Author: Victor Scott

I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, husband, father, and author. I am an avid Cubs fan and a lover of Chicago-style Deep Dish pizza.

Worthy is the Lamb! (and other things we have forgotten)

The story is told of two Moravian missionaries who heard of a colony of slaves who had not yet heard the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their hearts were burdened within them. So, they sought some opportunity to go and preach to them. They soon discovered that the slaves owner did not allow Christians to come because he was afraid of the effect of the Gospel on the slaves. These two young men finally came to the realization that the only way to preach to them was to sell themselves into slavery.

That is exactly what they did. They sold themselves into slavery and as they bade their families and friends goodbye, it is said that one of them looked over the rail ofthe ship, as it pulled from the dock, and screamed to those they would probably never see again,

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive the reward of His suffering.”

I think we have forgotten that there are worse things than death, suffering or even slavery. The fires of hell and the people who will find themselves there because they did not repent and turn to Jesus are just two reasons to go into all the world!

Worthy IS the Lamb!

Only when our sense of calling is higher than our own comfort will we be able to forsake present pleasure for future glory. We have to see that ALL that this world pretends to offer is not the worlds to give.

Jesus said,

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27, ESV).

Amen and amen!

Eat your way into heaven!

Over the last several years I have struggled to lose weight. I know that I can’t continue to eat like it will be my last meal and expect to maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight. But, eating is so good. If there were a way to keep eating, but not get full, I think that many of us would probably eat all of the time. Food is a gift from God. We were designed to eat so that we could live and not the other way around.

So let me ask you a question: if food is needed to sustain your physical life, what do you need to “eat” in order to sustain your spiritual life?

It can be so easy to think that the physical and the spiritual are in the same condition, but that would be a mistake. The problem that many of us have is that we are very good at diagnosing where we are spiritually. I would strongly recommend Donald Whitney’s book Ten Questions to Diagnose your Spiritual Health. I can read the questions and some of my thoughts on each here in Part 1 and Part 2.

Back to my question, what do you have to “eat”? I have found that the only spiritual food that God has provided for us is his word. Listen to what Jesus said to the Devil after forty days of fasting,

3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

(Matthew 4:3-4, ESV)

“Every word that come the mouth of God” is what provides the nourishment that we need in order to feed our spirit. One of the things that we have to realize is that we do not truly know how spiritually malnourished we are until we have fed our spirit healthy food. The more junk we take in the weaker we become. I would challenge you to begin reading scripture on a daily basis, three times a day even, and see if your spiritual life does not improve.

There is no way that you can eat too much of the word of God. And, there is an added benefit to eating scripture, you will grow more healthy with each bite!

Confirmation 2012 | Join the Journey

This weekend I was at Epworth by the Sea on St. Simons Island for the South Georgia Annual Conference’s Confirmation Retreat. This is a time for our church to gather all the young people that we hope are ready after a time if instruction to accept the faith of Christ and make it their faith in Christ. Because in the United Methodist Church they practice infant baptism, confirmation becomes an important point in the life of every Methodist believer. This sacrament has two purposes.

First, it reminds the church that they have a responsibility to care for and nurture the faith of the child that has been born into a believing family. God is the one baptizing through the instrument of the church. We, as a church, are not doing anything for the child in the act of baptism. What we are witnessing is the grace of God in action. Therefore, as that child grows up and is taught about faith, confirmation becomes the moment where we ask the child to “confirm” for themselves that the faith taught to them.

This leads us the second purpose of infant baptism. The second purpose is to demonstrate to the whole church, and all those that witness the event, how we believe God works in our lives. God’s grace is active in the whole world right now. He is working in and thought believers and the circumstances of life in order for us to see Him. We are inviting those who do not have faith in Christ to join us in a new journey of faith, hope and love. In the Methodist church we see see sanctification (i.e., the process of becoming more and more like Jesus) as a progressive act. It is not something that happens over night.

This was a great weekend. I hope that the over 500 youth and adults that attended enjoyed the time spent remembering how God’s grace has brought them this far.

Ten Questions That May Change Your Life, Pt. 2

These are the other five questions from Donald Whitney’s book. We look at the first five questions in a previous post.

