One of the growing ministries of Desiring God is the outreach to prisoners. Those of you in the Philippian Fellowship hear about this more often than the rest of our website guests.

On Thursday a team of four of us stopped in at Angola Prison in Angola, Louisiana. Warden Burl Cain was very gracious to take us into his world, even the most painful part of it.

Here is what he said three years  ago in Decision Magazine about this prison:

This prison is the largest maximum-security prison in America. It is one of the most famous prisons in the whole world. It has only murderers, rapists, armed robbers and habitual felons. The average sentence is 88 years, with 3,200 people in one place serving life sentences. Ninety percent of the inmates will die here. This is a place of hopelessness, so if Angola can change, the rest of the country’s prisons can’t say, “We can’t do this.”

For those who know prison culture from the inside, this place is astonishing. On a campus of 18,000 acres, which is mainly farm land, the prisoners raise virtually all their food and eat three meals for a total cost of $1.45 each. The fish and crawdads that we ate were from "the Farm.”

There is a local extension of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the prison and about 140 prisoners are enrolled. There are six churches in the prison and they train their own pastors. They send trained “missionaries” to other prisons to plant churches. They do this without using any tax money. But O the money—and lives—it saves!

Violence in the prison is rare. Courtesy and respect is pronounced. The ministry team of women who were visiting at the same time we were said they were treated with more respect from prisoners here, than in many places on the “outside.” Public profanity is not allowed.

The 42-inch church bell hangs high over the chapel in a prisoner-built tower. They rescued the bell from storage where it had been put after falling and killing a man. Some of the prisoners say: The bell killed a man and we killed a man, but now the bell and we serve the Lord Jesus.

Warden Cain says: I am as nice as they let me be and as mean as they make me be. Given the job he is given to do, it is a good motto.

I saw the Warden’s “nice” as we sat for half an hour with G.B., a prisoner on Death Row whose death by lethal injection the Warden will oversee in January. There are over 80 on death row, some now for over 14 years as appeals go on. The Warden asked me to share the gospel with G.B. Never have I felt a greater urgency to say the good news plainly and plead from my heart. The thief on the cross is a hero on Death Row.

The Warden answered all G.B.’s questions about what the last day would be like and who from his family and the press could be there. He gave G.B. unusual privileges for these last seven weeks. He was manifestly compassionate while stating the facts with precision. I took G.B.’s picture with my phone and said I would pray for him. (Perhaps you would too.)

I preached with all my heart to those who could fit in the chapel, and to the rest by closed circuit television. G.B. (and three others on Death Row) told me they’d be watching. I pulled no punches:

For 90% of you the next stop is not home and family, but heaven or hell. O what glorious news we have in that situation. And believe me it is not the prosperity of Gospel. Jesus came and died and rose again not mainly to be useful, but to be precious. And that he can be in Angola as well as Atlanta. Perhaps even more.

Here is Chesterton on the essence of art.

Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. (Orthodoxy, 71)

When I read this I remembered the thoughts I had in writing the advent poem called The Innkeeper.

So quickly do we pass over the Christmas words, “Herod...slew all the male children…two years old and under.” But the poet lingers, weeping, raging, looking at the dark spot, in hope that any prick of light might become a portal for the sun. And what he sees he strains with words to show—pressing us against the perforation in the wall of pain.

Why this struggle? Why does the poet bind his heart with such a severe discipline of form? Why strain to give shape to suffering? Because Reality has contours. God is who he is, not what we wish or try to make him be. His Son, Jesus Christ, is the great granite Fact. His hard sacrifice makes it evident that our spontaneity needs Calvary-like discipline.

Perhaps the innkeeper paid dearly for housing the Son of God. Should it not be costly to penetrate and portray this pain? The Innkeeper seeks to reveal the Light that shines behind this brutal moment in history and our own path of suffering. Come and see! (3)

I pray that this advent season every part of the Great Story will have a fresh luster because it is a Granite Fact.

If your "want to" does not conform to God's "ought to," what can you do to have peace?

I see at least five possible strategies.

1. You can avoid thinking about the "ought to."
   
   This is the most common strategy in the world. Most people simply do not devote energy to pondering what they should be doing that they are not doing.
   
   
2. You can reinterpret the "ought to" so that it sounds just like your "want to."
   
   This is a little more sophisticated and so not as common. It often takes a college education to do this with credibility, and a seminary degree to do it with finesse.
   
   
3. You can muster the willpower to do a form of the "ought to" even though you don't have the heart of the "want to."
   
   This generally looks pretty good, and is often mistaken as virtue, even by those who do it. In fact, there is a whole worldview that says doing "ought to's" without "want to" is the essence of virtue. The problem with this is that Paul said, "God loves a cheerful giver," which puts the merely "ought-to givers" in a precarious position.
   
   
4. You can muster the willpower to do a form of the "ought to" and feel remorse for not having the heart of the "want to."
   
   This is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy hides one of the two contradictory impulses.
   
   
5. You can seek, by grace, to have God give the "want to" so that when the time comes to do the "ought to," you will "want to."
   
