Blooming, I Mean Cultivating, Where Planted

Some things we talked about Sunday morning and this blog post got me thinking about Genesis 2. God placed Adam in the garden (a pre-fall garden) and gave him a task: till (or cultivate as it is sometimes translated) and keep. After the fall, God placed him outside the garden and told him to till.

At the end of the OT, in Malachi, we read that the people don’t really care about the things that God cares about. The prophet says that the people no longer serve (the same word in Genesis 2 for till) God or keep (same word as in Genesis 2) his charge.

It seems that regardless of where we are, we have been tasked with taking care of things that God has entrusted to us. And God has placed each of us in a particular culture so that we might cultivate it, add order to it—redeem it as Jake talks about in his blog post. And if we buy into the fact that everything does matter, then we must look at our surroundings, both physical and spiritual, material and immaterial, living and inanimate as part of what God would have us till to God’s glory. We really must not separate the sacred from the secular and try to order our lives that way.

But surely the neighbor’s marriage is more important than my yard needing mowing, right? Well, if we think it is an either/or, that is a false dichotomy. Both should be attended to with the same purpose: bringing order from chaos. Sure, when faced with a yard that needs mowing and an urgent phone call from the neighbor, I will choose the neighbor, but that doesn’t mean the yard is less important in its need for order and redemption.

And we must not forget that those mundane tasks require the power of the Spirit to order just as much as the neighbor’s marriage.

Sorrow: Proof of God’s love.

I have been working on an OT survey curriculum that I will be teaching to middle school kids in the fall. This morning I have been wrestling through Genesis 16 and the story of Sarai and Hagar. As I am trying to figure out how to take something 4000 years old and make it real to the kids, I think about the big issue of Christianity borrowing ideas from the culture. I hope to discuss this in detail.

But something else has been fermenting in the back of my mind this morning. While the word regret does not show up in the text, it seems that plenty of it shows up in Sarai’s heart. Why is it that we only regret after sinning? Couldn’t we save ourselves some trouble if the regret emotion would just kick in a little sooner?  I know conviction can set in pre-sin. I praise God for that. But if we could just feel the regret, sense the agony of our poor choices before we make them…

As these thoughts were ruminating,  2 Corinthians 7 came to mind. The context is sorrow over sin:

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance, without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

My whole perspective changed. I do not want to downplay sin—Sarai’s or mine or the kids—but I am floored at God’s hand in the post sin aspect of our lives. The role of the Holy Spirit in the process is restoration not condemnation. Notice the pattern: sin, conviction, sorrow, repentance, life! The other option is a downward spiral that leads to death. Regret that grows and festers and buries itself deep in the heart does not come from God. The Holy Spirit moves the believer back into relationship with God not away from him in self pity and anguish. 

But make no mistake, God does take sin seriously. That is why we have His Word. It teaches and informs and encourages us to walk in love by the Holy Spirit and not according to the flesh. It challenges us to think about how we think. It admonishes us to think correctly as wrong thoughts lead to wrong actions. I think that Sarai and Abram knew that this “Hagar solution” was a shortcut that God did not intend. We still experience the consequences of this choice today. Sin is deadly.

Thankfully, He also takes His relationship with us seriously. He desires reconciliation. It may be that when I said earlier that I wish the regret emotion would kick in a little earlier, that what I am describing is Biblical sorrow. I am grateful for His constant ministry in my life of conforming me to the image of His Son. I am thankful for the concept of repentance. So while sometimes I wish I would “feel” a little more acutely the consequences of my poor choices before I make them, words cannot express the joy and comfort of the Holy Spirit in my life—pre and post-sin.

Can you distinguish between regret leading to death and sorrow leading to life?

Sanctification in progress. Please stand by.

Pete, a pastor in Nashville, recently had an opportunity to spend time at a Poison concert. It seems their lead guitarist, C.C. DeVille, has become a Christian and asked for the pastor to come spend time with him, talk with him, and 

tell me if you see me do anything that would not be honoring to God.

Some have commented that if C.C. had really repented, he would have already walked away from the band. Woah. 

What happens at conversion? From the tone of one of the commentators, it seems perfection should have engulfed C.C. at the moment of conversion decisively convincing him of everything in his life that was evil. Last I checked, sanctification did not work that way. Otherwise, what point did Paul have of writing 1 Corinthians, where he admonishes them of all kinds of wrong doing. Yet he did not doubt their conversion, calling them saints. 

When I became a believer at the age of 18, my language cleaned up over night. I actually think that had more to do with my girlfriend at the time than the Holy Spirit. What I did notice, though was the internal desire to see more people experience what I experienced, and my desire to grow closer to God. I was not perfect, and I was actually unbothered by listening to loud rock music with questionable lyrics. It seemed the Holy Spirit had other things on His mind. I do vividly remember my first week of college. I was invited to a party, which sounded fun, but chose instead to attend a gathering of Christians, which didn’t sound quite as fun. I have no doubt the Holy Spirit lead me there. I still count as friends people I met that night, and I still wonder how I might have turned out different had I gone to the party. 

So, no, I am not surprised that C.C. has not left Poison yet. I will also not be surprised if he does. I trust the Holy Spirit to move in his life at the right speed and the right time. And I am thankful for men like Pete who are not afraid to attend a Poison concert for the sake of a new brother, despite what some might think. May his tribe increase.