“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, 4got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter,” (John 13:1-7).

In John 13 one of the greatest dichotomies in Scripture takes place. The God who appeared atop Mt. Sinai in a furnace of blazing thunderous glory kneels on the earth in His human frame and cleans the dirty feet of men. The event is enough to meditate upon for hours and bring us to our knees again and again at the servility of Jesus – God in the flesh, yet tragically, this glorious paradox rarely affects us enough. Often times it is not the misunderstanding of what is happening in this extraordinary story that leads to a lack of praxis, but rather a failure to ground this story to the electrical lines of our theology as their primary energy source. With such demonstration from God in the flesh, the power plant of John 13 ought to electrify our theological drive with the true power of weakness, and show us the course of God’s own wiring. Yet, somewhere along the way it seems the wrong line has been snipped by the church, and its subsequent explosion has resulted in the leaders of the body of Christ taking the place of the Pharisee standing in the temple a mile away, confident in his ministry, while the Lord of glory continues to model His methodology on His knees in the lowest part of Jerusalem. A rewiring must therefore take place to reroute our electricity back to the source of life.

The command to deny ourselves is not one that the human sympathizes with so easily. It strikes a chord within us that is not indigenous of the flesh, nor does it occur naturally, but is one that must be tilled into our soil with ox and cart until it produces the fruit God desires–– complete and utter surrender. It is timely, and it hurts, and it could be thought of as a miniature ox dragging a plow across our skin and through our hearts with the unceasing intent of breaking up the fallow ground, so that fruit might eventually be born. When we look through the veil behind our eyes and into our own minds we must admit that in the core of our beings we despise the pain of this reality. This is precisely why it must be the work of the Holy Spirit that accomplishes such things. Needless to say, the continual “Yes” in our hearts is what allows him to kill the poisonous seeds of self-righteousness and give way to the seedlings of humility.

There is nothing within a man that rises up in joy at the words from our Saviour’s mouth. “Deny yourself,” seems to be more of a curse than a blessing––yet properly so. We might call it: the ‘curse’ of the kingdom. In the world’s eyes throughout this age we are quite literally to be perceived as the cursed ones. They look upon you in last place and despise you. There, the least honored in the room of achievers, you sit facedown, the one who has lost all things in this life to gain Christ and yet to them you seem a total failure. Sadly, this is also the case with many Christians and their theology today. But it is in the sacrifice of living as one who is ‘cursed’ in this age, that is, in the intentional placing of yourself last and least of all, that a great retaliation of this formula takes place in the age to come with the ultimate reward that has only been earned from self denial: entrance into the kingdom of God! Indeed, we cannot move on from this “deny ourselves” for this is the very essence of the salvation we see Jesus embody in His life which apexes in His death on the Cross. In fact, self-denial is a sort of precursor to taking up our Cross. If taking up the Cross is the mountain that must be climbed by Christians, then denying ourselves is the base camp before the climb. The longer we camp there, the bigger the mountain may look, but the more acclimated we become to the challenge ahead. Tragically, we will never summit if we do not first make base-camp.

Let us consider the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus’ main exhortation on the denial of self. If the Sermon on the Mount is a sort of base camp, it may well be the place where the most careful predictions about the journey ahead are calculated, and where who is able to continue the climb is determined. I continually find the nine verses of the Beatitudes specifically to be the darnedest verses because of their efficacy in revealing my lack of self denial. Nevertheless, I want my life to be in agreement with Jesus’ own exhortation in Luke 14:27-32:

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28“For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29“Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31“Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32“Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 

In this case, the Everest before us is the Sermon on the Mount. It is the summit we aim for. It is the war we prepare for, and the tower we are seeking to build. The person who is unwilling to accept these chapters as the aim for his life is unfit to be a disciple of Jesus. Saying yes to Jesus as our Lord and Savior inadvertently means saying yes to the Sermon on the Mount. Those few chapters are the very practical essence of what self-denial is, and the how to of laying down our lives. We are not believing we will perfect these chapters in our lifetime – for we only make it to the summit in the resurrection by His Holy Spirit! But we ache for them to be walked out daily by His grace, and each step uphill towards the summit reveals our hardened hearts that are desperate for that day. We must allow that ox and cart to keep plowing that hardened soil. We hate it, but our skin and hearts become fertile in the process and the seed of the inspired Word falls into them producing the fruit of the vessel that is meek­ and the life that seeks to be laid down.

Oddly enough, I seem to mostly find myself beneath this base-camp, wondering about the forest of my own issues. I will gladly lay down my life for myself in this forest, but I might never see the needs of others nearby. Indeed, I am the focus of the journey there, and I have no concept of base-camp, nor the peak that I should be climbing. Either this, or I have deceived myself into thinking I have already climbed that peak, and that the forest is prettier anyway. It’s a deception of the strangest kind, like the man who looks at himself in the mirror, turns around, and immediately forgets what he looked like.

My best friend used to have John the Baptist’s declaration written in green marker upon a cardboard sign that hung over the doorway to his room. Though it was such a simple reminder, he passed under its words every day so as to state, “I will submit to this reality!” That affected me so deeply that when he incidentally left the sign with me when he joined his wife in marriage I also put it over my door. I still have that piece of cardboard today and its words resound in my ears regarding a man’s simple mission in this life. He must become greater and I must become less. 

Let us not over-complicate such matters, but let us rather submit to them and join Jesus there in the grit of servanthood, in the dust of self-denial, girding ourselves with the power of weakness, anchored to the truth of Christ Crucified. Let the world be stupefied that we would choose such lowly decor as the hallmark of our lives in this age.

Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the seemingly endless differences in theology. The different vantage points of interpretation can be likened to that of a thousand birds swarming around our brittle little towers of opinion. In ceaseless cycles of flight, their constantly flapping wings stir up endless, mounting gray clouds that eclipse what might have only moments before been discernible truth. The clarity we had is suddenly gone. It was faith, now it is obscured by the veil draped by men. And there, with your face only inches from that veil your eyes go blurry and you feel defenseless against the separation that lies between you and understanding.

