Reordered Love

Augustine famously said that “the essence of sin is disordered love.” We can relate to this famous quote by our own experience and by observing it flesh out on the experiences of others.

We are created for this glorious purpose: to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) That is why, at its root, sin is love that is out of order. The proper order should be to love God above all with our all. Augustine says that the essence of sin is loving anyone or anything in the place of God. This is also the heart of idolatry; worshipping and serving the creature instead of the Creator.

Anything or anyone could replace God’s rightful throne in our lives. It could be marriage, children, studies, achievements, pleasure, adventures, money, work, knowledge, self, and so on. Loving something in place of the One who alone deserves our hearts is the essence of sin. Imagine replacing our infinite, infallible, perfect Creator with something or someone infinitely less than Him. What an insult would that be to God!

We know that our lives become a mess once God is not on its rightful throne. When work becomes our little god then we invest more time to it for higher chances of promotion that could jeopardize relationships that are more important to us. More time for work equates to less time for family. There is no wonder that there are so many cases of teenage rebellion because of a lack of guidance from parents because of this disordered love. When relationships with people become our little god, then we maintain it as though they hold chief importance in our lives. It leads to frustration, bitterness, and resentment because people will inevitably fail, disappoint, and sin against us. The examples go on and on and on.

We should love God above all so that every area in our lives falls in its proper place. Money will just be money. Work will just be work. Adventures will just be adventures. People will just be people. If we have a reordered love towards God, these things will be appropriately weighted. God should have the greatest weight because He is the greatest. Indeed, the antidote to this disordered love is loving God supremely.

When Self-Centeredness Sets In

We are naturally self-centered. We live as if we are the center of the universe. We live to achieve what we want in life. We live for the aim of our self-centered pursuits in life. Our dreams, wants, and longings revolve around us.

Self. Self. Self. Is our priority.

But as we try every day to live for ourselves, we become disappointed, ashamed, and embarrassed because ourselves are bound to disappoint, shame, and embarrass us. We are fallible, finite, imperfect, and flawed creatures. Thus, living for oneself means dealing with failure, limits, imperfections, and flaws every day. Sadly, we try to do it anyway. But the application of saving grace through faith in Christ allows us to live for Someone greater; Someone infallible, infinite, perfect, and flawless. Someone who will never disappoint us because of who He is. Though that is the case, we know that it’s a daily struggle to either live for God or live for self.

So, what do we do when self-centeredness sets in?

Firstly, we remind ourselves that God does all things for His glory and not for us. This sobering and humbling reality crushes the self-centeredness in our hearts. God is God-centered and not man-centered. This realization will make us think as God-centered people. God created us for His glory. (Isa. 43:7) That’s our proper design. Living for anything less will just corrupt our souls and make a fool of ourselves. This foolishness is clearly seen in social media. There are times that we share, post, and comment stuff in social media as though we are the star of the show. Sadly, there are times that we rob God of His glory instead of crediting glory that is due to His name. Let us cry out with the psalmist, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” (Psa. 115:1)

Secondly, we cultivate joy in the shadows just as when John the Baptist was glad and not sad when his disciples left him to follow Jesus because he knew it was not about him and was all about Christ. Let us gladly say in our hearts with John the Baptist, “He must increase; I must decrease.” (John 3:30) Having less at the expense of self for the glory of Christ is what life all about. If we do not accept that reality, we will just be disheartened every time God takes away things, people, and opportunities in our lives. But if we have conditioned our minds that God takes away things from us so that we would be humble and for God alone to be exalted in our lives then we would joyfully and peacefully accept whatever comes our way. And I pray that it would cause us to worship God just like when Job said despite of everything and everyone that he lost, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21)

Thirdly, we live for others. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to be served but to serve. He set a humble and lowly example for us to follow. Let us cultivate the mind that we have in Christ by not doing anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. (Phil. 2:3) We should cultivate humility by considering that others are more important than us and acting as though they are really more important by being humble servants. (Phil. 2:3) Let us be people who are constantly looking out for the needs and interests of others and not just live for ourselves. (Phil. 2:4) Life is not meant to be lived self-centeredly. We are designed to find our true and lasting joy when we live for the glory of God and the good of others.

Fourthly, we are to credit God for all the good things happening to us. Paul says in Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.” He is the giver of all things. He ordains the means for us to receive the good things He wants to give us. And all things are due to Him. That is why He alone should be glorified and not us. We should not try to credit ourselves with the things that could be achieve by grace alone. Let us say with the apostle Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward 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.” (1 Cor. 15:10) Everything about us and the things that we do are not because of us but ultimately because of the marvelous grace of God that saves, sanctifies, empowers, transforms, and preserves. Let us be quick to give the glory to God and not rob Him of the glory He rightfully deserves.

