The Desire of Your Heart

Whenever we take Joy to a department store, she always convinces Poppy to head to the toy section. Up and down the aisles I hear “I want that, Poppy!” “I want that!” You and I are just like her. Our wants drive us to go places, make purchases, establish relationships, and yes, sin. It all starts with the desires of our hearts.

Go back to the garden with Adam and Eve. When the serpent tempted her, he didn’t say, “Look at this luscious fruit, Eve. It’s so tasty and pretty! Why, this fruit is full of wisdom. Don’t you want wisdom, Eve?” He let Eve tap into her own desires to make her decision. “The woman saw that the fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, [so] she took some and ate it” (Gen 3:6).

Was it wrong for her to desire tasty, pretty food? Was it wrong for her to want wisdom? Not at all. The garden was full of food she was welcome to (2:16) and God would surely have told her anything she needed or wanted to know (Jas 1:5). Instead, she went after the one thing God had forbidden.

That’s the same picture James painted when he wrote, “Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed” (Jas 1:14). Remember Eve’s desire for food and wisdom were not wrong desires. But now with the introduction of sin, man’s desires are often laced with evil, and that evil desire – the original language called it “lust” – drives us all the harder to attain whatever it is we want.

Is there any hope for our wicked, evil hearts? Yes! David said, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart, (Ps 37:4). The answer is to desire God. Like Joy, whatever we want we will pursue. If we want toys, we’ll head to the toy aisle. If we want fruit, we’ll go to the tree (or the produce section of the grocery store). If we want immorality, we’ll search it out until we find it. And if we desire God – well, we don’t have to look far, because He promises we will find Him (Jer 29:13).

Because of our sinful natures desiring God is not our default. But you can ask Him for it. Here’s a prayer that God will honor: “Lord, cause me to want you above every other thing. Make Yourself the desire of my heart.” And He will.

The Problem is Sin, The Answer is Jesus

My back hurts. Low and on the left side. I “googled” my symptoms and found out that I may have endometriosis, kidney stones, IBS, sciatica, muscle weakness, muscle imbalance, and muscle strain. These are due to how I sit, how I stand, how I sleep, how strenuously I work out (bwahahaha), and how I twist my back when I swing a golf club. No, I don’t play golf, but I’m looking for any excuse here because I know what’s really wrong with my back – it’s my front. It’s all the excess girth sitting in my tummy area. I’m trying to lose weight, but then Reese’s made Peanut Butter Cups with potato chips.

When you and I look at the world and the horrible things that human beings do to one another we want to ask “Why?” The news broke yesterday of another tragic shooting that left many families grieving.  Immorality is being celebrated and paraded. Babies are murdered in what should be the safest place on earth – their mother’s womb.  I shake my head and wonder, “Why?” Even in my own life, when I do things I know I should not do, I look in the mirror and ask myself the same question. I suspect you do too.

But I know why, and so do you. Sin. Sin opened the door wide for all these evil things to become part of the human story – part of me and part of you. Sin breeds hate and greed and selfishness and lust and every manner of evil. It is the curse of rebellion against God. When Adam and Eve bit the fruit, mankind was doomed to live in enmity with God, condemned by the sinful nature that has invaded every person for all time. Except one. In Romans 7, Paul lamented that sinful part of himself. He also asked a question – but it wasn’t “Why?” He knew why. “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (v. 18). He asked instead, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (v. 24). And then he answered his own question: “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25) Jesus Christ changes everything. He breaks the curse of sin and He transforms our hearts so that redemption – not sin – is our forever story.

Beloved, you were born a sinful creature, but God sent His one and only Son to set you free. You know what the problem is, and now you know the answer. Won’t you come to Jesus today?

I AM: The Light of the World

Jesus was constantly claiming to be God. In subtle hints, in mighty works, and in bold statements. When He declared, “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), it was an unmistakable claim. Every first-century Jew knew that the first creative act of God was to bring forth light. God spoke, into a formless, empty darkness: ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen 1:2,3). That is why this I AM statement was so audacious.