Like a starfish on a beach that has just been crashed upon by the wave, we are washed out into the depths of men’s perspectives on the Bible, and there many of us sit, burdened by the weight of the water above us… desperate to understand the sun that is glinting through the waters above. How deep is it? How far away is that sun? A thousand fish have told you different answers. It’s hard to stay alive in such conditions. From the seafloor we either drown in the waters or try to emerge from their depths gasping for the air of truth.

The birds are the words of men that crow and caw in mockery at the words of God being literal. The clouds are those men’s ideas that settle around us, and, while at first their appearance was so delicate and fluffy, we find that their bitter end is rain and cold. The theological waters have darn near become impassable because we don’t know the “original languages.” Ourselves, the tiny starfish, feel vulnerable to the weight of the waters, and sit on the seafloor trying to determine our next move. In fact, we are terrified to move. We just want to love the sun, who is Jesus, and we desire to feel His warmth… but the murky words of men keep us sunk, weighted down, holding our breath for the next wave of doctrine to roll over us. But, who will emerge and breathe in the clean air of the Gospel? Can you know the true Gospel as Paul did?

We are starving to understand what is true. Why does this great sea of theology seem so vast? Why does the Bible mean so many different things to so many different people? Why does each one of those people think their view is right? Like a ten-cheese soup in a caldron many just become a mixture of theologies, but do they ever arrive at the truth? What is truth? How do we find its anchor?

For many, the faith of their youth has become a wrinkled, pessimistic old man. Whether they weathered the sufferings of life poorly, or were stricken by too many “church people,” the end has become a fateful belief in nothing more than being good and the God of science. For others, they believe in the Bible and have kept the faith from their youth. Faith to them is a future hope of being delivered from the wrinkly nature of their deceptive hearts that are permeated with desire for sin. Their hope is fixed to a Man that will change their saggy bodies from mortal to immortal.

A few days ago I sat down with a Pastor much older than me who was also certainly more humble than me. Proficient in the Scriptures, there was nothing I brought up that he wasn’t already familiar with. This situation does not happen often because many people, yes even pastors, are oddly unfamiliar with their Bible. However, when this does happen the outcome is typically the same. The person I am speaking with will say, “Well, that’s just one way to interpret it, and I interpret that differently.” They will then expound upon the books that have told them differently and how they arrived at their conclusion. This makes me want to shout in their faces, “I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU’VE READ!” (I told you he was more humble than me…)

Why do I want to shout this?

It’s actually not because of arrogance, it’s because of deep emotional pain I feel over how simple God has made the Gospel, and how the theologies of men have distorted its simplicity.

Paul believed that anyone who preached another Gospel other than the one he preached was to be accursed (Gal 1:8;9). He also believed that men would be judged based his gospel (Rom. 2:16). Paul clearly says that he was given the gospel from Jesus Himself in Galatians 1, and in Romans 16 he says that he has been given understanding of the mystery that was hidden from ages past. Paul says there is one faith in Ephesians 4:4, and in Jude we are exhorted firmly to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all handed down (v3). Paul believed that he understood what this good news was. He longed for us to grasp it as well:

“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” (Col. 1:9).

Paul, our father in the faith, prayed earnestly that we would understand.

When Jesus was resurrected from the dead He spent 40 days teaching His disciples the Gospel that He wanted them to teach and preach (Acts 1:3). It was a 40-day intensive seminar with the resurrected King of Glory concerning the things of the Kingdom of God. Oh how often we miss the security of such Scriptures! Jesus Himself instructed those men personally, and the instructions and words He told them, they repeat all through the book of Acts. Be filled with the words of those sermons friends! Eat every word and savor them! Peer deep into the Scriptures they speak of and behold the future events they describe. It is the Gospel in its purest form as told from the mouth of the person of the Godhead, recycled by the men He purposely entrusted.

Acts 3: 18“But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; 20and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, 21whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”

The point is that these men do not get it wrong! Paul’s confidence in stating that God will judge all men based upon the gospel he preaches is not arrogant––it is confidence by the Holy Spirit and Holy Scriptures, a holy boldness that he has been given perfect understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that will save men’s souls if they respond, or send them to a lake of fire if they do not. I long to have this same confidence. But, I have not ascended to the third heaven and heard the Gospel directly from Jesus’ mouth as Paul did. You probably haven’t either. So, for those of us who haven’t had that experience we have a very simple responsibility––do the things the apostles did, say the things the apostles said, and believe the things the apostles believed. However, the common problem is that there are so many people doing things the apostles did not do, saying things the apostles did not say, and believing things the apostles did not believe, all the while teaching and believing they are!

Now, here is where people’s minds go, “Well, who made you the judge afacelesswitness?!” And again they may stem the confrontational nature of truth and move on instead of respond.

I recently had a dream that my family and I were inside of a house during a tornado. The gripping fear that wrapped around the muscles in my body as though I were in the fist of a giant was some of the most tangible fear I have ever experienced in a dream. I grabbed my family’s hands knowing that I could not protect them and we stood in a circle. Our house began lifting off the ground and spinning. Then, from the depths of my being I began screaming the only thing that made sense, “WE HAVE TO CALL ON THE NAME OF JESUS!” I repeated this anthem from the top of my lungs until the storm moved over, setting our house down gently.

I share this because it is my theological position. I am screaming out loud and calling on the name of Jesus to see through the haze of men. I am plunging the depths of His Scriptures to find understanding and praying every time that the Holy Spirit would open my eyes to see truth clearly. I am asking the question of what is biblically consistent––giving Jesus the most glory? Through many hours of weeping over the texts and humbling myself before them, I have tarried, that they might affect me deeply and cause me to die to myself and live for Christ alone. I am swimming down beneath the ship of the apostles and trying to examine every detail of what anchors it, so that I might be found a faithful witness. Tuning my ear to Jesus’ words I am searching out the things He must’ve said to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

We, like Pilate, must turn to the Lord and say “What is truth?” hopefully to receive the long quiet stare of Christ’s fiery eyes… signifying that the answer is within Him alone. We are sanctified by His true words as He prays to the Father in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Receiving His words as truth is what sanctifies the people of God. Not allegorizing His words, nor symbolizing His words, nor transforming His words into the words of men.

