God’s Love

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. — 1 Peter 1:8
[Jesus said] It would be better to have Jesus physically absent in order to have the Holy Spirit invisibly present. ~ Anne
Welcome to week two of the Jesus In Me Online Bible Study.
What has your experience with the Holy Spirit been? I grew up in a non-denominational church that was very open to the Holy Spirit and I’m so grateful that I was modeled having an active and growing relationship with Him from a young age.
Still, He was a mystery to me. I think the closest I felt to God the Holy Spirit was in worshipping in song. Maybe that was true for you. That’s probably why I pursued singing. I led worship in my home church with a wonderful team of spirit-filled believers for a couple of decades and it was life-changing to minister that way.
The Holy Spirit is a living, invisible Person. ~ Anne
Jesus showed us what God the Father is like. In the same way, He showed us what God the Holy Spirit is like.
All this coming and going… Now you see Me, now you don’t. I think what He was doing was teaching His disciples about the Holy Spirit. Whether they could see Jesus or not, He was invisible present with them 24/7 in the Person of the Holy Spirit. ~ Anne
The Holy Spirit is our Helper, Comforter, Counselor, Strengthener, and Standby. He intercedes for us. He helps us in everything we do if we lean on Him. He gives us the power to do what we cannot do in our own power. He gives us wisdom we can’t possibly have in our little brains. He is our closest, dearest Friend.
I want to love Him more. Don’t you?
This week in your study:
Study first! Grab your Bible and enjoy your personal study this week on pages 11-26.
Then, watch the video for session two of the Jesus In Me on our study home page and take notes in your study guide on pages 27-29 and stick around to go through the questions afterward!
Join the conversations about this week’s teaching and get to know our community in our private Facebook group.
Scriptures this Week
John 14:2-3John 14:5John 15:5John 15:18John 16: 5-8John 16:12-16Numbers 6:24-262 Corinthians 1:4John 14:16
Prayer for the Week
Holy Spirit, we love You and we want to love You even more every day! Help us to trust You and lean into Your presence. Help us to hear Your voice. Teach us to wait on You. Teach us to hear Your sweet voice, Your gentle whisper. We want to talk and talk in our prayers, but remind us to wait and listen. We need You, Lord. We need Your guidance and Your wisdom. We need Your comfort and Your friendship. We love You! […]

Imagine if Jesus stood before you with a golden envelope. The envelope contains an invitation to know and experience Jesus like never before. To discover Christ in His breathtaking beauty, His staggering strength, His wondrous power, and the depths of His relentless love for you.
Would you take the envelope?
Or would you say, Eh, I’m good. I don’t like the packaging. Not for me.
To be honest, for most of my life, that’s how I’ve thought of Revelation.
Maybe you have, too.
For me, my aversion comes from childhood. I was raised by free-spirited parents who became believers during the Jesus movement of the 1970s.
Around that time an author by the name of Hal Lindsey wrote a book called The Late Great Planet Earth that talked about the end of the world. And the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the US was heating up.
My parents, who owned a mom and pop surf shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida, decided to buy a remote piece of property outside of Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
They built it completely off the grid — we had our vegetable gardens. Fruit trees. Solar panels. Water sources. Beehives. Even a bomb shelter… you know, just in case the end of the world came.
My parents were doomsday preppers long before prepping or preparing for the worst became popular television shows or podcasts.
Well, needless to say… the end of the world did not come.
After 5 years, my parents sold the property and that was the end of that phase.
But it’s always made me a little hesitant when it comes to Revelation.
With its bloody dragons, flying creatures, mark of the beast, I’ve thought, Eh, I’m good. Not loving the packaging. That’s not for me.
 Yet, I’ve had to reconsider.
Do you really think God gives us the Scriptures, this love letter, in which He reveals the lengths He’s gone to rescue us, then in the closing chapters, delivers a Big Cosmic Boo! where He scares the heebie-jeebies out of us?
That’s not consistent with the nature of God, the character of God, or the redemptive work of God throughout history.
During the last year, as I’ve dug into Revelation, I’ve started to wonder, what if, through the book of Revelation, God is saving the best for last?
What if, through Revelation, we’re being invited to discover the extravagant hope of Jesus no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in?
What if we don’t have to be scared of imagery like the four horses of the apocalypse. And instead, we can discover how they’re meant to awaken and empower us as followers of Christ?
What I’ve been learning is that in order to lay hold of the golden invitation Jesus has for us, that we’ve got to push aside our fears, our preconceived ideas, any spiritual baggage we might have picked up along the way because of our upbringing or past. And decide to accept the golden invitation of Christ, and say, “Jesus, I want all of You!”
That’s a message that we must embrace not just when we’re reading Revelation, but amid everyday life. We live in a world of increasing toxicity, polarization, and downright cray cray. Like the dark chapters of Revelation, it’s tempting to think that all is lost, there’s no way forward, we might as well give up.
Yet it’s in the darkest moments that a shaft of Heaven’s radiance breaks through. The storm peels back and we’re invited to once again center ourselves on the One who sits on the throne.
From the throne, God radiates unspeakable beauty — sights and sounds beyond description. Crackles of thunder. Flashes of lightning. Colors and hues that leave us wonderstruck.
 In front of the throne sits a sea of glass, bright and clear as crystal, believed to represent a kind of baptism font. A callback to the Red Sea and Jordan River. That place when you pass through, you leave your old life behind. In the crossing, you’re cleansed, healed, and set free in the presence of God.
Around the throne, are four mysterious creatures covered in eyes.
Maybe you’re thinking like me. W-e-i-r-d.
But would it truly be God’s throneroom, if the Mysterious Creator was separated from His Mysterious Creation?
It would be like walking into an artist studio, and there’s no art.
Or walking into an optometrist’s office and there’s no equipment or eye chart. You’d think, what is going on here?
These four creatures represent the breadth of creation. These creatures soar and see everything, just like their Creator who sits on the throne.
All those eyes watch, observe, and perceive from every angle and vantage point without limitation.
Affirming, God’s sees all things!
That’s why you can trust that Jesus always has perspective, even when you don’t.
Even when…
the world has gone wonky.logic doesn’t make sense.everything feels shaky.and tomorrow keeps bringing the unknown.
No matter what you’re fearing or feeling, sizing up or sensing, God remains on the throne today. And He’s inviting you to take the golden invitation to know and experience Jesus like never before.
Written for Devotionals Daily by Margaret Feinberg, author of Revelation: Extravagant Hope.
 * * *
Your Turn
How do you feel about the book of Revelation? Is it kind of Eh, I’m good for you, too? If so, then let’s reconsider and open up to the final book of God’s Word and see it as the exclamation point on His love letter to us! ~ Devotionals Daily […]

