"...believe that He is..."

"...and the hand of the Lord shall be known towards His servants, and His indignation towards His enemies." Isaiah 66:14b

This small section of one verse has summed up the very purpose of Isaiah, of the whole Bible even. The word of God is not mere platitudes, miscellaneous history, and meaningless myth. It is the revelation of God. It appears that the divine did not want His people specifically and mankind in general to forget who He is. The God who is there is not silent; He intends to be known. "The Lord shall be known." He is not encased in an impenetrable black box, and neither are we. There is supposed to be communication, understanding, truth; not truth that is exhaustive (for if it was, then what's Heaven for?), but truth that is true, i.e., real. He has spoken to us in a verbalized, propositional form so that we may know Him and be known.
"And I shall set a sign among them...that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory. (vs. 19). God desires (if I may use the word) to be known. In regards to our own abilities, He is inaccessible. By His grace, however, He has made Himself accessible. He has given Christ, He has given His Spirit, He has given His word. "The Lord shall be known." Let us give praise to the God who is there and is not silent.

"Praise to the Lord:
You have spoken,
And we have heard..."
-Jon Vowell

The Only Remedy

"Ye are they that forsake the Lord...therefore I will number you for the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter, because when I called, you did not answer, [and] when I spoke, ye did not hear, but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.... Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind; but be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." Isaiah 65:11, 12, 17, 18

Desolation and glory are not mere abstract principle; they are a part of rugged reality. All the moral motions within men, whether they know God or not (Romans 2:14, 15), cry out in testimony against us. We know (beyond all contentless academic posturing) that there is a right and a wrong, and that those who do evil will be punished, and those who do good will receive reward. Desolation on the wicked (vs. 1-7, 11-16) and glory to the faithful (vs. 8-10, 13-16) are two immutable facts not only of Christian philosophy but also rugged reality, as real and as practical as the ground beneath our feet.
As I have said before many times, desolation is the only pathway to glory, not only in individual lives (as in justification and sanctification) but also in universal existence. In order for the creation to be restored to the glory it was created for, it will mean the desolation of all that is not-God; that is one of the great facts of the book of Revelation. Dies irae is not an arbitrary assignment; it is a necessary remedy, the only remedy. In order to bring out the finest gold, all the dross must be removed; and the deeper the dross is, the hotter the fires must be.
It is the heritage of humanity to know that true happiness and joy is only possible with the destruction and desolation of all evil things. Those who decry God's wrath against the wicked are neither enlightened nor wise; they are fools who deny core elements of the very reality that they claim to be a part of. If the wicked perish with wickedness, so much the worse for the wicked. We should indeed pity them, but we have lost all of our sense if we demand that God end all of our miseries and then turn right round and condemn Him for doing so.

"We are cured, wounded,
Made whole or destroyed,
And destined only
For fire or Fire..."
-Jon Vowell

The Pattern

"...behold, thou art wroth, for we have sinned...thou hast hid thy face from us." Isaiah 64:5b, 7b

The pattern is always the same: God's presence belongs to the righteous (vs. 1-5a), but Sin separates us from God (vs. 5b-7), and repentance is the only solution (vs. 8-12). Any gospel that does not follow that pattern is not the Gospel. Any gospel that does not assert the Fall and the Cross, man the great sinner and Christ the great Savior, wrath on Sin and grace towards sinners, "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," (I Corinthians 15:22) any gospel that does not make those distinctions is heresy and nothing else.

The pattern is true because it is biblical; it is proclaimed from the Old Testament to the New. If we would have God and all that He is, then we must truly be righteous. If we sin, we are no longer righteous, and God is departed from us. If we repent, and submit to the finished work of Christ, we shall have mercy, for we shall have God, Who is "ever merciful all the day" (Psalm 37:26). Check your gospel against the holy pattern set down in Scripture; and wherever there is an inconsistency, you can be sure that it is you who has erred.

"Your Love is,

Your Love is,

Your Love is

Unchanging.

May we never defile it..."

-Jon Vowell

God With Us

"I have trodden the wine press alone...I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments...for the day of vengeance is in my heart....

"Surely they are my people...so He was their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted...He bare them, and carried them all the days of old...We are thine...." Isaiah 63:3, 4a, 8, 9, 19a

I think many misunderstand God's actions because they do not understand His intimate involvement with creation and history. Though He is independent from those things, He is also enmeshed in it, involved with it, and this drives skeptics insane. The God they hope and image to deny is aloof and distant, and thus any dealings with us come off as cruel or irrational, or both. The fact that God involves Himself in human affairs, as if He had a stake in its outcome, is not grasped properly by skeptic and believer alike.

What if God's wrath and judgment truly are not arbitrary? What if they are vengeance, i.e., God Himself has been offended against, and thus will repay the offender? We see Sin as our problem and our business; what if it is God's business? What if it is truly what the Bible calls it: outright rebellion against a deserving superior, a slap in God's face, to spit in His face, something upon which He must be avenged? Skeptics claim that God is merely immoral in His judgments; the Bible is actually much harsher in its opinion of God's judgments: He is not immoral, but vengeful, dishing out retribution to those who have committed a personal transgress against Him. The problem with skeptics is not that they view God's wrath too seriously; actually, they treat it with much levity. The wrath of the God of the Bible is more intimate in His judgments, as though He actually cared about what we humans do in this life.

Likewise, what if God's favor truly is not arbitrary either? What if it is truly based on love, i.e., the sovereign preference of another over yourself? Do we grasp the fullness of His love, that intimate connection that arouses jealousy and devotion even in the Divine? What if we took the Bible seriously that God is love, that He desires fellowship with us, that He is filled with indignation towards those who harm His beloved just as any husband would feel towards a man who attacked his wife? As with wrath, it is the intimate aspect of all this that skeptics either miss or stumble over. They desire an aloof God (or no God) because the God of the Bible is too close for comfort. He is in the very air they breath, in the midst of their truest lovings and hatings; for when we love and hate correctly, we reveal the image of God stamped upon all of us.

"Your vengeance and Your love

Reveal a God Who is with us..."

-Jon Vowell

Who We Are

"Thou shalt no more be named 'Forsaken,' neither shall thy land any more be called 'Desolate'; but thou shalt be called 'My Delight,' and thy land 'Betrothed.' For the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.

"And they shall call [you], 'The holy people,' 'The redeemed of the Lord'; and thou shalt be called 'Sought out,' 'A city not forsaken.'" Isaiah 62:4, 12

Part of living sanely in an insane world is to have a proper perspective of yourself, and the children of God would do well to remember who they are and Whose they are. I dare say we see ourselves as slave and servant (and rightly so, for God is our Lord and Master), but do we see ourselves as lover and friend (which are equally right, for He is our Beloved and Father and Friend)? The main focus of Christian psychology is a proper perspective of the self: first as a lost sinner, and then as the redeemed children of God; formally the forsaken desolate, and now the delight and betrothed of God. We who were not a people, and had no name, are now called "Christian," little Christ, of Christ and therefore of God, belonging to God as His most valued and treasured possession, i.e., His Son. It is our new name, our new identity, and we should wear them gladly.

It's time that Christians started living by the proper names. Some have the service part down right, but they have no concept of God's delight, and thus their service is cold and wearying. Others have the delight part down well and good, but have lost the idea of service, and consequently are useless hedonists. The love of God revealed in Christ constrains us in every way: the thoughts that we think, the words that we speak, the things that we do, all needs to glorify the God Who calls us His children, His servants, His delight, and His beloved. Until we see and continually see who we are, we will never be what we should be.

"You call me as Your own,

To know You and be known..."