A literal interpretation of the Bible is the anchor of the apostles and the key to understanding their doctrine and interpretation of the Scriptures. Men bring the haze, not God. We must peer through their theological fog and rejoice at the light of truth!

The argument over literal versus allegorical interpretation is fallacy! God’s word is truth. It is not ‘symbolic truth.’ Either He will do what He said literally or you don’t know what God will do––including save you from your sins! Because, how do you know if that also is allegorical or not!? How can you ever arrive at a conclusion or have a balanced filter of what is literal or allegorical? You cannot. It all becomes subjective reasoning. It’s as simple as that.

For many of us the journey has been long and contrary on the sea of truth and we have finally let down our anchors where the lighthouse of the Gospel came into sight. Our ships tattered and beaten––the once crisp sails now wind-blown like shredded ribbons licking the wind from the end of an old flag––we behold the glory of truth and finally rest in the peace of the Bible being literal from start to finish. Keep sailing your ships onward friends until you also find that peace amidst the torrential waters of modern theology! Do not ride their modern tides! Do not be swayed by new winds of doctrines, or “new perspectives”. No matter how fierce the storm, or how conflicting the waves, sail the waters with confidence and boldness that you may indeed arrive at the shore of eternal life to hear Jesus announce “You believed Me!” We joyously collapse into His arms on that day and breathe in resurrection. Even so, Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

Innocence

Many times I have returned to gaze upon a picture my parents took of me as a child. No older than three, bright blue-eyed, with summer-tanned long limbs and wearing nothing but a green and red striped t-shirt and saggy diaper––I am the quintessential boy-boy. The incredible emotion the boy communicates to me is nearly breathtaking. I hold a water hose in one hand which is clearly the object creating the intense joy prevalent in my child-face. It is an unbeatable grin… perhaps pure, innocent jubilance… as if to that boy he had captured the flailing giant green snake that is spewing transparent poison from its mouth as it twists and turns around from the power of the surging water. The grin is sheer triumph over the imaginary beast he has conquered. In the plain delight of such a moment my mother or father had somehow captured the snapshot on their old canon camera and it lives on to this day there on the faded 4×6 photo paper.

To be a man in his thirties and look upon the babe that I once was holds its own nostalgia. To reminisce this memory though it no longer was there in the forefront of my mind forced me to dig deep into the multi-layered issues of childlike innocence, the joy that erupts from the young, and to question the grief that settles in with age.

Children are filled with innocence. You see it when you look into their eyes and it directly relates to their naive joy. You know they are naive but it doesn’t take away from the effect their joy has upon you. Just this morning I witnessed several children, mine included, begin jumping up and down and screaming at the mention of going into Chik-fil-a and playing in the play-area there. The joy I see in them is confronting and often causes me to question the lack of exuberance I see within myself. The sparkle I see in their deep brown eyes repeatedly outwits me and like a jab to the ribs I double over in my spirit and ponder the details of the Christian story. What makes life so unenjoyable for adults?

I forewarn you, crafty fellow that I am, that this post will most likely not end the way you think. This is not a guilt rally which terminates in the shameful accusation that you as a christian are lacking joy and that you just need to have more! I am attempting to scour the depths of the characters in the Bible and mine a few typically unquoted Scriptures so as to level the playing field regarding the facade of christian jubilation. Let’s define the facade of christian jubilation.

The Facade of Christian Jubilation: The belief that one must always be joyful and exemplify that joy because at the end of the day you have been saved from your sins by Jesus. If you don’t model joy about the reality of your free gift of salvation then you are failing in general as a true Christian. Basically, fake it until you make it.

Simplified: Faking joy, or trying to be joyful because you are a “Christian,” even when you do not feel joy at all. This is usually based off of the belief that the Scriptures command this unceasing “joy” to be inherent to being a believer.

During this year I have been challenged several times on the forefront of what I believe about the Gospel. Particularly, I have been questioned about a “lack of joy” that a few people have perceived in my life. In one instance, I was told “Christianity is about being joyful.” In another instance I was told ,“I cannot believe in the gospel you preach because I don’t see enough joy in your life.” To be honest, both instances offended me, and although I talked through the issues with both parties, they neither cared to understand or believe what I tried to explain. This post is what I said and I’ll leave the decision up to you. These two brothers’ perception of “joy” challenged me to seek out the biblical understanding of joy, of rejoicing, happiness, and what the actual state of Christians should be. First, let’s look at the passages that have most likely already come to your mind.

Joy

It’s probable that Philippians is already at the forefront of your mind and it should be. Within this letter we have about 16 mentions of joy.

Paul, writing this letter from prison starts by stating his joy in prayer for the church in Philippi at their participation in the gospel:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, 5in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now…”

The man who has been imprisoned for his own participation in the gospel, has joy in considering that the Philippians are also choosing to participate in the gospel that has caused his imprisonment. In other words, it seems he feels joy that the outcome will soon be their empathizing with his sufferings––that they have chosen to participate no matter the cost for the furtherance of the gospel. He continues,

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus,”

meaning that Jesus will give them the strength to endure the same sufferings Paul is enduring until it results in martyrdom or until He comes again on His day in the future. We see that Paul again in verse 12 directly relates his sufferings (circumstances) to be for the greater progress of the Gospel.

So, in this first chapter we see Paul’s joy relates to the church being willing to suffer, and Paul’s rejoicing is in regard to the furtherance of the Gospel, in which he joyfully endures his own sufferings. In neither of these scenarios do we have an unwarranted, always-smiling face that represents “christianity.” That is to say, Paul doesn’t seem to be jumping around his jail cell in celebration simply because he is a Christian and has been saved by Jesus from his sins. Paul’s joy is deeply present within the context of suffering, and that it is unto something which is the furtherance of the Gospel so that Christ will be exalted in his body whether by life or by death, (cf. Phil. 1:20) and that people would be able to stand firm in this gospel approving the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ (cf. Phil. 1:10).