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” – Matthew 19:24 (NASB)
This impossible illustration comes from Jesus himself and leaves us with questions. Is it really impossible? Why? What must a rich man do to be saved? Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave us without answers or hope.
Is it Really Impossible for the Rich to Go to Heaven?
Without God’s supernatural intervention, the answer is yes. Jesus tells us later in the same passage, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 NASB)
Man is incapable of saving himself. It is impossible for anyone—rich or poor—to go to heaven on their own. If we could, we wouldn’t need a savior. Jesus Christ is our source of salvation, and utter dependency on Him is the only way to enter heaven. This is the heart of Jesus’s message.
Unfortunately, the rich are at a greater risk of misplaced dependency and thus less likely to enter Heaven.

Photo Credit: © Getty Images

Who Are the Rich and Why Is it Harder?
If you are in the category of living comfortably—able to pay bills, buy groceries and clothes, and have extra—you are who Jesus is speaking to in particular. Though not perhaps rich by the world’s standards, we are in great danger of forgetting from Whom these blessing come.
“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27 NASB)
When we struggle to meet basic needs, dependence on God tends to be forefront in our minds. Every provision is attributed to Him and not anything we’ve done. We see it as a gift, and generally share more willingly from the little we have.
However, when we live a comfortable lifestyle, it is easy to lose sight of that dependency and give the credit to our hard work instead. Wealth becomes viewed as earned and deserved. Self-reliance takes over our thoughts and actions. If we want an enjoyable retirement, it is up to us to save for it. If we want the newest and the greatest, we must work hard, and since we work hard, we deserve to enjoy life in our free time. Our schedules become too busy to invest in others’ lives. Self-reliance and self-absorption become stumbling blocks to our salvation.

Jesus provides several illustrations of this.
In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus tells a parable of a rich man whose land was very productive. He decided to store it all for himself so that he might enjoy a life of ease and entertainment. Nowhere does the rich man recognize that abundance as a gift from God, nor is there any mention of him giving any portion of it for God’s use. The rich man was selfish and thought himself in control of his future. Yet God would ruin those plans and demand the rich man’s life before his plans could come to fruition. Greed and a lack of recognizing who was truly was in control prevented the rich man from entering heaven.
Another famous story is often called “The Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31). In this parable, the rich man enjoys his life and takes no note of the poor man at his door. He is selfish and hard-hearted. Lazarus begged every day, and suffered because the rich man refused to notice him or share the wealth bestowed upon him. The rich man showed no dependency on God until he died. His focus during life was inward, not outward to those in need, or upward to the God who blessed him.
Being rich doesn’t keep you from salvation, but it does have the potential to blind you to the favor God has shown you, and your absolute need to depend on Him. So is it bad to be rich?
Photo Credit: © Unsplash/Josh Appel
Is it Bad to Be Rich?
No—every gift from God is good. If He has blessed you with wealth, it is for a reason, and we have examples in the Bible to prove this.
Joseph of the Old Testament was one of the wealthiest men of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. However, that wealth did not diminish his dependency on God. He knew God’s provision of riches and vision were favored gifts which he in turn used to save multiple nations. Joseph was a rich man, but first and foremost, he was a humble servant of God.
In the book of Acts, we read about several members of the early church who were wealthy and helped to support others. Barnabas sold a field and donated the money so it could be used to serve the needy (Acts 4:36-37), Dorcas made clothes for the widows (Acts 9:36-43), and a Roman Centurion named Cornelius “did many charitable deeds for the Jewish people and always prayed to God” (Acts 10:1-8).
Though they were wealthy, God was the one they depended upon, and by His example they used their riches to freely serve others. When our identity, security, and hope are tied into accumulating and maintaining wealth, our fists tighten and our hearts harden against the one who provided that gift and those He calls us to help.
If we are to guard against this, we must evaluate our hearts.

A Heart Check for the Rich
God judges a man before he can enter heaven, and He does not judge as the world judges. Someone could be the richest, most influential person on the planet, and still not enter. No amount of possessions or influence can sway God. He looks past worldly standards and into the heart of a man (1 Samuel 16:7). He knows where your dependency lies. Do you?
I encourage you to use these verses and the following questions as a “heart check.”
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, … But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matthew 6:19-20)
“…Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15 NASB)
What are you storing up? How are you using the wealth God has given you? Are you satisfied with what you have, or are you always striving for more? Is your focus on the gift instead of the Giver? If you lost all your wealth and your health, would you still trust in God?
If you found the answers to some of those questions distasteful, you might be depending on your wealth for identity, security, and hope. The only way to fix that is to go straight to Jesus.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images
How Can a Rich Person Be Saved?
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10 NASB)
If you aren’t sure how to call on the name of Jesus, please read over The Sinner’s Prayer – 4 Examples for Salvation. There is no magic formulaic prayer, just heartfelt confession between you and your Savior.
Although it may be more difficult for a rich man to be saved, by the grace of God, it is not impossible. Whether rich or poor, He will save you. All you have to do is call out, and He will teach you to depend on Him.
Crystal Caudill is a wife, caregiver, mom of teen boys, historical romance author, and prayer warrior. She isn’t perfect but she strives to grow in God and encourage others in their faith journeys every day. Learn more about her and her writing at http://www.crystalcaudill.com. […]

