Light in the Darkness

We’re living in dark times. The world is broken by sin, filled with suffering, conflict, and difficulty. Life is exhausting, particularly in a year of constant uncertainties. Everything requires extra mental energy because nothing is routine right now. It feels like we’ve all been going full tilt for about ten months straight.

Darkness is nothing new. It’s been part of the world since Genesis 3. But even in the judgment of the first sin, there was a promise of light to come through the Messiah: “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). The many Messianic promises of the Old Testament were fulfilled when Jesus was born. The Apostle John wrote of Jesus, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:4-5, 9).

The light continues to shine in the darkness. The darkness will eventually be vanquished, but right now it seems all too prominent. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Everyone who knows Him has the light. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

Now we as the Body of Christ are reflectors of His light to the world. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5:14). May we all walk in the light each day so that we “may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).

“The Lord is God, and He has made His light to shine upon us” (Psalm 118:27a).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Pearls of Great Price

Thanksgiving can be a difficult holiday for many people. It’s hard to give thanks when you don’t feel thankful about what’s going on in life. As Ed Welch wrote in his article I Am Not Giving Thanks, “There are plenty of hardships in this world, and they are not good. What is good is that evil cannot stand in the way of God’s essential work of making his people more and more as they were intended to be, which is portrayed most clearly in the Son. This, indeed, is a glorious good, but it could feel as though it falls short of our lesser versions of good.”

We may feel like we’re just going through the motions. Commands such as “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! …Come into His presence with singing! …Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise!” (Psalm 100), may feel like salt on an open wound. A podcast I was listening to recently made the comment that when the church gathers, maybe I don’t have the heart to sing right now, but I can listen to others sing. Another week I may be the one singing when others can only listen. We tend to forget that many of the commands in Scripture are for the church as a whole, not merely an individual mandate.

Some of the things we are not thankful for now may one day be reasons for praise. The Apostle Peter wrote, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:6-7). Even if we can’t give thanks for the hard things in this life, there will come a day when it all becomes worthwhile.

In the novel Silver Birches, by Adrian Plass, one character is a minister who has lost his wife. He tells the others in his group:

“Apparently pearls are formed by oysters as a reaction or defense against a foreign body or irritant… I think something very similar has happened in my own life—and yours. There’ve been troubles and weaknesses and negative influences that haven’t just threatened but come very close to moving in and ruining parts of my life… I’m sure we shouldn’t take any pride or satisfaction in these irritants that enter our lives, but, look, I do think we should greatly value the way in which God’s able to form a pearl of protection around each of them. He hasn’t got rid of most of them because he’s good enough to allow us to go on being the person we are. We wear God’s pearls as symbols of our vulnerability and perhaps as pictures of the way God can make something beautiful out of weakness.”

So, I ask myself and I ask you, what are some of the troubles and trials that God has turned into pearls? What weaknesses and places of pain is He still working to transform? Though I can’t list everything publicly, I will share a few:

• I’m thankful for the depression that causes me to search Scripture for words of comfort.
• I’m thankful for the seasons of loneliness in which my words come out in writing and prayer.
• I’m thankful that struggles I’ve dared to share have been used to comfort and encourage others in similar trials.

I know my pearls are not yet fully formed, but one day they will be laid at Jesus’ feet with gratitude and thanksgiving. 

“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful” (Col. 3:15).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Planned Obsolescence

Our church has been working through the book of Galatians for the past several weeks. The recurring theme is that salvation is by faith and not by works. “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Gal. 2:16-17).

Obedience to the Old Testament law cannot save us. As James says, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails at one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10). Try as we might, we cannot perfectly obey and therefore we cannot obtain righteousness through our obedience. The law was never intended to justify anyone, but only to point us to our need for a Savior. As Paul wrote in Romans 7, “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ …The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me” (7:7, 10). But now, if we are believers in Christ, we have “died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God” (7:4).

We are now under a new covenant by faith in Christ. “In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13). The author of Hebrews doesn’t just say that the old covenant of the law is inferior to the new covenant, but is actually obsolete. How is that possible? Jesus fulfilled all the demands of the law by perfect obedience. Through His sacrifice on the cross, we who trust in Him receive His perfect record.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14). In Christ, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

We as individuals and as churches can tend to lean in one of two directions. We may lean toward legalism and create our own set of rules and regulations: don’t drink, don’t smoke, no tattoos, never skip church, read through your Bible every year, always look respectable, etc. That is likely to make people feel a constant vague guilt for not measuring up to the “standards,” and may lead to an abandonment of anything related to the church.

