Highlights: A Happiness Prayer Episode 58 (Ps. 90) 

Is there any hope for happiness that lasts?

Level One: Happiness in the Present Tense 

What are realistic expectations for the present life? A counter-intuitive answer: Happiness is not something we find by looking for it. It’s a by-product of other pursuits. Ultimately, happiness is a by-product of our walk with God. 

Level Two: Happiness in the Future Tense 

The answer to this prayer (Ps. 90) cannot be in the world today as we know it. Gandalf replies: “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path…one that we all must take. The gray rain-curtain of this world rolls back and all changes to silver glass… and then you see it.” “What, Gandalf, see what?” asks Pippin. “White shores…and beyond. The far green country under a swift sunrise.” (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien)

The widespread belief and practice of the early Christians is only explicable if we assume that they all believed that Jesus was bodily raised, in an Easter event. The reason they believed…is because the tomb was empty and, over a short period thereafter, they encountered Jesus himself, giving every appearance of being bodily alive once more…I regard this conclusion as coming in the category of historical probability so high as to be virtually certain. (The Resurrection of the Son of God, N.T. Wright)

During World War 2, pioneer pain researcher Henry Beecher found that soldiers wounded during the bloody battle at Anzio needed far less morphine than did civilians with similar wounds. The reason, now known as the “Anzio effect,” was that for civilians the wounds were a source of anxiety: for soldiers they meant going home. 

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage…that in the world’s finale… something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened. (Fyodor Dostoevsky) 

Highlights

Episode 57 | If You Were to Die Tonight...?  

Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. (Psalm 90:13)

Thankfully, we are meant to stand before God not on the basis of our merit but on the basis of his mercy?

If you were to die tonight, and God were to ask you, “Why should I let you into my eternal kingdom?” What would your answer be? Our eternal destiny depends on getting this right. 

The impulse to be better than others runs so deep in us that we are seldom even aware of it. ...the societal pressure to be superior, not to mention our innate longing for it, is powerful...We live in a particularly competitive culture...But this striving for superiority never leads to rest. There are always people who are below us - that feeds our pride. And then there are always people above us, and that feeds our dis-ease with who we ourselves are....We have to keep in mind that the Apostle Paul...pushes against this and develops his whole theology of grace. (Miroslav Volf - The Trinity Forum Conversations Podcast)

If I’m better than most other people, isn’t that good enough?

In our more honest moments, I think we all realize we’re like the moon. We have a dark side. We all have things for which we feel deeply ashamed...regrets...things we’ve done...things we’ve left undone.

The line between good and evil does not pass between states, nor between classes, nor between parties either - but right through every human heart. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

Is it fair for God to hold us to such high standards?

If the plan is to create an everlasting paradise that exceeds our wildest dreams - a finale to our sordid history that is so spectacular, so surpassingly wonderful that our words and imagination fall miserably short in any attempt to describe it. If this is the plan, then...all sin/imperfection needs to be abolished...then all that leads to sorrow and death needs to be banished...He will need to “get all the hell out of earth” and “get all the hell out of us. We are destined for more than what we’ve become. And God won’t settle for anything less. Neither should we!

Can’t my good works compensate for my bad ones?

Love is intrinsic to his nature, but so is righteousness and justice.

How can God forgive us and be just at the same time?

The essence of sin is we human beings substitute ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substitutes himself for us. We...put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God...puts himself where we deserve to be. (John Stott, quoted by Tim Keller, The Reason for God) We are freed to live out our glorious and eternal destiny, not by our doing, but by his dying. Not by our merit but by his mercy.

Highlights

A Moment that Changed Everything! (Episode 56)
How to Cope with a Life That’s Too Short - Part 2

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Only when we take into account the full measure of our mortality do we have any chance of taking timely and appropriate action. Denial is our enemy. That’s why the first prayer in the second half of this psalm is a necessary step toward making wiser choices about life.

What is a heart of wisdom? In the light of our inevitable expiration date, here are three choices a wise person makes.

First: Make peace with God.

“Begin with the end in mind.” (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey)

The first step of wisdom is to prepare for eternity. Begin with the end on mind. Make your peace with God through Jesus Christ.

Second: Walk with God NOW in this life.

Do some reverse engineering. Start with the fact that we’re going to meet God some day. Wouldn’t it be best to get to know him now.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” It points us to this truth, that wisdom is not a set of propositions, it’s a Person. Spending time with God is the fast track to wisdom.

When the Bible speaks of the “fear of God,” it’s not because God is a peevish, temperamental, unpredictable tyrant who may turn on us at any moment. It’s quite the opposite. It’s a fear grounded in the knowledge that God is consistently good and righteous. And we care enough about our relationship with God that we don’t want to disappoint or betray him. We’re afraid to let him down. That’s what the biblical fear of God is all about.

