A Man of God

"Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." 1 Corinthians 16v13-14. Spent some time this morning meditating on this verse. Asking myself questions of each phrase.

What does it mean to be watchful? Where am I not watchful?
Where and when am I in danger of not standing firm?
What does it mean Biblically to act like a man?
What does it mean to be strong? How is it counter cultural?
Where do I fail to act in love?

Worldliness

I've started reading the second chapter of this book today, the first chapter was brilliant and I'm thinking through what changes I need to make in what I watch and what DVD's sit on my shelf.

But the second chapter deals with music. It begins with the wonder of music and reminding us of the great joy and gift of God that music is. But Bob Kauflin also reminds us that "listening to music without discernment and godly intent reveals a heart willing to flirt with the world."

Am I flirting with the world with the songs I have on my itunes? In the way I listen to the radio?

The Holy Spirit and our Future

Have you ever heard the phrase “too heavenly minded to be any earthly use”? It expresses the idea that someone can be too wrapped up in thoughts of heaven and Christ’s coming again, that they can be so future focused that they are not plugged into reality now, that actually they have their head in the clouds. It was a popular phrase but the question is was it a helpful phrase, is it a useful phrase, and more importantly is it a Biblical phrase?

Paul in Ephesians gets the church to focus their thinking on both the present blessings that they enjoy but also the certainty of their hope in the future. We live in a world where our future is not certain, 3 years ago people were not predicting a financial crisis on the scale we are experiencing, 3 years ago no-one predicted swine flu, or the naming and shaming of MP’s over their expenses. 10 years ago no one was predicting the rise in global terrorism, 9/11, or 7/7. In the same way we don’t know what will happen in 5 years time, will the church be experiencing persecution, will we still be a democracy?

The Ephesians lived in a world that was similar to our own where the future did not look certain and Paul writes to encourage them to get their focus right. He tells them that God will one day reconcile all of creation to himself in Christ, and that in Christ all people are reconciled vertically – to God – and horizontally – to one another. And he calls them to live their lives in the light of those truths, for those two realities to influence and affect their thinking and living.

We are going to be focusing on 1:13-14, God sends his Spirit to indwell us so that we keep our present status in view and to enable us to live in the light of our heavenly reality now and our certain future when Christ comes again.

1. The Holy Spirit marks God’s people
Ephesians begins with the Apostle bursting out in praise of God for what he has done, for the blessings that he lavishes on his people. Paul praises God that the believer is; chosen(4), adopted(5), given grace(6), redeemed(7), has had the mystery of God’s plan of salvation history revealed to them(9), and has a great and certain future to look forward to when Christ comes again(10).

And in(11-14) he continues his praise of God; firstly for having chosen for salvation Jews who have put their faith in Christ, and secondly for having included the Gentiles in his plan of salvation – destroying the old divisions and creating his glorious church diverse but united in the gospel.

As Paul writes I think he is calling the Ephesians to join with him in praise of the God who saves us despite ourselves, who plans and prepares a salvation to which we do not contribute. In (2:1)Paul remind these believers that whether they were Jews or Gentiles they were dead before God – not just physically but spiritually.

In Genesis 2:17 God promises Adam and Eve that if they take of the fruit they will surely die, have you ever noticed that in Genesis 3 after the fall as they are judged and God keeps his promise that they will die they don’t die physically not straight away anyway. But they do spiritually because they are exiled from God, they can no longer be with God, they can no longer live under his reign and rule and every other catastrophe flows from that exile, that spiritual death. And a dead person cannot bring themselves back to life.

Imagine for a minute that I dropped down now and my heart stopped beating. I can’t bring myself back to life, what I need is someone else to perform CPR, or for the ambulance to be called and the paramedics to get the defibrillator and shock my heart back into action.

So it is spiritually, both Jew and Gentiles in Ephesus and we with them are spiritually dead before God, and a corpse cannot bring itself back to life. We are dead until God by his Holy Spirit works to convict and convert, until he enables us to have faith in Jesus Christ bringing us new life.

