I recently ran by this video, put together by The Foursquare Church, and wondered how much it hits home with my generation. As you watch this video, do you find yourself shouting in agreement with the ideas implied, or do you push back against them? I’d love your thoughts, because I want to think more deeply about how these two approaches to church and ministry (often named “attractional” and “missional”) resonate with our culture, specifically campus culture.

Related posts:

1. When the Church Sets the Bar
2. “Church Relevance” Has Got to Go
3. 2-by-2 Strategy for Church Multiplication

This is the third of a three part series on the role of God as our shepherd and we as His sheep. So far I’ve presented two aspects:

1) That sheep are dependent, defenseless, and directionless—and we are like sheep [1 Peter 2:25].

2) That when we understand what shepherding was like in biblical times, our trust of & intimacy with our Shepherd God will change.

In this post I will share two final passages and concepts about biblical shepherding that hopefully will shed further light on our “sheepish-ness” and God’s goodness as our Shepherd.*

The first has often brought me hope when I’ve needed it most: our Shepherd is a passionate healer. God reveals His attitude toward our pain in Lamentations 3:32-33:

“Though He brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.”

God does not want to cause pain, but He will if it is the way to save us. Consider the following:

If a sheep strays habitually, she is a danger to herself and all those who follow her (remember, sheep seek a leader). The shepherd could just let her go, but he is fiercely protective [1 Samuel 17:34-35]. He doesn’t want her or any of the others to suffer fatal harm by wandering into danger. So instead, he breaks her leg.

Wait a minute.

He breaks her leg? What kind of sadistic shepherd does that? Isn’t there another, less extreme way? And don’t we often wonder the same thing about God? I have spent so many nights crying out to God, asking if He sees my pain, asking how He could ever allow it, accusing Him of caring only for His own agenda and not my good.  It is in these moments that understanding God’s Shepherding has brought me comfort:

Hopefully it is evident by now that a shepherd has meaningful relationships with his sheep. If you have ever owned an animal, you understand the torment of seeing it suffer. The decision to allow or even cause pain in the life of a precious sheep must be agonizing for the shepherd. Yet he is compassionate in the midst of her pain and healing.

The shepherd will carry his injured sheep on his shoulders while she heals. This is not easy: often these are big, heavy sheep, not little lambs. He feeds her by hand; she poops by his face.  The process is lengthy and requires much effort. But he loves her, and she is worth it.  I really think the shepherd enjoys the intimacy of this time [Isaiah 40:11].

During the restoration period, the sheep comes to personally know and trust the shepherd. She trusts his hand to feed her; she has smelled his scent daily; she has heard his voice in soft tones by her ear for weeks.  She will be the sheep that stays nearest to him after this, because she loves him and knows he is good.

The shepherd often gives this sheep a bell to wear. Other sheep know when they hear the bell that their shepherd is nearby.  This “bell sheep” draws the flock to the shepherd simply by being near him.  The shepherd doesn’t need her to do this, but he loves to empower her and honor their relationship.

Finally, we can trust our Shepherd because He was also a sheep. Throughout Scripture Jesus is described as “the Lamb” [John 1:29]. This is comforting: who better to lead me than someone who knows what it is like to be me?

Take athletics for example. I want my coach to have at one time been where I am and to have had success. I will respect that he or she knows how to train me, how hard to push me, and when to let me rest. A coach lacking understanding of what it’s like to be an athlete will be ineffective at best, and dangerous at worst.

Jesus was like us.  He was deliberately defenseless, directionless, and dependent on His Father [John 5:19]. He says He understands every difficulty we have. His experience as a sheep emboldens us to approach Him freely, knowing He is gracious and merciful toward us [Hebrews 4:15-16].

So now the question: Why does any of this even matter? In my life, the concepts I’ve described in this series have drastically affected my freedom in the world and intimacy with God:

For instance, if God made me like a sheep, then He must be willing and able to lead, protect, and actively provide for me.  I can rest in my Shepherd’s active attention to detail, even when I can’t see what He’s doing.

If I know that I am needy and my Shepherd is passionate and selfless toward me, I will turn more quickly and confidently to Him myself & on behalf of other much-loved sheep.

If I am created for a dependent relationship on Someone Else, there is freedom from shame and false independence.  I can stop imagining my Shepherd resents me for my neediness and begin thanking Him for that which drives me into His arms. I can stop thinking I can save others on my own and instead entrust their well-being more fully into the hands of One who can actually save. I can stop viewing pain in my life as certain evidence of the Shepherd’s anger & begin seeing it as precious opportunities to be held by Him.

My hope for you is that through more deeply understanding the shepherd-sheep relationship, you may begin to love dependence on Him, find deeper trust of Him, and more freely extend grace to yourself and others for being limited and needy.

I encourage you to consider the following questions in light of this series:

Does knowing what a shepherd is like help you see God’s actions in your past (or present) any differently?

How would your life change if you knew you and everyone around you were sheep?

How would you depend on God more if this is what He is like as your Shepherd? (Obedience, for instance, is often an indicator of our level of trust in someone.)

Dependence is not bad. We are created to embrace dependence on One who Loves us.  As J.N. Darby put it,

“Two things are implied with dependence: first, the sense that we cannot do without God in a single instance; and, secondly, that He is ‘for us.’ In other words, there is a confidence in His love and power on our behalf, as well as the consciousness that without Him we can do nothing.”

May we each know the Shepherd’s love for us and encounter His provision for our need.

*Most of my information has come from the Gracestoration Bible Study (www.gracestoration.org) and from Philip Keller’s book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.  Keller was a shepherd in Africa for a while, where shepherding is still as it was in biblical times.

