Most of us spend our lives trying to move beyond such a lowly position. We go to school, hoping to one day graduate from the tyranny of assignments and due dates. We turn eighteen and immediately begin excitedly plotting life beyond parental restraint. We work various jobs hoping to one day own our own business or ascend the top of the corporate ladder. We want to “be our own boss.” When one church applies pressure we don’t like, it’s easy to find another down the street.

At the very least, we tend to relegate submission to the early stages of life, and there’s certainly an appropriate process of maturity wherein the nature of submission changes as we grow up. We rightly see a problem, for example, when a healthy twenty-five-year-old continues to take orders from his parents because he’s still living in their home and depending on their income. As we grow up, submission ought to look different. A fifty-year-old under authority is not the same as a twelve-year-old. But should it disappear altogether? Is it good for us to graduate completely from submission to authority?

I’ll show my cards. I do not believe it’s wise for any human being, at any life stage, to live completely free from life-on-life submission to authority. Whether it’s a pastor, spouse, friend, or mentor, we all need at least one person in our lives who has the authority to deny us our desires.

We live in an age of scandal. As an American evangelical (whatever than means these days), I often think to myself after another high-profile pastor falls, “I wonder who will be next.” Because of human sin and deceit, I don’t believe there’s a fool-proof way to completely eliminate such scandals. However, I often wonder if the fallen pastors I read about genuinely had authority in their lives. Sure, many of them presided within a “plurality of elders.” But authority on paper isn’t the same thing as authority in practice. Did these fallen pastors submit their lives to anyone? Would they have listened if someone told them, “That aspect of your life is problematic and you need to change.”

I’ve been the lead pastor of my church, which started as a church plant, for nearly a decade now. When we first started, our church plant was part of a larger church that sent me and several other families to plant. I was the only local pastor at the church plant, but I was still part of the sending church and under the authority of the pastors of that church who were ultimately under the authority of the church. However, for the past three years, our church plant has been autonomous. As we became our own church, we ordained two other pastors to serve with me so that I wouldn’t be the only pastor. For a variety of reasons, we believe that a plurality of pastors is the wisest approach.

However, there was still a problem. The two pastors that joined me were men I had mentored and pastored for several years. I am older than both and further along in life and ministry. Both looked up to me as a mentor before joining me as pastors. So, theoretically, we had a plurality of pastors, but practically, we were in danger of functioning as a hierarchy with me at the top.

For the past three years, I’ve faced a personal dilemma. I know I need personal day-to-day authority in my life. However, I also know that the other two pastors look to me as a leader and would probably hesitate to oppose me. It’s tempting to move forward under the banner of pastor plurality while enjoying the privilege of single pastor prominence.

Recently, the three of us met to discuss our authority structure going forward and decided to clarify the “veto” power we all share over any one of us. In other words, if any two of us disagree with the decision of the third, we have the authority to veto the decision. Further, if any two of us believe confrontation of a third is necessary, we’ve given the others permission to bring it. As alluring as it is to sit alone at the top, we collectively agree that we each need real authority in our lives. None of us are qualified to play the role of Frodo and bear the ring of power alone. For the health of our church and ourselves, we must share the privileged burden of authority entrusted to us by the church.

What about you? Have you eliminated submission to authority from your life? Does anyone have veto power over your decisions?

The slang term originates from a 1944 psychological thriller called, “Gaslight.” In the film, a husband manipulates his wife into believing she’s insane when, in reality, he’s deceptively robbing her of her inheritance. The title of the film derives from the wife’s observation that she often hears footsteps in the attic when the gaslights dim. The husband convinces her that she’s crazy to hide the fact that he’s up there searching for jewels. Throughout the film, the husband systematically and successfully causes his wife to doubt her own sanity.

To “gaslight,” then, means to manipulate someone into questioning their perception of reality for the sake of personal gain. However, in popular usage, the term has morphed into a catchall to describe basic instances of human disagreement. If you interpret these facts differently than I do and try to convince me you’re right, you’re gaslighting me. If you tell someone that they are interpreting something incorrectly, you may be accused of gaslighting them.

Those who apply the term wrongly seek to transform simple human disagreements into instances of manipulation and abuse. Particularly when used by someone perceived as having less power in a relationship, the accusation attempts to win sympathy from those not involved. To claim having been gaslit is to claim victim status which reaps immediate rewards in a culture rightly sensitive to abuse. Ironically, when used wrongly, accusing someone of gaslighting often serves as an actual instance of manipulation, for the accuser wields the label to win the power of public approval and validation.

Lately, I’ve heard the term used in the context of biblical counseling when counselees don’t agree with the advice they’ve been given. “I went to my pastor for counseling, but he gaslit me.” To counsel from the Bible is to apply Scripture to instances of human suffering and sin. Human beings encounter the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus through his word, and counselors get to serve as conduits of that encounter. Since God’s word speaks relevantly to every human problem, a good biblical counselor will wisely lead in its careful application.

Practically, then, biblical counseling often takes the form of gently suggesting that the counselee has been looking at their situation wrongly. You may hear a biblical counselor say, “You’ve been looking at this situation one way, and its clearly not helping you flourish. Have you considered that God’s word may be calling you to look at that same situation differently in light of Christ?” Biblical counseling thus seeks to help human beings “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5) which often means patiently and wisely assisting them to discover wrong and unhelpful habits of mind.

Unfortunately, human beings often resist this kind of counsel. We say we want the truth, but we’re really sitting in that chair seeking validation. In such cases, the call to change offends, and the counselee resists. In our culture, the counselee may then turn to the ever-expanding glossary of therapeutic terms he or she has imbibed from social media to help make sense of the inner turmoil.

The accusation of gaslighting serves as a tantalizing option which enables victimhood and the transferal of blame. The counselor trying to help morphs into the villain, and the counselee gets to reap sympathy from others without the expectation of change. However, as mentioned above, this accusation ironically turns the accuser into the actual gaslighter.

How do we determine when actual gaslighting has occurred? First, don’t believe every accusation. I’ve learned in ministry that there are always two sides to every story, and I make it my habit to never form conclusions about a situation until I have spoken with all parties involved. Advice like “believe all women” sounds compassionate and caring, but it ignores the element of human sin within every person, male and female.

Second, make a distinction between disagreement based on truth and manipulation based on personal gain. Often, you can cut through the haze by simply asking the following question: Does the person being accused of gaslighting have anything to gain from the situation? While it’s certainly possible for a biblical counselor to manipulate someone for personal gain, encouraging change in obedience to Christ doesn’t meet the criteria.

Our therapeutic culture provides us with a new vocabulary for describing our inner struggles. In such a context, the church must work more diligently than ever to preserve the primacy of theological categories passed down through the ages and preserved in holy scripture. We must keep working to make sure our people understand the difference between loving counsel and gaslighting.

Of course, the fruit of this confidence is the fractious world we now occupy. Everyone claims to have the truth, but those claims often conflict. We can’t pursue the truth without bumping into questions related to whose truth. Everyone is still very certain they’re right even as they stare across at equally certain people with contrary truth claims. Yet, for some reason, our disputed truth claims haven’t led us to question the Enlightenment’s confidence in human reason. Despite the cultural confusion, we double down.

I’m going to refrain from turning this essay into a refutation of Enlightenment confidence. Instead, I want to make two controversial and interrelated points. First, you don’t need to understand everything to act. Second, receiving knowledge from trusted authorities is good and wise.

Imagine a scenario with me. A young man in a local church begins attending a discipleship group with older men. As time goes on, one of the older men gets to know the young man and cares enough to inform him that he exudes pride and arrogance in his interactions with the other men in the group. He talks down to them and often interrupts when they’re making a point. He doesn’t seem teachable.

The young man hears the criticism but doesn’t receive it well. He just doesn’t see it. In fact, he disagrees completely. He replies with a monologue about how his father always taught him to respect his elders. No one else has ever told him he has a pride issue. He really can’t correct the supposed prideful behavior until he sees it for himself. He commits to pray about it, but he can’t promise action until God reveals the sin to him. He must understand it for himself.

