Tag: Jesus

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How to Find Lasting Joy

Life can so easily get us down. Most of the time we ask, how can we survive? Lasting joy seems utterly out of reach.

The Stoics were a group of people in the ancient world who sought to find lasting joy while living a normal life. They wanted to move past depression, anxiety, anger, worry, and all the other negative emotions that often dominate our lives.

The Stoics were not, contrary to the common misconception, proposing that we be emotionless. They wanted to experience the blessing of positive emotions and minimize the impact of negative emotions. As the Stoic Seneca (4 B.C.–A.D. 65) wrote in his Letters to Lucilius: “Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business. Learn how to feel joy” (Letter XXIII, 55).

In this article, I want to explain how the Stoics suggested that you could find joy and then compare and contrast it with a biblical view of joy based on 1 Peter 1:3–9.

With so many hard and even awful things, how did these ancient writers think that you could find joy?

1. Let go of unnecessary negative emotions. According to the Stoics, there are many things that keep us from lasting joy that do not need to. For example, most of the things we worry about never happen and are not even likely to happen. We get nervous even when things are going well. As Seneca said: “The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to any evil” (XIII, 28). Even if bad things could possibly happen, “It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time” (XXIV, 57).

2. Don’t seek your joy in changeable things. People, pleasures, and places can bring us joy. However, if they are the ultimate source of joy, then we will inevitably lose that joy when we lose those things. Seneca put it this way: “For his joy depends on nothing external and looks for no boon from man or Fortune” (LXXI, 190). For example, if our joy depends on our business doing well, we will lose our joy when our business fails. If our joy depends on laboring honestly, then we have a source of joy that is independent of circumstances (or fortune).

3. Re-interpret suffering and hard things. The Stoics did not seek out suffering. They believed that one could live a virtuous life in spite of suffering. They also saw that living rightly in the face of suffering could actually strengthen a person. Seneca compared learning to live virtuously in the face of suffering with training to fight well:

The only contestant who can confidently enter the lists [i.e., engage in the conflict] is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary’s charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever (XIII, 26).

Responding well to suffering strengthens our character, and that is just one of the many ways we can reinterpret suffering to de-fang it.

4. Find a source of joy independent of fortune or circumstance. For the Stoics, that source was within oneself. Seneca said: “Do you ask me what this real good is, and whence it derives? I will tell you: it comes from a good conscience, from honourable purpose, from the right actions, from contempt of the gifts of chance, from an even and calm way of living which treads but one path” (XXIII, 55). Living rightly and responding well to what happens is something you can always do and that fortune and circumstance can never take away.

I think there is much to commend the Stoic perspective. We should let go of unnecessary worries, not found our joy on changing things, see the benefit of suffering, and find a joy independent of our circumstances. In my view, there is a large overlap with the Christian perspective, but there are important areas where our faith takes up the good insights of Stoicism and provides a much more solid context for lasting joy. Consider this in light of 1 Peter 1:3–9.

1. Christianity like Stoicism calls us from placing our joy in changeable things. Peter recognized that this world would bring us suffering and take away from us things that we value and find joy in: “You may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials” (1:6).

2. Christianity reinterprets suffering in a way similar to Stoicism. Suffering builds character. 1 Peter 1:7 is a bit difficult to translate, but the point is that suffering is like fire that makes your faith shine forth. When Jesus Christ is revealed, it will result in praise, glory, and honor.

3. Christianity finds joy in our character. We rejoice in the salvation of our souls, of who we are as human (1:9). We are being re-made, and this is something the world cannot take away from us. What is truly valuable that we possess? Our faith. It is of greater worth than gold (1:7).

4. Christianity finds joy in a relationship with Jesus. Here is where Christianity puts us on much better ground than Stoicism in finding lasting joy. There is a relationship with someone that is not changeable and is a source of continual affirmation and love. “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy . . .” (1:8).