Rebelliousness is such a touchy subject because often Christians don’t want to consider the possibility that some of their thoughts, attitudes, and actions may be rooted in disobedience towards God.
Yet many Christians are enjoying worldly behaviors and pleasing their own desires over yielding to God. Instead of submitting to His word and ways, they are justifying and rationalizing their choices, unwilling to bring them under the light of God’s truth.
Still 1 Peter 1:14, 15 urges, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.”
10. Entertaining Sexual Immorality
Unfortunately a growing number of Christians are comfortable with sexual immorality, despite Ephesians 5:3 warning to not even have a hint of it in our lives.
Many Christians enjoy viewing inappropriate sexual relationships, overlooking its sinfulness and justifying their indulgence of it because they love the characters and storylines, more than they love God.
But 1 John 2:16 clarifies its origin, “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Watching sexual immorality deeply affects our hearts and minds in adverse ways. If we think as believers we can watch it and remain unaffected, we are deceived. It affects how we think, live, make decisions, view sin, and most importantly, our relationship with God.
Psalm 101:3 offers direction for our eyes. “I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.”
When addressing “eye issues” related to sexual immorality, Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29)
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/Gearstd

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV. […]

Our church begins each Sunday gathering with a strange word of welcome: to the burdened, to the mourning, to the weak. Worship isn’t just for the cheerful and hope-filled, but also for the down and despondent. You haven’t been forgotten, we say in effect. And we believe worship can be a critical means to genuine healing.
However, as the pandemic has dragged on and on, the number of us feeling weak, burdened, and discouraged has swelled, and the cheerful and hope-filled have begun to feel more like the exceptions — especially in an increasingly cynical society. Might we now need a particular word of welcome for them as well?

And if you’re generally joyful this morning, we welcome you too, unusual as you are. You need not feign despondency to sing together with this poor, burdened lot of worshipers. Jesus welcomes those teeming with hope, and so do we. It’s okay to have hope — in fact, that’s our prayer. We have gathered here to have our hope renewed and strengthened in Christ.

We should expect secularism to produce cynicism. Such unbelief, as sophisticated as it may seem, cannot but eventually generate ever thickening skepticism, criticism, disappointment, and complaint. Christians, however, have a countercultural calling: hope. Christ calls us to be hopeful, subjectively, because we have real hope, objectively. In Christ, we have hope in us, because we have Hope in him — “Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1).
Grieving with Hope
None of that means that Christians pretend to have only hope. We all know life in this age to be complex. We weep over our own lives, and we weep with those who weep. Yet we also offer them what we have in Christ (and what they desperately want): real hope. In the Hope we have in Jesus — a real, solid, stable, energizing hope — we are able to face up to the real sin and pain and disappointment and deep hurt in our world, and in us.

“Christ calls us to be hopeful, subjectively, because we have real hope, objectively.”

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We grieve still, but not “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Nor do we lament, criticize, and rage as the hopeless. If Christ can give hope even as we stare at a loved one’s headstone, surely he can give hope no matter what else erupts in our lives or sightlines.
For now, even as we grieve, we cling to hope. Grieving, yet always hopeful.
What Hope Is and Does
For the Christian, hope is no thin wish. We often use the word hope far more casually than the New Testament. I hope it’s warm tomorrow. I hope our team wins. I hope the pandemic is over soon. In everyday talk, we say hope for thin wishes about an uncertain, even unlikely, future.
Not so for the apostles and the early church. Their hope was not flimsy, fleeting, or uncertain. Rather, they spoke of a well-founded faith with a future orientation. Their hope, rooted in faith, was “knowledge of the truth,” looking forward (Titus 1:1–2). And what is remarkable, and perhaps regularly overlooked, is how powerful, how catalytic, how transformative such true hope will prove to be.
It is no accident that the two New Testament letters that may be most manifestly concerned with prompting Christian good deeds — 1 Peter and Titus — are also fed explicitly by the power of hope. Not simply faith, but hope in particular.
Again and again, 1 Peter rings the bell for doing good (2:12, 14, 15, 20; 3:6, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17; 4:19), stemming from hope (1:3, 13, 21; 3:5, 15). Hope in God leads to doing good in the world (1 Peter 3:5–6). Unbelievers see the good Christians do and ask about what? “The hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:13–17). Have you ever paused to consider how the lives of others benefit as a result of your hope? Or conversely, what good does not happen in the world as hope runs thin and cynicism rises?
Blessed, Energizing Hope
So also in Titus. The refrain is striking. Do not be “unfit for any good work” (Titus 1:16), but rather “be a model of good works” (2:7), “zealous for good works” (2:14), “ready for every good work” (3:1), devoting yourselves to good works (3:8, 14) — which does not mean to put one’s own righteousness on display but rather “to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (3:14). In other words, tangible actions motivated by love. There’s the strong emphasis in Titus on doing good.
And yet, as immediately as the letter’s first sentence, Paul speaks of godliness birthed “in hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:1–2). First is faith, and this faith gives rise to “godliness, in hope of eternal life.” In other words, hope is the critical link between faith in Christ and doing good to others. Faith in Christ’s person and work produces hope of eternal life which frees God’s people from the barriers and attachments of this present age to love and do good for others. And this hope is a blessed hope (Titus 2:13). Hope in the coming of Christ, and the bliss he will bring, gives us joy even now in the present, joy enough to free us from seeking our own, to love others and seek to meet their needs.
Paul’s structure of thought is similar in Colossians 1:4–5: “we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” The people of faith did good for others (love) because of their hope. Faith in Christ fed hope in a certain promised future which released God’s people from earthly fears and entanglements and laziness, to dream about, and make good on, doing good for others.
God Never Lies
Why is it that Christian hope — and not hope in general — has such a catalytic effect in and through our lives? Paul answers that in the opening lines of Titus. When he mentions “hope of eternal life,” he adds, “which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2). Why would he say that here? Of course God never lies, but why say that now?

“Hope produced the greatest labor of love the world has ever known.”

