Journal Response 8

Spiritual Blindness

The roots of our struggles are often masked by a deep spiritual blindness and deafness that is the result of the Fall.  Intrinsic to Christ’s redemptive plan is spiritual healing from these afflictions.  God promises in Isaiah 35:5 that he will send the Messiah who will come and “then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”  And later in Isaiah 42:16, God promises, “And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them.  I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.  These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.”  God initiates this process on two fronts.  The first front is the illumination of our corrupt hearts through the scriptures with the help of the Holy Spirit.  The second front is through our relationships with other believers.  God uses our Christian brothers and sisters to help reveal the areas of our lives that we cannot see.  Paul Tripp describes these areas of afflictions, as a series of “masks” that distort our understanding of our trials, needs, values, spiritual condition, and even God.  God uses our fellow believers as instruments to help us see where we cannot see, to shine the light of God’s word into those areas of darkness so that we might turn back to Christ.

But we often avoid those areas of darkness and try to cover it up by dressing up our actions.  We turn to self-medication, therapy, and ten-step programs, or we try to unknowingly ignore our blindness by turning our attention to humanitarian deeds, and personal morality.  But what we need is not more devotion to religious exercises, or endless amounts of self-reflection, or greater acts of service.  But we need is Christ.  We need to get to know him.  We need more of him and less of ourselves.  You may be wondering how is it that you get to know Christ.  Miller offers two suggestions for us.  “Keep two things in view: first, you cannot know Him unless you are sure He loves you and died personally for…your sins.”  “Secondly, Christ calls us to abandon trust in our own strength and righteousness.  We do not have the strength to improve ourselves morally or the righteousness with which to justify ourselves.”  Christ loves to reveal himself, and as we saturate ourselves with the knowing Christ and prayer, combined with the presences of other believers in our lives, he will transform us.  God will lead us into repentance and greater dependence.  He has promised this to us!  “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

Journal Response 7

Betrothed to Christ.

Paul Trip offers an insightful metaphor that is extremely helpful for understanding what God is doing in my life.  This metaphor is our future marriage to Christ as his bride.  Tripp states, “Your whole life is premarital counseling!  You belong to a groom whose name is Immanuel, and God is preparing you for the wedding for which you were created and redeemed.  Everything you face today is premarital preparation—living now with then in view.”  God is exposing, teaching, calling, and transforming us into his pure and spotless bride.  However, sin comes along and “produces in us a tendency toward ‘now-ism,’ which means we forget three things: who we are (betrothed to Christ); what he is doing now (preparing us for the final wedding); and what we are supposed to be doing (remaining faithful to him).”  It is these three things that I need to focus more intensely.  I need a greater understanding of my identity in Christ, the areas where God wants to transform, and what ways I can walk in faithful obedience.  And all of this must be supported through loving accountability that “provides loving structure, guidance, encouragement, and warning” against disobedience.

Guidelines for Fruitful Ministry.

Miller gives us some instructions for fruit ministry.  First, Miller warns against becoming a professional Christian.  “For me it is so easy unconsciously to become a professional Christian and do my service to Christ as a must rather than as a Sonship delight.”  The heart of ministry bubbles out of a grateful heart, not out of duty.  We must be careful that we don’t get suckered into become the older son that Jesus talks about in Luke 15 who is busy working and serving his father, and trades his Sonship for service and labor.  Then Miller gives us some guidelines to follow as we grow into our ministry.  The first is “don’t move into a new thing until you have made things happen where you are (by grace).  That is, you need to have solid evidence of effective leadership on one level before going to another.”  Secondly, this leadership effectiveness is described by the grace to express love to others in a public manner, willingness and determination to shepherd by being a servant, courage to act in humility to disciple others in the face of resistance, and ability to command respect by maturity of life so that others feel they are being led in a Christlike direction.  Finally, this development is best cultivated “by staying under one set of leaders to give them enough time to know you so that the obvious impossibilities of the [previously mentioned] in your own strength can be pointed out” and the leader be crushed before the Lord so that they “will abandon pride and move into Jesus’ love.”

Journal Response 6

On Confrontation.