(Mercy Me)

-Jon Vowell

The Gospel

"[Lucifer is] the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the house of his prisoners." Isaiah 14:16b, 17

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath appointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, [...] to comfort them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.... I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God...." Isaiah 61:1, 3a, 10a

"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested: that He might destroy the works of the devil." I John 3:8b

To see Jesus as a social revolutionary is an injustice and a crime against the Gospel. To see Him as a mere statement of Divine sentimentality is a blasphemous hatred against the Gospel. To see Him as a cash cow, a cosmic ATM, is to rob the Gospel of all power and glory. To see Him as the liberator from cruel governments of men is to be as confused and disappointed at His coming as the Jews who eventually killed Him were. If you see and preach Christ as anything less or other than the propitiation for the Sin of the world, as the revelation of God's holy wrath and loving kindness, as the only mediator between God and man, as the Destroyer of all evil and corruption caused since the Fall, and as the Kinsman Redeemer of all men who have fallen, then you blaspheme and disgrace the work and name of our Lord, and we have no part in you, for what fellowship has light with darkness? Indeed, if you preach any gospel other than that which proclaims the forgiveness of sins and atonement of men back to God through the shed blood of Christ, then you are merely adding to the darkness that already blinds so many. Every breath you breathe that carries with it your false gospel sends unholy fog across the souls of men, furthering their natural obscurity, so that the true light is even harder to find. In the end, you will be one of the ones mentioned in Matthew 7:21-23; you will have your reward.

The lost and lonely people of this dying world do not need a social revolutionary. They do not need beautiful phrases of sentimentality. They do not need a cosmic ATM. They do not need a usurping liberator. They do not need a guru, an enlightened one, a homeboy, a co-pilot, or a moral mentor; they need a savior. They need the awesome and terrible truth that God is there, He is not silent, and He has come to us, "His arm [has] brought salvation...the Redeemer [has] come to Zion." (Isaiah 59:15, 20) This world needs good news that transcends and outlasts all cultures, kingdoms, fashions, and fads; news that is good no matter what social, cultural, political, or religious environment you live in. This world needs a saving truth that is the same for all at all times no matter what happens, and that truth has always been: God is, God loves, and God can be found.

"We have seen God's Glory:

Not beautiful words and phrases,

But Redemption based on the

Blood of Christ..."

-Jon Vowell

This Is Redemption: Glorification

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee, and the Gentiles shall come to thy light...because He hath glorified thee. [...] The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." Isaiah 60:1-3a, 9b, 19b

For proper Christian living, it is essential to have a proper understanding of God's children as they are now and as they will be. As to what they will be, Scripture clearly teaches that upon Christ's return, God's immediate presence will glorify His children with His glory (like a million mirrors reflecting the rising sun at dawn), and that glorification will be the redemption of all things (see Romans 8:18-23). When Christ returns, and the presence of God is revealed to all, the world and universe will become as it were a great star, with all Sin and corruption being burned away forever, and God's children will be the roaring coals of that holy fire.

As to what they are now, they are still "the light of the world," because the Light of the World (i.e., Christ) rest within them by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That same glory of God that heralds and causes the redemption of all things is with us now, because the glory of God is God, and He is with us by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Though His presence in us is not yet manifested in its perfection, it can still be seen by the actions it leads us to do, attitude that it produces in us, and the gospel that it preaches through us. Until the veil is lifted and we are made actual manifestations of God's glory, we are to be living pictures of that yet future state were (as T.S. Elliot put it) "all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

"Redemption is

The glory of the Lord

And the Glory of the Lord..."

-Jon Vowell

Biblical Christianity

"Your iniquities have separated you from your God...and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment; and He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation for Him, and His righteousness sustained Him...the Redeemer shall come to Zion..." Isaiah 59:2, 15, 16, 20

Much that passes for 'gospel' these days does not fit the biblical criteria, and it is a biblical criteria. Orthodox teaching on salvation is not a New Testament anomaly; it is a foundational theme of the whole of Scripture. Even in this ancient prophecy, which we today like to think says 'nothing about nothing,' even it contains the familiar formula. We are sinners (vs. 3-8), and our Sin has separated us from God (vs. 2). We cannot save ourselves and get back to God (vs. 9-16a), so God brought salvation to us (vs. 16b-20). That is not a New Testament thing; it is a Bible thing.

We must beware of those who claim disharmony in the Bible. We must be stiffly embattled against those whose 'gospel' comes under the guise of Christianity, yet carries none of the marks of Scripture upon it. Those who undermine or discount Scripture in any way are our enemies, no matter who they are or their intentions. Anything that tampers with man's true condition and man's only hope must not be tolerated. We must call anything that takes away from the firm, biblical teachings of man as a great sinner and Christ as a great Savior by its proper name, i.e., heresy. It is absolutely astounding how amiable we are towards things which will damn men's souls, and anything that undercuts Scripture by preaching another gospel (whether it be prosperity, social, love, or liberation) damns men's souls by leading them away from eternal life. Scripture alone is good news; all else is the smoke and mirrors of Hell.

"We gather together

And claim two things:

That Christ, the Mighty Maker died

For man the creature's sin..."

-Jon Vowell

True Worship

"If thou turn away...from doing thy pleasure on my holy day...and shalt honor me, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord..." Isaiah 58:13, 14

Israel thought that they were practitioners of true worship (vs. 1-3), but God revealed it as merely self-worship (vs. 4, 5). True worship is a complete loss (or "denial") of self for the sake of another (vs. 6, 7). Only in when worship means that you are blissfully unaware of yourself, only in that is God pleased (vs. 8-14). All worship (whether they be of joy or sorrow) that has as its centerpiece the self is idolatry, and an abomination to the Lord.

Much of the noise that passes for 'worship' these days is this idolatry, mere self-exaltation. Whether it be obnoxious self-display or obnoxious self-depreciation, it is all self, and is thus idolatrous. In the constant debate (some would say war) over worship these days, we have heard such dumb-founded polemics as: "It's what I like." "It's my worship; I'll do it my way." "I want music that speaks to me." "It's not my thing, but whatever floats your boat." Not one person who has ever argued thusly has ever stopped to consider that all of their reasoning ultimately comes back to a centering on the self: what I want. Worship is never about the worshipper; it is about the one who is worshipped. Worship is to take us out of ourselves, out of our petty problems, preferences, and contexts, and get our minds solely and squarely focused on God and God alone. Any 'worship' that does not do that is merely idolatry in disguise.

"That singer was so good!" "The performance was awesome!" "I felt truly inspired!" "The music was what really captured me!" What chance has God through all of that? Exactly who or whom are we worshipping when we talk thus? While it is true that personalities, temperaments, and tastes will indeed vary amongst individual worshippers, it is equally true that the foundation of worship is a denial of self for the sake of adoring God, and that does not change no matter what "floats your boat."

"True worship,

True religion,

True life,

Is not in me,

It's in You..."

-Jon Vowell

Restlessness vs. Stillness

"There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Isaiah 57:21

Those who trust in God find peace, both in life (vs. 13b-19) and in death (vs. 1, 2). Those who trust anything else, any man (vs. 7-9) or any other, lesser god (vs. 5, 6) will never find peace. Peace belongs to God and God alone; nothing else can give it, but oh how we try! We will do anything other than come as paupers to the throne of grace. We will fall into a million side eddys and ignore the true pathway of the sea. We will head into every tourist trap on the way rather than head for home. To be outside of God is to be ever restless (vs. 20): you go hither and thither, instability your only comfort, the 'next thing' your only hope.

The only movement found in a child of God is a movement deeper into stillness, into peace, into God Himself. The child of God is to be marked by (amongst other things) the irresistible stillness of their Father, a stillness that wreaks havoc on the soul of the restless, because it serves to accentuate that they are on the outside looking in. "Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10a) To know God is to know stillness; not just any stillness, but His stillness, and to not know Him is to know only the restless desire for stillness.

"Be still, oh restless soul of mine.

Bow before the Prince of Peace;

Let the noise and clamor cease..."

(Steven Curtis Chapman)

-Jon Vowell

"...house of prayer for all..."

"...my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Isaiah 56:7

The openness and availability of salvation is unlimited. Those who claim that the atonement was not meant for all speak falsely:

"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come,' and let all that hear say, 'Come,' and let him that thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Revelation 22:17)

"Everyone that thirsts, come ye to the waters, and he that has no money, come, buy, and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." (Isaiah 55:1)

It is true that the way of salvation is narrow, and few find it (Matthew 7:14), but it is in no way true that the gate doors are locked to all but the few. The way that leads to life is open to whosoever will come.

