“Abby and I sat back and marveled, recounting how Jesus also went through lots of difficult moments in his life. How he chose to become human and experience a world full of harshness. He didn’t remain aloof, or skirt over touchy issues. He dug into people’s messy, broken, dirty lives and loved them with a perfect heart. And when his friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept. Jesus was real.
"Abby and I talked of the blessings God has given each of us.
"God loved us enough to become a man and ultimately conquer sin and death in order for us to be with him forever. (Hello, Good News!)”
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781
I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
—Benjamin Franklin, Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention, 1787
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
—George Washington, letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, 1790
The life that I’ve been living
From the day I first drew breath
Has been my way of forgetting
I’m on the journey to my death
You make my soul rise up
You make my eyes to see
When I place my faith in you
And I lose my belief in me
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
I don’t believe in beads or crystals
Instant karma or mother earth
I don’t believe that what I think
Makes any difference to what I’m worth
I don’t believe in reincarnation
I’m not coming back as a flower
I don’t bow my head to kings or priests
‘Cos I believe in your higher power
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
Oh you’ve given me a plan
That I don’t understand
‘Cos I’ve wandered over half the world
But I’ve remained an ignorant man
One thing That I know
Is when the final bell tolls
Human love won’t be enough
Good deeds can’t save my soul
Well I’m not afraid of dying
But I am afraid of you
Because you hear me when I’m lying
And you see the things I do
So the hands go round the clock
As the light goes from the room
And I can’t help thinking to myself
I’m going to find out much to soon
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
Oh you’ve given me a plan
That I just don’t understand
‘Cos I’ve wandered over half the world
But I’ve remained a ignorant man
One thing that I know
Is when the final bell tolls
Human love won’t be enough
Good deeds can’t save my soul
I believe
I believe
I believe
I believe
I believe
I believe
I believe
I believe
You make my soul rise up
You make my eyes to see
When I place my faith in you
And I lose my belief in me
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
The less I believe in me
The more I believe in thee
[D]oubt is a necessary part of faith. We tend to think that faith and doubt are opposites, but they’re not. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. If we are certain of something, we don’t need faith. Faith and doubt, then, exist side by side — and that plays itself out all over the Bible (“Lord I believe! Help me overcome my unbelief.”).
But — reason #2 — doubt is about as taboo a subject as you can bring up in church. When was the last time anyone in a small group or church service admitted to not knowing if he or she believed in God? Or wondering if God was really present at all, or good? I’ve honestly had readers tell me that they’d love to read my book, but worry about what their friends or family might think when they see them reading a book about doubt. It sounds flippant, but maybe they should hide my book behind a Playboy. It’s more acceptable to be a Christian with a porn problem than a Christian with a doubt problem. That’s horrible. I want doubters to know that they’re not alone in the journey, and that it’s OK. That they don’t have to pretend to have it all together. That they don’t have to fake it. I hope this book gives them the freedom to be honest, and the encouragement to continue pursuing God, however that might look.
We are not much different than burdened travelers, are we? We roll in the mud of self-pity in the very shadow of the cross. We piously ask for his will and then have the audacity to pout if everything doesn’t go our way. If we would just remember the heavenly body that awaits us, we’d stop complaining that he hasn’t healed this earthly one.
Our problem is not so much that God doesn’t give us what we hope for as it is that we don’t know the right thing for which to hope. (You may want to read that sentence again.)
Sometimes we see ourselves as sinners in the loving arms of a God who is pretending not to see us as we really are. In our minds, maybe God is wearing a pair of “Jesus glasses” that hides our true state from his vision. We find it difficult to grasp the idea that God calls us righteous because we actually are righteous. It feels more humble to believe that we’re filthy worms awaiting a future change into beautiful butterflies.
Jesus stated it best. He said that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees in order to enter the kingdom (Matthew 5:20). So if we Christians don’t claim to possess perfect righteousness, we’re lowering God’s standard. We’re watering down the gospel. We insinuate that Jesus can unite himself with sin. And we insult the perfection of God.
Only perfection will do. This is precisely why God had to make us perfectly righteous in our human spirits through our own death, burial, and resurrection. With its apparent humility, this filthy worm theology appeals to the flesh. But God certainly doesn’t condone our wallowing in poor self-image.
The risen Christ doesn’t join himself to filthy worms. The Holy Spirit doesn’t dwell in dirty sinners. Christ only unites himself with those who are like him in spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn’t reside in someone who remains even 1 percent flawed by sin.
But we’ve been perfectly cleansed. And we’ve been made perfectly righteous at our core through spiritual surgery. This is the only way we can enjoy even a moment of relationship with Jesus Christ.
I have often used the same analogy Farley mentions above, of God looking at us through “Jesus-colored glasses,” and I realize I may have been incomplete in my explanation in the past.
Not to be repetitive with Farley’s own elaboration, but my meaning has always been that when God sees a believer, he sees perfection, as when he sees Jesus. As when he sees himself.
This is who we are, fellow Christians. We have no need to add to it. It’s impossible for us to do so. There is no magic checklist we can look at to see how our perfecting is going. At the same time it is ongoing, it’s also already done. Why can we not accept that? What are we afraid of?
Knowing who we are, righteous before a perfect and holy God, should fill us with hope. A hope we should be passing on to our fellow man.
Know who you are. Be who you are. Not to lord it over others, as the Church has too often been wont to do for years, but to show God’s love to the world. He has chosen to work through us, and we should joyfully allow Him to do so.
No offense to ebooks and Kindle, which have their place, but there’s no substitute for a book that has an actual history, that takes up space on a shelf, that has been somewhere, strapped to the back of a bike, that was being read in a British boys’ school library while Lewis was still teaching at Oxford.
Thank you, Lord, for books. Not just the words, but actual physical books you can hold in your hand and touch and smell, and ponder where they have been and what lives they may have touched.
