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‘Scripture Musings’ Category

  1. All those powers. . .

    November 18, 2010 by Nate

    My favorite comic book character is Superman. I’ve always loved his story—the tragedy of his past, the loneliness and isolation he experiences, and the sheer power of his, well, person. But if there’s one thing Superman can’t do, it’s this: he can’t save anyone from death.

    Sure, he can save people from getting killed by something. But death will always evade Superman’s power. He even admits after his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, dies of a heart attack, in a scene from one of my favorite movies, “All those powers, and I couldn’t even save him.”

    If the seemingly omnipotent Kal El can’t defeat death, what hope do we have when death seems to own everything?

    There’s a song by Hillsong United that repeats this line:

    “The same power that conquered the grave lives in me.”

    That’s a bold claim to make, isn’t it?

    Not when you consider these words from Chapter 3 of Paul’s letter to his church in Ephesus:

    “According to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

    Jesus never once had to make the admission that Clark Kent did. Never once did he say, “I couldn’t even save him.”

    Instead, he destroyed death.

    He rendered death obsolete.

    And the power he used to kill death?

    Love.

    Pure, raw, unadulterated love.

    Paul wrote that if we “know the love of Christ,” we’ll then be “filled with all the fullness of God.” Yeah, that’s right. The fullness of the God who killed death.

    That power lives in us if we know Christ’s love.

    All of it. “The fullness of God.”

    All those powers. . . Why aren’t we changing the world?

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  2. Belief. . .

    September 22, 2010 by Nate

    One of the awesome things about my new job is the opportunity to listen to men who are far smarter than I am dialogue about spirituality. I love sitting in on many casual conversations that take place in the kitchen/conference room. But there have been several occasions where I’ve been pulled into a conversation.

    Today was one of those occasions. One of our pastors looked at me and said, “Commit this to memory: Romans 4.3.” When this guy says something, I know I need to listen. He’s one of those men whose opinion is cherished throughout the office.

    So today I after work I decided to read through that passage.

    “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’”

    The ramifications of this sentence floored me.

    For practically my entire life I’ve added so much to the Gospel. But when the question is asked—”How can I be made right with God?”—the answer strips all that away.

    Believe.

    My favorite story in the life of Jesus is the story of Lazarus’s death. The story is a microcosm of everything that Jesus came to earth for. He enters our world in the middle of our deepest suffering and pain. He looks at the pain and sympathizes empathizes with us. He even cries with us. He then does battle with the pain and breathes life into death.

    After Lazarus died, Martha, Lazarus’s sister, approaches Jesus in the middle of her pain and essentially asks, “Where were you?!” And instead of comforting her or reassuring her, Jesus reminds Martha of who He is.

    “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

    How reassuring is this statement when your brother just died?

    And then Jesus asks her point blank. “Do you believe this?”

    Her response is staggering. “Yes, Lord, I believe. . .”

    And in believing, she was given a front-row seat to Christ’s duel with death.

    Believe, and God takes you into His family.

    Believe, and God shows you how mightily He fights for you.

    Believe, and God makes you right with Him.

    Martha’s doubts didn’t go away before she believed. None of her questions were answered before she believed.

    She believed, and then she saw.

    It’s the same thing for us today. Seeing is not the catalyst for believing. Believing is the catalyst for seeing.

    When we believe, we see just how powerful God is.

    When we believe, we see just how much God loves.

    When we believe, we see that God wants us with Him.

    But all this is possible only when we believe.

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  3. Defiant worship. . .

    August 30, 2010 by Nate

    Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
    (Daniel 3:16-18 ESV)

    Exactly one year ago I lost my job at Liquid Church. It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming; after all, my title started with the word interim. Regardless, it still hurt. It felt weird and wrong somehow. When I was told that I would be finishing up in two weeks, Pastor Tim was wrapping up a series on the book of Habakkuk. I wasn’t listening at the time, but after exactly one year, God has given me the opportunity to do what my heart yearns to do and to do it full-time.