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Because the never-lying, certain promises of God, about the future, have everything to do with our hope. Our hope, which catalyzes faith in Christ into actions of love for the good of others, is based on the words of the God “who never lies.” God’s truthfulness is absolutely critical to our hope. And our hope, in Christ, is as good as God’s word. Our hope is not what we wish or dream; our hope is what God has promised — and he never lies.
Man of Hope
This dynamic — faith producing hope which inspires loving risk and sacrifice for others — also shows up again and again in Hebrews, and particularly in Christ himself. How was it that the consummate man of faith, God himself in human flesh, the founder and perfecter of our faith, did the single greatest good that has ever been done? What propelled him, against the greatest of obstacles, to go to the cross? In a word, hope.
Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). By faith, he looked to the promises of God and saw his reward. This was not wishful thinking about the future, but the eyes of faith looking to the future and realizing, and tasting, that this outcome is as sure as the promises of God. Faith fed hope. And hope produced the greatest labor of love the world has ever known.
In Christ, we don’t let the growing hopelessness around us dampen our hope. And in him, we don’t apologize for having real hope, and being hopeful; we don’t give in to the pressure to stoop and be as cynical as our surroundings. Rather, we take God at his word. He never lies. And he promises us a stunning hope in Christ, one that unleashes us, with joy, to do good. […]

Of all the misconceptions we have about heaven, which is the most destructive? That’s a difficult and important question to tackle.
Once, while preaching about the new earth, I cited passages about feasting together in our resurrection bodies. Afterward, a veteran Bible student asked if I really believed we would eat and drink in the afterlife. I told him yes, since Jesus said so. Visibly shaken, he replied, “Engaging in physical activities in heaven sounds terribly unspiritual.” Standing there with a body God promised to raise, he was repulsed by the thought of living forever as a physical being in a material world.
And he’s not alone. Many Bible-believing Christians would die before denying the doctrine of the resurrection — and yet they don’t fully believe it.
I’ve dialogued with lifelong evangelicals who don’t understand what resurrection means. They really believe they will spend eternity as disembodied spirits. God’s revelation concerning the resurrection and the new earth — our forever home — eludes them. A Christian university professor wrote, “I was floored and dismayed to discover the vast majority of my students don’t believe in the bodily resurrection.” Some evangelicals even believe we become angels when we die.
If I could eliminate one belief about heaven, it would be the heresy that the physical world is an enemy of God’s redemptive plan rather than a central part of it.
Dangers of Christoplatonism
I coined the term “Christoplatonism” to capture how Plato’s notion of a good spirit realm and an evil material world hijacked the church’s understanding of heaven. From a Christoplatonic perspective, our souls occupy our bodies like a hermit crab inhabits a seashell.

“We will never be all God intended until body and spirit are reunited.”

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Plato’s statement Soma sema, “a body, a tomb,” reflected his belief that the spirit’s ideal state is freedom from the body. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo tried to integrate Plato’s view with Judaism. In the second and third centuries, some church fathers — including Clement and Origen — followed Philo and reinterpreted Scripture.
But the Bible contradicts Christoplatonism from beginning (Genesis 1, God created the heavens and earth) to end (Revelation 21, God will remake the heavens and earth). The gospel itself centers on the resurrected Jesus who, as part of his redemptive work, will resurrect his people and the world he made for them.
Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Adam became alive when God joined his body and spirit together. Your body doesn’t merely house you; in concert with your spirit, it is you.
Jesus redeems our whole person. When believers die, our spirits go to the present heaven while our bodies go to the grave, awaiting resurrection. We will never be all God intended until body and spirit are reunited in heaven. And just as our new bodies won’t be non-bodies, but real bodies, so the new earth will be a real earth, not a non-earth.
Disembodied Gospel
If we believe, even subconsciously, that the material world is inherently unspiritual, we will ignore or spiritualize the resurrection. Some speak of spiritual resurrection, but as the sunrise requires a sun, resurrection requires a physical body. That’s what resurrection means.
The risen Jesus reassured his disciples, “Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have” (Luke 24:39 CSB). Yet some evangelicals imagine an afterlife in which we become ghosts — the very thing Jesus reassured his followers he wasn’t.
Satan wants us to believe eternal life will be unearthly and boring. Then people focus on bucket lists, thinking here and now is their only chance at real human life. Who wants to be a ghost? Why invite others to spend eternity in a heaven we don’t look forward to ourselves? Our joy, hope, and motivation to evangelize diminish. Trying to develop an appetite for an eternity of disembodied existence is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel.
The only good news about this view of heaven is that it’s absolutely false.
The Bible’s actual teaching should thrill us. Eternity in a redeemed body living in a Jesus-centered culture on a new earth, capital planet of the new universe? That’s incredibly good news.
What About the Present Heaven?
God never changes, but heaven will change. The Bible indicates that after our resurrection, God will relocate his central dwelling place to the new earth:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:1–3)

We’re told “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it [the new earth], and his servants will worship him” (Revelation 22:3). Heaven is where God’s throne is, where he dwells with his people. Hence, the new earth will be heaven on earth. When Christians die, we go to live with God in his place. That’s the present heaven. But after the resurrection, God will come down to live with us in our place. The future heaven, on the new earth, will not be “us with God” but “God with us.”
We err when we confuse the present pre-resurrection heaven with the future post-resurrection heaven that God will bring down to the new earth. The present heaven is “far better” (Philippians 1:23) than our lives under the curse of sin and suffering. Upon death, we will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). But my point is, wonderful though it will be, we shouldn’t think of the present heaven as if it were our ultimate home. The best is yet to come — eternal and delightful life worshiping and serving the forever-incarnate Jesus on the new earth.
World Worth Anticipating
Spirits without bodies fit Platonism and Eastern mysticism. They do not fit Christianity. Paul says if there’s no resurrection, we should “be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19).

“We shouldn’t think of the present heaven as if it were our ultimate home.”

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New bodies and the new earth aren’t our inventions; they’re God’s. He created us to live on and rule the earth, and Jesus became man to redeem his creation (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22). God’s people should look forward to living forever in a redeemed cosmos (2 Peter 3:13). That is a life-changing perspective.
The present earth, even under sin and curse, teems with clues about the new earth: mountains, water, trees, people, and cities. Along with other passages, Revelation 21–22 depicts life on the new earth in familiar ways. We will eat, drink, work, play, worship, discover, invent, and travel in a sinless world like — yet even better than — the one God made for Adam and Eve. The word nations suggests resurrected civilizations, cultures with distinctive ethnic traits (Revelation 21:24, 26). Multiple new earth passages mention animals (Isaiah 11:6–9; 65:25). What can the rest of “the whole creation” in Romans 8:19–22 be but animals, which along with humans groan and await the resurrection when the earth that fell on our coattails will rise on them?
Settling for Less Than a Redeemed Earth
Jesus promised his disciples a “renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28 NIV), which the ESV renders “the new world.” Peter preached that Christ won’t return “until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21). With the Lord we love, believers will embark on the ultimate adventure. A magnificent new earth awaits our exploration and governance, to God’s glory. Jesus will be the cosmic center; joy will be the air we breathe.
Christians are vulnerable to attractive false teachings. Ironically, the true biblical teachings about the new body and new earth are far more robust and appealing than the false Christoplatonic view of heaven. Let’s teach our children and our churches what is absolutely true and profoundly attractive.
Does the thought of experiencing a resurrected world appeal to you? Does it ignite your imagination to realize we will live happily ever after on a planet without sin and suffering? Is this part of the good news you share with others? Let’s never settle for less than the full breadth of God’s promised salvation — eternal life with God’s people on a redeemed earth governed by the King of kings, whom we will joyfully worship and serve forever. […]

