What we really need.

One of the most basic issues confronting those who identify themselves as Christians is the fact we do not call into question our desires but expect them to be met. We may only question those impulses that are in the basic category of overtly sinful actions - adultery, theft - though once we come to expect all our desires to be met, that can even become hard to do. As a matter of fact, a person who expects that God will (actually should) meet his desires - they're "God-given" after all - can be the most insufferable. "I have 'faith' and my life turns out like this?" We are so wired to thinking this way, that we don't realize the extent to which it governs our lives. Thus, when it comes to issues of marriage, work, pleasure, finances, reputation, comfort, etc., there does not even exist an understanding that would begin to move people in the direction of thinking through these matters as those whose identity is rooted in Christ.

The point in all this is not to beat people up or induce self-absorbing guilt, but to understand ourselves - our motivations, our interests, our longings, our demands - so that we move towards that which is good and true and lasting, to orient us to the freedom of being our true selves. What we all really in need of is a paradigm shift away from a self-understanding as rights asserting individuals who are entitled to having our demands and whims satisfied to an awakening that we are citizens of Christ's kingdom, sent as ambassadors, not self-interested takers, but givers of true riches as those who belong to the one who, in the exercise of ultimate authority, is the abundant and generous giver of every good gift, whose stunning love and goodness withholds nothing from us, not even his own Son. What we want is to have our thinking and actions, our very being, to be shaped by the reality that "he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." 2 Cor 5:15.

In this regard, Dave Powlison is insightful and caring in this excellent article. Powlison describes what he terms the "therapeutic gospel":

• I want to feel loved for who I am, to be pitied for what I’ve gone through, to feel intimately understood, to be accepted unconditionally;
• I want to experience a sense of personal significance and meaningfulness, to be successful in my career, to know my life matters, to have an impact;
  
• I want to gain self-esteem, to affirm that I am okay, to be able to assert my opinions and desires;
  
• I want to be entertained, to feel pleasure in the endless stream of performances that delight my eyes and tickle my ears;
  
• I want a sense of adventure, excitement, action, and passion so that I experience life as thrilling and moving.

He adds:

The therapeutic outlook is not a bad thing in its proper place. By definition, a medical-therapeutic gaze holds in view problems of physical suffering and breakdown. In literal medical intervention, a therapy treats an illness, trauma, or deficiency. You don’t call someone to repentance for their colon cancer, broken leg, or beriberi. You seek to heal. So far, so good.

But in today’s therapeutic gospel the medical way of looking at the world is metaphorically extended to these psychological desires. These are defined just like a medical problem. You feel bad; the therapy makes you feel better. The definition of the disease bypasses the sinful human heart. You are not the agent of your deepest problems, but merely a sufferer and victim of unmet needs. The offer of a cure skips over the sin-bearing Savior. Repentance from unbelief, willfulness, and wickedness is not the issue. Sinners are not called to a U-turn and to a new life that is life indeed. Such a gospel massages self-love. There is nothing in its inner logic to make you love God and love any other person besides yourself. This therapeutic gospel may often mention the word "Jesus," but he has morphed into the meeter-of-your-needs, not the Savior from your sins. It corrects Jesus’ work. The therapeutic gospel unhinges the gospel.

In contrast, Powlison describes the "real gospel":

Good news of the Word made flesh, the sin-bearing Savior, the resurrected Lord of lords: "I am the living One, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore" (Rev. 1:18). This Christ turns the world upside down. The Holy Spirit rewires our sense of felt need as one prime effect of his inworking presence and power. Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, we keenly feel a different set of needs when God comes into view and when we understand that we stand or fall in his gaze. My instinctual cravings are replaced (sometimes quickly, always gradually) by the growing awareness of true, life-and-death needs:

• I need mercy above all else: "Lord, have mercy upon me"; "For Your name’s sake, pardon my iniquity for it is very great";
  
• I want to learn wisdom, and unlearn willful self-preoccupation: "Nothing you desire compares with her";
  
• I need to learn to love both God and neighbor: "The goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith";
  
• I long for God’s name to be honored, for his kingdom to come, for his will to be done on earth;
  
• I want Christ’s glory, lovingkindness, and goodness to be seen on earth, to fill the earth as obviously as water fills the ocean;
  