It is the day of Christ Jesus that in Paul’s mind is distinctly supporting this anchor of joy which will be manifested in the future. That future hope causes him deep joy in the present whether his face says so or not. Is this the same joy that believers possess today? Paul will go further into defining his sufferings and proclaiming that the church in Philippi must participate with him just in case there was any confusion,

“For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, 30experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.”

There is no mistaking what Paul says here. From his stinky, moldy, wet, cold stone cell he reminds the church to experience the same conflict seen in him. His soon beheading relays the same information to us.

I hope that we are beginning to see how Paul is defining joy and rejoicing in these passages. We see that he is definitely not saying, “Always smile lest people not know you are a Christian.” He is saying that he possesses deep, unshakable joy for the fact that he has been counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake, and he encourages others to do the same. We see that joy is in his heart when others participate in the gospel even unto their own suffering. His joy is attached to the day of Christ Jesus in the future when those who suffer with Him may also be glorified with Him (Rom. 8:17).

The context of suffering is pertinent to understanding Paul’s demeanor. He sits in a cell––it has furthered the gospel. He resides in chains––it has encouraged others to participate in the gospel. He suffers for Christ-–he empathizes with others and encourages them to be like him. In these things he has joy––the gospel is being lived out in real time and space for the glory of Christ Jesus. What glorious things to possess joy over!

Paul will then plunge into the depths of beauty in writing Philippians 2 by exhausting the insurmountable splendor of our crucified Messiah and how we should be of the same mind as Him. Paul’s conclusion is simple: The Creator of the heavens and the earth became a human servant and died the ugliest death imaginable. Thus, we should do the same for Him. In this he rejoices as the chains dig deeper in his wrists still. He rejoices because Christ has counted Him worthy to be formed into the likeness of what he explains in chapter 2. He will end the chapter with the story of Epaphroditus who became sick to the point of death for the sake of the Gospel and command that such a man be received with joy by the saints since he almost died for Christ’s sake. There we again see joy manifested as they delight in a brother who has suffered for Christ.

On the heels of Epaphroditus is the reminder to rejoice! I wonder if we’re getting the picture yet? Paul is suffering. Christ is suffering. Epaphroditus is suffering. And Paul is telling the church in Phillipi that they need to suffer. However, in the midst of such strong exhortation around suffering is the language of joy and rejoicing! This is simple, yet immensely profound. Is Paul simply saying rejoice when you suffer for Christ? He continues to lump all of his sufferings into one glorious statement of having suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that he might gain Christ…that he might know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that he may attain to the resurrection from the dead,” (3:7-11).

We do not relate to this intensity. We think we do, but we do not, and we must take a small parenthesis here to explain how intense these words are.

(Parenthesis)

In a previous post entitled “The Making of a Faceless Person” we embarked on the journey of Paul’s self-perception––Paul’s face––being swallowed whole into the face of Christ. Indeed, this had happened for Paul. I doubt any one of us reading this can say that we have suffered the loss of all things for the sake of Christ. This passage persistently blows my mind (insert emoji of your choice).

It might be easier to rephrase these passages for better clarity. This is how I perceive it in my mind:

I have lost everything that I have ever possessed on purpose and counted all things as total sh*t so that I may only gain Christ Jesus as my sole reward. I want to know Him on the day of His power when He resurrects me from the dead, and this is why I have chosen to know Him know in the fellowship of His sufferings, hoping that He receives this weak response of self-sacrifice, not as a work by which I inherit the resurrection, but as an offering of love because I want to be a part of that resurrection in which I receive Him finally as my true reward.

This is how I perceive it being said, I, not the Lord. I have often called this section the resurrection sandwich. Paul places suffering between two statements regarding resurrection in vs. 11. It just seems clear that he is saying I want to know Jesus on the day of resurrection, therefore I take up my cross as He did, so that I might also be resurrected. This is not salvation by works in Paul’s mind––it is simply response to the glory of Christ crucified. It is fellowship with Jesus. Do not be mistaken friends, true intimacy for the chief apostle was not a morning quiet time, it was a jail cell where he was bound hand and foot by chains, slowly undergoing the metamorphosis of becoming like the cross of Christ.

I have recently asked myself the question: How will you relate to Jesus on the day He appears if you never suffer as He did? If I’m a soccer player and I walk into a room full of soccer players, we have common ground. We have fellowship so to speak. We all know the game, the equipment, the field, and we can all run a very long time playing this game we have in common. The question with Christ is far more reaching. When you stand in the room with Jesus, the overlooked rejected prophet/messiah who had a ‘failure’ of a ministry that resulted in His brutal flogging and staking to the crossbeam in execution––will He relate to your american dream? Will you have common ground with Him is the question? Did you play the game of life before eternal life by His rules? Did you understand the equipment of humility and servanthood? Did you run the race with endurance pressing on towards the goal to win the prize? Paul and the other apostles who were all martyred will relate to Jesus on this common ground. Imagine when Jesus asks Peter to recount out loud when he was crucified upside down… Peter might immediately think “Good grief I’m so glad I went through with it!” And in that moment he can relate to the same death Jesus experienced, upside down! There will be fellowship between the two of them, there will be common ground. For those who have never chosen to suffer for Christ’s sake, the same cannot be said.

I’m being a little over dramatic for the sake of emphasis. I am not saying that everyone must be martyred to relate to Jesus. I am saying that embracing the stigma that comes along with standing for Christ without compromise is the common ground that you will relate to Him on. There is an actual fellowship that happens with Jesus when someone curses His name and you do not shy away from your faith. There is a bond of affection between you and Jesus when you are slandered for being a Christian. True intimacy occurs in the flames of the stake, in the bottoms of the guillotine, and at the end of the scourge… We enter into this fellowship of sufferings. We follow their example.

Grief

Ending our parenthesis, we come to the end of Philippians chapter 3 where Paul makes a statement that will catapult us into the antithesis of joy. Grief. Here within the confines of the four chapters normally cited as the reason for why Christians should always be happy without cause is a crucial point. Direct your attention to verse 17,

“Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

Here we behold Paul weeping over brothers who have turned away from the Cross to serve earthly realities; effectively they have stopped their participation in the gospel. His exhortation remains as consistent as before. Follow my example, and the example of those who walk according to the pattern. The pattern he has identified as willingness to suffer for Christ’s sake with joy, which is participation in the gospel and fellowship with Christ. He continues the section by fixing the hope upon the Savior who will bring resurrection life and power in the future for those who have followed the pattern, and he confesses that this event is what we eagerly wait for while we yet suffer.