Related posts:

1. Sheepology 102: The Shepherd
2. Sheepology 101

In the Bible our relationship with God is likened to that of a shepherd and his sheep. In the first part of this blog series, I examined what the nature of sheep is like. They are dependent, defenseless, and directionless. God created incredibly needy animals, and then declares repeatedly that people are like sheep [Ezekiel 34:31].

As I’ve learned more about sheep, my view of what God means when he calls himself a Good Shepherd has also changed: for a needy sheep to thrive, a shepherd must be a constant provider, leader, and protector. Unfortunately, Middle Eastern, biblical shepherding was quite different than the Western style today. This discrepancy affects our understanding of God as our Shepherd.

In the next two posts of this series I’d like to share four passages about shepherding that, when understood in context, give precious revelations into God’s shepherding role.* My hope is that as aspects of God’s shepherding heart toward you are explored, you will recognize more moments in which God has been your Shepherd, and your trust of and intimacy with Him will deepen.

I’ll start with that which has been the most surprising to me: our Shepherd is a warrior. In 1 Samuel 17:34-35, the shepherd David describes his attitude toward the care of his flock:

“David persisted… ‘When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death.’”

If I were a shepherd and a lion stole one of my lambs, I’m pretty sure I would accept the loss! David displays a drastically different attitude as a shepherd:  He is not sedate and passive.  He is fiercely passionate. As our Shepherd, God will risk everything to ensure our peace and freedom. He is dangerous on our behalf.  We can describe our Shepherd God as C.S. Lewis described Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: He’s not tame, but He’s good.

Secondly, our Shepherd is compassionate, and His compassion moves Him to action. Matthew 9:36 says, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and [downcast], like sheep without a shepherd.”

The word “downcast” is a term that comes from a common event in the life of a sheep: becoming “cast.” A sheep becomes cast when it has somehow fallen on its back, a deadly situation it usually cannot escape on its own. There are four ways this can happen:

Over-eating. The sheep may get heavy and bloated, and roll over too far on its back when it lies down for its after-dinner-nap.

Over-burdens. If a sheep isn’t around its shepherd much, its wool can accumulate brambles and the sheep can easily lose its balance.

Overconfidence. A sheep may stray from the prepared pasture into land that seems more appealing. Often, the taller grass hides hollows into which the sheep might roll. (There was reason the shepherd didn’t choose that pasture. . . .)

Victimization. Becoming cast isn’t always the sheep’s fault. You’ve heard of cow tipping. Think: sheep tipping.

Poor sheep. Just watch a few seconds of this for a great visual:

Lying there, the sheep struggles. All the gas in its belly moves to the top, organs shift, blood drains from its legs, and if it is not found quickly it is likely die from the trauma, dehydration, or predators. If other sheep find it, they are not able to help the sheep to its feet either. The only way to help their friend is to cry out for the shepherd.

Even if the sheep-friends could right their buddy themselves, it wouldn’t be good. If a sheep has been cast for any significant period, it cannot simply be turned over or it will suffer, fall down again, or possibly even die because of how its innards have shifted during the time. There is an intimate process that must happen for each sheep every time it is cast:

First, the shepherd finds and calms his sheep. He speaks to it, reassuring it that he is near, that it’s going to be okay. As he comforts it, he massages its belly, restoring the organs to their proper place. He moves on to the legs, rubbing them to restore the circulation so it will have a strong footing when he turns it over. When it is safe to do so, he will set it on its feet but does not yet let go.  Holding it securely between his legs, he makes sure it can stand; if over-burdened wool is the cause of the casting, he will use this opportunity to sheer it. Finally, the shepherd takes the first few steps with his sheep, carefully, lovingly restoring it to freedom.

The shepherd will do this every time it’s necessary. To him, each sheep is precious and worth the effort.  I love the intimacy of the process – the commitment of the shepherd to his sheep, the tender attention to detail, the willing patience. . . . It is a beautiful glimpse into the heart and actions of our “good shepherd” [John 10:11].

Though the Bible says God is a warrior and a compassionate master, depending on Him to come through daily is still terribly difficult. It can be easier to trust Him when we remember the times we’ve been cast and seen our Shepherd restore us, or been attacked and seen Him fight for us. Take some time to remember the ways God has fought for or restored you in the past – in big and small ways. Thank Him for the goodness you have experienced, or cry out to Him about that which still makes no sense to you.

In the final part of this series, I will share two other passages which shed light on the shepherding heart of God. May you see Him ever more clearly as He cares for you.

*Most of my information has come from the Gracestoration Bible Study (www.gracestoration.org) and from Philip Keller’s book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.  Keller was a shepherd in Africa for a while, where shepherding is still as it was in biblical times.

Related posts:

1. Sheepology 103: Shepherding, Part 2
2. Sheepology 101

I’m glad to introduce a three-part guest post series by one of my very favorite people, Sarah Draves.

Sarah w/ a sheep

Sarah has been an incredible friend to my wife and me over this past year. This series, which explores the biblical use sheep and shepherding imagery, is close to her heart, and it’s my hope that God gives you as much insight through it as He’s given me. Without further ado, Sarah’s Sheepology series:

A friend gave me an unexpected gift the other day.  I love gifts, so I was excited before I even opened it. I got even more excited when I pulled out an adorable, hand-made stuffed lamb.

Apparently, I’m a person with a very specific “Thing.”  You know what I mean: Once, you mention casually to your family that you think unicorns are pretty neat, and for the rest of your life no one ever passes anything “unicorn” without purchasing it for you—all the while assuming the gift will bring you supreme happiness.

Unlike most twenty-somethings, my Thing is not a sports team or a band or even a unicorn but, rather, Sheep. And unlike most people who come to dread receiving their Thing year after year, I joyfully welcome anything related to my Thing.