5. Christianity finds joy in the hope that all things will turn out well. Again, Christianity here redeems the insights of the natural world. It promises a world where the suffering we experience will be eliminated. It provides us a certain and unalterable hope that does not change based on circumstance. We have been born again into a new hope and an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. “In this, you greatly rejoice” (1 Pet. 1:6).

Stoicism represents one of the best human attempts to find lasting joy, and it is one from which we can learn much. As the Church Father Tertullian said, “Seneca is often one of us.” However, our faith provides us with a source of joy that is far better than anything the mind of man could have imagined: virtue based on God’s powerful transformation, a relationship with someone who will always love us, and a hope that will not disappoint. That is a sure ground for lasting joy, if we can learn to see it.

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Don’t Be Afraid

“Don’t be afraid.” That’s what the angel told the women who had come to Jesus’ tomb only to find it empty.

A few moments later, these same women met Jesus. “Don’t be afraid.” Jesus told them.

Don’t be afraid. The first words after the resurrection.

It’s not really surprising for two reasons. First, in the biblical revelation, this always seem to be the first word: Fear not! Second, we are a fearful people, and so we need this reassuring word.

Two of my daughters both recently bought a guinea pig (read a story about this here). They are adorable and fun to watch, but they are also very nervous. With the slightest movement towards them, they will scurry off into their little house. They are filled with anxiety and fear.

The more I’ve watched these guinea pigs, the more I’ve realized: we’re guinea pigs! We’re just like them.

Anytime anything surprises us, we start worrying, withdrawing, or attacking. Why? We have anxiety. We are afraid.

What happens anytime we get an unexpected tax, car, home, or health bill? Like guinea pigs, we start scurrying. This happens to me all the time. When I think over the past decade, I can think of very few times, if any, where I’ve failed to pay a bill. But as soon as I get a bill that I didn’t plan, what happens? I start to worry and think, Oh no! What am I going to do?

“Don’t be afraid.” Jesus says.

And what do we fear? We fear all kinds of things. We fear all sorts of threats from terrorists, world powers, and armies, like people feared the Roman army in Jesus’ day.

If there are any human beings that didn’t seem guinea piggish, it was Roman soldiers. These guys were the toughest of the tough. These soldiers would not stop in face of the most terrible enemies. One time, the great general Hannibal destroyed 80% of a Roman army at the Battle of Cannae. The soldiers at the front escaped because they would just keep moving forward no matter what. The problem was the tactics. They couldn’t turn well during the battle and so got surrounded and destroyed. Once Scipio Africanus developed new tactics for the Roman army, these tough Roman soldiers crushed the Carthaginian Empire. Roman soldiers were disciplined and tough.

However, when the angel of the Lord came down to roll away the tomb appearing like lightning, these tough Roman soldiers fell to the ground like dead men. The most powerful army of the day faded away before the awesome power of the resurrected Christ and His army.

Don’t be afraid, even of the most powerful army on earth!

And what about death? In many ways, this is the anxiety behind all anxiety. But Christ has defeated it! He appeared before the women having conquered this great enemy. So, when we face our great enemy, we don’t have to fear either. The Christ who is with us has already met death, looked it in the face, and crushed it.

Don’t be afraid.

And what about Jesus Himself? Encountering someone so powerful who conquered death can itself be a scary thing. That’s why the women were full of joy at the news of Christ’s resurrection but also terrified (Mt. 28:8). How can you relate to Him? I think that’s the main reason Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid.” He wanted them to know that as powerful as He was, He was the same Jesus who did not break a bruised reed or put out a smoking wick.

When Jesus talked with the women, He said, “Go, tell my brothers” (Mt. 28:10). It’s a touching term. They are part of Jesus’ family, and we can be, too. We don’t have to be afraid. Jesus welcomes all of us into His family as a free gift. We just have to say “yes” to it. Then, we can be baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Mt. 28:19) and be assured that Jesus will always be with us.