"Ye have made [my father's house] a den of thieves." (Matthew 21:13) Think of the true context that informed Christ's white hot fury. The temple was to be "a house of prayer" freely open to all, but the moneychangers had come and stamped a price of admission on the requirements. "Pay my price, and then Come." Really now: is Christ's reaction to this any surprise? Salvation is a free gift of grace to all, and those who would dare stamp a price on it or exclude any from it are thieves, and in league with the Thief that comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10).

"'For all people,' dear Lord.

More beautiful words

Have never been spoken..."

-Jon Vowell

The Great Return II: God as Redeemer

"For ye shall go out with joy, and be lead forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name of renown, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." Isaiah 55:12, 13

The redemptive power of the gospel will forever stand as testimony to the glorious character and nature of God. To those who embrace the gospel, to the creation that will feel its effects, God will be known as Redeemer. His wrath towards His people will become a fading memory, and Redemption will be our song (Isaiah 54:7, 8). The redemptive power of the gospel is ultimate and final proof that God is exactly Who the Scriptures reveal Him as: Holy and Love--He has removed the curse and blight of Sin, and has set us free from it.

"Instead of the thorn...instead of the brier," all will be as it was before the Fall, all will be restored and made new, and such a great returning shall be the theme of His children. Think on this. Mankind was created for a great romance (i.e., adventure) with God, and the music of our existence would have two eternal notes: God is our Creator, God is our Lover. Unfortunately, that romance was 'interrupted' (so to speak) by the Fall. Once all has been restored, we will continue forward, but we will have an added a note to the music of our existence: God is our Redeemer. Let all the children of lesser gods howl in fear and despair, for we who have tasted the sweet waters of redemption know against all of their ragings that there is a God who is Holy and Love, who punishes Sin and saves the sinner, and we have seen His glory.

"The Gospel stands

Like a star undaunted

Mid the blackest of the night.

It stand for this

Sure testimony

That there is such a thing

As Light..."

-Jon Vowell

Always Successful

"For as the rain and the snow cometh down from heaven, and returneth no thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isaiah 55:10, 11

The preaching of God's word is always a success story whether we see the results or not. The joy of preaching God's word is that its results are actual, though not obvious. No matter what our eyes tell us or circumstances inform to the contrary, the preaching of God's word is a successful enterprise every time. The only failure is to not preach; the only guaranteed lack of harvest is to not sow.

Preaching is the only true successful art because it is the only art that has the absolute power of God in it. It is His word, not ours, and His word enriches and enlivens all things. We err if we start with ourselves in preaching: "I must sound well, speak well, be clear, be simple." Rhetorical excellence is a virtue, but the success inherent in the word of God is contingent upon God and not us. If preaching succeeds, it is always in spite of the preacher.

"Your Word knows not

The limitations of man.

It knows only the

Power of God..."

-Jon Vowell

Grace in the Context of the Trinity

"Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God...[Let] the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord our God, and He will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:5-9

The mystery of grace sneaks up on us now and again. That the Holy Almighty pardons guilty sinners is a truth that is oft given mouth service in our minds, but if we ever seriously considered its implications we would fall on our faces as one dead. The glory of God's trinitarian nature of Holiness and Love is that He has made it to where He can separate the sinner from Sin and bind the former to Himself in whole communion and cast the latter into outer darkness. The mystery of grace is that it is the fullest expression of God's holiness and love. It is a matter of grace that not only are we saved, but also that Sin is destroyed, never to plague us again. That God's immutable character did not produce our utter destruction (either by annihilation or leaving us to our own vices and devices), but rather our utter salvation through the redemption wrought by God in Christ, such a fact should boggle our minds into thunderous worship, for grace is truly amazing.

"Mysterious grace, mysterious ways

The sweetest song that turns

Unworthy wretches into

Sons and daughters of God..."

-Jon Vowell

Man's Desiring

"Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance." Isaiah 55:2

The notion that God is trying to give us something other than Himself is a fallacious thought. There is no joy or peace outside of God, and yet much that passes for 'gospel' these days would have you believe otherwise. God is out to give you money, or free healthcare and education, or the cure for this or that, or social amiableness or revolution, or a Democratic/Republican president, or the end of poverty and the empowerment of the working class, or some other thing that seems logical, good, and beautiful but is ultimately nothing outside of God. Christ promised us that He was the way to the Father (John 14:6), and nowhere else. Any other destination is a false gospel to the core.

It is not great men, new concepts, or beautiful words and phrases that mankind needs or ultimately desires. We have had those since time began, and they have yet to satisfy. What man truly, ultimately desires is God, whether we know it or not. The deep burning for true peace and an absolute end to loneliness is found only in God, and the 'good news' is that Christ has come to take us back to Him, if we will.

"You alone are where our

Hopes and dreams collide with

Living Reality.

May we tire of chasing the winds..."

-Jon Vowell

Terror and Beauty in Salvation Freely Offered

"Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

The absolute 'freeness' of salvation can be the biggest single stumbling-block for most people. Every other religion in the world requires a human price-tag for salvation. Facets of 'Christianity' still hold to it (e.g. Roman Catholicism). True and traditional Christianity, however, understood only one requirement asked of men, and that is "Come," come and take what is being freely offered.

Man thought of salvation as some sort of unreachable gift, as though it was perched atop a mountain of thorns, and none could truly survive the quest to reach it. Christianity comes alone, however, and presents salvation like samplers at a dinner party, to which we have all be invited, and God is walking about with salvation on a silver platter asking each and every one, "Salvation, sir?" "Salvation, madam?" All the while, we stand about with the simple yet terrible choice: accept or reject; take salvation freely offered, or reject it and leave. Salvation's 'freeness' is equally beautiful and terrifying: as easily as we could accept it, we can just as easily reject it.

"Can it be true that

Salvation is paid in full

And there are no more

Hoops to jump through

Anymore...?"

-Jon Vowell

Humbly Victorious, Victoriously Humble

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, saith the Lord." Isaiah 54:17

A perpetual state of unconquerability is the heritage of God's people (c.f. Romans 8:37). This is not to say that our enemies will not have a a veneer of victory upon them and an aire of victory about them; they will seem to gain ground of some sorts. Nevertheless, all of their 'victories' are vain, and will be revealed as merely further strategy in our Lord's ultimate victory. Those who are of God belong to this ultimate victory, and thus they can and should live every moment victoriously, i.e., as victors. Despite what seems to happen or what lies the world, flesh, and the devil hurl our way, we can still live like victors "in the midst of strife" (as the symphony goes). That is our heritage.

"Their righteousness is from me, saith the Lord." Never think that this heritage has anything to do with you in terms of merit. Its availability to us is founded on the fact that God (through Christ) has made us worthy of it. This heritage does not belong to the self-righteous (for there really is no such thing) but to the made-righteous, to those in whom God has not imputed iniquity. Thus, while we should live victoriously, we should also live humbly, knowing that our participation in ultimate victory is based solely on the charity of another and not our own merit.

"We are victors because

We are bound to the Victor.

Victory is sure

Because it is bound to You..."

-Jon Vowell

Peace from Knowledge

"All thy children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." Isaiah 54:13

The true knowledge of peace comes from God, because it is the knowledge of Himself. Anyone can have knowledge, but they are never guaranteed contentment and calm; quite the opposite actually (Ecclesiastes 1:17, 18). The only knowledge that secures peace to a person is that knowledge that comes from God about God. Without Him, there is always some final piece missing, some last part that binds the whole thing together, some missing premise that brings us to the proper and desired conclusion. Without Him, we are, in effect, fumbling in the dark with we know not what.

Knowledge from God is the only knowledge of peace because it is the only knowledge that accounts for Him. All other thinking starts somewhere else: man, principles, ideals, 'gods,' etc. These things reveal themselves, however, as inadequate foundations, chiefly because they do not secure peace; they do not secure stability of mind and soul on the surety that everything is indeed okay. Only the knowledge that God gives provides peace. When He instructs us, then no matter what else we learn, we are secure from fear and despair: "Yes, I know this says such and such; but there is a God, and this is who He is and what He is doing." The knowledge God gives is the knowledge of peace because it is always a revelation of Himself, and He is the source of peace.