Several years ago a mentor shared with me her passion about God’s identity as our Shepherd and our identity as His sheep. In order to understand the profound meaning of the relationship God is ascribing to Himself as our Shepherd, I had to understand two things:

1) the nature of sheep, and
2) that our Western shepherding is not the kind of shepherding Jesus was talking about.

The nature of sheep must be explored first, in this post, since shepherding is based on the needs of the sheep.  The next post in this series will compare Western and Eastern shepherding; much shepherding in the East today is still quite similar to biblical shepherding.  When we begin to paint a picture of what a relationship between a shepherd and his /her sheep was really like, we can really begin to view God, ourselves, and His heart toward us in new ways.

The New Testament alone references people with sheep close to forty times.  I really think God created sheep as a reflection of our human nature. Learning about them has been both sobering and hilarious.*

Before we start looking at what sheep are like, allow me to step on my soapbox for a minute to address what sheep are not: sheep are not dumb. They are extremely needy and, in attempts to meet their needs, can be driven to do some pretty dumb things. (Soapbox over.)

Sheep are actually quite relationally intelligent. In studies, sheep can visually recognize up to fifty individual sheep by photo. They also have strong emotions and frail hearts: sheep feel pain over the pain of other sheep in their flock.  In fact, when one of its sheep-friends is in distress, a sheep can literally kill itself with worry because it can’t do anything to help.  All it can do is to cry out for its Shepherd to come rescue its friend.

Sheep are Defenseless, Directionless, and in all ways Dependent.

No other animal is so dependent on someone else to take care of it.  Its wool, for instance, has to be sheared regularly, or it becomes matted and overgrown, and debris accumulates in it.  As a result, the sheep can become overheated and topheavy;  and when a sheep gets topheavy, it easily lose its balance and falls over—a position from which it is unable to escape on its own.  Once a sheep is on its back, it is stuck there until someone finds and rights it, until it starves to death, or until a predator puts it out of its misery.

All sorts of things can cause suffering for a sheep. Flies will gather on its face and can drive the sheep insane.  In an effort to relieve itself of the constant annoyance, a sheep will hit its head against tree stumps or fence posts, sometimes causing its own death.  To prevent this, the shepherd will smooth oil around the sheep’s eyes, nose, mouth and ears to repel the tiny Death Files.

Parasites will burrow into the folds of skin beneath the sheep’s wool, lay eggs and cause infection.  The shepherd must investigate every inch of his sheep’s’ bodies, and will pay that same tender, meticulous attention to each one.

Sheep are also prone to overeating, over-drinking, and slothfulness.  The shepherd carefully weeds dangerous plants from the pastures to which he leads them, and often wakes them early in the morning when dew is on the grass so that they can hydrate and eat all at once.  He takes individual walks with those he notices have been inactive.

In their dependence, sheep are also directionless. [1 Peter 2:25] They seek a leader to follow, even if it’s just another directionless sheep.  (In Turkey in 2005, 1,500 sheep followed one wayward sheep off the edge of a cliff while their shepherds were having a lunch break!) Sheep also get overwhelmed and paralyzed when given too many options to choose from while traveling to new pastures, or when the path seems scary.  The shepherd knows to show them clearly which opening to go through and which steps to take.

Sheep are dependent on a shepherd for defense as well [John 10:12].  They have neither defensive nor offensive weapons; they don’t even have front teeth.  (If attacked, a sheep could perhaps gum its attacker to death . . . .)  Sheep are prone to heart attacks if terrified, and can become too scared even to bleat.  Should the sound of a predator be heard, the eyes of all the sheep will flash to their shepherd. [Exodus 14:13-14]  They know they are helpless without him.

Sheep may be the most wholly dependent creatures I’ve ever heard of, but God says people are no different.  Our world and our own Selves cry out, “gain independence; you shouldn’t need anyone/thing; defend yourself; figure it out on your own!” But Jeremiah 13:11 says differently: God created us to cling to Him. Our neediness is nothing to be ashamed of; we were created for it [Psalm 100:3].  God could have said, “You are the lions of my pride,” but he didn’t.  God could have made us any way He wanted to, and yet He chose to make us like  dependent sheep. Our God is aware of our need and, further, is prepared and willing to provide for us in every way.

If we are created dependent, then there must be no expectation that we would be able to handle life on our own. So often I am reluctant to engage with God because I think He won’t protect me, won’t guide me, doesn’t care about the details of my life. But if God knows I am a dependent, defenseless, directionless sheep, then He must be paying attention to me.  If I am simply a sheep, a Good Shepherd would never abandon me to care for myself, defend myself, or figure out my own path.

In light of this knowledge, I begin to be more merciful and gracious with myself.  And I draw near more confidently to this actively attentive God.

If we are sheep, we can abandon the stubborn independence that drives us away from intimacy with God, the shame that comes when we sense our neediness. Instead we can embrace the limitations of our nature and be drawn more joyfully into his arms.  We can delight in being His sheep [Psalm 23:1] – like this little guy:

As I’ve learned about what sheep are like, it has redefined my concept of what a good shepherd would be like.  In the next post, we’ll look at four passages in Scripture that especially illustrate the kind of Shepherd God calls himself.

He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be their peace.
— Micah 5:4-5

*Most of my information has come from the Gracestoration Bible Study (www.gracestoration.org) and from Philip Keller’s book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.  Keller was a shepherd in Africa for a while, where shepherding is still as it was in biblical times.

