The Bible Warned Us About This

By / Jan 30

It feels all too common. I open Twitter and find news I wish wasn’t true. I hope it’s not true. But as I read I realize, tragically, it is all too true. A well-known Christian leader has fallen. He wasn’t what he seemed to be. His sins, as the Bible promises, have found him out (Numbers 32:23).

I could list names, but you know them. We all do. Each one, whether in our theological tribe or not, causes grief. They seemed so gifted, so persuasive for Christ, so used by Christ. How could they do what they did? What will happen now? What else don’t we know?

Ancient Israel knew the feeling. In the Old Testament, we find the most complete biography of anyone in the ancient world: King David. From his anointing to his death, we live David’s life along with him through the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and, perhaps more poignantly, through the Psalms. All of David’s life is before us—his righteousness and his sins, his faithfulness and his disobedience, his heroics and his failures. It’s all there for the reading and the re-reading.

As the story begins, 1 Samuel 16-26 tell of David’s ascent. Samuel anoints him as king. Saul welcomes him into the palace. Jonathan befriends him and helps him. When Saul eventually turns on him, God clearly protects and delivers David from all evil. He’s the golden child who can do no wrong. Even when his men plead with him to execute Saul as he is at the mouth of the cave, David strongly denies them. He will not put his hand against the Lord’s anointed. Not once, but twice, David proves he means it.

After David spares Saul’s life a second time in 1 Samuel 26, he refuses to return home to Israel. He still fears Saul, and rightly so. But instead of staying where he is, David flees to a surprising place: into the land of the Philistines, Israel’s arch-enemy.

Go read 1 Samuel 27. It’s not a bright spot in David’s life.

In fact, it’s difficult to know what to do with it. Faithful David seems lost. He gives himself over to a foreign king in a foreign land, hiring himself out as a mercenary. Though the cities he raids aren’t Israel’s, he lies about what he’s doing, kills everyone so no one can break his cover, and puts himself in a deeply compromising situation. It’s the kind of season of David’s life that he wouldn’t put on his resume. Reading it later on as a member of the nation of Israel would have surely been jarring. His actions seem so out of character. No inquiring God for direction. Just merciless killing and lying. By this point of the story, we’ve become fans of David. It was clear he was the chosen one, the king Israel longed for. But why does it feel like a different person in this chapter?

As commentator Dale Ralph Davis says, by the time we finish the chapter, we’ve likely become an angry reader. Perhaps we even feel betrayed by him. Who is this David? What is he doing? These are the kinds of things that we’d see on the back-alleys of Twitter today, the rumors we hope aren’t true.

David is a sympathetic figure. He’s relentlessly hunted by Saul. He’s away from home. David is as good a guy as a good guy can get. But now? He’s a disappointment. There isn’t even a mention of God 1 Samuel 27. That’s no oversight. It’s an insight into David’s mindset. Far from depending upon God in the wilderness, he’s left him to make his own path.

For all the questions we have about David, Dale Ralph Davis helps us see what’s going on inside our hearts as we read the story

Did you ever think that perhaps the writer is trying to correct your mistake? Yes, you, Bible reader that you are, may have fallen into the trap of hero worship, of looking on your pet Bible characters and exalting them too highly. Why should you be surprised, shocked, off ended? Why should you talk about “betrayal”? The text is saying that this chosen, anointed servant is made of the same stuff as all the Lord’s people. Must we throw out God’s kingdom because not only its subjects but even its premier servants are sinners? Karl Gutbrod is right: the text will not allow us to view Saul with only contempt and save nothing but admiration for David; the text resists every attempt to make David the mirror of all virtue.[1]

What Davis says about looking on our pet Bible characters and exalting them too highly has sprung out of the Bible and into the Church. We do this all the time, don’t we? A gifted preaches rises to prominence and we jump on the bandwagon. We don’t mean to make more of him than we ought, but it happens anyway. His leadership seems impressive. People come to Christ from his preaching. He moves us deeply, and we thank God for him.

Then it crumbles.

Heroes fall apart.

All but one.

And that’s the point. That’s where a chapter like 1 Samuel 27 can help us. There is only one hero. Others may good models in some areas, maybe even in most areas, but all but Christ are fallen.