Confrontation is something that is extremely hard for all of us.  However it is something that we all have to deal with if we are to have health relationships with those individuals around us.  We tend to shy away from confrontation for several reasons.  It may be because we have yield to passive forms of responding to people, or because we have given into other sinful forms such as gossip, hatred, or revenge.  But speaking the truth in love is something that the Bible mandates to us.  I have been really encouraged by this idea about Biblical confrontation, but in all honesty it is more a guns blazing, slick talking, “put you in your place” kind of confrontation.  However, the Bible paints a very different picture of confrontation.  It begins with confessing that we need just as much grace, if not more, that the person to whom we are confronting.  We also have to start out with the right goals.  Biblical confrontation does not seek out to prove our position in a disagreement, or show up someone who has wronged you.  Its goal is to be used by God as an agent of repentance, to help others to see themselves in the mirror of Scripture.

Journal Response 5

Relationships Stuck in the Casual.

How is it that our relationships get trapped in “casual” category?  Why do they lack a certain depth to them?  Paul Tripp offers us an answer to us, that I am convinced is true in my own life.  “There are many reasons why our relationships are trapped in the casual.  One is that, in our busyness, we despair of squeezing ten dollar conversations into ten cent moments.”  I try to maintain a fast paced life.  I really do my best work when I have lots to get done, deadlines to meet.  But I am afraid that this causes me to do poor relational work.  Getting to know someone is a slow process.  It requires lots of time, energy rapped up in very purposeful questions.  “If you understand the story of redemption, you know that God does not seem to be in a fearful hurry” and I’m convinced that I need to slow down, sit with people, and take the time to get to know them.

Making War with the Devil.

Miller offers some very helpful insights for waging war against the devil.  He begins by addressing one of the major battles we all face.  Self-Reliance.  Miller states, “What we fail to see is that reliance on people, their capabilities, keeping their promises, is a demonic faith, a cooperation in heart with the powers of darkness.  We join the enemy, Satan, when we fail to rely on the promises of God to move on our behalf.”  This lack of trust in Christ is rooted in deception.  The devil “has made you think Jesus cannot really help you because your struggles, your weakness, your bondages are too much, too special, too unique.”  This causes us to trust ourselves to fix our issues.  This is a great lie that often influences me.  I forget that “Satan is no match for my Jesus.  No match at all.  One word from Jesus and the whole host of hell must flee.”  Miller offers us some encouragement that can help us resist the Devil.  He suggests that we must comb our ways through scripture and be swept away by “the awesome goodness and majesty of the triune God.”

Journal Response 4

On Developing Trust:

I am have been deeply impressed by the theme of developing trust within relationships.  Even for developing openness and vulnerability within a small group trust is a primary element.  However, individuals always seem reluctant to do what is necessary to develop trust.  I love Gandhi’s famous quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  If I am ever going to build trust, it begins with me taking the first step of trusting someone.  There are definitely some character qualities that I should look for when I place myself in the hands of other people.  But if I truly want to see authentic relationships formed with those who make up my spiritual family, I must take the first step in trusting them with myself.  And when I have taken this first step towards the right people, I have often found that they are willing to reciprocate that same trust to me.

On the Role of a Pastor:

Miller offers several convicting statements in this section regarding the role of a pastor in a church.  The first of these is prayer.  Miller is convinced that “men who do not make praying their first priority in life and ministry should not preach or pastor.”  The second is leadership.  Miller’s leadership is primarily display not by authority, but through service to Christ and then to others.  For Miller a pastor is someone who “loves the sheep and is willing to die for them.”  Lastly, Miller says that pastors and church leaders must be “really sharp listeners.”  As leaders we often have an overwhelming sense “to talk rather than to ask questions and listen for answer from others.”  With regard to all of these, I would say I am a below average student.  Miller suggests that the primary defense against this is to resist Satan’s temptation to become problem-centered.  We must remain Christ-centered, and trust Christ to do his work!

Journal Response 3

How does one begin the process of change?  Paul Tripp begins addressing this question by examining Jesus’ primary message in the gospel writings.  “Mark records Jesus’ words this way: ‘The time has come.  The kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news!’”  Tripp points out that Christ connects the good news to repentance.  He defines repentance as “a radical change of heart resulting in a radical change in the direction of one’s life.”  But it is simply not enough to offer people a twelve-step program to repentance.  We must point people to Christ the redeemer.  Tripp beautifully compares individuals to trees that produce bad fruit.  If real change is going to happen in the lives of individuals, it is not enough to remove all of the bad fruit from a tree, and in their place pin on good fruit.  This transformation must go deep down to the roots of the tree, changing the foundations of the tree into something that produces good fruit.  Our roots are lie deep inside our hearts, and it is here that love, truth, authentic relationships, and action must be applied to bring deep, heart transformation.