Related posts:

1. Sheepology 102: The Shepherd
2. Sheepology 103: Shepherding, Part 2

In my last post, I promised you a sort of “lab exercise” where you can practice this concept of viewing the world through the story of the Gospel, and assessing what things are true and false based on their agreement with the greatest story ever told. In this post, we’ll consider the topic of vulnerable or intimate self-disclosure, and see how the Gospel of Jesus might affect our attitudes on this.

With the aid of my friend Tim Courtois, I recently came across probably the most concise treatment of the topic of vulnerability and its benefits that I’ve seen to date. I wanted to show it to you, because it just might change your life.  Seriously, this will only be 20 minutes of your time; and heck, I’ll just go ahead and say I guarantee it’ll be worth it. But I want to first give you a warning: it’s incomplete. In fact, anyone who ever talks about something good or true or beautiful without demonstrating its origins in the cross of Jesus will be incomplete. In this case, Ms. Brown gives us some of the “why’s” of vulnerability, but not much in the way of “how.” I’ll share more after you watch the talk.

There was so much I loved about this talk. I loved how she named and dismantled our culture’s obsession with being someone else (someone “better”), and the shame that both produces and results from that message. I loved her thought that making yourself vulnerable opens you up to shame, rejection and exclusion, but is also a precondition to receiving love and acceptance and experiencing the authentic joy that results. I loved the insight that emotions are not selectively numbed (if only someone told me that in middle school!); only whole persons can be numbed. I loved her description of blame as a “way to discharge pain and discomfort.” I loved the exhortation to allow us to be deeply seen and love with our whole hearts. And she was funny; I think I’d rather enjoy hanging out with her.

But there was one element of this talk (or non-element) that left something to be desired for me; it can be seen at many points, but each instance ties together with the others. First, in her analysis of religion, she says, “Religion has gone from a belief in faith and mystery to certainty; I’m right, you’re wrong, shut up. Just certainty.” She decries certainty in a belief as an evil form of invulnerability resulting from the fear that accompanies a personal sense of unworthiness. She seems to imply that people are only ever certain about a belief because they are too insecure that maybe they’re wrong to actually consider others’ views.

Elsewhere, she discusses the necessity for the courage to be vulnerable, so that we can experience authentic human existence, but says little of the source of this courage. Most importantly, her central thesis is a commendation of a mindset of worthiness; she even ends her talk by saying the most important thing is to believe “I am enough.” But she fails to provide a basis for this important, yet extremely difficult belief. I think all of us want to believe it, but we struggle to know it, to really believe it with all of our heart.

Now, here’s the crazy part. The very certainty of faith she dismisses at one point later ends up being the very thing we need in order to believe “I am enough!” Now, I won’t fault Ms. Brown for a single careless word here; I don’t actually think she meant to say that there’s something wrong with being grounded or certain of your faith, but rather that there’s danger in a dogmatism that is fearful and unwilling to listen to other viewpoints or embrace the mysteries of faith. Jesus agrees, and he had some pretty harsh words for the fearful dogmatists of his day (Luke 6:41-42).

But my question here is, what is the basis for having the courage to be vulnerable? If it comes from me believing I’m worthy of love; believing I’m enough, and that kind of faith seems to be incredibly hard for just about everyone (hence all the world’s problems she mentioned), then what is the radical solution that allows me to believe this so firmly? How can I be so certain of my worthiness that I’m willing to lay my heart bare before another person, to initiate sex with my spouse, to say “I love you” first, etc. (to use her examples)? If vulnerability and joy are the ends, then what is the means? On this, at least in this talk, she is silent. If she had an answer, I hope she would have shared it here since it would unlock everything she teaches as being necessary for a fulfilling life.

But there is an answer. Jesus is the answer. He’s always the answer. A God who sees and knows us perfectly, and still chose to love us, proving so by pay the highest possible price, his only son, that we might be reconciled to Him…He is the only one on whom I can fix my eyes and have certainty that I am worthy of love. He is the only one who could ever empower me to a life of true vulnerability; a vulnerability powered by God’s supernatural affirmation of my soul as I continue to trust in Him. Telling myself I’m worthy, or even hearing it consistently from others (if that were possible in this world), would be too shaky a foundation for me to truly know my worthiness. The dark moments too easily convince me that I and those around me must be mistaken regarding my worthiness. But an all-knowing God paid the ultimate cost in a public and historic manner in order to bring me back to Him when I was at my worst…now that is just enough for me to risk being truly seen by another.

If you’d like to hear more on this, I go into this topic in depth in “What You’re Worth” series of posts from February and March of 2010, particularly Part 2.

I hope this gives you a clearer example of how a Gospel lens helps us process ideas. I hope this is also further evidence that while our culture’s most prevalent worldviews are quick to tout the evidence for a claim like “Vulnerability is good,” they lack the theoretical framework for the claim. The Gospel is our framework. May you claim and experience the freedom from condemnation that Christ bought for you with his blood (Romans 8:1) by living vulnerably in an invulnerable world.

Related posts:

1. A Gospel Worldview Part 1: It’s all About Jesus
2. A Gospel Worldview Part 2: Someone to Follow
3. A Gospel Worldview Part 3: We’re in a Story

I’ve spent the last few posts being pretty abstract about why we need the Gospel story as our moral compass. I have not, however, told you what it looks like to live a life where the Gospel truly is your moral compass. I want to begin that here, but it’s probably going to take three more posts to finish. Lucky you.

In my last post, I bemoaned the inability of two major prevailing worldviews to give a solid underlying standard for morality, and why that’s actually a big problem. Christianity, however, provides a clear, underlying standard by which to determine what is good and what is not. You might be thinking this fixed underlying standard is the Bible, and you would be right, but only to an extent. The 66 books of the Old and New Testaments provide us the all-sufficient beginnings by which to determine truth, but these Scriptures actually point to another source of our daily, functional standard by which to live: The Word of God.