    I honestly don’t know how I continued. I was angry. I was sad. I even fell into depression. I questioned God over and over again. Why had he placed this calling on my life, yet he had given me no avenue to act on my calling?

    But I kept serving him in the flawed ways I knew. I cried out to him in song every Sunday, begging him to give me a ministry to call my own.

    And then I looked around me and realized that he had given me an avenue to act on my calling. He had given me a ministry. There were so many opportunities he had given me, but in my grief and self-absorption, I was unable unwilling to see and grasp the opportunities he’d given me.

    In the middle of it all, I still remembered the cross. I was failing. I was destroying myself. But God was still there, reminding me that he bought me with his blood.

    And then it got worse. The opportunities that I’d missed—the ministry God had given me that I was blind to—they were all taken from me.

    “My God is able to deliver me. . . and he will.”

    These words were so difficult to say, let alone believe. But I tried.

    “But if he does not. . .”

    Even more difficult to swallow this thought. If God chose to keep me from my heart’s greatest desire, would I still worship him?

    Even now, as I type the words, they are slow and deliberate. I have to ask myself again, “Would I still worship him?”

    I pause for what feels like an hour.

    Yes. I will.

    Because when I trusted Jesus as my Savior I knew that I was not asking him to enter my life and empower my agenda or my motives. I knew that I was not asking him to come along for the journey of my life.

    I was asking him to lead me. I was asking him to go before me. I was asking him to pave the way in my life, and I know that whatever pain I may experience, he’s going through it before I am because he’s leading me.

    That is how I can defiantly say that even if my God does not deliver me, I will still worship him.

    How can we, when trials come our way, persevere if we’ve asked Christ to empower our agendas? We cannot. Instead, to truly defy our circumstances, we must understand that trusting Christ as our Saviour is following him through life and not requesting that he follow us.

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  4. Accepting grace. . .

    June 21, 2010 by Nate

    I’ve been reading through Acts lately thanks to the latest sermon series at Emergence. I was struck by an interesting dichotomy between two conversions in chapters 8 and 9.

    In the first conversion, we find the story of an Ethiopian eunuch whose curiosity for the things of God led him to discover Jesus. Let’s assume this guy has had no contact with any sort of religious education. After all, according to Deuteronomy 23.1, he wasn’t allowed in the temple anyway.

    And yet as Philip talks with him about the ancient book of Isaiah, this eunuch very readily and simply trusts Jesus.

    In stark contrast to the story of the eunuch’s conversion is Saul’s conversion in chapter 9. While the eunuch followed Jesus without the need for any real coaxing, it took a supernatural slap in the face for Saul to finally follow Jesus. And his road was marked with pain, suffering, and humiliation.

    He was slammed off his horse, exposed to an extremely bright light, lectured by Jesus himself, left blind and completely dependent on someone else’s help, and cared for by the very man he was planning on executing.

    Here’s the funny thing—Saul was the religious one.

    So what have I learned from this? For starters, no one is outside of God’s reach. From the broken and remorseful sinner to the passionate and violent religious leader, God reaches all of us.

    But I think he has to hit religious people a little harder. We’re stubborn, set in our ways, and we believe we’re right about everything. So he steps in, introduces a little bit of pain because, unlike the “sinner,” we haven’t experienced life’s hardships that would draw us to him, and confronts us directly.

    So what does that mean for me? I’m not totally sure. I think God’s telling me that I need to love religious people just as much as I love non-religious people. They need his grace just as much as anyone else. The problem is that we’re often very unwilling to accept it.

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  5. Everything I need. . .

    April 26, 2010 by Nate

    With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
    With my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
    I pour out my complaint before him;
    I tell my trouble before him.
    When my spirit faints within me,
    you know my way!
    In the path where I walk
    they have hidden a trap for me.
    Look to the right and see:
    There is none who takes notice of me;
    no refuge remains to me;
    no one cares for my soul.
    I cry to you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my refuge,
    my portion in the land of the living.”