Here’s where post-Enlightenment self-confidence battles against biblical wisdom. The young man’s insistence on knowing for himself is really a mask for the very problem he denies. A humble heart would submit to the wiser man and receive the gentle rebuke on borrowed authority. It’s good and wise to say in such a scenario, “I don’t personally see it, but I trust you. If you say I’m prideful, I’ll take your word for it and commit to working on it.”

In her book, On Reading Well, Karen Swallow Prior uses Anne Elliot from Jane Austen’s Persuasion to illustrate this kind of virtue. At nineteen, Anne had fallen in love and been engaged to marry Frederick Wentworth. However, after receiving counsel from an older family friend, Anne had called off the engagement under the rationale that she could do better. Now, at twenty-seven, Anne is still unmarried, and Wentworth has returned to Anne’s town after greatly improving his station through a successful career.

From our vantage point, Anne should have never listened to the advice of her older friend. She should have trusted her gut. She was in love, and listening to bad advice had ruined her opportunity—the only one she’s had thus far—for marriage.

However, Anne doesn’t see it that way. She tells Wentworth, “I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly right in being guided by the friend. . . To me, she was in place of a parent. Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my conscience.”

Proverbs—the biblical book most synonymous with wisdom—comes to us as advice to a son from his parents. To receive wisdom from these trusted authorities is equated with fearing the LORD (2:1-5). Biblically, there’s a surer source of knowledge than the independent mind. Human reason is not the most reliable authority. Wise living seeks out trusted authorities to which to submit. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (12:15).

A Billy Strings concert contains a mix of original music and traditional bluegrass standards. Because of the historical overlap between bluegrass and gospel, Billy often rolls out a gospel tune or two at his shows. On this night, for example, the band played “Harbour of Love” by the Stanley Brothers, a song about reaching heaven after repenting and praying to God for forgiveness. Resonating with the song’s message, we enjoyed the surprise of getting to hear our favorite guitar player perform a song about God’s grace. It was a cool experience for both of us.

However, we soon found out that not everyone appreciated Billy’s performance of a gospel song. During intermission, we waited in the long merchandise line to get a shirt and listened as people around us opined on the first set of music. Directly behind us in line, we overheard an inebriated man tell his friends in an expletive-filled tirade that Billy needs to shut up with all those songs about Jesus.

It was a jarring experience for me. I grew up in the Deep South. I’m talking prong on the buckle of the Bible Belt. I’m used to people not following Jesus, but where I’m from, no one ever talks bad about him. In fact, the favorite genre of music among my kin is country. For as long as I can remember, including a lyric about Jesus has served as a surefire way to guarantee a hit country song. Jesus, take the wheel. Jesus and mama always loved me. I don’t think Jesus done it that way. In the Deep South, we eat up songs about Jesus.

I’m used to being around people who think Jesus is cool. He reminds us of grandma. We’re used to seeing grandpa’s old Bible on the kitchen table underneath his deer rifle on the wall. No matter how we’re living, we’re going to be at church on Easter, and no one likes using God’s name before certain words. We may not pray personally, but we want our kids in schools where they’re still free to pray before football games on Friday nights. The Jesus I grew up learning about is always there to help you when you need a hand.

As I stood there in stunned silence listening to this man vocalize hatred toward my Lord and Savior, a strange thought occurred to me—perhaps this angry man at the YUM Center is closer to the truth than the people I grew up around.

Hear me out. In the Bible Belt, Jesus affirms, accepts, and assures but rarely makes demands. People like this version of Jesus because he doesn’t ask them for anything. He pretty much leaves us alone, waiting to be taken down off the shelf and used when needed. In other words, people in the Bible Belt are often cool with Jesus because the Jesus they’re cool with isn’t the real Jesus.

The drunk man in line at the Billy Strings concert certainly wasn’t a follower of Jesus, but he at least understood that Jesus is a threat. Jesus doesn’t leave us alone. He refuses to leave the status quo uninterrupted. This man went to the Billy Strings concert to party and have a good time. He didn’t like Billy making him think about grandpa’s Bible and the life he ought to be living. He rightly saw Jesus as a threat.

When we read the Bible, we discover that the people who understand Jesus only have one of two responses. They either hate Jesus or they submit to him in repentance and faith. In the leadup to Jesus’ crucifixion, the Jewish religious leaders understand Jesus’ claims and rightly see him as a threat who needs to be eliminated. Pilate doesn’t fully understand his significance and thus responds with lukewarmness. He doesn’t think he deserves death but ultimately caves to the demand to crucify him.

If you’ve never viewed Jesus as a threat, you’ve never understood who Jesus is. He’s either a threat or he’s Lord and Savior. He doesn’t give us the option of viewing him as cool and harmless.

During the Covid lockdowns, I made some progress. I read a poem per day and even began writing my own. They weren’t good poems, but it was a start. Apparently, success in this endeavor depends on forces outside of my control. Since I can’t quiet my own soul, I need the world to stop moving. I don’t like that feature of my character.

At this point, you may be wondering why. Why try so hard to like something that’s clearly not working? Maybe I’m just not a poetry kind of person. Shouldn’t I spend my limited time on things I already enjoy? There’s always a game to watch on TV. My ‘to-read’ list will already outlast my years on this earth without the added burden of poetry. Perhaps it’s not worth the trouble.

But herein lies the problem. I believe it is worth the trouble. I’ve tasted the joy of poetry enough to conclude that the genre contains transcendent potential unmatched by prose. While reading poetry continues to escape my mastery, I enjoy it in other forms. I pray the Psalms, one per day, and discover new depths of meaning in the repeated habit. I listen to music and love the lyrics of a well-crafted song. Certain songs capture memories and experiences in ways impossible to articulate otherwise.

Certain truths require poetry. If that’s true—and I wholeheartedly believe that it is—then I need a poetic imagination to grasp aspects of reality. If I lack such an imagination, I’m depriving myself of rich avenues of meaning in God’s universe. It’s like trying to live with one eye closed when God has given me two healthy eyes. If I can cultivate such an imagination, I can see reality more fully. Poetry helps me reach my full potential as God’s image-bearer. After all, God’s a poet.

Here’s Eugene Peterson’s attempt to articulate it: “Poetry is not the language of objective explanation but the language of imagination. It makes an image of reality in such a way as to invite our participation in it. We do not have more information after we read a poem, we have more experience. It is not ‘an examination of what happens but an immersion in what happens.’”

The poet engages our ears and our eyes, our sense of taste and smell. He appeals not just to our head but also to our heart. Prose informs us of reality; poetry invites us to experience it. Peterson speculated that God concluded the Bible with poetry because we already had the complete revelation of God before us. John’s Revelation functions as a poetic invitation to enter the story through Christ.

In another place, Peterson wrote that “imagination is the capacity to make connections between the visible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, between present and past, between present and future. For Christians, whose largest investment is in the invisible, the imagination is indispensable, for it is only by means of the imagination that we can see reality whole, in context.”

We need both explanation and imagination: “Explanation restricts and defines and holds down; imagination expands and lets loose. Explanation keeps our feet on the ground; imagination lifts our heads into the clouds. Explanation puts us in harness; imagination catapults us into mystery. Explanation reduces life to what can be used; imagination enlarges life into what can be adored.” I’ll add that explanation keeps us grounded in orthodox truth, while imagination ensures that truth never becomes formulaic and stale.

Our culture, however, lacks imagination: “But our technological and information-obsessed age has cut imagination from the team.” We need both. We won’t see the majestic glory of God and his world without both explanation and imagination.

Because of our cultural imagination deficiency, poetry is hard. It doesn’t come naturally. It must be cultivated through repeated practice. It’s easier to watch another reel or stream another show. If you don’t believe it’s worth pursuing, you won’t put the work in. Hopefully, I’ve convinced you, at least, that it’s worth the effort.