6. Do you delight in the Bride of Christ?

This was one of those questions that did not seem to fit in with the rest of the questions. My first reaction was this, “What does this have to do with my ‘personal’ faith journey?” And, fundamentally, that was part of the problem. When I create a scenario where my faith is all about “me” and my faith is not a part of the greater “we,” (i.e., the church), then I have set myself up to no longer need anybody else. In order to avoid this we have to see the faith as something that we come into rather than as something that belongs to me. I just bought shares in the Kingdom of God. That is not how it works.

“So one of the best tests of whether we belong to Christ is whether we delight in His delight, namely, the people who comprise His church.” (Kindle Location, 754)

This is a wonderful reflection of what is missing in many areas of the church. There are places where members of the same congregation have not spoken to each other in years, maybe even decades. This is not a good witness to the world about the love of God in us, for them. If I do not or cannot delight in the company of the other believers, heaven will not be as blissful as many have imagined. This next statement and question helped me to clearly understand what this idea of delighting in the Bride of Christ meant.

“The truth of Scripture is better expressed by a congregation confessing, ‘We are the bride of Christ,’ than by a solitary Christian saying, ‘I am the bride of Christ.’ Therefore, do you delight in the church, that is, in the gathering of believers, their corporate experiences and labor?” (Kindle Location, 772)

7. Are the spiritual disciplines increasingly important to you?

My first reaction was, “No.” I have not participated in spiritual disciplines like I should. The primary reason is that I was unaware that there were a variety that could be practiced. After reading Whitney I have discovered that the spiritual disciplines must move from the category of “could be done” and become “should be done.” There are several statements made by Whitney in this chapter that are worth highlighting.

“Remember also that the spiritual disciplines found in Christian Scripture are sufficient.” (Kindle Location, 876)

“All the Christian spiritual disciplines are important and singularly beneficial. A discipline neglected is a blessing unclaimed.” (Kindle Location, 879)

This final example reveals the goal of the disciples life. To learn and grow and foster a consistent witness and a growing faith. We shouldn’t want to be a flash of fervor followed by nothing.

“Perhaps you are like a Christian woman I know who sometimes wonders if she is still growing spiritually, because the original God-kindled blaze of eternal life that once illuminated the darkness of her life so suddenly, seldom flames up as dramatically as when she was first converted. But what is true for the woodstove is true in this case for the Christian heart as well: just because the beginning of the combustion may briefly be more spectacular than at present doesn’t mean the fire isn’t growing. The initial burst of spiritual flame may be more dazzling, but the heartfire’s greatest effectiveness occurs as it burns into consistency.” (Kindle Location, 861)

8. Do you still grieve over sin?

My first reaction to this was, “I am not even sure people would understand this question.” As I read through the chapter it was just amazing to me how easy it is to become prideful in having received God’s grace. The wonderful words of God’s love are supposed to make us for full of ourselves. We should be moved to become more full of Him. Grieve over my sin changes how I look at everything, or at least it should.

“The closer you get to Christ, the more you will hate sin; for nothing is more unlike Christ than sin. Because Jesus hates sin, the more like Him you grow the more you will grow to hate sin. And the more you hate sin, the more you will grieve whenever you realize that you have embraced that which killed your Savior.” Kindle Location, 956)

Whitney’s clear description of what it means to draw closer to Jesus is important. Sin is darkness. It is everything that God is not and will never be. Therefore, if we are drawing closer to the eternal life of the Son of God the must necessarily be change occurring in our lives. This understanding of drawing close and the quote from Thomas D. Bernard, was also very revealing.

“The closer you come to the light of Christ, the more sins His holy light will expose in you. In the words of nineteenth century Bible scholar Thomas D. Bernard, ‘Our sense of sin is in proportion to our nearness to God.'” (Kindle Location, 971)

Finally, I was struck by the unshakable reality that grieving over sin will actually have the opposite effect than what I anticipated. Whitney says that

“Godly sorrow in the growing Christian makes him a thousand times more aware of his pride than his humility.” (Kindle Location, 1013)

9. Are you a quicker forgiver?

As I mentioned in Part 1, these questions are so simple and direct the longer you look at them the more you realize how important the answers are. This question in particular, has that effect. Let the two following passages sink in for a moment.

“Repenters toward God are forgivers toward others. Those who find themselves unable to forgive reveal that they’ve never experienced the transforming forgiveness of God.” (Kindle Location, 1084)

“The one who announces forgiveness where it hasn’t been sought not only discounts the importance of repentance, he also misunderstands the requirement of Scripture. But the one who is not willing to forgive is contradicting the Scripture, and for the moment at least, is putting the reality of his salvation to the test.” (Kindle Location, 1106)

I do not think that Whitney was off the mark here. Not only is our testimony questionable when we fail to forgive, but we should be concerned about where we stand before. When we are unable or unwilling to extend forgiveness to others after we have experienced it for ourselves, something is terribly wrong.