Third: Be coachable.

God is not passive. If we are walking with God, he’s going to begin teaching us some stuff. If we ask Him, who is the source of all wisdom, he will lead us in the way of wisdom. The only catch is whether or not we’re ready to listen. He will insist on being not just Savior, but Lord - Coach with a capital “C.”

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that really counts.” (John Wooden)

Good declarations to make: I will learn. I will grow. I will change. I will become more than what I am. I will get better. I will admit when I’m wrong. I will be humble and receptive to God’s wisdom. I will be coachable. I will ask more questions. I will learn to listen more than I talk. I will ask for advice. I will be receptive to the “kernel of truth” in every criticism. I will not only be a hearer, but a doer of God’s Word.

Highlights: How to Cope with a Life That’s Too Short

Psalm 90 (Part 1) : Finding God in the Psalms

Two responses to the brevity of life:

Resignation: Learn to accept the brutal reality of a life that’s too short. Admit defeat.

Resistance - Affirm that there IS something wrong with the way things are. Death is a tyrant. An enemy to be defeated.

Our hope (is) finally to emerge from the tyranny (of time), the poverty of time, to ride it not to be ridden by it. We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. “How he’s grown!” We exclaim, “How time flies!” As though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It’s as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless, of course, the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal. (Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis)

Is God really angry?

There is both love and anger, both mercy and judgment throughout the whole Bible.

When we love someone - a parent, spouse, child, friend - and they’re being harmed by someone else, isn’t it normal and healthy for us to feel anger? Why would we apply a different standard to God?

Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love. (Miroslav Wolf)

God’s anger is not the same as our anger. it’s always at the right thing, at the right time and to the right extent. It’s judicial anger. It’s measured. It’s appropriate. In fact, it’s necessary for the well-being of the world.

But the death sentence we are under is not simply a punishment. It’s actually a mercy. A severe mercy, but a mercy, nonetheless.

1. Death is a natural consequence of sin.
2. Death limits the damage that can be done by human sin.
3. Death sends us a message: Something is horribly wrong.

He whispers to us in our pleasures, he speaks to us through our conscience, but he shouts to us in our pain

4. Death means we can only procrastinate for so long.
5. Death is the door to our eternal home.
6. The cross of Christ is proof of God’s loving purpose.

Whatever game God may be playing with the world...He’s playing by the same rules. (The Problem of Pain, C.S.Lewis)

Life in this world is the mere cover and title page of the great story, which none of us on earth has ever read, which goes on forever and ever and in which every chapter will be better than the one before? (Narnia Chronicles - The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis)

Highlights: The Pathway to Paradise - Psalm 16

Finding God in the Psalms (Episode 54)

The most unhappy people in the world are not those who have nothing, but those who have everything and have learned that it doesn’t make any difference.

Paradise is an ever-receding horizon.

Paradise is not a place, it’s a Person.

Every vision of “the life we’ve always wanted” that does not have God at the center is a mirage.

What will the Age to Come be like? The Age to Come will not be less than we now have but infinitely more! All that is golden in this life…All that is satisfying, valuable, beautiful, exhilarating, pleasurable, wonderful will not just be included in the Age to Come but will far exceed what we now experience.

There is a path of life that leads without a break into the presence of God and into eternal paradise. It’s the path of friendship with God. God is not one to give up his children, his friends. You can take that to the bank! The journey from refugee to the right hand of God begins with a choice. It requires a choice. David made his here. He swore loyalty - fealty to YHWH - the true King of Israel. “I have no good apart from you.” It’s the beginning of the path that leads to the only paradise that will ever exist. We can make that same commitment in our own time to one who is the King and Lord over all - the risen Savior, Jesus Christ. Our sworn oath of fealty to Jesus is the first step we all need to take on the path that leads to paradise.

Think of the greatest pleasures and joys of this life, the most euphoric moments. These are all just toys, stuffed animals, childish clothes and books. These are all just minuscule tokens, the tiniest of down-payments…flickering foreshadowings of far more real, robust and lasting pleasures. Because, one day we will be in his presence, where there are joys and pleasures forevermore. When God is your Father and Friend, you have it all. The reason we crave the joys and pleasures of this life is because sometimes they look a little bit like the paradise that will be ours one day in his presence.

Practicing the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence

A Game with Minutes, Frank Laubaugh

The Great Omission, Dallas Willard

Highlights - Episode 53

Fulfill Your Purpose!