I have often failed to recognize, let alone withstand, the temptation of loving my life in this world. This shows itself not in the great acts of sin I commit, but in the good I do not do. I have been guilty of what Charles Spurgeon called “the sin of doing nothing.”
Sin, as classically understood, is not just the doing of bad (commission) but also the failure of doing good (omission). I tend to care more about the first than the second. In a culture still sailing under the semblance of a theistic morality, we tend to judge ourselves by what we do instead of what we leave undone. But wars are not won on defense alone.
And what glorious battlelines to excuse oneself from. Is it not our utmost privilege to participate? To watch behind fortress walls would have been enough; to blow the trumpets and attend the banners, an honor. But to be summoned in by the King himself, to be fitted in his armor, given a family to march forth with, and lost souls to win — how can we resist? The conqueror, the King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, stands in the thick of the battle. Does your blood not stir to join him?

“Sin is not just the doing of bad, but also the failure of doing good.”

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For those of us who have settled down and grown pudgy, we have much to learn from the men of Reuben and Gad, two Israelite tribes who wavered on the brink of the Promised Land. They were tempted with the sin of omission, “the sin of doing nothing,” the sin of laying down their weapons before the warfare had ended and God’s people possessed the land. While inactivity in God’s mission may be treated as harmless, God treats it as a serious sin, and so should we.
Tribes of Stand-Still
These two tribes, the men of Reuben and Gad, were of the twelve that marched behind Moses toward the Promised Land. As children, these men left Egypt through bloody doorposts and a parted sea. As they came of age, they fought against Sihon and Og in the wilderness. Their generation, unlike their fathers, proved faithful in God’s campaign to go forth into the Promised Land.
But now, they arrived at some pleasant land suitable to their needs and would be tempted to not continue in their mission. These men did not want the city on the hill, the land flowing with milk and honey; they wanted land for pasture. So they asked Moses to be relieved of their duties:

The land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock. If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan. (Numbers 32:4–5)

A simple request. A polite enough inquiry. But God and Moses did not see it this way. And God’s men today, settled down in suitable lands like America, need to hear their reply.
Sin of Doing Nothing
Moses responds to the people of Gad and Reuben,

Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?
Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. . . . And behold, you have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel! For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people. (Numbers 32:6–8, 14–15)

Notice three charges laid against them.
You abandoned your mission.
While the ten tribes would go forth to battle, Gad and Reuben are described as being those who would just “sit there.” “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here?” These warriors were not intending to just “sit there.” On the contrary, they would be busy pasturing flocks, building houses, fortifying their city, and developing the land into a suitable dwelling place.

“Too many of us do not trouble the world and the devil, and are not much troubled in return.”

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They were not the kind of lazy or cowardly men to just sit around and watch while their brothers charged forth into combat. Yet by retiring from the great commission at hand to shepherd their sheep, that is precisely what Moses depicts them as. He portrays them as wasting their time because they were misusing their time.
No matter how busy they were with other things, respectable things, the painting of them in God’s holy Scripture would be the mere squatting together doing nothing important as long as they remained withdrawn.
You harmed your fellow soldiers.
Such a picture would dishearten the other tribes from doing what God called them to. Moses asks,

Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?

Nonparticipation is not neutral. Like any athlete or soldier or family member knows, apathy by one affects the resolve of all. Reuben and Gad threatened to not only sin themselves, but made it harder for others to obey as well. The other tribes would not be at full strength against the larger and already established nations in the land.
You sinned against the Lord.
They were bearing the faithless resemblance to their forefathers. Moses is quick to point it out, “Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.”
Their fathers went to spy out the land, and all but Caleb and Joshua came back with a report that discouraged the people from going forth and taking the land sworn to Abraham. Their fathers traveled to the brink of Canaan too and turned back when God called them forward. Their fathers were too timid, and now they were too comfortable.
In response, Moses does not mince words. He calls them a brood of vipers, sinful men, who would consign Israel to another wilderness-wandering that would lead to their death if they did this evil in the Lord’s sight (Numbers 32:15). Each man must continue the mission until all the tribes possessed their inheritance. They must repent of the sin of doing nothing and march with God’s people.
How Doers of Nothing Repent
The men of Reuben and Gad do indeed repent of their sinful stopping.

We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. . . . We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance. (Numbers 32:16–18)

They would build and settle, but first they would fight.
And the Lord holds them to this, requiring each soldier to take up his weapon and wade across the Jordan “before the Lord” until the land was subdued before Yahweh’s watching eyes (Numbers 32:20–24). If they failed in doing what they had promised, they would hear Moses’s haunting words follow their retreating footsteps: “Behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
Shall We Just Sit Here?
God may yet ask many of us, modern men of Gad and Reuben, the single question to cut to the heart of our manhood: “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?”
Too many (myself included) have found our homes in the West. We enjoy religious liberty and pray, “Your kingdom come,” from time to time. We have our wife, two kids, and a pleasant existence — busy, no doubt, with something good. We do not trouble the world and the devil, and are not much troubled in return. Let Satan offer us land for cattle to roam, a hot meal, a warm bed, and we will sit contentedly still and not cross the river.
But our King has given us a mission.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)