    The last few days haven’t been easy. And it becomes so difficult to trust God when it feels like he’s taking things away from me. To be totally honest, I’m actually angry at him right now. I almost feel like he’s given me glimpses of the great things he has planned for me, only to rip them away with the words, “You’re not ready for this yet, Nate.”

    He gave me something to pour my abilities and efforts into, and then I hear, “I can’t let you do that, Nate. Not when you’ve lost sight of whom this is really about.” And it hurt, but I knew I needed to make some changes in my own life.

    And just as I’m on the brink of taking that first step towards change, a gift he’d given me very recently was quickly snatched away, and I hear, “You’re not ready for this gift, Nate. This was my gift to you, but you’re not a gift yourself.” And again, it hurt.

    Like any child who’s being corrected by his father, I’m angry because the correcting hurts. But, like that child, I know that I have nowhere else to turn, and that the hand that’s correcting me is the same hand that comforts me.

    So I’ll run into the refuge of my Father’s arms, knowing that, even though I can’t have what I want right now, he’s providing me what I need.

    My old mentor told me recently to stop “seeking change for yourself and start seeking the God who changes.” Because change may be everything I want in my life right now, but this God is everything I need.

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  6. Fear in love. . .

    September 1, 2009 by Nate

    I was reading through Revelation 1 yesterday when I stumbled on a passage that had a very intriguing setup.

    John describes a powerful, majestic, and terrifying incarnation of Christ. But immediately following this description, Christ says, “Do not be afraid.”

    It’s almost as if he’s saying, “Look at what I did for you. I am the Eternal One, and yet I stooped down to experience death for you. But I didn’t stop there. I destroyed death so that you wouldn’t have to taste it. I control Hell so you won’t have to go there. So yeah, there’s no reason to be afraid.”

    But if we’re honest, we’ll admit that fear is what drives our lives.

    If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’ve seen that I’m obsessed with the concept of love. It’s fascinating to me because it’s probably one of the greatest mysteries of our humanity, yet it’s the most common aspect of our lives. It’s also (supposed to be) the defining point of Christians. (I’ll refrain from my rant about Christians’ failure to exhibit this feature.)

    So here’s an interesting thought about love and fear. . .

    Love, in its purest form, is completely fearless.

    Odd, isn’t it? I mean, fear and love seem to go hand-in-hand. We’re afraid to love because we might get burned.

    Or the love won’t be reciprocated.

    Or we might be taken advantage of.

    All legitimate fears. But none have any place near love.

    Check this out.

    God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
    ~1 John 4.18

    Um. Ouch.

    I strive to love perfectly, flawlessly, purely. Yet I’m held back by fear. And I think it’s this fear that is crippling me and keeping me from becoming the man that God is calling me to be.

    Fear destroys love. The most common command in the Bible is “Do not be afraid” or some variation of it. I think it’s time I start obeying this command.

    Category Personal, Scripture Musings, Spirituality | Tags: | 2 Comments

  7. Perspectives. . .

    August 22, 2009 by Nate

    My friend Beth posted a fantastic entry on this passage, and as I read it, I couldn’t help but be struck by the inclusiveness of the language.

    God pours out his blessings on everyone. No matter what.

    All we have to do is ask him.

    What’s sad is that we often assume that we have to live a certain way or do certain things before God is willing to share his love with us.

    So we slave to earn God’s favor, and hope that he’s happy with the work we’re doing.

    But Paul wrote a different story about God.

    “If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?”
    ~Romans 8.32

    It’s interesting to see how much our lives change through a simple change in perspective. You can look at your life one way, believing God to be an angry judge waiting to see us screw up, seeing every difficult or painful situation as a way for him to find fault in what we’re doing. Or you can look at life another way, seeing God as a benevolent king who wants nothing more than to watch you grow and mature, embracing every trial as an opportunity to become stronger and wiser.

