Kenneth Boa writes:

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known to the modern world simply as Rembrandt, knew of what he painted. One of the most famous artists in post-Reformation Europe, Rembrandt was raised in a devoutly Reformed home in Holland. By the age of 25, his portraits were among the most acclaimed in Holland. While he painted secular subjects as well as biblical ones, his art gradually became separated from other Protestant and Catholic painters who portrayed biblical and ecclesiastical scenes from an unrealistic, mythological perspective.

Rembrandt’s deep theological understanding of the helplessness of man before a holy God pushed him to paint realistically. His own wife and son, as well as street people and beggars, became his models for paintings with biblical themes. He went so far as to include himself as one of the enemies of God in his painting of The Raising of the Cross. He painted himself into this piece as one of those lifting the cross, helping to crucify his own Savior. The painful, sinful, and needy state of humanity—indeed, the state of his own condition—he refused to conceal.

Toward the end of his career, he was confronted even more with his own sinfulness. When his wealthy wife died, and he was threatened by her will from losing her estate if he remarried, he instead took a common-law wife, his housekeeper, and even bore a child with her. His immoral actions brought him into conflict with the Reformed Church in Amsterdam. This fact, plus financial difficulties ultimately ending in bankruptcy, again brought into stark relief his status of a sinner before God.

When Rembrandt painted one of his last great works in 1662, Return of the Prodigal Son, he painted his own confession of faith that prodigal sons of a heavenly Father can only find forgiveness and reconciliation under the gentle touch of his hand. When the father of the prodigal received the kneeling penitent in Rembrandt’s painting, Romans 5:8 was illustrated—“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If it takes a prodigal to paint a prodigal, it surely takes a returned prodigal to paint a reconciling father. While not everyone can apply paint to canvas with the skill of Rembrandt, our very lives are canvasses nonetheless. God would paint his reconciling message in us for all the world to see.

The peace of the prodigal son is ours in Christ. The reconciling love of the Father is ours to receive and share with others. May God help us to live in the benefits of his peace, and be ambassadors of his reconciliation to a yet-to-return prodigal world.

I did something this morning that I do not recommend to anyone reading this. I awoke at 5:00 AM, got dressed, left the house, and drove myself to a 5:30 AM workout. It’s just as horrible as it sounds. Heading to the workout, I was thinking to myself how much better I would feel if I had just stayed in bed. During the workout, I still didn’t want to be there and plotted ways to leave early. Somehow, I got through the workout and as soon as it was over, my immediate thought was, “I can’t wait to do this again tomorrow!” Before you think I’m weird, I can almost guarantee you that if I do actually wake up at 5:00 AM tomorrow, the cycle of emotions will repeat themselves again. It’s going to take months of consistency in this routine before I will be at a place of tolerating my own decision to put myself through this special kind of torture.

I was reminded this morning on my drive back home that our time in prayer and Scripture is often a very similar pattern. We somehow think that because we decided the night before that we were going to wake up at the crack of dawn to spend time with Jesus that everything will fall into place and we will have an almost euphoric quiet time. As if following Jesus didn’t require an incredible amount of discipline and consistency. None of us expect that after one workout we will all of sudden love working out. Neither do we think that our junk food cravings suddenly vanish after one salad at lunch. Why do we think that after one hour of personal devotions, we suddenly become a super Christian who can’t wait until that morning alarm disturbs our slumber so we can be with our Lord again?

Paul once said, “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27). It almost sounds like Paul was launching a CrossFit gym in the wilderness with that kind of language. But Paul understood what many of us seemingly don’t - the pursuit of holiness and the process of sanctification requires extreme patience and discipline. It does not happen overnight. But somewhere along the way as we maintain our gaze on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and continue “working out our salvation” (Philippians 2:12), we begin to see lasting results and true spiritual change.

I know this isn’t some revolutionary new idea, but I needed this short reminder in my own life today, so maybe you needed it too.

Hurricane Dorian made its landfall in The Bahamas on September 1st, 2019. I know that nothing I can say would offer any hope, healing, or answers to those who have quite literally lost everything. There is a simultaneous reality that even those who were not personally affected by the storm are searching for answers as to why something this tragic occurred - especially if we believe in a Good and Sovereign God.

But today, God brought to mind this passage from the end of Habakkuk:

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.”
- Habakkuk 3:17-19

These words were inspired by the Holy Spirit and written by Habakkuk at a time of complete desolation in Judah. The crazy thing is, they didn’t have to wonder why God would allow such tragedy to come, because He told them that He was the One Who would bring it about on them. They were about to experience God’s judgement on them as a nation because of their disobedience and God was giving them that message through Habakkuk.

As Habakkuk waits on this destruction and judgement to come (Habakkuk 3:16), he pens the above verses.