Here are some tips. First, read a psalm every day. Meet Christ in his own poetry. Second, listen to hymns. Church history supplies us with a rich storehouse of poetry intended to draw our imaginations into the unseen realm of God’s heavenly tabernacle. Third, pick one poet—George Herbert, for example—and read a poem per week for a year. Of Herbert, C. S. Lewis wrote, “Here was a man who seemed to me to excel all the authors I had ever read in conveying the very quality of life as we actually live it from moment to moment.”

Don’t give up. There’s more to reality than what you currently see.

My mother-in-law prioritizes having everyone together, too. She often reschedules get-togethers because one person has a conflict. She works hard to make her home a welcoming place everyone enjoys. She used to get mad at me for telling her I had “things to do” as a reason for not showing up. It’s a joke now—“I bet Casey has ‘things to do.’”

For the longest time, I didn’t get it. Don’t we see each other enough? We just did this last year, and I’ve done it every year of my life. It’ll be fine if a few people miss. Life will go on, and we’ll try again next year. Don’t they realize some people just have “things to do”?

I see it their way now. You see, my MaMa passed away a couple years ago. Those meals with everyone present aren’t possible anymore. We only have our memories of them now.

There’s a reason the Bible connects wisdom with growing older. Psalm 90:12 is one of my favorite verses: “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” My MaMa knew something I did not yet understand. She had lived long enough to know that the ability to get the whole family together doesn’t last forever. It’s only a matter of time before the young people get too busy and the old people die off. She fought until her dying day to keep us all together because she understood the significance of having everyone present for a meal.

The meal is never the point. It’s just an excuse for the opportunity to forge something more significant—identity, belonging, and love. When we gather around that table, we affirm that we belong to each other. By prioritizing the meal with our presence, we remind one another that we’re committed to them in love.

This dynamic helps us understand the significance of the Lord’s Supper. In Luke 22:14-23, Jesus gathers with his disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Unlike the disciples, he knows that this will be his last meal with them, giving him perspective that they clearly lack. He also knows that he’s about to give profound significance to this meal beyond the normal significance of Passover. This meal will serve as a meal of remembrance and proclamation until his return (1 Cor 11:26).

In the history of the church, we’ve really made a mess of the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist, if you prefer. In response to the Roman Catholic error of literally sacrificing Christ upon each observance, Protestants too often overreact by underemphasizing its importance. I grew up in a church tradition that celebrated the Lord’s Supper four times per year. When we did gather on those seldom occasions, confusion abounded on what we were even doing.

Just as family get-togethers aren’t really about the meal, the Lord’s Supper isn’t really about the bread and the wine. In both cases, the meal represents something far greater.

In Luke’s account, the meal does at least four things. First, it fulfills the past. Jesus connects his new meal to the Passover because it fulfills the Passover. For Israel, Passover was synonymous with salvation. In the Exodus, God had delivered and covenanted with his people. For 600 years before Jesus, the prophets had been promising a second exodus would occur. Jesus’s life and death is the new exodus. Just as Israel went through the sea and into the wilderness where they were fed miraculously by God, Jesus went through his baptism and into his wilderness testing before miraculously feeding the five thousand. The Lord’s Supper reminds us that before we can go forward, we must look back. Advancement depends on remembering.

Second, the Lord’s Supper anticipates the future. It’s an appetizer preparing us for greater fulfillment. We eat the meal “until he comes” because when he comes, we will sit down with him for a greater meal (Rev 19:6-9). Just as we look back to acknowledge that he has already saved us, we look forward to remember that our salvation is not yet complete.

Third, the Lord’s Supper enacts the gospel. In the Passover, Israel would physically replay the events of the Exodus from Egypt. In the Lord’s Supper, we physically enact the sacrifice of Jesus. He’s not sacrificed again, but his one sufficient sacrifice is tasted anew by faith. The physical bread and cup help us get the story of Christ’s sacrifice down into our bones.

Fourth, the Lord’s Supper creates family identity. In the new covenant in his blood, we belong to him and to one another. Our new family is not defined by ethnic identity. Our family isn’t nationalistic; it’s Christocentric. When we gather around the table with the church, we affirm that we belong to each other and that we will keep loving each other. Our presence signifies our commitment.

Because of prayer’s inherent difficulty, I hesitate to critique how others pray. If you’ve discovered habits that work and are faithful to God’s self-revelation, who am I to mess that up? If people are praying at all, shouldn’t we simply celebrate that accomplishment without comment?

For the most part, I abide by the mindset of the previous paragraph. I generally steer clear from critiquing the personal prayer lives of other Christians. However, public prayer is a separate issue, and I’ve got a small bone to pick.

The other week, I attended my son’s high school basketball game at a small Christian school located about an hour from where we live. Thankfully, the team begins each game with a prayer from a local pastor. The pastor did a fantastic job praying for the players, the visiting families, and Christ-centered sportsmanship. Then, to conclude his prayer, he said, “in your name, Amen.”

It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a public prayer end in such a way. In fact, in recent years, I’ve noticed that “in your name” has overtaken “in Jesus’ name” as the most prevalent way to conclude a public prayer. I’m not accusing pronoun prayers of heresy. However, I do want to make the case that Christians should explicitly name Jesus when we pray publicly. Praying “in your name” publicly muddles the glory of Christian prayer.

First, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name accurately describes what’s happening when a Christian prays. Apart from Christ, we have no access to God because of our sin. However, “through him we both (Jew and Gentile) have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). We pray “in Jesus’ name” because our access to the Father depends on Jesus’ character and redemptive work on our behalf. While Christians should enjoy prayerful communion with both the Son and the Spirit, the most common pattern of biblical prayer goes to God the Father, through God the Son, in the power of God the Holy Spirit (Rom 1:8; Eph 1:16). Thus, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name avoids confusion about the nature of our Triune God and accurately describes the theological realities that make our prayers possible.

Second, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name explicitly claims a promise that Jesus made to us. In John 14:13-14, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Whether we are praying to the Father or to the Son, Jesus instructs us to pray in his name. Praying in Jesus’ name grounds our prayers in the reality of who Christ is and leads to fruitfulness as we continue to pursue Christ’s mission on earth. When Jesus makes this promise, he is not giving his name as a magical incantation. Rather, he’s instructing his people to pray in continuity with his kingdom purposes. According to Jesus’ promise, when we do that, our prayers will be granted.

Third, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name is public proclamation of the gospel. We are often encouraged to use vague language to avoid controversy. When we pray “in Jesus’ name,” we exclude those of other faiths from our prayers. However, as we’ve already seen, those outside of Christ are already excluded from access to God because of their sin. Only “in Jesus’ name,” can we approach the throne of grace. Rather than cave in to the cultural pressure, Christians should see public prayer as an opportunity to boldly and compassionately witness to the truth of the gospel. We don’t pray “in Jesus’ name” to shove our beliefs down anyone’s throat. We pray thusly because we believe Jesus is the only hope for the world.

Let’s explicitly name our Lord and Savior when we pray publicly.

Of course, she’s right. Through Christ, sinners have become saints. It’s a wondrous miracle of God’s grace. When Paul wrote his letters to the “saints” in various locales, he wasn’t singling out super-Christians. He wrote to the baptized believers who gathered locally as the body of Christ. He wrote to people just like me, and assuming, dear reader, that you are also in Christ, people just like you, too. We are now “saints”—holy ones—not because we’ve radically reformed our behavior, but because Christ has given us a new status in himself.

But, of course, Paul’s new status as a saint did not negate the reality that he was also a sinner: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim 1:15). Similarly, John writes to saints, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). How do we reconcile these two opposite truths without affirming a contradiction? Are we sinners or are we saints?

Here’s the truth that I think my friend wanted to emphasize in her rebuke: In Christ, our primary identity has radically changed. Because of Christ’s righteousness, we are righteous. We are not sinners in the same way we were before Christ. In fact, from one extremely important vantage point, we are not sinners at all. When we think of ourselves in Christ, we “must consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:11). As saints, we are no longer enslaved to sin (Rom 6:6). Sin does not reign over us. Essentially, we are saints rather than sinners.

