All Thumbs Thinker

Be Filled With The Spirit

Aaron — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:42:11 +0000

The drip drip of the water drops

Into the bucket, already full

Of desires, deeds and idols.

Slow but incessant, this stream is

No sleeping aid or torture device

Even if at times its painful pace

Tortures onlookers (mockers all!)

This flowing water – clear as

Polished glass – dives joyfully in

And bit by bit drives impurities

Up, out, over the edge and onto

The floor. Look there, you can see

Lust, greed, unbelief, dead or dying

To thrive no more. The water will

Never stop, for the faucet knows

That to be pure, clean and clear

The bucket must forever overflow.

A Gift From Death

Aaron — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 03:07:31 +0000

Death’s darkness calls,
Though his sting removed,
Casting his shadow tall
Over all that may by lost or loved.
His appeal rings with clarion clarity
To doubt what we trust as certainties

For the redeemed he is a servant
Saying to those with ears to hear,
God makes no promise of eighty years.
This message through many means he merchants
That we would from self break free
And fiercely love in word and deed.

A Swarm of Dragonflies

Aaron — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:12:57 +0000

Green helmets pop up to peer out
Over the blue battlefield as
The pilots steer, weaving a pattern
Of dodges, rolls and dives, determined
To evade the anticipated shot.
So effective they are, these silent fighter pilots,
At evasion, it does not even matter
That they have no bullets.

The Spirit Blows Where He Wills

Aaron — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:34:39 +0000

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8)

I’ve heard a number of people point out broader applications of this description of the work of the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus is speaking specifically of conversion. But there is a broader principle at work, namely, that the Spirit is sovereignly free in all he does.

One recent application I came across was in a sermon by Tim Keller, senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. He said that Christians must approach communion with God as a sailor does sailing. A sailor has many tools and tactics for moving his boat across the water. But despite all his resources, he is at the mercy of the wind. He cannot conjure a breeze, nor can he predict where and when the wind will blow. “The wind blows where it wishes.” But when the wind blows, the sailor knows exactly what to do with it. He raises his sail, turns it in the corresponding direction of the wind, adjusts the rigging or the rudder, etc.

In like manner a Christian has no control over the Spirits moving within him. The joy that we long to mark our lives and especially our communion with God is a fruit of the Spirit. We are at the mercy of the Spirit. But like the sailor, we ought to know what to do when the Spirit blows on our hearts. Of course that assumes that we can even recognize this work in the first place. But in all our reading, meditating, praying, and other disciplines, we are waiting for the Spirit to touch our hearts with the presence of God and the joy that comes from knowing him. When this Wind blows, may we quickly raise the sails of our hearts to be blown along in the knowledge of the love of Christ our Savior!

Redemption

Aaron — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:01:40 +0000

I once lived with the dead; alive, but dead to all that lived.

My own family rejected me, but I don’t blame them.

You see, the scars on my wrists and ankles are proof

That I was a threat to others. No, no one else is to blame for these.

I did this to myself. I lived in caves used for tombs

And I used rocks – jagged or smooth, it did not matter – to hammer

My limbs.

I used to shriek day and night, restless, roaming the hills, cursing

Heaven, or hell, or myself.

My family, hopeless but terrified, tried to bind me, constrain me,

But no man or men could hold me. They used rope, but I ripped it.

They tried chains, but I tore them apart. They tried shackles, but I shattered them.

Unable to restrain myself, nothing could contain me.

That’s when they drove me to the tombs.

I cursed my family for abandoning me.

I cursed God for making me.

I cursed myself for being me.

No chains could bind me but I was bound. So I gashed my ankles and wrists,

Desiring release. Darkness overtook me. That night lasted forever,

Or so it seemed, until

I met him.

The moment I saw him I ran to him, unwilling but compelled,

And I dropped to my knees.

I heard myself shouting but it wasn’t my voice. The voice

Called him “Jesus, Son of the Most High,”

And wailed, begging to be left alone. I heard him, Jesus, say,

“Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” The voice cried for permission

To enter a herd of pigs nearby. With a voice that shook me

Like the trumpets that toppled Jericho

Jesus said,

“Go!”