This mission is not yet complete. Our oaths are not yet fulfilled. Not all of God’s elect have their inheritance. Our conquest is not yet total — we remain on the wrong side of the Jordan. “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war” are the lyrics bequeathed to us from calloused hands. But the reposed nature of too many men in churches makes one think we were told, “Sit still Christian soldiers, till your seat is sore.”
To combat the sin of nothing is to refuse entanglement in civilian pursuits. To not get distracted from serving King and our heavenly country. To not lose sight of the mission, no matter what other worthwhile pursuits present themselves to us. To remember that marriage and family are parts of the mission, not the mission itself. We cannot rest until Christ has the souls for whom he died. Holiness awaits at the frontlines. Our call, our privilege, our joy is onward. […]

“Without the cross, I would not know redeeming love that floods my soul. Without the blood where would I be? I would be lost, without the cross.” – Pictures of Grace
My husband stood up Sunday morning and sang this beautiful song. As a Minister of Music’s wife, music is always at the heart of our lives. The words of the songs are what speak so profoundly to my heart. As I listen, I am pointed to Christ, and this song he sang pointed me straight to the cross. 
I need the reminder of the cross often. It is the symbol of Christ who set me free. 
Despite our greatest efforts, we are lost without the cross of Christ. Spiritually, we are inclined to seek and search for a direction without the cross. But without the cross, we would have no hope, no peace, and no comfort. We would be lost. 
The cross is God’s chosen path for our redemption.

The shepherd doesn’t just let his sheep wander off. He sets out to find them and bring them back home. Christ had to go the way of the cross to accomplish God’s plan for our rescue. But the cross is not where the story ends. God raised Christ from the dead on the third day.
And through this victory over the grave, God has raised those who trust in Jesus to new life in Him. 
The cross frees us, restores us, and resurrects us with Christ. As children of God, when we accept Him, give our lives to Him, surrender ourselves to a mighty and powerful God who loves us, then the cross changes us.
Yet, why did God choose the cross as the price for our redemption? Why was this form of ancient Roman punishment cross needed in the first place?
1. The Cross Is the Climax of the Story
What I love about the story God tells through His Word is that it is one of redemption. Redemption means that there is hope for lost things. From Genesis to Revelation, a bigger picture is being knit together. And just like any story, there is always a climax, usually when evil is defeated. It may be a major battle or discovering who committed the crime, there is always a major moment when truth is revealed, good triumphs, and all the story’s threads comes together.
The cross is that moment when everything comes together. It is the peak of God’s redemptive plan. It is what righted every wrong, defeated death, and signed the warrant for the enemy’s inevitable execution to come.

2. The Cross Satisfied God’s Wrath
We tend to forget that God is equal in all His character. He is loving, and He is also just. God’s wrath burns against all the wrong in the world. His character and His justice require atonement for sin. If someone wronged us we would wish for the wrong to be righted. God does too.
God is love, justice, wrath, and mercy. By sending His Son in our stead to make payment for our sins, God is extending mercy that we do not deserve. The cross was required because the wrath of God needed to be satisfied. Atonement must be made, and in His grace and mercy, He took the punishment upon Himself instead.
3. The Cross Was the Promised Method
Throughout the Old Testament, prophets proclaimed the Messiah to come. Isaiah described the suffering servant that would arrive, and face a cruel death.
Psalm 22:16 says “they have pierced my hands and my feet.” This Scripture details the suffering of one crucified, a method of death that had not yet even been invented. Isaiah 50:6 tells of the beating Christ would take. The cross was foretold hundreds of years before any records are found of this form of execution.
4. The Cross Delivers from Sin and Death
Sin requires a sacrifice. Scripture tells us in Romans that the price for sin is death. Not just physical death, but spiritual death. Eternal separation from a holy God. Jesus’ work on the cross fulfilled the required penalty, and so restores us to God.
We have ready access to the Father because of the cross. We have hope of heaven and eternity with Christ because of the cross. We do not have to fear death because of the cross. We can live in joy and hope every day because of the cross.
The cross is foolish to the world. In 1 Corinthians Paul says that God uses the foolish to shame the wise. God chooses the unlikely and unqualified to shame the proud. No one can boast in the presence of God Almighty.
When Israel awaited their Messiah they believed He would come as a great ruler who would destroy the power of Rome over them. They believed His reign would be immediate and earthly. They expected the worldly standards of a king, so when Jesus came they missed it. The cross was not what they expected. They didn’t understand God’s plan, they couldn’t see what was required for them to truly be free, not just from Rome but from death–their greatest enemy.
The resurrection that came after the death of Christ was His victory lap, it is what revealed Christ to be God. The cross is what revealed Him as a sacrifice. The perfect sacrifice, a lamb without blemish. The perfect payment for sin, but not just one man’s sin–all sin, for all time. 
How magnificent is the work our Savior accomplished on the cross, taking that punishment in our place. In His love for us, He chose to lay down His life that we may be free. His love for you is far beyond what we can understand; it takes the shape of the wooden cross and the weight of the crown of thorns upon His head. 
Without the cross, we would not know just how much Jesus loves us.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/mbolina
Michelle Rabon is a wife and homeschooling mom of three who feels called to help women thrive in their walk with Jesus every day. In 2012, she started Displaying Grace, a ministry that is focused on helping women engage with God’s Word. Michelle has also served in women’s ministry for the past five years seeking to equip women in the local church through Bible study. When she is not writing or teaching, she enjoys reading, being close to the ocean, and drinking a lot of coffee. […]

One day when my son Devon was about four years old, he was pondering God’s being. Not your typical four-year-old activity, I admit. But Devon was a unique child. And as he mused, he had a profound thought. God was greater than the moon and the stars, but he could still fit inside of us. His conclusion?

God is so big. But sometimes he can be so small.

My son’s insight hints at the tension we feel when we think about God’s transcendence and immanence.
Infinite and Intimate
Transcendent is the theological word that means God is above, completely other than, and independent of his creation.
God is infinite in all aspects of his being and never changes. Only he has no source, no beginning, and no end. God needs nothing, depends on nothing, and owes nothing. He is “holy, holy, holy” — perfect in every way. Simply put, God is God and we are not.

“At times, God feels too distant to be loved. At other times, God feels too near to be feared.”