   Ultimately, the "want to" is a gift of God.
   
   "The mind of the flesh is hostile to God…it is not able to submit to the law of God." (Romans 8:7)
   
   "The natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God…because they are spiritually appraised." (1 Corinthians 2:14)
   
   "Perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 2:25)

The Biblical doctrine of original sin boils down to this (to borrow from St. Augustine): We are free to do what we like, but we are not free to like what we ought to like.

God's free and sovereign heart-changing work is our only hope. Therefore we must pray for a new heart. We must pray for the "want to":

Incline my heart to Your testimonies. (Psalm 119:36)

He has promised to do it:

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes. (Ezekiel 36:27)

This is the new covenant bought by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 8:8-13; 9:15).

(Adapted from a 1998 Taste & See Article)

What an amazing array of glorious acts of love God shows toward us in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14. I pray that God will make my thoughts this dense with magnificent truth.

• Loved
• Chosen
• Saved
• Sanctified
• Believing
• Called
• Obtaining glory

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14:

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved , through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth . To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ .

Did you wake up not feeling like reading your Bible and praying? How many times today have you had to battle not feeling like doing things you know would be good for you?

While it’s true that this is our indwelling sin that we must repent of and fight against, there’s more going on.

Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:

• Good food requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food tends to be the most tasty, addictive, and convenient.
• Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes constant comfort to go to pot.
• You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing theological book while watching a movie can feel so inviting.
• You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping, reading the sports, and checking Facebook seems effortless.
• To play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.
• To excel in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.
• It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain opportunities possible.
• This goes on and on.

The pattern is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and pain, while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are right at our fingertips. Why is this?

Because, in great mercy, God is showing us everywhere, in things that are just shadows of heavenly things, that there is a great reward for those who struggle through (Hebrews 10:32-35). He is reminding us repeatedly each day to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Each struggle is an invitation by God to follow in the footsteps of his Son, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

Those who are spiritually blind only see futility in these things. But for those who have eyes to see, God has woven hope (faith in future grace) right into the futility of creation (Romans 8:20-21). Each struggle is a pointer saying, “Look! Look to the real Joy set before you!”

So when you don’t feel like doing what you know is best for you, take heart and don’t give in. Your Father is pointing you to the reward he has planned for all who endure to the end (Matthew 24:13).

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

In Psalm 51, as he laments and repents of his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, David confesses at least five ways that his sin is extremely serious.

1. He says that he can’t get the sin out of his mind.

It is blazoned on his conscience. Verse 3:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Ever before him. The tape keeps playing. And he can’t stop it.

2. He says that his exceeding sinfulness is only against God.

Nathan had said David despised God and scorned his word. So David says in verse 4,

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.

This doesn’t mean Bathsheba and Uriah and the baby weren’t hurt. It means that what makes sin sin is that it is against God. Hurting man is bad. It is horribly bad. But that’s not the horror of sin. Sin is an attack on God—a belittling of God. David admits this in striking terms: “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”

3. He doesn't justify himself.

David vindicates God, not himself. There is no self-justification. No defense. No escape. Verse 4:

…so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

God is justified. God is blameless. If God casts David into hell, God will be innocent.

This is radical God-centered repentance. This is the way saved people think and feel. God would be just to damn me. And that I am still breathing is sheer mercy. And that I am forgiven is sheer blood-bought mercy. David vindicates the righteousness of God, not himself.

4. He intensifies his guilt by drawing attention to his inborn corruption.

Verse 5:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Some people use their inborn corruption to diminish their personal guilt. David does the opposite. For him the fact that he committed adultery and murdered and lied are expressions of something worse: He is by nature that way.

If God does not rescue him, he will do more and more evil.

5. He admits that he sinned not just against external law but against God’s merciful light in his heart.

Verse 6:

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

God had been his teacher. God had made him wise. David had done so many wise things. And then sin got the upper hand. For David, this made it all the worse. “I have been blessed with so much knowledge and so much wisdom. O how deep must be my depravity that it could sin against so much light.”

So in those five ways at least David joins the prophet Nathan and God in condemning his sin and confessing the depths of his corruption.

Excerpted and adapted from the sermon "A Broken and Contrite Heart God Will Not Despise."

1. Jesus Christ, as he is presented to us in the New Testament, and as he stands forth from all its writings, is too single and too great to have been invented so uniformly by all these writers.

The force of Jesus Christ unleashed these writings; the writings did not create the force. Jesus is far bigger and more compelling than any of his witnesses. His reality stands behind these writings as a great, global event stands behind a thousand newscasters. Something stupendous unleashed these diverse witnesses to tell these stunning and varied, yet unified, stories of Jesus Christ.

2. Nobody has ever explained the empty tomb of Jesus in the hostile environment of Jerusalem where the enemies of Jesus would have given anything to produce the corpse, but could not.

The earliest attempts to cover the scandal of resurrection were manifestly contradictory to all human experience—disciples do not steal a body (Matthew 28:13) and then sacrifice their lives to preach a glorious gospel of grace on the basis of the deception. Modern theories that Jesus didn't die but swooned, and then awoke in the tomb and moved the stone and tricked his skeptical disciples into believing he was risen as the Lord of the universe don't persuade.