• I need God to change me from who I am by instinct, choice, and practice;
  
• I want him to deliver me from my obsessive self-righteousness, to slay my lust for self-vindication, so that I feel my need for the mercies of Christ, so that I learn to treat others gently;
  
• I need God’s mighty and intimate help in order to will and to do those things that last unto eternal life, rather than squandering my life on vanities;
  
• I want to learn how to endure hardship and suffering in hope, having my faith simplified, deepened, and purified;
  
• I need to learn to worship, to delight, to trust, to give thanks, to cry out, to take refuge, to hope;
  
• I want the resurrection to eternal life: "We groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body";
  
• I need God himself: "Show me Your glory"; "Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus."

Make it so, Father of mercies. Make it so, Redeemer of all that is dark and broken.

Powlison of course rightly recognizes the legitimate desire for love, significance, esteem, pleasure and adventure, but within a framework that understands both their source and fulfillment: "Properly understood, carefully interpreted, the felt needs make good gifts. But they make poor gods." I hope we can help each other to see that even such good things, if they are demands, even subtly, can become controlling and enslaving, causing us to resent anything or anyone that gets in their way. The result is that we perceive even those people to whom we are connected - spouse, kids, parents, friends, neighbors, co-workers - as a "restraint" on our "freedom" or "fulfillment." Here's Powlison's take on the elements of the "therapeutic gospel":

1. "Need for love"? It is surely a good thing to know that you are both known and loved. God who searches the thoughts and intentions of our hearts also sets his steadfast love upon us. However all this is radically different from the instinctual craving to be accepted for who I am. Christ’s love comes pointedly and personally despite who I am. You are accepted for who Christ is, because of what he did, does, and will do. God truly accepts you, and if God is for you, who can be against you? But in doing this, he does not affirm and endorse what you are like. Rather, he sets about changing you into a fundamentally different kind of person. In the real gospel you feel deeply known and loved, but your relentless "need for love" has been overthrown.

2. "Need for significance"? It is surely a good thing for the works of your hands to be established forever: gold, silver, and precious stones, not wood, hay, and straw. It is good when what you do with your life truly counts, and when your works follow you into eternity. Vanity, futility, and ultimate insignificance register the curse upon our work life – even midcourse, not just when we retire, or when we die, or on the Day of Judgment. But the real gospel inverts the order of things presupposed by the therapeutic gospel. The craving for impact and significance – one of the typical "youthful lusts" that boil up within us – is merely idolatrous when it acts as Director of Operations in the human heart. God does not meet your need for significance; he meets your need for mercy and deliverance from your obsession with personal significance. When you turn from your enslavement and turn to God, then your works do start to count for good. The gospel of Jesus and the fruit of faith are not tailored to "meet your needs." He frees from the tyranny of felt needs, remakes you to fear God and keep his commandments (Eccl. 12:13). In the divine irony of grace, that alone makes what you do with your life of lasting value.

3. "Need for self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-assertion"? To gain a confident sense of your identity is a great good. Ephesians is strewn with several dozen "identity statements," because by this the Spirit motivates a life of courageous faith and love. You are God’s – among the saints, chosen ones, adopted sons, beloved children, citizens, slaves, soldiers; part of the workmanship, wife and dwelling place – every one of these in Christ. No aspect of your identity is self-referential, feeding your "self-esteem." Your opinion of yourself is far less important than God’s opinion of you, and accurate self-assessment is derivative of God’s assessment. True identity is God-referential. True awareness of yourself connects to high esteem for Christ. Great confidence in Christ correlates to a vote of fundamental no confidence in and about yourself. God nowhere replaces diffidence and people-pleasing by self-assertiveness. In fact, to assert your opinions and desires, as is, marks you as a fool. Only as you are freed from the tyranny of your opinions and desires are you free to assess them accurately, and then to express them appropriately.

4. "Need for pleasure"? In fact, the true gospel promises endlessly joyous experience, drinking from the river of delights (Ps. 36). This describes God’s presence. But as we have seen in each case, this is keyed to the reversal of our instinctive cravings, not to their direct satisfaction. The way of joy is the way of suffering, endurance, small obediences, willingness to identify with human misery, willingness to overthrow your most persuasive desires and instincts. I don’t need to be entertained. But I absolutely NEED to learn to worship with all my heart.