"Teach me, Father, by Your Hand

And no one else.

Draw me close to You

And make me as

Unshakable as You are..."

-Jon Vowell

Wrath in the Context of the Trinity

"For a small moment, I have forsaken thee; but with great mercies, I will gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting loving-kindness, I will have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." Isaiah 54:7, 8

Juxtaposed next to God's love is another immutable quality of His character: holiness. Holiness is defined as "moral perfection," perfection is defined as "completeness" or "wholeness." Within God's character, there is no deficiency, defect, or divide. In can be said that, because God is perfect, that His holiness is a perfect holiness, a whole moral wholeness, i.e., a moral wholeness that is constant. He is not morally whole sometimes and morally unwhole other times; He is in a constant state of moral wholeness. He is 'wholly holy,' so to speak. Likewise, if God is perfect, then His love is perfect as well, i.e., His communion is complete and whole; there is no shadow of severance within God's communal nature. Thus within the Trinity, we see two factors played out: perfect holiness and love, perfect wholeness and communion. It is the picture of absolutely immutable unity.

Whereas the Trinity carries with it the sense of absolute immutable unity, Sin carries with it the sense of absolute immutable separation, separation between God and man, man and man, man and creation, and man and himself. Sin divides; the Trinity unites. Those who are bound to Sin by Adam (and continue therein) are bound (and continue to bind themselves) to division, and the Trinity has no part in them; likewise, those who are bound to the Trinity by Christ are bound to unity, and Sin has no part in them. The Trinity is the fulfillment of communion, while Sin is communion's dissolvement. The two are oil and water: the one displaces the other. The wages of Sin, the natural consequence of being bound to Sin, is separation from God, and separation from God is death (and thus the further separations of man result). To be separated from God, from the Trinity, from absolute and perfect moral wholeness and personal communion, is to be separated from true life, and thus it is death.

The space-time realities of God's wrath upon the peoples of earth must be viewed within the context of God as absolute immutable unity and Sin as absolute immutable separation. When once you bind yourself to Sin, "the death sentence is at work in you," as Mr. Chambers would say. It is at work because what indeed is the natural consequence of turning from God, absolute unity, the source of life? The only other ground to run to is absolute separation, the source of death. When people Sin against God, when they cling to death and separation over life and unity, life and unity withdraws itself from us (for what fellowship has unity with separation?), and we are left to the consequences.

Thus, within the context of the Trinity, we see God is Love, and thus is Savior: He desires communion with us, because it is His nature to desire communion with others. We also see, however, that God is Holy, and thus is Judge: His very presence is the destruction of separation, because it is His nature to be whole and complete. Let no man say that God desires separation, that He desires the death of the wicked; He does not. His holiness demands separation Sin; His love demands communion with us.

"Holiness and Love

Burning forever

In Divine Dance.

Sweep us up into such Joy..."

-Jon Vowell

In Defense of Liturgy

This is probably the best defense of liturgical worship I have ever heard (so far). It almost persuades me to become a Presbyterian. Almost.

Commentary on "The Gospel in the Context of the Trinity"

From a discussion between fellow believers on Facebook:

Bro S asked: "Do you think God can commune with people who are 'positionally' righteous (i.e., righteous in Christ) but not personally righteous (i.e., righteous in their own actions)?"

JLV responds: Being positionally righteous is what gives you the power and motive force (i.e., the indwelling Holy Spirit) to be personally righteous. If you have a complete lack of personal righteousness, I would question your positional righteousness.
Still, I understand and agree with you that are actions can affect our communion with God, but only as a hindrance or a help; they can neither abolish nor establish it. Christ's Atonement makes you positionally righteous, and thus reestablishes the communion man lost at the Fall. Your personal righteousness only serves to strengthen or weaken (or keep stagnant) that communion.

Bro JS asked: "Can one be 'personally' righteous in this life?"

JLV responds: We can be "personally" righteous, but only because we have been made "positionally" righteous. Remember, any righteous action we do is not us, but God working in and through us.

Bro JE asked: "Just curious about your phrase 'but are destined to stay separate from Him forever, which is the true meaning of Hell.' I understand that separation from God is part of hell, but there is a definite punitive aspect of hell, and that punishment must be meted out. That punishment only intensifies the abandonment...or the abandonment intensifies the punishment. They go hand in hand."

JLV responds: I do believe that there is a punitive aspect to Hell, and that the punishment and abandonment go hand in hand. However, I've believe that the punishment and abandonment are so hand in hand that they are one and the same.
For me, 'separation from God' is not merely a separation in regards to proximity (i.e., God's here and you're there). It is a complete severance from all that is good in the universe (i.e., God). God is the source of (and His very nature is made up of) all good things (e.g. the fruits of the Spirit). To separate from Him is to be separate from those things and bound to their opposites.
God is light; to be separate from Him is to know only darkness. God is love; to be separate from Him is to know only hatred. God is peace; to be separate from Him is to know only confusion and chaos. God is joy; to be separate from Him is to know only sorrow. Etc., etc. My definition of Heaven is absolute communion (i.e., complete unification) with God; thus, my definition of Hell is absolute communion (i.e., complete unification) with not-God. To be bound in an intimate and total way to God is heaven; to be bound in an intimate and total way to everything God is not is hell.
Therefore, the abandonment is the punishment because it is a complete severance from God and thus a complete unification with all He is not (e.g., darkness, hatred, chaos, sorrow, etc.). When we desire God, our desire becomes our reward; when we desire not-God, our desire becomes our punishment.

The Gospel in the Context of the Trinity

"For thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer [is] the Holy One of Israel, The God of the whole earth shall He be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God." Isaiah 54:5, 6

The idea of God as a romantic (in a relational and not literary sense) strikes many as unconventional, especially men (God is my husband?). Imagery aside, however, the thing to grasp here is that God desires communion with you: to love, to have and to hold. Regardless of gender, all people desire to be desired; whether for beauty or strength, all people long to be wanted by another. The desire for communion with others is a fundamental element of humanity, and the Bible tells us the shocking truth that the terrible and glorious Almighty desires to commune with us.

Now, there is a difference between desire and need. God desires communion with us, but He does not need it. Existing as the Trinity, God is in an eternal, perfect communion and society within Himself; He needs nothing more. The flip side of all this is that the truth of God existing as the Trinity is the fundamental reality behind the oft over quoted and misquoted phrase, "God is love," i.e., God's very nature is bound up in communion with others. Thus, we see two facts that emerge from God existing as a Trinity: He does not need to commune with us, for He is in perfect communion always; He does desire to commune with us because it is His very nature to commune with others. Note that the reason God desires communion with us has everything to do with Him, not us. There is nothing in us that merits God's desire; His desire springs from His own nature and nowhere else. Though we are unlovable, God loved us; while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Of course, Christ is the fullest expression and proof of God's love for us (Romans 5:8), and He came to 'make us lovable,' i.e., make us so that we can commune with God. That God desires to commune and whether or not He can commune are two different things. God cannot commune with Sin (for Sin is the rejection of and separation from God), and we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). Thus, unless something drastically changes within us, we cannot commune with God, but are destined to stay separate from Him forever, which is the true meaning of Hell (Matthew 7:23 & 25:41; notice the use by multiple translations of the word "depart"). At the Cross of Christ, however, a transaction was made. Christ, who was and is God, took our Sin upon Himself and in return gave us His righteousness, i.e., God's righteousness (II Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, Christ has (through the Cross) made a way for us to be made lovable, by making us a way to become like Love Himself. Having been 'made lovable,' (i.e., saved) by Christ, commune with God is now possible, but only if we (1) believe that Christ is the only way to be 'made lovable,' and (2) accept such a salvation (for a gift is not yours until you accept it).