3. Cynical opponents of Christianity abounded where claims were made that many eyewitnesses were available to consult concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

"After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:6). Such claims would be exposed as immediate falsehood if they could. But we know of no exposure. Eyewitnesses of the risen Lord abounded when the crucial claims were being made.

4. The early church was an indomitable force of faith and love and sacrifice on the basis of the reality of Jesus Christ.

The character of this church, and the nature of the gospel of grace and forgiveness, and the undaunted courage of men and women—even unto death—do not fit the hypothesis of mass hysteria. They simply were not like that. Something utterly real and magnificent had happened in the world and they were close enough to know it, and be assured of it, and be gripped by its power. That something was Jesus Christ, as all of them testified, even as they died singing.

5. The prophesies of the Old Testament find stunning fulfillment in the history of Jesus Christ.

The witness to these fulfillments are too many, too diverse, too subtle and too interwoven into the history of the New Testament church and its many writings to be fabricated by some great conspiracy. Down to the details, Jesus Christ fulfilled dozens of Old Testament prophecies that vindicate his truth.

6. The witnesses to Jesus Christ who wrote the New Testament gospels and letters are not gullible or deceitful or demented.

This is manifest from the writings themselves. The books bear the marks of intelligence and clear-headedness and maturity and a moral vision that is compelling. They win our trust as witnesses, especially when all taken together with one great unifying, but distinctively told, message about Jesus Christ.

7. The worldview that emerges from the writings of the New Testament makes more sense out of more reality than any other worldview.

It not only fits the human heart, but also the cosmos and history and God as he reveals himself in nature and conscience. Some may come to this conclusion after much reflection, others may arrive at this conviction by a pre-reflective, intuitive sense of the deep suitability of Christ and his message to the world that they know.

8. When one sees Christ as he is portrayed truly in the gospel, there shines forth a spiritual light that is a self-authenticating.

This is "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God" (2 Corinthians 4:6), and it is as immediately perceived by the Spirit-awakened heart as light is perceived by the open eye. The eye does not argue that there is light. It sees light.

9. When we see and believe the glory of God in the gospel, the Holy Spirit is given to us so that the love of God might be "poured out in our hearts" (Romans 5:5).

This experience of the love of God known in the heart through the gospel of Him who died for us while we were yet ungodly assures us that the hope awakened by all the evidences we have seen will not disappoint us.

(First posted as a Taste & See Article in 1999)

John Piper explains why the so-called "prosperity gospel" is not the gospel.

We tend to think of following Jesus as leaving behind the familiar for the unfamiliar. But sometimes, like for the man in Luke 8:26-39, the more difficult call is to go back home.

For the first time in a long time he was in full control of his mind. He could think! No rage. No fear. No torment. Peace like the quiet sea. He actually wanted to keep his clothes on.

But the most strangely wonderful thing of all was his sense of cleanness. His soul was clean.

The tomb-man from Gadara looked up at Jesus again. His lucid mind mulled over the words, “Son of the Most High God.”

Who would have thought that the Son of God looked so much like other Jewish men? He wasn’t very big. The tomb-man had beaten off much larger men in his demonic rages.

It was, in fact, his demons that had recognized Jesus. Son of God was their term. What was it that they saw? In all his tormented years, he had never felt anything like the terror that coursed through him when he saw Jesus get out of the boat. It was the terror of the damned. He had thought he’d been living in hell already. Now he knew better.

And now, with the demons gone, nothing he had ever experienced came close to the safety and peace he felt simply being near Jesus. He had only known Jesus for a few hours, but had already determined to be Jesus’ disciple for life. Life with him would be heaven on earth.

The man looked out on the Tiberius. Pig carcasses were washing ashore and drifting out to sea. He shivered at the disturbing memory. He felt Jesus’ reassuring hand on his shoulder.  

A noise made them all turn back toward the hill. A small crowd of people was approaching, with the pig herdsmen leading the way. You could hear alarm in their voices.  

A few men went on to survey the dead floating herd. But the rest stopped some twenty feet away. Everyone strained for a look at the tomb-man. He recognized most of them.

He was used to seeing fear in their eyes. But it was different this time. As a herdsman recounted what happened, they kept looking at him and then to Jesus. It was Jesus they were afraid of.

The crowd’s murmuring crescendoed into anxious pleas: “Please leave! We don’t want any more trouble here!” Some were already hurrying back toward the city. For years the tomb-man, this one-man barracks of a thousand devils, had terrorized them. And now here was someone even more powerful. Whatever witchcraft Jesus possessed, they wanted it far away from them.

The tomb-man felt confusion and grief. They didn’t understand! Jesus wasn’t anything like the demons. Jesus’ power was clean, holy. Jesus was potently kind. They were jumping to the wrong conclusions. If they would just listen to what he had to say...

But Jesus motioned to Peter to ready the boat. He was leaving!

The man jumped up and said to him, “Sir, please, may I go with you? I’ll follow you anywhere!”

