairly certain that Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit by comparing his language here to other verses that describe the Holy Spirit in this way. We can also be sure of this because of what is written in John 7:37-39: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Clearly, the living water that is here said directly to be the Holy Spirit is the same water Jesus is offering to the woman at the well. But there is something even more dramatic in Jesus' conversation with this woman that tip us off to the fact that He is offering her the Holy Spirit.

Notice what Jesus says at the end: "The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Lets deal with eternal life first and then we will move on to "welling up" because both of these point directly to the Holy Spirit as the gift of God. In this same gospel, Jesus tells us what "eternal life" is specifically.

"And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3

So eternal life is not simply that we live forever in a place without grief, disease and death. That would simply be immortality and something more like Utopia. Jesus says that eternal life is knowing both the Father and the Son. This is God's definition of eternal life. To know God intimately and be in a relationship with Him is eternal life. I have shown in other posts that this is a relationship of joy and delight, but I want you to see here that what Jesus is telling this woman is that if she would but drink of the water He can give her then she will know both the Father and the Son. Now, there is only one way to know the Father and the Son and that is by the Holy Spirit because 2 Corinthians 3:18-4:6 tells us that "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" is from the Spirit. As well, 2 Peter 1:4 links knowledge of God with being "partakers of the divine nature" which is the same as drinking, eating, or consuming of God Himself. Finally, Jesus' discourse in John 17 reveals that we know and love God by the Holy Spirit Who is God. You can refer to some of my previous posts for more elaboration on this. But to sum it up, the only way to know God is by His Holy Spirit Who is God and eternal life is knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son. This, by the way, is also why 2 Corinthians 13:14 says: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the way in which we know God intimately and not just inferentially or intellectually. It is also by the Holy Spirit that God loves Himself - the Son loves the Father and the Father loves the Son and this love of God is the Holy Spirit Himself, the third person of the Trinity.

Now, let's take a look at the "welling up" that Jesus speaks of. Jesus seems to be saying that there will be a spring of water that will gush forth this living water. This is not language that should make us think of a small drop of water or a calm lake but of a fountain that is spewing water up and around itself. This is what being filled with the Holy Spirit is like. It is quite distinct and vastly different from having the "seal" of the Spirit. Let's say that you looked into a glass and saw a drop of water at the bottom of it. You would have to look pretty closely in order to see this drop of water and from any measurable distance you would assume that the glass was totally empty. I would argue that the "seal" of the Spirit is much like this drop of water. When we stand before God on judgment day He will see this "drop of water" and will by no means cast us away, because we have been sealed with His Spirit. But Jesus is not speaking of a drop of water here but of a gushing forth and welling up of water which tells me that this is an experience that others around us can see. It wells up in us to eternal life and out of us flows rivers of living water. We know that Father and the Son intimately, which is eternal life, and living water (or the Holy Spirit) flows out of our hearts for all to see. I will not go into how a Christian can have only a drop as opposed to a gushing fountain except to say that we can quench the Spirit of God and it is a serious offense against God. Many will be saved "as one escaping through the flames" might be a good way of putting it. We are called to be filled with the Spirit of God, not simply having a seal of the Spirit.

Now, we have shown that the living water that Jesus offers the woman at the well is the Holy Spirit, God Himself and that this is why He calls it the gift of God as opposed to the gift from God. It is not that this gift is not from God but that Jesus is offering her the gift of Himself by the Holy Spirit. I promised earlier that I would elaborate a little more about how the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus ought to be seen not as the water itself, but as what actually makes this possible. I want to make clear that I am not denying that we behold the glory of God in the face of Christ and that we indeed see this more clearly in the gospel of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. I simply want you to see that Jesus died in order to give you something. He didn't just die for you to be forgiven - no, He died and rose so that you could have eternal life...so that you could know both Him and the Father and that you could feast on His glory by the Holy Spirit.

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." John 7:37-39

I assume you know where I will be going with this. At the end of this section of Scripture we see that the Holy Spirit had not been given in this way yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. What this is referring to is that Jesus had not yet died for sin and resurrected (see John 17:1). The Holy Spirit could not be given to this extent until Jesus had paid the penalty for sin and glorified the Father as He desired. The love of God, or the gift of God, could not be poured out in this way until Jesus had satisfied the wrath and fury of God the Father. I point this out because it is so common to hear a truncated gospel which simply says that we are forgiven because of what Jesus did for us. This is true, but hopefully you see that Jesus died so that you could know Him by His Holy Spirit and feast on His glory which is eternal life. Jesus didn't just die so that you could have a ticket which says "forgiven." He died so that you could have the Holy Spirit welling up in you and spewing out living water for all to see, and most importantly, to shine God's glory back to Him again. Jesus Christ died to bring you to God and not just get you out of hell. Jesus Christ died so that you could partake of God, delight in God, enjoy God, treasure God, experience the presence of God, taste God, feel God, know God, live in God - to have eternal life.

So this is the gift of God and the gift of God is God Himself. Glorious joy flows from this understanding of the Trinity of God and cannot be a reality without it.

One more thing I wanted to point out is that when we pray for the Holy Spirit as we are directed to do in Luke 11:13, it is important that we do so with three things in mind. 1. We must ask for the Holy Spirit humbly, realizing that we don't deserve Him nor can we control Him. We are naked, wretched, poor and blind 2. We must ask God in reliant prayer for the Holy Spirit because only He can give us the gift of Himself and His own love for Himself 3. We must ask for the Holy Spirit expecting that God will answer this prayer. This is not at all like word of faith, but a realization that Jesus makes a promise to us that whoever asks persistently for the Holy Spirit will indeed be given of Him by God. All of God's promises are yes in Jesus Christ and God desires for us to partake of Him and give Him glory by enjoying Him so He will most certainly give us the gift of Himself if we ask Him, but we must believe that He will do so:

"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." Hebrews 11:6

We must ask God for His Holy Spirit in humble reliant and expectant prayer, knowing that God will reward those who seek Him with the gift of Himself.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!