The Bible warned us about this. We could overlook David’s actions here, but even if we do, we cannot when he takes advantage of Bathsheba and kills her husband. David’s sins, too, will find him out, and the whole nation will be impacted.

Putting our faith in someone other than Jesus will inevitably lead to disappointment. Yet we do it anyway. That’s why it hurts so bad when our heroes fall.

The solution isn’t to never have a hero. I don’t think we can live that way. We need someone to look up to. We just must be sure we’re looking to the right one. Jesus is all the hero we will ever need with none of the failures of all the others.

He will never let us down.

[1] Dale Ralph Davis, 1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart, Focus on the Bible Commentary (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2000), 286–287.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at thingsofthesort.com. 



Considering Grief

By / Jan 26

My kids love stories, and honestly, I would argue that we all do.

I remember around the age of ten, my dad would read a chapter of the Hardy Boys before bed. As my brothers and I listened, we would become engulfed in the story. However, as exciting as it was, there was always a quiet depression that would begin to set in upon realizing that the chapter was ending. 

As we consider grief there are three points that we should consider:

  1. Realizing Grief Will Come

Many times, the experience of a loved one’s death will bring the same sense of Déjà vu as their story comes to an end. Since the fall, loss has become a continued reality. The scriptures explain that as the descendants of Adam, humanity longs to do whatever can be done to add to the story of life. In the book of Hebrews, the author explains this by saying, that because of the fall, all have been placed under the bondage of death and will do anything and everything to outrun it. (Heb. 2:15) However, just as God brought grace to the garden after the fall, there is grace for our grieving as well.

  1. Redeeming Our Grief

The good news, the grace, is that the scriptures also give the hope that there is One that has already outrun death on our behalf. When faced with grief, the story of redemption and the new Creation gives hope and comfort. Without the story of redemption pointing to the future, those who grieve must settle for memories of the past. Memories that, while they are wonderful to enjoy, only leave emptiness, longing, and sorrow. (1 Thess. 4:13) But it is in the story of redemption that graces for grieving can be found. Isaiah writes that Christ took our griefs and bore the sorrows that we could never bear. (Is. 53:4) Grief for the sins that we or a loved one committed were borne by Him. The grief over times of failure has been swallowed up by His success. The grief that the loved one has departed is turned into a hope that we will see them again. Because of Christ, even in grief, redemption can be celebrated.

  1. Resting in Peace

The time at the grave is utterly difficult and the pain of loss is terrible, but it is at an open tomb that we can find an unexplainable peace. As believers, we don’t have to grieve like the rest of the world. (1 Thess. 4:13) We know that because of Christ’s declaration that “it is finished”, we have the promise that the sting of death has been taken away. Because of this, we can rest in peace knowing that at the end of the book of the believer’s life, God has written: “to be continued.” 



Episode 196: How to Make Christian Movies Better

By / Jan 25

Why are Christian movies so bad? On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson discuss the state of Christian media and how it can be improved.



Cultivating Faith Like a Child

By / Jan 24

“I’m getting a new friend tomorrow!”

This was the announcement my 5-year-old daughter had for me when I picked her up from kindergarten. She was absolutely sure she would have a new friend coming. This was kind of mystifying for me, for while I am aware that little kids make friends with an ease that adults can only envy, to be so sure a new friend was coming seemed another level. It was only after some follow up questions that the truth was revealed. My daughter’s teacher was informing the class that they would have a new student joining them the next day. And as kindergarten teachers will, she used the language of a new friend joining their class.

But this was not just fun language to my daughter. If the teacher said there would be a new friend, then there would be a new friend. My daughter had faith in what her teacher said. She believed with conviction, and so loudly and proudly proclaimed to me that she would have a new friend arriving the next day. She had faith like only a child could.

Jesus spoke on several occasions about having a child-like faith. We see Jesus correcting the disciples’ mindset about who would be the greatest in the kingdom by using a child as an illustration (Matthew 18:1-6). We see Jesus receiving children in Matthew 19 and blessing them and when the disciples try to stop these parents from bringing their kids to Jesus, he says, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus even calls for his disciples to have child-like faith in Mark 10:15, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” So what is this child like faith?

