PDL and a rediscovery

It's amazing how much treasure can be left untouched and undiscovered in the dusty reaches of a small church library. It's even more amazing to find it in the leaves of a book that's been widely acclaimed and embraced by popular Christian-lite culture, and yet lambasted and cast aspersions at by hard-core conservatives.

This morning I felt drier and emptier and more wasted than I've been in months. I've long broken my habit of morning Bible reading, I haven't prayed for anything or anyone, I haven't prayed AT ALL, and I've been lashing my acerbic razor-sharp tongue out like a cantankerous curmudgeon to everyone who comes near me. Especially my brother. And, most certainly not the least in this list of woes, (to save you, dear reader, from the chore of dirtying your mind, I'd have to use a special, custom-made figure of speech so I can hide my shame) this week I went back, a mud-loving hog, to my mire, not just once, but several times.

So I picked up the Purpose Driven Life I borrowed from my church's library last Wednesday. (Steve Urbina had started a 40-Days-of-Purpose-DVD-study kind of thing long long ago, even before we went to the family camp. I was supposed to read it along with everybody in our Sunday school class, but I, not unexpectedly, neglected to do it, and managed to put it off until the study series was almost finished.)

For the usual Pharisaical log-impaled me, at first it was not hard to notice what was wrong with the book. Despite Rick Warren's denials that this was a non-self-help book, it was obvious to me that he carefully chose his words to woo the reader into believing that reading it will "reduce your [the reader's] stress, simplify your decisions, increase your satisfaction, and, most important, prepare you for eternity." Sounds too sweet and cheesy for something substantial, I murmured. And it pampers the reader too much by catering entirely to his own desires -- his decisions, his satisfaction, etc.

But then I realized that God Himself used the very same sweetness and "cheesiness," if you will, to woo His unfaithful wife into coming back to Him despite her gross adulteries. In Isaiah 1:18 He beckons,

Come now, and let us reason together... though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.

And in Hosea, He says,

I will allure her, and speak kindly to her... I will betroth you to Me forever... then you will know the Lord.

And in the New Testament too, did Jesus not use the multitude's innate desire to be happy in His Beatitudes, for the sole purpose of leading them into God's embrace? Did He not say, "Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full?" John 16:24.

This isn't too bad, I thought. I continued reading.

My doubts gradually chipped away as I read the first few chapters. Although there was one which I did not particularly like -- the one about not being an accident and being made in God's image -- for the writhing, backslidden sinner, being called a "precious and perfect unique design" offers little comfort, if any, in view of his self-inflicted pain due to sin -- most of them I liked and definitely agreed with.

The first dealt with setting one's perspective straight and basing it on the Absolute, the fourth and fifth dealt with how eternity matters more than this one parenthesis of a life, and how seeing from God's perspective makes all the difference. All that he said about the impermanence of the world's riches and the unsatisfying thrills they offered to the weary soul, made me shift in my seat a bit. Rick Warren, I thought, your words are close to hitting home!

And then I came to chapter 7. The Reason For Everything. What the entire Universe is for, with the trillion blinding mind-bogglingly massive galaxies contained in it, he says, "It's all for Him." My jaw almost dropped at what I read next. I'll quote it here at length for your benefit, dear reader.

The ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God. It is the reason for everything that exists, including you. God made it all for His glory. Without God's glory, there would be nothing.

What is the glory of God? It is who God is. It is the essence of His nature, the weight of His importance, the radiance of His splendor, the demonstration of His power, the atmosphere of His presence. God's glory is the expression of His goodness and all His other intrinsic, eternal qualities.

He continued to describe how everything in redemptive history -- the fall of man, the Exodus through Moses, the tabernacle and the temple of Solomon -- was orchestrated to demonstrate and reveal "the Creator's glory." And he also described how God's glory shines most brightly in Jesus Christ, His Son. "He, the Light of the World, illuminates God's nature." And then Warren wrote how we humans failed our responsibility to cherish and worship and delight in this magnificent, perfect, glorious God.