I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Psalm 34:1-10



I read another profound piece of work by Jonathan Edwards this week and it illuminated and sharpened my understanding of glorious joy - the joy that is from God, through God and to God. The title of this work, a sermon he preached to his congregation in 1734, is "A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be Both Scriptural and Rational Doctrine." I would recommend reading it in it's entirety...in fact, I would recommend reading it over and over again because the supremacy and glory of God shines in this work but in order to avoid making this post about Edwards and not Jesus I want to weave some of what Edwards argues for in this sermon into a discussion about the text from Psalm 34.

Notice, first of all, that David is praising God and expounding upon his own satisfaction and joy in God. He says that he will "bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord;..." Many of the Psalms are about praising and worshipping, in fact most of them are either about the experience of joy in God or a longing for God, but there is something in particular that should stand out to us in this text. The fact that David calls people to "taste and see that the Lord is good!" How can we obey this call of David's to taste the Lord and to see that He indeed tastes good?

Obviously, David is not literally telling us to taste God with our taste buds. So what does David mean by this statement? We must take him seriously and we must assume that David is calling us to do something that can indeed be done. Thankfully, though we cannot taste God with our tongue, what he is indeed calling us to do is not all that different from eating or drinking.

In his sermon, Jonathan Edwards skillfully shows that there is a supernatural light that God imparts to a person which enables him or her to "sense" God rather than merely being aware of His existence. This light is not the product of simple human intellectual ascent but is the supernatural product of God shining His light into the very soul of a person and awakening them to the reality of God's glory.

Says Edwards of the person experiencing this impartation of light,

"He does not merely rationally believe that God is glorious, but he has a sense of the gloriousness of God in his heart. There is not only a rational belief that God is holy, and that holiness is a good thing, but there is a sense of the loveliness of God's holiness. There is not only a speculative judging that God is gracious, but a sense of how amiable God is upon that account, or a sense of the beauty of this divine attribute."

So Edwards is arguing that rational thought and intellectual ascent do not constitute this "sense" of the glory or beauty of God. There is a difference between believing that God is holy as a matter of fact, and actually sensing (feeling or tasting) His holiness. The same holds true for every single attribute of God. I can believe all the true doctrines of God and never taste or feel the reality of them. I can believe that Jesus is the Son of God; I can believe that He died for sin; I can believe that Jesus rose from death; I can believe all these things with my mind and never taste the glory of the supremacy and beauty of God in them. I can know about God and never know Him intimately in my soul. One verse, in particular helps drive this home for us:

"You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe - and shudder!" James 2:19

You see, it is possible to intellectually know and accept facts about God and never feel or sense the goodness of them or more accurately, feel or sense the goodness of God in them. Notice what James tells us regarding a demon's response to the facts that he knows about God - he shudders. We shudder when we are afraid, frustrated, angry and in general don't like what we see or know. This is the sin of unbelief - to not treasure and cherish the God that we know about. Contrast this response to the response spoken of in 1 Peter:

"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:8-9

Do you see it? The people to whom Peter is speaking have the opposite response from that of the demons. Instead of believing and shuddering these saints love Jesus and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. What is that all about? Why is their response so different from that of the demons? The difference between the demons and the saints is simply that the saints have tasted God and have seen that He is good. They have drunk from His river and experienced the delights of God Himself. Their eyes have been opened and they have seen His glory and they relish in it. The demons shudder at exactly the same sight...because they don't like what they see - even if it is true.

So when David calls us to taste and see that the Lord is good He is simply calling us to true faith - the faith that results in glorious and inexpressible joy. Consider this analogy from Edwards' sermon:

"There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind."

Now we are getting close to what David is speaking of. As Edwards points out here, it is entirely possible to be told that honey is sweet and yet have no idea what it tastes like. I can know, as a matter of fact, that honey is sweet because others have told me that it is and yet not know the sweetness of it. The same is true with God. And David is calling us to actually taste that the Lord is good - not just believe it because he tells us it is so.

So how does one go about tasting and seeing that the Lord is good? I mean, there must be some practical thing we can do to have this experience, right? Well, there is and it relates back to my previous post on the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says that we have all been "made to drink of one Spirit." The "Spirit" is the Holy Spirit and Paul is using language very similar to that of David in Psalm 34 referring to a drinking of the Spirit. Other allusions to this kind of drinking of the Spirit can be found many places in the Scriptures. For example, in Ephesians 5:18 we are told: "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit..." clearly alluding to the fact that rather than drinking wine we should drink of the Holy Spirit. In Psalm 36:8 we are told that saints "feast on the abundance of your [God's] house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights." In the Gospel of John Jesus tells us to eat His body and to drink His blood. We could go on to see a few more verses that deal with this "tasting" of God, but hopefully you see that what David is in fact calling us to do is to experience/sense/feel/know God's goodness and not just infer from the Bible that He is good.

Now, if you remember from my previous post, the Holy Spirit is "God's infinite love to and delight in Himself subsisting in the third person of the Trinity." So the Holy Spirit is God's love for and delight in Himself (Jesus' love for and delight in the Father and the Father's love for and delight in Jesus). So, the river we saw spoken of in Psalm 36 begins to make a lot more sense now. Saints have been given to drink of the "river of God's delights" and this river is none other than the Holy Spirit - or God's love for and delight in Himself existing as the fullness of God in the Holy Spirit. Do you see now what David is saying? Do you see that he is referring to drinking of the Holy Spirit or tasting with our souls the sweetness and goodness of God? This is a supernatural tasting and it is a supernatural partaking of God that only God, in His sovereignty, can provide for us. And He will provide it for us - all we need to do is ask Him.

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:13

You see, we cannot force the experience of tasting God and His goodness - we must ask Him for it in humble and reliant prayer. We must desire to taste Him and we must acknowledge our need for Him to give it to us.