A force pushed me backward. I fell down.

My head hit the hard ground beneath me. I raised my head, my eyes cleared,

And I saw the pigs. Hundreds and hundreds of squealing,

Wriggling pigs. They ran toward the sea like an avalanche,

Trampling over each other, wading into the water. They drowned.

I turned my eyes from the sea to the man standing over me.

He was smiling.

He asked some men who were with him (I hadn’t seen them till now)

To get me some clothes. I didn’t know I was naked.

They started piling into their boat, and I implored him to let me

Stay with him. Instead he said,

“Go to your home, and to your people and tell them what the Lord

Has done for you, that He had mercy on you.”

He left.

I feel the weight of that day every morning,

Every time the sun rises to warm my face.

Implied in the word “Go!” was the invitation “Come!”

I wanted to be by his side forever. I knew in an instant that that

Smiling face,

That face of mercy and authority, of kindness and raw power,

Of grace and knowledge was

My only hope.

Only he could rid me of my demons. Only he could rescue me from myself.

You see, though I was truly helpless against the demons,

I was not always so. The spirits did not seek me;

I invited them in.

I wanted power. I craved authority.

I yearned for influence. And I believed it was the darker,

Hidden and unspoken powers that would deliver.

Instead of gaining power over others I became powerless,

Able only to destroy myself, my family, my people.

So when Jesus expelled the demons he did not say he rescued me,

as if a storm threw me from a boat, as someone who was helpless.

He showed me mercy.

In uttering that one word I felt the weight of all my greed,

All my compulsion, my dark search

For dark power.

My rebellion.

Mercy.

I relish the taste of the word

On my lips.

Community

Aaron — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 05:01:08 +0000

Community is commonality;

“They held all things in common.”

If we live in the same house,

We do not have community.

If we are family,

We do not have community.

If we read the same books,

We do not have community.

If we raise our kids alike,

We do not have community.

If we attend the same bible study,

We do not have community.

If we worship in the same sanctuary,

We do not have community.

In all these things externalism reigns,

Thus the outer is shared, the inner excluded,

And all things are not common.

But if I share my heart, and you yours,

And we both share Christ,

We have community.

The only way to have all things in common

Is to share the only all-inclusive things;

Our hearts and the Christ that binds them.

John Owen on the Glory of Christ

Aaron — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:28:05 +0000

In John 17:24 Jesus prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” John Owen sees the value Jesus places in the ability of his followers to see his glory. It is, as Owen says, “one of the greatest privileges and advancements of believers, both in this world and unto eternity” (1:286). Jesus prays that believers may behold his glory, not out of a prideful desire to lift himself up, but out of love for his followers, knowing that this and this alone will give them true satisfaction. “Hereon do our present comforts and future blessedness depend. This is the life and reward of our souls” (1:288).

Owen gives us 5 directions to aid us in the duty of meditating on the glory of Christ. If we would heed his advice we would find ourselves greatly motivated to seek and behold Christ. (1:312-322)

1.) “Let us get it fixed in our souls and in our minds that this glory of Christ in the divine constitution of his person is the best, the most noble, useful, beneficial object that we can be conversant about in our thoughts, or cleave to in our affections.” (312) We must start by stirring ourselves up to truly believe the worth and joy there is in “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” This is not something we attain naturally; delighting in the glory of Christ is not our default disposition. We are in our sinful nature dead to this most beautiful object. We default to “spending money on that which is not bread, and laboring for that which does not satisfy.” In essence our starting point in seeking to behold the glory of Christ is always repentance. We must ask God to incline our hearts and open our eyes.

2.) If we would see Christ’s glory as the highest object of our thoughts, we must “diligently study the Scripture, and the revelations that are made of this glory of Christ therein.” (314) John 5:39, Luke 24:26-27, Matt 13:45-46 ( Owen sees the field as representing scripture, the pearl the glory of Christ). When talking about meditating on the glory of Christ, it is easy (for me at least) to think that I am to meditate abstractly, to “imagine” the beauty of Christ’s glory. But we only see the glory of Christ in the Word. The glory of Christ is centered in the gospel, and the gospel, the story of redemption and God’s covenant love, is found in scripture.