However, because of our essential identity as saints in Christ who are no longer enslaved to sin, we must put sin to death (Col 3:5). John Piper puts it this way, “The fight against our ongoing sinning is the evidence that we are in Christ—and in him without sin in our inmost, essential identity.” Because we are essentially saints and not sinners, we put indwelling sin to death as we await the future day when every remnant of sin is removed completely. Our daily battle to defeat sin and cultivate righteousness arises out of our status as saints. If we weren’t saints, we wouldn’t put sin to death. We wouldn’t want to. We wouldn’t be able to.

If we forget we’re saints, we will lose our battle against sin. This battle is extremely difficult, humanly impossible. Without confidence that Christ has graciously and supernaturally changed our essential identity, we will lack the resources to fight. We defeat sin by saying, “That’s not who I am anymore. In Christ, I’m a holy person. Sin doesn’t have dominion over me. I’m going to live according to my new status as a saint.”

However, if we forget we’re sinners, we will grow lax in living out our status as saints in battle against a powerful internal enemy that wants to destroy our souls. When Paul reminds us that we’re saints, he’s not calling us to ignore our shortcomings. Instead, he’s strengthening us for the battle against those shortcomings. We need to know we’re saints so that we can defeat the sin that indwells us. We need to know about sin’s continued presence so that we don’t obliviously give it a foothold in our lives.

My friend has a point. In terms of identity, we are saints and not sinners. However, practically, we continue to sin in violation of who we are in Christ. We must remember that essentially we’re saints and practically we sin. However, there’s coming a day when “saint” will be all there is to say.

We read an article that describes something we’ve long internalized yet struggled to express. We listen to a complete stranger verbally capture something we feel deeply. We sit down to talk to a professional who finally gets us. Has he been listening to my inner dialogue? How does she know what I’m feeling? It’s a powerful experience.

“I just want to be heard!”

We shout into the void in hopes that someone—anyone—would listen. We grow frustrated in our relationships because it seems like even the people closest to us have given up trying. We feel isolated and alone. We wonder if we’re the only one alive experiencing this..

When we feel seen or heard, we’re expressing the relief of validation. We’re all terrified of not being recognized, of living invisible lives. We google our symptoms in hopes of experiencing that powerful “you, too!” moment. We search for diagnoses because labels validate us. If it has a medical name then other people have it too, and it must exist outside of my own head. It must be real. I’m finally seen!

We turn to social media because every like, share, and comment is immediate validation. Someone else resonates with what we’ve expressed. We check back chronically with every ping or red dot. We’re addicted to validation. It feels good. We’ve been heard (Substack/Twitter) or seen (Instagram/TikTok). We’re hooked.

But what if we’re settling? What if there’s something better than feeling seen or feeling heard? What if the fleeting satisfaction of immediate gratification is preventing us from experiencing validation infinitely more substantive and more satisfying?

I imagine the poor widow in Luke 21:1-4 felt unseen and unheard. Jesus had just condemned the scribes—respected by all for their piety and wealth—for devouring widows’ houses (20:47). Only Jesus seemed to notice her. The world did not see widows. We don’t even get this one’s name. They were invisible with nothing to offer—poor, past their prime, useless, dependent on the generosity of others. Drags on society.

Amidst all the activity of temple worship, no one should have noticed the poor widow putting two pennies into the offering box. Richer people were giving far more impressive amounts. The value of two copper coins hasn’t really changed since then. Inflation doesn’t impact what’s already next to worthless. The scholars tell us that her gift was the smallest lawful gift permitted. Clang. That should’ve been the end of it.

But Jesus noticed it. He sees her. Remember that “the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). And what does Jesus see with his cardiogram vision? Sacrifice. He sees a poor woman giving everything she has in devotion to her God. He praises her. He sees her. He sees everything.

Jesus sees you. He sees your hidden labors to love a difficult spouse. He sees your sleepless nights serving sick children. He sees what never escapes the anonymity of your four walls. He sees your work that will never be Instagram-worthy or garner offers from corporate sponsors. He sees diary entries never published and remembers prayers never heard by human ears. He sees unnoticed service to your church and offerings that kept you from putting more presents under the tree. No human eye will ever see some of those things. If they did, it wouldn’t be noteworthy. But Jesus takes notice of every sacrifice.

Jesus hears you. He hears your cries and notices your pain. He knows what you’re experiencing even before you know how to articulate it yourself. He knows because “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). He knows because he too suffered in a human body that didn’t always cooperate. He’s attuned to you even when no other person has a clue.

What’s better than feeling heard and feeling seen? How about being heard and being seen completely and perfectly by your Lord and Savior? How about having the attention of the only One who can complete your sentences and express your feelings better than you can?

Don’t settle for feeling heard and feeling seen. In Christ, you have perfect validation.

Indeed, whatever the merits of discouraging humans from ranking sins, Jesus treats hypocrisy with heightened moral indignation. The scribes who dress to impress and love public greetings and seats of honor but devour widow’s houses will receive “the greater condemnation” (Luke 21:47). The Pharisee offended that Jesus did not wash his hands before eating inspires an entire discourse pronouncing “woe” on those who seek outward righteousness while neglecting “justice and the love of God” (Luke 11:42).

Why does hypocrisy draw such fury? It’s hard to imagine a sin that so clearly violates both tables of the law—the-love-the-LORD-your-God half and the-love-your-neighbor-as-yourself half. To hide inward corruption behind a façade of false righteousness lies to your neighbor in the name of serving God. In fact, hypocrisy seeks to use God to dupe neighbor in pursuit of personal gain. It’s undistilled atheism, living completely before the eyes of men to prop up the illusion that God won’t see what’s really happening.

Jesus surrounds himself with sinners—tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, lovers of money, murderers, and liars. He never excuses these sins and calls all to repent. But hypocrites get the full brunt of his anger. At them, our Lord lashes out.

It’s important to recognize two things about hypocrisy. First, every human being has a little hypocrisy in them. We all live with inconsistencies between the outward person—the one everyone sees—and the inner person—the one visible only to God. Eugene Peterson used to write about the journey toward congruence—the lifelong endeavor to match inner life to outward behavior. When people say, “the church is full of hypocrites,” there’s always an element of truth to it. It’s best to analyze hypocrisy on a scale between two poles. On one extreme, you’ll find repentant hypocrites who are striving in Christ toward congruence. On the other side, you’ll discover brazen hypocrites using pretense to devour others, probably so hardened they don’t even notice the inconsistency anymore.

Second, hypocrisy preys on religious people most. To be effective, temptation must feed on existing desires. Who has the most interest in appearing righteous? Who has the most to gain from moral performance? Church people do. The unrepentant sinner gives up such illusions as soon as he realizes no one is fooled anymore. The person in the church, however, has much to gain from it—respect from peers, positions, power. Plus, the people of God, themselves saved by grace, usually give a lot of rope. Hypocrisy is not exclusively a church sin, but it thrives there.

This brief exploration leads to one obvious question: If hypocrisy is so prevalent and yet also so dangerous, how do we defeat it? How practically do Christians ensure that hypocrisy does not take root in their lives? Here’s a few practical tips.

First, make sure you’re focused on the root before you mind the fruit. Jesus makes this connection in Luke 6:43-45. The quality of the fruit is determined by the quality of the tree. Hypocrites try to make bad fruit look good. They don’t pay attention to the tree, to their inner lives. Jesus’s teaching here calls to mind Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant wherein God promises to change the hearts of his people. To focus on the root instead of the fruit means that the starting point for a life of congruence is the new covenant in Christ. In repenting and believing the gospel, we receive new hearts imprinted with God’s law. Before we can manifest truly righteous deeds, we must first become, by grace alone, lovers of God and neighbor with right motives.

Second, put more emphasis on the inner person than the outward person. In 1 Peter 3:3-4, the apostle warns against overemphasizing outward beauty to the neglect of the heart. Paul makes a similar point about bodily training in 1 Timothy 4:7b-8. Do you spend more energy cultivating your physical appearance than pursuing godliness? Answering this question will help you determine whether you live before the eyes of God or man.

