Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness

Following are several quotes worth pondering from Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness: A Revive Our Hearts Trilogy, by Nancy Leigh DeMoss:

“Broken men and women don’t care who finds out about their sin; they have nothing to protect and nothing to lose. They are eager for God to be vindicated. David’s response when confronted with his wrongdoing was that of a humble, broken man. And his was the heart that God honored. Again and again, God’s Word reveals that He is not as concerned about the depth or extent of the sin we commit as He is about our attitude and response when we are confronted with our sin” (52). “But once we have really been contrite and humble before God, it will not be threatening to be humble and honest with others—we have nothing to lose, no reputation to protect—because we have died. The broken person is willing to say, ‘Will you pray for me? I have a need in my life—God is dealing with me in this specific area’ ” (94).

“Because God is holy, we must be holy. And here’s the good news—because God is holy, we can be holy. If you are a child of God, the Holy God lives in you. He is the standard for your holiness, and He is the source of your holiness—He is your righteousness. He can wash your unholy heart with the blood of Jesus and make you clean—so the world will know what He is like… To be holy is our created purpose. It is our destiny. And it will be the outcome for every true child of God and for the entire body of Christ” (293-294).

“As Christians, we have not been left alone to deal with our sin. God has graciously put us into a body of believers who are called to look out for one another and to stand together against the enemies that would threaten our holiness. This family—the body of Christ—is a vital provision God has given to help us in our pursuit of holiness. This is why it is essential for every believer to be in a committed relationship to a Christ-centered local church. Many believers today think nothing of jumping from one church to another every time they find something not to their liking. In fact, a growing number of Christians don’t see the need of plugging into a local church at all. Some are disillusioned with their local church experience. They think they can have an independent relationship with God or that their spiritual needs can be met simply by plugging into the Internet. Being disconnected from the local church, for whatever reason, is a dangerous way to live. Not only do these ‘lone rangers’ miss out on the blessings of functioning within the context of the body of Christ, but like lone sheep away from the safety of the flock and the watchful care of the shepherd, they are vulnerable to predators of every sort” (344).

“We have tiptoed around Old and New Testament passages that proclaim the holiness of God, His hatred of sin, and His wrath and judgment against unrepentant sinners, preferring to consider only references to His mercy, grace, and love. We have promoted a ‘gospel’ that says it is possible to be a Christian while stubbornly refusing to address practices or behaviors we know are sinful. We have accepted the philosophy that it’s OK for Christians to look, think, act, and talk like the world” (368).

What more can be said?

“Surely that man must be in an unhealthy state of soul who can think of all that Jesus suffered, and yet cling to those sins for which that suffering was undergone. It was sin that wove the crown of thorns; it was sin that pierced our Lord’s hands and feet and side; it was sin that brought Him to Gethsemane and Calvary, to the cross and to the grave. Cold must our hearts be if we do not hate sin and labour to get rid of it, though we may have to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye in doing it” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Replacing Darwin

This post is for my science-minded friends, though I think others may enjoy it as well. I just finished reading Replacing Darwin: The New Origin of Species, by Nathaniel T. Jeanson. (It almost makes me wish I’d continued my biology studies after college, but God had other plans.) Jeanson shares a lot of research that has been done in the years since Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species (1859), and his conclusions point strongly to a young earth model that aligns with Scripture. The following are just a few quotes to illustrate his argument.

“Like the 18th century, the scope of species diversity in Darwin’s day was a fraction of today’s variety. In 1859, the scientific community had no knowledge of the majority of species we have now documented… Since 1859, we’ve had time to reevaluate his picture—much more time than he had to propose and appraise it… Furthermore, the Internet makes information sharing faster than ever before” (ch. 1).

In 1865, “Gregor Mendel… solved the paradox of family trees… One of the first discoveries that Mendel made was the discrete nature of genetic information… Mendel’s experiments demonstrated the fact of particulate inheritance rather than blended inheritance… Together, the discovery of unit factors, of dominant and recessive traits, and of the segregation of genetic information began to define clear rules for the ways in which traits behave each generation… For reasons unknown, Darwin appears to have been unaware of Mendel’s work. Conversely, for equally unknown reasons, when Mendel died in 1884, his discoveries died with him, not to be resurrected until the turn of the century” (ch. 2).

“Prior to the 1950s, Mendel’s unit factors had been renamed genes… The origin of traits now seemed to be just a matter of understanding the origin of genes... By the late 1960s and 1970s, the first complete DNA sequences—the genomes—from various species were trickling in… In the 1960s, DNA was detected elsewhere—in a different sub-cellular compartment termed the mitochondria… When Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, he had no knowledge of the genetic processes… No one had any idea how many DNA differences divided species. In fact, the DNA sequence of our own species wasn’t solved until 2001” (ch. 3).