There are a few more passages of Scripture I want to look at before we close. The reason we need to look at these is that I don't want you to walk away with simply an abstract idea of "drinking" from a river that you cannot see. I want you to see the grand scheme of this concept and that it relates directly to the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. This is not simply the pursuit of a feeling or an experience - but a person, Jesus Christ. I want to show that when you drink of the Spirit you will see Him with your heart and you will delight in what you see and you will be filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." 2 Corinthians 3:18

So this first text shows two things that we need to consider: 1. That beholding the glory of the Lord is the way that we are transformed into His image 2. That this comes from the Holy Spirit That's right, Paul states emphatically that there is only one kind of transformation that ought to take place in the life of a saint - the change that God brings about as we behold His glory. And this "beholding" of the glory of the Lord can only be brought about by the Holy Spirit. So when we drink of the Holy Spirit and taste God we are beholding His glory and will be transformed into what we behold. But what is the glory of the Lord? What is it we see when we are beholding the glory of the Lord?

"In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Corinthians 4:4

We are inching closer to the crux of the issue now. When Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers he is preventing them from seeing the glory of the Lord and this glory is the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ. So when we drink of the Spirit we see the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ who is Lord over all. The most profound expression of God's glory can be found in the gospel. It is in the gospel that we see the love, justice, grace, sovereignty, power, mercy and patience of our glorious Lord. It is in the gospel that we see the Son of God dying for unworthy sinners to bring us to God. It is in the gospel that we see that the most important value to God is the glory of God. The Holy Spirit always points us to the glory of God and more specifically to the gospel of the glory of God.

"For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6

There it is again! There is a seeing which takes place when we drink of the Spirit of God. We see the "glory of God in the face of Christ." In the gospel we see the glory of God and this is what drinking of the Spirit is intended to produce. But we have already shown that many people see the gospel - even demons have seen it, and they shudder. So what kind of seeing is this? Is this merely an issue of intellectual sight or is there more going on here? The key can be found in the Psalm that we started with.

"Those who look to him are radiant..."

There is more to this seeing than simply intellectually grasping facts. There is a beholding (which to me denotes enjoyment, cherishing, awe and delight) here which produces a radiance in the person who looks. This is the radiance that Moses had to hide from the Israelites in Exodus and it is the radiance of those of us who now taste the Lord. When we eat our favorite foods there is a noticeable countenance about our faces that lets those around us know that we are enjoying it. We show our delight in things with facial expressions, verbal cues and body language. This is the radiance that I believe is being spoken of in Psalm 34 and it is the same glorious (or shining) joy that the saints in 1 Peter are experiencing. So there is more than simply seeing the glory of the Lord - there is a beholding and delighting in it in such a way that those around us can see, but more importantly, this radiance shines the glory of God back to God so that He alone is glorified.

But don't forget that the way that God is glorified here is by our delighting in Him and tasting the fullness of God. God is glorified by our delight in Him. God gets glory and we get delight. God is magnified and we are satisfied beyond our wildest dreams.

God shone in our hearts to give us this knowledge by His Holy Spirit Who reveals to us the glory of God the Father in the face of Jesus Christ Who is the image of God. We continue to drink of the Holy Spirit to behold the glory of God and to delight in it. So this is both FROM God and it is THROUGH God by His Holy Spirit. Finally, this beholding is BACK TO God by His Holy Spirit filling us with the delight and joy that God has in Himself. We see, behold and delight in God and the joy and delight that we experience shines on our faces for everyone else to see and to radiate back to God who delights in His glories being delighted in. Everything is from God, through God and to God.

"For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever." Romans 11:36

Oh, that we would all take David seriously and taste the goodness of God Himself. That we would cast ourselves upon His sovereign graces and plead with Him to taste the delights that He has in Himself. Oh, how glorious and good is our God. He desires to share with us the love that He has for Himself and He desires to share with us of Himself in the Holy Spirit. Let us all get on our knees and plead with God for the gift of His Holy Spirit that we may taste and see that the Lord is good - that we may have radiant faces which display our pleasure as we feast on the glory of God. Oh that we would experience glorious joy - a joy that is from God, a joy that is through God, and a joy that is back to God as we reflect His glory back to Him and shine as heavenly lights for all to see that the Lord tastes good!



Blessings to you all!

How we reflect the triune glory of God

Genesis 1:26-27



"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'



So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female He created them"


As I was preparing to teach my class this week, I revisited a question I have wrestled with for some time now: when God creates man and woman He clearly states that He creates them in His own image and likeness. He created two people (two genders) to reflect His own image and likeness - meaning a man and a woman display the attributes and an image of who God is. As a Bible-believing, orthodox Christian this is actually a little preplexing because our glorious God is a triune God - one God existing in three united, yet distinct persons. So why would God create only two people to reflect His triune image? Doesn't this sort of leave one of the persons in the Trinity out?

While I was thinking about this it struck me that I had missed something which is there to see for all who have eyes to see. Let me try to explain this by referring back to an essay by my dear friend Jonathan Edwards - this is his attempt at describing the Trinity of God:

"And this I suppose to be that blessed Trinity that we read of in the Holy Scriptures. The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, un-originated and most absolute manner, or the deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God's understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the Divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God's Infinite love to and delight in Himself. And I believe the Whole Divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the Divine idea and Divine love, and that each of them are properly distinct Persons."

Jonathan Edwards, "An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity"

I realize that this begs some explanation so I will humbly attempt to give a quick exposition of what Edwards is trying to say.

God the Father is first in the God-head. This is self-evident in the fact that God the Son is the "begotten" Son of God and in the fact that God the Son submits His own will to the will of God the Father. Now, the Son is described in the Scriptures as the wisdom of God. "...Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." (1 Corinthians 1:24) 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that the Son is also the image of God: "...to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." Furthermore, Philppians 2: 6 says that Jesus is the "form" of God, Colossians 1:15 says that the Son is the "image of the invisible God," and Hebrews 1:3 powerfully states that "Who [Jesus] being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." All of these verses point to an astounding fact concerning God the Son - He is the understanding and the idea that God the Father has of Himself, the perfect understanding and idea that only a perfect and eternal being could have. This perfect idea and understanding begets the second person of the Trinity; the glorious and eternal Son of God.

So far we see that God the Father begat God the Son and that God the Son is God the Father's perfect idea and understanding of Himself - embodied in a person, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our verse in Genesis would make perfect sense if this was the end of God and there was no third person in the Trinity. But, thanks be to God, there is a third person - the blessed Holy Spirit of God.