Third, don’t major on minors. Hypocrites look for easy ways to distinguish themselves from others. In our culture, it’s tempting to take great pride in health fads and diets, parenting philosophies, and political opinions. We’re often loud about these minor issues and silent about the important ones because the minor ones are easy and the important ones cost us something.

Fourth, beware social media. Social media is a factory of hypocrisy. It entices us to present the best version of ourselves—often a dishonest version. Social media allows us to see ourselves through the eyes of the admirers of our curated selves. Guard yourself.

Fifth, let your true friends see the real you. Be honest. Dig into real relationships in your local church where you confess your sins and open yourself to real feedback.

Sixth, strive for consistency between public and private. Are you the same person in every setting? Do you notice disparity between your life in private and who you try to be before others? If you need help here, ask your spouse.

Finally, pursue daily communion with Christ. Pray and read his word. Worship him daily. Tell him how much he means to you and ask him to direct your steps. No one sees you in the prayer closet except him, but it’s here where the real heart work begins.

It’s also where I first experienced the pain of entry denial. One year, I tried to follow my big sister and cousins onto a ride, but I didn’t meet the height requirement. The plywood clown’s hand rested an inch or two above my head. In my MaMa’s words, I pitched a fit. Exclusion never feels good. When we want to enter, we don’t like being told no.

In Luke 18, we encounter back-to-back stories about entry and exclusion, but the destination isn’t a fair ride; it’s the kingdom of God. If you hang around Jesus long enough, eventually you’re going to want to know how to enter his kingdom. In this passage, he clearly defines the requirements.

First, in Luke 18:15-17, his disciples rebuke people for bringing their babies to Jesus to bless. Jesus responds with his own gentle rebuke: let them come, for “to such belongs the kingdom of God.” In fact, Jesus continues, if you don’t receive the kingdom like a child, you can’t enter either.

What is it about children that Jesus wants us to have? I’ve often heard this passage taught as if Jesus wants us to imitate the humility and trust of children. In this interpretation, children are presented as inherently virtuous, and we need to cultivate the same kind of virtue. However, in context, I don’t think that’s the right conclusion. The passage under consideration comes right after Jesus’s parable about the self-righteous Pharisee and the tax collector who prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” In that parable, the empty-handed tax collector went home justified.

Jesus doesn’t commend children for their virtue. Instead, he points to their deficits. Children were not valued in that culture. They had nothing to offer. Children are small, weak, and lacking in knowledge and power. They don’t have resumes yet, and I think that’s the point. The kingdom belongs to empty-handed people, to those who admit they have nothing to offer. To receive the kingdom like a child is to admit that your only hope is God’s mercy to sinful people.

Then, to drive this point home, Luke tells us an exclusion story. The rich ruler is quite the contrast to children. He’s highly successful and has amassed considerable wealth. Nevertheless, he asks Jesus how to inherit “eternal life,” which is synonymous with “kingdom of God” in this conversation. Something about Jesus and his message appeals to this man, and he wants in.

Surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t reply with a gospel invitation. Instead, he points to the second half of the Ten Commandments. It’s important here to note that Jesus isn’t suggesting that this man can enter the kingdom on his own merit. Jesus is initiating a conversation to inspire this ruler to pull out his resume. He exposes his heart, and it works. The ruler responds, “All these I have kept from my youth.” Now Jesus has him right where he wants him.

In v. 22, Jesus tells him that he’s still lacking one thing. If he really wants in, he needs to sell everything he has and give the proceeds to the poor. The point of the law, as Jesus teaches elsewhere, is neighbor love. The commandments that the ruler obeys are supposed to be expressions of love. Here, Jesus is saying, “If you want to play the resume game, here’s what the law really requires.” Outward righteousness is no substitute for heartfelt neighbor love. When God calls people to righteousness, he demands the real thing.

Tragically, the rich ruler walks away with sadness. To whatever extent he desired the kingdom, it wasn’t enough to give up his possessions. He valued his stuff more than Jesus. And because he couldn’t come empty-handed, as a child, he couldn’t come in. Unlike the ride at the fair, the kingdom is for children. Where does that leave you?

Where does your mind go when you read the above assertion? It’s Christmas time. Do you think about the so-called “war on Christmas” and get angry about Starbucks renaming their classic “Christmas Blend” to the boring “Holiday” alternative? Or perhaps you imagine fighting for the right side in a great cultural conflict that neatly divides along the partisan line separating Republicans from Democrats?

I recently received a letter in the mail that began like this: “Our country and state are in a war to maintain conservative and Christian values.” We’re so used to hearing such rhetoric that few who prize conservative and Christian values dare to question it. We don’t have time to debate worldviews when we’ve got an urgent culture war to win!

I’m a person who prizes conservative and Christian values. If you gave me a conservative values test, I predict I would ace it. As a Christian, I value marriage the way God designed it. I believe God created us male and female. Because each human being is created uniquely in the image of God, I abhor abortion and euthanasia. I value family and church and want my children to grow up in a culture that also champions these irreplaceable institutions. When I vote, I exclusively support candidates who live out these values in their personal lives and commit to them through sound policy agendas.

With that said, I reject the framework that Christians are at war to maintain conservative and Christian values. In fact, adopting this worldview may cause us to lose the real war God calls us to fight.

The Bible certainly calls Christians to war. However, the battle lines never place Christians on one side against secular enemies in the culture. Our primary war is against our own passions (1 Pet 2:11). After that, we put on God’s spiritual armor to fight against “the schemes of the devil” (Eph 5:11). James tells us that the “world” is our enemy and that we should resist friendship with it, but here too the target of our attack is the “passions at war within you” (Jam 4:1-4). Paul even explicitly denies that our war is against “flesh and blood” (Eph 5:12) and forbids “waging war according to the flesh” (2 Cor 10:4).

Does this mean that Christians should withdraw from politics and be unconcerned with cultural values? Absolutely not. We “seek the welfare of the city” where we are exiled (Jer 29:7). Jesus’s call to neighbor love certainly includes working toward a just society wherein human beings can flourish according to God’s good design. Faithful Christians must enter the public square to bear witness to Christ and his ways. We advocate for truth, goodness, and beauty for the benefit of all. Practically, we should vote our values and seek policies that align with God’s character and design.

However, as we advocate for truth and righteousness, we must remember that our real war is never against flesh and blood. Our enemies are not the people who vote differently and contradict our values. If those people do become our enemies—if they actively resist and persecute us—then we must love them: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:43-45).

It’s exciting to imagine life as war. It gives us purpose and a mission. When life is war, we wake up each day trying to gain new ground for our cause. We forge camaraderie with our fellow soldiers who join us on the battlefield. We fill our days studying strategies to outflank our enemies. We sacrifice our lives to the cause.

But what if you’ve been fighting the wrong war? What if the Culture War is a diversion tactic from your true enemy and you’ve allowed him to outflank you? What if you’re feeding the “passions at war within you” rather than defeating them by stirring up hatred for other people? What if you’ve made the world your friend in the name of making the right side win? What if you’re so locked into the “war to maintain conservative and Christian values” in our country that you’ve already lost the war against your own passions? What if the intensity of your hatred for the other has overcome your desire to see them redeemed in Christ?

Don’t fight the wrong war.

If the thought of Christmas brings “war” to mind, then it’s probably the culture war. Sadly for many, the “War on Christmas” means responding grumpily when the cashier says, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” We’ve got important battles to win.

But Christmas has everything to do with real war, like the violent and bloody one being fought between Russia and Ukraine right now. War occurs because human beings are enslaved to our passions. It is the expression of unfulfilled human desire. We want something and other people stand in our way, so we eliminate them (Jam 4:1-2). We kill in the name of getting what we want—whether land, money, power, or glory. We would rather shed innocent blood than withhold something we want from ourselves. While it is impossible to know for sure, some estimate that as many as one billion people have been killed in war in human history. Human desire is a powerful killer.

No generation has ever experienced life without war. Sure, some eras are relatively peaceful for some people in some nations. However, wars and threats of war are a constant feature of the human experience. Calls for “world peace” manifest utopian illusions. To be human is to know war.

