Christian Living

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In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit to being a friend of Trisha Priebe; well, in so far as those relationships from college go. But we are Facebook friends, and I’ve been anticipating this book, Trust, Hope, Pray, since I first read her status update nearly two years ago about sleeping with a book contract under her pillow.

Co-authored with her husband Luke, Trust, Hope, Pray first took shape in their personal journals while they were waiting for an international adoption to be finalized. As they sought spiritual guidance for their long, often frustrating journey, they realized that not much Christian literature is devoted to the task of waiting on God. Trisha, who works in publishing, and Luke, who is finishing his M.Div. from Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary (and who together admittedly have a “book budget bigger than their grocery bill”), felt God leading them to contribute to the conversation through their own experience.

Trust, hope, pray, wait

The book is comprised of 365 page-length entries that explore what it is to trust, hope, pray, and wait. Each entry begins with a verse on one of those themes and includes the Priebe’s reflections and experiences, as well as quotes from notable Christian authors and hymn writers. In this sense, the book is designed as devotional literature and is not intended to be read in one continuous flow.

I began Trust, Hope, Pray nearly a year after my own family had been in a holding pattern of sorts and immediately recognized the wisdom of structuring the book in this way. When you are enduring a difficult season of waiting, your spirit very easily becomes worn out, overwhelmed, and exhausted. In such seasons, the last thing you are able to read is an extensive theological analysis of waiting. In these times, what you need most are daily, quiet, simple reminders of what you already know: God is in control, He loves you, and you must continue to trust Him.

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. (NASB, 1 Peter 1:22-23)

Please do not misunderstand my intention here. This is not meant to be an essay about warm, fuzzy love or the mushy sentiment the world advertises as true love. This is not about abandoning truth and all that is doctrinally sound. This is not going to be a post about compromising theological precision for the sake of a common unity that comes with superficial love and approval of sinful words and deeds. My intent is to turn our attention, as believers, to a broader understanding of what Peter tells suffering Christians scattered in various places.

Before I begin, my desire is to encourage believers to follow the many commands in Scripture which require us to “walk wisely” (Eph. 5:15, Matt. 10:16, Rom. 16:19). All of us should examine what we are being taught with a healthy, rigorous intellect when it comes to following the Bereans’ example (Mark 12:30, Acts 17:11). We, in the church, often become dazzled and mesmerized by ear-tickling sermons about love which has a tendency to puff us up and feed the inner nature of man, particularly if these sermons are centered on our perceived inherent worth and value apart from Jesus Christ.

The following is an excerpt from a series of essays entitled “Towards Conservative Christian Church” (parts 17 and 18). The series continues at Towards Conservative Christianity as well as Religious Affections.

Cultivating affections

One of the most difficult tasks facing the conservative Christian pastor is teaching that the affections are shaped, and that Christians ought to give attention to what shapes them.

Once again, most Christians live with an incorrect view of the affections. They see the emotions as more or less reactions to various stimuli. In that sense, their focus is merely on controlling (or suppressing) emotional expression. They become oblivious to the whole discussion of shaping or molding the affections, and tend to regard such discussions as extra-biblical pontificating or even legalism.

However, if we see the affections as expressions of value or worth, or more simply, our loves, it becomes obvious that what we love or treasure or value can be shaped. We do not love all things immediately, but learn or acquire some loves over time. We can grow certain loves, and weaken others.

The problem we encounter is that the loves are not under our direct control. While some of our loves may have been pursued by an act of will, others have been picked up without our knowing why. Many of our loves are loves that grew because of what our family loved, what our peers loved, what was loved by people we respected. Some loves came very late in life, while some were there early. Some loves were hard to develop, while others seemed almost natural. Not many people can explain why they love what they love without some serous thought. The affections do not come by sheer acts of will.

Gospel Meditations for Men is a book published recently by ChurchWorks Media and authored by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak. Copies are available at ChurchWorksMedia.com.

Day 5—The Basis For True Humility

Read Isaiah 6

Woe is me! For I am lost…for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah 6:5

Humans—and perhaps men in particular—are nothing if not proud. We love ourselves, promote ourselves, and defend ourselves. Arrogance is sewn into our fallen nature. The problem is this: God detests pride. Proverbs 16:5 says that the proud person (not just pride as an impersonal concept) is an abomination to God. James 4:6 teaches that God actively opposes the proud. Pride is dangerous and foolish. Spurgeon described pride as “a groundless thing” and “a brainless thing” and “the maddest thing that can exist” (in a sermon preached on August 17, 1856).

How, then, can we cultivate humility? Is it a way of walking or speaking? Is it an “Aw, shucks” personality? A self-loathing? On what is true humility based? Scripture answers these questions definitively in Isaiah 6:1-7. True humility begins with a right estimation of God.

Our humility grows when we recognize God’s unrivaled majesty. The prophet Isaiah was given the unfathomable privilege of seeing God’s majesty (6:1)—the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ, according to John 12:41! Jehovah was enthroned in the temple, which shook beneath His sovereignty (6:1, 4). His robe had a vast train which testified of His splendor (6:1). He was identified as “the King” and “the Lord of hosts” (think “Commander in Chief,” 6:5). His reign outshone the recently ended reign of King Uzziah (6:1). Whereas Uzziah had died, Jehovah lives. Whereas Uzziah’s reign was limited in time and sphere, Jehovah’s is infinite. There is no King like Christ. We too would be humbled if we would see God in all of His majesty.

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You truly cannot judge a book by its cover or its title. In John Ensor’s book, Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart, I would suggest that neither the cover nor the title do justice to this outstanding book. Neither does the title fully relay its critical contents. Based upon the title, I assumed that this book was another nouthetic counseling book about the heart. Instead, I found a profoundly well-written “heart surgery” book on the roles of men and women as it relates to real life, both before marriage and in marriage. In his book, Ensor declares that his objective “is to provide a winsomely radical alternative to the prevailing ideas, almost absolute doctrines, that guide our current thinking about manhood and womanhood and define our actions and expectations when pursuing matters of the heart.” (p. 15). In a footnote, he likens his book to a user-friendly, basic version of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by Piper and Grudem (p. 20).

Ensor approaches this with a somewhat unique background of twenty five years of pastoral counseling, including twelve years as a pastor, and fifteen helping to establish pregnancy help centers in the Boston area, and at the time of publishing, he was helping to start five pregnancy centers in the neediest neighborhoods in Miami. Repeatedly he has seen the results of lives pursuing what the world demanded they pursue, only to come up empty-handed, hurt, diseased, ashamed, broken, and unfulfilled. He is not writing from theory. Ensor’s approach examines Scripture as it clashes with the heart of culture today from a firsthand experience.

In the first section of the book, Ensor attempts “to get to the heart of manhood and womanhood according to the Bible. What does it mean to be a man and not a woman? What is distinctively meaningful about being a woman and not a man? What marks the mature man? What does it mean to be, dare I say, a godly man? What marks the mature and godly woman and makes her attractive and fulfilled? How do we complement and fit together?” (p. 20-21) He offers that our culture’s “forced upon” solution to its underlying thirst is precisely opposite to what the Creator actually designed. Further, what the Creator designed is ultimately what the world craves after its solutions leave it broken and shattered.