Things that are Rightfully God's

I know that this is a long over due blog and that I am a blog booger for not blogging more often, but take what you can get and be thankful.

I have been dwelling lately on the supremacy of God in all things and the need for all of our life to be completely centered, focused, and dependent on Him. I have realized that it seems like most of the modern Church does not think this way. Most believe that God is not sufficient in things of science, math, relationships, auto repair, etc ... . You name it people will find a way to give into the temptation that God is not able, or not involved in the little things, or worst yet, that He does not exist. This thinking comes from an improper view of Him and a lack of knowledge and faith in God's Scripture. I want this blog to be a reminder to you all that this is a very dangerous and horrifying place to be. If you think this, and in many areas of life we betray that we do by our actions, then you must be warned that God is a jealous God and will do whatever it takes to regain His glory and preeminence from our lives, whether that means judgment in hell, or discipline as believers.

For the last year or so, Jonathan Sarr, Curtis Wentling, Sean Higgins, and myself have been reading John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion." John Calvin's mission was to glorify God in all that he did and for his readers to do the same. Calvin believed with everything that he was that the Lord, alone, is to be preeminent among His people, and as such has the right to exercise complete authority over them. This is the purpose, in his discussion of the Ten Commandments, he states for giving us the First Commandment in Exodus 20:3, "You shall have no other gods before me." He goes on to say that "we cannot "have" God without at the same time embracing the things that are His. Therefore, in forbidding us to have strange gods, He means that we are not to transfer to another what belongs to Him" (Institutes, 2.VIII.16). All things belong to God because He is the Creator and Author of this world and us, and He is the only sovereign, omnipotent, and perfectly righteous one. Not only this (which is sufficient by itself), but for those of us who believe and reap the benefits of His salvation, He gave His only begotten Son, for our filthy, sin filled, depraved, wicked, and God hating souls. As such we are obligated and should with great joy and willingness to humbly give all we have to Him. Calvin being the great teacher that he is, "conveniently" groups the "innumerable things that we owe to God" under four headings: Adoration, trust, invocation, and thanksgiving. Here they are for edification and reminding, with definitions:

Adoration: the veneration and worship that each of us, submitting to His greatness, renders to Him. A part of adoration is that we must submit our consciences to His law.
Trust: the assurance of reposing in Him that arises from the recognition of His attributes, when--attributing to Him all wisdom, righteousness, might, truth, and goodness--we judge that we are blessed only by communion with Him.
Invocation: the habit of the mind, whenever necessity presses us, of resorting to His faithfulness and help as our only support.
Thanksgiving: the gratitude with which we ascribe praise to Him for all good things.

One last thing to leave you with from Calvin, it is not enough to "abstain from a strange god," but if we are to ascribe to God what He will not allow to be transferred to another and must be rendered solely unto Him, we must pursue "true religion." True religion is "steeped in the knowledge of Him." We must "aspire to contemplate, fear, and worship, His majesty; to participate in His blessings; to seek His help at all times; to recognize, and by praises to celebrate, the greatness of His works--as the only goal of all the activities of this life."

May we all aspire to live this way and to fight for God's glory in our hearts, minds, and actions, and to also fight for the same in others. God is playing for keeps and so should we.

Future Thoughts

I have not posted in a long time and my good friend Curtis, the blogging fiend, has challenged me to blog once a day this week. He laid down this gauntlet because it is my spring break, sharing my marinations is good, and it is beneficial, for myself (and him, he says), to put what I have been learning into writing, hopefully in an organized manner.
So here we go.

Last quarter at the UW, my second to last one (woohoo!), I took a class on the city of Rome. It was a history, art history, and Italian class all wrapped up into one. During this class, I had the assignment and privilege of reading some of St. Augustine's On the City of God. Augustine was an amazing man, and his writings, especially this one, are full of theological marinations. When I read through this I was struck with his love and awe for Christ and His Church. If you are not familiar with this great and important work or man (a vital work and man of Christian history), then here is a quick synopsis of both.

Augustine (short for his Latin name Aurelius Augustinus) was born in the year 354 A.D. (none of this BCE and CE nonsense) in a Roman North African city. His mother was a Christian and his father was a pagan. He received his early training in Latin Literature and earned his living as a teacher of rhetoric (very important for a Roman man to learn). He later joined the Manicheans and a few years later became disillusioned. In 387 A.D., Augustine became a Christian with the help of St. Ambrose, and most importantly through the sovereign grace of God. He returned to Africa and established a monastic community; in 391 he was ordained a priest at Hippo (not the animal), becoming bishop there in 395.
For the remainder of his life, he preached and wrote prolifically, defining points of Christian doctrine and engaging in theological controversy with the Manicheans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians.
Augustine wrote On the City of God (22 books, written from 413 to 426 [don't worry I didn't have to read them all]). In this massive text, he constructs an apology for Christianity against the accusation that the Church was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire, and its sacking in 410 AD by the Visigoths.
So now that you have the context behind the City of God, I'll share what about is so important to actually make me blog about it.

Throughout the text, Augustine is comparing the Heavenly City and the earthly City. He uses Rome as the quintessential example of the earthly City. This city is a city dominated by sin and lust for self-glorification. One good quote from the first book, chapter 30 explains his thoughts about the earthly City:

Why is it that you put the blame on this Christian era, when things go wrong? Is it not because you are anxious to enjoy your vice without interference, and to wallow in your corruption, untroubled and unrebuked? For if you are concerned for peace and general prosperity, it is not because you want to make decent use of these blessings, with moderation, with restraint, with self-control, with reverence. No! It is because you seek an infinite variety of pleasure with a crazy extravagance, and your prosperity produces a moral corruption far worse than all the fury of an enemy.

Sounds like a good description of those who love to bash on Christianity today and blame it for all the evils in our society, but really they just want to live life as their own authority and judge. They hate God and revile against His glorious name. We who are saved must remember that we were just like this, as Ephesians 2 says, we "were dead in the trespasses and sins, in which you once walked," but here is the best part the big "BUT" of verse 4 (you need to go read that on your own, in fact read the whole context surrounding it).

Later on in Augustine's text (Book XIV, Ch. 28), he describes the character of the two cities, and again I will quote it because it is too good to be left out:

We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord (he cites 2 Cor. 10:17). The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God, the witness of a good conscience. The earthly lifts up its head in its in own glory, the Heavenly City says to its God: 'My glory; you lift up my head' (cites Ps. 3:3). . . . The one city loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders; the other says to its God, 'I will love you, my Lord, my strength' (cites Ps. 18:1).

He continues on to describe the wisdom those in the earthly city, who "live by men's standards", and says about the Heavenly City that "man's only wisdom is the devotion which rightly worships the true God, and looks for its reward in the fellowship of the saints, not only holy men but also holy angels, 'so that God may be all in all' (cites 1 Cor. 15:28).

After Augustine's salvation, he did all he did so that "God may be all in all." Can you and I say that about our lives? If I took an honest look at myself, definitely not, but God has been faithful to His all and has progressed me closer to living for His glory alone. I am so thankful that God did not leave me in my "earthly city" state and changed my heart to be a heart belonging to the "Heavenly City".

I titled this post "Future Thoughts" because God's glory should be what all of our thoughts should be locked in on, let alone our future thoughts, but lately with the end of my undergraduate schooling approaching, grad school on the horizon, my future job, and plans for when to start trying for little 'bambinos,' that have been roaming through my wife and my minds. With all these things rampaging my tired brain, I forget that I need to look to Christ and His glory in all things, the past, present, and future. God must be all in all in my thoughts and plans, and if He is not, He will destroy my idols because He does not share his glory with another (Is. 42:8).