Thus, by accepting the salvation found only in Christ, that which separates us from God (i.e., Sin) is done away with, and our communion with Him is restored. It is restored becomes Sin (that which absolutely separates) has been removed, and Love (that which absolutely unites) has replaced it. Therefore, the gospel is about love, romance, about God desiring us and making a way for us to commune with Him. We can reject such communion if we wish, but we do so at our own peril.

"All consuming Love and Passion,

Holy Fire of pain and pleasure,

Draw us deeper still

Into the Light of Your Glory and Grace..."

-Jon Vowell

The Past Reborn

"...for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood anymore." Isaiah 54:4b

The past is one of the greatest demons to ever torment mankind. If there is one ghost no one wants to be haunted by, it is the past. It could be argued that part of the psychological terror that ghost inflict is that they are dreaded embodiments of the evil past, the unholy manifestation of some former failing or sin no longer with us chronologically but still with us actually. To that affect, the past is a ghost that haunts us endlessly, and the greatest haunting pain of mankind is a past action, i.e., the Fall. The remnants of that horrendous aboriginal disaster hovers about corporate humanity and individual humans like a foul wraith (or a foul odor).

"Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (II Corinthians 5:17) One of the glories of the gospel is the realization of the reality that our slate is wiped clean and kept clean by Christ (see I John 1:7 in regards to "kept" clean). The one demon mankind needs slain is the past, full of fears and failures, full of the Fall. Christ deals with our past at the Cross, and thereby gives us a new past, a new legacy, one whose foundation is not the Fall but the Atonement. One of the joys of the Christian is that (because of Christ) God no longer sees them on the basis of the Fall, but rather on the Cross. Thanks to Christ, we are set free from the unholy past and given a new, irreproachable legacy, one that even God Himself can find no fault in.

"May men find in You

Not beautiful words and phrases

But a legacy reborn

Into immutable Holiness..."

-Jon Vowell

The Haunting Pain

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way...." Isaiah 53:6a

The correct view of Sin is wrapped up in those last three words: "his own way," i.e., not God's way. Sin is anything that is 'not-God,' i.e., neither of Him nor leading to Him. Sin is not doing wrong things; it is doing not-God things, and even seemingly rational, noble, or beautiful things can still be not of God. We err if we think and preach that men are sinners because they act wrongly; men are sinners because they act 'not-Godly'. Mere moralizing can solve wrong actions, which is why Christianity is not mere moralizing; something deeper is needed to deal with a lack of God-likeness. If men behave badly, send them to the moralists. If men are not God-like, however, send them to a savior, someone who can save them from themselves, from their "own way."

Your view of Sin affects your view of the gospel and, consequently, its presentation. The Gospel of Christ is 'good news' because it deals with something deeper and more necessary than the superficial fact that men behave badly. Christ's gospel cuts to our fundamental being, i.e., we should be like God, but we are not. We should be holy as He is holy, but we are not. The haunting pain of mankind is not that we do wrong but that we know (somehow, someway) that we are wrong, that we have strayed from the true way to our own way, and we have become lost in the worst kind of prison, i.e., ourselves. The gospel is good news only when it is set in that context. Christ has come so that we may lose ourselves and regain God, lose our way and regain the true way.

"We are wrong and

You are Right.

You took our wrong

To make us Right.

You became like us

So we could be like You..."

-Jon Vowell

Hand in Hand

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows...He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed...[The] Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all...for the transgressions of my people was He stricken...[God] shall make [the Servant's] soul an offering for sin...[God] shall see the travail of [the Servant's] soul, and be satisfied.... My righteous Servant [shall] justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.... He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:4-12

The concept of the Atonement was not a New Testament fantasy but an Old Testament reality. The disciples did not invent a new thing when they proclaimed Christ as the Lamb of God that takes away the Sin of the world. A core part of Israel's temple worship was the sin offering, and the prophet Isaiah made it very clear that the long awaited Messiah would be a sin offering. The disciples were reminded of, and went around reminding others, what the Jews already knew: God shall make the Messiah's soul and offering for Sin.

The Old Testament is not irrelevant to the Christian; it is the very foundation of the New Testament teachings. Without the O.T., the N.T. would make no sense and have no strength. All key Christian doctrines--the Atonement, the Trinity, the Incarnation--all of them can be found within the O.T. We would be wise as Christians to instruct and be instructed by the Spirit in the continuity of Scripture. It is God's complete, verbalized, propositional special revelation to man. Every part is vital; no part is excluded. To think otherwise is to cripple yourself spiritually; you will never know the strength of your beliefs, nor the glory of God's wisdom and workings.

"Your entire word

Is lamp and light.

Old and New

Lead us unto You..."

-Jon Vowell

Christ the Offender II: What This World Needs

"...He hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not." Isaiah 53:2b, 3

The Jesus we are presented with today is nothing like the Jesus of the Scriptures. These days Jesus is God's happy helper, out to bring many sons to glorious health and wealth. Meanwhile, the Jesus of the Scriptures was offensive and hated because He came as a sword to annihilate the peace and stability of the content and comfortable. The Jesus of the Scriptures was God walking amongst fallen men, revealing at every turn that He was nothing they wanted and yet all that they needed.

The lost and lonely people of this fallen world do not need another happy guru bringing great tidings of great self-help books; what they need is God, and the knowledge of His scandalous and glorious Gospel. Fallen man does not need to be made more amiable; they need to be shocked to their sense. Shock and shake them out of dark apathy with the offensive knowledge that they are sinners, separated from God, damned to Hell, and that Immanuel has come to accept their unconditional surrender and crush them so that they can be made whole, kill them so that they can be reborn. Do not give men scratchings for their itching ears; tell them something a man would be glad to believe.

"Keep me clear from

Anti-Christs

Who steal the glorious power of

The Gospel.

Deliver us from their evil..."

-Jon Vowell

Christ the Offender

""Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Isaiah 53:1

The Bible never said that its claims would seem sensible (or even rational) from a purely human perspective. Indeed, its claims are equally true and outrageous. The Redemption of Christ, the very core theme of the Bible, is called a stumbling stone to some and foolishness to others (I Corinthians 1:23), and there is a reason Jesus said that the way that leads to life is narrow and few would find it (Matthew 7:14).

Of course, the Christian faith is rational; apologetics and Christian philosophic thought are not invalid; Christian Existentialism is not our sole view. That Christianity and its doctrines are outrageous does not in any way steal from the fact that they are true. What needs to be noted here and remembered is that we are in error if we think that Christianity and its doctrines (especially the terrible doctrines of the Cross and the Atonement) are easy for fallen man to swallow, namely because the heart of Christianity (i.e., Jesus Christ) states with unblinking authority, "Nothing you do or are can save you." That cuts right across fallen man's rationale, which is a mode of thinking that starts with man and only man. Fallen man's reason starts with man and nothing else; Christianity's reason starts with God or nothing else, and fallen man cannot accept such a premise, a premise that demands of them to come as humble sinners and nothing else. For fallen man, stepped in rebellion, understanding the nature of a sin offering or of hypo-static unions is not the real stumbling point; bowing the knee is.

The very thought that man is not enough is scandalous, outrageous, but true. At the end of the day, whatever the arguments (or lack thereof), it is never reason that keeps men from God (for God is the source of reason); it is pride that keeps them, keeps them from getting to God by going through Christ, the only name whereby men might be saved. Men might accept our claims more easily if it were not for Christ, for Christ demands absolute surrender to His salvation, and such a thing is anathema to fallen mankind's ultimately irrational thinking.

"May the gospel we preach

Offend and inflame.

May it burn the hearts of men

Like hot coals on their heads..."

-Jon Vowell

Mysterious Ways

"...His visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men; so shall He startle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him, for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider." Isaiah 52:14, 15

The Atonement was something you could not have guessed. It is true that both Jew and Gentile knew that the divine required sacra fices (though perhaps for different reasons); it is equally true that the Gentiles went so far as to say that a god could be a sacrifice. However, that the God of gods would come emptied of His authority and glory, His coming void of all candor or ceremony or splendor, coming disguised as an ordinary man, easily confused with and replaced by any other man, coming to be rejected and murdered by His own creations and worshippers in a sacrifice that was equally void of all candor or ceremony or splendor; that is something no priest or myth maker could have conjured. The Atonement is less like a myth and more like real life because it caught everyone by surprise. We who have heard the story over and over again are no longer surprised; but to those who experienced first hand, it was the shock of the century.