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Except that God is also immanent. God sustains, is involved with, and is present within his creation. He keeps our bodies from exploding apart, grows the grass that livestock eat, and is personally invested in his world (Colossians 1:17; Psalm 104:14, 24–30). Despite how small and sinful we are, he is loving, kind, gentle, compassionate, and good.
In our corporate worship gatherings, as well as our personal interactions with God, we tend to swing between God’s transcendence and immanence like a pendulum. At times, God feels too distant, dissimilar, and above us to be loved. At other times, God feels too near, present, and like us to be feared. It’s an ongoing challenge to hold these two thoughts about God together, but it is massively important that we do, for at least four great reasons.
1. God says he is big and near.
The Bible doesn’t reveal a God who is sometimes fearsome and sometimes approachable. Nor does it depict a God who is sometimes infinitely exalted above us and at other times intimately involved in our affairs. He is both simultaneously.
Scripture never shrinks back from describing God in seemingly contradictory ways. Here are just two examples:

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up,     who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:“I dwell in the high and holy place,     and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,to revive the spirit of the lowly,     and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)
Who is like the Lord our God,     who is seated on high,who looks far down     on the heavens and the earth?He raises the poor from the dust     and lifts the needy from the ash heap,to make them sit with princes,     with the princes of his people. (Psalm 113:5–8)

God dwells in eternity yet feels at home among the lowly. God is seated on high but makes his way to the ash heap to lift up the needy. In another place, Isaiah reminds us that the Holy One, who is our Maker and Lord, the God of the whole earth, is pleased to refer to himself as our husband and Redeemer (Isaiah 54:5). Where else but in God’s word can we find such a mind-stretching, soul-stirring depiction of God?
The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck had it right:

[T]here is no book in the world which to the same extent and in the same way as the Holy Scripture supports the absolute transcendence of God above each and every creature and at the same time supports the intimate relationship between the creature and his Creator. (The Wonderful Works of God, 115)

The Bible reveals a God who is immeasurably greater and more satisfying than any god we could ever conceive of on our own.
2. We want to know God as he is.
We often avoid theological tensions by trying to squeeze God into human boxes. We vacillate between God’s transcendence and immanence lest he appear to have a multiple-personality disorder. But God is not double-minded. He is God. He is holy enough to consume sinners in wrath, and tender enough to envelop us in unending, rapturous delight (Psalm 21:8–9; 16:11). He is powerful enough to keep innumerable blazing stars in their courses, and intimate enough to name each of them and to number the hairs on our heads (Jeremiah 31:35; Psalm 147:4; Luke 12:7).
We are so used to making God in our own image that it can be hard for us to believe he doesn’t act and think like us. Even in preparing to write this article, I was struck by how consistently unimpressive my thoughts about God are. So we end up experiencing brief, scattered moments of awe rather than an ever-intensifying, ever-deepening attitude of wonder.
When we forget God is transcendent, we find it hard and unnecessary to fear him. When we forget God is immanent, we find it hard and unnecessary to love him. But he is both. And that makes us fear and love him all the more.
3. The tension deepens and sweetens worship.
The transcendence and immanence of God are a doorway to deeper and more grateful worship. Our church gatherings and our personal devotions can suffer from a failure to treasure both God’s transcendence and immanence. If God isn’t great, he won’t compel our reverence, fear, and obedience. If we don’t think of him as near, he won’t evoke our gratitude, joy, and amazement.

“The transcendence and immanence of God are a doorway to deeper and more grateful worship.”

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Most churches today tend to emphasize how near God is. We major on feeling comfortable and welcomed. God forbid we should think for a moment that, rather than deserving a fresh-brewed cup of coffee upon our arrival at church, we should be struck dead for the sins we committed just that morning. But apart from God’s mercy, the latter would be more appropriate.
What if we came to a Sunday meeting or began our Bible study with the awareness that we have no way of reaching the God we’re wanting to meet with unless he provides one? Wouldn’t we sing louder and read our Bibles more intentionally if we understood that the God who invites us into intimate fellowship created the universe from nothing and that his “is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is [his]” (1 Chronicles 29:11)?
At the same time, seeking to engage with a God who we see as only transcendent can lead to worship that is dutiful, boring, distasteful, or even irrational. We can begin to question why we keep praying to a God so far away, singing songs to a God who might not hear us, and listening to preaching about a God who doesn’t seem very connected to (or interested in) his world.
God made us in his image, and he is infinitely distinct from us. Both are true. And the more we understand how different he is, the more we will marvel that he has chosen to draw near to us, that he knows us, calls us by name, and delights in us. Which leads to a final reason why holding God’s immanence and transcendence in tension is so crucial.
4. The tension illuminates the gospel.
Countless Christians live with a deficient experience of the gospel. They can affirm that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who lived a perfect life, died on the cross to take their punishment, and rose from the dead for their justification. But it doesn’t make much of a difference in their daily lives. Rather than a source of comfort and joy, it’s an abstract doctrine that assures them they won’t go to hell when they die.
But when seen in light of God’s transcendence — his holy otherness, absolute perfection, limitless knowledge, inescapability, and unswerving eternal commitment to justice — the gospel becomes unspeakably good news. It reveals God’s immanent heart of compassion, mercy, kindness, and goodness beyond our ability to take it in. It is truly a love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19).
And now that Jesus and the Father have sent forth the Holy Spirit, God reveals his presence not only around us, but within us (John 14:26; John 15:26). The God who knows no limits of time, space, or properties has taken up residence in our hearts (1 Kings 8:27; 1 Corinthians 6:19). All this is why God alone can say, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).
There is no one like him. He truly can and does save. He is holiness and mercy, grace and truth, sovereign and servant, God and man. He is over all, through all, and in all (Ephesians 4:6). May our thoughts and worship of God increasingly reflect who he really is, for our endless joy and God’s endless praise.
He is so big. But he can be so small. […]

If we reach back to the beginning of our long and devastating history with sin, we will find a crowd of excuses. When the fruit touched Adam’s and Eve’s lips, “You see, what had happened was . . .” became stamped upon them.
Instead of contrition and confession, Adam tried to pass his blame to his wife: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Adam was not responsible. It was “the woman” — or even the God who gave her to him. Eve, following suit, passed the blame farther downfield: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13).
What they had never seen practiced became natural. The first man and woman, our parents, discovered in the forbidden fruit the idea to cover up their evil. And this knowledge was passed down to their children. The gardens of humanity’s mind became well stocked with fig leaves to cover our sin’s nakedness. All of us have become tailors and seamstresses, dressing up our failures in fine clothing.
Flaming Coals Toward Heaven
From the fall onward, few features display the creativity of Adam’s family better than our attempts to evade blame. Aaron and the sluggard of Proverbs are two of my favorite examples.