Jesus looked hard at him without speaking. Then he put his reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder again and said, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

The words “return to your home” must have made this man’s heart sink. Home for him was not a warm place of sentimental memories. Home was a place of memories so dark and pain-filled that he likely just wanted to escape them and never go back.

But sometimes following Jesus means being sent back to a place where we once knew desolation and indescribable pain. The thought of returning there conjures up fears of our old demons and the people who knew us as we were back then. But it is there that the grace of God in our lives will shine the brightest.

What Jesus wants us to know is that his salvation and his protection extend to those old, horrible haunts. If he can break the death-grip Satan once had on us and set us free, then he can redeem the places of our former slavery and make them showcases of God’s omnipotent grace.

Do not be afraid. The Good Shepherd will walk with you and protect you on the darkest road (Psalm 23:4). Declare how much God has done for you. You are being sent because there are other tomb-people to free.

The New Testament makes essential things crystal clear: "there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name [besides Jesus] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Deny that and you deny the gospel. 

But the New Testament also has a category of gospel-informed convictions which are deeply held, sometimes strongly commended, yet are not universal mandates. These are intended by God to shape our kingdom mindset, guard against temptation, and test our hearts. But they are also meant to be adaptable to our particular calling and context. 

One example was Paul's conviction that he should go to extraordinary lengths to keep money from being a hindrance to the gospel.

Now, we know that in the Gospels (see Matthew 10:8), Acts (see Acts 8:20), and the Epistles (see 2 Corinthians. 2:17) Jesus and the apostles were all very careful to keep gospel ministry from becoming, in either reality or others' perception, a means of great personal financial gain (1 Timothy 6:5).

But we also know that Paul and Barnabas went to greater lengths than other apostles in this area. 

Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit?... If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.... What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:6-7; 11-12; 18)

Two things are clear in the way Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:

1. He strongly believed that this strategy contributed to the spread of the gospel most effectively.
2. He was aware that not everyone did it the way he did. Paul recognized that there were legitimate ways of making a living off the gospel. He simply discerned that foregoing his right to make such a living was more fruitful, whether because of his particular missional context or in general.

No doubt Paul was a strong advocate for his "make it free" ministry philosophy. But he did not judge other apostles for not adopting it to the same degree he did. He knew that "each [person] will give an account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12).

And it's in that spirit that we talk about our "make it free" approach to ministry, as Matt Perman did in his post yesterday.

I loved the post and said amen to every point Matt made. But when explaining and commending such convictions, which are not Scriptural mandates, one can wonder if we are sinfully judging others who do things differently. That certainly is not our intention.

The Lord has his hand on many churches and ancillary ministries whose approach is different from ours and which are producing very good fruit. And even comparing our approach with Paul's makes me blush. We are not in his league when it comes to foregoing rights and suffering for the gospel.

So do not hear from us the message that you must do what we do to do it right. Every calling and context is different. "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Romans 14:5).

But having said that, we still commend to all to "make it free" as much as possible, and here's why:

The gospel came to us free at great cost to God. Which is why, I believe, Jesus told his disciples, "You received without pay, give without pay" (Matthew 10:8).

The medium of the gospel was to be a reflection of the gospel. When the gospel comes free to people at the cost of those who are bringing it, it says something wonderful. It says that there is a treasure that is worth more than money to be had and by removing even a perceived profit motive it often makes people want to listen. 

God is doing an amazing and beautiful thing in our day by bringing about a recovery of and revived love for the gospel of justification by faith alone apart from works of the law. Yet the damage to the gospel by prosperity preachers and other peddlers of God's word still wields tremendous influence for harm around the world.

It is our hearts' desire and prayer to God that as we all join together to re-clarify for the church and world what the gospel message is, that we present it to them with the kinds of radical generosity and radical reliance on God's provision (2 Corinthians 9:8) that we see in the New Testament.

So knowing that it may look different in each case, let us pray and think and act so that our personal lifestyles and our ministry approaches all seek to reflect and remove all obstacles from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

*               *               *

Recommended Resource: Money, Markets, and Ministry

Mark Driscoll has a great word in his book The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out :

Every day, people eat, sleep, work, play, love, and hate, but they do not know why. Not knowing where they come from or to whom they are going, they lack the ability to make their lives meaningful. 

Consequently, our culture is filled with "successful" people who are mired in anxiety and confusion because they do not know the point of all their toil. But the gospel reveals Jesus as Lord over all of life, who infuses even mundane tasks such as dishwashing with meaning as acts of worship.

This also makes me think of Steven Curtis Chapman's song "A Moment Made for Worshiping." When you first hear the title of that song, you think he's talking about a mountain top experience or miracle moment where everything is going so right that you can't help but worship.

But instead, the first line of the song is: 6:30 Monday morning. 

In other words, the ordinary moments of the everyday are the moments made for worshiping. Everything we do can and should be done as an act of worship. This infuses even the most mundane activities with meaning. 

And, ironically, it rescues the more amazing moments from futility as well, for it turns out that even those moments derive their meaning not from themselves, but from God.

"So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

"Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17).