But that is not all the Holy Spirit does, he then goes on to indwell, to live in the believer so that having been born again they can live for God in Christ. (13)“When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit in the believer functions as a seal, he is a mark.

It’s the idea of a mark used to brand something, maybe a slave or an animal. It was a sign of belonging, when you bought an animal from the market you would brand it so that everyone knew it was yours, that it belonged to you, it was identified. But it was also a sign that anything with that seal on was under its owners protection.

Turn back to Ezekiel 9:4-6 (READ). In Ezekiel’s vision the mark of a seal is put on the heads of those who are truly God’s people, the remnant who are faithful to God, who share God’s concerns. And that mark showed who they were, it identified them but it also brought protection and security when judgement came (6)”but do not touch anyone who has the mark.” They were safe because they were God’s people.

In Revelation 7 as John is given his glorious vision of salvation history we see God’s people sealed, and that seal shows they are God’s and they are under his protection.

This mark, this seal(13), this indwelling of the Holy Spirit happens “when you believed”. It is not a later feature, it is not connected with baptism or any other event, when you believe in Jesus Christ as your saviour at the moment of your new birth, as you accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord you are sealed in him.

Do you see the wonder of our salvation? Nothing of us and all of God. And God in his love and great mercy gives us his Holy Spirit to assure us of our being his, of our being sealed but also protected.

Maybe you struggle this morning with assurance, there are times when you wonder; am I really a Christian or not? You flit between thinking you are and thinking you are not. So often we think of our relationship and status before God as being performance related. So if we have had my quiet time, have done this and not done that… therefore God must love me. But when we fail to have our quite time, when we let God down we are wracked by guilt and find ourselves questioning whether we ever were saved, how can God love me?

But in Christ you are sealed and the Holy Spirit testifies to it. It is not performance related it is God secured. It is not about what I do but about what God has done.

2. The Holy Spirit is a pledge of a certain future.
But that isn’t all, the Holy Spirit is not just a seal on the believer he also helps us to live looking to the future, because he is the “deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…”. The term comes from the commercial markets of the day. It was used of the first payment made by a individual towards the purchase of something and that first payment formed a agreement that the rest would be paid in full.

The Holy Spirit indwelling the believer is the first payment, it is the promise of the full inheritance to come. His coming is God’s promise that we will inherit what he has prepared for us fully when Christ comes again.

I wonder how you think of that inheritance? The cartoons portray it as being dull, it’s sitting on a cloud strumming a harp for eternity. But the Bible calls for us to long for Christ to come again, for the new creation, for the new heavens and new earth. A world, a universe without flaws, without sin, without sadness, without grief, pain and mourning. A world that is marked by the curse reversed – right relationship with one another, with the world and all flowing from a right relationship with God.

And the Holy Spirit given by God, living in us is the guarantee that that future which the Bible sets before us is waiting for us, that it is certain, that God is not finished with us yet but that he will complete what he has started.

The Holy Spirit helps us to live as those who belong to the kingdom on earth as we long for the kingdom to come and for God’s reign and rule be fully established. That means practically that our lives now will be lived with a mixture of joy and groaning.

We are God’s children that is our reality and one day we will fully experience that reality but for now we may struggle with talking to our Father, listening to him and living for him. We are new creations and one day we will be finally and fully recreated but for now we battle with the sinful nature, with doing the things we don’t want to do and failing to do the things we ought to do.

We are awaiting for a world recreated but for now we live in a world that is disjointed and sick with sin and that means we will groan as we see suffering and death and experience pain and mourning. But the Holy Spirit within us will make us long for the new creation for a world where everything bad is undone God’s kingdom and rule are established forever and the Holy Spirit will make us call for Christ to come.

Our future inheritance is certain and the Holy Spirit is the guarantee.

The Holy Spirit helps us to live as God’s people, marking us as his saved and redeemed people who live under his protection, shelter under his salvation, transforming us and making us long and look for our certain future.