“From the fall onward, few features display the creativity of Adam’s family better than our attempts to evade blame.”

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When Moses came down the mountain to find Aaron leading the people in idol worship, Aaron explained his part to Moses this way: “They gave [the gold] to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Exodus 32:24). Out came this calf. No one crafted it; no one made it — an innocent throwing of gold into the fire and, lo and behold, out popped an idol.
Or consider the depiction of the lazy man’s inventions in Proverbs. To explain why he will not leave his bed and go to work, the sluggard protests, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13; 26:13). Oh, he would work, he assures you between yawns, if it weren’t for those man-eating lions roaming the streets of Jerusalem.
It is quite a shocking revelation that men, with all their professed desire for unhindered free will, often do not, at bottom, want anything of the kind. In God’s world, liberty of action entails bondage to responsibility. And responsibility for our actions is one thing sinners do not want. Praise we receive without qualification; fault we pass off like burning coals.
When caught in transgression, we too blame spouses, our idol-making fires, or the serpent. Or when we have left our duty undone, we too invent our own lions roaming the streets. And like Adam, our inventions do not remain horizontal. We soon heave our flaming coals toward heaven.
Born This Way
As time has passed, our alibis have grown more sophisticated — some have even gone to seminary. After studying the exhaustive sovereignty of God, and his hand of providence, some have concluded that they cannot be responsible for their sin. Add to this Scripture’s revelation of their inability, and they have more than enough excuses to keep them from obedience, faith, or love toward God and neighbor. How could God expect wingless birds to fly?
I’ve talked with a few such men. They would stop looking at pornography, sleeping with their girlfriends, getting drunk, and living for the pleasures of this world — if it were up to them. But they cannot. This must be God’s providence for their lives. If he willed differently, they would be living differently. They have read their Bibles, they assure me. They know they are slaves of sin, dead in trespasses — that they were born this way. Indeed, their mothers had conceived them in sin.
As far as it remains with them, they say, their case is hopeless. They have a depraved nature; they are sold to sin under Adam. If Christ wills, perhaps, they will be healed. But until then, how can it be their fault that they lie in the pit of sin? They can’t raise themselves from the dead or give themselves new hearts. They are completely unable to please God; how can they turn until God’s governance of them turns? “Can a man receive even one thing but from heaven?” (see John 3:27). If his sovereign election depends not on human will or exertion, and if God can harden whom he wills, “Why does he still find fault?” (Romans 9:19).
Their Reformed TULIP is missing several petals. They know themselves depraved, know Christ died for his own, know they need irresistible grace — but until God gives it, how can they be faulted for resisting? And so, they continue twirling the flower about to absolve themselves of living in sin, half-heartedly waiting for God to intercede and save them.
Sinners Under a Sovereign God
They are right to point out that they are dead in their sin (Ephesians 2:1). They do need new hearts that only God can give (John 3:3–5; Ezekiel 36:26). They are slaves to sin apart from Christ (Romans 6:20). They walk according to the flesh, and cannot please God (Romans 8:6–8). And God is completely in control of every detail in the world, including their eternal salvation (Ephesians 1:11). But such does not acknowledge the full-orbed picture Scripture gives of the place of human wills and of the human addiction to sin.
Such men, who paint themselves as merely blowing in the winds of God’s providence, and who therefore conclude that they are not responsible for their sin, have not considered how God describes rebellion as active and willful, putting sinners themselves as the subjects, not the objects, of their treacherous ways.
“You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).
“How often would I have gathered your children together . . . and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).
“People loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).
“They . . . went after worthlessness, and became worthless” (Jeremiah 2:5).
“He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray” (Proverbs 5:23).

“In God’s world, God is sovereign over all sin, and men are still completely responsible for it.”

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In God’s world, God is fully sovereign over all sin, and men are fully responsible for their sin. The vilest crime in the history of the world, the killing of God’s Son, is so spoken of in Scripture. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). This sin of all sin was perpetrated under the definite script of the Writer’s pen stroke, and it was enacted at the hands of lawless men who chose to drive the nails.
The God Who Bears Our Sin
Men are not Pinocchios, dangling limply at the end of providence. We do not imagine ourselves to be so when it comes time to receive the credit, but we do when it comes time to receive the blame. Under God’s sovereign direction, scribing every jot and tittle of a story riddled with both the praiseworthy and sinful choices of men, he has given us dignity of choice. And we have chosen — to a man, lured by his own desires (James 1:14–15) — that which is not God.
But the wonder of all wonders is that onto the stage came God himself, the Son taking on human form, to shoulder responsibility for the sin of others. While we were pointing the finger at anyone or anything to get off the hook, he came to be pierced on our hooks, standing accused in silence, and bearing the awful weight of the horrible consequences of sin: wrath and death.
And he did not die for excuses, but for sins. Not for excusable men who could do no other, but for the willfully disobedient, caught in their trespasses. He came as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In love, he is the blame-taking God.
Free to Take the Blame
Should all men everywhere not seek this God? While we cannot save ourselves or cast off the horrible yoke of slavery to sin, sinners everywhere can do more than indulge and wait for hell. They can — they must — go to this wonderful God. He invites all,

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6–7)

Why should they remain in the pigsty when such a father dwells but over the hill, and will run to meet them? No one can save himself, but all are summoned to go to the one who can save them and cling to him as the only vessel in the shipwreck of our fallen humanity.
And when we find him, his providence, rather than excusing us from obedience, becomes our reason for obedience: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). By God’s grace, every temptation now has an exit door.
And when we do fail to travel through it, we do not need to make sure others own their part before we own ours. We don’t need to play dumb, or blame our circumstances, or invent predators in our way. Christians alone can look our sin square in the face and own it, confess it, and apologize for it, because we alone know a Savior who died to forgive it. […]