The Problem with You is...

"The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” (Job1:7 ESV)

How did I get here, on this site, in this frame of mind, with this faith and belief? Think about yourself if you would. I did not grow up in a reformed church, or any church for that matter. I have not had a professor who was reformed or Calvinistic. For me, it was reading scripture and coming to an understanding of what it means and how it is inerrant. Then there were all these guys preaching this reformation and talking about even older guys who wrote so many hundreds of years ago. I read their books, the older guys and the newer guys, and I found they all said the same things I felt were right: that we are saved by faith alone, through grace alone, in scripture alone, by Christ alone, all for the glory of God alone. Every time I listened to a sermon by one of these men, R.C. Sproul, Martyn Lloyd Jones, John Piper, and Jonathan Edwards, it was like a cool glass of water on a hot summer day. How did you get to this point in your life as a Christian? What do you know, and what has been misplaced?

Suppose someone figured out you were a Christian because, heavens knows, not all Christians tell people they are Christian, and they said to you can you explain this whole Trinity thing? Many Christians could not or would not. One person told me the most he had gotten out of several different Christians was, “It is just something you have to believe.” The whole basis of our faith is wrapped up in the Trinity, but can you explain it to someone who does not know? This is where we have gotten to; our own people cannot and or do not care to be able to explain the Trinity. Because of this, our faith becomes off-centered. We focus on one person of the Trinity without understanding the interconnectedness of the three. We lose the beauty of the Godhead and the richness it brings to our faith.

We have three major challenges in our lives, and it is the influences of the world, the flesh, and, of course, Satan. Like our lopsided understanding of the Trinity, we fail to see the interrelationship of these three influences.

There are those of us who see the world as our problem; others see their own flesh, and many focus on Satan. But it is the combination of these three things that are used to drag us away from God. We think if we can get away from the world, we are safe. It is a denial mentality; if I do not wear the clothes, watch the television shows, or listen to the music, I am safe. Then there are those who blame the devil for everything. Well, the devil made me do it. Satan placed this before me.

If we do not recognize the radical nature of our depravity, we miss the whole picture of our sin. Satan understands our sinful nature; He places the world before our flesh, knowing we are weak in our abilities to turn our backs on sin. He does it to us over and over every day.

It is a struggle involving everything about us and everything around us. We have lost the realization of the depth of our sin; the world has desensitized us. We are hemmed in on every side. This affects our approach to evangelism, apologetics, and our view of salvation. Many have lost the true idea of what it means to be saved. Who we are saved by, what we are saved from, and for whom we are saved.

Tomorrow, I will begin in Ephesians 2, where Paul wrote, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Here, we can take a deeper look at ourselves in relation to Satan, the world, and our flesh. I hope you will find this little study helpful.

Peace and grace!