God Breathed

The Therapeutic Gospel by David Powlison

“Need for self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-assertion? To gain a confident sense of your identity is a great good. Ephesians is strewn with several dozen “identity statements,” because by this the Spirit motivates a life of courageous faith and love. You are God’s—among the saints, chosen ones, adopted sons, beloved children, citizens, slaves, soldiers; part of the workmanship, wife, and dwelling place—every one of these in Christ. No aspect of your identity is self-referential, feeding your “self-esteem.” Your opinion of yourself is far less important than God’s opinion of you, and accurate self-assessment is derivative of God’s assessment. True identity is God-referential. True awareness of yourself connects to high esteem for Christ. Great confidence in Christ correlates to a vote of fundamental no confidence in and about yourself. God nowhere replaces diffidence and people-pleasing by self-assertiveness. In fact, to assert your opinions and desires, as is, marks you as a fool. Only as you are freed from the tyranny of your opinions and desires are you free to assess them accurately, and then to express them appropriately.”

The Therapeutic Gospel by David Powlison

“Need for significance? It is surely a good thing for the works of your hands to be established forever: gold, silver, and precious stones; not wood, hay, and straw. It is good when what you do with your life truly counts, and when your works follow you into eternity. Vanity, futility, and ultimate insignificance register the curse upon our work life—even midcourse, not just when we retire, or when we die, or on the Day of Judgment. But the real gospel inverts the order of things presupposed by the therapeutic gospel. The craving for impact and significance—one of the typical “youthful lusts” that boil up within us—is merely idolatrous when it acts as Director of Operations in the human heart. God does not meet your need for significance; He meets your need for mercy and deliverance from your obsession with personal significance. When you turn from your enslavement and turn to God, then your works do start to count for good. The gospel of Jesus and the fruit of faith are not tailored to “meet your needs.” He frees from tyranny of felt needs, remakes you to fear God and keep His commandments (Eccl 12:13). In the divine irony of grace, that alone makes what you do with your life of lasting value.”

The Therapeutic Gospel by David Powlison

“Consider the five elements we have identified with the therapeutic gospel.

[Each is to be revealed one at a time on this blog over coming days to enable more focused reflection, as each one is profound yet sublte.]

Need for love? It is surely a good thing to know that you are both known and loved. God, who searches the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, also sets His steadfast love upon us. However, all this is radically different from the instinctual craving to be accepted for who I am. Christ’s love comes pointedly and personally despite who I am. You are accepted for who Christ is, because of what He did, does, and will do. God truly accepts you, and if God is for you, who can be against you? But in doing this, He does not affirm and endorse what you are like. Rather, He sets about changing you into a fundamentally different kind of person. In the real gospel you fell deeply known and loved, but your relentless “need for love” has been overthrown.”

The Therapeutic Gospel by David Powlison

“The overall package of felt needs is systematically misaligned, but the pieces can be properly understood. Any “different gospel” (Gal 1:6) makes itself plausible by offering Lego-pieces of reality assembled into a structure that contradicts revealed truth. Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve was plausible only because it incorporated many elements of reality, continually gesturing in the direction of truth, even while steadily guiding way from the truth: “Look, a beautiful and desirable tree. And God has said that the test will reveal both good and evil, with the possibility of life—not death—rising from your choice. Just as God is wise, so you, the chooser, can become like god in wisdom. Come now and eat.” So close, yet so far away. Almost so, but the exact opposite.”

The following excerpt was taken from The Therapeutic Gospel by David Powlison.

“The Contemporary Therapeutic Gospel:

The most obvious, instinctual felt needs of twenty-first century, middle-class Americans are different from the felt needs that Dostoevsky tapped into… We find our miracle-substitute in the wonders of technology. Middle-class felt needs are less primal. They express a more luxurious, more refined sense of self-interest:

• I want to feel loved for who I am, to be pitied for what I’ve gone through, to feel intimately understood, to be accepted unconditionally.
• I want to experience a sense of personal significance and meaningfulness, to be successful in my career, to know my life matters, to have an impact.
• I want to gain self-esteem, to affirm that I am okay, to be able to assert my opinions and desires.
• I want to be entertained, to feel pleasure in the endless stream of performances that delight my eyes and tickle my ears.
• I want a sense of adventure, excitement, action, and passion so that I experience life as thrilling and moving.

The modern, middle-class version of therapeutic gospel takes its cues from this particular family of desires. It appeals to psychological felt needs …

In this new gospel, the great evils to be redressed do not call for any fundamental change of direction in the human heart. Instead, the problem lies in my sense of rejection from others; in my corrosive experience of life’s vanity; in my nervous sense of self-condemnation and diffidence; in the imminent threat of boredom if my music is turned off; in my fussy complaints when a long, hard road lies ahead. These are today’s significant felt needs that the gospel is bent to serve. Jesus and the church exist to make you feel loved, significant, validated, entertained, and charged up. This gospel ameliorates distressing symptoms. It makes you feel better. The logic of this therapeutic gospel is a jesus-for-Me who meets individual desires and assuages psychic aches…

The Once-for-All Gospel:

The real gospel is good news of the Word made flesh, the sin-bearing Savior, the resurrected Lord: “I am the living One, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (Rev 1:18). This Christ turns the world upside down. One prime effect of the Holy Spirit’s inworking presence and power is the rewiring of our sense of felt needs. Because the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, we keenly feel a different set of needs when God comes into view and when we understand that we stand or fall in His gaze. My instinctual cravings are replaced (sometimes quickly, always gradually) by the growing awareness of true, life-and-death needs:

• I need mercy above all else: “Lord, have mercy upon me.” “For Your name’s sake, pardon my iniquity for it is very great.”
• I need to learn to love both God and neighbor: “The goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.”
• I long for God’s name to be honored, for His kingdom to come, for His will to be done on earth.
• I need God to change me from who I am by instinct, choice, and practice.
• I want Him to deliver me from my obsessive self-righteousness, to slay my lust for self-vindication, so that I feel my need for the mercies of Christ, so that I learn to treat others gently.
• I need God’s mighty and intimate help in order to will and to do those things that last unto eternal life, rather than squandering my life on vanities.
• I want to learn how to endure hardship and suffering in hope, having my faith simplified, deepened and purified.
• I need to learn, to listen, to worship, to delight, to trust, to give thanks, to cry out, to take refuge, to obey, to serve, to hope.
• I need God Himself: “Show me Your glory.” “Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.”