That’s the message of Easter. Don’t be afraid. Christ has come. Christ has risen. Christ has conquered. Don’t be afraid.

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Rest for Your Soul

Where do you go to find rest for your soul?

Is it in fellowship with a person? Getting everything done so you can relax? Some sort of pleasure?

Most things that we think will provide rest for our souls will not do so. In fact, a little reflection on our experience would show us how elusive our quest for rest has been.

Why do we continually pursue possessions, entertainment, vacations, and people as if they would provide the real rest for our souls that we are looking for?

Part of the reason is the messages we are bombarded every day: Live más! If you really want to live, get Taco Bell! You haven’t moved across the earth unless you’ve gotten the latest car! You aren’t significant unless your clothes have the Nike symbol on them (amazing how Nike has convinced almost every teenage boy to believe this. Congratulations, Nike!). You haven’t really lived unless you’ve gone to Australia or Sandals or . . . Message after message tells us the same thing, and we probably don’t even realize that this is shaping our view of the world.

The amazing thing is that all the great teachers of the world, Christian or not, agree on this: the things that commercials promise will make us happy won’t make us happy, won’t make us better, and won’t bring us lasting joy.

These teachers agree. Instead of joy and happiness being found in circumstances and things, joy is found in a state of soul that can be content whatever the situation.

Marcus Aurelius wrote his book Meditations on this very topic. How can a person find true happiness amid the shocks of life? He wrote this book to help himself find contentment even while in the midst of battle defending the borders of the Roman Empire. Here is just one example of his analysis:

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and you, too, are wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself. . . . tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind (4.3).

Happiness is a matter of character not of place or possessions.

The Christian faith takes this one step further. According to the Christian faith, it is the state of our soul that is most important. However, it is not primarily something we achieve but a gift we receive that makes the difference. The gift is a relationship with God in which we find joy and contentment because God gives us what we need, and we receive it by faith.

According to the Bible, in a relationship with God, we have joy, peace, acceptance, security, and purpose. Our struggle comes from lacking these things. Our restoration is when we can enjoy these things, and each of us can enjoy them at any time, if we will accept the fellowship with God that He offers us.

Enjoyment of this relationship is available to anyone at any time in any place in any condition.

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How to Grow — Seeing the God Who Pursues Us

In my previous posts on the subject of how to grow, I explained that the human predicament involves our neediness and anxiety and our wrong and sinful way of dealing with it. The Gospel tells us that the God who meets our needs pursues us and wants to have a relationship with us through Jesus Christ. This relationship meets our needs in the way we were designed to function.

So, the largest part of our growth is seeing the God who meets all our needs.

We need to remember that us having a relationship with our Creator is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. If the Creator of the universe who is all-sufficient in Himself said, “I want you to be my son or daughter,” that would be an astonishing thing. For the Creator to say to those who had sinned and rejected Him and turned away from Him to find their own way, “I want you to be my son or daughter,” is almost inexplicable.

But God has done more than that. He pursued us. He went after us. He sought us out. That’s what Christmas is all about. God pursuing man to the point of becoming a human being so that we might reconnect with Him; God bearing our sin on the cross so that all the impediments to the reconnecting might be removed; and God overcoming sin in the resurrection to heal us and make us new.

Jewish Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explains that this is what the Bible is all about. He writes, “Most theories of religion start out with defining the religious situation as man’s search for God . . . [but, a]ll of human history as described in the Bible may be summarized in one phrase: God is in search of man (emphasis his, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, p. 136).

Our central problem is thinking that our needs won’t be met or finding them met somewhere else. Our restoration is seeing that all our needs are met in the God who pursues us.

The key thing, then, is to think about what God has done. There are many ways in which you can do this. You could take a passage of Scripture such as John 3:16 and meditate on it. You could memorize a larger passage such as Ephesians 1:1–14. You may have a different way. The key thing is to remember what God has done and how it benefits us. Let me suggest a few ways we can use to think more about what God has done for us.