5. "Need for excitement and adventure"? To participate in Christ’s kingdom is to play a part within the Greatest Action-Adventure Story Ever Told. But the paradox of redemption again turns the whole world upside down. The real adventure takes the path of weakness, struggle, endurance, patience, small kindnesses done well. The road to excellence in wisdom is unglamorous. Other people might take better vacations and have a more thrilling marriage than yours. The path of Jesus calls forth more grit than thrill. He needed endurance far more than he needed excitement. His kingdom might not cater to our cravings for derring-do and thrill-seeking, but "solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion’s children know."

We say "yes" and "amen" to all good gifts. But get first things first. The contemporary therapeutic gospel in its many forms takes our ‘gimmes’ at face value. It grabs for the goodies. It erases worship of the Giver, whose greatest gift is mercy towards us for what we want by instinct, choice, enculturation, and habit. He calls us to radical repentance. Bob Dylan described the therapeutic’s alternative in a remarkable phrase: "You think He’s just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires" (from When You Gonna Wake Up?). Second things are exalted as servants of Number One.

Get first things first. Get the gospel of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and glory. Live the gospel of repentance, faith, and transformation into the image of the Son. Proclaim the gospel of the coming Day when eternal life and eternal death are revealed, the coming Day of Christ.

Read this liberating, counter-cultural article.

Blogs You Should Be Reading

As hard as it may be to believe, during my lengthy hiatus, there were many others doing a lot of thoughtful and interesting writing worth reading and engaging. Two of the standouts are Dave Opderbeck and Joel Garver.

Here is Joel Garver on the human condition - the unavoidable depth of our plight and glorious extent of our hope. Also, for us American Protestants who don't acknowledge any of the eventful days on the Christian calendar other than Christmas and Easter (preferring days established by Hallmark and our federal government), Joel reflects on Pentecost through a question we often pose to children, "what do you want to be when you grow up?", and on the relationship of Jesus' transfiguration to the horrors of war.

Idolatry?!?

If the notion of sin or sinner is liable to conjure up certain images for some, then the idea of "idolatry" is liable to be one that is entirely inapplicable and out of place. In this article, Redeemer New York's Tim Keller explains the inextricable connection between sin and idolatry and the eye-opening relevance such a connection has for a penetrating perspective on human nature, especially in our present context. Some excerpts:

Whatever we worship we will serve, for worship and service are always inextricably bound together. We are “covenantal” beings. We enter into covenant service with whatever most captures our imagination and heart. It ensnares us. So every human personality, community, thought-form, and culture will be based on some ultimate concern or some ultimate allegiance—either to God or to some God-substitute. Individually, we will ultimately look either to God or to success, romance, family, status, popularity, beauty or something else to make us feel personally significant and secure, and to guide our choices. Culturally we will ultimately look to either God or to the free market, the state, the elites, the will of the people, science and technology, military might, human reason, racial pride, or something else to make us corporately significant and secure, and to guide our choices.

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There is another reason we need a different definition of sin for postmodern people. They are relativists, and the moment you say, “Sin is breaking God’s moral standards,” they will retort, “Well, who is to say whose moral standards are right? Everyone has different ones! What makes Christians think that theirs are the only right set of moral standards?” The usual way to respond to this is to become sidetracked from your presentation of sin and grace into an apologetic discussion about relativism. Of course, postmodern people must be strongly challenged about their mushy view of truth, but I think there is a way to move forward and actually make a credible and convicting gospel presentation before you get into the apologetic issues. I do it this way, I take a page from Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death and I define sin as building your identity—your self-worth and happiness—on anything other than God. Instead of telling them they are sinning because they are sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their careers and romances to save them, to give them everything that they should be looking for in God. This idolatry leads to drivenness, addictions, severe anxiety, obsessiveness, envy of others, and resentment.

Read the whole thing.

Deep Thoughts

My return to blogging was inspired by a profound question recently posed by my 3 year old son David while I was sorting clothes to do laundry:

"Why doesn't your underwear have any pictures on it?"

The resulting philosophical and theological reflection awakened me from my long slumber.