How A Ministry to Strippers Was Born

Read the story HERE of how "Scarlet Hope" got started. It's heartbreaking, yet incredibly encouraging. The same Jesus who saved prostitutes while on earth is willing and able to save them today through the courageous and sacrificial love of women like Rachelle Starr.

Homosexuality, Identity, and Safety

I'm so grateful for Sam Allberry's courage. He is a pastor in the Church of England and he has dealt with same-sex attraction all his life. His transparency about his sexuality and his uncompromising commitment to the teaching of the gospel is beautiful. Sam is the author of Is God Anti-gay? (highly recommended). He recently addressed the Church of England General Synod. I strongly encourage you to watch his 2 minute statement.


HT: MS

Sam also recently wrote a really helpful piece for The Gospel Coalition website entitled, "How Celibacy Can Fulfill Your Sexuality." What he writes is extremely important for single Christians (and married Christians!). Take another 2 minutes and read it. Be sure you find out what he means when he says, "If marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency."

Why We Look into the Word

I pray Psalm 119:18 nearly every time I begin reading the Bible.

"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law."

This is a prayer for spiritual sight. I want to behold the glory of God revealed in his word, with the eyes of faith, aided by the Spirit.

The goal of reading the Bible is not to earn blessing points with God, as if time logged could be cashed in for stuff or better circumstances. The goal of reading the Bible to behold the glory of God. And the glory of God is an end in itself. We don't use God as a stepping stool to get on to bigger and better things.

So, we need to see his glory. Because if we're blind to his glory, we'll fixate on all manner of fool's gold "treasures" that this world offers for our satisfaction. And we'll end up with lots of sand in our mouths as we run after each mirage and land face down in the desert of unfilled promises.

So, I commend the prayer of Psalm 119:18 to you, along with the sharper focus that is provided by 2 Corinthians 3:18:

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

If our Bible reading is aimed at seeing the wonders and glory of God, the sharper focus is found in the face of his Son. If we want to see who God is and what he is like, we must look at Jesus.

In context, the glory of "the Lord" here is the glory of the Lord Jesus. We need to see "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, ... the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:4, 6). And we need the Spirit's help to do so. "For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

The blessed result of this kind of "seeing" or "beholding" is that we become like the One we admire. "And we all...beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image (the image of Jesus), from one degree of glory to another." We are changed. We are transformed. The word there is the one from which we get our English word 'metamorphosis'. That same word is used in Romans 12:2 (emphasis mine):

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Now pull it all together. We look into the Word to see the glory of God. The glory of God is most clearly and radiantly revealed in Jesus. When we behold that glory, we are changed. Our values align with the infinite worth of the Son of God. We turn from the fool's gold offers of this world and we trust in and treasure Jesus. We are no longer conformed to this world. We are transformed by the renewal of our minds. We begin to reflect his glory more and more ("one degree of glory to another"), and we grow in wisdom and walk in the good will of God. And we more clearly show this dark, blind world -- by radiant, Christlike lives -- the glory of our God. We help them see what we've seen.

So, why do you look in the Word? Why do you read the Bible?

Read The Book to behold The Glory. Look for wondrous things! Look for glory! Look for it in and through Jesus. Don't merely look for intellectual stimulation, as if new and interesting Bible data could change you. Look for a greater glimpse of the glory of Christ. You're going to need the Spirit's help for that to happen. Pray for it. Seek it. Ask, seek, knock. And find the One you've been looking for all your life.

A Song (and a Quote) to Thrill Your Soul: Meditations on the First & Second Adam

The Bible talks about two Adams. We are all "in" the first or the second. Take a few minutes and read carefully through Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-23, 45-49 and you'll see what I'm talking about.

We don't meditate on these realities enough. So, here's some help.

First, do yourself a favor and check out the song "This My Soul" by The Gray Havens. It's best listened to with the volume way up and time to take in the lyrics. You can find the lyrics here.

Second, savor this quote by John Stonestreet (found here):

The first Adam yielded to temptation in a garden. The Last Adam beat temptation in a garden. The first man, Adam, sought to become like God. The Last Adam was God who became a man. The first Adam was naked and received clothes. The Last Adam had clothes but was stripped. The first Adam tasted death from a tree. The Last Adam tasted death on a tree. The first Adam hid from the face of God, while the Last Adam begged God not to hide His face.

The first Adam blamed his bride, while the Last Adam took the blame for His bride. The first Adam earned thorns. The Last Adam wore thorns. The first Adam gained a wife when God opened man’s side, but the Last Adam gained a wife when man opened God’s side. The first Adam brought a curse. The Last Adam became a curse. While the first Adam fell by listening when the Serpent said “take and eat,” the Last Adam told His followers, “take and eat, this is my body."

In the name of the Second Adam, Amen. 

Do You Grieve the Gap?

Do you grieve the gap between what you know to be true and your experience of that truth? Between the concept of a gracious God and the reality of your gracious God?

This gap is not okay.
It ought to bother us.
We ought to grieve.
It's not something to throw up the white flag on and make a truce.
It's something to fight to close.

We don't want to be hypocrites. We don't want Jesus' words in Matthew 15:7-9 to apply to us:

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"

We want to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8) and "trust in the Lord with all our heart" (Prov 3:5-6) and be "satisfied with the steadfast love of the Lord" (Ps 90:14) and "know his love that surpasses knowledge" (Eph 3:19) and "rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory (1 Pet 1:8).

Nevertheless...the gap will always remain, to some degree or other, in this life.
And it will often be a painful, frustrating, discouraging reality.
It will bother us.
And it should.

Nevertheless...the gap will not always remain.
One day, faith will become sight.
One day, all of our doubts and unbelief and coldness and spiritual insensitivity will be eradicated.
White-hot, holy, whole-hearted, single-minded, sincere and sweet love for God and others will be our constant lived experience!
We will know fully even as we are fully known.

AND (here's why I'm writing this), the experience throughout our lives of grief and longing and sorrow and frustration over the gap, will actually make the closing of the gap that much sweeter.
In God's mysterious and merciful providence, the painful longing for wholeness will make the experience of wholeness that much sweeter when it is fully and finally fulfilled.

So, let's keep grieving the gap.
Let's keep seeking to close the gap.
Let's set our hope fully on the day when the gap will no longer remain (1 Pet 1:13).
But let's remember this: not only will that gap one day close in the restoration and renewal of all things, but the presence of grief over the gap in this life will make the presence of perfectly integrated enjoyment of God that much sweeter.