Categories of Needs
One of the most helpful ways that I have found, for myself and those whom I have taught, is to explain what God does for us is by considering categories of needs.

  1. Acceptance – we need love more than anything, and we are accepted in the beloved (Jesus, see Eph. 1:7). Our sin would make us unacceptable, but God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).
  2. Security – we are worried about our future, but God will turn everything to our good and take care of us. He will also keep us from falling and lead us to His eternal kingdom.
  3. Power – we have limited strength and often inability to do good. The Lord Jesus has risen from the dead and conquered sin. He empowers us by His grace to live a new life.
  4. Guidance – we often do not know what to do, but Jesus is our teacher who shows us the right way to live and think.

You can slice this up different ways, but I suspect that most people’s lists will come down to something like this.

The Trinity
One way to think of salvation is in terms of the particular blessings that are ascribed to us in the Bible as pertaining especially to one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

  1. The Father – The Father loved us so much that He sent His Son into the world to save us. He governs all things by His power for our sake. He cares for us so much that not a hair can fall from our Head without His permission.
  2. The Son – The Son willingly came into this world to suffer the terrible death on the cross, the just suffering for the unjust, to bring us back to God. United to Him, our sin is atoned for and our shame is covered. In Him, we have life, wisdom, strength, and communion with God.
  3. The Holy Spirit – The Holy Spirit dwells in each believer and is our companion every single day. He provides for us comfort, hope, guidance, direction, purpose, and love, applying to us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ (Eph. 1:3).

We are baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and have all these benefits. We live out our baptism by appropriating and meditating on the love the Triune God has for us.

The Work of Christ
One of the most ancient statements of faith of the Christian church is the Apostle’s Creed. It describes Jesus who became a human being, suffered, died, rose again, and is ascended into heaven. The Heidelberg Catechism (see Q/A 29–52) and Westminster Larger Catechism (see Q/A 46–56) describe in detail what each aspect of Jesus’ life means for us. Here is a brief summary:

  1. Incarnation – God identifies with us, wants to connect with us, and covers our imperfection with His perfection.
  2. Death – He suffers the penalty of sin in our place so all that separates us from God can be eliminated.
  3. Resurrection – He rises to a new life that becomes ours in connection with Him, a life that recreates us in the way we were intended to be.
  4. Ascension – Christ intercedes for us with the Father and continually secures our access to and connection with the Father.
  5. Return – Christ brings the hope that all things will be restored. What He begins in this life will come to full fruition in the new heavens and new earth.

The whole life of Christ is for our benefit and contains the sum of the blessings of God for us. Meditating on this helps us see that in Christ we have all we need.

The Order of Salvation
The Holy Spirit applies to us the benefits of salvation in our lives that Christ has won for us when He came to earth. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (see Q/A 29 38) gives a succinct discussion of this. Here is another summary:

  1. Calling – the Lord comes to us and call us back to Himself. By His Spirit He enables us to respond to that call and be restored to relationship with Him.
  2. Justification – God declares us righteous and acquitted of our sins because of what Jesus has done for us.
  3. Adoption – we are not only forgiven but given the status of sons and daughters of God, heirs of all things with Christ.
  4. Sanctification – God not only forgives and adopts us but changes us and restores us to what He originally intended us to be.
  5. Perseverance – God keeps us in faith by His grace so that we can continue to grow and remain secure in the blessings He won for us.
  6. Glorification – At our death, our souls are made perfectly cleansed of all sin and brought into His presence. At the resurrection, our bodies are restored to live in perfect harmony with Him, one another, and with creation for all eternity.

This is the way that the Holy Spirit enables us to experience the blessings of a relationship with God.

Biblical Theology
Systematic theology looks at what Scriptures says about particular topics such as forgiveness, the Trinity, Christ, etc. Biblical theology consider God’s revelation as a story. One way to think of what God has done for us is to think in terms of the history of revelation in the Old Testament and to think of how it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. There are many different ways to do this, but let me suggest one way here.