Make it so, Father of mercies. Make it so, redeemer of all that is dark and broken… But there are no prayers and songs in the Bible that take their cues from the current therapeutic felt needs. Imagine, “Our Father in heaven, help me feel that I’m okay just the way I am. Protect me this day from having to do anything I find boring. Hallelujah, I’m indispensable, and what I’m doing is really having an impact on others, so I can feel good about my life.” Have mercy upon us! Instead, in our Bible we hear a thousand cries of need and shouts of delight that orient us to our real needs and to our true Savior.”

My husband’s birthday is tomorrow (Jan. 7th), but a few friends & I surprised him early with a party today. In honor of his celebration, I made him his favorite kind of birthday cake … a cheesecake!

It was only my second attempt at making a cheesecake, but I found this really great recipe that I thought I would share:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (+ 3 tablespoons)

1/3 cup white sugar

1 egg (beaten)

1/2 cup butter (softened)

2 1/2 pounds cream cheese (softened)

1 3/4 cups white sugar

5 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup sour cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly coat a 20 inch springform pan with spray oil. (NOTE: You can use a 9″ x 13″ pan instead.

2. To make the crust: Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 egg and 1/2 cup butter or margarine. Spread to the edges of the pan. Prick all over with a fork. Bake 15 minutes at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Remove from oven and allow to cool. Increase oven temperature to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C).

3. In the meantime, combine 2 1/2 pounds of cream cheese, 1 3/4 cups sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, 5 eggs and the yolks in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add 1/4 cup cream and 1/4 cup sour cream and mix only enough to blend.

4. Pour filling over crust and bake for 10 minutes at 475 degrees F (245 degrees C). Reduce temperature to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C) and continue to bake for one hour. Turn oven off, but leave cake in for another hour. Don’t worry if it looks jiggly in the center.

5. Chill overnight. This is imperative! After chilled, freezing cheesecake is possible for up to one month as well. Simply remove cake from the freezer to thaw in the refrigerator the night prior to serving. If desired, top with your favorite fruit or serve plain.

Servings per recipe: 16

Happy Baking!!!

I recently decided to join the scrapbooking craze. Without any supplies or materials, I visited one of our local stores to stock-up on a few “necessary” items. I found the scrapbooking section and immediately became lost in the vast selection of books, tools, papers, adhesives, stickers, stamps, and all of the many other accessory items available for purchase. I soon realized that I was way in over my head, so I placed a few “emergency calls” to a few girlfriends to seek their counsel on the best book to buy, the best binding, the best types of paper, etc. (Thank the good Lord for cell phones!)

One hundred dollars later, I walked out of that store and recognized a familiar pressure plaguing my conscience. “Did I really just spend that much money on a hobby? Was that really the best use of the money the Lord has entrusted to me and my husband? Speaking of my husband, despite his constant loving support of my decisions, would he really agree that the expense was worth it in this case?” These questions were flooding my mind as I placed my full plastic bags into the trunk of my car. “Sure, I wanted to preserve our precious family memories for generations, but was this the most economical way to go about it?” As I pulled out of the parking lot, my conscience continued to plague me. Recognizing that something must be wrong, I took a moment to search my heart before the Lord as I sat at a red light: “Lord, I confess that I do not have a clear conscience about the way that I spent your money. But, I confess that as I stand before you, I don’t exactly know the reason my conscience is bothering me. Is it really just an issue of stewardship, or is there something else there? Please show me the sinfulness of my heart so that I can confess it before you and seek your grace to repent of it.”

By the time the light turned green, it dawned on me: “I was not trusting in the Lord!” I stocked-up on a couple of scrapbooking books because I wanted to be sure to have enough on-hand in case I were to run out of room in the first book. I had purchased so many accessory items because I was afraid that I might not have the opportunity to do so again for a while. See, I was not trusting the Lord to provide for me. I needed to provide these things for myself. My sin (bad stewardship of the Lord’s money entrusted to me) in this situation was driven by fear, which is the case in most sinful situations. I was afraid that the Lord would not provide these things for me; therefore, I had to get them myself. I was not acknowledging the Lord’s character or proven history faithfulness. I overspent on these items because in my heart I had de-throned God as King and sovereign Ruler over my life, and placed myself there for a time. My well-being, my prosperity, my providence needed to come from my own hand because there was no one else of higher authority who would oversee these things for me. This also reveals my affection for the things of the world, as by the end of my shopping experience, I felt as though I had to have all of those scrapbooking things.

By God’s grace, I was still close enough to the shopping center to turn my car around, go back inside, and return most of the items for a full refund. I was so grateful for the Lord’s loving lesson and for the opportunity to not only see my sin and confess it, but also for the grace to repent as well.

Can shopping really honor God? Well, as I learned, it can certainly dishonor God if the driving motivation for our purchases is anything other than thanksgiving; if we are not prudent in our purchasing options or become poor stewards of the money God has entrusted to us; and if we are more consumed with the things of this world than with pleasing God, then shopping can certainly dishonor God. May God grant us all the grace to live for His glory in ALL areas of life … even when shopping!