Finding God in the Psalms

First - Start with Humility

Second - Connect with the Coach

To understand anthropology begin with theology. Discovering the purpose of life begins and ends with God.

When God made us in his image, it means we were created to speak and act on his behalf…on behalf of the King, as if we were him. It’s our job description! It’s to be ambassadors of the King of kings in every area of life. To bear his seal. To live like God would live if he were us.

Every true Christian practices being God. (Cyprian)

God doesn’t assign value to things based on their size. We may be small by cosmic standards, but we are…most important - far more important than we think!

Jesus was finally doing the job that you and I were originally created to do. Where the first Adam failed, he (the second Adam) succeeded. He said, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the father.” That should have been our tag line. In Jesus, we see the kind of person we could have been.

If you are an apprentice of Jesus, your end goal is to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did…it’s about turning your body into a temple, a place of overlap between heaven and earth…an advanced sign of what, one day, Jesus will do for the entire cosmos, when heaven and earth are at long last reunited as one… Let your body become God’s home.One day we will be creatures so radiant with the presence of God, pulsating with such love, power, wisdom, joy and life, that, if we were to see ourselves now as we will be then, we’d be tempted to worship! ( Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer)

Third - Follow His Example - He’s a Player Coach

No Roman legions would be necessary to bring about God’s kingdom…only the devotion and service of the humble who follow Jesus…The kingdom of God was launched into the world not from a palace but from a stable…not from a throne but from a cross. He’s the player coach who is the servant king…And it’s our calling…our privilege to follow his example.

Those who will change and ultimately rule the world are not the stars, but the servants.

Servanthood is intrinsic to the heart of God. No one will be comfortable in his presence who has not begun to learn the beauty and joy of servanthood.

Bibleproject.com - “Babbling Babies Rule the World” (Video and Podcast)
Heart of a Friend - “Why Am I a Christian?” (Episode 7), “A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe” (Episode 22)

Highlights - Episode 52  |  Antidote to Fear

The answer for our fears is not a what, but a who.

First: Remember, God is BIGGER than our problem.

Second: Pursue your friendship with God BEFORE you face a crisis.

Third: Pray earnestly.

Fourth: Take Action.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Fifth: Say “no” to fear.
Fear knocked, faith answered and no one was there.

Sixth: Never face your fears alone.

Highlights

Live No Lies, by John Mark Comer

Deceptive ideas play to disordered desires that are normalized in a sinful society.
 
The Devil The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Disinformation is at the root of almost every single problem we face in our society and our souls Soak your mind and imagination in Jesus’ truths before you are assaulted with the devil’s lies.
The Flesh Every time you think or do something it becomes easier to think or do that same thing again, and the more you repeat this process the harder it is to break the self-perpetuating cycle. Cells that fire together, wire together. At first we make our own decisions, but then our decisions make us…The lies we believe, lead to behaviors we can’t leave. What Scripture reading is to our fight with the Devil, fasting is to our fight with the flesh. For confession to yield…freedom, it must drag our sins into the light…Just the act
The World The world - a system of ideas, values, morals, practices, and social norms that are integrated into the main stream and eventually institutionalized in a culture corrupted by sin…The distorted becomes normative…If you can make it trend, you can make it true. Every follower of Jesus in every culture has to constantly ask the question, in what ways have I been assimilated into the host culture? Where have I drifted from my identity as a Christ-follower? A growing number of people are more loyal to the ideology of their political party than they are to Jesus and his teachings. We can't follow Jesus alone. And by following Jesus together, we are able to discern Jesus’ truth from the devil’s lies, help one another override our flesh…, and form a robust community of deep relationships that functions as a counterculture to the world. In doing so, we’re able to resist the gravitational pull of all three enemies of the soul. To say “yes” to Jesus invitation is to say no to 1000 other things. As the monks used to say, "every choice is a renunciation." It's 1000 tiny deaths that all lead up to one massive life. It’s… the freedom of yielding to love. It's saying to Jesus, “whatever, wherever, whenever, I am yours.
 
Other books by John Mark Comer: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, (2019) Practicing the Way, (2024)

Three Comer Interviews: https://careynieuwhof.com/mypodcast/ #’s 316, 440 and 626

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/ id912753163?i=1000507476227

 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/ id912753163?i=1000534517644
 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/ id912753163?i=1000642615384
 
Restoring the Foundations: https://restoringthefoundations.org/ 

Highlights: How NOT to Read the Bible (Episode 50)

The road to atheism is littered with Bibles that have been read cover to cover.

To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree.”

Never Read a Bible

Verse By lifting verses out of context, they can easily be misunderstood. The story-line of the Bible must be understood so that we can see where the verse/passage/book fits into the larger over-arching story.