Or we may lean toward license and say “Do whatever feels good so long as you aren’t hurting anyone by it.” But that is to ignore the necessity of sanctification in the life of the believer. We are set free from the law, not to do as we please, but to become who God always intended us to be: people who reflect the perfect image of His Son. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).

We belong to Him body and soul, and if we are living in His grace through faith, we will desire to do all that we can to please Him—not because we have to in order to retain our citizenship in His kingdom, but because we love our Father. We will fail and fall at times, but He picks us back up and dusts us off and reminds us that His love is not dependent on our perfect obedience. “For You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon You” (Psalm 86:5).

“The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when He delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand” (Psalm 37:23-24).

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You might enjoy this poem from Glenn Scrivener:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/we-should-not-balance-license-and-legalism/

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Effects of Faith

Faith gives us eternal hope.

For those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we have the certainty that there is coming a day when God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

When life is hard and it seems like things will never change, there is always the hope of eternity. Eternal life means that the trials of this life are temporary and they will one day seem insignificant. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

Faith gives us purpose.

Life is about more than getting an education, earning a living, raising a family, or saving for vacation and retirement. For the believer, every aspect of life is infused with the purpose of loving and serving God by loving and serving those around us. Joseph Hellerman wrote:

“Experiencing God and serving God are not unrelated. God offers a wonderful alternative to an otherwise aimless life that must rely on regular shots of experiential escape—secular or spiritual—to provide a sense of significance. That alternative is to give our lives to a community with a mission—a local church charged with the task of proclaiming the ‘excellencies’ of the God who has called us ‘out of darkness into his marvelous light’ (1 Pet 2:9)” (Why We Need the Church to Become More Like Jesus, ch. 6).

If we expect this life to fulfill all our hopes and dreams, we will be sorely disappointed. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:23-24).

Faith joins us to a family.

Through faith in Christ we are adopted into God’s family. We don’t just have a relationship with the Father, but with all of His children. We have more in common with those in our Christian family than we do with non-Christians in our nuclear family. We may share history with our nuclear family, but we share an eternal future with our Christian family.

Our brother and sisters in Christ are meant to be those with whom we can share both our joys and our struggles. “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor… Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:10, 15). “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:8).

Faith assures us that we are loved by God.

“Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us… God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:5, 8). By His love and grace our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled to Him. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), so we are just as beloved as Jesus is. “For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you” (1 Thess. 1:4).

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

 © 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Growing Up Together

In his book, Why We Need the Church to Become More Like Jesus, Joseph H. Hellerman paraphrases author Bruce Malina’s description of a “strong-group” mindset:

“The individual person is embedded in the [church family] and is free to do what he or she feels right and necessary only if in accord with [church family] norms and only if the action is in the [church family’s] best interest” (ch. 3).

I suspect that in many churches if a pastor made that assertion this Sunday, he would be labeled as “cultist” and would soon be shown the door. In our individualistic Western culture, we don’t trust those who claim that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” (to borrow a phrase from Star Trek). Yet isn’t that what Scripture consistently teaches?

“So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12).

“…to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13).

Hellerman goes on:

“It is not hard to see how (1) the anthropocentric approach to evangelism found in gospel tracts like The Four Spiritual Laws, (2) the framing of spiritual gifts in terms of personal fulfillment, and (3) the felt-needs focus of the seeker-sensitive movement contributed significantly to the seismic shift from ‘us’ to ‘me’ that occurred during the latter half of the twentieth century among American evangelicals” (ch. 5).

Is it any wonder that in the twenty first century we struggle to get people to darken the doors of the church with any kind of regularity? If the church is all about me, then I can choose my own path. But if it is about the wellbeing of the local body of believers, then my church family needs me and I need my church family.

“The church is a family, not a business. It is an organism, not an organization… The commitment to which Jesus calls us is a relational commitment, not an institutional commitment... To become a follower of Jesus is to become loyal to the people of God, not to a pastor’s vision or to the demands of a large church’s calendar of programs” (ch. 2).

Where the rubber meets the road for many of us in church leadership is in discerning how we can build that relational connection and commitment to the body either through the programs of the church or apart from such programs. Are the events on the calendar facilitating the growth of the church family or are they leftovers from a different era? Are we connecting people to one another or only introducing them to God? Are church members committed to each other’s growth or just checking off one more obligation?