10. Do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus?

We have all heard that there are some people who are “So heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” Well, the truth may actually be the opposite. What if we are not heavenly minded enough? What if we have failed to truly consider the wonder and joy of heaven? What if, because we do not appreciate what is to come, we have sold ourselves and those around us short of God’s best?

The twist that Whitney provides here is that the yearning for heaven that all Christian’s should have is at its heart a longer for the completion of God’s work of making us totally holy. When the work of Salvation that Jesus ratified on the cross is completed, we will be able to enjoy God’s company forever. But, only a holy people can enjoy that. That is why a yearning for heaven is a desire to holy. This was last statement is just a striking truth.

“Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “But neither a … longing to be in Heaven, nor longing to die, are in any measure so distinguishing marks of true saints, as longing after a more holy heart.”‘” (Kindle Location, 1198)

“Paul wrote like a man who had not only tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8), but like one who has found the holiness of the Lord eternally and irresistibly addictive.” (Kindle Location, 1229)

The single best sermon I have EVER heard on what heaven will be like was given by Dr. Sam Storms in 2003 at the Desiring God National Conference. It was called “Joy’s Eternal Increase: Edwards on the Beauty of Heaven”. You can listen online or download the video here.

Conclusion

These ten question have the potential to provide a major course correction in your faith journey. But, they could also end up doing nothing to take you deeper into God’s plan and purposes for your life. The choice is yours.

Worshiping God when suffering IS a part of His plan.

I was reading this morning in 1 Peter and came across these two verses.

“For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” (1 Peter 3:17, ESV)

“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” (1 Peter 4:19, ESV)

Peter seems to imply that there my be times when suffering IS included in God’s plan for us. Not only does this sound wrong, there are many within the Christian community that teach and believe that this would never happen. But, they do this in contradiction to what the Bible plainly says. This is an inconvenient truth. We have to deal with the reality of what God says in His word, rather than trying to make it say something that it does not.

While there may be times in our lives were we live in fear that suffering may come into our lives, we should remember that God is fully aware of all that is taking place around us. There is nothing that escapes God’s observing eyes. If we believe in God’s love; if we believe in God’s grace; if we believe that God will work all things out for our good, then we have be careful not to make every experience of suffering into a time to complain and gripe and doubt God’s plan. If and when we suffer, we must make sure that we suffer justly. The fact that we do not suffer more is the true miracle if God’s love.

The question that took shape this afternoon was this:

Can I worship God if the suffering I
endure IS because of something in God’s plan which
God has chosen not to reveal to me?

When we think about what is happening around us it can be so easy to lose sight of the greatness and grandness of God. But, suffering has a way of adjusting our focus. If suffering happens outside of God’s will then we have no reason to fear. God will see us through. So, what do we do when we are confronted with the possibility, and according the Peter, the actuality that suffering is a part of God’s plans? Will we retreat from what the Bible says, or will we allow God to shape our view of the world? Because suffering has such a powerful effect on us, we are confronted with the varied array of assumptions that we may have made about how God works in the world. Assumptions that must be changed if we are going to live in obedience to God and His Word.

The challenge that Peter sets before us is this: when we find ourselves suffering from the concussion that suffering inflicts on our lives and heart, will we be able to “entrust their souls to a faithful Creator?” A faithful Creator. God’s faithfulness toward us should never be called into question. As pilgrims on the journey of faith, we need to trust that God’s view of the events and circumstances of history are controlled and guarded against sabotage by His sovereign reign.

I came across this song some months ago and I found that it captures, in a powerful way, what Peter is communicating here in his letter.

You can hear Laura Story tell the story behind the song here.

Related articles

Are We “Pro-Jesus” or With Jesus?

Our pastor has been preaching a series of sermons on the difference between being a fan and a follower of Jesus. This Sunday we looked at the difference between having a knowledge of Jesus and have an intimate relationship with Jesus. While you need to have a knowledge of Jesus in order to have an intimate relationship, you can have knowledge of Jesus and completely miss the intimacy. The Scripture reference was the story of the Sinful Woman that came and washed Jesus feet with her tears and hair. This is a powerful story. (Read it here.)