  1. Abraham – God calls us to be sons and daughters of Abraham through faith and to experience blessing instead of curse in the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ.
  2. Exodus – God frees us from the dominion and tyranny of sin and the devil and leads us out of the darkness into a glorious inheritance of life and hope.
  3. Moses – God sends Jesus to be a prophet like Moses and to teach us the way of salvation and guide us into a life that is pleasing to Him.
  4. David – God sends a King to rule us and deliver us from all His enemies and ours and to establish a reign of blessing in our lives.
  5. Exile – God calls us out of our exile and slavery to experience a restored life, forgiveness, and blessing with His people.

You could flesh these things out further in order to think more on the details of what God has done. Here you can definitely use your imagination to see what God is doing in the Old Testament and how it is fulfilled in the New.

These are just a few ways for thinking about how God pursues us. The key thing is that we have some ways to think about what God is doing and to see it in our mind’s eye more constantly and more clearly. We will talk about how to do that in the next installment.

Discussion Questions
1. Do you think more of you pursuing God or God pursuing you?
2. What way of describing God’s pursuit of us resonated with you the most and why?
3. What ways have you found helpful in the past for thinking about God’s love and pursuit of you?
4. What specific benefits of fellowship with God do you think would answer your current challenges, neediness, and sin?

________

This is part of a 7 part series on how to grow. Read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

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Do You Let Jesus Challenge You?

“Do you hate your father and mother?” I asked one woman in our church.

“No.” She replied.

“Then, you cannot be Jesus’ disciple.” I answered.

She looked at me like I was crazy, but my question was based on Jesus’ statement to a large crowd, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Of course, I don’t think Jesus literally wanted us to hate our parents, our siblings, or ourselves. So, why did Jesus say something so crazy?

I wonder if Jesus saw all these crowds and thought, “How can I get them to think about what I’m really asking them to do? How can I get them to see that I am the only one that can give them hope?” So, Jesus said something that would arrest them and make them think. It wouldn’t be the first time that Jesus had said something like that.

So, what was Jesus after?

Here’s my thought. Human beings were made to find their hope, security, blessedness, happiness, direction, purpose, and acceptance in God. He is the ultimate source of these things. All other things, even the best things like parent-child and husband-wife relationships are secondary and impossible substitutes for this divine relationship. This relationship must come first and have no peer.

Our problem is that we get it backwards. Where do we go for our comfort, security, and acceptance? Those closest to us. This is actually what creates most relationship problems. We look for a spouse, a child, or a parent to give us the affirmation and acceptance that only God can give.

So, Jesus is telling us that we have to turn that around. Our relationship with God comes first. Everything else must be relativized in comparison with Him.

It is also important to recognize that our relationship with Jesus is not a relationship of equals. Jesus defines the terms and sets the agenda. He does not enter into our life and just add something to it. He asks us to do things that conflict with our own desires. This is what he means when He says that anyone who follows after Him must “hate their own lives.”

If we are to follow Jesus, our relationships and agenda may have to give way to Jesus’ agenda and the relationship He wants to have with us.

This week I had lunch with a friend and fellow Jesus follower. He gave me an interesting example of how this works out. He loves to run, and he told me that he had given up running because He felt that He needed to spend more time in communion with Jesus. Giving up his running time was the best way to do it. It was hard, but it was worth it.

I, on the other hand, have recently started running. I have done it because of Jesus. I have realized that I want to increase my own strength, energy, and capacity for endurance so I can serve the Lord better. Running once a week is one way that I am trying to do this.

It’s the same Jesus who is calling us in different ways to give up our own lives in following Him.

It begins with letting Jesus challenge you. It begins with saying to Jesus, “I have my agenda, but what is yours, Jesus?” Have you ever said that to Him?

And why would we do this? Because Jesus’ agenda is better than our own.

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