Paul does not call on the Ephesians not to be too heavenly minded but to be more heavenly minded. Our problem is not being too heavenly minded but not being heavenly minded enough, being too attached to this world. God gives us his Holy Spirit to makes us certain that as his children redeemed in Christ the inheritance is ours and that we must now live looking for it and longing for it.

In 1915 Earnest Shackleton led an expedition to the South Pole which went horribly wrong, there ship the Endurance was trapped in pack ice and sunk and the crew were left stranded on Elephant Island. Shackleton and some others left to get help. It took over three months, but every morning the skipper on the island would get the men up and call them to be ready for Shackleton to return that day. He reminded them daily of their hope so that they were ready and lived accordingly.

The Holy Spirit is given as a seal and a deposit so that we live looking, live longing, and live ready for Christ to come and our glorious future to be realised and God to be glorified through it.

For we are God's people, his God's possession, who live by God's will and for God's glory.

Renewing the vision

We are always in danger of becoming stuck in maintenance mode. There is work to do, the family to look after, the house to keep clean and running smoothly and so on. Its the same for churches we spend so much energy in doing the maintenance; preparing to lead the service, or teach the Sunday school class, or preparing the refreshments that we can lose sight of our vision. Church leaders are under the same pressures as church members.

Its interesting how often as you read the Bible God reminds his people of his plans for them. As you move into the New Testament how often Paul reminds churches and young pastors of the need to renew their focus rather than getting stuck in maintenance mode.

The challenge is to faithfully remind ourselves of our mission and vision whilst carrying out the maintenance, in fact it is for the maintenance to be with the purpose of sustaining the vision.

It is helpful to carry out an audit of what you do and whether it is purposeful; is it achieving the vision, is it contributing towards where you want to be? Is it recognised as such by those you lead?

We need to do this for each individual ministry. For example for home groups ask questions like this; what is the goal of this home group? Is it edification or evangelism or both? Is it a growth group or a comfort group? What part does it play in the overall role of the church? Are there things that could be done to improve its effectiveness? How would its members describe its purpose?

Bringing comfort

What do you say to someone who is facing difficulties? What do you say to someone who faces surgery? There are a couple of dangers, one is to avoid them altogether because we just don’t know what to say, the other is to swamp them and talk about nothing else but whatever is it that they are facing.

So actually how do we bring comfort.

1. The first is proactive; Spend time with people – build relationships now so you have relationships that can bring comfort then.
2. Spend time with people in crisis.
3. Don’t say ‘It’ll be alright’ or I’m sure it will be fine’. They don’t know that and neither do you and it is a vague wish without foundation.
4. By contrast our comfort is ultimately found in Christ, his forgiveness and resurrection, the future is secured.
5. Christ will make up for every loss that we have endured here.
6. God works all things for our good. It may be not be good, but he will work it for our good. Though often people can’t see it then, sometimes it takes 10 years or more. Don’t expect your friend to feel it emotionally as they go through hardships, they will be raw and in pain.
7. Don’t rebuke them and then preach these truths to them. Instead model hope for them – keep reading the Bible for yourself so that you know those comforts we have spoken of above, and ensure that as you comfort your brother or sister weeping with them, holding their hand, feeling with them that you show them hope.
8. Sometimes when someone is suffering they will question God, they may express anger with God, they may say they feel cut off from God and the temptation we face is to want to correct them theologically. Let those words go, in Job there are words for the wind, that need to be left.
9. Pray for God to heal them but also pray for their spiritual health, that they would know God with them comforting them and helping them through you and others.
10. Don’t idolise the world, but live for eternity. (Phil 3) Learn this for yourself and model it for them.

What if...

What would we do if persecution came to Britain? What if reading a Bible were illegal? What if church was outlawed?

Would we still make the effort to go? Would we dare to go? Would we treasure it all the more? Could listening to pirate broadcast MP3 bible talks take the place of the church?

I guess we all know the answer to those questions; MP3 talks could never take the place of the living, breathing, serving, loving, spurring, Christ honouring, Spirit gifted church. We would treasure church all the more of it being denied to us. So why do we treasure it so little now? Why are so many Christians apathetic in their involvement and their attendance? Why do many now see listening to a podcast as equivalent to going to church?