As Pastor David preached he said something that was funny at first glance, but after I gave it more thought really made me think. Am I “Pro-Jesus” or am I with Jesus? I will be splitting the proverbial hair here, but it just struck me odd after thinking about it. It can be so easy to be satisfied with being around Jesus, being near Jesus, being close to Jesus that we never push forward to being with Jesus. The idea is that we can be in the same room, but never engage in the conversation.

I don’t want to just be someone who is known for liking what Jesus stood for. Or knowing everything there is to know about Jesus. I want to be known by him. This is the idea that Paul is getting after when he says that there will come a moment when all of this will change.

12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:12, NLT)

There it is. God’s way of knowing will becoming my way of knowing. That is going to be a glorious day. When we are “Pro-Jesus” we are only interested in the exterior. How does this look? What do other people think? This was the problem with the man who invited Jesus to have a meal with him. He invited Jesus, failed to pay customary courtesy and then becomes indignant when another, the sinful woman, outshines the host, even when it was completely inappropriate. Simon the Pharisee missed out on the greatest opportunity of his life, and for what? He missed it because he was looking at the wrong person.

The sin of religious piety and of false humility will always lead to a skewed perspective of how things ought to be. As soon as the woman came in and began to worship Jesus, because that is what we have to call it, the “holiest” man in the room had this thought, “If this man [Jesus] were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7: 39b, ESV). And, as if on cue, Jesus answers the mans thoughts and puts him in his place.

The bottom line is that we should never be satisfied with being mere acquaintances with Jesus. We should be willing to go the ends of the earth for Jesus. Even if, or better still, especially when it costs us our dignity and self-respect. The sad reality is that for many of us who claim to be Christians, if Jesus asks us to give up our dignity and self-respect, we would rather have him move along until he comes to his senses.

We can know how deeply our commitment is rooted when we consider how far we are willing to go to show our devotion and faithfulness to God and his Son. Until we know how far we will go, we will not truly know or understand how valuable Jesus is in our lives.

Ten Questions That May Change Your Life, Pt. 1

Here are the ten questions that Donald Whitney poses in his book Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. Like I said in my review the simplicity, directness and depth of these questions truly is remarkable. I would encourage you to take some time and look at each one. Take the next ten days and see what God reveals to you.

I have provided the first five questions here, along with some of my reflections on them. We will look at the other five in another post.

1. Do you thirst for God?

This one is very interesting. The focus is not on having a relationship with God, but on and in God himself. Is God the most important part of my life? While I want to answer yes to this question. I really had to look at my life and see if there were areas that did not conform to this answer. There were, and still are places where I do not thirst for God. Here are few samples of what how Whitney defines what thirsting after God means.

“Just because a man longs for something that can be found in God alone doesn’t mean he’s looking for God.” (Kindle Location, 96)

“Many who claim they are questing for God are not thirsting for God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture, but only for God as they want Him to be, or for a god who will give them what they want.” (Kindle Location, 97)

2. Are you governed increasingly by God’s Word?

I think of all the questions this one was the “easiest” to answer. I know that my life has been growing in this area like never before. Even still, I have to say that I am not where I need to be in this area of my life. There are still times when I am careless with God’s word. Where I can play it “fast and loose” with what God would say or have me do. When you know enough of what the Bible says to bend it, you have to be very careful.

“The person who can content himself with few or routine contacts with Scripture may be manifesting something far worse than spiritual decline.” (Kindle Location, 252)

This statement is so true. The longer you spend in the word the more you will find that what you believe changes. It changes not because it was a wrong belief, but because you actually begin to believe it and that changes you!

“Speaking in a practical way, you know that God’s Word is growing in its influence over you when you can point to increasing numbers of beliefs and actions that have been changed because of the potency of specific texts of Scripture.” (Kindle Location, 282)

3. Are you more loving?

I pray that I am. If I answer this question in relation to how I feel for others, I would say that my sensitivity to the needs and circumstances of others has grown and increased. But, when I consider that love is an action, I am left knowing that I fall far short of what God desires to see in me. It is easy to love from a distance. I don’t get close enough sometimes. Part of the reason is because I just don’t know what to do sometimes. I am hoping that this changes as I continue to grow.

These two statement stood out to me and were really helpful in helping me to think about and evaluate where my growth in Christ-like love is.