Stop Living For Yourself

Apart from the transforming grace of God, it is natural for us to live for ourselves. We want to pursue our dreams, desires, and plans without due regard if God is also pleased as we pursue these things in our lives. As we pursue these things for ourselves, we realize deep inside our hearts that there is always something missing. We also realize that it is tiring to live for one’s self. We are not meant to live for ourselves. Our selves will always fail us. Our selves will just want more and more and more of what we pursue. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle of wanting more and being empty in the process.

We are meant to live for Someone bigger than ourselves. We are meant to live for the One who created us; the One who made us for his purpose and design; the One who wants to use us for His glory, our joy, and the good of others. It’s tiring to live for ourselves because we will always be dissatisfied as we seek our self-centered aspirations in life. Only God can satisfy our souls. Desiring God is the only means through which our insatiable desires can be met because He alone is endlessly satisfying. Only the cause of God to save sinners through the preaching of the gospel through us is the greatest cause we could ever live for.

We are not our own. So let us stop living for ourselves. We are not our own because we are bought with the precious blood of Christ. (1 Cor. 6:20) So let us live for God; our rightful Owner; our righteous Master; our all-wise Creator. And as we joyfully live for Him and sacrificially live for others, we know deep inside our hearts that there is where our utmost joy can be found. We are not meant to be the center of the universe. God created the universe to be so staggeringly vast and created us to be like specks of dust in comparison to speak about one thing: that God is truly the Center of everything and that we are not. Let us surrender our lives for Him and His great cause for it to truly matter, knowing that everything done not in accordance with the glory of God will just be put to waste.

Wasted Time is Wasted Life

The length of our existence is determined by the length of our time. From the moment we are born to the moment of our death, the time we have in between is numbered. That is why we should make the most of our time knowing that wasted time is a wasted life.

Our lives are too short to be wasted in trivialities and nonsensicalities. Let us fight for the proper use of our time knowing that wasted time will just burn in the judgment day. Christ has loved us with an everlasting love. He showed it on the cross when he suffered and died on our behalf. He purchased us with his precious blood. We are not our own. We are now his. As his treasured possession, He watches us with a jealous love, not wanting us to devote ourselves to broken cisterns that could not hold water. He wants us to time and time again be quenched from our spiritual thirst by drinking in His fountain. Truly, nothing in this world could ever satisfy. Only Christ, our living Water, could end our soul’s spiritual dryness.

Since we are his treasured possessions, all that we have actually belong to Him. And that includes our time. We are too stewards not owners. And as responsible stewards, we are to make sure that we do not waste the time that God has given us.

Let us cultivate eternal mindsets; doing things in light of eternity for the glory of God. Let us invest what we do with our time with the purpose of laying treasures in heaven. Knowing that at the end of our lives, all that we do for the Lord are the things that would truly matter and last for eternity. Our lives are merely dots in light of the never-ending straight line of eternity. Let us use our time wisely knowing that wasted time is a wasted life.

As Each Day Passes By

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware of how sinful I am and how I am deeply loved by my Savior. Every day is an opportunity to attest to how broken I am. There are things that I ought to do that I do not do. There are things that I do that I ought not to do. Every day, I fail my Savior, so every day, I gaze upon what He did on behalf of me on the tree. He suffered and died for my sins to free me from its penalty. He lived for me to clothe me with the righteousness that I desperately need. I receive this wonderful gift of salvation by turning away from sin and trusting in Christ. By grace, I turn away from my sins and continually trust in Him every day because I need to be desperately reminded of who Christ is and what He has done.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware of how I need Him. Apart from Him, I am a hopeless sinner headed to eternal damnation. Because of what He did, I am rescued from my misery and I am now ushered to joy through His presence in me. I stood condemned but through Him, I stand righteous. Because of Him alone and not in anything owing to me.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware that I could never be sufficient. I will always be dependent on grace. Thoughts that make me want to rely on myself and make me want to be confident in myself should be put to death because God alone is my source of strength and confidence. He supplies every grace that I need. I should be happy knowing that I have a dependable Father and He will leave always take care of me.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware of how sin so easily creeps into my heart; that sin is so deceitful that is why I should be vigilant. I am at war every day. I am a soldier and God has blessed me with armor and a weapon to stand still and resist the enemy. There is no time to be lax because the enemy is like a lion always seeking someone to devour.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware that God is the giver of every good thing and that I should live in gratitude to Him. I will always be a receiver of His wonderful gifts. I have nothing to boast about because I receive the things that I have because He is merciful, loving, and gracious.