We need to reexamine what Church was in the New Testament. Church is not preaching! Preaching and teaching the word of God is not church! Therefore listening to an MP3 is not church. Church is my brothers and sisters exercising their Christ honouring, God glorifying gospel love towards one another by ministering to each other, using their gifts to serve each other and by doing so bringing glory to Christ! And that is only part of the wonder that is church.

So why not treasure church as if we were never going to be allowed to experience it again.

John Piper on Preaching

How do I see church

"For most of us, church is merely an event we attend or an organisation we belong to. We do not see it as a calling that shapes our entire life."

Paul David Tripp, Instrument's in the Redeemer's hands.

What if....?

What would we do if the swine flu pandemic hit and all public assemblies of more than three people were banned indefinitely until the threat of further spread was contained?

How would it alter how we did Church?

Changing our thinking on Sin

What is sin? Is sin a cultural phenomenon? Does our understanding of what is sinful shift as popular culture changes its definitions of morality and right and wrong? Galatians 5 has some arresting and though provoking things the say. It starts of by calling believers not to live by your appetites

(19-21) Paul lists the acts of the sinful nature. And as you look at the list you notice a number of things, the first is the breadth of things covered in the list; there are sexual sins (sexual immorality), there is wrong worship (idolatry and witchcraft) which is worshipping anything other than God, and there are wrong relationships and attitudes towards others(rage, envy, jealousy, dissensions...). And how does he end this list? “and the like” It is not exhaustive, it is an exemplar list. These are not all the acts of the sinful nature but just a selection of them.

There is also, to our way of thinking, a range to these sins, we automatically put them on a sliding scale, with some at the more serious end others at the less serious end. I guess we’d say idolatry was serious, but what about sexual immorality? It covers any sexual impurity from pornography to adultery, is looking at a picture as bad as idolatry? In our day and age even adultery is not viewed as a particularly serious sin. And then there’s jealousy, envy, causing conflict, drunkenness, which I guess we put at the less serious end of the scale, in fact we may even be surprised to see them there.

But Paul says they are acts of the sinful nature, there is no sliding scale. Each one is contrary to living by the Spirit, contrary to loving and serving others. There is no such thing as a less serious sin, there are just the acts of the sinful nature.

But notice something else the sins on this list are all about me and my appetites. Worship how I want, sexual fulfilment how I want, relating how I want when I want and raging against it when the world isn’t how I want.

Your letter about Swine Flu tells you all about the symptoms, what to look out for and what to do if you have them. But actually the symptoms aren’t the problem; the problem is the virus that causes them. The actions Paul describes aren’t the problem our nature is. Jesus in Mark says it’s our hearts. You may have mild symptoms, you may even treat the symptoms, just as you can do with a cold or flu, but you still have the virus. And those symptoms show that we have a sinful nature.

The person who has trusted Jesus Christ has been transformed; they are freed from living in slavery to the law and the sinful nature. But we still have to do battle with it. We are in a war!
And we need to begin by changing our thinking. The world does not define these things as wrong. Getting drunk is just what you do, in fact for many it is what the weekend is for; sex is just another pass time another advertiser’s tool, and so on. Pornography is viewed as being harmless because it doesn't injure another person. But we need to change our thinking on what sin is so that we conform to the Bible’s definition not ours. How is your thinking on sin, it is never trivial.

Scratch-ing an itch

CVM have just launched Scratch, a magazine aimed at Christian men and men on the fringe of church. Having read it since the weekend it is excellent particularly at challenging peoples stereotypical views of Christian men. Articles with Bear Grylls, Kaka, and Tim Vine among others make it a great read and then give away. You can order them through the Christian Vision for Men website.

What does it mean to be free?

Believers are free from the law, but they are freed for a purpose. (Gal 5:13)”But, do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” What are believers freed to do? You are freed, redeemed, to love and serve others.