In order to understand the Holy Spirit we must think spiritually and not in a sequential or exclusively human way. We must think God's thoughts after Him and seek His glory and majesty to understand Who the Holy Spirit is and how this relates to our passage in Genesis.

God the Father loves God the Son perfectly and eternally. God the Son loves God the Father perfectly and eternally. The essence of love is delight, enjoyment, passion and eternal admiration. This is the unity that is shared between God the Father and God the Son. They are two distinct persons enjoying a perfect unity of love and delight in each other. Now think with me for a moment about what I just said and see if the Holy Spirit does not appear in the very words that I wrote. Does not the Bible tell us that "God is love?" Does not the Bible say that "if we love one another, God dwells in us?" Does not Psalm 36 speak of God's delight in Himself: "They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink form the river of your delights." This Psalm can easily be misunderstood to be saying that it is the "delightful river" we are given to drink of, but this is errant. It is speaking of God's delights and this same reference to river or water is strewn throughout the entire Bible in references to the Holy Spirit. In Revelation 22 we see the glorious Kingdom of God where between the Father and the Son flows the river of life - there is no other mention of the Holy Spirit in this picture anywhere. We see Jesus, in the Gospel of John, speaking to the woman at the well about water that will well up in her to eternal life. We could go on and on. What the Scriptures are telling us is simply that God the Holy Spirit is the embodiement of God's love to and delight in Himself. This love or "divine essence," which Edwards calls it, breathes forth the third person in the Trinity. The perfect love and delight that God has in Himself, or that is enjoyed between God the Father and God the Son, begets or breathes forth a third and distinct person - the Holy Spirit Who is God.

I hope I did Edwards' explanation at least some justice in what I just wrote. But I am more concerned with you understanding what was just, in fact, said than with my ability exposit the thoughts of Edwards. I said, and I believe that God has said, that God the Father and God the Son exist in a perfect union and relationship of love and delight in each other. This delight in and love for each other is, in fact, the Holy Spirit Himself. Consider also that if this is so, it means that the Holy Spirit is in God the Father because He is the love which the Father has for the Son. As well, the Holy Spirit is in the Son because He is the love which the Son has for the Father. Finally, consider that both God the Father and God the Son are in the Holy Spirit exactly because the Holy Spirit is the essence of both God the Father and God the Son - He is love.

If you still doubt what is being said, consider with me how Jesus explains the unity which He and the Father share and how we are given the gift of partaking in this unity in John 17:

"The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

John 17:22-26

I almost weep just seeing the beauty of what Jesus is saying to us here. He speaks of perfect oneness that He and His Father share - a perfect and eternal oneness that He wants us to taste and have. But if you pay careful attention here you will see that the Holy Spirit is never mentioned in name here - at least not the name by which we know Him. Instead, Jesus speaks of the love the the Father and the Son have for each other and that this love unifies them. Jesus speaks of "knowing" God the Father and this is a clear allusion to the way the term is often used in describing a husband and wife knowing each other intimately. There are references here to the Holy Spirit, to be sure, but the language is that of love and intimacy. And the final proof that Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit comes at the end of the passage. Jesus says that He wants the love with which the Father has always loved Him to be in us. And He doesn't stop there - He also says that He wants Himself to be in us. Do you see that Jesus is speaking of the blessed Holy Spirit here? Do you see that there is no distinction between Jesus speaking of the love and delight in each other that He and the Father enjoy, and the Holy Spirit? And do you see that Jesus wants this love (that is, the Holy Spirit) to be in us? Finally, do you see that Jesus wants to be in us and that this is a reference to the Holy Spirit being in us - Romans 8:9 refers to the Holy Spirit as "the Spirit of Christ."

The Holy Spirit is none other "God's infinite love to and delight in Himself" subsisting in the third person of the Trinity. "...because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Romans 5:5)

But how does this relate to the question I posed at the beginning? Does this understanding explain why God created two people to reflect His image and not three? Yes it does! It does so because of what God states in Genesis 2:24. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." The Hebrew word for one here is the same word we find in Deuteronomy 6:5 - echad - and it means multiple things coming together to become one. This is the description given to the Israelites of who God is - He is one God, but multiple persons coming together as one. And how do the man and the woman become one? In love to and delight in each other. Through emotional love for each other and through the intimate act of making love they become echad, or one.

The image of the third person in the Trinity is not missing at all, it's right there in front of us for our awe and amazement. The image and likeness of God is complete in the creation of the man and the woman because they love each other and delight in each other. The Holy Spirit is supposed be reflected in the love which is between the man and the woman. Humor me for only one minute more here, please :) Does not Jesus tell us that we cannot see the Spirit but that we can see His effects (a paraphrase of John 3:8)? It is the same with love between a man and a woman. We cannot see love itself, but we can certainly see the effects of it on both the woman and the man. Love leads to unity, delight, peace and joy. Love between a man and a woman makes them both patient, kind to each other, gentle with one another, faithful to each other and it makes them self-controlled when dealing with each other. This is at least what love is supposed to do and it is, in fact, what real and lasting love does to people. If this last list of effects of love sounds familiar to you it's because you have seen it before - in the Bible.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..."

Galatians 5:22-24

The next time you think of how we reflect the glory of God think not only of a man reflecting one part of God and the woman reflecting the rest of Him. Think instead of how the image of God is completed by love flowing between two people and seeing that love as the thing (or person, in the case of God) that unites them. God is three distinct persons existing in a perfect relationship of love and delight - God the Father and God the Son love and delight in each other perfectly and this love and delight is God Himself, the Holy Spirit, the essence of God.

Husbands, love your wives because the image, likeness and glory of God is at stake. Wives, submit to and love your husbands because the image, likeness and glory of God is at stake. What a glorious and majestic God we serve who created us to reflect His glory this way - by loving and delighting, by having joy!

Blessings,

Kristian

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep!