These are at least some of the words I offer to those affected by Dorian and those wondering why this all has happened. I offer them because they are not my words, but God’s - through Habakkuk. In the face of certain devastation, Habakkuk worships. His joy and strength are found in the Lord, not his circumstances or even the explanation of those circumstances. He is able to stand not on his strength, but the Lord’s.

Habakkuk’s response to everything being taken away? Yet I Will Rejoice. Not in my circumstances, but in my God. I do not say that lightly or with any thought that it will be easy to do or even cause your circumstances to be different. I have personally been processing the fact that if Dorian had veered just 50 miles south, I could be facing the loss of just about every single person in my family. Had Dorian made a slightly different turn, my own home, possessions, and life would have been in danger. I have asked myself what my response would be in those times. And I have prayed (with much emotion) that my response would be similar to Habakkuk’s.

I’m praying the same for you as I pray for the recovery and rebuilding of my home country. These are not my only prayers or thoughts in this situation, but they have been at the forefront of my mind today.

If you’re a husband, then you’ve probably experienced the terror of your wife asking you to pick up something she needs from the grocery store. We all know that she has a specific brand, size, price, and color of the item that she requested and you had better get it right. To be fair, most of us as men don’t consider the amount of time and effort our wives put into preparing a meal for our families and therefore don’t understand the importance of getting what she asked for. However, most of us have experienced the tension of giving our wives something different than she asked for. It’s frustrating to ask for something and not receive what you asked for.

We’ve probably also been on the receiving end of this in our relationship with God as well. We are striving to be obedient to His call on our lives and in the meantime we ask Him to take care of our physical needs. Often, He does give us exactly what we’ve asked for as long as our motives are right in our requests. Maybe just as often though, He doesn’t give us what we’ve asked for.

There’s an interesting passage in 2 Corinthians where Paul is asking the Corinthian church to be cheerful and faithful in their giving to the saints in Jerusalem. He challenges them to “sow bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6) and then he gives them this assurance:

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:8

Maybe it would seem appropriate that if God is asking us to give financially that he would return the favor by blessing us financially - and sometimes He does that. However, the greater promise here is that as we are obedient to God by living with generous hearts, He will make his grace abound to us so that we would have “all sufficiency” (read contentment). While we may hope for financial blessings (temporary), God lavishes on us spiritual blessings (eternal).

The result is that we become even more generous and joyful because no longer are we doing this through our own strength, but the grace and strength He provides us to live with true contentment no matter our circumstances. He sustains us with something far greater than a balanced checkbook and a solid financial future. It may seem impossible to have true contentment when life keeps throwing curveballs at you and it may seem frustrating when God does not give us what we ask Him for; especially when we think we need it. This is why Paul gives us the encouragement in Philippians 4:

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:13

The truth is, if we have Christ, we have enough. He knows your needs (Matthew 6:8), He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7), and He is able to meet them (Matthew 6:33), but in our praying and searching for material provisions, let’s not miss the greater blessing of his grace enabling us to live with real contentment. It is only when we live with true contentment that we can live with true generosity anyway.

We’ve seen it over and over again: Christians with a desire to share their faith getting into heated debates with non-believers. Far too often, these debates are about everything besides the main issue of the gospel - Jesus Christ. There’s a question I’ve been thinking about that should cause us to rethink our evangelism: what would we accomplish if we “won” the last 5 debates we’ve had with unbelievers?

Think about the last conversation you’ve had with an unbeliever about spiritual things - what was the main subject of the discussion? If you had completely convinced them of your side of the argument, would they have been born again in that moment? Maybe the topic was important, but was it focused on the Jesus and the Gospel?

We have so much to learn from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21. One of the main parts of that passage that makes me rethink my evangelism tactics is verses 11-15:

“11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus made the issue about Himself and what it means to be born again. He could have discussed with Nicodemus the work of the Holy Spirit (it’s what Nicodemus inquired about in John 3:9), but He knew that Nicodemus could not understand those things unless he was first “born again.” Nicodemus first approached Jesus because he wanted to ask Jesus about the signs He was performing. Jesus could have gotten into a conversation about where He gets the power and authority for such signs, but He completely redirected the conversation to the issue of being born again. Why?

Jesus knew that the thing that Nicodemus needed before he could understand or believe anything else, was to believe in Him. This wasn’t about winning a debate, it was about winning a soul and debates don’t do that - the Holy Spirit through Gospel proclamation does.

So the next time your conversation with an unbeliever shifts to anything besides Jesus and the Gospel, bring it back to the main thing. Those other topics are highly important, but they are secondary. Furthermore, lost people will not understand spiritual matters until they are first born again - we can’t have spiritual conversations with spiritually dead people. They need the power of the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts to being them to life as the Gospel is proclaimed. In the words of Jesus, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).