When I came to page 55 I practically jumped from my seat and almost yelled with relief and exuberance and joy at having rediscovered a treasure long-lost: Warren says of worship, which he considers our primary purpose in life, "We worship God by enjoying Him."

What? I thought. Is this for real? Did you just say that, Rick Warren of seeker-friendly infamy? On the very next sentence he quotes CS Lewis. "In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him." Then came the ultimate shocker for me.

He quotes John Piper.

John Piper, of all people! Who else but John Piper can anybody more appropriately quote on this matter! And most importantly, he quotes the sentence that summarizes all that Piper's taught and preached: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Then everything came rushing back to me like a flood.

God asks us to worship Him not because He is like a vain woman looking for compliments, but because he wants us to consummate our enjoyment of Him by expressing our emotions of delight in Him.

God has given us His glory, Himself, as a gift to be enjoyed, marveled at, and seen by us! And as unparalleled love and admiration for Him rise in our souls, nothing is more natural and more fitting than to express what we feel to Him! This is why we worship! This is our chief end! To delight in God and display His glories to the world, and finally, to Himself.

And then --

Guess what happens next.

I wrote this blog entry. Hihi.

Stay tuned for more good stuff from good ol' PDL.

psalm 130

My Soul Waits for the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

This psalm has been on the front burner of my head for the past several weeks. I liked it so much that I even tried to memorize it -- not that I wasn't able to, but it took me more than half an hour to have it imprinted on my memory.

I like it mainly because:

1. It reminds us that, apart from Him, we are helplessly and hopelessly enslaved to our own evil desires. "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" (v. 3)

No man, no, not even one, not even the Pope or Mother Teresa, could stand in and of himself righteous and be justified before God. We are all instigators and participants in a rebellion of cosmic proportions against the Creator, and thus deserve to be convicted and thrown into eternal fire and darkness.

2. It highlights the hard truth that even though we Christians are already washed in His blood and saved by His grace, we still are sinners, and will always be until our last breath on this earth. The Apostle John affirms this, writing, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8)

The Christian life, therefore, is a continuing cutthroat battle against the old self within us, in which the stakes are infinite -- an eternity of knowing and enjoying God, or an eternity of separation from Him.

3. It comforts us that in spite our utter wretchedness, the Lord, out of pure grace, is willing to lavish us his "forgiveness... steadfast love... and redemption." (v4, 7) For some incomprehensible, unfathomable reason, it is God's desire to do us fornicators and blasphemers good.

And He really means it! He says through His prophet that "He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will exult over you with loud singing," (Zephaniah 3:17b) "you" being you, dear reader, and me, and the countless thousands of people whose souls completely despair of themselves but instead, "wait [and hope] on the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning." (v. 6)

4. It suggests that God does is not being unjust by doing good to His enemies. When you come to think of it, there's a disturbing, resonating inconsistency in the mind of God, as He lavishes His overflowing mercy towards sinners and sweeps their sins under some spiritual rug. Whatever happened to His justice and holiness? It appears that God would cease to be righteous the instant He acquits a sinner without Him carrying out punitive measures.

When the psalmist says that God will "redeem Israel from his iniquities," it is as though God will provide a way that will save His people from damnation while at the same time, preserve and exalt His holiness and righteousness. John Piper writes,

The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God."

And this way could be nothing else but the death of His Son on the splintered cross.

In the last verse, the Psalmist points to that watershed event in which God Himself, in the person of the Son, bore on His humble back the horrendous burden of His Father's righteous wrath. When God "put forward [His own Son] as a propitiation by His blood," (Rom. 3:25) He does two things: He proclaims His righteousness in passing over the sins of Israel during the past, and His absolute freedom to forgive and redeem the sinful and the unclean to Himself.