As each day passes by, I become smaller and smaller and God becomes bigger and bigger. And that is how the ways things should be because every thing revolves around God’s glory and not on me. He alone should receive the spotlight and I should happily point people to Him because in Him is true life that lasts for eternity.

Our Hearts are Yours

Our hearts are naturally prone to wander and run after broken cisterns that could hold no water than rest our soul’s thirst in the Fountain of Living Water. Apart from the saving grace of God, our hearts are captives of sin. Sin rules and governs our lives. But through His regenerating power, our hearts are transformed and made new. We now have the divine enablement to allow the Holy Spirit to rule and govern our lives because it has now been his dwelling place.

Our sinful flesh and the Holy Spirit are in a constant battle of tug-of-war. Praise God that we are given the opportunity to participate in our sanctification. We could either give our hearts to sin or the Holy Spirit; give our wills to the rule of sin or the rule of the Holy Spirit; give our bodies to unrighteousness or holiness.

At times of wandering, let us remember Christ who bought us with a cost; He set us free with His precious blood. Let us remember the One who is alone worthy of hearts because He showed His love towards us by dying for our sins on the cross. And as we remember the love of Christ and what He did to have His bride, let us altogether say, “Our hearts are yours.”

When Satan Accuses You

“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” (Romans 8:33)

Satan is the accuser of the brethren. (Rev. 12:10-12) Satan uses our failures, sins, flaws, and weaknesses to tempt us to wallow in self-pity, shame, embarrassment, guilt, despair, hopelessness, and uselessness to disable and immobilize us from the work of the ministry. People who are part of the kingdom of darkness could also be used by the king of darkness in his evil schemes. We receive insults from others. We get hurt by the words and actions of others.

But you know what? The world around us and satan might accuse us but it will never change the standing that we have before God. That is why the apostle Paul asked the rhetorical question in Rom. 8:33, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” No one. Not even satan. He is already a defeated foe. All the accusations, insults, and schemes to tempt us to despair are useless. All the charges that could be brought against us are useless even though the charges are true. Why? Because God has already cancelled the record of debt that stood against us when Christ nailed our debt to the cross. (Col. 2:14) The charges that make us guilty before God were owned by Christ on our behalf. He paid our fine to set us free from sin’s penalty.

God is fully aware of all the charges that could be raised against us. However, the good news is, that the righteous Judge who alone has the right to condemn us as guilty has justified us. What an amazing reality that is! That we are declared righteous in the sight of God because we are covered by the perfect, spotless righteousness of Christ. Christ’s righteousness is a gift from God that becomes ours through faith alone in Him. He suffered and paid for the consequences of our charges so that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1) There is no room for wrath because Christ satisfied the wrath of God on the cross. All there is for us is love.

Brethren, when satan accuses you, let us be reminded of the words of the hymn writer:

excerpt from Before the Throne of God Above

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within.
Upward I look and see Him there,
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the Just is satisfied,
To look on Him and pardon me.
To look on Him and pardon me.

Brethren, when satan tempts us to despair with all the charges because of our guilt, remember that Christ died for that charge to free us from it. No more guilt. No more shame. Because Christ took it all. The shame and the guilt ended on the cross of Calvary. Let us not look down in despair because there is a wonderful reason to look up and see that our Loving Savior is there.

Debtors of Grace Forever

We are debtors of grace forever even at times that we are unconscious that the grace of God is operating in our lives; enabling us, transforming us, sustaining us, forgiving us, and strengthening us.

It is the common grace of God that makes the sun shines, rain falls, and oxygen flows to the believer and the nonbeliever alike. (Matt. 5:45-47) Apart from the sustaining grace of God, every thing in the world will fall apart. The planets, moons, stars, and the sun will move out of their proper places and then collide with each other resulting to chaos, disaster, and calamity.

Apart from the grace of God, we can never move one inch of our bodies. We could never exercise our mental faculties and physical capabilities because “in him we live and move and have our being”. (Acts 17:28)

By His grace, there’s life.

By His grace, there’s motion.

By His grace, there’s existence.

Salvation is all by the grace of God. (Eph. 2:8-9) Grace has worked all the way from the time of repentance from our sins and trust in Christ as our Lord and Savior to our moment-by-moment effort to pursue sanctification to the second-by-second preservation until the moment we die. It is all by grace.