There is a reason that God's ways and workings are often described as "mysteries," i.e., truths that are hidden for the moment (not, as some would say, the unknowable). God's ways are "mysterious" in that they are not only hidden but also true, i.e., real and actual. We linger on their 'hiddenness,' but forget that they are true ways, true workings, ways and workings that exist in absolute Reality and that will work themselves out into relative reality at appointed times. That is why what God does catch us so off guard: they are not only hidden, but also real, like real life, like reality; and reality is something you could not have guessed.

"We who watch Your Story unfold,

Are gloriously surprised at every turn..."

-Jon Vowell

The Everlasting Father

"Ye shall not go out with haste, nor by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard." Isaiah 52:12b

The salvation of the Lord is an absolute salvation, as immutable as His will. There are no cracks in the armor or loopholes to exploit. When you are in His salvation, in His will, where He is, then there is peace and joy: "Ye shall not go out with haste, nor by flight." There is never any grounds to act out of fear anymore, for it is God that leads you ("go before you") and protects you ("your rear guard"). He makes the way and He keeps the way. Where He is, there is home. He is the ever present fireside.

We who are within the will of God, we who are saved by the finished work of Christ, have no reason for fear. Read Isaiah 43:2 and let all fears be silent. The leadership and guardianship of God is absolute. The only dangerous place is outside of His leading and guarding. If we, however, are in His will, within His leading and guarding, from whence, then, comes frets and worries? They are ludicrous, as ludicrous as Israel's fears in the wilderness; there, God's salvation was indeed an absolute salvation, His promises absolute promises, His presence an absolute presence. Therefore, as we can ask by what right did they doubt the God who is there, so too we must ask ourselves by what right do we doubt the God who is there, who will never leave or forsake us, who ever leads and ever guards us?

"You lead and you protect.

You are the everlasting Father.

May your all-consuming Love

Lay all my fears to rest..."

-Jon Vowell

The Beautiful Work

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good news, that proclaims peace, that brings good news of good things, that proclaims salvation; that saith unto Zion, 'Thy God reigns!'" Isaiah 52:7

I dare say that we do not see evangelism as a beautiful work; a chore or a duty, perhaps, or merely work, but not beautiful. Perhaps if we grasped the nihilistic terror of modern man, grasped the horror of existence in an accident caused, empty, vacuous universe that spreads ever on and on into further nothingness, perhaps if we grasped the despair of coming from nothing and moving towards nothing, maybe then we would see why evangelism is a beautiful work. We are proclaiming good news to dying men, not boring them to tears with our own opinions. What would happen if we truly believed that we had, not a chore or a duty, but good news, and that its proclamation was a beautiful thing? We desire hearts aflame to share the gospel, and beauty inflames all souls; yet we treat the sharing of the gospel, which is a beauty, as an annoyance both to ourselves and the people we share it with. This should not be so.

Please note that by 'beautiful,' we do not mean mere sentimentality or fanciful thoughts and feelings. The beauty in evangelism is real beauty, deep and heavy beauty, that which conforms to absolute Beauty (i.e., God Himself). There is real beauty in the proclamation of peace between God and man, between the King and the rebels. Let all the lost and lonely people know that man can indeed lay down his arms and find rest in the terrible Almighty, Who has reached out to them in love and holiness.

"How beautiful is Your Presence,
How beautiful is Your Work,
How beautiful is Your Body,
Broken and spilled out..."
-Jon Vowell

Back to Reality

"Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He that doth speak; behold, it is I." Isaiah 52:6

To know that God (the infinite-personal, Scripture revealed God) is there, is real; that is the reality all men strive for, whether they know it or not. Whether or not we are ultimately alone cuts to the core of all other significant questions: if we are ultimately alone, then there is no solution to the conundrums of being (what is real?), knowledge (how do we know? how do we know that we can know?), and morals (what ought and ought not to be?), because there is no objective, infinite-personal outsider that can tell us these things. The knowledge of the reality of God automatically gives a man the groundwork whereby he can begin to answer the 'big' questions.

Everyone of Israels 'redemptions' was always about bringing them back to the reality of God. The same is true of the Redemption found in Christ. Our Sin has separated us from the God who is there, and that alienation will be the death of us. Christ dealt with Sin on the Cross, and now mankind can return to the reality of God, and find in Him all that humanity has ever desired and hoped for. Jesus is the joy of man's desiring, because He satisfies man's desiring by bringing us back to God.

"Tell all the lost and lonely people

That God is real

And there is a way back to Him..."

-Jon Vowell

Sleepwalking

"Awake! Awake! Put on strength, of arm of the Lord..."

"Awake! Awake! Stand up, oh Jerusalem..."

"Awake! Awake! Put on thy strength, oh Zion..." Isaiah 51:9, 17; 52:1

How true it is that most of our prayers act as though God were asleep. How fitting it is, then, when His answers reveal that it is we who have been asleep. The revelations of God are very much like awakenings, like coming out of a dream and into reality. We only thought we knew what was and is; we find instead that we have been fools. We thought that God was ignoring us; we find instead that we were the ignorant.

"I am the Lord thy God." (51:15) We ask that God remembers us; He replies that we should remember Him. All fears and doubts come from the dreamlike state of not accounting for God in your circumstances. Until God is real, we are sleepwalkers, and we know not where we are, or what we run into. Once God is real, however, immediately we awake, and the dawn lights all of our surroundings: "Why, God was there the whole time!" God's dealings with us (in regards to prayer or anything else) is constantly bringing us to this revelation: the infinite-personal, Scripture revealed God is there, and he4 wants to set you free from delusions and bind you to Himself.

"Destroy all illusions

And self-made forgeries.

Melt them all like shadows

Before the Sun..."

-Jon Vowell

"The God who is there..."

"Awake! Awake! Put on strength, oh arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generation of old!"

"Awake! Awake! Stand up, oh Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury...Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling...I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee...." Isaiah 51:9, 17, 22-23

When need to spend some time soaking in the truth that God answers prayer. We go through the whole rigmarole of how God answers prayer (yes, no, wait, etc.), but we kind of slump over the very fact that He answers at all. Answered prayer (regardless of the answer) is always a cause for rejoicing, for it is one of the moments in our lives when we witness God's intimacy with us in concrete form. God's intimacy is mere abstraction to us until it becomes concrete, and answered prayer is one of those concretions.

We live on a multifaceted plane of existence, but we (unfortunately) have a solely concrete plane of perception; 'non-concretions' are easy to forget and ignore, and that to our peril. It is no small wonder, then, that God gives us Himself in the concrete: in prayer itself (trinitarian communion), in the Bible (alive through the breath of God), in Creation (His invisible attributes made know), and in Incarnation (God made flesh), among others. Whenever we think on or partake of these things, let us not forget to give praise to the God who will not leave us alone.

"Praise to the Lord,

Who comes in a robe of flesh

And and a cloak of pages.

Tis Heaven on earth,

That we might see Him

Face to face..."

-Jon Vowell

When God is Real

"I, even I, am He that comforteth you. Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth...?" Isaiah 51:12, 13

The smaller God gets in our minds, the more potency our fears have. This get especially bad when God becomes so small that he disappears completely from our minds eye. Fear and worry are absolutely diabolical because their immediate effect is to diminish God in the minds of the fearful. In the minds of the fearful, God becomes smaller than their problems, smaller than the world, smaller than circumstances, smaller than men, smaller than themselves. The cause of all of our fears is an improper perception of God.

Inversely, all fears cease when God is real, and I mean God; not your prejudiced opinion of God, or God as found in your human categories. When the infinite-personal, Scripture revealed God who is there is real to you (i.e., fully perceived as an abiding reality), then and only then does fear become unthinkable, irrational, and a non-entity. Ask yourself: What is fear when a man knows God? What is worry when God ceases to be small and is shown to be the God of the Scriptures? They are nothing; they are never even taken into consideration. Just as the smaller God gets, the larger our fears become, so too the larger God gets, the smaller our fears become, until they disappear.