The legalist thinks like this – if I do this good thing, or don’t do that bad thing then I am earning credit with God, God owes me. It places limits on what God can ask of me. But the legalist never loves God and they place limits on their obedience – that's why the supreme legalists the Pharisees qualify the command to love by asking questions like who is my neighbour? There response and thinking is obvious to all; God can’t ask to me to love him, or her or them.

But if we really understand the gospel, that Christ gave everything for us to redeem us, that he bore our sin and we are given his perfect record, that he alone buys our freedom and secures our relationship with God. Then there are no limits to what God can ask of us, in fact there are no limits to how we will want to respond to God. The only right response to the love of God in Christ is love for God displayed in unlimited love for others. We will keep not the letter of the law but its spirit, that’s why Paul quotes this summary of the law “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

How do you know you love God? Do you love your neighbours? Do you serve them?

The believer isn’t like the student at university for the first time who free from all parental restraint starts to do all the things they couldn’t do before. The Christian is freed to serve, to love as Christ loved and served us. That’s fine in theory but how do we do that?

(16)“live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” How do you live like this? You live by the Spirit. Gal 4:4-7 tells us that God gives us the Spirit of his Son who lives in us so we relate to God rightly, so our concerns are his concerns, our desires his desires.

But it is not a case of let go and let God, we will not drift into holiness, we are not on holiness autopilot. We don’t drift into holiness, we drift the other way. But God gives his Spirit so that we can know and follow him, so that we can keep in step with the Spirit and revel in living free.

Worldliness

That's the title of a little book which C J Mahaney is the editor of that I picked up a while ago but am now getting round to reading. I've read the foreword (by John Piper) and opening chapter and it is excellent so far. It challenges us about our snippet approach to the Bible - specifically how we seem to have effectively cut out John 2:15 "Do not love the world..."

Later chapters deal with the media, music, stuff, clothes, and finally how to love the world. We need its reminder that when it comes to wordliness we are all at risk and also that we do not drift into holiness, that it is a series of choices we make every moment of every day. The example of Demas as a danger of worldliness and where it leads: "Demas, because he lived this world, has deserted me..." Is a challenge especially when you consider he began well and was so involved with the gospel mission.

I'm looking forward to reading it, though the proof will only be in the practical application of it to my heart, my thinking, my bookshelves, DVD collection, CD collection, iPod, TV viewing habits and so on.

Comforting others

How do you bring comfort to someone who is suffering?

It is not about providing glib answers, it is about walking with them, loving them, caring for them, crying with them, laughing with them. But it is also about reminding them to fix their eyes on Christ, not by challenging their every word, sometimes in bitterness and sorrow we say things that need to be allowed to let go. We do not throw back at them what they say, we do not challenge everything. Often in tragedy the biggest danger is losing hope. In such situations we, the church, their brothers and sisters are to be their hope. We hold their hands, we listen to their fears, we give of ourselves, and we do not lose hope, we anchor ourselves in the truths and comfort that scripture gives.

Our hope is ultimately Christ. It is in the forgiveness he gives us that we do not earn or merit or have to top up but which is full and free. It is in the hope of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:54-58), that our future is secure and kept in heaven for us, that we have a future nothing can take from us. It is in the truth that to be in God's presence for all eternity will make up for any loss suffered now.

Comfort others but ensure that you strengthen yourself as you do so, otherwsie you will not bring real comfort.

Responding to Cancer

How as a Christian are we supposed to respond when we are told by the doctor that we have cancer? How should the church respond? What should we pray for the individual and the family?

I have found the following article by John Piper incredibly helpful personally as we as a family have faced cancer, and as we as a church face it. There is still so much from here that I need to learn, not least to depend on God and to live with my heavenly future in view.

My prayer and reason for posting it is that it helps us to pray, strengthens our faith in God and renews our ultimate hope.

Don't Waste Your Cancer
By John Piper February 15, 2006

[Editor's Note: Our friend, David Powlison, of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, who also was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, has added some helpful expansions to John Piper’s ten points. Italic paragraphs beginning with "DP:" are written by David Powlison.]

I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.