And now He welcomes with wide open arms anyone and everyone, "from every tongue and tribe and people and nation," (Rev 14:5) who repents of their sins and looks in faith to Him and Him alone. He beckons you, dear reader, to put your trust not on the fleeting pleasures in this fallen world, but on His own heart.

"...hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption."

bad news and worse news... and a question

I just had a stunning realization last night. It hit me like a gigantic subway train zooming at a hundred miles an hour and left me utterly dazed and speechless.

God does not need me. Or you, dear reader. Or the entire Universe, with its quasars and black holes and galaxies and all its magnificent wonders. Or the innumerable legions of glorious angels populating the courts of heaven.

Because He is God, He is perfect. Which means, He does not lack anything. He does not need anything.To put in more positive terms, He is complete in and of Himself.

What gives Him the greatest enjoyment and deepest delight is Himself. Far, far back in time, to the endless ages when even time itself did not exist yet, God was, as He is and will be. And what truly captivated His affections then, and until now, were the unfathomable riches of His glory in His Son and in His Spirit.

He does not need me. He did not create me, the Jef Sala (as I am so prone to think of myself this narcissistically) , for who I am or anything intrinsically good in me, out of some sort of insufficiency on His part. He does not need my mind, the insight and creativity of which I have always prided on. He does not need my words and my mouth to proclaim His glory to the world. He could have easily created a thousand angelic beings, undefiled by sin unlike me, with a single whisper, to bear His image and reflect His radiance.

Rather, I need Him. I am entirely contingent on His sovereign will. I owe every passing tick on the clock to His sustaining power.

What I just mentioned above is already horrifying news to me, the haughty sinner that I am. But what makes it so much worse, is that I, forgetting that I am secondary and superfluous, have raised my puny pygmy-arms in rebellion to my Creator, blasphemed His holy name, defiled the gifts of my mind and body, and rejected Him as my God.

Then why do I even exist? Why does He keep me alive, breathing and kicking? Why does He allow me, despite my abominations and idolatries, to live a few more seconds to enjoy that absolutely scrumptious machacado con huevo-stuffed breakfast taco at the cafeteria? Why does He let me live when I deserve to rot in the deepest pits of the outer darkness?

The answer, dear reader, friend, bloghopper, whoever you are, still sounds too good to be true for me that I don't even believe it as of the moment. Thus I shall continue this on Thursday.

a song

Every Sunday afternoon, right after Pastor Jon pronounces his usual "Church, you are dismissed" to the congregation, I go down to the choir room and practice my favorite hymns.

I jostle my way through the bustling crowd of churchgoers towards the nearest exit, descend down the East Wing stairs, close the basement's sliding doors, and position myself snugly in front of an old run-down piano. When I hear the frantic and hurried pad-pad-pad of hundreds of feet all anxious to get out of church slow down to a few muffled steps, I crack my knuckles and start gliding my fingers through those ivory keys.

I've just started learning how to play full length songs without notes and just with the chords last week, but I'm still having a hard time mastering the rhythm of more contemporary songs, because I'm used to old hymns with regular beats. The following song deeply moved me when I tried to sing and play it myself.

---

Untitled Hymn
by Chris Rice

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don't be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall...so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can't contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

sin is...

Sin is being content
to stuff my grumbling stomach
with limp slices of Spam,
when right in front of me
is a thick, juicy steak --
courtesy of a free coupon
from the Celestial Grillhouse.

Sin is scuttling away from
the Farmer's running hose
of sparkling water,
to dive and wallow instead,
amid my hoggish grunts,
into the stinking cesspool
of my own filth and excrement.

Sin is spreading my whore's legs
before a gang of hoodlums --
whose services I pay for
with my Husband's money --
even though I know full well
that He stands behind the ajar door,
watching, watching
with a broken heart.

some haikus

World-weary sinner,
fall down to your knees before
the Cross and be saved!

His sin-cleansing blood
flows free from His side. Draw near,
rejoice in His love!

Turn back from the gold
that rots like mold, and look up to
Life everlasting.