“We grow in our faith as individual Christians to the degree that we are deeply rooted relationally in a local church community that is passionately playing its part in God’s grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration” (preface).

Or as my pastor put it, “We grow together or we don’t grow at all.”

“We are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which is it equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:15b-16).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Not My Strength

Although we as Christians should know that we are saved by faith and not by works, we often fall into the trap of trying to pursue sanctification by works. We think that if we just get the right combination of avoiding tempting situations and quoting enough Scripture we’ll be able to keep from sinning. We make our list of rules: don’t watch certain TV shows; don’t look at the magazines lining the checkout aisle; don’t buy ice cream and candy; put Covenant Eyes on the computer; avoid restaurants that serve alcohol; and so on. While those can all be good things, they are limited in their ability to stop the temptations that assail us. As the Apostle Paul wrote:

“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulation—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:20-23).

The problem with external rules is that they do nothing to change the heart. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19). When rules and regulations don’t work, we may move on to memorizing Scripture:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? …So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Rom. 6:12). “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Scripture memory too is a good thing. However, if you’re like me, you may start thinking “OK, when temptation comes I’ll just quote five verses and I’ll be fine.” That is doomed to fail because you are relying on your own strength again. The same is true of the “power of positive thinking”— “I am dead to sin;” “I am a new creation;” “I can say no to sin.” Even though those things are true, simply adopting them as a new mantra doesn’t automatically stop temptation in its tracks.

Though I have done all of the above, the one thing that was most helpful to me has been to acknowledge to God my complete inadequacy to resist temptation and pray that He would guard me from its presence and power. It didn’t work to wait for temptation to come before trying to remember to pray. Rather, I asked that He would keep me away from sources of temptation. I am still a work in progress. We’re all still works in progress.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13). God is the only One who can answer that prayer. But again, we can’t just mindlessly recite the Lord’s Prayer every day and expect it to make a difference. Prayer is just one small part of a lifestyle of depending on God’s strength and not our own. The fact is, there is no five-step program to overcome sin. We can pursue all kinds of spiritual disciplines and yet still be enslaved to habitual sins. And different things may be helpful to different people.

We will all struggle with sin in varying degrees as long as we live. It is a lifelong process of being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2) and becoming conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). Sanctification is God’s work just as much as justification was His work. But we can trust that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6b).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

A Few Words

There are parts of The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis, that read almost like a Social Media User’s Guide for 2020:

Section 1 chapter 3- “If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, where would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations.”

1-4- “Not to act rashly or to cling obstinately to one’s opinion, not to believe everything people say or to spread abroad the gossip on has heard, is great wisdom.”

1-6- “A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace.”

1-9- “Everyone, it is true, wishes to do as he pleases and is attracted to those who agree with him. But if God be among us, we must at times give up our opinions for the blessing of peace.”

1-11- “We should enjoy much peace if we did not concern ourselves with what others say and do, for these are no concern of ours. How can a man who meddles in affairs not his own, who seeks strange distractions, and who is little or seldom inwardly recollected, live long in peace?”

1-12- “It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts.”

1-14- “Differences of feeling and opinion often divide friends and acquaintances, even those who are religious and devout.”

1-16- “Try to bear patiently with the defects and infirmities of others, whatever they may be, because you also have many a fault which others must endure.”

1-20- “If you withdraw yourself from unnecessary talking and idle running about, from listening to gossip and rumors, you will find enough time that is suitable for holy meditation…

“No man appears in safety before the public eye unless he first relishes obscurity. No men is safe in speaking unless he loves to be silent. No man rules safely unless he is willing to be ruled. No man commands safely unless he has learned well how to obey.”

1-23- “If you had a good conscience you would not fear death very much. It is better to avoid sin than to fear death. If you are not prepared today, how will you be prepared tomorrow? Tomorrow is an uncertain day; how do you know you will have a tomorrow?”

2-7- “You will quickly be deceived if you look only to the outward appearance of men, and you will often be disappointed if you seek comfort and gain in them. If, however, you seek Jesus in all things, you will surely find Him.”

2-11- “Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross… All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him.”

“When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips [and fingers] is prudent” (Proverbs 10:19).

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(Disclaimer- there are other parts of the book that have serious theological issues, and therefore I do not recommend it as devotional reading.)

 © 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.