Reflecting on the ubiquity of war in human history helps us respond appropriately to Isaiah’s radical vision in Isaiah 2:1-4. The word God gives the prophet ought to astound us. He tells Judah that one day God’s temple will be lifted higher than any mountain on earth and that all nations will flow to it. Remarkably, the peoples who come do not come by force of bayonet or under threat of assault. They come willingly to learn God’s ways. In this glorious future, weapons of war are no longer even needed. In fact, they’ve been repurposed as farming tools because “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

How do you get a race that has only ever known war—one that God wiped out once before because it “was corrupt in God’s sight” and “filled with violence” (Gen 6:11)—to finally stop fighting and live peaceably with one another? How do you finally succeed in the impossible ideal of world peace? How do you finally stop the nations and politicians from tearing each other to shreds? The answer, in one word, is Christmas.

How can the baby lying in a manger end all wars? If we skip ahead, we will learn that the baby born of Mary is the eternal Son of God and that he will one day grow up to judge God’s enemies, bringing destruction upon their heads. That ought to do the trick. Jesus will use violence to condemn violence. He will thrash God’s enemies without mercy. Judgment is coming, and Jesus will be the Judge. We might not like that part of the story, but it’s coming.

But let’s not skip ahead too quickly. Again, the nations at peace in Isaiah’s prophecy are coming, not to face the wrath of God, but to learn God’s ways in submission. They want to be a part of his new kingdom. No one forces them to do it, which means there’s a way to enter Jesus’ peace without experiencing his just wrath. There’s a way to know the end of all wars without having to endure the just war of Jesus.

Before the conquering King judges sinners, he endures their violence. Before he pours out his wrath on them, he submits to the war sparked by their sin. Why does Jesus do this? Why does he suffer? Why does he submit to shame, humiliation, and ultimately, death on the cross? He does it because he loves the people he made. He does it to fulfill a divine promise to Abraham that one day his offspring would bless all the nations of the world. He came to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20).

Christmas has everything to do with war. Jesus came to endure war to save his enemies. His enemies who refuse him will endure their own war. But, in the end, his war will end all wars. A day is coming when humans will no longer need to learn war to live. That day starts now if you’re willing to submit to him.

We read such scenes with longing curiosity. How amazing to have been there to witness such a clear inbreaking of divine power into the mundanity of our world! And Pentecost is only one such scene. Think of all the instances in the Bible when the Holy Spirit showcases his power—miracles, signs and wonders, resurrection! Most of us would trade an arm to witness such scenes.

If we’re honest, we’ve probably walked away from studying such accounts and wondered why our church services contrast so severely. Lacking the fire and the spontaneity, is the Holy Spirit absent when we gather? On multiple occasions I’ve heard people critique churches for not emphasizing the Holy Spirit enough. We long to witness the power of God’s Spirit, and since we see such powerful scenes in the Bible, we assume we ought to experience the same today. In fact, some even conclude their church is doing something wrong if it doesn’t curate such experiences.

To be clear, it is possible for a church to grow so mechanical that its people stop expecting the living God to show up. When a spirit of legalism sets in, for example, the Christian life easily gets reduced to behaviorism. Mechanistic and legalistic people do not look for the Spirit to show up. They don’t ask him to move. They’re content with the status quo.

However, most often, these sentiments are motivated by false expectations. When people critique churches for not emphasizing the Holy Spirit enough, often their criticisms prove that their theology of the Holy Spirit is too small instead of too big. They’ve convinced themselves that they are the ones eager to celebrate the inbreaking of God’s Spirit, but they miss the evidence of God’s Spirit all around them. Consider two points.

First, scenes like Pentecost are unique and unrepeatable. Often God accompanies key moments in redemptive history with powerful signs to validate his actions. When Moses leads God’s people out of slavery in Egypt, he does so with miraculous signs. However, expecting the ocean to part for you next time you vacation at the beach could be disastrous.

When Jesus comes preaching that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, he attests to his words with signs demonstrating the power of his message. Jesus heals sicknesses and diseases and casts out demons. While Jesus certainly can miraculously heal your broken fibula, you probably need to get the surgery. Don’t miss the point of those signs. He healed then to signify a change in redemptive history—his kingdom was at hand. If he doesn’t heal you today, it’s ok. The big healing has yet to come, and none of his people will miss it.

Similarly, Pentecost marks the point in history when God’s Spirit came to permanently indwell God’s new covenant people. We should not expect to experience Pentecost every Sunday morning at church.

I’m certainly not saying that God can’t do signs and wonders today; he can do whatever he pleases. However, I think it’s important to realize that signs and wonders didn’t even happen every day during Bible times. In fact, these scenes were effective precisely because they were abnormal. In most of biblically recorded history, God’s people were seeking to live faithfully during seemingly mundane times. Most people throughout history lived and died without ever witnessing anything we today would label “miraculous,” and yet every single one of those people had direct access to the work of God’s Spirit.

And that leads to my second point: God’s Spirit is active if you have eyes to see. Twice in John’s gospel, Jesus explicitly details what we should expect the Holy Spirit to do when he comes (14:16-26; 16:7-15). Surprisingly, neither passage points to signs and wonders. Here’s the clearest statement Jesus makes: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (16:13-14).

When do we encounter the Holy Spirit? Every time we believe and obey the truth. How can we tell if the Spirit is present in a worship service? If Christ is proclaimed, believed on, obeyed, and glorified, then the Spirit is present. Want to know where the Spirit is? Find Christ. If the absence of signs and wonders makes you discontent, you may be the one missing the Holy Spirit.

To grasp what I’m getting at, go back to your childhood. Did you ever ask for that one gift you just had to have only to later face the disappointment of discovering that your anticipated prize was not located in any of the boxes you unwrapped on Christmas morning? Your ability to delight in the gifts you did receive was severely hindered by the disappointment of not receiving the one you did not receive.

So often in life, expectation is the enemy to joy. I can’t delight in my wife as she is if I’m expecting her to be something else. I won’t find contentment in an evening at home with my family if I looked forward all day to my dream of what a perfect evening should look like. Expectations too often mandate that the people around us play their part in our own personalized screenplay where our happiness is everyone else’s greatest concern. Life doesn’t work that way.

I believe this is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was describing when he wrote the following about why so many struggle to find true fellowship in the church: If “we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

The problem, according to Bonhoeffer, isn’t the church, but instead the person expecting the church to fulfill some dreamed up ideal about what church life is supposed to look like. Not only does the unfulfilled dream rob the individual of enjoying the real thing, but it also hinders true fellowship—the kind authored by God’s Spirit—from growing in the community. As long as we’re comparing every clumsy real-life interaction with actual imperfect people against the bright standard of our imagined stock photo dream, we miss out on the riches God intends for us.

The expectation trap has a long history. When the eternal Son of God took on flesh and dwelt among us, he was not embraced by the masses. It’s not that the Jewish people weren’t expecting him; they certainly were. The issue was that the Messiah of their dreams was not the same as the Messiah who showed up in a stable in Bethlehem. They could not see the glory of the poor man from Nazareth who conquered the world through service and sacrifice because they had their sights set on a powerful king who would vanquish the world by force.

In this tragedy of oversight, we see the pattern again. Their expectations caused them to miss out on something greater.

The Advent season—where we train our hearts to wait for Christ’s return—inspires us to look back to Jesus’s first appearance and the people who didn’t miss the glory of what was happening. Consider Mary.

Have you ever thought about Mary’s dreams? I’m sure she had them. By our best calculations, she was a young teenager when the angel told her she would conceive a son as a virgin, and what teenager doesn’t have dreams about the future? She had her whole life in front of her. She must’ve daydreamed about her future with Joseph and what their life together would look like. She had expectations.

And then one day, an angel showed up and shattered everything. Her life was not going to continue as planned. Instead, she was going to have to endure the public shame of an unplanned pregnancy. She would need to give her body—her very life—to God’s cause. She had no idea how it would all work out. She only knew that God had chosen her to bear the one who would be called “the Son of the Most High” who would be given “the throne of his father David” and a kingdom that would have no end (Luke 1:32-33).