Yes, you read that correctly. I’m making a distinction between the Bible and the Word of God. The Scripture itself teaches that the writings of the Law, Prophets, and Apostles is but a subset, or a single component of God’s Word. Think I’m a heretic yet? Then allow me to ask you a question: In Acts 4:31, when the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit and “spoke the word of God boldly,” what were they speaking? Or in Acts 6:7 (and throughout the rest of Acts), when it says “the word of God spread,” is it talking about the 66 books of the Old and New Testament?

Let’s figure this one out via process of elimination. Could it have been the words of the Old Testament that were spreading? Though the Old Testament narrative was certainly a major component of this “word of God” (as seen in Peter’s rockin’ sermon in Acts 3:13-26 and Stephen’s in Acts 7:2-53), it could not have encompassed the whole of their message because it does not explicitly name Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, or give news of his death and resurrection, which these men were clearly doing.

Could it have been the words of the New Testament, then? Ideologically, perhaps, because the New Testament testifies to Jesus as the Messiah just as these early believers were, but at the time of these events, none of the New Testament had actually been written, so it could not have been the actual words of the New Testament that were being spoken boldly in Acts 4:31 or spreading in Acts 6:7.

I know this is all very basic reasoning, but my point is this: here we have proof that the Word of God is actually bigger than just the 66 books of the Bible. In fact, Scripture teaches that the Word of God, in addition to those 66 books, also includes the Holy Spirit’s words spoken to us now, which “guide us into all the truth” (John 16:13), the Holy Spirit’s words spoken through us now (1 John 2:14, 1 Peter 4:11, Ephesians 6:17), and of course, Jesus himself is called the Word of God (John 1:1-14).

Every time I can think of Scripture mentioning “the word of God”, it is in reference to one of two things. Here they are, the two core components of God’s Word:

1) Revelations of the Holy Spirit Given to Human Beings
Consider Nathan’s convicting words to David, the evangelistic activity of the believers in Acts, or the whole book of Job. All are revelations of the Holy Spirit to one of us; all are rightly called “the word of God.”

2) Christ Himself
Christ is also the revelation of God to human beings, interestingly enough (so maybe this is still the first category after all).

This conception of “the Word” being God’s ongoing, dynamic expression of Himself, rather than merely fixed words He once spoke arranged on a page, fits much more closely with the Greek meaning of logos (translated “the word”) used in the New Testament.

Now, follow my logic here. If the Word of God is the single, underlying basis of our morality, and is God’s ongoing revelation to the world (through expressions given by his Holy Spirit as well as Christ himself, who is the purpose, theme and climax of the Gospel story), then it must be that the rightful guide to everything we could ever consider right and wrong, true and false, good and evil must lie in this great story of God’s redemptive activity in the world, epitomized in the life and sacrifice of his only son, Jesus the Messiah. And now we’re full-circle back to worldviews.

Now, this might sound a little crazy, but it turns out that the basis of all of our morality, all of our conception of what is right and wrong, is actually a story. One single story tells us everything about who God is, who we are, how the world operates, and thus, what is right and wrong. Now, I’m just repeating everything I said in my previous posts, but I want you to understand something here:

The commands in Scripture flow from the narrative of Scripture, not the other way around.

Therefore, the real reason that integrity and generosity are good is the Gospel. The reason betrayal is bad is the Gospel. The only reason generosity is good (to use an example from my last post) is because according to God’s story (his Gospel), God has always been generous, and has made us to experience wholeness when we align our character with his. As with all of his traits, He demonstrates the full extent and perfection of his generosity through the most precious gift ever given, his one and only son, at great cost to himself, that we might benefit eternally. So when we as Christians claim “Generosity is good” or “Integrity is good” our basis and proof is neither a feeling, a sequence of logic, or even an unknowable mystery. It is a story. It is THE story.

The story is also our reason for the things that are wrong. Our basis for “Betrayal is bad” is that God’s story shows us that he never betrays. We can know this definitively from the Gospel because when he had every reason to turn his back on human beings, because we had ignored his presence and denied his goodness in every way possible, he remained loyal and faithful to us, sacrificing his only son on our behalf to set us free. Therefore, for me to betray another person would be inconsistent with the story of God. Once again, the story defines my morals.

And here’s where the dynamism of the Word of God comes in: not only do we have all-sufficient beginnings for our entire morality in the Gospel story, but we are still living the Gospel story, and the Word of God is being spoken and fulfilled in us through the Holy Spirit today. The themes of this story do not change, and so the Holy Spirit will always confirm in specific ways in our everyday lives the truths that God fully illuminated in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the climax of the Gospel story. And therefore, it will always be the perfect, reliable and sufficient source of our morality.

This is exactly why we see a repeated plea of “imitate Christ” throughout the New Testament when strong exhortations are given (Philippians 2:1-16, 1 Thessalonians 1:6, 1 Corinthians 1:11, 1 Peter 2:21). The story would still make sense without the exhortations, but the exhortations make no sense without the story. Anyone who gets this backwards runs the risk of falling into a deadly legalism.

I know all of this “the Gospel is the only basis” can sound horribly simplistic. The thought that a single story tells us everything we need to know about how to live can seem a bit trite and even silly when considering the incredible ethical complexity we will face in our hardest decisions. Don’t hear me saying every kind of action is always good or always bad. It’s clear that some things are good for some and not for others (Romans 14), and that plenty of things can contain both good and bad elements. But I am saying that the Gospel of Jesus is an uncompromisable benchmark to measure your life against. The extent to which something confirms the Gospel, it is good, and to the extent that it denies the Gospel, it is bad. Though this sounds uncomfortably dualistic, it’s also really biblical (Luke 9:50, Luke 11:23, Romans 14:23, Ephesians 5:8).