“If Darwin had no knowledge of genetics, how could he write a book on the origin of species? …Fossils don’t directly record genealogical relationships… Similarly, geography doesn’t directly record inheritance… Finally, anatomy and physiology have a nonlinear relationship with DNA sequences… The problem with inductive reasoning is that there may be multiple explanations for an observation” (ch. 4).

“Over the last few years, one of the most critical genetic observations came from analysis of DNA sequences, not between species, but within species… In the parent-offspring pairs... the offspring contained DNA sequences that could not be traced to either parent… [They] didn’t just document the fact of mutation. They also measured the rate. Since the reported units of measurement from these studies were mutations per generation, these experiments naturally had implications for the timescale over which DNA differences arose… The mtDNA [mitochondrial DNA] findings contained in this chapter called into question the entire foundation of the evolutionary timescale… [The] millions-of-years paradigm rests on the assumption that rates of change have been largely constant. Yet, in the field of genetics, the assumption of constant rates of change… yields a 6,000-year timescale, not an ancient one” (ch. 7).

“Unlike mtDNA, nuclear DNA has been much more difficult to compare across species… Too few results have been obtained to see a general pattern of what precise percentage of nuclear DNA differences are preexisting, and what percentage are due to mutation… [The] results that have been obtained thus far for the YEC [Young-Earth Creationist] model suggest that the majority—if not the vast majority—of nuclear DNA differences in species were preexisting [i.e. created at a point in time]” (ch. 8).

I’ll leave you to read the details for yourself if you’re interested. (I would recommend getting the physical book so his charts can be seen correctly.) You can also check out the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. I’ll close by saying that his arguments have gone a long way in changing my own interpretation of our origins from a generally theistic evolutionary position to a more literal reading of the Creation narrative in Scripture. To use Jeanson’s analogy, we simply do not have all the pieces of the puzzle yet and we can easily misinterpret the picture from the pieces we do have.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it... Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well” (Psalm 139:6, 14b).

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© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Cover photo courtesy of Amazon.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

I Surrender

In her book Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness (a compilation of three books), Nancy Leigh DeMoss writes,

“Our will was opposed to [God’s] will. We were intent on going our own independent way, and as a result, were estranged from the God of the universe. Even when the Spirit opened our eyes to recognize our rebellious condition, we may have sought a way to bring about peace apart from surrender. We did not want to continue suffering the unpleasant consequences of our resistance, but neither did we want to lay down our arms. Then the message was sent to our hearts: There can be no peace until you are willing to accept My terms—unconditional surrender.”

And yet even when we have made a decision to surrender to Christ’s lordship, we often try to take it back later. We still desire to have control over our own lives. “I’ll surrender the parts I don’t like, but this part is still mine to do with as I please!” DeMoss shared what Josef Tson identified as a “shift from the call to full surrender, to the call to commitment.”

“Christian surrender means that a person lifts his or her hands and says to God, ‘Here I am; I surrender; You take over; I belong to You; You dispose of me!’ But this is America, the country of the independent people! This is the place of ‘Nobody should command me! … I belong only to myself! A call to surrender, and even more, to full surrender, simply doesn’t go well with such people. Therefore, the preachers… hit on the word ‘commitment.’ You see, commitment means ‘I engage myself to do something for you.’ or, even lighter, ‘I promise to do something for you,’ but I remain myself and I may keep my promises or not...

“[Bible translators] did not like the term ‘bondslave’ to be applied to people. Who wants to be somebody else’s slave? Therefore, they replaced it with ‘servant.’ Again, a reflection and demand of the independent spirit! In the Greek, ‘slave’ is doulos; ‘servant’ is diakonos. In the Greek Bible one never, never diakoneo to God—one never serves God; one only douleo to God—that is, one slaves to God.”

Many people have made some commitment to God, but their absence of any meaningful participation in the Body of Christ is one indication that they never surrendered to Him. And all of us need to surrender again and again as God reveals areas in our lives that we’re still holding on to. Just today I was reminded that if I want to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29), I must surrender my all rights over my life and my choices. I am no longer my own, for I was bought with the blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Therefore anything that stands in opposition to His lordship must be given over to His control. “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and… put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22, 24 ESV).

Tson is correct that we in America don’t want to surrender to anyone. July 4th is known as Independence Day, but no one who belongs to Christ is truly independent. Actually, every living being is dependent on God, but Christians are the only ones who acknowledge our dependence on Him and willingly surrender to His control. Will we do so again today and tomorrow and every day to come?

“Father, I abandon myself into Your hands; do with me what You will. Whatever You may do, I thank You: I am ready for all, I accept all. Only let Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures—I wish no more than this, O Lord” (Charles de Foucauld).

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

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© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.