How did she respond? How would you respond? I’m struck by Mary’s willingness to so quickly let go of her own dreams and expectations: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Mary’s trust in God’s word freed her to cast aside whatever future she formerly imagined in exchange for the better future God was unfolding through Christ in real time. She refused to let her expectations ruin her enjoyment of God’s better future. God is always doing something better. Don’t let your expectations cause you to miss it.

With that said, some “in between” times are unavoidable. Israel wondered in the wilderness for forty years waiting to enter the Promised Land. Of course, they would have entered much sooner had they trusted the voice of God. Between the Exodus redemption and the fulfillment of Promised Land entry, those forty “in between” years proved to be a season of great testing for God’s people. David endured a similar trial as he hid in the wilderness from Saul, awaiting the fulfillment of God’s promise to make him king.

The Christian life is another unavoidable “in between” time. Christians can legitimately speak of salvation in the past tense—“by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:5)—but we are also awaiting salvation—“much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom 5:9). Much like Israel and David, we live in the “in between.” We are saved now by faith in Christ and have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. But the Spirit indwells us as a guarantee (Eph 1:14) of the fulfillment of all God’s promises in the future. We live between the “already” and the “not yet.”

When we forget that we live “in between,” we can easily make one of two mistakes. First, we can forget the “already,” causing us to give up on this world and passively wait for the glorious day when I’ll fly away. Some Christians conclude that there’s nothing for us here and now. They choose to bide their years in the piety of exclusion, cloistered away from the concerns of this fallen world. They forget that the Spirit they possess equips them for bold witness.

However, there’s a second mistake, perhaps more common. It’s tempting to forget the “not yet.” These Christians, discipled by the pristine scenes of Christian Instagram influencers, expect a smooth road. They want their house clean, their kids behaved, and their church providing all the experiences and services without the sin and mess. When life gets messy, they struggle. They forget that the Spirit is given to them to help them survive life “in between.”

Interestingly, this second mistake represents the one Jesus’s followers were most prone to make. As Jesus proclaimed the presence of the kingdom of God, they expected their mess to get cleaned up, personally and politically. God’s kingdom could only mean two things—immediate judgment of their enemies and immediate salvation for their friends and family. They had no expectation of a life “in between.” Obviously, they were confused. The Pharisees even asked him when it would come, prompting him to respond that the kingdom of God was already present “in the midst of you” (Luke 17:20-21). They couldn’t see that the kingdom was staring them right in the face.

How do we survive life “in between”? Most obviously, it requires faith. Faith grants us the eyes to see Jesus amid the mess. Faith reaches out to grasp ahold of the King and his promises when the storm rages. It enables us to interpret the “seen” according to the “unseen” instead of the other way around. Faith drives us to the church each Lord’s Day to worship through word and sacrament with the people of God even as the nations rage outside the door. By faith, we celebrate the triumph of the gospel and the unshakable promises of God despite the headlines.

Faith drives us to seek shelter with God’s people. But when we get there, we better come with “not yet” expectations. In Luke 17:1-4, Jesus teaches his disciples to expect sin, warns against being the agent of temptation to sin, and requires that we rebuke and forgive sinners. In other words, church life in the “not yet” must reckon with the fact that Spirit-filled people are going to disappoint and even infuriate us. However, the love and forgiveness we’ve received from Christ demands that we love and forgive one another. Without that expectation, you won’t survive life “in between.”

I could not stop thinking about the second situation. In fact, my fixation on the negative news overwhelmed my thoughts and emotions so much that I struggled to even celebrate the good news.

It seems even more ridiculous when I type it out. I fixated so much on a petty complaint that I failed to celebrate an occurrence of the greatest of divine miracles—the spiritual regeneration of a person formerly dead in their trespasses and sins. I let bad news obscure my sight of the best news happening right in front of my eyes. I fixated so much on “the cares of this world” that I lost sight of God’s kingdom advancing.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t my only experience with this dynamic. In fact, I daily struggle with fixation on the negative. Perhaps you can relate. Psychologists call it “negativity bias,” and it seems to be a universal human phenomenon. Negative information has a greater impact on our thoughts and emotions than positive. If you give a person three bits of good news and one bit of bad news, he or she will likely zoom in on the bad news so much that the good news has little impact. Bad news sticks like Velcro.

It’s why news media companies specialize on negative headlines and stories. At any given moment, good things are transpiring all around us. However, human beings aren’t interested in positive stories. We crave negativity. We crave a diet of news about scandals, wars, controversies, and crimes. Fox News and CNN profit by supplying our fix.

Psychologists recommend several strategies for overcoming negativity bias, everything from unplugging from the news to keeping a gratitude journal. One author recommends reframing Jesus’s Golden Rule to make it more appealing to our negative brains: “Do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you.” While I appreciate the effort, Jesus commends positive action in the Golden Rule, not the neglect of negative action. He’s not merely teaching his people to abstain from hating; he’s teaching us to love.

The Christian antidote to negativity bias is faith, and the Bible is filled with practical instruction on how it works. Consider Psalm 73 where Asaph models a stream of negative thinking that anyone can relate to. He admits to experiencing envy when he sees the wicked prosper. He meditates deeply on the godless folly of their lives yet marvels that their actions lead to no visible negative consequence. Instead, they live on in effortless wealth and comfort. Asaph is voicing his negativity bias.

It’s tempting to stay here, wallowing in such thoughts. We may even find ourselves pointing it out to our friends: “Can you believe how they live? They just keep getting richer!” We derive cheap comfort when others validate such emotions—“Yes, it’s ridiculous!”

Asaph, however, finds the ultimate solution. He goes to the “sanctuary of God” where he discerns their end (v. 17). There, in the presence of the LORD, he begins to see reality in full color. He sees, in other words, that there’s much more going on than what his physical eyes can see. By faith, he looks upward and sees that the wicked won’t always prosper and that he is more blessed than he previously realized: “Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory” (v. 23-24).

Eugene Peterson (1932–2018) wrote often about the “praying imagination.” For Peterson, the Christian imagination wasn’t “made-up reality” but “the capacity to make connections between the visible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, between present and past, between present and future.” By faith, the Christian embodies two worlds at once, the world of God’s kingdom and the world of this age. Peterson wrote, “For Christians, whose largest investment is in the invisible, the imagination is indispensable, for it is only by means of the imagination that we can see reality whole, in context.”

The problem with the world, according to Peterson, is that “the modern majority naively assumes that what they see and hear and touch is basic reality…and think that the visible accounts for the invisible.” The gospel, however, invites believers into the invisible but real world of God’s kingdom. We don’t discount the visible, but we flip the order. For us, the invisible takes priority in helping us understand and interpret the visible. God’s word colors the world, absorbing the negative into the positive story of God’s kingdom triumphing in Christ.

We often think of faith as something we possess that lies dormant within us. However, we are called to exercise faith, to use it daily to help us interpret the world. To strengthen it, we need to go to the sanctuary of God like Asaph. We need to open God’s word and ask him to show us the whole story. We need to cultivate our praying imagination. Don’t let negativity bias prevent you from celebrating what God is doing.

It never seemed like a strange synonym for babysitting until I moved out of the Deep South. It sometimes takes years of removal and puzzled looks from neighbors to realize that not everyone talks the same way. I remember participating in a language debate in my first Kentucky summer after someone asked me to “chuck” him the football. “You mean ‘chunk’?” I replied. Soon the whole party of young men joined forces to inform me I was the strange talker. “Chuck” is my dad’s name. “Chunk” is what you do with a ball. I’ll forever take my stand. I don’t need Kentuckians telling this Alabama boy what to do with a football.

To “keep,” used in this way, means to “cause to continue in a specified condition, position, or course.” That’s what my parents were asking people to do when they requested that their children be “kept.” They wanted caretakers to keep us alive while they worked or took a trip out of town. They expected to return and find us in the same condition we were in when they left us. You “keep” a child like you “keep” a garden. Make sure he gets watered and fed and protect him from any danger.