John called Jesus “The light of men” (Jn 1:4) and “the true light that gives light to every man” (v. 9). Light so that men might find their way back to God. Darkness, by definition, is nothing more than the absence of light. Sin has filled the world like darkness fills a room with no illumination. I was in a cavern once and the guide turned off the electric lights in the space. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face. Then he lit a match, and the space was no longer filled with darkness. The light chased the darkness away.

John said, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5). In other words, sin and evil will not overcome the light of God through Christ Jesus. Sin will not win. Ever. Wherever darkness resides, when Jesus comes in, He takes over. He fills the space with His light. That’s good news to those of us who have loved ones in darkness. Jesus can change the darkest human heart.

After his bold I AM statement, Jesus said, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” I used to think that was an imperative statement – like “you are not to walk in darkness” complete with wagging finger – but it really is a description. In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). That’s you and me and every follower. We will never walk in darkness because we carry His light with us wherever we go.  And when we bring the light of Christ into a dark space – well I think you know the rest. Darkness cannot survive in the presence of Light.

The world needs the light of Jesus and you are His light-bearer. Go be light for your loved one, your friend, your classmates, co-workers, and yes, even your enemies. Light is irresistible in a dark place. Beloved, let’s go light up the world.

Taking Back the Church

I have come to believe that it’s time for believers to fight for our faith. Not with pitchforks or guns or verbal attacks across the aisle. There’s a better way and it will do us well to learn it and live it. Join me in the book of Jude.

His opening words set the tone: “I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (v. 3). Jude wrote about the danger of “godless men” slipping into the church to “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (v. 4). If ever a verse applied to the church, it is this. It is appalling and grievous to see the immoral condition of the Body of Christ. But it’s also apparent that this has been going on for a very long time.

Jude warned his readers that these wicked people have no regard for the things of God. Their motive is to cause disruption and discord – “these are the men who divide you (v. 19). They are: grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves, flatter others for their own advantage . . . follow mere natural instincts, and do not have the Spirit” (v. 16, 19). I know Jude was talking about his own day, but it’s almost as if he was peering into the future – to the twenty-first century.

So how do we fight? How do we take our church back from the vile hands of wicked people? Jude gave the battle plan: “But you, dear friends, built yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (vs. 20-21). That’s it? How is that “contending” for the faith? Where’s the fight? In the spiritual realm.  Paul said it best: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). We chase away darkness by introducing light. We drive away wickedness by living in righteousness.

The truth is Beloved, you’re in this battle whether you wanted to be or not, so you’d better learn how to fight. Put down your pitchfork and pick up your Bible.  We’ll reclaim the church by being the holy people of God.

The Chasm

As this year comes to a close, I find myself wondering how much longer the human race can survive. With wars and violence and hatred and abuse all across the globe, and the rise of sexual perversion taking firm root in the culture. It seems we’ve turned right and wrong upside-down. But if you study the Bible you are not completely shocked. Isaiah prophesied a day when evil will be called good and good evil (Is 5:20).  Unless you’re living under a rock, you know we’re there – even in the church. Paul warned “The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim 4:3). We’ve seen this sad reality as every kind of sin has been welcomed and celebrated by the “church” in recent years. But where the line between “right and wrong” has been so blurred, it must become more clearly defined. The fence is getting to hot to sit on much longer.

Scripture tells us that the chasm between the people of God and the people of wickedness will get wider as the day draws near. And how does a chasm grow? Quakes and tremors deep in the earth. The same is true for the church. We are experiencing the “birth pains” of that chasm growing as faithful Christians are separating themselves from those on the side of wickedness. Again, if you know the Scriptures, you are not surprised. Daniel 12:10 says – “Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked.” And Jesus said, “Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right and let him who is holy continue to be holy.” (Rev. 22:11).

So what does that mean for you and me? We are the church. We are the Body of Christ. We must make a stand for what is right and true – but it must come from the conviction of our own hearts. It’s not enough to rant about the sin in the church or the world if we’re not ready to confess the sin in our lives.  Beloved, you and I must separate ourselves from sin and wickedness. The quakes and tremors have to start here. May we be a generation of faithful, holy people.