Sometimes readers of the Bible see the conditions that God lays down for his blessing and they conclude from these conditions that our action is first and decisive, then God responds to bless us.

That is not right.

There are indeed real conditions that God often commands. We must meet them for the promised blessing to come. But that does not mean that we are left to ourselves to meet the conditions or that our action is first and decisive.

Here is one example to show what I mean.

In Jeremiah 29:13 God says to the exiles in Babylon, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” So there is a condition: When you seek me with all your heart, then you will find me. So we must seek the Lord. That is the condition of finding him.

True.

But does that mean that we are left to ourselves to seek the Lord? Does it mean that our action of seeking him is first and decisive? Does it mean that God only acts after our seeking?

No.

Listen to what God says in Jeremiah 24:7 to those same exiles in Babylon: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

So the people will meet the condition of returning to God with their whole heart. God will respond by being their God in the fullest blessing. But the reason they returned with their whole heart is that God gave them a heart to know him. His action was first and decisive.

So now connect that with Jeremiah 29:13. The condition there was that they seek the Lord with their whole heart. Then God will be found by them. But now we see that the promise in Jeremiah 24:7 is that God himself will give them such a heart so that they will return to him with their whole heart.

This is one of the most basic things people need to see about the Bible. It is full of conditions we must meet for God’s blessings. But God does not leave us to meet them on our own. The first and decisive work before and in our willing is God’s prior grace. Without this insight, hundreds of conditional statements in the Bible will lead us astray.

Let this be the key to all Biblical conditions and commands: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13). Yes, we work. But our work is not first or decisive. God’s is. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

The horrors of physical suffering correspond to the horrors of moral and spiritual outrage. Sometimes this means that people’s suffering is directly correlated with their immorality and belittling of God. This will be the case, for example, with the eternal suffering of hell. It will correspond in perfectly just measure with the outrage of an individual’s sin.

But often the correlation is indirect. Everyone suffers physically because of the outrage of Adam’s sin, and because of God’s subjecting all of creation to futility (Romans 8:20). But these sufferings do not all correspond to an individual’s particular sins. All physical suffering corresponds to moral and spiritual outrage, but not all suffering corresponds directly to individual sins.

What is stunning and essential to see is that physical horrors correspond to spiritual horrors. God knows that we do not feel horrible about the spiritual horror of our sin. We take it lightly. But we get very angry and very agitated and very indignant about the horrors of our physical suffering. So God correlates the two in order to make plain to us how horrible sin is. Belittling God feels like a light thing to us. Being burned feels huge.

So hell will be physical, not just spiritual, even though the greatest outrages of life are not physical. The greatest outrages of life are spiritual—the demeaning of God by unbelief and indifference and rebellion is the greatest outrage in the universe. It may produce the holocaust or it may produce self-exalting philanthropy. But the magnitude of the moral horror in both cases is mainly Godward. Belittling God’s infinite worth is the ultimate outrage.

Here is a picture of what I mean.

God says to the exiles in Babylon concerning the false prophets, Ahab and Zedekiah:

Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. (Jeremiah 29:22-23).

I am shocked by the term “roasted.” Why such a description? It actually happened, that’s why. Nebuchadnezzar roasted them. And why did it happen? Why such an outrageous physical horror and why such an outrageous physical word used to describe it?

Because speaking false things about God and committing adultery does not feel outrageous to us. But roasting someone in the fire does. So God correlates the two so we would learn what is really outrageous in the world. Demeaning God and breaking covenants.

The physical suffering of this age is God’s warning: This is how horrible and outrageous sin is. Flee it while there is time. Turn to Christ for forgiveness.

The physical suffering of eternity is God’s judgment: This is how horrible and outrageous sin was. Now there is no fleeing. It is too late.

Unconditional election delivers the harshest and the sweetest judgments to my soul.

That it is unconditional destroys all self-exaltation; and that it is election makes me his treasured possession.

This is one of the beauties of the biblical doctrines of grace: their worst devastations prepare us for their greatest delights.

What prigs we would become at the words, “The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6), if this election were in any way dependent on our will. But to protect us from pride, the Lord teaches us that we are unconditionally chosen (7:7-9). “He made a wretch his treasure,” as we so gladly sing.

Only the devastating freeness and unconditionality of electing grace lets us take and taste such gifts for our very own without the exaltation of self.

John Piper differentiates between the natural and moral possibility of sin as they relate to Jesus' perfection.

*                *                *

For more Q&A with John Piper, check out Ask Pastor John. New episodes are posted 3 times a week.

In staff devotions recently we were in Proverbs 6. Solomon warns his son against the devastation of adultery. In verses 32-33 he writes,

He who commits adultery lacks sense; 
   he who does it destroys himself. 
He will get wounds and dishonor, 
   and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

For Solomon, every warning against adultery must have been haunted by the memory of his father and mother, David and Bathsheba. Imagine what he must have felt. He was the product of a marriage that never should have been.

He watched the royal family, in the middle of Israel's golden age, implode because this union that brought him into existence had come into existence. God "put away" David's sin (2 Samuel 12:13), determining to bear its condemnation himself (Romans 3:25-26). But he did not remove from David its wounds and disgrace. 