3.) Having placed the highest motivation on seeing Christ’s glory, and then searching scripture for it, we must consider it our duty to frequently meditate on it. We can assent to the realtiy of Christs glory without attending to it in solemn meditation. “it is…to be lamented that men can find time for, and have inclinations to think and meditate on, other things, [that] may be earthly and vain; but have neither heart, nor inclination, nor leisure to meditate on this glorious object.” (317)

4. “Let your occasional thoughts of Christ be many, and multiplied every day” (317). Where #3 refers to lengthy set aside times of prayer and meditation, here Owen refers to continual communication throughout one’s day. “Generally, Christ is nigh unto believers, and of a ready access; and the principal actings of the life of faith consist in the frequency of our thoughts concerning him…Christ dwells in them by faith; but the actings of this life in them (as wherever life is, it will be in act and exercise) are proportionable unto their thoughts or him, and delight in him” (319). “A great rebuke it ought to be to us, when Christ hath for any time been long out of our minds.”

5. All of these directions are vain if they do not issue in adoration and love to Christ. “The design of this discourse is no more, but when by faith we have attained a view of the glory of Christ, in our contemplations on his person, we should not pass it over as a notion of truth which we assent to – namely, that he is thus glorious in himself – but endeavor to affect our hearts with it, as that wherein our own principal interest lie; wherein it will be effectual unto the transformation of our souls unto his image” (321). This is the end goal, the purpose for which we initially repented of not keeping.

May we take Jesus’ prayer earnestly.

Why are there paradoxes in Christianty?

Aaron — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:48:27 +0000

Christianity is full of paradoxes, truths that appear to be at odds but are not. Why is this?

The ultimate source of truth is God, for he is ultimate reality, and truth is that which corresponds to reality. Because God is ultimate truth, all truth comes from Him and no truth is truly known unless it is known in relation to Him. That is to say, we can’t know anything unless we know God.

But because God is infinitely transcendent and we are finite, we can’t know him unless He reveals himself to us. God reveals himself in degrees: in creation, in his Word, and ultimately in his Son. Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God (Heb. 1). As such, he is the ultimate source of truth. But God reveals himself through his son in a paradox, indeed, the ultimate paradox: Deity assuming a human nature, God and Man in one Person.

So, all divine truth comes to us through a paradox and thus will be paradoxical to one degree or another.

Understanding this should help us tremendously as we wrestle with theological difficulties like divine sovereignty and human freedom, cultural transformation and gospel constancy, or the power of the Spirit and the truth of the Word. The tension between those ideas should not be so surprising in light of the fundamental nature of God’s revelation through Christ in the gospel. That doesn’t mean that embracing the tension is easy; it isn’t. But at the very least it should keep us from pulling the “inconsistent” or “illogical” cards when discussing those topics because as evangelicals we all embrace orthodox Christology.

Where do stories come from?

Aaron — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:42:30 +0000

One of my favorite topics to think about and discuss is the gospel. It is the all encompassing teaching of scripture, the ultimate revelation of God. All that God would have us know about himself, the world we live in, and ourselves is contained in it.

With that in mind, it amazes me to realize that the gospel is fundamentally a story. It has characters, a protagonist and antagonist, setting, themes, motifs, and of course, plot. In fact, the stages of the gospel, often described as creation, fall, redemption, consummation, correspond to the fundamental aspects of plot: creation/exposition, fall/conflict, old covenant/rising tension, cross/climax, new covenant/resolution.

The question is, which came first? Does the gospel conform to basic plot structure, or does story flow out of the plot structure of the gospel? It’s obvious that I think the gospel came first. The very possibilty for stories comes from the fact that God’s highest and most eminent revelation of himself is itself a story.

Thursday Clerihew

Brian — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:35:02 +0000

Clerihews in the news!

Kim Jong Il
Fired a missile
Disguised as a satellite;
The U.N. sees it as unpolite