DP: I (David Powlison) add these reflections on John Piper’s words the morning after receiving news that I have been diagnosed with prostate cancer (March 3, 2006). The ten main points and first paragraphs are his; the second paragraphs are mine.

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

DP: Recognizing his designing hand does not make you stoic or dishonest or artificially buoyant. Instead, the reality of God’s design elicits and channels your honest outcry to your one true Savior. God’s design invites honest speech, rather than silencing us into resignation. Consider the honesty of the Psalms, of King Hezekiah (Isaiah 38), of Habakkuk 3. These people are bluntly, believingly honest because they know that God is God and set their hopes in him. Psalm 28 teaches you passionate, direct prayer to God. He must hear you. He will hear you. He will continue to work in you and your situation. This outcry comes from your sense of need for help (28:1-2). Then name your particular troubles to God (28:3-5). You are free to personalize with your own particulars. Often in life’s ‘various trials’ (James 1:2), what you face does not exactly map on to the particulars that David or Jesus faced - but the dynamic of faith is the same. Having cast your cares on him who cares for you, then voice your joy (28:6-7): the God-given peace that is beyond understanding. Finally, because faith always works out into love, your personal need and joy will branch out into loving concern for others (28:8-9). Illness can sharpen your awareness of how thoroughly God has already and always been at work in every detail of your life.

2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

DP: The blessing comes in what God does for us, with us, through us. He brings his great and merciful redemption onto the stage of the curse. Your cancer, in itself, is one of those 10,000 ‘shadows of death’ (Psalm 23:4) that come upon each of us: all the threats, losses, pains, incompletion, disappointment, evils. But in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses: sometimes healing and restoring the body (temporarily, until the resurrection of the dead to eternal life), always sustaining and teaching us that we might know and love him more simply. In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise: James 1:2-5, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Romans 5:1-5, Romans 8:18-39.

3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.

DP: God himself is your comfort. He gives himself. The hymn “Be Still My Soul” (by Katerina von Schlegel) reckons the odds the right way: we are 100% certain to suffer, and Christ is 100% certain to meet us, to come for us, comfort us, and restore love’s purest joys. The hymn “How Firm a Foundation” reckons the odds the same way: you are 100% certain to pass through grave distresses, and your Savior is 100% certain to “be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.” With God, you aren’t playing percentages, but living within certainties.

4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.

DP: Paul describes the Holy Spirit is the unseen, inner ‘downpayment’ on the certainty of life. By faith, the Lord gives a sweet taste of the face-to-face reality of eternal life in the presence of our God and Christ. We might also say that cancer is one ‘downpayment’ on inevitable death, giving one bad taste of the reality of of our mortality. Cancer is a signpost pointing to something far bigger: the last enemy that you must face. But Christ has defeated this last enemy: 1 Corinthians 15. Death is swallowed up in victory. Cancer is merely one of the enemy’s scouting parties, out on patrol. It has no final power if you are a child of the resurrection, so you can look it in the eye.

5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.
Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

DP: Cherishing Christ expresses the two core activities of faith: dire need and utter joy. Many psalms cry out in a ‘minor key’: we cherish our Savior by needing him to save us from real troubles, real sins, real sufferings, real anguish. Many psalms sing out in a ‘major key’: we cherish our Savior by delighting in him, loving him, thanking him for all his benefits to us, rejoicing that his salvation is the weightiest thing in the world and that he gets last say. And many psalms start out in one key and end up in the other. Cherishing Christ is not monochromatic; you live the whole spectrum of human experience with him. To ‘beat’ cancer is to live knowing how your Father has compassion on his beloved child, because he knows your frame, that you are but dust. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. To live is to know him, whom to know is to love.