Faith like a child is a faith that believes because they trust. Like my daughter who believed she was getting a new friend because she trusted her teacher. We have child-like faith when we trust what Jesus says. When we trust the Word of God without asking endless questions or making countless caveats, we are experiencing child-like faith. The sad thing about growing up is experiencing people letting you down and realizing that things don’t always work out as you hoped or were promised. A level of cynicism creeps in and we start to doubt a little. We say things like “I believe… but.” Or we say we believe and trust but we are not shocked when it doesn’t happen.

Jesus is calling his disciples and us to have a faith that is sure and confident. A faith that leaves no room for doubt. A faith that hears the Word of God and is absolutely sure it is true. This is a faith that can carry us through the tough times of life. This is a faith that can withstand the storms of life. This is a faith that looks upon God as our good Father who is working all things for our sanctification and good. This is a faith that trusts.

So let’s practice a child-like faith. We can start easy by simply reading God’s Word and having the same conviction my daughter has when her teacher tells her something. This is true and I believe it.



Why Your Students Need a Reading Plan

By / Jan 19

To be totally honest, I didn’t start reading the Bible on a consistent basis until I was in college, I didn’t read much of anything until I was in college. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the Bible or think it wasn’t important, I just didn’t know where to start. The Bible is a big book with 66 books within it, where would I begin and why would I begin there? It took getting a reading plan before my daily Bible reading took off. It gave me a rhyme and reason to the daily grind of jumping into God’s word. Sure, some days I didn’t feel like it, but I had a passage to check off, a place I was going, the hope I would soon finish Leviticus! I had a guide taking me through the Bible one day at a time, and the fact is your students need one too.

Of course, there is the main reason of having a reading plan, spending time with the Lord, it is the best way to nurture a relationship with Him, and to grow in Christ-likeness and seek God’s will for our lives. However, I want to offer some practical benefits a reading plan can give students that will hopefully carry on into their adult lives.

Biblical Literacy

I don’t know about you, but in teaching every week I usually found myself giving 10+ minutes to the explanation of overall general biblical ideas. Everything from who Noah was to why Israel is such a big deal in the Bible. This is not because I want to study more and impress all my students with my vast biblical knowledge, it is because I cannot assume most of them know what I am talking about. I have found that most students are simply biblically illiterate, and so are many members of our churches.

You cannot just jump right into Jonah and expect students to know that Tarshish is the opposite direction of Nineveh, or why he didn’t want to go there in the first place. In many cases, most students don’t have any context of a passage and how it relates to the overall story of the Bible. Therefore, having a reading plan can help a student understand the story of the Bible. Reading through the Bible gives them a context to fit passages in, and helps them locate what part of the overall story they fit into. Two great plans for this is the Bible in one year plan for ambitious students and the Bible in three-years plan, reading one chapter a day for students who are maybe just starting out.

Vocabulary

Justification, sanctification, propitiation, and redemption are all amazing words packed full of books and books of theological truth. They are words that describe the depths of the gospel and the foundation of our faith. However, many of our students have no idea what these words mean. They don’t know that sanctification is the process of becoming more Christ-like, or that Christ is our substitute, our propitiation. Having a reading plan will put these words in their view and cause them to seek out their meaning by looking it up themselves or coming to ask you. Having a reading plan allows students to become more familiar with the vocabulary of the Bible that is used in church services, conferences, and a plethora of Christian books. A great reading plan for this is the one year plan through the new testament. This can help them get more acquainted with the theological vocabulary used to describe the gospel and possibly allow them to see aspects of the gospel they haven’t seen before.

Habit

We’ve all been there. It’s time for you to spend time in the word and prayer, your quiet time, or whatever you like to call it. But there are 100 things on your mind that need to be done. So you make a list, send that email, or make that phone call. It will only take a second right? Then you realize 30 minutes later your time is gone.

Our students do the same thing. They have the best intensions. They are going to read right before bed, then the Xbox calls their name or they had practice that evening and are whipped out. There goes their good intentions. Having a Bible reading plan helps make the practice of spending time with the Lord a habit, just like brushing your teeth, eating a meal, or having a date night with your spouse. Planning the time with the Lord already gives you a place to go in the word and leaves you looking forward to what will be read tomorrow. Having a plan to spend time in the Word can lead to a healthy habit of Bible intake that can carry on into adulthood.