We need to enter their world to hear the words as the original audience would have heard them and as the author would've meant them to be understood…If we don’t the possibilities for confusion are endless.

Stranger Things

The surrounding people groups who worship other gods and goddesses practiced all kinds of evil things…God did not want Israel to become like them, so he had Moses write down loving guidelines…to keep them distinct from other nations.

God didn’t create the institution of slavery. Slavery was man-made and was everywhere in the ancient world. The Old Testament rules established unique protections for slaves. Slaves were treated much better in ancient Israel than in surrounding cultures.

Boys’ Club Christianity

When we read what Jesus did with regard to women, it should be recognized as countercultural, highly shocking, and extremely challenging to the religious leaders of his day. We see Jesus striving to change the culture he lived in through the way he treated women – with respect, dignity, and equality.

The Bible verses that at first sound misogynistic and chauvinistic have explanations.

Misunderstandings are due to not looking at the specific situations and unique culture of that time period.

Do We Have to Choose Between Science and the Bible?

The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. (Galileo)

So many of the debates within Christianity, as well as the mocking criticism of the Bible, end up being irrelevant when we accept that God wasn't providing details to satisfy questions from our modern scientific worldview. God used what the people were aware of at that time to communicate the truth about himself and his work in creating all things.

Does Christianity Claim All Other Religions Are Wrong?

Christianity is the one world faith in which people don't have to earn their way to heaven, but it is through the work of Jesus and us putting faith in him.

The Horror of God’s Old Testament Violence

If you were carefully reading the entire Old Testament, you would not find a reactionary God who needs a class in anger management, someone who strikes out randomly, without cause. Instead, you find a God who is patient – again and again – with his people. Even in the parts where God is actively behind violence and death, it is not done without first pleading for change, giving warnings, waiting for change and showing great patience.

Jesus Loved His Crazy Bible

The Bible Project Podcast (12/06/2021) Interview with Dan Kimball

The Lost World of Genesis One, John Walton 

ReGenerationProject.org 

What’s On My Bookshelf?
 A Review: Plagues Upon the Earth, by Kyle Harper - The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse | Part 3 - Highlights 

Coronaviruses and influenza viruses are the ones that we are currently worried about. H5N1 (a bird flu)...if it ever gets airborne...it’s got a 60% death rate. (Dr. Larry Brilliant, Harvard Magazine) 

It is the advance of scientific knowledge, actualized by public policy and private behavior, that has given humans the advantage over microbial threats. Science and state-craft are the keys to the Great Escape. 

Science 

As of 1870, only a small Avant-garde of researchers believed that familiar diseases were caused by invisible living agents. But by 1900, for a scientist or medical professional to believe anything else was becoming ignorant. 

The Hygiene Revolution - The principles of germ theory inspired renewed efforts to disinfect the personal and household environments. 

The war against bugs - Insects that had once seemed a mere nuisance were now seen as vehicles with deadly payloads. 

Chemical Control of Pathogens - Dysentery was still a major health problem in the developed world, and typhoid remained – until chlorination. The most important reason we can drink a glass of water today and not feel even a hint of dread is because it has been treated with chlorine. 

Antibiotics - Starting in the 1940’s...Antibiotics delivered us from the long period of human history when the simplest wound was a mortal threat. 

Vaccines - Small pox was a success story. So was the measles vaccine. The vaccine was licensed in the U.S. in 1963, and measles infections fell instantaneously. A disease that once caused 1 million cases a year in the United States was reduced to an annual incidence of fewer than 100. Globally, In the early 1980s, 2.5 million children died annually from the measles. By 2018, mortality has been reduced to 140,000 deaths. 

Public Policy 

Improvements in life expectancy are generated not by ideas alone but by ideas that are put into action, especially by capable governments that care about the heath of their citizens...The control of infectious disease, by its very nature, requires collective and coordinate action. 

Investments in public water systems were among the largest, and might even have been the largest, public investments in American history and they had a larger impact on human mortality than any other public health initiative. The household toilet is a private portal into the sprawling subterranean circuitry quietly gathering our collective muck. Several times a day we sit astride a section of the largest and most expensive environmental infrastructure in the world – the vast underground systems of sewers and waste-water treatment plants that are a defining feature of the developed world. 

The federal government erected an infrastructure for agricultural and veterinary science early on, and precocious American agro-science is an underrated storyline in the global emergence of germ theory and the biochemical control of infectious disease. 

Paradoxically, we are in some ways more fragile than our ancestors, precisely because our societies depend on the level of security against infectious disease that may be unrealistic 

We have much to learn from the experience of those who lived and died before us. It is urgent that we do so.