Yet, out of the wreckage that was David's family, emerges Solomon. By choosing him, of all the sons, to assume the throne and to write holy Scripture, God is saying something stunning: he really can work all things, including devastating sin, for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). 

The destruction of adultery is very real. Its disgrace is lasting. It is to be avoided at all costs. But it still is not more powerful than the grace of God. 

To those who, like David, have fallen, take heart. If you have repented and trust Christ, he has borne all your condemnation. And though you view with painful and appropriate regret the damage your adultery caused, keep your eyes open. It is like God to bring something unexpectedly and amazingly good from it. Because the grace of God is stronger than the sin of man.

When Christ returns, he will raise the dead. All of the dead will be raised (Acts 24:15). What does this resurrection mean for believers?

One of the most helpful passages on this is Philippians 3:20-21:

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

This passage is so helpful because it gives us a guiding principle for how to think about the resurrection: Jesus will transform our body to be like his glorious body (see also 1 Corinthians 15:48-49).

This tells us at least four things about the coming resurrection.

1. The Resurrection Will Be Physical.

We will not be ethereal spirits throughout eternity, but will be raised with physical bodies forever.

We know this because, first of all, that’s the meaning of the term resurrection. More significantly, we know this because Jesus was raised physically from the dead (see, for example, Luke 24:2; 39-43), and this passage here tells us that our bodies will be like his. Since his resurrection was physical, ours will be as well.

As a side note here, it is worth noting: Jesus still has his body and will have it forever. When speaking of Christ’s return— a time in the future— the text says that he will transform our body “to be like his glorious body.” Jesus still has his body now; he will have it when he returns; and he will have it forever.

2. The Same Body that Dies, Gets Raised

We often talk of getting “new bodies” at the resurrection. And that does get at a truth (which I’ll cover next), but we shouldn’t understand that to mean that God ditches our bodies that we have now and starts from scratch.

Our bodies will be raised, not abandoned. That’s the meaning of the term resurrection. We believe in the resurrection of the dead. The body that dies, rises.

This follows, once again, not only from the meaning of the term “resurrection,” but also from the fact that Christ was raised in the same body that died. That’s what the empty tomb shows, as well as the scars (John 20:27). Since Christ’s resurrection is the pattern of our resurrection, we will therefore also be raised in the same body that dies.

3. Our Bodies Will be Transformed

The same body that dies rises, but not to the same state. Right now our bodies are in a “lowly” state. They will be raised to a glorious state—just like Jesus’ body.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, our current bodies are perishable, lowly, and weak. Our resurrected bodies will be imperishable, glorious, and powerful. And, they will be spiritual, which means fully directed and empowered by the Spirit.

4. We Will Be With Christ Forever

Last is the best news of all: Once we are raised, we shall always be with the Lord. Paul brings this all together well in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18:

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

What does the blood of the eternal covenant secure for us? It secures both God’s equipping of us and the successful use of that equipment to make our lives pleasing to God.

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,

• equip you with everything good that you may do his will,
• working in us that which is pleasing in his sight,

through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

Christ shed the blood of the eternal covenant. By this successful redemption, he obtained the blessing of resurrection from the dead. He is now our living Lord and Shepherd.

And because of all that, God does two things:

1. He equips us with everything good that we may do his will.
2. He works in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

The  “eternal covenant,” secured by the blood of Christ, is the new covenant. And the new covenant promise is this: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

Therefore, the blood of this covenant not only secures God’s equipping us to do his will, but also secures God working in us to make that equipment successful. The will of God is not just written on stone or paper as a means of grace. It is worked in us. And the effect is: We feel and think and act in ways more pleasing to God.

We are still commanded to use the equipment he gives: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” But more importantly we are told why: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

If we are able to please God—if we do his good pleasure—it is because the blood-bought grace of God has moved from mere equipping, to omnipotent transforming.

One of the most influential passages in the Bible that God used to open my mind to his sovereignty over my will is Philippians 2:12-13.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So my working and willing are necessary. They are real. But they are not first or ultimately decisive. God’s willing and working is decisively under and in my willing and working. The word “for” is crucial. I work because he is working in me. I will, because he is willing in me.

Believing this precedes understanding how it works. God says it. I believe it. Now I am spending a lifetime learning what it is like to live this way.

Paul did not just tell me to live this way. He modeled living this way one chapter later. He said in Philippians 3:12,

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

His pressing on to secure the resurrection from the dead (v. 11) is rooted in Christ’s decisively securing him for the resurrection from the dead. In other words, all Paul’s striving is real, and it is certain because Christ makes it certain.

He modeled the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

So abandon any anti-Bible intellectual baggage you have inherited from planet earth, and recalibrate your brain to embrace the paradoxes of real human choice and decisive divine sway.

Peter watched Jesus make his way toward him, washing the feet of other disciples.

It had already been a confusing Passover. Jesus had been unusually burdened, close to tears all day. The atmosphere during the meal was charged with ominous anticipation.