So as January kicks off the year of 2023, be sure to have some reading plans available for your students. Create an atmosphere of expectant Bible reading, check up on those students who take a plan and ask where they are. Share what the Lord is teaching you through your reading plan and it can act as an everyday guide taking students to the scriptures and into a deeper walk with the Father.



How to (Actually) Reach Your City for Christ

By / Jan 18

This is a story about how a really discouraging Easter led to one of the healthiest seasons in the life of our church.

We had been working hard for months to plan the service, outreach events, and more. We spent money on door-hangers, invitation cards, and Facebook ads. Mission teams and church members went door-to-door, inviting thousands of people to our Easter services. Finally, when Easter arrived, I stood in our church lobby, eagerly waiting to see who the Lord would bring into our doors that day.

And after all of that effort, we had a whopping grand total of two first-time guests, one of which was a Christian visiting from out-of-town. Incidentally, neither of them heard about our services as a result of any of our expensive, labor-intensive “marketing” efforts.

After all of those weeks of planning and really hard work, we had one non-Christian from our city come to our service that day.

After a long morning of church activities, my kids fell asleep in the car while we made the hour-long trek to my parents’ home for more Easter festivities. And as our car rolled down the interstate, I began to reflect on the day.

That Easter, I was reminded that hosting big, splashy services wasn’t going to be an effective strategy for seeing lives changed in our post-Christian city. I realized that if we were going to see people come to Christ, it was usually going to happen as individuals reached out to their friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

So we launched an effort in our church, encouraging every member to read Mark’s Gospel with a non-Christian friend. I created some discussion guides to use, a simple tool to help our church members have confidence to open God’s Word with people that don’t know him.

In the past six months, our people have responded incredibly. More than half of our members have started one-on-one Bible studies with non-Christians, and God’s Word is going out to more and more people.

Jesus seemed to do ministry this way. He spent much of his time and energy investing in twelve and he frequently departed from a place once a crowd began to form (Matthew 8:18, Mark 1:38). In the same way, Paul’s letters to Timothy don’t contain practical guidelines on attracting a big crowd. Instead, they encourage Timothy to teach a few “faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (1 Timothy 2:2). The norm in the Christian life seems to be the gospel going from one person to another. One at a time.

So pastors, work to equip every member in your church to “do the work of an evangelist.” Just consider these comparisons:

  • An attractional service enables a few people to use their gifts in a public setting. But if everyone in your church is engaged in evangelistic Bible reading, then everyone is involved in God’s work and using their God-given gifts.
  • An attractional service enables us to reach people one day a week. But if everyone in your church is engaged in evangelistic Bible reading, then we know God’s Word is going out from our church seven days a week.
  • An attractional service enables us to invite people to an event. But if everyone in your church is engaged in evangelistic Bible reading, then people are engaged where they already are. People may be uncomfortable to come a church service but are willing to read with a friend.
  • An attractional service enables us to reach a few guests every week. But if everyone in your church is engaged in evangelistic Bible reading, then we have the potential to reach many more. Everyone in our churches knows a bunch of people. What are we doing to equip them to share Christ with those people?

Whenever I encourage our church to read the Bible with a non-Christian friend, I always tell them that they will be surprised by three things:

  • You will be surprised about how equipped you are to do it. God has given you gifts. If you know the gospel, you can share it with others.
  • You will be surprised about how willing non-Christians are. Our church has been asking non-Christians to read Mark’s Gospel with them for six months, and I’ve only heard about one person getting rejected. People are willing to read the Bible and consider the claims of Christ.
  • You will be surprised about how much fruit comes. God’s Word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11) and faith comes through hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). When we share God’s Word with non-Christians, the Lord will act. And it will be glorious.

 

Pastors, you have been called by God to pursue a “ministry of reconciliation,” calling sinners to know the one true God (2 Corinthians 5:18). This ministry comes to us (and all Christians) “by the mercy of God” (2 Corinthians 4:1). So don’t hog God’s mercy; invite your church to get involved.



Episode 195: Erik Raymond on He is Not Ashamed

By / Jan 18

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson talks with pastor and author Erik Raymond about his book He is Not Ashamed and the amazing grace of Jesus for hurting, broken, sinful people.