Following up on my previous post I want to explore this whole issue of emotion a little more. This time, we won't only be exploring the emotion of joy but a slew of other emotions as well. I want to show that the Bible not only commands us to have joy in God but that it also commands us to hate and grieve as well. All emotion commanded in the Bible should be understood in this way: an appropriate and proportional emotional response to spiritual truth. And we should realize that the reason we are commanded to have these emotions is because God does and He calls us to be like Him - perfect. Our verse will be Romans 12:15 (shown in context here as Romans 12:14-16):

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight."

Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. What an odd command - and it is a command. No Bible-believing Christian would ever say that we are not commanded to bless those who persecute us -because this text clearly tells us that we are commanded to do that very thing. In the same vein, no Bible believing Christian would ever say that we are not commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice or weep with those who weep. But the curious thing that strikes me in regards to emotion is this: how can I possibly be expected to feel sadness to the point of weeping over someone else's suffering - particularly if I am rejoicing and full of joy? How can I possibly be expected to rejoice and be sincerely glad with those who are glad - particularly if I am suffering? The key to all of this is love.

If I sincerely love a person I will be deeply moved at their suffering and at whatever they are experiencing that is causing them to weep. I would be cold-hearted and cruel if I did not weep with a mother who has just lost her only child. I would truly be in sin if I did not grieve with a man whose daughter was just raped and killed. It would be abhorrent and perverted not to weep over their loss or not to go through the pain with them. The same goes for rejoicing. If I truly love another person I will be deeply glad and happy for them when they experience a good thing in their lives. It would be selfish and sick of me to allow jealousy or indignation to rule me when someone has been given a blessing I don't have and want. I would simply prove the wickedness in my own hear if I listened with indifference as someone tells me of a great and joyous event in their lives.

"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good."

Romans 12:9

This verse, from the same book, in the same chapter, and in the same passage of the Bible, admonishes us to make sure that our love is genuine and not conjured up or done from duty. It is an impossible command to follow because as sinners we always default to duty and rules. What Paul means is that love must be felt and practiced - not one or the other. Both the emotion and the outflow of it must be there for love to be genuine. Otherwise it is simply a duty or simply an emotion. "Love must be sincere...bless those who persecute you...rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." The important thing to see is this: if love is a genuine love then the subsequent emotions and actions will be genuine and a natural outflow springing from my love. My deep and heartfelt love for my wife produces grief when she is hurting and that is appropriate. My deep and profound love for my parents causes me to be willing to give up my comfort that they might come to know the Lord. Sincere love produces appropriate emotions in response to other people's situations as well as actions. Love is the root of all other emotions. We are to hate evil because we love God and people. We are to be glad when others have been given a good thing because we love God and love people. If love is sincere and heartfelt, our subsequent emotions and actions will be the correct ones.

If, however, our love is not sincere and heartfelt we will not sincerely weep at the loss of others, nor will we rejoice at the joy of others. It will all be fake, coerced and disingenuous. The tears may flow, but they are not real tears. The words of rejoicing may come, but they are not sincere. If our love is not sincere and heartfelt - neither will any of the consequent emotions or actions.

Let's look at Jesus for an example of appropriate and sincere emotion. "Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the Bible. The situation is this: Martha and Mary, dear friends of His, have just lost their brother Lazarus. As Jesus arrives, Martha and Mary meet Him - first Martha, then Mary. Upon seeing their grief at the death of Lazarus and the grief of others who are friends or family, Jesus weeps. He weeps because He hates death and sees the profound effect that this has on His friends. He genuinely loves them all and shares in their grief. Jesus felt the emotion with them and it produced sincere tears and sincere grief. He felt the emotion with them because He loved them sincerely.

Now some might say that this has nothing to do with joy being an emotion, but it does.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

Philippians 4:4

We are commanded to have joy in the Lord at all times. Not just when things are going well or when life is comfortable and free of suffering. The question is this: is God asking us to walk around with perma-smiles, or is He asking us to have a deep and profound, heartfelt emotional joy in Him as opposed to our circumstances? The answer is, of course, that God is commanding us to have a deep joy and gladness in Him at all times. How do I know that this is so, you might ask?

In Deuteronomy 6:5 God commands us:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your MIGHT."

This shows us again, that God is after a genuine, heart-felt, deep, emotional love not just choice and lifestyle because these can be imitated. Lifestyle can be imitated and so can choice and a lifestyle that does not flow from an emotional love for God does not honor God nor does it shine forth His infinite worth and glory. Of course, the problem is that in my own flesh, I cannot have such an appropriate love for God and this is the sad truth of our depravity. We can fake the actions and the lifestyle, but we cannot fake the emotion because we are depraved and sinful to our core. Nonetheless, God commands the genuine emotion of love for Him from us.

Then, in Deuteronomy 30:6 God makes a promise. Aware of our inability to produce the genuine love for Him that He commands, He says that He will give us this love so that we may live:

"And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live."

Isn't that amazing? God's promise to us is that He Himself will give us the genuine love He requires of us. God knows that we cannot obey the first and greatest command and therefore takes action on our behalf to bring such genuine love about. He also promises us that when we have this genuine and heartfelt love for Him, we will live. But we’re still not at the end of this argument.

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."

Ezekiel 36:26-27

God says that He will bring about the promise of Deuteronomy 30:6 by putting His Spirit in us. By giving us the Holy Spirit, God will bring about the genuine emotion of love in our hearts. The reason is obvious. God loves Himself perfectly in Trinitarian relationship. God the Father is the prime; Jesus Christ is the image, face, representation and wisdom of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love and joy that the Son and the Father have between each other flowing forth into the third subsistence of God - the third person of the trinity. So what love is God really putting in us when He saves us and makes us His? It is His own love for Himself.

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Romans 5:5

It is by the Holy Spirit put in us and living in us that God produces love for Himself as He commands. God has given us the one thing we could not produce - the deep, profound and emotional love that He has for Himself. And my point in relation to joy is simply that from this genuine love flows a joy in Him at all times. Our circumstances may be terrible and our suffering might be great, but when we are FULL of His Spirit we will experience the joy that God has in Himself - the joy that naturally flows from the genuine love that He has for Himself. No one would argue that Jesus ceased to have genuine and emotional love for the Father when He suffered. Neither would we argue that in His suffering He ceased having the emotional joy of being one with the Father. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and it produced genuine love and genuine joy flowing from that love. We can obey the command in Philippians 4:4 only if we are filled with the Spirit (which will be the topic of my next post where I will show that we are indeed commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit and that this is a command that can also be obeyed by asking for it). It's easy to disregard the command because it deals with something we can't control. But the command is there and it is dead serious. God threatens terrible things if we will not be glad in Him:

"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart...therefore you shall serve your enemies..."