    And God wants this for us. He’s longing to give us great things. He wants our lives to be fulfilled and joyful. The letter writer James put it this way:

    “Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.”
    ~James 1.17-18

    We mean a lot to God. Isn’t there comfort in knowing this? Maybe a simple shift in perspective is all we need.

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  8. Resurrecting the weary. . .

    April 19, 2009 by Nate

    Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
    The LORD is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
    He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.

    He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.

    Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;

    but those who hope in the LORD
    will renew their strength.
    They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.


    On any given Sunday in Morristown and New Brunswick, there are dozens of tired, weary people pouring out their lives and hearts in service to the Kingdom of God. And as difficult as it is seeing my brothers and sisters weakened under the pressures of a busy Sunday, I know that the almighty Eternal One is immersing them in his strength.

    Sometimes it appears that promises like the one in Isaiah are unfulfilled in our lives. We’re tired, worn out, burned out, weakened. And yet that miraculous strength has yet to show up to rejuvenate us, to refresh us.

    But that strength doesn’t exist to help us out of a jam or to lift us out of weariness.

    It exists to bring glory to our God. To remind us that, even in the moments where God feels distant, uncaring, or nonexistent, he is still in control.

    To remind us that resurrection takes place all the time. To remind us that God is still in the business of giving life to the dead.

    That strength is promised to those who trust that kind of resurrection power. So as I sit at a desk in my church’s offices, thinking about all the weary faces I encounter every Sunday, I am reminded of the power that calls the dead out of the grave.

    To my brothers and sisters on staff at Liquid, when the strength-sapping Sundays come around, remember the power that can send you into the skies on eagles’ wings. Remember the power that conquers death.

    And remember it belongs to you.

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  9. Sustenance. . .

    April 12, 2009 by Nate

    He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

    We often think of Jesus in terms of his time here on earth. But there’s so much more to him than what he revealed while he was walking among us.

    From what Paul was saying in his letter to the church in Colossae, Christ is the agent through which the universe was created.

    And on top of that, he is the agent through which the universe is sustained.

    Imagine that, the very voice that spoke the earth into motion is the same voice that cried, “Father, forgive them!”

    And the hands that hold the molecules together are the same hands that were pierced and bled so that ours wouldn’t have to.

    Without Christ, we are nothing physically. We cannot live. We cannot exist.

    And without Christ, we are nothing spiritually. We cannot be free. We cannot be loved.

    This Jesus is more than the carpenter from Galilee who taught the world how to love.

    This Jesus is our sustenance. He is our breath. He is our life.

    He is our very existence.

    ”Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,
    for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
    ~Revelation 4.11

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  10. Grace. . .

    April 9, 2009 by Nate

    Death ruled from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. Death ruled even over those who did not sin as Adam did. He broke God’s command. But he also became a pattern of the One who was going to come.

    God’s gift is different from Adam’s sin. Many people died because of the sin of that one man. But it was even more sure that God’s grace would also come through one man. That man is Jesus Christ. God’s gift of grace was more than enough for the whole world.

    I’ve found it painstakingly difficult to articulate the concept of grace. There’s an absurd kind of beauty that rests within. Absurd, because it cannot be reconciled with prevailing wisdom regarding how the world works. Beautiful, because it is the life-giving fountain that in itself is the very fabric of all we were designed for.

    Christ is grace. When the Father sought to rescue humanity, he saw no other avenue than the undeserved gift of God in Man. Emmanuel—God with us.

    But why? Why pay that kind of price? Why send your Heart into a world that would reject it?

    Because of love.

    Grace—this gift of life given to those least deserving of it—is the natural outflow of unbridled, passionate love.

    Especially when the object of that love is broken, hurting, and wallowing in self-destruction.

    Love for that kind of object means rescue, sacrifice, restoration.

    It means grace.

    It means Jesus.

    This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
    ~1 John 4.10 (The Message)

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