“When love grows colder, our sin increasingly manifests itself and we look more unlike Jesus.” (Kindle Location, 351)

This next statement cut sharply against the tendency among some in the church to think that doing something nice or kind some how amounts to meeting God’s expectations of us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Many people, therefore, are congratulating themselves for what amounts to merely being human, and they conclude amiss that this innate love testifies of spiritual health. Natural affection, however, is just one of several pretenders to the kind of love only those indwelt by the Holy Spirit can express.” (Kindle Location, 373)

4. Are you more sensitive to God’s presence?

This is one of those things that is almost impossible to quantify, and yet Whitney provided a clear and powerful description of what we should be looking for. There were a three ideas that were very helpful. Here is the first

“…it is through His Word that our experience with God, including our perception of His presence, is mediated.” (Kindle Location, 515)

We cannot encounter God directly, and we really shouldn’t. Moses taught us this when he asked to see God’s glory (Exodus 33:18). And God responds by telling Moses, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (33:20).

The second statement that Whitney makes is connected to the one above, when he says,

When we seek the presence of God mediated–directly or indirectly–through Scripture, we are not imagining God as we would like Him to be. The basis of our experience with God is God-revealed truth, not our individual, idiosyncratic opinions about God. (Kindle Location, 528)

And isn’t this exactly what we want? To make sure that we are not worshiping or seeking a God of our own creation we have allow the Word of God to guide and determine our understanding of Him. Which leads to the third statement that was probably the one that got me the most in this section.

Without a mediated sense of God’s presence, how can I know I have indeed encountered the God of the Bible? How can I be sure that I haven’t delved into the recesses of a mysterious, imaginative mind and simply manufactured an experience? (Kindle Location, 546)

5. Do you have a growing concern for the spiritual and temporal needs of others?

Possible the most difficult aspect of this question is the “and” between spiritual and temporal. As I read I was confronted with the reality that theses two realities of a person’s life cannot be separated. If we are seeking to help someone in their spiritual journey, then we must also address their physical needs. If we just do one or the other we are dismissing the reality that we are physical creatures AND we are spiritual beings. We are both at the same time. There can be no dividing of the two. Even James said this when he reminded us that sending someone off without tending to what they need is not what God had in mind (James 2:14ff).

Evangelism that ignores hollow-eyed hunger or other crying needs of the ones being evangelized is a physical contradiction to the spiritual message.” (Kindle Location, 643)

I literally cringed when I read this statement. It is too often the truth. I pray that it changes.

There is no Christlikeness in throwing money at a physical need or in dutifully reading a few Bible verses to an unbeliever and apathetically sending him on his way to hell.” (Kindle Location, 671)

Next Time:

In Part 2 we will look at the following questions.

6. Do you delight in the Bride of Christ?
7. Are the spiritual disciplines increasingly important to you?
8. Do you still grieve over sin?
9. Are you a quicker forgiver?
10. Do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus?

Book Review | Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

Donald Whitney’s book on spiritual health is probably one of the most challenging that I have read in the last few years. I began to read it not really expecting to finish. You just never know what you will find in books that claim to offer insights into spiritual formation. What I found was a book that did not travel the same path as other books. Each of the questions struck a different note. And each question moved me closer to understanding that there is much more involved in my own spiritual development than I had noted before.

I think that one of the things that struck me about each of the questions was how “ordinary” they were. There were not overly spiritual, but as I dug deeper into what they meant for my own faith journey I was struck at how much was still left to uncover. This is not a book that can be read or digested quickly. I would say that each question could be expanded into individual books themselves. As I read I found myself challenged on two fronts.

First, I was struck by the directness of the questions. There was not mincing of words. Whitney was direct and went right to the bottom line. There is a wonderful mix of practical application and spiritual depth. I found myself having to pause and think, often times several times on the same page. This is not one of those books you just push through reading. It has a tendency to push back.

The second area that I found myself thinking about was this. If I cannot answer these questions in a Biblical and honest way there is a problem with my spiritual health. Along these lines, I realized that the questions were not what I expected. I was expecting some other “spiritual” questions, but as I read and thought about the questions that Whitney asked I was left rethinking what I thought was spiritual and what was not.

As we walk along the path of faith, we will be confronted with the fact that the longer my “life” and my “faith” exist in different, separate areas, the longer it will take for me to arrive at a place of maturity. These questions reveal that I cannot avoid becoming a Christian if I practice spiritual disciplines. And isn’t this exactly what we want, to be what we profess?

My next post will give the ten questions and some of my thoughts about each.

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