Peter had grown used to Jesus doing and saying unpredictable things. But what Jesus was doing now was wrong. He was the last person in the room who should be washing feet.

All of Peter’s life he had been taught that feet were dishonorable members of the body. They were usually dirty, frequently smelly, and among the most likely members to come in contact with things that the Law declared unclean.

Outside of immediate family, feet were washed by slaves and servants—ideally non-Jews so as not to subject any of the Covenant People to such humiliation.

And one never insulted an honored person by pointing one’s feet at them.

But here was the Messiah, the most honored Jew to ever walk the earth, stripped like a common slave with a towel around his waist willingly handling the unclean feet of his disciples. This was backwards. If anything, Peter should be down there washing Jesus’ feet.

When Jesus got to Peter he smiled at him and reached for his feet. Peter pulled them back. “Lord, do you wash my feet?”

Jesus loved Peter. The Rock never did anything, right or wrong, without jumping in with—or in this case withholding—both feet. He knew what Peter was thinking. So he replied, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

Unwilling to subject Jesus to such dishonor Peter said, “You shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus’ countenance became dead serious. “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

The shock of this statement stunned Peter for a second. He was trying to preserve his Master’s honor. But Jesus was essentially telling him, unless you let me bear your dishonor, your uncleanness, you can’t be my disciple.

Well, he didn’t understand what this all meant, but Peter would leave no doubt about his trust in and love for Jesus: “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

Joy radiated from Jesus’ eyes and smile. And as he washed Peter’s feet he said, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.”

Then he paused for a moment and looked into Peter’s eyes. This beloved man was unknowingly about to face the most difficult, grievous, and glorious three days of his life. He would benefit from this reassurance: “And you are clean.”

Then his eyes dropped back to Peter’s feet and he resumed washing. “But not every one of you.”

*               *               *

Two lessons from this account in John 13:1-11:

First, much of the Christian life is spent trusting Jesus now and understanding him later. Jesus typically does not feel it necessary to explain on the front end why he is doing something the way he is doing it. And, like Peter, when it looks wrong to us, we are tempted to object to the Lord’s will.

God understands and is patient with our confusion and even our deep wrestling or grief. But he wants us to trust him and not grumble. God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). His purposes for bringing or not bringing certain things to pass often extend far beyond us—maybe even generations beyond us.

So during those times we need to remember Jesus’ words to Peter: “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

Second, what Jesus is bringing about in the sometimes confusing, sometimes very painful work he is doing in our lives is sanctification. He is washing our feet. He not only bathes us, completely removing the guilt of our sin in his cleansing work on the cross, but in love he keeps forgiving us (1 John 1:9) and disciplines us so that we will share his holiness (Hebrews 12:10-11).

Our understanding his purposes in a particular providence tends to be not as important to God as our trust in his character. So together let’s continue to “trust in the Lord with all [our] heart, and…not lean on [our] own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). Because one day we will understand. And we will, with great joy, proclaim, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works” (Psalm 145:17).

Someday, at the coming of the Lord Jesus, all who are in Christ will be glorified.

Those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:30)

The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:21)

That is, we will be glorious.

The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. (Matthew 13:43)

But our glory will not be our own but the glory of Christ who is the image of God. We will be glorified with his glory.

To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:14)

The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. (Isaiah 60:19)

The result of our being glorious with the glory of God is that in the end God will be glorified by our glorification.

Your people shall all be righteous . . . the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. (Isaiah 60:21)

Therefore, do not let your joy or your hope or your theology or your preaching rest finally on what you are or what you will be. Rejoice finally in this: that what you will be is a joyful reflection of the glory of God. And he will be all in all. Be glad that you are not the final point of it all, but a happy pointer.

In my previous post I reflected on this verse: "Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you" (Matthew 5:42). And the comments have been very thoughtful and helpful.

It's a breathtaking command, isn't it? Typical Jesus. If he doesn't knock the wind out of us occasionally, we're not really listening to him.

Just a clarifying thought.

Like the friends who commented, I too wrestle in the specifics of obeying this command. And in my stumbling attempts I have not personally seen many transformed lives. It's enough to make one quite cynical. 

But the reason for our cynicism may be that we are misunderstanding Jesus' purpose for the command. We tend to assume that the motive for radical generosity ought to be to meet a real need and help facilitate transformation in someone's life. If that isn't likely to happen, we shouldn't give. It wastes money and reinforces evil behavior. The problem is Jesus doesn’t command us to give for those reasons.  

What is his reason? "So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:45) The point? The Father shows radical generosity toward both good and evil people (v. 45). The text makes no promise that all the evil people are reformed as a result of his generosity. From my observation, most are not.

And like Father, like Son. Jesus showed great kindness toward the crowds who followed him and toward those who crucified him. Yet only a few believed in him.

And like Father (and Son), like adopted "sons" (male and female). We are being called to bear the family resemblance. The Father’s children behave like the Father and the Son. One of those ways is the stunning—some would call foolish—way we show generous kindness toward undeserving evil people—the very kindness we’ve received.