It is by grace that God chose us before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4) It is by grace that we are loved beforehand by God. It is by grace that we are predestined to be Christlike. It is by grace that we are effectually called unto salvation and justified through faith in Christ until our glorification. (Rom. 8:29-30)

Everything is undeserved. Everything is unmerited.

We can do the things that we do for God because of the strength that God supplies so that in everything we do, God alone would be glorified. (1 Pet. 4:11) The effort that we expend to be transformed in the image of Christ is empowered by the gracious God who is “at work in us, both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13) We willed and worked because He graciously willed and worked through us. Apart from the grace of God that wills and works in us, we can never accomplish anything.

We will be debtors of grace forever. From childbirth to death, grace has worked in us in wonderful and amazing ways. Our debt towards grace increases every second of our lives until eternity. We will forever be indebted to God. That is why we will be forever grateful for the grace that sustains us, saves us, sanctifies us, empowers us, preserves us, and that will glorify us. Grace should crush our pride, humble us, and cause us to praise the glory of His grace. Indeed, “for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

All praises belong to our gracious God that we are debtors of grace forever.

When Life Does Not Make Sense

There are experiences in my life that do not make any proper sense; I could not understand why God allowed it to happen. In these moments, I think that I know better than God; I think that the things in my mind should happen and not what actually happened. I am ashamed to admit this but there are times that I think I know better than God.

This kind of mindset makes me temporarily bitter toward God and discontented with the things that I have experienced in life. It makes me navigate life based on what I see rather than trusting the One who perfectly sees all things. In these tough and trying moments that make me doubt the goodness of God in my life, reminding myself of my finiteness as a creature and God’s infinitude as a Creator helps.

Meditating the staggering discrepancy between my fallible thoughts and God’s infallible thoughts in Isaiah 55:8-9 helps.

^“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55:8-9)

There are a million things (even this sentence is an understatement) that God perfectly and comprehensively knows that I do not know. There are a million ways that God sees that I do not see. God always has a perfect purpose when He allows the things to happen in my life that do not make proper sense to me. God is not random. He always has a purpose. Everything that is happening to me is in accordance with His perfect plan to bring about the greatest glory for Himself through my life. When bitterness and discontentment creep into my heart, I humbly come before Him asking for forgiveness. Gratitude should be my proper response towards everything that is happening in my life knowing that my Father perfectly knows what He is doing and that He will never leave me nor forsake me. He supplies my needs in accordance with the riches of His grace. He wants me to trust Him more because He knows better. What I know will always be limited and insignificant as compared to His. Unbelief should be battled by faith. I must beg God for mercy to increase the faith that I have in Him. The pride that I have in thinking that I know better than God should be battled by cultivating humility. I must beg for humility every day knowing that every second, I am completely dependent on God for breath and heartbeat. Apart from Him, I can never do anything.

When life does not make sense, let us confess unbelief and cultivate faith. Let us confess pride and cultivate humility. Let us confess bitterness and cultivate gratitude. Let us confess discontentment and cultivate contentment. We have all these things because of Christ. God supplies us with moment-by-moment grace to kill sin and cultivate godliness. Let us not allow sin to foster in our hearts amid uncertainties knowing that we can trust our perfect God who holds all our times in His loving hand.

Embrace Your Weakness

All of us have weaknesses. Whether we like it or not, our physical bodies will decay. The strength that we have will wane as each year passes by. It is in these moments that we are the strongest. Why is that so? Because it is when we are weak that we turn to the One who is strong; the One who gives us the strength that we truly need.

Our weaknesses take different shapes and forms. Some might have a debilitating disease that causes them to be always on their knees to seek the sustenance and empowerment of God. Some might have a weakness that limits them to perform to the best of their abilities. This could also be used by God as a way to humble them and rid them of the arrogance of self-reliance and to truly rely on the One who is trustworthy and could richly supply us with everything we need. It could be cancer, migraine, speech impediment, polio, physical abnormality, mental disorder, the normal physical degradation of our bodies, and so on. The list of weaknesses could go on and on and vary differently per person. The point is all of us have weaknesses and we need to embrace these weaknesses and use it for the glory of God.

As we embrace our weakness, it ushers us to rely on the God of almighty strength. As we embrace our limits, it ushers us into humble dependence on the God of unlimited grace. As we embrace our flaws, it reminds us of the perfect love of our Savior that is not based on how flawed we are but on how flawless His love is for us.

Let us not be discouraged. God gives us the sufficient grace we need in our weaknesses.