"Keep my eyes focused

On You and You only.

Let the terrors of straying

Keep me near You..."

-Jon Vowell

God's Immutable Mark of Love

"Awake! Awake! Put on strength, oh arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old! Art though not the one that hath cut [Egypt], and wounded the dragon? Art thou not the one who hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?" Isaiah 51:9, 10

The underlying mythos of Israel was the Exodus. It shaped their very view of God: His character, His ways, and His relationship to them. Consequently, it shaped the way they viewed all of their circumstances. Every captivity, every conquest by foreign invaders, was to be viewed as another sojourn in Egypt, another chance to see the wondrous power of God.

The underlying mythos of the Church is the Cross. All of our days are to be seen through that lens (Psalm 118:22-24). It is the objective reality that is to shape our view of God. Like the Exodus, it too speaks of His character, His ways, and His relationship to the world. The groundwork of understanding who God is to begin with the Cross, and the Cross as it is revealed by the Scriptures; all other notions must be dominated by that one theme.

That one theme should dominate all of our life as well. The Cross stands to silence all criticisms of God's character and all doubts that lurk in the hearts of men. Any fears we have, all distresses or preoccupations, must be laid to rest at the foot of the Cross, God's immutable mark of love upon the world.

"Holy spike that shattered the world,

May I hide myself in Thee..."

-Jon Vowell

The Shield Against the Death Strike of the Universe

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished." Isaiah 51:6

I have addressed elsewhere that the universe is dying and taking us with it, and that as such artificially produced immortality is a fairytale for grownups. If the universe goes down in flames (or freezes, or crunches, or "runs away"), then we go down with it. I would like to state here that such a position is not only thoroughly rational, but also (as should be expected) thoroughly Christian. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," says our Lord. Christianity has always asserted that, even if there was no apocalypse, the universe would perish anyways.
"My salvation shall be forever." Christianity has also always asserted that there is an immortality beyond our universe, an immortality given by the hands of Infinity Himself. Thus is the biblical teaching, and thus is the Christian doctrine: there is a God who is there, infinite and personal, independent from and yet involved in this universe that He has made, and He has brought immortality (read: salvation) to us in the palms of His nail-scarred hands. We reject such a gift at our own peril, for it is not a choice between one belief and another, but between the real and actual clinging to either the infinite-personal God who is there and not silent, or the dead and dying universe that will fade away. In its place will be a redeemed and restored universe, with all deadness removed; will ye be among the dead?

"All things are made new
Only in You.
Outside of you, all things wax old,
Like filthy rags..."
-Jon Vowell

This is Redemption: The Greatest Need

"[God] will make [Israel's] wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord...." Isaiah 51:3b
"So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning...." Job 42:12a
"And He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new....'" Revelation 21:5a

Redemption is restoration, and restoration is the greatest of human needs. Though the unbelieving man or woman may be a bit fuzzy on the particulars, there is nonetheless an underlying uneasiness within the human race, a restless certainty that all is not well. Now, two things need to be said about that last sentence: (1) This is not abstract psychology; it is a rugged fact of humanity: to be human is to know that something is wrong. Perhaps one does not know exactly what, how, or in what way things are wrong, but they know there is something wrong. (2) This is not stating the obvious. People may say, "Sure the world is messed up; just look at the news," and they are right. However, that people know that something is wrong does not merely mean that they know that bad things happen; it means they have a disturbing feeling that things are wrong, that at rock bottom all things (good, bad, and neutral) are wrong, damaged, abnormal, not the way it ought to be. It is not just bad things that feel wrong, but all things that feel wrong, including ourselves. Whatever or whoever has been wronged and it whatever way, it is the greatest human desire that things be rectified and reconciled.
God satisfies this greatest of human needs by telling us in his factual, propositional, revealed Word exactly what went wrong and how it can be fixed, i.e., the Fall and the Cross: a real, space-time evil that mankind perpetrated and thus inherited; and a real, space-time solution that God instituted and mankind can either accept or reject. Acceptance means restoration: of man to man, man to himself, and man to God. Rejection means...well, nothing. Things stay the same, i.e., things stay wrong; and mankind is left unsatisfied.

"Our greatest need, oh God,
Our greatest need is You,
With us; us back to You.
Our greatest need, oh God
Is Immanuel..."
-Jon Vowell

"You are a child of mine..."

"Hearken to me, ye that pursue righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock from whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from whence ye are digged." Isaiah 51:1

The immediate context here is God reminding Israel that they are His through Abraham (vs. 2). The broader context has God reminding us that we are His through Christ (Galatians 3:7-9, 14, 16, 22, 26, 29). If you find yourself in distress and despair, God says, "Remember where you come from; remember whose child you are." Despair sets in when you forget who you are and Whose you are. You are a child of God, His chosen beloved. No matter what your circumstances, He only has your best, because He works all circumstances for our good (Roman 8:28).
Its sounds rather underwhelming that we are God's children, but we forget it constantly. We run aground on something, anything, and we become instant atheist (just add trials), with no lineage or groundwork outside of our own confused selves. It is therefore as refreshing as cold water in a desert to be reminded that you are God's and He is yours. In times of darkness, "look unto the rock from whence ye are hewn," i.e., the Rock of Ages, the infinite-personal triune God who is there.

"You are a child of mine,
Born of my own design.
And you bear the heart
Of life..."
(Mark Schultz)
-Jon Vowell

To Build a Fire

"Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and rely upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that encircle yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire and the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand: ye shall lie down in sorrow." Isaiah 50:10-11

The principle found here (and Proverbs 3:5, 6) is the simplest thing and yet the hardest thing. Whether you are lost (and the "darkness" is spiritual darkness), or you are a child of God (and the "darkness" is the shadow of His hand), the only sure way is the way that trusts God and God alone. All other ways, all attempts to "kindle a fire," to create a man-made light for your darkness, will end in despair. All attempts to rescue yourself are futile; the only true light in the dark is God, the only true trust is the one that rests in Him.
Whatever darkness you are going through (and there is always some somewhere), avoiding kindling a fire. God asks that you go through the darkness to Himself, not park and make camp. God is the ever-present fireside, and that is the paradox: He is the one with you leading you to Himself. He is your guidance and destination; in Him alone is light and rest. All other fires are sinking sand.

"Only Light of the world,
Drown out all other lights
Like candles before the Dawn..."
-Jon Vowell

Is He Near?

"He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together; who is my accuser? Let him come near to me." Isaiah 50:8

The habit of self-justification is diabolical because it is one of the shades of massive unbelief. All unbelief follows the standard formula of a life centered on yourself. God is not even considered a factor; we take our lives into our own hands (and at our own risk). Consequently, we alone are to solve our own problems (because there is no one else); and when we justify ourselves, we have summarily excused God from the throne of our lives and parked our confused carcasses their instead. Only God can justify, because only He sees all, and thus only He can be absolutely objective and just. Self-justification is merely another form of pride, which is merely another form of unbelief, i.e., a life centered on self and not God.
When our reality includes God, however, we will (amongst other things) care nothing for what men say about us; we will care nothing for our rights, our way, our self. All that we have and are is placed in God's hands, and we relinquish all say in the matter (which is really the acknowledgment that we had no say in the matter in the first place). None can nay-say the one whose life is centered on God, because (1) God will always lead that one rightly, and (2) the God-centered one is blissfully unaware of himself, his cares, his rights; therefore, he cares very little about the mockery, scorn, and misunderstandings of others.
"He is near that justifieth me." Do you live in the light of that truth, or are you obsessed with yourself. When God is near, when God is your abiding reality, then and only then are all things well and at peace.