Wow, that was long. If you made it all the way here, I’m impressed. I’m actually going to apply everything I’ve discussed here in my next blog post. We’re going to watch a video and consider the question, “Why is vulnerability good?” through the lens of the Gospel. You can even try to think of some answers before I post it.

Related posts:

1. A Gospel Worldview Part 3: We’re in a Story
2. A Gospel Worldview Part 1: It’s all About Jesus
3. A Gospel Worldview Part 2: Someone to Follow

In my last post, I promised you a second reason for why you need the Gospel story as the ultimate “why” to your worldview. Here it is.

Reason #2: If we don’t have a story to live for, our lives are  meaningless.

Give Ecclesiastes a quick read and you’ll begin to see what I’m saying. But I want to demonstrate this in light of our current spiritual context. Let me quickly identify the two predominant worldviews I come into contact with most regularly. One caveat: I have not extensively researched these terms academically, so I might not even be using the most accurate names for the the views I’m describing. But for the sake of simplicity and brevity, I still want to give my own home-grown terms and definitions:

1) Secular Humanism
This view basically posits that there’s no need for a God, and that every human being is responsible to arrive at the best morality for him/herself, that he/she is the rightful judge of this morality, and that this morality ought to seek after the happiness of self and happiness of others. Scientific reason and the human dialogue serve as the means to uncovering whatever universal moral standards might exist. Though there is vague consensus on the value of the search for these standards, there are no agreed-upon means by which these universal standards can be officially named or determined.

2) Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
A close relative of secular humanism, this worldview espouses many of the same ethical tenets, while adding a stance on the existence of a mostly-passive, rigid creator God who has given this list of “objective standards” for humans to abide by in order to be comfortable and happy.

These two worldviews, which dominate our universities, workplaces, etc. comfortably assert things like “integrity is good” or “generosity is good” or “tolerance is good” but very few of the people around you who hold these views can explain why something like generosity is good. Because it makes us feel good? Because it makes other people feel good? Because it appeases a God that I’ve personally created and defined? Because it fosters the propogation of our species?

These worldviews offer no underlying, “this is right and this is why” to reference when faced with life’s hardest decisions, and no clear, larger narrative or mission in which to participate. This lack of a stable foundation is confusing, and (as I argued in my last post) this lack of guidance can be quite lonely. Take an ethics class at a secular university and you’ll get a taste of what I’m talking about. All together, these worldviews lack an underlying story with a clear purpose, and this lends itself to meaninglessness. So many of my friends who ascribe to these worldviews lament with me that they’re haunted by a lack of truly meaningful purpose in their lives, and I think it’s worth asking if the Gospel actually tells us why we have such deep needs for things like direction and purpose.

We need purpose in our lives: a mission to live for and a battle to fight that is beyond ourselves. And we want people alongside of us in the battle. I think this is why student organizations are so popular on campus, whether fraternities or club sports teams. They offer a mission to accomplish and people to do it with. These things bring us to life. But these two worldviews are quite lifeless in comparison, largely due to their emphasis on self.

Here’s what I mean: inherent in these worldviews is an assumption that I, the individual, am the best person the world has ever known to make moral judgments about my life. This is not only arrogant and silly, but also puts a lot of pressure on me either to come to the best ethical conclusions, or find someone who has (whom I’m measuring against my own sense of morality anyway, putting me back at square one). I am forced to define and write my own purpose in my own story, rather than being caught up in something pre-existent and compelling, and finding my place in it. The confusion and dread that this story-creating burden creates in our hearts leads me to believe we weren’t made for carrying it.

On the other hand, having a Gospel worldview based on Christ, a real person with a real story, to look to for moral direction demolishes the assumption that I am the best moral judge the world has ever known, and also provides an incredible story as to why Christ is. You might argue that these other worldviews do in fact provide a mission. Something akin to “helping our fellow man and treating him with decency.” And you’d be right. But what does it all amount to? The writer of Ecclesiastes laments, we will all still die and waste away in the ground, so even decency is meaningless as an end in itself. We long for something eternal, something lasting.

But all philosophizing aside, these worldviews have not achieved their goals of a “decent society.” History has been one of the best teachers of the inadequacies of these foundationless worldviews. Where we’ve seen these views reign, the verdict isn’t pretty.

To dive into our current cultural worldview and dissect what history is telling us, let’s go back to my questions from before about why generosity or integrity are good. If the reason generosity or integrity are good are because they make us feel good, then stealing and adultery are good for the person who enjoys them. If they’re good because they make other people feel good, then we can also justify the enabling and encouragement of others in the pursuit of behaviors that begin with enjoyment and end in miserable and debilitating addiction.

And if something is good merely because it furthers the propagation of our species, but still leaves us empty and miserable, we are forced to ask why we would want to propagate such a miserable existence. When considering that our current Western culture is more divorced, addicted and depressed than it’s ever been, and that corporate greed, war and crime still saturate the evening news, we must ask whether our predominant worldviews have created any kind of moral progress. I think these baseless worldviews must be put on trial for what they’ve witnessed, and I think they stand as major culprits.

My goal here is not to sell you Jesus like a TV ad, but only to heighten your awareness of or even awaken the need you feel for a compelling person in a compelling story who shows you how to live. I want you to honestly and soberly ask yourself if your current compass for “right and wrong” or whatever you use to determine where to go in life is really working for you. My conviction on this matter is no secret, but you need to decide for yourself what to do with your need. In the next part of this series, I’ll talk a little further about what a life grounded in a beautiful story can look like.