Deeper Roots or Deeper Rots

When I post my daily devotionals on the web, I add an introductory statement that always invites readers to my blog, “Deeper Roots.” But if I’m typing fast – as I tend to do – “Deeper Roots” often becomes “Deeper Rots” (and sometimes “Deeper Toots,” but I’m not going there). When I did that the other day I realized that those two words – Rots and Roots – described the spiritual condition of humanity.

Those who do not know the Lord Jesus have rotten spirits and are marked by all sorts of evil – evil that goes down deep and affects the heart and the mind and spills over onto the lips and the eyes and the feet and the hands. Rotten spirits produce rotten fruit: “sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery: idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like.” Paul noted that “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:19-21). I realize that this is not warm and fuzzy, but it is the truth from the Word of God. And we have to confront the darkness inside us before we recognize our need for Light.

But those who have taken hold of the Light, who belong to and live for the Lord Jesus have different spirits – spirits that “take root below and bear fruit above” (2 Kings 19:30). Fruit like “love, Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Their roots are set deeply in the Word and Spirit of God. They are “like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). Their roots draw water from the never-ending stream of God’s love. These are the sons and daughters of God who will inherit the Kingdom. And just as we saw with those who have rotten spirits, the condition of the heart affects every part of who we are– how we think, how we feel, what we say, what we look at, where we go, and what we do.

So which is it for you? Deeper Roots or deeper rots? Lush fruit or rotten fruit? The Kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness? Jesus or the world? The choice you make today determines it all. Choose well, Beloved.

Pointing Fingers

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do good, but I cannot carry it out” Romans 7:18
One of the biggest challenges of being a Bible teacher is the tension between expressing what the Bible says about sin and recognizing my own sinful nature. How can I stand before a class or post something I’ve written that tells others “how to live” when I fail so often in my own walk? Who do I think I am?
That’s why I find great comfort in Paul’s letters. Paul addresses every kind of sin we can imagine – sexual sin, lying, stealing, hate, laziness, idolatry, marital unfaithfulness, abuse, self-centeredness, drunkenness, and yes even gluttony (Ouch!). He is very outspoken about sin and points a finger wherever he sees it. But he also points a finger back at himself. Paul frequently admits his own human failure to walk the walk of which he talks. In Romans 7, he laments this all too common push-and-pull of righteousness vs. sin. “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (v. 15). “The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (v. 19). From Paul’s words, we realize that the sinful nature we inherited from Adam constantly “wages war” against our new nature in Christ (v. 23).
So what do we – as those called to share the gospel and the truth of righteousness – do with that conflict? First, we stop focusing on ourselves. That’s a guarantee to keep failing. Instead, we follow Paul’s example and shift our focus upward. He wrapped up his lament, by recognizing his failure: “What a wretched man I am!” He admitted his need for a savior: “Who will rescue me from the body of death?” Then he rejoiced in the goodness and faithfulness of God: “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (vv. 24-25).
You and I are part of the fallen human race, and even though we have trusted in Christ as our Savior, we still fall to our sinful nature. Satan would have us languish there in self-hatred. But we are no longer under the sentence of condemnation (Romans 8:1). We have been rescued and redeemed. When we focus on Jesus we live more in the freedom of our new nature and less in the bondage of our sin. Yes, Beloved, you will still fail – but thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord – you don’t have to stay there!

Hope in Days of Evil

Another day, another multi-victim shooting, another child abused, another murder, another robbery, beating, and theft. I remember the day when such things were shocking; now they are commonplace. I read just yesterday of a mother who killed her child and I want to ask, “Why?” But I know the answer. Because Adam and Eve ate the fruit. And their actions ushered in sin that has infected the human race at a far greater pace than COVID 19. It is part of our human make-up. It’s even part of our culture. And the Bible makes it clear that it’s only going to get worse.

Jesus said as the time for His return draws near, wickedness will increase, and “the love of most will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Love – love for what is good – will die and evil and wickedness will grow at alarming rates.