If these evil people don’t repent, we are not wasting our generosity on them. Through us, God is showing them grace that he will hold them accountable for someday. We show the world that we love God and not money (Matthew 6:24). And God is showing us that he 

...is able to make all grace abound to [us], so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, [we] may abound in every good work. As it is written, "He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” (2 Corinthians 9:8-9)

Now, there are times when real love dictates that we withhold giving, and the more intimately we are involved in a person’s life the better we can discern this. Biblical love must govern all our actions. God give us wisdom!

It's also helpful to remember that Jesus is instructing disciples, not government agencies or NGO's. He’s not giving a formula for eliminating poverty. Neither is he necessarily instructing a church's institutional approach to community development, though he’s informing it. On those levels it is necessary to carefully identify and strategically address the causes of poverty. 

But he is calling us to radical, gospel generosity. The kind that looks weird in the world. The kind that sifts our motives and tests our love. The kind that is impossible for the natural man. But let’s take heart, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, for “with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).

A few blocks from my home Roland Wells, a courageous and compassionate Lutheran pastor who has served over twenty faithful years in our inner-city neighborhood, announced today that the church he leads, St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, will leave the ELCA because of the recent decision of the Churchwide Asssembly concerning the ordination of those practicing homosexual behaviors.

This is not an easy thing to do. Nor was it done precipitously. I point to it for the sake of prayer, repentance, and hope. Here is the press release that Roland sent out today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
FIRST TWIN CITY CONGREGATION VOTES TO LEAVE ELCA

A 96 percent majority of the members of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Minneapolis voted on Sunday, September 27, to leave the ELCA.  Due to the outcome of the recent ELCA Churchwide Assembly decisions regarding the role of Scripture and the ordination of practicing homosexual and lesbian persons, St. Paul's was forced to act.  

Back in October of 1990, the congregation's Council set a policy that if the ELCA ever moved to allow such ordinations, the congregation would immediately begin the process to leave.  "We feel quite affirmed by the hundreds of congregations who are contemplating the same move." said St. Paul's Senior Pastor, Rev. Roland J. Wells, Jr.  "Since the ELCA vote, the reaction across the country has been swift and overwhelming.  I have received phone calls from all over the country from pastors and members of congregations who are withholding funds from the national church, and are preparing to move to a newly forming Lutheran denomination, the LCMC.  The phone at the LCMC office in Michigan has been ringing off the hook."   In a separate action, over 1,200 ELCA leaders met last week in Indiana to begin work on another breakaway synod.

"When the ELCA took actions that even the liberal United Methodist and Presbyterian Church USA have repeatedly rejected, the sign was clear that the stranglehold of the activist fringe have taken control of the leadership of the church.  Those of us in the center, representing over 80% of ELCA Lutherans in the pew, can see that it's time to form a new church body.  It's time to build a positive, grace-filled, missional church- the ELCA that could have been."  According to its process, St. Paul's congregation will now go through a process of consultation with the local ELCA bishop, and then hold a second vote at least 90 days after the first, which must pass by two-thirds.  

St. Paul's is a legacy congregation in downtown Minneapolis. Founded by Norwegian immigrants in 1872, it was the fourth Lutheran congregation founded in the city.  Today it draws members from a 60-mile circle across the Twin Cities.  It is internationally recognized for its college-level programs of cross-cultural ministry education.  

The following post is by Bernie Anderson, missionary to Mongolia and brother of Scott Anderson, Director for Networking & Partnerships here at DG.

Every culture on earth has fatal flaws. If any particular culture is followed to its logical and practical end, there is nothing but a grave. In American culture, one of these flaws is the assumption that materialism is right. Where I work in Mongolia one of those fatal flaws is the expectation of excessive alcohol consumption.

NPR recently did an interesting expose on alcoholism in Mongolia. I found the piece to be accurate in exposing the heartbreaking reality of what we see every day here. Watching a young child burdened with the responsibility of leading their drunk father or mother home is something we see frequently.

The man in the NPR article references the hopelessness of shamanism and folk superstition. There is a general sense of acquiescence among the people here regarding this issue. “It’s our culture.” “It’s the way it has always been. It’s the way it will always be.”

There is opportunity for the young church in Mongolia to step up and meet this problem with the power of the Gospel. People are ready for hope to be introduced. However, alcoholism is found in the church here, too. Again, where there there should be hope, there is hopelessness and apathy.

We who are working in Mongolia see this passivity as opportunity for the Gospel. Jesus will redeem the soul from the pit (Psalm 103:4). The challenge is in focused disciple-making within the Mongolian church.

Our dream to is to see men and women who love Jesus more than alcoholic euphoria. We want to see the church in Mongolia grow strong in the Word and deep in the Gospel so that this culture will ultimately transformed for the Glory of Jesus, and the glory of the Lord will fill the earth as the water fills the seas (Habakkuk 2:14).

We have the privilege of working with such disciples here in the capital city Ulaanbaatar. Our work is primarily with students and young people, and we have a small handful who love Jesus more than anything else. We pray that God will deepen their love and their faith, root them in his Word and increase their number—for his name and renown in Mongolia.