It is one thing to become adept at defining or observing a
problem. It’s quite another to gather a
basket of transforming thoughts. We see
that many of our youth are not captivated by Christ, drawing deeply from the
well of His refreshing waters, pursuing the Christ-walk in their daily life and
in their sense of future calling. Is the
environment we create permeated with the following perspectives I’ve excerpted? I have been challenged and convicted by John
Piper’s When I Don’t Desire God; How to Fight for Joy. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Here are some quotes that I believe have everything
to do with how we speak of, live, wear the gospel, and the value that our children
come to place on it as a result of a million decisions of the heart and of
daily life (ours and theirs):
“Love darkness, or love light. That is the crisis of the soul. But what is love for darkness? It’s preferring darkness, liking darkness,
wanting darkness, running to darkness, being glad with darkness. But all of that is what Jesus demands for
Himself. “Prefer my light, like my
fellowship, want my wisdom, run to my refuge, be glad in my grace. Above all, delight in me as a Person.” Look around on all that the world can give;
then say with the apostle Paul, “My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better”. (Phil
1:23) That is what it means to love Christ. And to have no love for Him is to be
accursed.
“Surely then this is worth fighting for. It may seem strange at first, but when we see
what is at stake, no battle will seem more important. Loving Christ involves delight in His Person. Without this love no one goes to heaven. Therefore there is no more important struggle
in the universe than the struggle to see and savor Christ above all things –
the fight for joy…
“One of the reasons that today in the Western church our joy
is so fragile and thin is that this truth is so little understood—the truth,
namely, that eternal life is laid hold of only by a persevering fight for the
joy of faith. Joy will not be rugged and
durable and deep through suffering where there is not resolve to fight for
it. But today, by and large, there is a
devil-may-care, cavalier, and superficial attitude toward the ongoing, daily
intensity of personal joy in Christ, because people do not believe that their
eternal life depends on it.
“The last two hundred years has seen an almost incredible
devaluation of the fight for joy. We
have moved a hundred miles from Pilgrim’s
Progress where Christian labors and struggles and fights all his life “for
the joy that was set before him” (Heb 12:2) in the Celestial City. Oh, how different is the biblical view of the
Christian life than the one prevalent in the Western church. It is an earnest warfare from beginning to
end, and the war is to defend and strengthen the fruit-bearing fields of joy in
God…”
“I do not minimize the joy of seeing the works of the
Lord. But His works are great because
the Lord is great. And they will become
idols of delight unless they point us to the Lord Himself as our highest
delight. The faith that honors Christ is
the faith that sees and savors His glory in all His works, especially the
gospel…”
(My thoughts interrupting here--Esoteric theology ends and this gets very personal when we see and savor His glory in all His works as
the answer and the antidote to the wailing “Why?” of some painful circumstance
in our own lives, sometimes seeming as the very last thing that ought to have
happened in good Providence, or sometimes seeming as the last thing we can
personally bear.)
“Maintaining joy in God takes “work”; that is, it’s a fight
against every impulse for alien joys and every obstacle in the way to seeing and
savoring Christ…”
“We embrace the truth that not only our joy in God, but also
the fight for joy itself is a gift of God.
In other words, God works in us to enable us to fight. Embracing this truth prevents us from thinking
that the joy we fight for is ultimately our achievement. Joy remains a gift and continues to be
spontaneous even though we ourselves are engaged in its cause.
“The evidence for this point is found in numerous biblical
texts. For example, in I Corinthians
15:10 Paul says, “By the grace of God I
am what I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of
them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Paul worked hard. He did not say that God’s grace made his work
possible. He worked, but it was “not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” So the fight for joy is our fight, and we
are responsible to do it. But when we
have fought for joy with all our might, we say with the apostle Paul, “it was not I, but the grace of God that was
with me.” It was a gift.”
flower pic courtesy of thistledown Cards
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