Related posts:

1. A Gospel Worldview Part 4: The Story is the Standard
2. A Gospel Worldview Part 5: A Theology of Vulnerability
3. A Gospel Worldview Part 1: It’s all About Jesus

In the last post, I talked about how the Bible teaches that everything good and true has its fulfillment in Christ; that the Gospel is not just a part of the Bible, but rather, all of the Bible exists to explain the elements of this one story from which all truth and wisdom has its origins. It’s a huge claim with overwhelming biblical support, but it’s not immediately clear what it means or why it’s important. In these next two posts, I’ll be sharing about why I think each of us deeply needs a Gospel worldview.

Something extremely rare that we have as Christians is a cohesive and comprehensive “why” to our worldview. That “why” is the Gospel narrative (hence the title of these posts: “A Gospel Worldview”). Now, the importance of a “why” to your worldview might not be super clear to you. I mean, as long as you know what you believe, what need is there for a well-articulated story that explains everything around you? This is why:

You are a spiritual being.

You were not made merely to exist, function or produce. You were made for a full and glorious life in intimate relationship with God. If the way you view the world doesn’t bring you more deeply into this reality with every breath you take, but only helps you “get by” day-to-day, then your existence has thus far only been sub-human. There is something better out there for you.

You and I need the Gospel more than on Sundays and during our prayer times and when we read our Bibles. Our souls need nourishment from God’s truth moment-by-moment. If you believe the Gospel but can’t yet see it in every conversation, story and sunset, then you’re missing the depth of intimacy that God made you for. The need for this deeply intimate relationship with God is literally imprinted onto our souls, and I want to highlight the consequences of a worldview that misses this so as to help you see that God made you to need an ultimate and eternal “why.”

So without further ado, the first of two reasons we need a story that gives us a “why” to what we believe:

Reason #1: If we don’t have an example to follow, our lives are directionless.

Fatherlessness has been well-documented as a leading indicator of just about everything we would identify as a major social problem. I think it demonstrates a larger point: we need someone to follow in order to know how to live. Regardless of how great our dreams for our life are, there’s something deeply unnerving about having to “figure it all out on our own,” despite all the cultural rhetoric touting the glory of the American Dream and the “self-made person.” Even those people needed role models.

Having done college ministry for about 5 years now, I can safely say that the prospect of having to figure our whole lives out by ourselves terrifies just about every one of us. I think each of us longs to be able to venture out into the unknown with confidence that we won’t fail or be destroyed. But we weren’t born with this ability, so we each have a deep need for a role model and a mentor, someone who has done it before and done it well, whom we can look to for help when life throws us surprises.

I’m not a trained counselor, but I’m convinced that our inner child who wants to run to the safety and guidance of mom or dad when confronted with a new, scary, unknown, confusing and potentially dangerous situation never quite goes away because it’s been eternally and irreversibly imprinted on our souls. We were actually made to retain a child’s posture (toward God) of dependence and neediness our whole lives, but in our world’s denial of God, most have missed this concept and have come to believe that adults shouldn’t need help. Most adults I know feel incredibly shameful if they ever need to ask others for money…it violates our cultural expectation that adults should be perfectly self-sufficient in providing for themselves.

Therefore, the latent eternal desire to be fathered by God in a constant state of utter dependence upon Him comes out sideways in the “oh to be young again” contempt for middle-agedness, the overbearing parents living vicariously through their children, and the mid-life crisis. All of these phenomena carry tendencies to shirk appropriate adult care or responsibility and harm those who depend on that care and responsibility.

In this way, the world grasps to meet their eternal need for childhood before God in godless ways, because we hate bearing the burden of being a “grown-up” (which has been culturally defined as ultimate responsibility and self-sufficiency). But we were never meant to be the ones to provide for ourselves,  this has been God’s responsibility all along (Matthew 6:25-34). The reason the burden is so heavy is that our souls were never made to carry it, but to give it to God. But a worldview devoid of an intimate Provider-God has led many to instead revert inappropriately to childish behavior, damaging all who stand in their wake.

But as believers, we will always have a Father and Mentor, even if all of our earthly role models fail us (Psalm 27:10-11). The gospel story gives us the person of Jesus, and says “imitate him.” He isn’t a spirit or a myth, but an actual man who lived, breathed, ate, used the bathroom, and was tempted (Hebrews 4:15). Not only this, but just in case the gospel accounts of Jesus don’t provide a sufficient portrait of his life to model, we are also given a rich history of the lives of those who were closest to him, and they give the exhortation, “imitate us as we imitate him” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

And Jesus is not just our role model in the way that we can look to his life on earth as something to imitate, but he is also our ever-active and present mentor, because he’s put his Holy Spirit inside of us, and actively counsels us into all truth all the time, if we but have ears to hear. If you believe in Him, all of this is yours. I believe there’s nothing in this world that brings shalom quite like it.

And what is Reason #2, you ask? I’ll describe it in detail in my next post.

Related posts:

1. A Gospel Worldview Part 1: It’s all About Jesus
2. A Gospel Worldview Part 3: We’re in a Story
3. A Gospel Worldview Part 5: A Theology of Vulnerability

I embedded a video of Tim Keller in my recent post, A Threefold Gospel Presentation. If you watched the whole thing (I highly recommend it), you may have realized that I wrote about his first point (discussing moralism alongside hedonism as equally unChristian ways to live), and one of his last points (the importance of sharing acceptable doctrines before unacceptable ones), but didn’t discuss the main point of his talk. I want to do that here since I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.