Deuteronomy 28:47-48

The command to be happy and to have joy is not one to be taken lightly or to be ignored. God's passion for His own name and His own worth does not make room for conjured joy and "a choice" to have joy. Our joy must be genuine and that can only flow from a deep and genuine love for Him.

Two final verses will put this to rest.

"I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

John 17:26

Do you see that God puts the love that He has for Himself in us? Do you see that this is done, according to Romans 5:5 by putting His Holy Spirit in us? Like I said, my next post will try to show that we can quench the Spirit and that we are indeed commanded to be filled with the Spirit - so there is something for us to do when our joy is not genuine or sincere.

"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them."

John 17:13

You see, it is not some glib and dry decision-based joy we are given. It is a real and lasting joy that the Holy Spirit can give us. The very emotion of joy that Jesus has in Himself is the joy that we can have - no, we are commanded to have.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

The Duty Of Joy

I have heard it said that joy cannot be an emotion. The argument goes something like this: We are commanded in Scripture to be joyous. God would not command us to do something we cannot do. We cannot spontaneously conjure up an emotion in ourselves. Therefore, joy cannot be an emotion. I could not disagree more with this argument.

I should preface this post by saying that I am sympathetic to what people who make such arguments are trying to achieve. Emotions and feelings in our culture have been corrupted to a degree that we can barely understand. We foolishly pursue meaningless and fleeting feelings of exhilaration through possessions, experiences, and prosperity and we carelessly call this “the pursuit of happiness” or even “joy”. In an effort to compensate against this folly, I can understand the temptation to downplay the emotional aspect of joy. Nonetheless, stripping joy of its emotional nature ultimately leads to a misunderstanding of who God is and what His purpose is for our lives.

First, I want to look at a quotation from Pascal:

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."

We all know this to be true. Every fiber of our being cries out for happiness, satisfaction, contentment, joy and gladness. There is not a single human action that is not, at it's core, rooted in the quest for joy or gladness. Even the depraved culture in which we live affirms that this is so. After all, the reason we go from one idol to another is because the happiness we seek is not found to last in any of them. When the joy fades and the gladness leaves from one idolatrous source, we move on to the next one.

Now, the argument above claims that feelings cannot be commanded because we are not capable of turning our emotions and feelings on or off. We have all tried over and over again to "be happy" but we fail miserably. So the first part of the argument seems to make sense. However, suppose we used something other than feelings to make a similar argument. Let’s look at repentance and faith for example. How would the argument look then?

Repentance and faith are both commanded throughout the Bible. Yet the Bible also tells us that human nature is totally depraved, and human beings are incapable of conjuring up faith or initiating repentance. That does not cause us to argue that God doesn't command repentance and faith. Just because I am incapable of producing something doesn't mean that God can't command it of me.

Let's look at the example of Jesus speaking to Nicodemus. Jesus told Nicodemus that unless he is born again he will never see the Kingdom of God. Unless Nicodemus is born of the Spirit, Jesus tells him that he will never be saved. The fact that Nicodemus cannot be born again by himself did not mean that Jesus could not require it from him.

There is a profound fallacy in the argument that joy cannot be an emotion, which is that God cannot command from His creatures what they can't give. Of course He can and does! He does this from Genesis to Revelation, commanding repentance and faith. Yet, we know that the Bible also tells us that we are simply incapable of obeying this command due to the hardness of our hearts and our fallen nature. God must give us new birth, new hearts and He must put His Spirit in us before we can ever obey the command. Hopefully, you already see where I am going with this :)

Now, let's see what linguistics can teach us about joy.

Joy = χαρᾷ in Greek

Joy = שִׂמְחָה in Hebrew

Defined as “the EMOTION of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying...”

Joy is by definition an emotion. Indeed, not only is joy an emotion, it is caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying. Let's look at joy in context and see if joy is contextually congruent with emotion:

"In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
1 Peter 1:6-9

There are two things to note in this passage: 1. The object of their joy; and 2.The nature of this joy.

1. The object of their joy is clearly seen to be Jesus Christ Himself, whom they see by faith (not with their eyes) and whom they love. The entirety of their joy rests on and in the object of it - God in Jesus Christ.

2. The nature of this joy is said to be one that is "inexpressible and filled with glory." Here is what Jonathan Edwards has to say about this joy:

"Unspeakable in the kind of it; very different from worldly joys, and carnal delights of a vastly more pure, sublime, and heavenly nature, being something supernatural and truly divine and so ineffably excellent; the sublimity and exquisite sweetness of which there were no words to set forth. Unspeakable also in degree; it pleasing God to give them this holy joy with a liberal hand, and in large measure, in their state of persecution."

The Religious Affections - p. 23

I would find it quite disturbing if someone tried either exegetically or theologically to prove that the joy of these people was not an emotion. One would almost have to perform some sort of intricate theological surgical removal of the meaning of the words in order to come to that conclusion. In other words, to say that joy is not an emotion or a feeling is to miss the forest for the trees, so to speak.

Now, let us close with what we do know to be true. Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient, all-satisfying, all-supreme Lord, King and Savior of His people. He commands us to "rejoice in the Lord," "delight yourself in the Lord," "shout for joy," "consider it all joy" and many more commands regarding joy. To say that joy cannot be an emotion because we cannot have it in our own strength is to deny the very truth of our inability to love God and our concurrent responsibility to do so.

God desires for us to have emotional joy and gladness in Him (Psalm 37:4) and to remove the emotional aspect of our salvation is to truncate the gospel, leaving it at "you are justified." What is the point of being justified, if there is no pleasure or joy that I can find in God. It would only mean that God is not satisfying and not capable of bringing me the joy I seek - the very joy that He has in Himself, the emotion of gladness and happiness that He finds in relationship with Himself. The greatest gift He has given us is that of Himself and it is supposed to give us the most profound and deep joy. Don't truncate the gospel by removing the emotional component of the gospel of His glory and our joy.