Matt Smethurst on Having a Healthy Relationship with Social Media

By / Jan 13

FTC.co asks Matt Smethurst, managing editor at The Gospel Coalition, “What are helpful diagnostic questions someone can ask to evaluate if they have a healthy relationship with social media?”

 



Keeping the Faith: Spurgeon and the Downgrade Controversy

By / Jan 13

As Christians, we are called to share our faith, but we are also called to keep it. Like the Apostle Paul, every believer should aspire to the epitaph, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

Perhaps no one in Baptist history better kept the faith than the illustrious Charles Spurgeon—especially as seen through the prism of the Downgrade Controversy.

The year was 1887, and Spurgeon was in the winter of life. For more than three decades, he had enjoyed singular status as the world’s most well-known preacher, but just over the horizon, storm clouds gathered.

The Downgrade Controversy began slowly at first, with three anonymous letters appearing in the March, April, and June (1887) editions of the Sword & Trowel. The three letters (later revealed to be authored by Spurgeon’s friend, Robert Shindler) warned of doctrinal slippage on a downhill slope, thus, a downgrade.

While the anonymous letters drew interest, the controversy did not explode until a few months later when Spurgeon directly entered the fray. In the August 1887 issue of the Sword & Trowel, Spurgeon threw down the gauntlet in his six-page editorial entitled, “Another Word on the Downgrade.”

At that time, Spurgeon was less than five years from his death. He was near the height of his popularity both in the Baptist Union and globally, but near the depth of his personal anguish.  Physical ailments like failing kidneys and chronic gout wracked his body, and depression plagued his soul. Simply put, he did not need, nor was he much poised for, the conflict he was about to enter. Withdrawing the largest Baptist church in England from the Union would have dire consequences.

Nevertheless, Spurgeon entered his Westwood study, fountain pen in hand, and proceeded to join the battle himself by drafting for publication the six-page article.

I own the original six-page manuscript Spurgeon wrote that day in 1887. It is fascinating to review his words, penned in his hand, with his markings, alterations, and emphases. It radiates the spirit of Paul and the urgency of keeping the faith.  The first paragraph especially has taken on immortality:

No lover of the gospel can conceal from himself the fact that the days are evil. We are willing to make a large discount from our apprehensions on the score of natural timidity, the caution of age, and the weakness produced by pain; but yet our solemn conviction is that things are much worse in many churches than they seem to be, and are rapidly tending downward. Read those newspapers which represent the Broad School of Dissent, and ask yourself, How much farther could they go? What doctrine remains to be abandoned? What other truth to be the object of contempt? A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese; and this religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching. The Atonement is scouted, the inspiration of Scripture is derided, the Holy Spirit is degraded into an influence, the punishment of sin is turned into fiction, and the resurrection into a myth, and yet these enemies of our faith expect us to call them brethren, and maintain a confederacy with them!

Spurgeon goes on:

The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels. Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith… Germany was made unbelieving by her preachers, and England is following in her tracks.

Most prophetically, Spurgeon argued true believers cannot be ministry affiliates with those who have compromised the faith. His words portended the schism to come. Spurgeon was a lone voice, but he was the loudest and most revered voice of all, calling for doctrinal fidelity over programmatic confederation.

Spurgeon’s “Another Word on the Downgrade” landed like a bombshell. It sent shockwaves throughout the Baptist Union and British Evangelicalism. It reverberated throughout the Protestant world.

For decades the press had attacked Spurgeon, but now he would be savaged by his own Baptist Union. Prior to the Downgrade Controversy, if the Baptist Union had a papacy, Spurgeon would have been its unquestioned pope. But now, his erstwhile brethren brutalized him. They charged him with pugilism, and being a schismatic. They even questioned his sanity with a whisper campaign that his physical maladies had made him mad. Graduates of Spurgeon’s College turned on him, and the leaders of the Baptist Union pilloried him.

Over the next two months, Spurgeon penned two more articles on the Downgrade in the Sword & Trowel. Then, on Oct. 28, 1887, Spurgeon wrote the General Secretary of the Baptist Union, Samuel Harris Booth, to announce his withdrawal from the Baptist Union.

Three months later, in January 1888, the Baptist Union Council voted to accept his withdrawal, and then, the Council of nearly 100 members voted to censure Spurgeon, with only a meager five men supporting the Prince of Preachers.