Paul is weeping because these once participants in the gospel have seemingly refused the pattern seen in him and it will result in their destruction. The tears falling from his eyes contain sorrow over their final state.

Weeping is the antithesis of joy and rejoicing. We see the apostle in this epistle continually exhorting the believers to rejoice, yet here he is weeping. Does that not strike you as odd? I think this lends helpful insight into the essence of joy we are trying to discover. In the midst of Paul suffering in prison for the gospel, he is rejoicing in the day of Christ Jesus which will bring reward for his sufferings, while he weeps tears of grief over the brothers who were not willing to suffer and have become enemies of the Cross. This is an occasion for weeping.

What does it mean to become an enemy of the Cross? Paul does not tell us… or does he? An enemy of the state is opposed to the state laws. An enemy of the Cross is opposed to the laws of the Cross. The law of the Cross is suffering BEFORE glory. To be an enemy of the Cross is therefore simply unwillingness to suffer in this age-–believing that Christians should be blessed, rich, and having a joyous inheritance on this earth now. This makes you an enemy of the suffering beheld there, while the friends of the cross possess fellowship with Christ Jesus as they suffer in hopes of the reward in the next age.

Paul is surely familiar with Jesus’ words we find in Matthew 5,

11“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So, we rejoice in the midst of suffering because great is our reward in the kingdom of heaven. Paul is consistent with Jesus. In addition Paul is weeping over these men who will not inherit eternal life. This is the tension for the apostle. This is the subject we are attempting to unveil.

Unceasing Grief

In Romans 9 Paul lays bare his inmost being. We cannot skip over the language he uses and the terms he employs to explain his state.

1I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed,separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 4who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and thetemple service and the promises, 5whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Firstly, Paul states that his following statement is the truth in Messiah, testified of as true by the Holy Spirit. You could even say that Paul is “swearing on the name of Christ and the Holy Spirit”, that what he is about to say is authentic and neither fabricated nor exaggerated. He takes what he is saying seriously enough to announce this before his statement. When I am giving a message to a group of people and I am about to share something personal to me that God has done to make a point, I will often preface it by saying, “I am going to share a pearl of my heart with you – please do not turn and trample it underfoot.” I make a statement like this to qualify the vulnerability out of which I am about to speak and that what I am sharing is absolutely true whether they believe it or not. It seems Paul is doing this same thing here.

Secondly, it is helpful to define the Greek words Paul uses in order to see clearly what he is saying.

Sorrow is from the root greek word odýnē meaning: intense emotional pain (personal anguish); consuming grief, which is emotionally lethal if experienced apart from God’s grace which comforts.

Grief is:  lýpē, meaning: distress, vexation; (figuratively) physical or emotional pain; heavy, heart-sorrow (grief) that brings a person down.

Paul’s use of the adjectives great  and unending only further and strengthen the point he is trying to carefully articulate. Understanding this helps us to define the intensity of Paul’s statement and what he was trying to communicate. I paraphrase: Before Messiah and His Holy Spirit there is something I must to tell you about me that is absolutely true. Deep inside of me exists a perpetual unending reality of intense emotional pain, consuming grief, great heavy hearted sorrow and vexation of soul at the current state of God’s people Israel. 

Welcome to Paul’s reality. I wonder at who might explain to Paul after the reading of such verses that he’s obviously forgotten that the purpose of Christianity is experiencing joy and he needs to break through into the reality of what Christ has done. “Come on Paul! Do you know what Jesus died for on the Cross? Stop misrepresenting Christianity!” No. Paul had a divine burden from the Lord because he understood something that we most likely do not. Have we erased the calling of grief from its Christian orientation?

Jeremiah had a very similar reality.

My sorrow is beyond healing, my heart is faint within me! …For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me. 8:18-21

“Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” 9:1

“Woe is me, because of my injury! My wound is incurable. But I said, “Truly this is a sickness, and I must bear it.” 10:19

Within the context of impending judgment is the prophetic heart burdened with grief at what is about to take place. Jeremiah’s apparent grief was carried within a heart that “understands and knows the Lord,” (cf. Jer. 9:24).

What about Jesus?

“When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation,” (cf. Lk. 19:41-44).

We gather from the way Luke tells this story that there had been something keeping Jerusalem out of Jesus’ direct line of vision as He rode atop the colt. The journey from Bethany can involve twists and turns around the small mountains outside of Jerusalem. We picture Jesus there, atop the virgin burro. Mobs of Israelites are there, possibly thousands upon thousands yelling ,“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” as they cast palm branches and their very own garments on the road before Him. Surely the festive nationalistic spirit of the messianic expectation was overwhelming as they praised this Man in belief that he was the promised One!

But did Jesus smile and receive their praise? Did He nod in affirmation of their chorus? The Scripture doesn’t record this. Instead, Jerusalem comes suddenly into sight and in the midst of such celebration, Jesus’ eyes look upon the city and well up with tears.

What a Debbie Downer Jesus was! Couldn’t He have been more merciful towards the cheering crowds? Why this blade of sorrow cutting through the air with such sad sword?

Although His weeping is not described in detail, we can assume that when God weeps there is nothing attention-seeking nor pretentious about it. The pure and undefiled emotion in Jesus’ declaration tells us of the deep burden within His heart–that the same great sorrow and unending grief within Paul was also bound up in Him––an integral part of His nature was bursting out. It is the very essence of the Man of Sorrows found in Isaiah 53. And there we must stop and meditate on the ludicrousness of the Creator atop an animal of His creation, surrounded by humans, His very chosen ones, weeping un-conjured tears at the condition of “distress and bloodshed” He saw in the city before Him.