John Piper does an excellent job of explaining in depth what I have attempted to explain briefly in this blog. I would highly recommend his sermon entitled, "Let Your Passion be Single."

You can find it here:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/1814_Let_Your_Passion_Be_Single/

The Joy Of The Lord Is Your Strength

My heart is heavy and my soul is saddened to a point that I can barely express this evening. I have choices to make which I never thought I would have to make and the future looks very uncertain for my sweet wife and me. I don't want to go into details about what we are facing because I am not looking for pity nor do I want to burden people with our problems. I would rather spend my time worshiping God and praising His name for His surpassing greatness and share my joy with you so that you can see the infinite joy that can be had in Jesus Christ.

A lot of my posts lately have been in relation to the struggles I have seen coming our way and have really come about as I have fought through the disappointments and discontentment that comes with all human suffering. I have had moments of profound faith and moments of profound perplexity, in this, but one thing has never left me - the joy of the Lord. My hope is in Jesus Christ. Oh, how my heart longs for Him and how I long to behold His glory.

Nehemiah 8:9-10 seems particularly fitting at a time of such uncertainty and sadness.

"And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God;do not mourn or weep." For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."

Contained in this short verse is the fullness of God's desire for us - joy! Nehemiah has just finished rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and the people have all showed up for the first worship service. As Ezra reads the law to the people they worship God for the first time in many, many years. They raise their hands to the living God and they worship Him with their faces bowed to the ground, many weeping and turning the sand to mud, I'm sure. They weep out of sadness because they have sinned against God and not honored Him in their hearts. The Lord has not been their treasure or their joy - they had abandoned their husband, the Lord. They weep for joy because they have heard the law and understood it - God loves them and will forgive their sin. He will send a redeemer to them who will pay for their sins as God draws His people back into relationship with Himself. They see in the law the glory of God - His love for them, His kindness and grace toward them, His patience with them as they transgressed, and His infinite goodness. Their sadness is mingled with joy and that joy is their strength.

Oh what sweet words these are to a grief-stricken soul. What greatness the Lord has done among us. What profound sin and rebellion He has forgiven us. What loving kindness He has shown to us all. How glorious and magnificent is He?

As I read the text I am struck by two things: 1. God's desire for us to enjoy our lives 2. The fact that enjoying our lives can only come about when His joy is in us.

First, as Nehemiah tells the people to go home and eat a fat meal and drink the best wine, we get a picture of a God who asks us to trust in Him and to enjoy the gifts He has given. No legalistic, teetotaler, self-righteous religion here. Eat your food because it is a gift from God - not something you are entitled to. Thank Him when you eat the food that is put before you and glorify His name when you drink your wine. Both the food and the wine will taste better when you realize that it has come from a good and gracious God who cares about every aspect and detail of your life - even if your food tastes good and if your wine is sweet! So Nehemiah tells the people to go home and glorify God by having a feast.

Secondly, the promise is that the joy of the Lord is the only thing which can help us enjoy our food and our wine as we ought. Only the joy that is found in the Lord can lead to true enjoyment and true delight in any of God's gifts. Without this joy our food, our drink, our spouses, our cars, our houses - everything becomes an idol that either brings only fleeting joy or ends in despair when it's taken away. This promise will hold us up even when we don't have delightful food to eat or sweet wine to drink. Those who belong to the Lord have a joy that cannot be removed - a joy that is deep, firm, and unshakable. When all of life comes crashing down around us like a deck of cards, there is the joy of the Lord to get us through it. Verse 10 is one of the sweetest words found in the whole Bible. The joy of the Lord is your strength.

We find strength in this joy because it is not rooted in our circumstances and it is not predicated upon comfort, ease of life, or a luxurious lifestyle. The joy of the Lord does not wax and wane with the coming and going of blessings from God because they are not based on the gifts of God but rather on the gift of Himself. Let me explain what I mean. The gifts of God are many: family, friends, cars, houses, food, health, wealth and the like. Everything in our lives is a gift from God coming down from a gracious God who has every right to crush us, kill us and throw us into everlasting darkness for rejecting His all-surpassing beauty and greatness. James 1:17 puts it this way:

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

Anything good in your life is granted to you from a Heavenly Father who cares about you and gives you the very breath in your lungs. Apart from Him you would not even exist. What most of us struggle to see though, is that the greatest gift we have been given is not at all what we tend to think of when we speak of gifts. When we speak of gifts we speak of good things given us in our lives - possessions, people, money, comfort and luxury. This is one of the reasons why the prosperity gospel is so easily spread - we like gifts. What God has given us is something far greater and something which can bring a steadfast joy even when all other gifts are lost. This gift is that of Himself.

It sounds a little odd at first but let us look at the Bible for clarification.

Psalm 37:4 says it this way:

"Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Do you see it? Do you see the profound statement made in this verse? If God is our delight and our treasure, every desire of ours will be granted to us. We will be satisfied, glad, full of joy and we will have peace. That is after all why we pursue anything in this life - to be satisfied, glad, full of joy and to have peace. A new car makes me happy. My 50" plasma TV brings me joy. Our brand new house brings gladness to my heart. And when things are going well financially and relationally I have peace. But there is something odd about this verse because we know that God never promises all of these things. He doesn't promise us cars, TVs, a new house, financial prosperity or relational peace. In fact, many of His promises are opposite of this. "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake," Philippians 1:29 tells us. So Psalm 37:4 is not a promise that we will get every possession or comfort we desire. Rather, it is telling us that our hearts will be satisfied in something else, or rather, someone else.

What it is indeed telling us is that when God is our treasure and our delight is found in Him, then our hearts will already be satisfied and we will find joy, peace and gladness. Everything that I seek in possessions and the like can be found in God. Every joy I seek in my house can ultimately only be filled by Him. All of the gladness and peace I seek in my relationships will ultimately only be found in my delighting in Him. When God is our treasure we will have joy, peace, gladness and happiness.

