Oswald Chambers on Faith as Wonder

From the Jan. 16th entry of "Still Higher for His Highest":

Faith cannot be intellectually defined; faith is the inborn capacity to see God behind everything, the wonder that keeps you an eternal child. What is your faith to you--a wonderful thing or a bandbox thing? Satisfaction is too often the peace of death; wonder is the very essence of life. Beware always of losing the wonder, and the first thing that stops wonder is religious conviction.* Whenever you give a trite testimony, the wonder is gone. The only evidence of salvation or sanctification is that the sense of wonder is developing; not at things as they are, but at the One who made them as they are. There is no set definition of faith* into which you can fit these men and women [viz., from Hebrews 11]; they were heroes of faith because they "endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.

*This is because religious conviction (i.e., "trite testimony") cause you to cease focusing on God and instead focus on yourself and your experiences. Focusing on yourself always leads to death.

*i.e., there is no way to rationally categorize their experiences of faith, no way to make them the 'cookie cutter' standard by which all other experiences of faith mimic and are measured. The only sure fact of their faith is that, though varied in their circumstances, they all saw and focused on the "God behind everything." Ultimately, it is definable and defined ("inborn capacity to see God behind everything," "wonder," Hebrews 11:1-3, etc.); existentially, your experience of faith will be different from others.

(P.S. I have been rather busy and distracted as of late, so I have taken an official/unofficial sabbatical from posting my journal entries. I shall return, though; as for now, expect more post that are quotations of others)

"...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