What must’ve filled His heart as He beheld the city that He has chosen to be the eternal resting place of His feet? What overtook Him when he gazed upon the city where His throne––the throne of David––is to be established forever? The city which the nations will stream to saying “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and learn His ways!”, lay there before Him, arrayed in foreign colors as a wayward prostitute. Israel lay captive to Rome under broken covenant, riddled with the sin of the nations… and the Holy One of Israel looks on from a donkey just outside her gates. What a paradox!

We behold Paul possessing a perpetual internal state of sorrow. Jeremiah’s eyes gush flowing tides of tears. Jesus weeps atop the colt. The apostle, the prophet, and the King of glory did not express unending joy? Why do many Christians see weeping and grief as an illegitimate representation of Christianity, instead of as an integral part of being a true Christian?

These three men knew something… these men lived in reality. They were marked with deep burden that I would question many of us understand or ever partake of. When judgment is upon the horizon the response is not to be weirdly optimistic and dance in joy that many people are about to perish under the wrathful judgments of God coming upon the land. The response is to feel what God feels in the midst of it. This is what sets apart His friends who understand Him from the masse that claim His name.

There are numerous other verses to cite in such a post as this but time fails us. Paul and the apostles continually reference the groan of being delivered from this wicked age,

1For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge,” (2 Cor. 5:1-5).

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what healready sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it,” (Rom. 8:22-25). 

Maybe you are the rare breed that smiles, laughs, and pretends everything is ok while they are groaning? Fantasy! Those of us who have admitted the wickedness bound up in these bodies of death are contorted in our innards while we long for the day of deliverance, the day of Christ Jesus, when He will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself,” (Phil. 3:21). This mortal has been given the Spirit as a pledge of the day in the future when he puts on immortality.

Increasing Grief

Yesterday I held my son and daughter in my arms and launched them through the air and onto the couch. Over and over, time and time again it was fulfilling for them to participate. It gave them joy. Often I feel that I am looking into their eyes and seeing the same things I do in that photo of me. I could compare it to standing on a rock at the foot of Niagara Falls and just watching in awe. I want what they have… their joy is powerful… more powerful than the waters surging over the shelf of Niagara. I desire to be filled with that powerful joy overflowing and engulfed in laughter that continues until I cry every tear out of the ducts in my eyeballs. That’s what I want! But… it’s not that simple is it?

Many times I have heard the exhortation that we are to be this way because we are simply Christians, and that is what Christians do: Be joyful! From what we’ve looked upon in the Bible though, it would seem that this is not the constant state of what Christians should be. Solomon says something in Ecclesiastes that teaches us true wisdom (whenever Solomon talks, I always remember that this was the wisest man that has ever lived on earth because God made him that). He says, “Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain,” (1:18).

As Christians we should be growing in the wisdom of the Gospel and increasing in the knowledge of Christ. If Solomon is right, which he is, then with the growth and increase of these things comes the growth and increase of grief and pain. This is the point that I have been attempting to get us to. I may not have done it well in this post, but I want us to consider these things.

When I am a child I don’t understand how out of order the world is, that murderers exist, and that child molesters could live on my street. I possess innocence and naivety to “bad” things. As I grow up I learn those things, and grief and pain settles in. If Solomon’s formula holds true, which it does, then Christians who possess wisdom should also possess grief and believers who increase in knowledge will also increase in pain.

In my thirties I behold the state of the earth in rebellion towards God and realize that things are bad. It causes me grief. I perceive that from the garden until now things have only increasingly become worse, and are only growing worse still, and this causes me pain. I know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and I understand that most people are not fearing Him. This causes an ache. I see the firstborn people of God apostate and the land promised to them war-torn and divided. This causes true sorrow. I am wiling to suffer persecution in the midst of these elements and bear the stigma that comes with believing that Christ is the only mediator who can reconcile these things. In this I have joy. I know that the Father has fixed a day when He will vindicate His Name and His Messiah will descend on the clouds of heaven, give resurrected bodies to those who have suffered with Him and begin his reign on the throne of Jerusalem. On that day He will make Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Is. 62:7) and the gentiles will rejoice with His people (Deut. 32:43)! I groan for that day, and in this I have immoveable and unshakable joy. It may not manifest as a smile all the time. In fact, it might even be present there in the wailing and contorted face of sorrow… you just have to see it through a different lens. Christians don’t define what joy is–– Christ and the Bible does.

In my thirties I stare into the niagara falls of my children playing and it moves me… I miss that naive joy. I gaze upon that picture of me as a child and it steals my breath. I long to be that boy. I rejoice to know that this is not the end and I will soon be like my son and the boy in that photo again.

Even so, “Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!”

“But whatever things were a gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish (lit. crap) so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:7-11

Truly this is a passage that we should linger on until it moves us deeply to action.

This incredible passage of Scripture is a sort of magnum opus from our Father Paul, a member of the great cloud of witnesses before the Father in heaven. In these rich verses Paul describes the process of losing his face. Paul describes the face he once had, and then declares that this fleshly face known to many has become unknown and forgotten, intentionally drowned under by the tidal face of Christ. Paul’s life had completely vanished into Christ Jesus where he had purposely lost everything to gain nothing but Christ alone. What an immensely beautiful thing! Certainly we all long for this same reality. Paul’s face, the face that had been chiseled so delicately into Pharisee, circumcision, and zealous law-perfection had been swallowed whole into the endless bright and shining abyss of the face of Christ. We must also fall facefirst into this grand chasm in order that we might gain Christ and attain to the resurrection from the dead!

Many years ago this became a paramount passage in my life, although I am still seeking to see it realized as truth within me. This hurts my heart, and this post is a plea to ask you to allow it to hurt yours also.

I grew up in a Christian home, with Christian parents, and went to a church that actually represented authentic Christianity to me. The people were broken. The people were sinners, saved by grace! There was transparency and truth represented from the pulpit and even public confession of sins on multiple occasions. I grew up knowing that this was the way of the Cross––totally opposed to the idea that we could deliver ourselves through our own righteousness!

I worked in the youth group after High School serving as a sort of associate youth pastor in this church as well as a worship equipper for a few years. I loved leading youth because self-righteousness was rarely an issue. However, during that time I began to emphasize before others a sort of spiritual face. I distinctly remember boasting that my quite-time in the morning was two hours, when most peoples was one. I took pride in this, and noticed that it surprised people in the way I wanted it to. I received their surprise and praise gladly. My face began to be recognized as intense. 