The purpose of his talk was to give pastors insight on how to preach effectively. As far as I could tell, his central thesis is that every sermon, if it is to be effective, must ultimately point back to the character and redeeming work of Christ (sometimes called Christocentric, crucicentric or gospel-centric preaching). Otherwise, he says, we will become driven by (Old Testament) principles of wisdom and Law, and you may as well just go to a Synagogue and hear the sermons there if you want this perspective. And there’s nothing wrong with these things; God instituted them, in fact. But they were only intended to guide human life for a time. Now, in light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the new covenant He has established between God and man, all of reality changes, and as such, all of our understanding, obedience and teaching must change also (Hebrews 8). At one point, Keller even exclaims “You always, always, always get to Jesus!” (around 20:30 into the talk).

I recently had a conversation with my friends Kyle and Tim where we discussed why this idea of always getting back to Jesus is important and good. We talked about how the meta-narrative of the Bible, with its climactic action at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the greatest story ever told. But it’s more than that; I actually believe it is the eternal story written on the heart of every human being (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and, as such, that every element of beauty in every story actually has its origins in the Gospel of Jesus. Even the stories written before his life on earth!

[Aside: Throughout the rest of post, when I refer to "The Gospel," I'm talking about the whole narrative thrust of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but I'm more particularly talking about its climactic hinge point in the death and resurrection of Jesus (because the rest of the story wouldn't be much "good news" without that part).]

The Bible teaches that the Gospel of God’s grace actually pre-dates creation itself, and was fully illuminated (rather than originated) in the redeeming work of Christ on the cross (1 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 1:9-10). And I believe it is this Gospel story that has been on the heart of every human being who has ever lived, each of them bearing God’s image and longing for his life and story to become manifested in their own (for more on this idea, check out John Eldredge’s book Epic, or just read a lot of Buechner).

But I want you to think for a second now about why stories are so interesting. Think about why they’re the only part of a sermon you can ever seem to remember the next week, or why, as a child, you found unrivaled joy in hearing or imagining a compelling story. Much of why hearing someone else’s story (fictional or not) is so interesting to us is because it helps us make sense of our own lives. Stories point to what the most true and beautiful things are in the world, as well as the things that threaten them, and these illuminations stir us to our very core. In a great story, we taste life’s true richness and depth; through it we experience the realest things in life.

So then, if God created all of the innermost workings of human beings (which respond deeply to great stories) for the purpose of relationship to Him, and God’s single, great meta-story is the Gospel (hence why it’s called “the Gospel of God” and not just “the Gospel of Jesus”…see Romans 1:1), then certainly every true and beautiful thing about life can and must somehow be fully illuminated or realized in the Gospel story, and more specifically, in the cross of Christ, the epic climax of God’s great Gospel.

Think about that for a second.

Every truth. Ever.

Now that might sound nice and make for a neat and tidy worldview, but does the Bible actually teach this? I believe so. From what I can tell, the Bible is more Christocentric than me. Paul exclaims, “For from him [Christ] and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever!” (Romans 11:36, Colossians 1:16). Everything…every single thing, has its origins, sustenance, and completion in Christ. What about evil, you say? Does evil have its origins in Christ? No, because evil is not a thing, but rather a non-thing, because evil ultimately has its basis in a lie (a non-reality). So then, every part of the creation, everything that God called “very good” (Genesis 1:31), all of wisdom, all that we would say is true, is fulfilled in the Gospel, and more specifically, in the person of Jesus Christ.

Consider what Scripture itself says about this:

“But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:24

“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” – 1 Corinthians 1:30

“My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” – Colossians 2:2-3

It does not say “Christ teaches us wisdom” or “Christ conveys treasures of knowledge”, but rather “Christ is wisdom” and “in him is all knowledge.” Isn’t that incredible?! Think about everywhere you look for wisdom. Know that, if the Bible is right about all of this, you never have to look further than the person of Jesus Christ for any bit of truth, knowledge or wisdom, ever. Every book, mentor, sermon, and all the rest of it, is only helpful as far as it illuminates truths already found in the unsearchable depths of the Gospel! To God be the glory.

Now, if this was all a bit too theoretical for you, don’t worry, I meant it to be that way. I just wanted to lay a biblical foundation for what’s to come. The next two parts of this series will be intensely practical. The next post will answer questions like, “So what do I do with all of this? How should it practically affect my life?” So get ready; I think this will be a lot of fun.

Related posts:

1. A Gospel Worldview Part 4: The Story is the Standard
2. A Gospel Worldview Part 2: Someone to Follow
3. A Gospel Worldview Part 3: We’re in a Story

Sitting in my Romans class (via Moody Bible Institute) this week, our professor recommended a quick essay by George Muller entitled “Soul Nourishment First”. I chose to look it up and read, and found it to be in some ways a summary of things I’ve been learning this week. It emphasizes the practice of receiving nourishment from God and praying from a place of unity with him, rather than from our fleshly desires. These thoughts have really been shaping my prayer life as of late. So without further ado, enjoy:

Soul Nourishment First
by George Muller
May 9, 1841

It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost, for more than fourteen years. The point is this:

I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord.

I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was, to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for a while making confession or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and then my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, either very soon after or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this:

Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer.

But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc., and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart, first being nourished by the truth, being brought into experiential fellowship with God, I then speak to my Father and to my Friend, (vile though I am, and unworthy of it), about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet, now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is, to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow.

Now, what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season, therefore, when this exercise of the soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the Word of God, where we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us. We may therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak spiritually; nay, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the strengthening of our inner man.

Thus there is far less to be feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without having had time previously for meditation. I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God, I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after having now above fourteen years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it.

In addition to this I generally read, after family prayer, larger portions of the Word of God, when I still pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures, sometimes in the New Testament, and sometimes in the Old, and for more than twenty-six years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also, either then or at other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer. How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one.

No related posts.