Paul added, “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:2-5). Can anyone doubt that we are in the last days?

Does that frighten you? It should if you don’t belong to Jesus Christ. But if you are His, if you have surrendered yourself – heart, mind, soul, and strength – to Him, the state of the world should concern you, but not scare you. It should compel you to share the gospel. It should urge you to live in holiness. It should move you to intervene for the innocent. But it shouldn’t frighten you. Because the increase of wickedness means a decrease in our wait for Christ’s return.

Jesus said when the world turns more and more to evil, and the heavens and the earth react to it (because they are also subject to the curse of sin), we need to look up. “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky . . . the nations of the earth . . . will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30). And every evil, wicked, sinful thing will be cast out. Yes, these are evil days, and there is likely more to come. But lift up your head, Beloved, that means the Lord is nearer now than ever before.

Where Was God?

“Where was God?” the atheist demanded. “Where was God?” the frightened widow cried. “Where was God?” the shocked nation asked. Even Christians looked to heaven and said,  “God, where are You?” It was the most tragic and horrific day in American history and twenty years later it still makes us weep. I imagine the same question was going through the minds of the Jews when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem. The event even sounds very similar:  “[The Babylonians] set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.” (2 Chronicles 36:19).

A memorial sits at the very spot in New York City where the buildings fell. People come every year to remember and pay their respects to the thousands who lost their lives that day.  Every year religious Jews come to Jerusalem to pray and fast in remembrance of the destruction of their Temple, first by the Babylonians in 587/586 BCE, and again in 70 CE at the hands of the Roman legions led by Titus.

Where was God when the Twin Towers fell? The same place He was when Jerusalem fell. In His heaven, ruling over human history. How can that be? I wish I could give you a simple answer, but this is the age-old “problem of evil” that men have pondered for thousands of years. It has been used to deny the existence of God and His goodness and sovereignty and quite honestly, I cannot answer it. But I can tell you that evil may have claimed a few battles throughout human history, but it has already lost the war.

Oh, satan thought he was victorious when Jesus drew His last breath and cried out, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). But he was trembling when the ground rumbled as the stone rolled away. He was dumbfounded when the angel told the women, “He is not here; He has risen!” (Matthew 28:6). He was horrified as Mary Magdalene ran back to the disciples with the amazing news, “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20:18).

So today I will remember the lives lost twenty years ago and pray for the still grieving. But I will not fear evil. I will keep my eyes on heaven and celebrate the risen Lord who dealt evil a fatal blow. No, the war is not yet over, but Satan has already lost. God has already won. God always wins.

Are You Hiding from the Devil?

I know an older, bedridden man, who keeps all the windows tightly covered so that he has no view of the outside. When I visited him not long ago, I pulled a curtain aside momentarily and he nervously asked me to pull it shut again. The man had become convinced someone might be wandering through his yard and he thought his curtains kept him safe. He knew he couldn’t get up and confront strangers in his yard, but he thought if he didn’t see them he didn’t have to fear them. The truth is, he was afraid of just the idea of them – and they weren’t even there.

He makes me think of the world that tries to shut out the truth about the devil. But unlike this man, they are shutting out what really is there. They reject any thought of the devil, pulling the curtains so they cannot see the very real evidence of him in the world. They rename sin and call it a disease, or worse, make it a cause for celebration. They create ideologies and movements to counteract what they believe is wrong in the world and deny the power that drives men to hate and kill and abuse others. They believe their curtains are keeping them safe.

Peter said, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil is the active force behind the evil in the world. But man thinks, “If I pretend he isn’t real, I don’t have to do anything about him.” Oh, but the devil is a very real and present danger. And denying he exists or pretending he is just a guy in red long-johns with a pitchfork doesn’t make the danger go away. It only makes us easier prey.

But thanks be to God! We are not left helpless and defenseless. We have a victorious Savior who has overcome the evil one. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8). You need to always “be self-controlled and alert” concerning the devil (1 Peter 5:8). But if you are in Christ, you have nothing to fear because “the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Open your curtains, Beloved, and let the Sonshine in.