This same boasting was evident in my life when I left the Lord for a few years and went headfirst into as much sin as I could handle. I boasted of the amount I could drink. I boasted in the women I manipulated. I boasted in musical talent. I boasted that God had called my name, and although I was in sin now, I would one day turn back to Him. This was yet another face of boasting and receiving praise from men.

When I did return to the Lord I went headfirst into one of the most intense large-scale ministries in America. Again, I began to slowly let me face be articulated by works. I was known as the “guy who fasts,” and even a “well of wisdom” to which I gladly bowed in thanks on my stage of glory. My spiritual intensity was now at the zenith of its sacrilege. The vanity in my heart was so hidden under the disguise of false humility that no one noticed. But even my humility was a sham–– a facade of what was truly inside. Even I was deceived, unaware of my own disgusting sin.

At times I would sit in the front of the room where we all gathered together to pray with my eyes closed. In my mind, I would dream of the day when God would finally confirm my spiritual purity and zeal by having me levitate off the ground in front of everyone, stamping His approval of my spiritual life in the eyes of everyone. It’s ok, I know you’ve never thought such things. But I, you see, was the chief of sinners without any knowledge of it. Oddly, the deception grew to new levels.

During this time I tried to climb the ladder within the ministry, trying to make my face slowly become more recognized, while maintaining it’s appearance of humility. I did well. I am a decently good looking guy, with an overly extroverted personality and natural leadership gifting. I have a likable charisma. With these things in place, it’s fairly easy to climb the ladder in a ministry. Have you ever seen an ugly person without charisma leading large-scale ministries? I didn’t think so. This is wickedness and opposed to the truth of the Cross. I was so locked in the deception of the love of self that I just kept trying to climb higher and higher… the spiritual rungs becoming the praise of men I continually sought.

Every time however that the door would seem ready to open for my big promotion God would do crazy things that would shut the door in my face and force me to go lower and lower. At one time, when there was opportunity for promotion the Lord actually made me leave the ministry for a season only to return with no status whatsoever. During that season God began to break me down and reveal my depravity. He began to reveal my need for the Cross. I cried at the realization and repented for my self-righteousness. As soon as the season was over though, I returned to the ministry and got right back on the ladder. The mystery of my depravity runs deep.

After five years of this spiritual zeal resulting in burn-out and spiritual fatigue in season after season, I began to wonder what was off. No matter what I did, how much I gave, how many fasting’s I accomplished––I didn’t feel pleasing to God! I also didn’t feel pleased with myself because I always lived under the accusation “you could have given more.” This is what was championed from the pulpit, and it was what I believed. I came to a desperate point. I was internally frustrated. I didn’t understand. I was finally broken.

And there… the most amazing thing happened… even now it brings tears to my eyes!

I

saw

the

Cross.

I “Beheld the Man.”

Although the Lord had continually interrupted my seasons trying to drive me to the Cross, I always “returned the favor” by trying to give Him more spiritual zeal. Whenever He showed me a little bit of His face I wanted to show Him that mine was just as beautiful as His through my works. I tried to go harder for God. I failed. Finally! When I beheld Jesus face on the Cross and the liberating understanding that He was the only means by which the Father accepted me JUST AS I AM, I slowly began to be set free. I slowly began to lose that face I had tried so hard to make.

Spiritual zeal and self-righteousness is like religious plastic surgery. You have the power to make your face look however you want it to. You can look a certain way, and it costs a lot for that to happen, but in the end your face is stiff instead of soft and a false representation of what you actually look like. You smile, but your cheeks don’t really move. You wonder why others don’t think you’re smiling when you’re trying so darn hard to look happy.

The beauty of the Cross is that we all stand there crushed beneath the beautiful force of relinquishing any and all forms of self-deliverance! We “behold the Man” God, there––naked, despised, dirty, and rejected. We realize that this is the true state of every mans heart and that Jesus became our horrid reality for all to see. Thus, we come out of the darkness and confess the depraved state of our own hearts entering into the glorious light of His freedom beaming from the Cross.

This is the foundation for the exhortation hereafter. When we come to a passage like Philippians 3, we need to first confront the face that we each have sculpted from our own works of self-righteousness. If we first do this, then the Bible can do its work.

We should first understand that what Paul is saying in Phil. 3 does not objectively apply to each one of us simply because we identify ourselves as “Christians.” Indeed, what Paul is saying here is overtly subjective in its context pertaining to the truth about himself. This verse is true about Paul, and for it to be true about us there is a lot of dying to be done. If I am honest, as this passage confronts me time and time again, the reality of its truth is still in very small seed-form in my life.

Let us seek to crystallize what losing one’s face is in Scripture. In Philippians 2 Paul begins his thesis of reputation and what becoming faceless was in his own mind. To paraphrase and add a little helpful context, he says: If you are a Christian, become like Jesus. He had the reputation of Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and yet He lived on the earth without His creation recognizing Him by this reputation. Most of His life was lived in the quiet city of Nazareth where He grew up as a child obeying His parents. He walked down Nazareth’s streets and stood in its public square and no one ever fell down to worship Him. There was not a whisper from Him of His NAME or the truth of His power. Jesus did not fight to be seen by His true identity, or to be given the worship and credit He deserved, but instead He let those accolades lay neglected and silent in the throne room of His Father where the angels still were day and night proclaiming them aloud. He became known as Servant on the earth He created, and even His title of Healer and Prophet were refuted by the onlookers at Calvary–”Physician heal yourself!” and “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself!” Instead of feeling the need to reprove their contemptuous voices He laid down His life to death on the Cross, silent before His accusers. The sign above Him would speak loud enough of the validity of His true identity although He never declared it with His own mouth: The King of the Jews. This was what Paul saw in Jesus’ face.

There is helpful perspective in understanding the loss of ones face by defining what keeping one’s face is. In the first several verses of Philippians 3 we see Paul announce the golden medals that once hung from his neck, the honors that he thought would deliver him into eternal life by means of his own righteousness. He gives his qualifications: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. Paul is giving what was beheld in the eyes of the world as achievements. He carefully explains the details of his face and how it was recognized. He believed that who he had made himself to be had accredited him righteousness. In hindsight he calls this confidence in the flesh. 