6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.
It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

DP: What is so for your reading is also true for your conversations with others. Other people will often express their care and concern by inquiring about your health. That’s good, but the conversation easily gets stuck there. So tell them openly about your sickness, seeking their prayers and counsel, but then change the direction of the conversation by telling them what your God is doing to faithfully sustain you with 10,000 mercies. Robert Murray McCheyne wisely said, “For every one look at your sins, take ten looks at Christ.” He was countering our tendency to reverse that 10:1 ratio by brooding over our failings and forgetting the Lord of mercy. What McCheyne says about our sins we can also apply to our sufferings. For every one sentence you say to others about your cancer, say ten sentences about your God, and your hope, and what he is teaching you, and the small blessings of each day. For every hour you spend researching or discussing your cancer, spend 10 hours researching and discussing and serving your Lord. Relate all that you are learning about cancer back to him and his purposes, and you won’t become obsessed.

7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.
When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

DP: Our culture is terrified of facing death. It is obsessed with medicine. It idolizes youth, health and energy. It tries to hide any signs of weakness or imperfection. You will bring huge blessing to others by living openly, believingly and lovingly within your weaknesses. Paradoxically, moving out into relationships when you are hurting and weak will actually strengthen others. ‘One anothering’ is a two-way street of generous giving and grateful receiving. Your need gives others an opportunity to love. And since love is always God’s highest purpose in you, too, you will learn his finest and most joyous lessons as you find small ways to express concern for others even when you are most weak. A great, life-threatening weakness can prove amazingly freeing. Nothing is left for you to do except to be loved by God and others, and to love God and others.

8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.
Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.

DP: Show the world this different way of grieving. Paul said that he would have had “grief upon grief” if his friend Epaphroditus had died. He had been grieving, feeling the painful weight of his friend’s illness. He would have doubly grieved if his friend had died. But this loving, honest, God-oriented grief coexisted with “rejoice always” and “the peace of God that passes understanding” and “showing a genuine concern for your welfare.” How on earth can heartache coexist with love, joy, peace, and an indestructible sense of life purpose? In the inner logic of faith, this makes perfect sense. In fact, because you have hope, you may feel the sufferings of this life more keenly: grief upon grief. In contrast, the grieving that has no hope often chooses denial or escape or busyness because it can’t face reality without becoming distraught. In Christ, you know what’s at stake, and so you keenly feel the wrong of this fallen world. You don’t take pain and death for granted. You love what is good, and hate what is evil. After all, you follow in the image of “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” But this Jesus chose his cross willingly “for the joy set before him.” He lived and died in hopes that all come true. His pain was not muted by denial or medication, nor was it tainted with despair, fear, or thrashing about for any straw of hope that might change his circumstances. Jesus’ final promises overflow with the gladness of solid hope amid sorrows: “My joy will be in you, and your joy will be made full. Your grief will be turned to joy. No one will take your joy away from you. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy will be made full. These things I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves” (selection from John 15-17).

9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.
Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

DP: Suffering really is meant to wean you from sin and strengthen your faith. If you are God-less, then suffering magnifies sin. Will you become more bitter, despairing, addictive, fearful, frenzied, avoidant, sentimental, godless in how you go about life? Will you pretend it’s business as usual? Will you come to terms with death, on your terms? But if you are God’s, then suffering in Christ’s hands will change you, always slowly, sometimes quickly. You come to terms with life and death on his terms. He will gentle you, purify you, cleanse you of vanities. He will make you need him and love him. He rearranges your priorities, so first things come first more often. He will walk with you. Of course you’ll fail at times, perhaps seized by irritability or brooding, escapism or fears. But he will always pick you up when you stumble. Your inner enemy - a moral cancer 10,000 times more deadly than your physical cancer - will be dying as you continue seeking and finding your Savior: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is very great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose” (Psalm 25).

10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.
Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.

DP: Jesus is your life. He is the man before whom every knee will bow. He has defeated death once for all. He will finish what he has begun. Let your light so shine as you live in him, by him, through him, for him. One of the church’s ancient hymns puts it this way:
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger(from “I bind unto myself the name”).

In your cancer, you will need your brothers and sisters to witness to the truth and glory of Christ, to walk with you, to live out their faith beside you, to love you. And you can do same with them and with all others, becoming the heart that loves with the love of Christ, the mouth filled with hope to both friends and strangers.

Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
Pastor John