"When God is near,
All the world seems far away.
How can I stray, how can I falter,
When I know my God is near?"
(anonymous song)
-Jon Vowell

Faith as Courage

"For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded, therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." Isaiah 50:7

All courage is based on the knowledge of the unseen: the unseen skill, the unseen friend, the unseen ledge, the unseen hope; and faith is the courage that bases itself on the knowledge of God. I do not believe that we see faith as a kind of courage; perhaps as a kind of lunacy, but not boldness or strength of character, and that is a shame. All courage is lunacy to everyone except the one who is being courageous; only cowards call the brave insane.

Perhaps if we Western Christians saw faith as a kind of courage (and not a kind of irrationality), it would fair better against our innate pragmatism and empiricism. It would perhaps also combat the so called "feminization of the Church" by energizing Christian men (what would reach a man's heart: faith as lunacy or inspid sweetness, or faith as courage?). When our faith, our courage, is based on the knowledge of the unseen God Who is there, on "the Lord God" who "will help me," then and only then are we the ones who can "set [our] face like a flint." The courageous man, the faithful man, is unswayed in his action, because he alone sees what others cannot, accounts for what others do not. People call such men mad; may we all be struck by such madness.

"Is it madness to trust
In the Lord of all?
Lunacy to grasp at
The Eternal Hand?
Is it crazy to be brave...?"

-Jon Vowell

The Way of the Man of Sorrows

"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off my beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Isaiah 50:6

The majority of God's children (mainly in the West) do not contain the rugged masculinity of Jesus Christ; they do not possess the backbone of the man of sorrows. Courage is when a person goes to their breaking point and does not break, and there is a breaking point that Jesus met and passed many times, a breaking point that we crumble with self-pity over--humiliation. From the Incarnation (Philippians 2:7, 8), to Gethsemane (Luke 22:42), to the passion of the Cross, Christ's life was marked as one of abject humiliation, of the Highest willingly being made the lowest. Have we lost the courage of the man of sorrows, the courage to rest in God at the price of humiliation before men?
"Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:19) Are you prepared for the mock and scorn of the child of God? Are you prepared to be considered some horrible, alien thing in the eyes of men? Or are you prepared to be the friend of this world? Being friends with the world is easy because it cost nothing except your soul; nothing you hold dear and everything that is dear. God asks that you rest your soul in His hands and let all other things be humiliated: your pride, your rights, your self, your sin. You shun humiliation at your own risk.

"Make me a son of Your Love:
Purged pure and whole,
All of life redeemed,
All of life centered on You..."
-Jon Vowell

We Cannot Escape

"Thus saith the Lord, 'Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.'" Isaiah 50:1

The consequences of sinful choices are not arbitrary assignments from God, but rather absolute facts. God never causes evil in a direct sense (see here for an explanation of Isaiah 45:7); He simply allows the natural consequences of sin to play out. What we desire is what God will give us: if we desire Himself, he will give us Himself; if we desire sin and death, then He will give us sin and death. That a man reaps what he sows (Galatians 6:7) is an immutable law of reality; we cannot escape it.
That the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) is another immutable law that we cannot escape. It is not that Sin could of had any wage but God rather rudely decided that it would be death; Sin's very nature is such that it can have no other consequence but death, and not even God Himself can change that. When you reject God, you choose Sin; when you reject life, you choose death. There is no other way it can be.
We must defiantly buck against the childish nonsense that blames evil on God. Evil is the direct result of only one thing: the Fall. Adam fell, and as such evil now abides within man and within creation (see I Corinthians 15:21, 22 & Romans 8:19-22). God dealt with evil (i.e., Sin) on the Cross; but if we reject that redemption, then, like all evil choices, the consequences will be devastating and our own fault.

"We are the fools,
You are the Wise;
And only a fool
Blames His own foolishness
On the Wise..."
-Jon Vowell

The Waiting

"Zion said, 'The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.' [...] Thus saith the Lord God, [...] 'They shall not be ashamed that wait for me.'" Isaiah 49:14, 23b

There is a terrible and burning restlessness that rises within us whenever we must pass through the "waiting," i.e., a period of our lives when (as far as we can see) nothing is happening. It is during these seasons that God will seem hard and cruel. In the moments of stillness and silence, when all seems eternally "paused," when there is neither a mount of transfiguration nor demon possessed valley, just plain flat lands as far as the eye can see, it is then that doubt comes. Doubt does not come from triumph or trials; it comes in the waiting. No one doubts God while resting on the mountain top or passing through the fire; His presence and hand our clearly obvious. It is when all is still like a cold winter night that we doubt. Caught between what was and what's to come, we find ourselves paralyzed in what is, and we wonder if what's to come is really coming, or if we ever were in God's thoughts at all.
Nothing shakes us like sitting and waiting. The Apostle Peter would have much rather taken an ear off and faced the consequences than sit back and watch the death of the Messiah. He had to wait, however, and so do we. If you cannot trust and cling to God when all is stillness and silence, how then will you cling to Him when what's to come finally does come? You desire that God takes you to the "important" things; are you desiring God in the midst of menial things? You want to spread the gospel like fire; can you wash your brother's feet with water? As Mr. Chambers put it once, "If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis." How can God take you through the firestorm if you perish at the task of given a cup of cold water to the least of these? You want to mount up like an eagle; can you even walk and not faint?
Never resent the waiting. Never get distracted in wondering when "things" will "happen." Things are always happening, whether you recognize them or not. The waiting is crucial because it is when the storm is away and the waters calm that you can soak before God. Is your time of waiting filled with God-soaking or self-sulking? You will never have the waiting back when it is gone; other times of waiting will come, but that waiting is no more. Once things "happen," once you are in the thick, God help you if you find in the midst of the crisis that you wasted the waiting that He gave you. When God leads you out of the wilderness and into Canaan, it is time for war, and how you handle yourself in battle is directly contingent upon how you handled yourself in the wilderness. While in the tents of the barren wild, were you preparing for Canaan, or were you sulking in self-pity? Were you spending the waiting sharpening your sword, or were you letting it rust? May God help us to center every moment, both the menial and the monumental, on Him.

"When you're waiting
Through the still times,
Don't let the static bring you down;
For all things, great and small,
Menial and monumental,
Move to Empyrean Love.
Dance in that Love,
And live..."
-Jon Vowell

"If you would have all that God is..."

"Then thou shalt say in thine heart, 'Who hath begotten these for me, seeing I have lost my children and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro? Who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?' Thus saith the Lord...they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." Isaiah 49:21-23

Israel, like Job, had lost everything; but apparently, like Job, they would receive it all again in abundance. There was just one condition: wait for God, and oh how they have waited! Through captivities and dominions and silences and sufferings and assaults and attacks of every kind, they wait for the redemption of God's people. If they would have it, they must wait for Him.
Too few of us truly "wait for" God, because we have no idea what it really entails. We desire the fullness of God; but if we want such glory, we must pass through the desolation. There are ties that must be broken, fellowships that must be severed, trials that must be endured, plans that must be dropped, dreams and desires that must crash to the ground, habits that must be kicked, clarity that must be obscured. It will be grueling, but if you cannot pass through the desolation, then what good are you? You are not fit for the glory that you seek. If, in wanting to become like Christ, you cannot endure the "fellowship of His sufferings," how then can you endure the "power of His resurrection" (Philippians 3:10)?
I dare say that we want all the blessings of knowing God but none of the hardships and heartaches. We would take the life of Christ if only we could avoid the Cross (avoiding misunderstandings with family and the religious elite would be nice too). We desire God like Joseph did, but we would rather get right to being Egypt's prime minister and avoid being betrayed by our brothers, scandalized by our employers, cast unjustly into prison, and forgotten by those we show kindness to. It is, however, not to be.
If you would have all that God is, then you must go wherever He is and follow wherever He leads, through fire and flood, through dungeons and thrones, through failures and triumphs, through joys and sorrows, through pleasures and pains. If we desire anything other than God (even good and noble things), then we will balk at His wooing, and settle for a lesser view of Him. If we would be gripped by His ever tender and ever stern hand, however, we must be willing to go where He goes, even from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell, remembering always that He is ours and we are His, and He is with us always (Isaiah 43:1b, 2).

"Through the fire and the flames
You carry me unto Yourself,
No turning back,
No turning back..."
-Jon Vowell