Category Archives: Pastor Steve’s Blog

Popular culture is a master of proclaiming and packaging what we already know.  In this commercial for Pediasure, there is a line that says, “Kid’s are what they eat.”

We become what we put into our bodies.  And this isn’t just wisdom for life or insight for understanding, but an eternal truth with eternal consequences.  As G. K. Beale says in his book We Become What We Worship,

All humans have been created to be reflecting beings, and they will reflect whatever they are ultimately committed to, whether the true God or some other object in the created order.

Or, the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 1:18-23:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they become fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Paul is describing the situation of our lives as we treasure and cherish and desire and prize and adore and “worship” anything and everything rather than the Living God revealed in Jesus Christ.  The result is a broken life, futile thinking, and a dashed hope.  Bottom line…a life filled with anything and everything BUT God is an empty life!

Or as C. S. Lewis described our fickle hearts:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, p. 26)

I invite you to take an honest inventory of your heart longings and ultimate ambitions.  Give thought to what occupies most of your time, your thinking, your resources, your energy, your devotion.  Much in this world tastes and smells and feels and sounds good.  But only God Himself satisfies.

What is the purpose of our life?  The Westminster Catechism says, “The chief end of man is to know God and to enjoy Him forever.”  Stated much more practically, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

May the Living God be our supreme delight, our highest joy, our deepest longing, and our most savored satisfaction.  And this is possible ONLY when we lay our lives down to Him, when He is not only our supreme delight, but our only hope.

C.S. Lewis, in his penetrating reflection The Problem of Pain, offers a de-centering and re-centering perspective on pain in the life of God’s people.  Let us ponder an aspect of pain’s purpose in the life of the redeemed:

“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love’, and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre.  God does not exist for the sake of man.  Man does not exist for his own sake. ‘Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.’ (Rev. 4:11)  We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest ‘well pleased.’  To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable.  We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He would reconcile Himself to our present impurities… What we would here and now call our ‘happiness’ is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.”
(The Problem of Pain, p. 47-48)

Blogging has now taken root as a common way for people to post online their thoughts and opinions on just about anything and everything.  Think of it like a public diary about one’s life, inner thoughts, reflections on everyday life, etc.  Often blogging takes the form of random and wandering thoughts about the most unpredictable of topics.  Worse yet, it merely becomes one persons political, social, or religious commentary on life around them.  This kind of blogging offers no lasting legacy, nor does it challenge us to see our immediate lives in the midst of an eternal plan or purpose.  With this in mind, my approach to “blogging” will be slightly different, and certainly more focused.

In a world where opinion, especially personal opinion, seems to be the new foundation of what is true, I wish to avoid the mere rambling and ranting of opinion.  After all, I believe our lives ought to be lived in pursuit of what is true, what is right, what is good.  Ultimately, our lives are to be lived in pursuit, a passionate pursuit of Christ!

To this end (the relentless and responsive pursuit of the Christ who first sough us and loved us – 1 John 4:19), I envision this voice in pursuit of Christ to take on the following general form.

• Sunday’s will generally offer a link to the sermon preached that day.
• Monday will include a devotional thought for our week.
• Tuesday’s will be a day I may offer some longer thoughts on what I have been reading, or reflections on some topic that has been pressing in my thinking or in the world.
• Wednesday should become “Wisdom Wednesday” when I will pass along some quotations from some great thinkers on various topics.
• Thursday will include another extend piece of writing on various subjects, perhaps even reflections on your thoughts or comments.
• Friday will be a “Week in Review” when I share some links and thoughts from others that I have gathered throughout the week.
• Saturday will be a blog free day (a day of rest).

Above all else, it is the longing of my heart that we would be drawn more closely to God’s own heart, and in turn, be directed more clearly to the pursuit of Christ as our highest ambition.

Graciously and humbly offered,

Pastor Steve