“Thus says the LORD, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the LORD,” (Jer. 17:5).

So, we see that losing one’s face is tied to two things. The first is losing your reputation and praise in the eyes of man for the sake of gaining Christ’s reputation. The second is refuting the idea that any reputation you now have (within your own eyes or the eyes of others) contributes in any way shape or form to you inheriting eternal life––your self-deliverance must be laid wholesale upon the delivering shoulders of the Savior.

You are probably thinking, as I once did, “Glad that’s not me!” Paul once thought that also… and then a Man standing in blinding light knocked him off of his high horse. The blindness that came upon his eyes would allow him the three days needed to see into himself and mine those horrible caves of self-righteousness in his heart. When his eyes opened again I suppose he might have looked into the mirror and wept desperately at the horrid image of his own face. It would be vividly apparent to him that he looked nothing like the man he saw on the Damascus Road. He would come away from the experience Paul, as Saul was executed daily.

“I die Daily.” ––Paul 1 Corinthains 15:

Proverbs 16:2 is one of those verses we don’t allow to stick vibrantly at the front of our minds, but we should: All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs the motives. That stings. Everything Paul thought he was doing for God was clean and righteous in his own sight, but he was actually only doing everything for himself and for the praise of men. He would not have inherited eternal life based on the biblical formula because Paul’s strength was from, for and of himself. However, it is in that blinding incident that Paul is made to see––just as the blind man in John 9. Jesus’ words to the Pharisees there (and by relation to Paul) ring out – “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (v. 41).

The confrontational nature of Scripture is that it confronts. You and me, the most wicked of sinners, are therein confronted–– standing face-to-face with perfect truth and its piercing gaze into our hearts––forced to either look away or respond. Those who respond inherit eternal life. Those who do not might believe they will inherit eternal life, but the Scripture cannot bear witness for them as for the former. As we read above in Jeremiah 17–– trusting in your own strength is actually a heart that is turned away from the Lord. This is the end-game of a deceitful heart that never allows the light of Scripture to pierce too deeply. In those deep dark chambers lie the most wicked of monsterous ambitions which glory in everything other than the Cross. Unless we allow those chambers to be exposed by the light of Christ the teeth of that beast will gnaws away at our soul. As Christians we must therefore allow the Scripture, moreover welcome it, to trouble, torment and distress us that we might be converted to living its words instead of merely reading them so as to enter the kingdom of light on that day. James reminds us that this is the goal:

But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. James 1:22-25

Maybe there is a helpful picture here emphasizing our discussion. In Paul’s case, there is a purposed erasing of one’s face and reputation post the horse knock-off experience. On that day, rest assured that righteousness as he had never seen in himself or any other Pharisee questioned him from the divine radiance. From then on Paul held everything up to the reflection of purity he beheld looking up from the ground that day so that it truly shone light on how disgusting his fleshly ambition towards righteousness was. He was confronted by Jesus’ illuminating glory to believe the Scripture and to turn away from that mirror remembering his ugly face must be lost in the beauty he saw within the blinding light of Christ. For us, Christ’s face is shown in vivid beauty in the pages of Scripture, so we become those pages in daily practical life to glorify His work on the Cross. This wonderful albeit slow progression will not fail to consume your fleshly ambition if you allow it. It did so with Paul. On the contrary, another man looks into the mirror of Scripture and thinks his face is pretty good looking. He then turns away and believes that what he saw needed no improvement and lives on as he likes never conforming himself to Scripture because he believes he is already what he reads. I fear that this is the dreadful state of many of us and confess that I too am often found turning around forgetful of my heinous appearance.

Now let’s drive the point home.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20

Here, yet again, Paul makes a decisive statement about himself that does not simply translate to every believer. You might perceive this as odd, but let me explain. Often times this verse is used as a general statement about Christians. However, do we not see many people bear the name “Christian” whose lives are very clearly not crucified with Christ? There is no need to name names here, we should instead insert our own. Paul’s radical statement “I no longer live,” is actually true about him because this is the Bible without flaw or error. I cannot say the same for myself. Here I am once again confronted with the question: Have I yet been crucified with Christ? In the agonizing of my own heart I often see the truth. No, no I haven’t been. Too much of Stephen is still alive. But God I want to be! … Please help me Father to further lay down this life of mine to find Christ!

In the wake of Jesus’ Cross, forsaking all human ambition, zeal and self righteousness as the means to deliver us into eternal life is the goal of Christianity. In doing so we also despise the praise of man for we know what men see in us is held up to the infallible light of Christ. It is He that presents us faultless before the Father, it is we that hang our heads low as Mephibosheth and cry “What did you ever want with a dead dog like me?!” There was no confusion in the son of Jonathan’s mind––he couldn’t even carry himself into the presence of King David! As he would have laid on that floor and thought the King would surely kill him, the king’s merciful reception of him to his table would have erased Mephibosheth’s face of shame forever. From then on he would be known as son of David’s household, and member of the King’s table. His once identity of cripple was forever removed in the palace of King David when Mephibosheth had not even taken a step in his own strength to get there nor his lame reputation done anything to gain him entrance (couldn’t resist the pun).

The strength of the flesh is seen in the preservation of a face. Man’s ambition to do things for God instead of die to himself and be found in God are starkly opposed to each other in Scripture. Paul’s hatred for such gross sin is where such an intense symphony of pure words pour off the page of Philippians 3. Let us not only listen, but become one of the instrumentalists playing this magnum opus with our friend Paul the chief apostle to many and the chief of sinners to himself.

May Philippians 3 plague you as deeply as it has plagued me. Let it torment and distress you. Take a month and meditate on this chapter to see if there is any of your face remaining in your confidence before God. What are you recognized and known for? Take that and hold it up to the light of Christ and let it be consumed there in shimmering glory. Everything that remains that is you, take the hammer and nails and drive it into the wood of His Cross. You may find that you come away blind, whereas before, you were one who could see.