Sometimes when I’m praying, I get pleasantly overwhelmed with a sense of God having “kept” me. I can look back on episodes from my life and see that God’s mercy is the only reason I’m still here. I recall times, for example, when I wanted something so badly that I thought I would die if I didn’t get it—times when I daily cried out to God to grant me my desires. In hindsight, I see that many of God’s refusals, though painful at the time, are today evidences of his grace. I probably would have ruined my life many times had he given me what I wanted.

I can recall times when my faith was weak, and I went through the motions with no passion and no affection. During those dry seasons, I’m sure I was susceptible to soul-destroying temptation. Yet God protected me from danger. He did not allow me to face peril that I couldn’t withstand. He preserved my soul even when my soul had no strength of its own. He “kept” me.

I’ve been a Christian nearly a quarter century now. If I had to come up with one word that best describes how I’ve made it thus far, I’m not sure I could improve on “kept.” He’s kept my marriage (so far). He’s kept me from ruining my children (so far). He’s kept me faithful in life and in ministry (so far). I can take no credit. Even when I think about times when I successfully resisted temptation, I know that he put his Spirit in me causing me to desire Christ, he measured out the degree of the test so that I could withstand, and he regenerated my heart so that righteousness appealed to me more than sin. He’s a God who keeps his own. He preserves his children until the end.

God instructed Aaron the priest to continually remind Israel of this truth with these words: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num 6:24-26).

The psalmist wondered from where his help comes before concluding, “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper” (Ps 121:2-5).

The Lord Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). He keeps his own. No one can take his sheep from his hand.

Paul provides the theological categories for God’s keeping grace: “For those who he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:29-30). From eternity past to eternity future, his chosen people are kept secure in his mighty hands until the destination is reached—eternal glory.

Child of God, are you aware of God’s keeping grace? Have you thanked God for having “kept” you thus far? It’s a glorious truth. Make sure you know about it.

In contrast, consider how American Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson convinced Ann Haseltine to marry him in 1812. The following is an excerpt from the proposal letter he sent to her father.

“I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”

Most astonishing of all, Ann’s father left the decision up to her, and Ann said yes! She would die at the age of thirty-six in Burma shortly after exhausting herself in caring for her husband during a seventeen-month prison term. She counted the cost and paid it.

But imagine with me that Adoniram had gone the typical route and wooed Ann with flowers and promises of marital bliss. Would that approach have led to a contented marriage? Would it have been honest? Would you blame any woman if she turned her back on such a cruel bait-and-switch trick?

Have you ever noticed that Jesus sometimes seems to try to talk people out of following him? Consider this passage from Luke 14:25-26: “Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.’”

What are you doing, Jesus? Great crowds are following you! They want to be your disciples! Why don’t you tell them you love them and have a wonderful plan for their lives? Why would you tell them they have to hate their families and their own lives? Why would you tell them to take up their crosses (v. 27)? Why would you tell them they have to renounce all their possessions (v. 33)? It doesn’t seem like a very effective strategy for starting a worldwide movement.

And yet, Jesus persists. He doesn’t want followers who haven’t counted the cost (v. 28). He refuses to make false promises. He does love us, and he does have a wonderful plan for our lives, but that plan may include intense suffering, martyrdom, a difficult marriage, or providing lifelong care for a child with special needs. It may mean you are called to forgive your husband’s murderer like Erika Kirk did. It may mean a life of poverty.

However it plays out in the unique circumstances of your life, the universal call applies equally to all. You must have no allegiance higher than your allegiance to Jesus, you must willingly sacrifice yourself in love for God and others, and you must joyfully acknowledge God’s ownership of all your possessions. Otherwise, as Jesus repeats three times, you cannot be his disciple (v. 26, 27, 33). Count the cost. Don’t try to join his movement until you do.

Two things can be true at once. The gospel is absolutely free, and yet the gospel costs us everything. It’s free because we can’t earn God’s grace. None of us deserve it. We only have hope of salvation through what Jesus did for us in his life, death, and resurrection. We live because he died and was raised.

But it costs us everything because in accepting his gift, we give ourselves to him. When we name Jesus as Lord, we forfeit the right to call our own shots, to determine our own destinies, to pursue our own dreams. We must count the cost because Jesus already did. We must count the cost because we won’t make it to the end unless we do.

As I’ve reflected more on the debate over LifeWise Academy’s desire to start a weekly parent-approved, “released time” Bible instruction program in my community’s public school system, I’ve concluded that LifeWise’s opponents are doing something similar. They are effectually sawing off the branch upon which they sit. Let me explain.

In his book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, historian Tom Holland shows that even as modern Western society secularizes, it’s values and instincts remain undeniably Christian. America today, even with declining church attendance and an increasing number of people claiming they aren’t religious, is saturated with Christian assumptions. If you live in America, you can’t escape Christianity’s influence. Whether you like it or not, the Bible has shaped the way you view the world.

As LifeWise’s opponents make their arguments against teaching the Bible to public school students, even their arguments against the Bible rely on Christian values that derive from the Bible—whether they realize it or not. They want Christian values devoid of the source. They want the benefits without the God, the generous giver. They’ve received a rich inheritance from the very Bible they disdain. They saw off the branch as they unknowingly rely on it to uphold the weight of their arguments.

To learn all the ways that Christianity has impacted modern culture and shaped our default assumptions about everything, read Holland’s book. I will focus on three areas here that are relevant to the debate over teaching the Bible in public schools: the value of children, the very idea of public education, and separation of church and state.

First, ancient societies did not value children before Christianity. Here’s Holland’s description: “Across the Roman world, wailing at the sides of roads or on rubbish tips, babies abandoned by their parents were a common sight. Others might be dropped down drains, there to perish by the hundreds. . . Girls in particular were liable to be winnowed ruthlessly. Those who were rescued from the wayside would invariably be raised as slaves. Brothels were full of women who, as infants, had been abandoned by their parents.” What happened to cause these monstrous attitudes to change? Holland tells us—“the emergence of a Christian people.”

It’s the Bible that teaches us that every human being possesses equal dignity and worth because every human being, regardless of disability, deformity, or disease, has been created uniquely in the image of God. It was the early church following the way of Christ who rescued unwanted orphans and taught the world that throwing out God’s image-bearers with the trash is an inexcusable abomination. We value children today and deem them worthy of the investment of education and protection because of 2000 years of Christian witness. We derive these ideas from the Bible.

Second, public education in America originated for the purpose of teaching children the Bible. Puritan Christians passed the Massachusetts School Law in 1647, mandating public education in towns with fifty or more households. These early Christians set up reading and grammar schools so that children would learn to read and interpret the Bible. We likely wouldn’t be having this debate today if not for the Bible.

Finally, as opponents of LifeWise Academy erroneously argue that allowing parent-approved Bible teaching violates the separation of church and state, they fail to recognize that the Bible itself introduced the notion that church and state must operate in separate spheres. I’ve already demonstrated that allowing the Bible to be taught in public schools in no way violates the First Amendment of our Constitution and such programs have already withstood Supreme Court challenges.

Before we can discuss separation of church and state, however, we must establish that the secularist interpretation wherein we build a impenetrable wall to prevent religion from having any influence on the affairs of the state is a historical myth. As you can see from this essay, the Christian religion has impacted every facet of the American constitutional order and culture and will continue to do so. The founders of our great nation never intended to bar religion’s influence from public life; rather, they passed the First Amendment to protect the right of every American citizen to follow his or her conscience in matters of faith.

Separation of church and state develops out of Christianity. Particularly, it derives from the biblical conviction that genuine religious faith cannot be coerced. I can assure you that ancient civilizations did not practice separation of religion and politics, and those not influenced by Christianity still do not. Historically, the state has controlled the worship of its citizens. Jesus changed that when he taught that his kingdom did not originate in this world before offering grace to all who freely repent and believe.

The state does not possess the authority to determine whether children learn from the Bible. Parents and the church, however, do rightly possess this authority from God. LifeWise Academy merely seeks to restore the order of authority according to God’s good design.