The Baptist Union adopted a compromise doctrinal statement, which was altogether too weak, neither clear nor comprehensive enough. Though outside the Union, Spurgeon opposed the statement for its obvious deficiencies. Nonetheless, it passed overwhelmingly, by a vote of 2000–7, and can appropriately be interpreted as a second vote against Spurgeon. Most tragically, Spurgeon’s brother, James, seconded the motion to pass the compromise doctrinal statement.

Spurgeon, the “Lion in Winter,” was prophetic, if not popular. He said, “I am quite willing to be eaten of dogs for the next fifty years, but the more distant future shall vindicate me.”

Indeed, Spurgeon has been vindicated. The British Baptist Union is a shadow of its former self. Moreover, Spurgeon’s Downgrade foreshadowed the Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy of the 1920s and the great SBC Controversy at the end of the 20th century. Doctrinal decay always brings dire consequences.

The controversy cost Spurgeon dearly. It cost him his friendships. It cost him his reputation. Even his own brother disowned his decision. Yet, for Spurgeon, to remain within the Union would be tantamount to theological treason.

Less than five years later, Spurgeon would die. Against his previously stated wishes, his supporters erected a massive burial tomb in the Norwood Cemetery. Ensconced on the front of it, beneath the marble replica of his likeness, is a marble Bible, open to 2 Timothy 4:7 –  “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

Indeed, Spurgeon kept the faith, and his accomplishment must be our aspiration—to keep the faith even when confronted with our own Downgrade Controversies.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at JasonKAllen.com.



Worship: The Completion of Our Affection

By / Jan 12

C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. One of the most impactful things he has written in regards to worship isn’t about the subject of worship in particular, but it definitely helps my heart to feel and my mind to know what is true. He says this in “Reflections on the Psalms” :

    “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . . The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

Lewis helps crystallize in this short paragraph what I feel immensely when I am leading worship. It’s what I want my church to understand. It’s what I aim for as I am leading. Lewis helps us understand that our affection and our delight is incomplete until it is expressed. Imagine if you never told, showed, or acted upon your affection for your spouse. They would feel dejected, unloved, and unimportant. If we have affections… we act on them. This is true in all of life as we worship and in the corporate gatherings as we sing, feast on the Word, and partake of communion together. If we have affections for the Lord and His gospel, then we will worship Him with all of our lives as we obey His commandments, serve Him in gospel ministry, and join Him on mission. Our affections will be completed as we act upon them.

This is also true when we gather as the church to worship Him corporately. Our affections well up within our souls and we complete the delight by expressing our worship with hands lifted, songs raised, as well as hearts and minds reveling in the glory of our Savior together. I truly believe we are missing out when we stand with arms crossed, sipping coffee, and half-way singing out. Our affections are either dim in our hearts, or we are missing out on completing the cycle by expressing them to the Lord. We don’t do this because the worship leader is singing our favorite song or because all of our preference boxes are being checked. We complete our affection by acting on them because God is worthy… so, so very worthy.

If there are two things I want you to take away from this very short treatise on affections and worship, it is this:

  1. As a worship leader: a major part of our job is to stir people’s affections towards Christ. No, you cannot make them worship… that isn’t your job… but you can (over and over) point people’s affections to the Son of God who came, died, and rose again. Then you can encourage them to complete that affection by expressing their delight in Christ alone. They are missing out if the affection stays hidden in the depths of their heart.

  2. As a worshiper: what if this Sunday you made the worship leader’s job easy? What if you came with your affections having been freshly stirred by your own heart prep in the Word of God, on your knees in prayer, and in just daily delighting in the God of the Bible? What if your affections were bursting in your heart… ready to be completed in their being acted upon through engagement in song, prayer, and the Word? Let your affections lead you to smiling, lifting your hands in victory or surrender, singing with all you have, and delighting in the beauty of your Savior.

There is nothing better than on a Sunday morning standing next to brothers and sisters in Christ and (metaphorically) “to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur”. And instead of having no one to share in the beauty of the Savior with,… to look around with delight in your heart and point to the glory of Jesus in song with others and say, “look at how great He is!” May we find this to be more and more true in our lives: “… we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.”