Miller discusses the doctrine of grace and talks about how the gospel of grace changes hearts.  Miller believes that we should order our thinking around three themes.  The first is “knowing your friend.”  By this he means that we should explore the grace of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit.  The second is “knowing your enemy.”  Miller takes this to mean sin, the devil, and the nature of the flesh.  The third theme is “know your personal limitations.”  Miller describes this as “your own particular fleshy characteristics and habits.”  The first theme should become the controlling principle through which we examine themes two and three.  It is this first theme that allows God to work in us.  It leads us to repentance, and to abandon our idols at the cross.  Miller makes sure to emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit as “Christ’s spy in the heart” that seeks to bring us to a place where we say: “Abba, Father, not my will but yours be done, not my control but yours.”

Journal Response 2

I am very weary of the fact that I am trying to go about doing Christ’s work on my own terms.  For Miller, “living for God’s glory meant first acknowledging the real Head of the church—Jesus Christ—and then going on to do ‘Christ’s work Christ’s way.’”  I don’t want to spend half of my life doing Christ’s work on my terms.  But I’m afraid I have already spent a quarter of my life my own way.  But God’s work is too large and difficult of a task to attempt in my own strength, and for my own glory.  Miller suggests, and rightly so, that the Christian leader must understand their need “for personal humility, vital faith, and constant prayer.”  All of which, I feel like I am a failure.  Though these discouraging thoughts should not complete crush me.  For “the most important qualification for entrance into the kingdom of God—being poor in spirit.”  This desperation should drive me further into prayer and repentance.  “Jack spent the first half of his Christian life attempting to do Christ’s work Jack’s way, and he spent the last half of his Christian life repenting of this tendency and asking the Spirit daily for the faith and humility to do Christ’s work Christ way.”  I hope to start this sooner than later.

Miller spends a long section on discussing church planting, a particular area of personal interest.  Miller reminds us, “Christ is the exclusive Head of the church and has His own methods for planning and developing congregations.  To ignore His methods is to put the leader’s work into a straitjacket and to generate frustrations and tension of the wrong sort in the leader’s inner life.”  “The beating heart of Christ’s planting of churches is found in corporate prayer” and through prayer Christ knits together the hearts of the community.  Miller states “the book of Acts is the story of the acts of Christ done in history in response to the constant corporate prayer by the leaders of the church. (Acts 1:1-8, 13-14, 2:1, 42; 3:1; 4:23-31)”  I am convicted that even my methods of church planting have been wrongly prioritized.  I know that planting church is some of the hardest work for any pastor.  Why am I surprised that it foundation is prayer.

I want to publicly repent of doing Christ’s work on my own terms.  Pray that Christ would be my only leader, and that he would daily teach me how to pray for HIS will to be done, how to lean upon him for direction and strength, and that ultimately he would be glorified in everything that I do.

Journal Reponses

For one of my pastoral counseling classes this semester, we have to write several response paragraphs to books we are reading.  I am going to post as many of those responses here as possible.  The books are:  “The Heart of a Servant Leader:  Letters from Jack Miller” by C. John Miller & “Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands” by Paul David Tripp.

Response to Miller, The Heart of a Servant Leader, 11-33.

The Christian leader “should be the chief servant-not necessarily the successful one, but the one working to make others better.”  I could not agree more with Jack Miller in this regard.  Though, I often find myself longing to be in leadership, but rarely do I find myself seeking to serve others.  However, I need to start with serving, and allow my service be the mark of my leadership.

I need to return to being an advocate for others as well.  I have been easily distracted by the success of others, and forget my call to encourage others in their work.  I have fallen prey to building my own kingdom before, and not God’s kingdom.  This road always leads to frustrations and disobedience.  I must abandon my own success, and “anchor” myself in the glory and praise of God.

It seems that this all is cultivated in ones life through regular repentance and prayer.  Jack Miller posits some great questions that shine light on areas that need repentance.  They are: What is my concern for the glory of God in my life?  How much am I led by concern for my own comfort?  Am I currently loving people well?  With regards to prayer, I want to stop praying for God’s treasure chest and start praying that God’s will be done in everything.  My prayers should always have this goal in mind: “glorifying God at any cost.”