This is where I find myself this evening. God has already given me the desires of my heart in Himself. His beauty, His glory, His majesty, His absolute sovereignty and His profound goodness are my treasure and He brings me profound and unutterable joy and peace. He is my treasure and I ultimately only want Him. So when life crumbles and darkness covers your life turn to Him and find your joy there - in beholding Him. Delight yourself in Him and you will never be lacking in joy. It may go up and down. Sometimes you will shout for joy at the top of your lungs. At other times you may experience His joy in the midst of weeping and suffering. But Nehemiah promises us that the joy found in Him is strength enough to get us through even the worst calamity. Though my heart is heavy and my soul is sad, I have a profound joy. I have a joy that no one and nothing can take from me. I have the joy of the Lord and it is found in Him and in Him alone.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Genesis 3:6 To desire or delight in anything more than God is the root of all sin

As I was preparing for the class I will be teaching this week I stumbled upon an interesting verse. Not interesting because I haven't read it before but interesting because God showed me the meaning of the verse in a whole new light. All of my life, this blog, my teaching, my preaching, and all of my rambling in conversation is centered around one concept; we can have an inexpressible joy when we see God and treasure Him above all things. John Piper puts it this way: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." The basic principle is that God is all-satisfying, absolutely sovereign and absolutely supreme in all things and that our joy - the joy that everyone seeks is found in Him and only in Him. We are made to worship and we are created for His glory. Our joy in His glory gives us what we want, joy, and accomplishes the end for which God created the world - His glory!

I have been preparing a lesson around the definition of and root of sin. Sin is usually defined by mainstream evangelicals as the "breaking of God's law." The conventional wisdom regarding sin teaches that we sin by breaking the law and that this is what is wrong with us: we can't stop breaking God's law. I find this definition to be only partially correct and slightly dubious.

First of all, Romans 5:12-14 teaches us that sin cannot be defined in this way - as simply breaking of God's law:

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned – for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."

Sin was in the world before the law was given and death reigned even over those who did not break specific commands (those whose sinning was not like that of Adam). Clearly, we must realize that we cannot define sin in such a way as to break with the wisdom of Scripture? Paul is venturing into a mystery here, one that is not readily visible to our unscriptural and God-denying minds. We want things nice and neat and don't like things that mess with our system of thought. We always want simple answers to things and therefore come up with silly definitions of things like sin, even though the Bible clearly teaches that the mainstream thought is wrong.

Now, breaking the law of God is sinful, to be sure (though, one could easily argue that David broke the law without sinning when eating the consecrated bread, and Rahab broke the law without sinning when she lied and sent the spies in the wrong direction - but this will be saved for a separate post some time). 1 John 3:4 tells us that sin is lawlessness and Romans 5:20 tells us that God gave the law in order to increase the trespass and so increase His glory in showing mercy to us. But there is something off about the conventional definition of sin...something not quite right.

If God gave the law in order to increase the trespass and sin was in the world before the law was given, then it must stand to reason that there is something more to the definition of sin than meets the eye. There must be something deeper; something other than simple disobedience and breaking of commands. Let's have a look at Romans 1:22-26.

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles…therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts…God gave them up to dishonorable passions..."

Paul is describing the sinful and totally depraved state of humanity here. What's interesting is that he doesn't even mention breaking of God's law yet. He seems to be focusing on something else...almost as if he wants to show us the root or essence of sin. Paul is arguing here that the essence of sin is to exchange the all-satisfying gift of God Himself (His glory) for something else. It doesn't matter if it's a man-made thing or something God created...to exchange our delight in God's glory for something else is the essence of sin. Notice that God hands us over to whatever our hearts desire - this is our judgment.

Neither of these verses, thought they make the case by themselves, are what I want you to see in particular. We need to go all the way back to Genesis 3:6 in order to see what the root of sin is - that is, after all, where original sin is described.

"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate."

Wow...do you see what I mean? Moses, the author, wants us to see that the woman SAW that the tree was GOOD (though not in reality, but to her sinful desires already coming of age); that the woman SAW the tree was a DELIGHT to her eyes; and that the woman SAW that the tree was to be DESIRED.

Breaking the command is only an outflow of the sin that is already taking place here. Eve only broke the command because her eyes and heart desired this tree - this fruit - more than she desired God Himself. She ate of the fruit because it was a delight to her and something good to be greatly desired. In her sinful heart she had already decided to eat of the fruit...the actual eating of it is mere formality at this point. If you don't believe me, please remember Jesus' teaching on adultery..."But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart." Matthew 5:28 It's not as if refraining physically from an act clears our guilt. Sin happens in the heart; in our desires; in our affections. The physical act is simply the outflow of the desire already present - desire for something more than God Himself. In Eve's case, her eating of the forbidden tree came simply because her desires overflowed for the tree, it's fruit and what it promised. God was not her absolute treasure anymore. God was not who she delighted in more than anything. God was not supreme in her mind or in her heart - the tree was.

This should be sobering for us for 2 reasons: 1) Sin is a condition of affections and not behavior - our behavior simply follows as our desires dictate on 2) Controlling our behavior and resisting the sinful desire is not righteousness nor will it gain you any favor with God. Simply having the desire for something more than you desire Him is sin...it it the root of sin and is deserving of all of His wrath.

God is infinitely worthy, infinitely treasurable, infinitely enjoyable and infinitely supreme. Yet, our hearts desire things above and more than God. Our hearts crave the delectable myriad of treasures that the world offers - sex, money, power, comfort, safety, family, cars etc. Wanting any of these things is not sinful in and of itself. The sin happens when we want them more than God and our eyes see them as good and delightful and desirable...more so than God.

The description of temptation and sin in James is telling:

"But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."
James 1:14-15

Eves desire conceived when she saw the tree as more desirable and delightful than her glorious and all-satisfying God. Her desire gave birth to sin and her sin brought forth death when she finally disobeyed by eating the fruit. The essence of her sin was not the eating of the fruit or the physical disobedience. Rather the essence of her sin was the delighting in and desiring the tree and what it offered above God.



Blessings,